Size Matters

Women prefer extravagance to subtlety.  Why?  Because beauty is a form of articulation. 

Tall males make more money per year than their shorter counterparts, doing the same job.  Height in the male is preferred.  The classic illustration is the recent children's movie, Shrek, wherein Lord Farquar is the object of constant overt and fuliginous ridicule, and is accused of "compensating" for his lack of height.  Religious leaders speak from raised pulpits.  Zulu chieftains sometimes stand close to seven feet in height, yet they augment their height with enormous headdresses.  And 75% of all Americans fudge on the height entry box on forms. 

"Tall, dark and handsome."  The cliche is correct.  Height makes men more sexually attractive to females.  Women want men taller than themselves.  Women want, according to most studies, men from 5'10" to 6'2". 

No pecs, no sex.  This cliche is true, too.  But unfortunately, gym-rats suffer from emotional problems.  Women suffer from anorexia nervosa.  Men suffer from dysmorphia.  Almost half of all male gym attendees utilize anabolic steroids. 

How thick is your penis?  Here is the mot juste of adages.  The average male penis is 5 to 7 inches when fully tumescent.  The total spectrum is 3.75 to 9.6 inches.  However, the statistic that is the killer is this one:  more than 40% of all American males have shorter erections, ranging from 4.5 to 5.75 inches.  And according to one honest, yet discriminating female, "Size does matter.   And any woman who says otherwise is bullshitting you."  A "pencil-dick" won't cut it -- or perhaps better:  is written off.

Symmetry.  "Symmetry is the hidden persuader," says Nancy Etcoff in her delicious book, Survival of the Prettiest.  Symmetrical males are more attractive to females; and those females who mate with more symmetrical males, are more likely to expereience orgasm than their unluckier peers.  Too, symmetrical males attend many offers to sexually conjugate.  And vice versa.  And most fascinatingly, female symmetry alters during their menstrual cycles.  Assymetries abate 30% just prior to female ovulation. 

One word says it all:  decolletage.  High, rounded breasts, cinched waists, tight sleeves to slim the arms.  The effect is overwhelming to males.  Men worship the female breast.  And the experts, the scientists, still are undecided as to why.  I can tell you why:  oral mounts, firm yet soft to the touch, ogive to the caressing hands.  Simple. 

Too many andgrogens, and the female's wasp-waist goes to hell and back.  High estrogen  manifested is the desired symmetry:  narrow waist, wide hips, high-fertility.  The child's doll, Barbie, if given commensurate 'real' numbers would be:  36, 18, 33.  Marilyn Monroe was 36, 24, 34.  Elle MacPherson has numbers of:  36, 24, 35; and 44 inch legs as an added attraction.  Indeed, supermodels are freaks, they are physiological rarities.  For they can combine height and leanness with curves. 

Which brings us to 'high heels.'  Whence cometh these icons of fashion?  Wearing heels forces women to arch their backs, thrust out their breasts, throw their shoulders back, flatten their stomachs, and plump-out and extend their glutes.  Additionally, the leg is elongated and appears more symmetrical to the beholders eye. 

Thin is in.  Supermodels are 5'9" to 6' in height.  And they weigh around 110 to 115 pounds.  The average American female is 5'5" in height and weighs 145 pounds.  Who can confuse disappointment with success?  Bariatrics is a 40 billion dollar per year industry.  More than 30% of the American population is, officially, obese.  And the numbers keep climbing.  However, in spite of the numbers, an asthenic body with profulgent mammai has become a status symbol in American culture.  It's just that few achieve it. 

Slenderness is a fashion -- a fashion of the rich and successful, the beautiful.  Fashion:  the current style or mode of dress, speech, conduct, according to Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus.  The wearing of trendy, 'fashionable' styles enables one to "feel at one" with their peers.  It's a kind of identification -- a baptism, if you will.  Thus, fashion provides each individual psyche with identification (being part of the 'in' group), with image, with security, with acceptance. 

Rich rock stars and rap-music artists compose one tier of social stratum -- one of myriad subcultures -- in America.  These musicians set trends, start fads of fashion.  And acceptance is the common underlying anthropomorphic parameter.  I want recognition for my poor, lonely, empty heart.  I want to be liked -- mankind's dominant affective spectrum trait. 

Within the homosexual subculture certain emblems, or fashion 'signals,' were utilized prior to 1980.  Gay men's fashion statement was designated 'the Old Clone' look:  jeans, lumber shirts, jackets, jack-boots, moustache and sunglasses.  The 'straights' didn't have a clue what was going on.  However, even within the subculture itself, there were dissenters.  Another group chose the 'sexual rebels look':  Sinnead O'Connor haircut, tear drop earring, "Read My Lips" T-shirt, leather motorcycle jacket, silver whistle, leather bracelet, thick leather belt, skin-tight (painted-on) grey Levi 501's, white socks, and Doc Marten boots, preferably in black. 

The parapsychic umbra:  that is, the fashion statement being made?  S &M, babee!  S & M!  And it's all just a means of belonging -- acceptance. 

Fashionable Tattoos:  Tattoos aid the wearer in coping with a sense of isolation and fear.  Thus, tattoos are a search for the sacred in life -- a search for love, for acceptance -- a desire to divest oneself of pervasive feelings, even dread, of loneliness. 

And interestingly enough, 90% of all institutionalized inmates, both criminal and mental, parade tattoos.  And the tattoos of such individuals represent distinct categories:  1) gang membership, 2) love objects, 3) personal attributes of power or strength, 4) cryptic symbols with no obvious meaning, except to the wearer.  Upon closer examination, all four of the progressions indicate a desire for love, acceptance, identity, and eschewal of isolation. 

