Any polygynist system depends either on military aggression (capturing women) or else on high male mortality and/or high male celibacy. In the surviving traditional Mormon polygamist towns they just kick the boys out at age 18.

It would also seem that such polygyny would require women to be economically productive. The story you cited made it seem that the women were bored housewives watching soap operas and waiting for their husband to bring the enough food home for his many wives and children. Sounds like a crock.

Mathematically it seems impossible that there have ever been any ongoing societies which are predominantly polygynous, though there are many where having multiple wives is a privilege of rank. Perhaps a very predatory society could capture both wives for the leadership and men to be celibate slave footsoldiers, but that sounds far-fetched.

A society with a 2:1 female/male balance would be militarily vulnerable, whereas war is the main way of attaining that kind of balance.

John,

But wasn't the Ottoman empire just such a predatory society?
It's leaders used to have large harems of captured or purchased women, often infidels, while they also levied male-children from infidels in the Balkans to be reared and trained as soldiers - Janissaries

Another point that Frosts seems to ignore is if Blondism originated 11,000 years ago, at or during the end of the last Ice Age, might it not have been selected for in males, as camouflage while out hunting against a snow covered backdrop.
Or might it have been selected for in children, to make them less visible to predators, again against a snow covered backdrop. Then later became associated with pedomorphic traits, and fecundity in women, etc.

Funny. I first read about this theory on gnxp. See

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives...ves/ 000853.html

PConroy: The Ottoman elite was predatory and polygynous, but Ottoman society as a whole more or less broke even.

While the Mongols were expanding and exploiting the civilized world, they probably were able to maintain polygyny within the Mongol core. During during periods of disunity when the steppe was more self-sufficient, the leaders of the more successful groups were polygynous up until they were defeated, when their wives were passed around to the victors. This would be elite polygynu again. The constant warfare might have produced a slight overall female > male imbalance, but if the imbalance got very great in any tribe the tribe would become militariuly vulnerable.

This is all my own theory, I'm not reporting standard research conclusions. It's always seemed strange to me, though, when people don't work out the very, very simple mathematical relationships ( roughly, .5 + .5 = 1) of polygyny.

john,

re: polygyny, in behavorial ecology the definition is a bit different than in cultural anthropology. basically, a polygynous species is defined as having a high ratio of male reproductive skew vs. female reproductive skew. or, in other words, the variation in male reproductive success is far greater than variation in female reproductive success. on could have a society where all males at some point get married and have at least one child, but remain genetically polygynous because of this skew. imagine a society where % of males drops as you go north of age 15 because of warfare. all men marry females at 15 (assume 50:50 sex ratio at this point), but as men die off the 'excess' females start becoming second wives of men who survive. if a man lives 'till forty he might have many wives (all around his age). even though fecundity of females drops as they age, they could plausibly still give their post-initial husband(s) offspring, resulting in some men passing more of their genes into the future.

there is evidence of reproductive skew in human populations. see this paper, Reduced Y-chromosome, but not mitochondrial DNA, diversity in human populations from West New Guinea. or, Variation of female and male lineages in sub-Saharan populations: the importance of sociocultural factors.

also, re: The constant warfare might have produced a slight overall female > male imbalance, slight differences can compound on the evolutionary scale. you don't need elephant seal level polygyny. there are other data points that points to some level of mild polygyny as normative. for example, slight male-female size sexual dimorphism is suggestive of a slightly polygynous species. additionally, cultural anthropologists have offered that cross-culturally polygyny is the preferred, if not idealized, form of marriage in the preponderance of societies.

What I see as a flaw in the new theory is the idea that blonde hair made it easier for women to attract scarce males. It's just a scientific veneer on the old "gentlemen prefer blondes" line. I'm not so sure than most men really do have a preference for blonde hair apart from what's been culturally instilled in them.
I acknowledge, however, that the Ice Age blondes might have found it easier to attract men simply because they were different.

re: this theory. props to peter f. for throwing something out there. but, i must say that i am starting to feel that sexual selection is the new deus ex machina in lieu of random genetic drift. ?'s

1) is the asymmetry between Y and mtDNA long term effective population greater in northern/eastern europe than in southern/western europe (the blonde-non-blonde gradient).

2) what about other populations, like eskimos, where this process occurs? since selection can be stochastic it is not inevitable that blondness will be the novel or padaeomorphic cue. could east asian padeomorphism evolve from the same bias?

3) how did blondness increase in frequency among some australian aboriginals? the probability seems high that the trait is endogenous because its transmission mode seems different than that of europeans (though there isn't a perfect coupling between blondness and fair skin, they are connected in europeans via MC1R). i know that blondness is considered attractive among the women and you there as well.

4) recent work points to selection on non-MC1R loci to generate light skin in europeans. this might have freed up MC1R to explore genetic space and evolve novelty. but, it might be that this process of sexual selection is ubiquitous in many (most) populations and that it stochastic fixed on different traits. (eg., epicanthic fold in asians)

5) is this runaway sexual selection? that implies coupling between the preference and the trait, and extremely fast evolution toward fixation of the trait sans functional/selective constraint. it doesn't seem that blondness has ever fixed, almost no population has a majority of adult female blondes (in c.s. coon he states that only in southern sweden does the intersection of blonde hair and blue eyes exceed 50% of the population).

6) what about traits like blue eyes? that seems unrelated to MC1R.

Basically my points were just that if you have polygyny you have to have some men who never marry, whether because of early death, lowly status, or for other reasons, and that by and large polygyny is a marker of hierarchy, either within a society or between one society and other (prey) societies. And ultimately, if an elite group A gets extra wives from subject group B for several generations, you really end up with one society and a hierarchy within it.

In emperor penguins females fight over males due to the combination of:

1) high male mortality rate during winter

2) the inability of a successful male to support more than one female's reproduction per season

If you take humans where technological adaptation:

1) expanded the ecological range to the arctic

2) is primarly applied by males at the frontiers of that range

There is reason to believe some cultural adapatations of humans may have resulted in similar constraints to those experienced by penguins.

While there is no need for there to be a single theory of blondism across all peoples and ecologies within which it has arisen, this may have even happened among the Australian outback peoples to some degree.

I don't understand the unthinking dismisalls of Peter Frost's theory. "The old "gentlemen prefer blondes" idea is an old idea precisely because there is a lot of evidence for it.

steve, since when did skepticism of an explanatory model of a phenomenon imply rejection of said phenomenon? pete's theory is not that gentlemen prefer blondes, it is that blondism became common due to some ultimate causative dynamics.

as per razib, first and foremost: "props to peter f. for throwing something out there"

what's the modal lifespan of a scientific hypothesis? probably around 5 minutes -- so that we're even talking about this is a good thing.

but moreover, this hypothesis makes predictions which we can test. however, until we see some independent data that corroborates this, all we have is a theory that seems to fit some of the facts.

