Mathematics After The Fall

I’ve had this conversation a few times, but someone asked me again recently. It’s about female beauty, what American males find attractive. I’ve spoken with people in my department originally from Asia, because the ideas told to me by Koreans and Chinese differ so much from this country’s. (When I say “Asian” in this musing, I mean Chinese-Korean.) It’s relevant at least tangentially to the transcendentals. If I wanted to reach, I could muse on the design behind sexuality. After all, scientists don’t know the full meaning of the “pleasure moment”, as MSNBC summarizes. Even I have hormones, though that likelihood is pretty slim, isn’t it? Nevertheless, this is not about reaching or hoping, just about the topic.

From what I’ve been told, there’s a look that is dominant. The Asian aspiration is what I’ll label “pixie girl”. While the pixie costume with wings and curves and stockings can be enticing, that’s not what I mean. The pixie girl is very small, extremely thin, girlish in her looks. Clear, dolllike skin is very important, as is the smile. The clothes are short, not feminine as much as girlish and dollike: bright colors, capris, ruffled skirts. Maybe this Old Navy page shows the look best, particularly the animation. Even the “full” pants are short of the ankle, like someone growing, like a teenager. And that’s the pixie girl look - not fully developed, not confident. Perpetually sixteen, or eighteen if you’re worried about legalities.

It drives women to extravagence, to the perpetual pursuit of size zero. Thinner and smaller, constantly, almost fading away. I can’t stand it. The words that describe pixie girl are weak - youthful, naive, innocent, virginal, fragile. Perhaps they’re appropriate for women in male-dominant, hierarchical cultures. I will admit some appeal for innocence; after all, even if I marry, I may not kiss more than one woman. But there’s not much desire for immature youth. I don’t need a submissive, or someone fragile, for that doesn’t make a good partner. The pixie girl misses, or deliberately denies, the maturity that forms an attractive woman. I’m glad the American male standard has other beauties besides waif.

What do I mean by other beauties? “Bikini girl” is the opposite of pixie, yet still problematic. Also known as a pin-up girl, this women is extremely curvy, threatening to burst out of something formfitting. Again, don’t get me wrong; I am not against bikinis, and this journal is not afraid of sensuality. Part of the reason for my weight loss this year is to look less out of place around beaches. It just seems that the potential beauty has been overly distorted. Historically, the first “Bikini Girl” is Brigitte Bardot (a real girl, 19 in this photo). For most Americans, Marilyn Monroe is the classic. There are plenty of modern examples - just look at magazine covers at any newsstand. Yet like the pixie girl, this drives women to extravagence, to the perpetual pursuit of size “DD”. There are thousands upon thousands of American augmentations each year, and products that mechanically lift and frame and do other things, seemingly as complex as bridge-building. Brigitte Bardot was only moderately endowed, and even the classic Marilyn was not even a “D”. Like the pixie girl, this is another standard unrealistic for most women. It’s over-developed, not natural. Perpetually a airbrushed photo from a magazine.

But is this the fault of the people pursuing the goal? Partially, yes, but not fully. After all, much of beauty is fixed upon attracting the opposite gender; in this case, men. We men have failed. We’ve lost imagination. By that, I don’t mean dreams twinged with lust, or even dreams twinged with hope like Charlie Brown’s. Rather, I mean subtlety and grace. There are probably thousands of places on the Internet where one can see nude women; as several articles have pointed out, “adult entertainment” is usually one of the first industries into new technology, like the VCR and the Internet. The women are instinctually physically attractive. But that doesn’t engage the thoughtful portions of our brains. Maybe for some men those aren’t the powerful parts. For me, they are.

What is thoughtfully attractive? It’s when a women shows her figure, and her beauty, and leaves it to me to find desire. Part of that is knowing the figure, what flatters a particular lady best. There are pixie girls, and bikini girls, but not many. More power to them. For most women, the concept of beauty is elegance, confidence, and poise. Let me give two examples. I know a graduate student who is classically pretty - 5′5″, 112 or so pounds, size 2. Her look one day was the classical; small heels, black pants, and a fashionable peach sleeveless shirt. But the form is just right, to show the figure, and it exposes perhaps an inch of stomach when she moves. Usually nothing, but once in a while the navel, enough to see the healthy flatness and proper curves. Or someone I saw a few weeks ago. Probably a grad student, looked like late twenties, American, average height and typical weight - I’d guess size 6, maybe 4. She wore jeans, remarkable only for the proper fit, not so tight as to be constrictive, but not so loose as to miss the figure. And the shirt was a woman’s white dress shirt, but it was right. It ended at her waist, flaring out and accentuating her hips. Two buttons were open, not enough to see a bra, but enough to suggest that it could happen. Again, imagination. The woman wasn’t perfect physically, or even the best body I saw that day, but it’s something I’ve remembered a month later. Why? Because she thought, she cared, and it worked.

