thank you for that…great food for thought because i’ve always assumed and thought my instant dislike to some people instead of attraction even when the outside “packaging” has been attractive had to do more with the “energy” the person emitted instead of subconsciously reacting to their scent.
the blogger’s comment seemed more an issue of his own body image/fear issues. i know when i react that way mentally to seeing someone obese it’s my own fear of the possibility of arriving to some point where i don’t care about my physical appearance or health and i just “let myself go” so to speak, since not many obese people are obese due to thyroid issues; as if a symptom of a prolonged depression.
The original blogger’s tentative explanation for his fat-phobia is:
“Perhaps it has something to do with the type of people I saw often when I was growing up in Kentucky. More often than not they were living in squalor, living off the state, and not doing much to change their station in life.”
From his Kentucky youth he internalized “obesity” as a proxy for poverty and poor people, who are “choosing” their poverty by not pulling hard enough on their bootstraps. If the blogger had instead grown up, say, 150 years ago in a feudal society, his revulsion might be for the serfs’ slenderness caused by hoeing and food shortage, rather than the chub of the upper classes. What is physically attractive is often what is (perceived as) most costly to attain within a specific social context.
Because of the cultural weight (pun me!) of fat and beauty, I’m not sure why you used an excerpt from this blog entry to kick off a sociobiology anecdote about smell. NeuroSci is not my field, but sense of smell seems to bypass our rational brains more than the other senses. Dogs can tell which people have lung cancer by smelling breath. A human instinct for other people’s stink is an interesting idea, but I’m wary of sociobiological extrapolation…
Smell anecdote: In my experience, the guy I remember having the sexiest smell was unattractive in every other way. Our baby might have had a rip-roarin’ immune system, but I don’t think that’s a fair trade for the trials of single motherhood!
thank you for that…great food for thought because i’ve always assumed and thought my instant dislike to some people instead of attraction even when the outside “packaging” has been attractive had to do more with the “energy” the person emitted instead of subconsciously reacting to their scent.
the blogger’s comment seemed more an issue of his own body image/fear issues. i know when i react that way mentally to seeing someone obese it’s my own fear of the possibility of arriving to some point where i don’t care about my physical appearance or health and i just “let myself go” so to speak, since not many obese people are obese due to thyroid issues; as if a symptom of a prolonged depression.
The original blogger’s tentative explanation for his fat-phobia is:
“Perhaps it has something to do with the type of people I saw often when I was growing up in Kentucky. More often than not they were living in squalor, living off the state, and not doing much to change their station in life.”
From his Kentucky youth he internalized “obesity” as a proxy for poverty and poor people, who are “choosing” their poverty by not pulling hard enough on their bootstraps. If the blogger had instead grown up, say, 150 years ago in a feudal society, his revulsion might be for the serfs’ slenderness caused by hoeing and food shortage, rather than the chub of the upper classes. What is physically attractive is often what is (perceived as) most costly to attain within a specific social context.
Because of the cultural weight (pun me!) of fat and beauty, I’m not sure why you used an excerpt from this blog entry to kick off a sociobiology anecdote about smell. NeuroSci is not my field, but sense of smell seems to bypass our rational brains more than the other senses. Dogs can tell which people have lung cancer by smelling breath. A human instinct for other people’s stink is an interesting idea, but I’m wary of sociobiological extrapolation…
Smell anecdote: In my experience, the guy I remember having the sexiest smell was unattractive in every other way. Our baby might have had a rip-roarin’ immune system, but I don’t think that’s a fair trade for the trials of single motherhood!