Frost is with the Circumpolar Institute at Laval U. and he has done lots of research on the demographics of high latitude hunter-gatherer tribes, and this theory fits with his findings. Wives tend to be more dependent on their husbands for food during the long stretches when they can't gather. Even a good hunter can't support more than about two wives in this environment. And high latitude hunter husbands have high mortality because hunting large northern animals (Bergman's Rule) is so dangerous. So, a good hunter husband is hard to find and worth competing over.

This theory doesn't explain everything, but it fits with a lot of other things we know are true. It shouldn't be rejected out of hand based merely on a British newspaper account.

z, is it a plausible alternative hypothesis that blondism is selectively neutral? is there a molecular signature of selection on mc1r in europeans? [acutally... are mc1r alleles associated with blond hair???]

Just curious -- why no blondes among NE Asians, according to the theory? Did the Siberian hunting dynamic not skew the operational sex ratio as it did in N. Europe?

I think it sounds promising and don't discount it, but here's my wrinkle: sexual selection appears greatest where pathogen load is greatest. Manly men and Modigliani-esque bombshells are more likely to hail from bug-ridden areas: Greece, Italy, India, Nigeria, etc., rather than Finland, Japan, etc. Buss & Gangestad showed that pathogen prevalence strongly correlated w/ emphasis placed on "good looks" in mate choice (summary here).

Here's a rank-order from least to greatest of emphasis placed on good looks from Buss' big 1989 study -- CTRL F "bbs" for pdf (grouped by fives for visibility):
(Zulu, Japan, Colombia, Finland, S.Afr White)
(Australia, Sweden, Fr Canada, Netherlands, Taiwan)
(Venezuela, Israel Jewish, Belgium, Indonesia, Ireland)
(Norway, Brazil, Spain, W Germ, Poland)
(Eng Canada, Gr Brit, New Zealand, Italy, India)
(China, USA Hawaii, Iran, France, USA Mainland)
(Yugoslavia, Greece, Zambia, Nigeria, Estonia)
(Isr Palestinian, Bulgaria)

Blondeness is more likely where guys care less about looks. Admittedly this doesn't reflect mating preferences 11 kya, but it does suggest that sexual selection for physical traits likely decreases as humans inhabit less bug-ridden regions.

But then maybe hair color is under functional constraint in areas that are bug-infested (not just sun-soaked), and lighter hair is allowed to a greater extent once there are fewer bugs -- it never approaches fixation since the bugs are only fewer, not non-existent. This still doesn't account for no blondes in relatively bug-free NE Asia, but I think it jives better w/ the sexual selection / pathogen link.

Rikurzhen -- it seems MC1R does not show selection signatures among Euros, while SLC24A5
does show such signatures.

Eskimos are a very marginal, exceptional case in may respects. They're not blonde and eskimo women aren't especially pretty. I don't know the time period at which blonde selection supposedly took place, but women do a lot of work in cattle-raising, which is an Indo-European marker. Few Indo-Europeans were hunter-gatherers since 2000 BC or earlier.

Just curious -- why no blondes among NE Asians, according to the theory?

well, selection is stochastic. if this is sexual selection, different populations may random walk into different selective regimes to signify health, or, runaway into different paths.

acutally... are mc1r alleles associated with blond hair???

to some extent...though the red hair connection is more evident. i think blondism is just loss of function for both generation of brown and red pigment generation.

this hypothesis by frost is the sort of thing that will be easier to understand when we have a thorough understanding of the dynamics of selection and drift through human populations. ie, when we know the extent of sexual and natural selection as well as random genetic drift in shaping population differences after the genomic data has been crunched more we will be in a better place to evaluate the probability or plausibility of these sort of dynamics. examined in a vacuum of context this sort of hypothesis is difficult to reject or accept.

but, the main thing that i think this predicts is that the long term effective population of northern europeans should show a larger imbalance in the uniparental lineages than in the south. of course, there could be other sexually selective regimes operating in the south, but if there was migration between populations i wonder how powerful local selection forces would have to be to keep the phenotypes distinct.

I think that Daryll Hannah proved pretty conclusively in The Clan of the Cave Bear, that blondes were more desirable than the local talent of the time.

BTW, what happened to the explanation for blondeness I think I learned in High School? Blondeness (and brownness and red-headedness) is simply correlated with light skin. People in northern climes evolved light skin as light skin is useful in better absorbing sunlight for the production of vitamin D.

Even northern Asians like the Koreans and the Japanese have light skin (again for sunlight absorption?). But the hair in their case stayed black - like their ancestors who came out of Africa. It really didn't need to change. Perhaps the linkage between hair, eyes and skin was not as correlated as it appears to be among Caucasians. That is Caucasians may have a common gene (among several) that determines skin, hair, and eye pigmentation. As their skin lightened (through natural selection) the other characteristics tagged along. Among Asians the connection between the characteristics may simply not be very strong. As Asian skin lighted, hair and eyes remained the same.

As for differences in male vs. female darkness, is that due to peroxide, or the darkening effects of testosterone?

The MC1R alleles that make redheads also influence nociception.
So, obviously, ...

[i added the link, i think readers can connect the dots to what sort of selection greg might be getting at! -razib :)]

Edited By Siteowner

Steve: gentlemen may prefer blondes, but the problem is to translate that preference into a substantial reproductive advantage in a short space of time (according to Frost). It is not a question of blondes getting more sex (wich is virtually irrelevant) but of getting more food, or protection, or whatever, for themselves and their children, in a (probably) polygynous hunter-gatherer society. And in hunter-gatherer societies the products of hunting expeditions are ususally shared out pretty evenly - people don't just take their own deer (or mammoth!) and eat it in a corner.

I have strong doubts about the notion of a ubiquitous and innate preference for blond women amongst male members of our species.

My doubts are based partially upon the sentiments of mainland Chinese friends of mine -who have expressed distaste for both the consistency and hue of blonde hair (thin and brittle they say). And my own predilections - I've always felt most heads of blonde hair to look garish. Maybe most of the blondes I've seen are dye-jobs - I am not so averse to certain rich, honey-blonde heads of hair that I've seen.

I would tentatively assert that the blonde-predilection is cultural. But then again, Attila the Hun and the Arabs were awfully fond of flaxen-haired women, and hailed from ethnic groups where the trait was altogether absent.

ken, china is an interesting test case. your own preferences are far less relevant than the fact that prior to the modern era fair ("red") hair and light ("green") eyes were not considered attractive. light skin was.

nevertheless, if there is runaway sexual selection one would assume that the trait is coupled with the preference. so, only populations with a high frequency of blondism should exhibit the preference. if on the other hand the preference is sensory bias, than it is more likely that the preference should be found across the species.

During the Neanderthal period, Rae-dawn Chong was at least as cute as Daryl Hannah.

