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From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Sexual attraction (was: diversity)
Summary: What change?  Why is it important?
Message-ID: <14097@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 29 Oct 90 18:31:09 GMT
References: <1990Oct26.170150.9341@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <26364.272c0370@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
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In article <1990Oct26.170150.9341@nntp-server.caltech.edu> morphy@truebalt.cco.caltech.EDU (Jones Maxime Murphy) writes:
>> [...] In my native Caribbean and in Latin America, I find men much
>> more open-minded about what's "attractive" in female bodies. [...]

On the issue of changing what attracts one, Mr West writes:

>> I (and I expect many if not most men) find it baffling because the
>> perceived attractiveness of a MOTAS seems an immediate, almost "given"
>> reaction, opaque to rational thought in the short or medium term, as
>> does, for example the perceived "pleasant-tastingness" of a food. ...

In article <26364.272c0370@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, huxtable@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
> ... If we don't work for a society where these perceptions are
> different we probably won't get such a society. ...
> 
> I don't expect your feelings to be under your conscious control. ...
> But you can influence your feelings by your thoughts and you can
> influence your thoughts by your actions. And yes, it takes time, is
> subtle, and is only marginally voluntary.

Before one puts effort into this time consuming process in return
for some subtle effects, it might be appropriate to ask what
one's goal is in doing so, and in particular, why it is important
to society.  There are some things that are obviously worthwhile
to the individual.  At the conscious level, there is the
recognition that not everyone has the same tastes, and that one's
own tastes set no objective standard.  At a more subtle level,
one (hopefully) learns that some tastes are superficial and
others have deeper import.  

But where is the social goal?  Ms Huxtable wants us to "work for
a society where these perceptions are different".  Different how?
Where people's tastes are the same?  Where appearance is totally
irrelevant to sexual attraction?  (Really?)  And how is this
social goal, whatever it is, tied to feminism?

Russell