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There are studies that prove that men and women differ in what they find attractive. While I don’t find skinny women attractive as a female, that and the fact that clearly visible spinal columns give me goosebumps or creepy recoil, the same doesn’t apply to male friends who have been eager enough to discuss the simple points behind the appeal of Kate Moss and it’s this:
Kate may be over 30 years of age, but in black and white mode (as in the below White Stripes video), she looks younger, almost like a teenager. This is mostly due to the black and white film. It minimizes cellulite, acne and the fact that years of puffing on Marlboro have accentuated the laughter lines around her eyes. The fact that she is thin shaves off years and also connotes fragility and daintiness, all the things associated with the contemporary concept of a naughty Lolita.
On a more technical note, studies like ‘Patterns of Brain Activation During Visually Evoked Sexual Arousal Differ Between Homosexual and Heterosexual Men,’ and other similar studies involving the neural basis of sexual arousal, indicate that brain structure influences sexual arousal. If you have paid access to journals, there is this article as well. Here are a few snippets for those who don’t have access:
Twenty-eight young adults (14 female) passively viewed alternating short blocks of four types of photographic stimuli via video goggles: two types of sexually arousing stimuli, including heterosexual couples engaged in sexual activity (‘couples’ stimuli) and sexually attractive opposite-sex nudes (‘opposite-sex’ stimuli), and two types of control stimuli, including pleasant scenes depicting non-sexual male-female interaction, such as therapeutic massage (neutral stimuli), or a fixation cross (fixation). Subjects were screened to verify that they were heterosexual and found visual erotica sexually arousing. Each block contained five stimuli of the corresponding type. Two runs were presented, each containing four blocks of each type, and ratings of sexual attractiveness and physical arousal were assessed after scanning. We found that the amygdala and hypothalamus were more activated in men than in women when viewing identical sexual stimuli, even when females reported greater arousal.
And from the discussion section:
Sex differences in activations to sexual stimuli could arise from differences in processing mode between men and women (e.g., different cognitive styles or neural pathways), from activations related to higher arousal, irrespective of biological sex, or from a combination of these factors1. By the arousal hypothesis, when men and women are matched on levels of elicited arousal, sex differences in brain activation should be eliminated. In contrast, the processing-mode hypothesis predicts that men should still show greater brain activation than women in specific regions after controlling for arousal. Our present results support the second hypothesis.
Now, for the video of Kate Moss as the teen stripper/pole dancer.
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I have to disagree. I know that these studies like to think that they have answers but in this case I don’t think that they had the right question.I am a man and as a man I see media portraying men to drool over supper skinny models types, however, in practice a much larger number of men are attracted to thick women. Most men I know are with a thick woman who would be considered fat by the BMI scale. I think that maybe it is a cultural influence not considered when the study was being done.
I don’t know. I have mixed views. As a woman, I observe men’s eyes, as discreet as they may think they are, follow women and the women they follow may not resemble a model like Kate, they do have a tendency to follow women who are more youthful. This study basically proposes that men are more visual or experience more arousal with visual stimuli than women. I think the researchers are saying that men respond more to visual stimulation, like porn or erotic imagery, than women and I know, there are women who’ll say that they react to porn in the same way as men, but there are also women who’ll react strongly only during certain times in their menstrual cycle, compared to men.