Once you allow sexual selection as a significant evolutionary force, genetic feedback from specific local cultures becomes a possibility. I've read that Eskimos think that the tiniest nose is the most beutiful, and that Mayan Indians are especially attracted to cross-eyed women.

Contemporary American attraction to otherwise slender women with large breasts might also be cultural, though of course American culture is global now.

I remember reading that the Koran promises blonde wives for men in the afterlife. Can anybody confirm this?

Also, is there any possibility that blonde hair is something that the northern Europeans inherited fm the Neanderthals?

Certain more affluent Chinese acquaintances of mine - who have sampled a considerable variety of ethnic groups in the bordellos of Macau, Vladivostok, etc - have expressed dislike not so much for the hue of blonde hair, but other phyical traits concomitant with it - these being coarse skin, a thin layer of fine follicles on the face and arms, and pungent body odor.

You are correct, Razib, about the preference for pale skin amongst Chinese. I have a personal preference for darker complexions, and when I express my enthusiasm for South-east Asian girls, or women with tanned hides in general, many of my Chinese acquaintances are taken aback.

This includes more chauvinistic or insular members of the Han diaspora as well - I will never forget the look of disbelief on the face of a Singaporean Chinese acquaintance when I told him that I considered Malay women to be highly attractive.

I know that Sailer once cited Nicole Kidman as evidence that blonde women are considered more attractive in the popular imagination - sorry Steve, but I know that I am not alone in finding the sickly pallor of the erstwhile Mrs. Cruise highly unappealing.

"I think that Daryll Hannah proved pretty conclusively in The Clan of the Cave Bear, that blondes were more desirable than the local talent of the time."

She's changed buddy. She looked like Rutger Hauer in drag when she appeared in the last Tarantino outing.

"I know that Sailer once cited Nicole Kidman as evidence that blonde women are considered more attractive in the popular imagination - sorry Steve, but I know that I am not alone in finding the sickly pallor of the erstwhile Mrs. Cruise highly unappealing."

You're not alone. There's white, in the racial sense, and then there's ghostly.
IIRC Steve Sailer did not so much say that Nicole Kidman is a beauty, but rather that she is a highly sought-after actress because her skin is lighter than almost all actors, and in movie casting there is a desire to have the actresses lighter than the actors.

If the hunter-gatherer idea is taken into consideration, shouldnt there be more blondes in Africa, where there are more wild animals?

Now that we dont need hunters to feed ourselves, does this mean we are all should be turning to dark haired women?

"I remember reading that the Koran promises blonde wives for men in the afterlife. Can anybody confirm this?"

I think that hadith came in after the first Muslim tourist returned from Las Vegas.

As for "pungent body odor", has Rushton come up with OQ (odor quotient) breakdown, nation to nation, race to race yet? That's the next step in sorting us all out.

And now for something entirely different.

Let's look at the realm of fantasy, and science fiction, where so many of our icons hang on.
The fair skin of the golden haired princess will show lines and get raw in the sun--was she perhaps made for some more ethereal environment? Olive skin--in Caucasians anyway--tends to moles and gets coarse too, but does seem more adapted to earthly conditions. I recall a Jewish guy who went on about California blondes--I just didn't get it, being neither blonde nor dark and somewhat preferring to be the Med type myself. He was into soft skin, which for him, meant fair. Mediterranean types he didn't like. He even thought the young Elizabeth Taylor was unimpressive at all times of her career, though that may have been a generational thing. He was my first expose into the surprising realm of male sexual preference.

We've all heard of, and many have laughed at, human/extra-terrestrial contact. I bring this up for the myths our fantasies conjure....
Most of the ETs described are little gray, bug-eyed guys, but a few people have described ETs entirely human in appearance.
Claimants, rancid liars or poor delusionists that they may be, describe human looking ETs as blond, tall, blue, green or golden eyed, and regular featured. Their skin ranges white to tan, but always flawless, like a young child's, and the men, manly though they be, have no beards or stubble. The women are lithe and voluptuous.
The only ethnic type to rival blondes in human-looking ET contacts, is the Asian type, high cheekbones, long straight black hair, big almond shaped eyes, flawless olive skin, small straight noses, and voluputuous (the women that is.)
These two types come up over and over again in "ufology lore."
Laugh, laugh. The holograms of our ideals are following us, if they are not coming to us.

Certain more affluent Chinese acquaintances of mine - who have sampled a considerable variety of ethnic groups in the bordellos of Macau, Vladivostok, etc - have expressed dislike not so much for the hue of blonde hair, but other phyical traits concomitant with it - these being coarse skin, a thin layer of fine follicles on the face and arms, and pungent body odor.

Please tell us more about your friends general impression of women around the world by way of their experience with whores. Now THAT's a good test. Ever hear the term “hardened prostitute?”

Also, the fact that they had to pay for it says a lot, doesn't it?

True blonds typically have baby's skin, until they get older when it can be true that the sun does take its toll. If you are fair stay out of the sun!

I also agree people are confusing Steve discussion on the movies with preferences in real life.

I think slightly darker haired mail actors are typically preferred because they are more menacing and edgy to the *men* in the audience, not the women. In some cases a very light haired blond man does not look threatening enough. I don't think it is the "heartthrob" aspect that is driving this selection.

For example, Brad Pitt, Mark Walhberg, Sean Penn and Matt Damon do quite well in that department. I certainly wouldn’t call these actors dark. Even the “darker bond” Rodger Moore more has brown hair. These are very light examples of “dark” actors provided by Steve.

And while I don’t want to start a debate on preferences, from what I have seen throughout my life it is somewhat ridiculous to say that brown and blond haired men are not favored by women, but I guess people just have to judge from their own experience.

let's tamp down on the personal impressions and experiences. makes for fun conversation, but loosens the focus of the thread.

p.s. all ethnic groups seem to complain about the odor of other ethnic groups.

"True blonds typically have baby's skin"

You're joking right? What kind of baby are you referring to? A baby armadillo?

I dated blonde girls when I was a teenager, and even then I noticed that generally (and of course there are exceptions), their complexions were not as smooth or blemish-free as women with darker complexions. I hail from the Antipodes, where the sunlight is especially intense - by the age of 30, most Anglo-saxon women have aged past the point of no return.

I haven't been to Macau myself, but according to numerous reports, the hookers there are pretty stunning. There's a lot of money in that city - it's not like some suburban brothel stocked with destitute single mothers and teenage junkies.

The traits I mentioned are not exclusive to prostitutes either - a lot of white girls have hirsute complexions.

Sensitivity to odor is subjective, so that's different. I've read that ethnic groups tend to respond negatively to the odors of other ethnic groups. From experience, I can tell you that a Chinese girl I dated who was a model used to loath doing shows with caucasian girls because of the way they smelt. Conversely, most Western expats in China aren't too fond of the way the locals smell either.

"And while I don’t want to start a debate on preferences, from what I have seen throughout my life it is somewhat ridiculous to say that brown and blond haired men are not favored by women, but I guess people just have to judge from their own experience."

