Friday, January 18, 2008

Hot or Not?

Are looks everything?
Does body size matter?
Is male facial hair hot, or not?
Is there such a thing as the perfect female form?
Are big boobs better?
Is it the same for lesbians?
Why are gay men always at the gym?
Find the answers in this review of The Secrets of Attraction: What Makes a Person Desirable? by Viren Swami and Adrian Furnham from the Independent.

Viren also recently published The Missing Arms of the Venus de Milo: Reflections in the Science of Attractiveness (which I wrote about here.) I'm sad I missed Viren when he was back in Malaysia recently talking about ... socialism. (Is this guy the true renaissance man?)

You can listen to him talking about the science of attraction in this programme on BBC Radio 4.

12 comments:

Amir Muhammad said...

I was there at the socialist day, to sell books, but he did not speak after all. I would've remembered him – especially if he had been hot ;-)

Anonymous said...

arghhhhhhhh sharon you cannot tell people to get books - i just spent a mini-bomb at kino today.

i will get his books. somehow.

Anonymous said...

My ideal woman writer is someane who looks as good as Scarlett Johansonn - during her Coen Brothers' 'The man who wasn't there' phase - and write as good as say, Gunther Grass.

My only problem is I've never read any fiction by women that I truly like.

May be I'll change my mind when I read Preeta's one day.

ah pong

bibliobibuli said...

dina - so did i thursday and was only on a smash and grab mission. could not afford the novels i really wanted to buy - the remaining titles on the booker longlist still in hardback and ever a hundred ringgit each

sorry for the temptation. anyway i have viren's first book and you can borrow it later.

ah pong - at least you value brains as much as beauty, hey? good start.

here's a link back to a post about men not reading books by women that might strike a chord

Anonymous said...

Amir -- "if he had been" is so very conditional, so tentative -- do you not have clues to the answer before your eyes?

I shouldn't stoop so low, really, but after all the objectification of women that has gone on in these comments threads in recent times, I figure, why the hell not ;-) . The world needs more hot socialists, so we should celebrate the ones we have.

-- PS

Anonymous said...

Gosh, he's cute! :D

bibliobibuli said...

nothing becomes the face half so well as intelligence

- confucious

savante said...

Why gay men are always at the gym? MUAHAHAHA. I think the answer's obvious enough.

The less obvious answer would have to do with steam and half-naked guys.

Amir Muhammad said...

Gyms are not for all. You have to take into account the phenomenon of the chub chaser! More of course will be revealed (oo er) in the South-East Asian queer non-fiction anthology that I plan to publish early next year :-)

Anonymous said...

"Nobody sits on the face so well as Mr. Intelligent"
-Confujuices

:-)))))))))))

Anonymous said...

Okay where did you get the pic from ? :)

bibliobibuli said...

the one of viren from his website. the one of the pretty lady showing too much cleavage from ... yeah, i dunno, google somewhere.