And might the author strongly suggest that tattooing and body-piercing, in today's world, are simply carry-overs from phallic oaths -- and the search for the sacred.  The phallic oath was a universal custom in the ancient East to pledge faith and/or swear testimony by touching or grasping one's own and/or another's tokens of generative strength and divine truth.  The first record of this ceremoney is recountend in the Book of Genesis, where both Abraham and Jacob say, "Simna yaddek taht yarki" (now take hold of my shaft).  The Latin Vulgate version of Scripture translates "yarki" (my shaft) as "sectione circumcisionis meae" (the cutmark of my circumcision), implying that the swearer should touch or clasp the very soul and Yahwic symbol of procreative power:  the hallowed ring of scar tissue wherein Job could see God (literally, Alehim, the Deiphalli). 

The Hebrew expression "natan yadd" (to give the hand) alludes to this practice, and is found throughout the Bible, e.g., I Chronicles 19:24, where we are informed that all the chiefs and captains of Israel took hold of Solomon's genitals as a token of loyal submission. 

Indeed, the Greek word for 'testament,' diatheke, literally means "by the bag," that is, swearing on the scrotum; hence the Latin term testamentum, or 'testiculation.' 

Talk about sacredness!  Talk about a search for indentification! 

And if you can believe it, even T-shirts represent a search for the sacred and identification in our culture.  T-shirts have actually attained the status of 'environmental education,' on the one hand, and a form of fund raising for environmental causes, on the other hand.  In fact, the Italian haberdasher, Benetton, has depicted itself as 'anti-racist.'  Social responsibility and global-unity are the trademark and advertising slogans of Benetton. 

Fashion can represent not only social equality, but also empowerment in a pejorative sense.  For example, the term 'sansculottes' was used for the clothing adopted by the working class during the French Revolution.  Whereas the 'skinheads' utilize fashion to depict hatred and pseudo-elitism.  And remarkably, skinhead attire -- skinhead fashion, if you will, closely resembles the gay 'sexual rebels' look:  shaved heads, old fashioned shirts, suspenders, and heavy jackboots.  Are skinheads latent homosexuals?  Bravura effects, eccentirc mannerisms -- could be!  The previous judgment remains the definitive verdict. 

Fashion is a cultural, social construct composed of images.  And image is everything, remember?  The image represents the interplay between social and economic forces, and artistic and intellectual constraints.  Image is the vocabulary of power -- and power, as we have seen, is but another form of beauty.  And fascinatingly, fashion also includes jewelry and accoutrements that evoke the intervention and protection of supernatural powers -- the quest for the sacred in life.  The quest for God.  Christian crosses, magen Dauid, the shield of David, also known as the 'star of David,' ankhs, New Age angels, beads, talismans, and good-luck (the word 'good' has its provenance in the word 'god') charms.  Fear of isolation might be said to drive fashion, might it not?  Subterranean, fuliginous feelings and beliefs motivate fashion.  The ultimate goal of it all is to create a beautiful image.  An image beautiful enough so that the bearer might not only begin to love him/herself, but also gain the love and acceptance of God.  The assertion of preeminence.  Francois La Rochefoucauld said it best:  "... the world is made out of apperances."

Image is everything.  And beauty is the image that all desire.

The term 'nouveau riche' refers to individuals of formerly modest means who have recently acquired wealth, and who are attempting, through dress, ornaments, and other material objects, to procure status.  Likewise, 'parvenus' of beauty are tempted to imitate the dress, style, and characteristics of the attractive.  In the world of money, Veblen demoninated this behavior "conspicuous consumption."  In a similar manner, the 'parvenus' of beauty are likely to consume fashion; indeed, they are likely to flaunt it -- eclat!

Richly colored stones and gems, crystals, bold natural colors and textures in fabrics -- energizing colors, speak of an attempt to empower the self, to become less isolated and vulnerable.  Whereas wetness, or the 'slick look,' the color pink, floral prints -- all these speak of rebirth and hope.  In other words, fashion is directly linked to the psyche of the wearer, and to the cultural psyche of a society in general.  Designers translate themes and moods from the real world to the microcosm of fashion.  But their translation is merely a reflection of the emotional state of consumers, due to "market research."  Fashion, then, is an affective spectrum barometer of psychodynamics.  Fashion is a form of very distinct and very cogent energy -- as is beauty.  Thus the interconnection.

For example, across the street from the manse is a hardware business, Schemper's Ace Hardware.  The fashion affected by all the employees consists of blue-jeans, cotton shirts, sturdy shoes.  The picture presented is one of reliability, practicality, and that of the 'working-man,' the blue-collar laborer, the tradesman.  Imagine the alienation if suddenly the cashiers were attired in dresses, and the salesmen were in Ralph Lauren suits and ties!  Each and every customer would feel disaffected, isolated. 

The author has taken Holy Orders.  His preferred attire is a black cassock -- a 'dress.'  For God's sake!  Now, what is the intended depiction here?  Distance, intellectual elitism, and a mask behind which to hide -- to protect the personal self.    It makes 'me' invisible, although a man in a dress is quite ostentatious. 

Why emblems, crests, crowns, fish, animals, polo players, etc., on men's clothing?  Self-empowerment!  And one psychiatrist has propounded that thinness in women has less to do with beauty than with cultural meaning.  Thinness, according to his theory, has actually assumed a neo-spiritual or neo-religious role in America.  It is the Platonic demiurge resurfacing. 

author credits:  Randall Radic is a former Old Catholic priest and a convicted felon; the author of The Sound of Meat, A Priest in Hell:  Gangs, Murderers and Snitching in a California Jail, and the forthcoming Gone To Hell.