If you live in a predominately caucasian country, most guys will have brown or blond hair, so the observation above strikes me as being pretty otiose. Saying that girls in Western countries favour brown or blond haired men is pretty much commensurate with saying that they favour commonplace and non-descript.

In my experience, a great number of women in first-world countries seem to be beset by a curious infatuation for the stereotypical libidinous, macho Latino - as dark and swarthy as the Western world gets.

"The only ethnic type to rival blondes in human-looking ET contacts, is the Asian type, high cheekbones, long straight black hair, big almond shaped eyes, flawless olive skin, small straight noses, and voluputuous (the women that is.)"

Asian girls voluptuous? Please tell me where so I can go find them. A lot of girls in China might be pretty, but finding a voluptuous one is like searching for the yeti in Amazonian rainforest.

Also, the fact that they had to pay for it says a lot, doesn't it?
It says that cultures vary from place to place, and some of them consider the use of prostitutes to be completely normal even for men who have no problems getting action of the indirectly-paid-for kind.
The hiring of prostitutes is a budgeted business expense for people making deals with Japanese business men. I have in-laws who keep them (the prostitutes) on retainer.
Me, I'm a white guy with a somewhat dark-skinned Chinese woman. Never been a big fan of blonds, but given how few [natural blonds] there are, I wouldn't expect to see a ton of blond beauties out there. And now I'm wondering if there have been any real studies on the percentage of blonds running around this country that are dye-jobs.

MC, what are you saying, that blondes came from heaven, like angels? Like that commercial for cream cheese?

LOL. Oh, maybe blondes are our gods. Should we kneel down? This are the times I thank Jews like Joe Grant for giving Snow White dark hair. ANd whoever started that story about J.C. who is a jew and his mother is a dark haired woman. Or else, we would be consistently be bombarded with how great the blondes are.

Daveg: “True blonds typically have baby's skin, until they get older when it can be true that the sun does take its toll. If you are fair stay out of the sun!”

Two bits of anecdotal evidence to the contrary: My wife is Thai and pretty dark. She has the smoothest skin that I have ever felt. But the one woman with the roughest skin (and hairiest (for a woman)) that I have ever felt was a red-head (Irish). Even tho she (like me) avoided the sun as much as possible.

One other thing about my wife: she’s obsessed with lightening her skin. It doesn’t matter to her that I find her skin naturally attractive.

dudes, 1) unless you are tucker max i really doubt you have a sample size that is statistically significant. 2) all the non-blonde women i know have mustaches and stinky armpits. at least that's what it seemed like from afar. howz that for anecdote?

Many of the questions here are addressed in my article, so I will be brief. If you wish more info I can e-mail a PDF copy.

1. "What I see as a flaw in the new theory is the idea that blonde hair made it easier for women to attract scarce males."

I don’t feel there was sexual attraction to blond hair per se but rather to rare hair colors. Thus, sexual selection tended to produce an equilibrium of competing hair colors (and also eye colors). Once a particular hair or eye color became too common, the pressure of selection shifted to the less common variants. Rarity has been shown to be a significant factor in male sexual attraction to female hair color (see Thelen, T.H. 1983. Minority type human mate preference. Social Biology 30, 162-180.)

2. “I see from a Google search that the theory is not that new. The author, Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, has been touting it in one form or another for some time.”

I first put forward the idea in a brief paper on CogWeb. It was then rewritten and submitted to various journals before being accepted for publication (during this period, I referred to it in an online book review about eastern Europe during the Upper Paleolithic). Such is the usual life history of most theories. My only regret now is that the paper does not contain certain information that would have made my argument stronger. For instance, I state that European populations have at least 7 alleles for hair color. We now know that 30 such alleles break the 1% threshold in European populations (see Kateryna Makova and Heather Norton. 2005. "Worldwide polymorphism at the MC1R locus and normal pigmentation variation in humans" Peptides 26:1901-1908.). Could so many alleles have arisen over so short a span of time through random genetic drift? Well, perhaps. People are entitled to their “load of bollocks” (“load of bullshit” sounds more coherent).

3. “The theory might be more plausible if the society were strictly monogamous, and women found it difficult to get a husband to provide for their children, but very few hunter-gatherer societies are strictly monogamous, least of all if there is a surplus of women.”

The incidence of polygyny is high in tropical hunter-gatherers, such as Australian Aborigines. It decreases as one moves into temperate and arctic ecozones because of the higher cost of supporting second wives, i.e., women are less self-sufficient because less food is procured through gathering during the winter season. This can be seen in studies of Y chromosome/mtDNA diversity. In temperate and arctic environments, Y chromosome diversity increases, suggesting that more males have contributed to the gene pool.

4. There were several comments as to why sexual selection failed to diversify hair and eye color at similar latitudes in Asia. The pressure of sexual selection (more specifically, a surplus of unmated females) was generated by a special kind of ecozone: low-latitude
continental tundra. This kind of ecozone is characterized by relatively high bioproductivity that early humans could access only in the form of highly mobile and gregarious herds of mammals – hence the apparent paradox of high carrying capacity (resulting in relatively large human populations) and high death rates among men. During the last ice age, continental tundra was much larger in Europe than in Asia. More importantly, it lay almost entirely below 60 degrees N in Europe and entirely above 60 degrees N in Asia. Thus, in addition to being smaller, the Asian portion had a much lower carrying capacity for humans. (It's even questionable whether this portion had a
significant human presence at the height of the ice age). Its contribution
to present-day Asian populations would have been correspondingly smaller. There are other factors, which I discuss in the article. The lower carrying capacity of the Asian tundra would have made human populations on it smaller and more dispersed. Female infanticide would have been more common because daughters would be more likely to marry out of the band and not provide "son-in-law support" to their parents. This was the
reason for the formerly high incidence of female infanticide in the Canadian High Arctic (which thus prevented the development of a surplus of unmated females).

Thoughts on the death of the blong here

Using actresses to prove that "gentlemen prefer blondes" isn't very scientific, and using Nicole Kidman as your proof is , sorry for my lack of tact, stupid.

The biggest Hollywood female box office stars of the last 15 years have been, in fact, Caucasians who are strikingly dark.

Beginning with Julia Roberts in 1990, who pretty much created a female demographic audience, continuing with Sandra Bullock (whose movies are both cheap to make and profitable), and Catherina Zeta-Jones, *the* vixen-supergoddess, women with dark hair and dark eyes have lorded it over their pale sisters.

There is something of a vacuum with female stars right now, but Anne Hathaway and Natalie Portman look promising. Dark and dark.

Nicole Kidman was never truly popular--except among studio execs who thought they could sell her during a period when Julia Roberts was otherwise engaged and showing boredom with her career. Gwyneth Paltrow? Another creation of the studio execs.

The only area where blondes do reign supreme is tv news, which again is a function of the captive audience and studio executives.

When people shell out their own bucks, dark hair and dark eyes in women does very well indeed.

(Full disclosure: I have light eyes and no dog in this fight but I do have a personal annoyance with the assumption of blond preference.)

diana -
Interesting observations, but I will point out that while Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock are popular actresses most people - men, at least - do not considering them stunningly beautiful. They're popular more for their acting ability and choice of parts rather than for their looks.

diana, but straight up, dying your hair is counter-cultural today. blonde bottle is what sells, so what's up that? i read joanna pittman's book, and there were periods when blondeness had low class sluttish connotations (restoration england). so some of it is fashion.

i hear in porn the females are often bottle blonde....

Given that gentlemen prefer blondes, it is easy to see account for more blondes.

But why do gentlemen prefer blondes? If the preference means anything, it means that a gentleman will pay a cost for his preference. He will expend more resources, or accept more non-hair-related flaws, to mate with a blonde? Doesn't it follow therefore that a gentleman in a blondophilic society who prefers brunettes will have a selective advantage?

[Or is this a problem with all sexual selection stories.]

What is your definition of gentleman.

Because I know a lot of Spanish/italian/Asian gentlemen and they are all married to a non-blonde.

Do you really prefer whiny skinny ugly Gwyneth over Jolie?

Peter,

I thought of your theory a little more and it makes some sense to me--a mutation, which is a recessive trait, that catches on, must have some kind of attractiveness value. But what? This is what I question.

I question your dismissal of Julia Roberts' looks. Chacon a son gout, but when Pretty Woman came out, she gobsmacked everyone. Maybe you've gotten too accustomed, but she was considered quite beautiful. And this wasn't Hollywood hype. Everyone thought that Pretty Woman was a tired comedy that would go straight to the rental bin.

I have a question. Let's say your theory is correct, then brunettes had to have something extra to pass on their genes, what might that have been: more intelligence, better personalities, and...better looks?

Is it true brunettes are more intelligent?

Razib, about the bottle blonde business, I have noticed a gazillion times in the daily carnival of life in NYC that men always notice them, perhaps only to forget about them 5 minutes later, but they are always acknowledged, because dyed hair is a signal in and of itself. Whereas a natural blonde is not necessarily acknowledged. Where that fits in the evolutionary picture I don't know. Perhaps after having created a population of blondes, some pretty, some not, the novelty wore off.

What that does to the gentlemen prefer blondes theory, I question.

BTW I am old enough to remember when Italian actresses were considered THE most beautiful, and Eastern European women were considered so ugly they were the butt of jokes. (Did you hear the one about the Russian shot-putter?) Nowadays, of course, you can't say Russian woman without everyone thinking "babe". Prejudices and fashions in looks change quickly. What next? Iran? Maybe. Impossible to tell.

diana -
You're confusing me ("Peter") with the man who came up with the theory ("Peter Frost"). Though in a way I'm honored :)

Regarding Julia Roberts, I've always been under the belief that it is women who consider her beautiful, while to men she is just ordinary. While Pretty Woman was a big hit, it was a "chick flick" to some extent, with women drawn to it by the Cinderella fantasy story and the presence of the then-still-studly Richard Gere.

askmen top 10 (out of 99)
1) adrian lima
2) monica belluci
3) charlize theron
4) josie maran
5) heidi klum
6) brook burke
7) elsa benitez
8)beyonce knowles
9) angelina jolie
10) halle berry

gentlemen might prefer blondes, but they'll wank off to other stuff.

I think that there's something to the exoticism angle on blondes. For a lot of immigrants blondes represented acceptance by honky America, I think. My blonde sister married a darkish Mediterranean guy and he almost ruined her life. A classic sleazeball thug, though a successful one.

I grew up in America's leading natural-blonde center and blondeness means nothing. Uma Thurman, in particular, looks like the girl next door, and not really in a good way. She looks to me like she'd start talking about her hogs' scours if you happened to get next to her.

"For a lot of immigrants blondes represented acceptance by honky America, I think."

It's funny to see 4'3" guatemalan chix dying their hair blonde. Who are they fooling? I guess, no one. But someone likes it.

Thanks Peter, Yeah, I thought you were the other Peter.

It's funny to see 4'3" guatemalan chix dying their hair blonde. Who are they fooling? I guess, no one. But someone likes it.


but they do this in latin america too. you watched univision recently? :) latin american TV is kind of like indian (south asian) tv, the people on it (unless they are servants) do not map well as a racial representation of the population as a whole.

I see quite a few young (East) Asian women who take a sort of intermediate step. They dye their hair, not actually blonde, but a light to medium brown, sometimes frosted.

OK, all this Nicole Kidman vs Catherine Zeta Jones stuff -- most guys view the former as more pretty, feminine, coy, graceful, etc., and the latter as more seductive, sexual, vixeny. The porn link argues for this as well.

So while I doubt there was sexual selection for blondeness as an attractiveness thing (looks matter more where bugs can ruin them), it could've been selected as Peter Frost says -- guys chose the female more demure, feminine, & mothering in appearance, rather than the hotter, shagadelic babe.

It's actually close to tautological. The main objective difference between blonde and brunette hair is that blonde hair reflects more light. It's shinier. Shinier things are more eye-catching because they catch the eye more. If a woman wants to catch a man's eye, it's good to be eye-catching. It's the same reason women prefer shinier jewelry like gold, silver, and diamonds to less shiny jewelry. Shininess is shinier.

This doesn't mean that blonde hair is better or worse for any other purpose, just for this one thing -- shininess.

...Bio-bling

I see quite a few young (East) Asian women who take a sort of intermediate step. They dye their hair, not actually blonde, but a light to medium brown, sometimes frosted.

this was a big fashion in japan. back when i was in college it was a quick & dirty way to distinguish japanese from other east asians.

"his was a big fashion in japan. back when i was in college it was a quick & dirty way to distinguish japanese from other east asians."

mebbe that's why they did it. tribal identification. i think central americans dye hair blond cuz they think it's "american", or sophisticated (perhaps both).

I don't have univision but i've seen what you are talking about. that cristina woman (the latin oprah) is platinum.

i find ice-cold nicole kidman eminently fuckable (pardon the french). but check out this query that drew someone into gnxp: nicole kidman - hermaphrodite.

Peter Frost raises an interesting point about infanticide, but doesn't it tend to undermine the whole 'surplus of females' argument?

Of course, selective infanticide of *non-blonde* babies would solve the problem very neatly! May I offer this as my own theory and apply for a grant to prove it?

Incidentally, it seems to be generally agreed that blond hair is a recessive trait (and blue eyes certainly are), which means that selection when the gene is rare would be even weaker.

...BTW, I don't accept that the only choice is between 'random drift' and sexual selection. There may have been strong natural selection for a general loss of pigmentation. Or something else entirely. I just think that sexual selection is becoming a deus ex machina - you know, in ancient drama, just when things are getting too complicated, a god comes down from the sky on a crane and solves everything at a stroke.

...another BTW, isn't Nicole Kidman a natural redhead?

yes. above and down below (see 'billy bathgate'). but gold above and red below is not an unknown combination too :)

"I don't accept that the only choice is between 'random drift' and sexual selection. There may have been strong natural selection for a general loss of pigmentation. Or something else entirely."

Only the red hair alleles have linkage to skin color. Eye color is controlled by an entirely different locus. So I'm mystified by what is meant by "selection for a general loss of pigmentation." In any case, what has occurred is not a general loss, but rather a diversification.

Dave, it doesn't bother me to be told that I'm full of shit. It raises the hope that someone else has read my article and found a better explanation. In your case, you've done neither.

According to this site, Christina Aguilera was never very dark. No authentication, though.

Latin America has lots of natural blondes, from German, Polish, and other immigrants.

http://www.freenet.de/freenet/fi...a_kind/ 001.html

"If a woman wants to catch a man's eye, it's good to be eye-catching."

Presentism. In the ice-ages, that just didn't matter. As long as you were female, nubile, and fertile, you got a husband.

Has anybody here taken a look at what most people look like? Men and women, not very attractive. Yet they find mates. Why?

"The main objective difference between blonde and brunette hair is that blonde hair reflects more light. It's shinier."

The main difference that we see is the color. But here's something interesting about blond hair that might have something to do with this conversation:

http://www.ehealthmd.com/library.../ HL_whatis.html

"People with blond hair typically have more hair (average 140,000 hairs) than the average brunette (105,000 hairs) or redhead (90,000)."

(Life really ain't fair!!!)

What do you make of that, Peter? (any Peter will do.)

Razib....prune yourself, dude!

This seems to be a German story on the same article. I don't read German well.


http://www.freenet.de/freenet/na...zeit/ index.html

What I'm saying is, maybe there are other genetic advantages of blondness that would help them survive in the tough environments they developed in. Vitamin D synthesis, etc. Even a tiny advantage can translate into large demographic gains, as we have seen.

"...another BTW, isn't Nicole Kidman a natural redhead?"
'yes. above and down below (see 'billy bathgate').'

Today, of course, women's "down below" hair is all but extinct, having been shaved or waxed into oblivion.
But I guess that's another issue for another time :)

In Finland women's more common preference for darker men is so obvious and overwhelming that claiming women to prefer light men sounds a bit like claiming that women prefer mates that don't have a penis. Some do, but... (This is perhaps the most common anti-immigrant comment here coming from young males - dark male immigrants clearly have an "unfair" advantage on the dating market. Women don't complain about any group of immigrants being considered prettier than the domestic ones, as men tend to consider immigrant women of the larger groups uglier (Africans, Middle Easterners) or the same (northern East Europeans).) (Women do complain about other sort of unfairness on the sex market, though, eg. the literal Russian market on my street... yep, currently up and running.)

As for skin colour, why isn't this easy to explain? There was well-known selection taking out darker skin in northernmost Europe until just a few generations ago: vitamin D deficiency was extremely common, more common the further north you went until you ran into non-agriculturalists. (This BTW gives female-specific selection for lightness: bones deformed by rickets likely do bad things to your odds of surviving childbirth. Also, vitamin D is important when developing, so this gives child-specific pressures as well.) Have a look at the map: northern Europeans are at **much** higher latitudes than any other major population. North America and Asia at my latitude are mostly permafrosted or glaciated. The "northern" major Asian groups like Koreans and Japanese are actually at the same latitudes as Turkey (southern Japan is closer to the equator than to the latitude where I'm from!).

The amount of sunlight you get is *only* a function of latitude; it's *not* dependent on climate (well, it depends on cloud cover, but the point is, a cold climate and lack of sunlight aren't the same thing, that's a common mistake). A region in eastern Asia that experiences similar temperatures is at much lower latitudes than a similar region in Europe; hence, assuming a similar climate-induced lifestyle, the Europeans will be getting less sunlight, especially during the winter (sunlight during the darkest period drops rapidly with latitude) (there's no way to get it exactly the same, of course, plant life will always be more productive with more sunlight). Hence, assuming a similar lifestyle, ie. keeping everything else similar, the stable skin colour distribution would end up different (since the stable skin colour is a balance between the adverse effects of sunlight vulnerability and vitamin D deficiency, plus whatever sexual selection might be doing).

This of course applies only to the situation today and some millenia back (in a way the situation used to be reversed - that's part of Peter Frost's argument)... but it applies for the time northern Europeans have been substisting on agriculture and that gives a diet fairly poor on vitamin D. If you're starting from Anatolian or north Asian levels and put intense selection (even with the skin we now have practically everyone would be D-deficient by late winter, if we didn't eat added D), can't you get northern European skin in those millenia? The only sizable area of anomalously light skin corresponds pretty much exactly to the only sizable area where versatile agriculture is made possible at anomalously high latitudes...

skin reflectance score by population.

Regarding the Inuit / Eskimos -- first, the present Inuit expanded across Canada in fairly recent times (1000-1500 years ago.) Second, their winter food is high-vitamin D animals adapted to the arctic.

What about the Sami? They are from a high latitude with little sunlight yet AFAIK aren't usually blonde. Or did they get enough Vitamin D from animal sources, similar to the Inuit?

Peter,

the rates for traits like blonde hair are different, but you generally wouldn't be able to tell individual Saami from Finns. But a) blonde hair is irrelevant for vitamin D, it's about skin colour (blondness only matters if it's connected to skin colour and AFAIK it isn't, unless the connection is about sexual selection) and b) my whole point was that you want to compare peoples with similar climate-induced lifestyles, including diets. Far northern non-agriculturalists like Saami have been eating a nearly 100 % meat/fish winter diet (what else would they have eaten? you try surviving 7 months of winter on lichen), which is *much* richer in vitamin D than the typical European diet. Here's some of our most distant linguistical cousins from similar latitudes in Siberia having a northern dinner:

http://foto.ravna.no/detail.asp? ...oduct_id=021507

A liver ought to have enough vitamin D for everyone!

The point is, northern Europeans are the *only* group at such high latitudes who have been eating a non-100 % meat/fish winter diet, so there is no reason at all to wonder about the "exceptional" skin colour - there's no way to tell if it's exceptional, because there's no similar population to compare it to! The only comparison that can be made is that Asians eating similarily are similarily-coloured to the Europeans at the same latitudes, which suggests that there's no exception to explain here.

Also, one major difference between European and Asian far northern non-agricultural groups (which are tiny) is that far northern Europeans have a large pale-skinned population as the next door neighbour, while the Asian ones have non-pales as the southern (ie. large) neighbouring populations. These tend to be very small groups, so large neighbouring groups ought to make a big impact on them, even if contacts are rare. (And Western Siberians show influence by Europeans, including sometimes lighter hair.)

(And what does "usually blonde" mean anyway? There is no such people. Scandinavians, Baltic-Finns and Balts are the lightest-haired peoples and only a clearly small minority of them are blonde, unless you use some super-loose definition of "blonde".)

A way to test this is to look at the ratio of NE female/SE male marriages vs SE female/NE male marriages. We should expect that with the greater mixing of populations that the lower sexual aggressiveness of NE males would result in them being outcompeted by SE males.

Are there any such data?

I did see a study of marriage by national origin for Americans a while back that seemed to fit the pattern but it would be good to verify.

MC, what are you saying, that blondes came from heaven, like angels? Like that commercial for cream cheese?

"LOL. Oh, maybe blondes are our gods. Should we kneel down? This are the times I thank Jews like Joe Grant for giving Snow White dark hair....great the blondes are."

oh LOL yourself. Some people on this board have no sense of humor and irony. I am the devil's advocate dudey. If someone praises blondes, I'll pull for dark. Someone praises dark, I'll pull for the opposite. I really don't care.
My point was the mythos of it all--it is there. As for Joe Grant giving Snow White black hair, that was in the fairy tale. Joe Grant, whoever he is, did not invent Snow White. She had black hair as did many heroine of European myth. My mom came from a long line of black Irish, and she always resented that hair color commercial about blondes having more fun. More fun my fanny.

"...Asian girls voluptuous? Please tell me where so I can go find them. A lot of girls in China might be pretty, but finding a voluptuous one is like searching for the yeti in Amazonian rainforest."

well, kennteoh, they are ETs. It would never work, trust me--they live 800 years and vibrate at a much higher frequency than do earthlings.
However, since they utilize nutrients and are so advanced, they do have flawless skin, near nil aging, gleaming hair in whatever color you prefer, exemplary physiques, and brilliant brains. Occasionally they'd stop on earth and sit as painters' models, but they didn't hang around long...

But do not despair--China takes ET visitation much more seriously than do we occidentals. There are thousands of ufology groups in China--go for it.

One more thing about the earth blondes. In "Black Lamb, Gray Falcon", Rebecca West's epic journey through pre-WWII Yugoslavia, she remarked on the blonde types found there--suffused of golden sunlight rather than colorlessness of much northern blondism. She was really into south slavs, a group not previously on anyone's radar, and thought they were the bees' knees. Her book got me thinking about such things.

James B,

we keep statistics of everything in Finland, but I only have my memories of the data (which I think are good, because the data only confirms what I consider plainly visible). We aren't a good place to study this stuff, though, as sample size is small and most dark men here are very recent immigrants or gypsies. Women don't marry so much based on looks: they value status and education and the hairy sex appeal of dark immigrants is not enough as long as they're sweeping floors. The majority of Finn-foreigner marriages among well-educated people are with other Westerners from countries with languages commonly understood here - Swedes, British and so on.

The pattern is different in the lower social classes, which is where you'll see the sex appeal based marriages, and there sex differences are very conspicuous: women commonly marry Africans/Middle Easterners, practically no men do (the only ME-level dark people men marry in considerable numbers are southeastern Asians). Turks are the most common foreign spouses among uneducated women, but not popular at all among men; Russians are by far the most common foreign spouses among uneducated men, but until recently very unpopular among women (there's been a rise in female marriages to Russians very recently, probably reflecting increasing Russian incomes). Of course part of it could be social, too - low-class men wishing to marry those less emancipated women that don't look very different or women not eager to consider the world's only breed of men that has even worse drinking habits than the domestic one...

"Turks are the most common foreign spouses among uneducated women, but not popular at all among men; Russians are by far the most common foreign spouses among uneducated men, "

I suspect that this trend might have a great deal to do with availability and ease of access - you will have noticed that men in Muslim communities tend to be highly covetous of their women. Many Australian men find Lebanese girls to be incredibly attractive, but courting them would occasion the wrath of their male family members(who tend to be both numerous and quite tough). On the other hand, look at the hordes of continental sex tourists who flock to Thailand during all seasons of the year (for women who are far from the pick of the bunch within the Thai population).

I'm pretty dismissive of the notion that men are innately averse to dark-skinned women - to me personally, they appear so much more vital and healthy than pale women.

Also - Jessica Alba, Hallie Berry, Jennifer Lopez, that Latina MILF from Desperate Housewives...

ken,

1) expectation does not mean uniformity. all men at all times in all locations do not necessarily have a set point of skin tone preference, no one says that.

2) but, there are some general cross-cultural trends, one of the most powerful (that i have seen) is that there is a strong preference for lighter skinned females within a population. that is, the preferred complexion is usually a few shades lighter than the norm.

3) you should know the chinese canons of beauty. the amerindians also prized light skin, inca kings raided the amazonian literal because the forest dwellers offered up lighter women for their harems.

4) one doesn't even need to posit biological reasons for this. if you have a stratified society it stands to reason that in complex cultures the elites will spend less time under the bright sun, and so be lighter skinned. light skin will have a refined and elite assocation, and hypergamy will likely allow light skinned lower class females to transition up the social ladder, and so reinforce the assocation genetically. so light skin preference could simply be elite emulation.

5) that being said, there are points of evidence which suggest that women with higher levels of estrogen are fairer in complexion vis-a-vi population norm. these women are presumably more fecund. also, women become darker as they age and go through pregnancies. these could be evo psych. cues.

6) all that being said, this is not then, this is now, and likely these biases and preferences are mediated by a host of cultural parameters. so it is likely that saying men prefer light skinned females without context or qualification is going to be susceptible to a large dosage of error.

7) nevertheless, the historical and cross-cultural evidence here is powerful. and, it is given credibility that many cultures (for example east asians) did not prize light eyes or hair color (japanese women with a brownish tinge would dye it black in the pre-modern era), while they prized ligh skin.

"if you have a stratified society it stands to reason that in complex cultures the elites will spend less time under the bright sun, and so be lighter skinned. light skin will have a refined and elite assocation, and hypergamy will likely allow light skinned lower class females to transition up the social ladder, and so reinforce the assocation genetically. so light skin preference could simply be elite emulation."

The explanation I always hear for the traditional Chinese preference for cadaverish pale skin is that refined members of the elite stayed indoors, and were distinguished by their lack of solar-induced melanin (Eastern Asian skin tone varies enormously, even within a single individual - I've seen people go from kabuki-mask white to bronze very quickly.

Association with the supine elite is also the reason given for the centuries-enduring practice of foot-binding.

"Dave, it doesn't bother me to be told that I'm full of shit. It raises the hope that someone else has read my article and found a better explanation. In your case, you've done neither."

- Indeed, I haven't read the article, as it hasn't been published. I *have* read the Abstract.

- I agree, I don't have a better explanation. But I can smell shit without being able to excrete rose petals.

Since we know both blue eyes and blonde hair are associated with changes in important aspects of temperament, and that blondness is associated with depigmentation, I favor the theory that natural selection co-opted an incidental pathway to regulate fearfulness in young children.

Research on blonde/blue should count # of adult sex partners. I wonder if they are more monogamous.

"I haven't read the article, as it hasn't been published."

The entire article has been available online for several months now. It can be easily accessed at any university library (or at your home computer if you're subscribed to Science Direct). I'm assuming, of course, that you have some kind of academic affiliation, either as a student or as a professor.

The advantage of Internet forums like this one is that they permit open discussion of taboo subjects. The disadvantage is that people can engage in gratuitous insults without facing the usual consequences. If you, for example, were to talk the same way in normal face-to-face discussion, you would have probably lost a few teeth by now (and I suspect you don't have the physical brawn to back up your language).

Both you and Razib have raised many interesting points I would like to address. But, frankly, I'm no longer interested.

Yeah, disappointing. Sorry Dr. Frost.

"I'm pretty dismissive of the notion that men are innately averse to dark-skinned women - to me personally, they appear so much more vital and healthy than pale women."

On the other hand, white male/black female and white male/Hispanic female marriages and relationships are quite rare in the United States, especially compared to the other way around. And there generally are no "access" issues as with Lebanese women in Australia
What's limiting the number of WM/BF and WM/HF relationships in the United States is not, as far as I can tell, any light male aversion to dark females, but rather a dark female lack of interest - not truly an aversion - in light males.

From a Tunisian lady's blog (leilouta.blogspot.com)

"Not only had I never heard a compliment in English, but I had never heard people giving compliments to dark eyed women in Tunisia, since we most of us have dark eyes.

My American friends started laughing one day when I told them that in my culture some signs of beauty are big eyes, pretty foreheads, and long clear necks. One said." forehead? Are you serious?"

Make of that what you will.

What do you mean by pretty forehead? High forehead (as opposed to Neanderthal low-brow). A high, sort of wide or square at the top forehead suggests intelligence, to me at any rate. Rebecca Romijn's is pretty. Although I understand that she is a poor academic student. Rebecca Weitz may be another forehead queen. She seems smarter as well.

Soon we'll all go back to studying phrenology. Long necks look graceful - and slender. Most ballerinas appear to have long necks. And, all else being equal, longer necks mean you are taller.

"Long necks look graceful - and slender. Most ballerinas appear to have long necks. And, all else being equal, longer necks mean you are taller."

Long necks may be desirable on women, but on men the "pencil neck" look is something to be avoided at all costs.

Hasn't Julia Roberts been a redhead throughout most of her career? It's just weird to hear her described as having dark coloring. She's been a redhead most of the time, hasn't she?

Also, I don't think Uma Thurman is a natural blonde. Maybe when she was a kid, but now it's definitely from a bottle. I wouldn't doubt if she had the kind of hair that turned blonde during the summer. She really used to be beautiful, but in the Kill Bill films she looked like a drowned rat. Awful. As she's aged she's lost too much weight in her face, so it looks awful. Renee Zellwegger is another ugly, ugly blonde. That girl is U-G-L-Y.

Has anyone else wondered if maybe blonde hair, blue eyes and light skin would just help people blend more with a polar environment? Like a lizard on a tree branch. Also, in Northern Europe where there's not any sun for months at a time, light coloring which reflects a lot of light, would just help you show up in the dark more.

Read 'em all and can't find anything "scientific" about any of the claims and counterclaims. So, let me give you a system that I've used for a lifetime of categorizing the fair sex (and an active lifetime it's been--knock on wood!)

"Light" and "dark" are superficial categories, only of importance in initial impressions (though that's of some importance, since there's gotta be an initial impression before any further impressions occur).

There are, essentially, five general types of women. And, as soon as I've run them down for you, you'll immediately recognize the truth--the undeniable scientific veracity--of what I'm sayin'.

The five types are, in no particular order:

1. bovine
2. porcine
3. canine
4. feline
5. lupine

None of these are disparaging terms; as a matter of fact, there are a significant fraction of women who fall into none of these categories--and such women would be, nearly universally, be considered "not very attractive." Virtually all "attractive" (to any degree) fall into one of these categories, though some seem to exhibit a glimpse of one other in the mix.

Now--and henceforth--you can re-(and more accurately) categorize. Just to start you off: Liz Taylor (now or younger)is a "bovine"; Marylyn Monroe is a porcine. You get the idea--and, once you've got the hang of it, you'll be every bit as good as me. And, you'll also notice that there are some general personality traits that are associated with the different types--nothing hard and fast but very general, like "maternal" and "placid disposition" being very frequent among the bovines, etc. One thing you won't find, however, is that certain of these types coincide with more superficial traits such as hair or skin color.

Have fun rearranging.

"The advantage of Internet forums like this one is that they permit open discussion of taboo subjects. The disadvantage is that people can engage in gratuitous insults without facing the usual consequences. If you, for example, were to talk the same way in normal face-to-face discussion, you would have probably lost a few teeth by now (and I suspect you don't have the physical brawn to back up your language)."

- I don't recall making any gratuitous insults of you, as distinct from your theory. [Amended: On first reading the above comment, I took it to be a threat of violence. But maybe I was overreacting, and I will give it the benefit of the doubt. But all readers please note that threats of violence are not permitted on this forum, and anyone making them will be immediately and permanently barred - David B.]

I've read Frost's paper. I actually find it quite interesting. It's certainly gotten me thinking. I believe he cites Flanagan and Rees for the claim that the color alleles at MC1R are partially dominant. So any claim that selection has acted directly on the hair phenotype is thereby made more plausible.

How exactly do redheads differ in paiin perception from the rest of us?

I noticed someone earlier commenting on blondes having a pungent body odor. I am gay and notice this frequently in men, but do any of you hetero males notice a similar pungency in natural blonde females as opposed to brunettes?

How exactly do redheads differ in paiin perception from the rest of us?


more sensitive.

FWIW, in my experience, blondes generally range along an axis that goes from stolid (Liv Ullman) to glitzy (innumerable flashy-trashy gals) to ditzy/flighty (Meg Ryan, Diane Keatonish types). I haven't known many blondes who'd qualify as force-of-nature/volcanic /earthy types.

Also FWIW, as someone who grew up among sandy-vanilla types and who has a sister and a wife who are blondes, but who spent many years dating flashing-eyed Jews and Italians, I'd say that fair-haired women often have *much* more delicate skin than darker-complected women do.

kennteoh: "not so much for the hue of blonde hair, but other phyical traits concomitant with it - these being coarse skin, a thin layer of fine follicles on the face and arms, and pungent body odor."

webpage via diana:"People with blond hair typically have more hair (average 140,000 hairs) than the average brunette (105,000 hairs) or redhead (90,000.)"

Blondes are able to have body hair that is less visible. Could this be an advantage? Hairy, but you don't look it.

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