I’m never going to be a fashion designer, and despite my learned ability to judge women’s clothes sizes, not an expert am I. I probably don’t speak for most men. But perhaps I can bring imagination back to clothing. And if I move someone, anyone, away from unhealthy dieting and obsession, well then I’ve done goodness, and helped beauty, through truth - all parts of the transcendental trifecta.

It’s been too long since I’ve been held, in a “Giant Hug”. How might I describe it? I’m not great at verbal description, so I apologize if the next paragraph doesn’t do justice. I’m writing it to remind me of positive times. I’m posting it because I’m frustrated by modern Manicheans, who try “to set the light-substance free from the pollution of matter.” The Giant Hug is an example of how the physical creates the transcendent. Here goes.

To start face to face, come in on the hip, and wrap arms around each other. More than arms, chest to chest, maybe head on shoulders. Not so tight to squeeze out the light, but close enough to form a place, just for two, sheltered from the world. A place safe, comfortable, whole and encompassing; to trust enough to close off the outside. The place can’t exist forever, but for a minute, it’s bare and open to feeling. Perhaps it’s consolation, support and empathy. Perhaps it’s friendship beyond the verbal. Perhaps it’s the reunion of lovers. The pure emotion is violent, it should not seep outside the dual circle, yet bystanders are drawn to gaze. They glimpse the fullness, the transcendent. But the eternal minute passes, and it’s time to return, reluctantly, to the universe. Yet, as the pair breaks apart, there’s the comfort of touch, hands lingering before letting go.

I’ve been sick for the last week or so, with the bacteria that love to challenge me. That means I’ve been online more than normal, in between naptimes. Among other things, I found a nice guide to Interstates and iSwiff, which lets me download Flash games to play. There’s a Prince of Persia level, among others. Those distractions, amusing as they may be, are not the point of this musing. They’re just peanuts. Of course, so is the topic, just Peanuts. Even 5 years after Charles Schulz’s death, the strip still appears, as Classic reruns, in most newspapers. Upfront, I’ll state that Peanuts was never my favorite strip. I’m a Calvin and Hobbes guy through and through, and if you wanted to get me a gift the Complete three-volume set would be wonderful. Nowadays, I’d pick Get Fuzzy. While this may be interesting, I’m mostly interested in the story, a specific story that originally ran in 1969 and was repeated the last two weeks, beginning on July 18. If you weren’t reading, it’s about a moving van, taking away the family of one of Charlie Brown’s neighbors, the little red-haired girl.

Who is the little-red haired girl? Officially, she’s never been fully viewed in the strip. She did appear, as a girl named Heather, in one television program in the 1970s. However, Schulz didn’t have creative control over the TV, and didn’t approve of the First Kiss. In the printed strip, she has appeared once, in May 1998, but only in silhouette. In Schulz’s reality, in 1947, he met Donna Mae Johnson. He was an art instructor; she was a pretty redhead in the school’s accounting department. He courted her, but she turned him down, eventually marrying someone else. It’s generally acknowledged that Donna is the conceptual girl, but since we never canonically see her, her visage is one that we develop. I may have mine, which differs from yours.

Over the past two weeks, we saw Linus point out the moving truck. Charlie Brown broods, for he thought he had plenty of time, until the seventh or sixth grade, maybe even the senior prom. (One of the strange things about Peanuts is that we accept that the kids have concepts like crushes from post-puberty, even though they’re no more than eight.) He never spoke to her, the little red-haired girl. Charlie Brown just watches the van leave, then the station wagon with her family, and just screams. Linus yells at him - “All you ever do is just stand there! You drive everybody crazy, Charlie Brown!” His sister tries to entice him home with a big bowl of wishy-washy pudding. Afterwards, he remarks to Linus, “If she were here, I could tell her how much I like her, and ask her to hold my hand … and we could be friends, and do things together, and …” Linus just kicks him.

Chuck’s crush moves back a few years later, so she’s still around for plot devices. For almost 40 years, Charlie Brown pines for her; he dreams that the little red-haired girl will put a valentine in his box, or maybe she’ll introduce herself to him, or maybe he’ll make the move. Even with another girlfriend, during 1990 and 1991, he’s still torn. Some things change, like Peppermint Patty giving a correct answer (1980), or Charlie Brown hitting a home run (1993), but never the red-haired girl. She always remains off in the distance. We tend to see this as unrequited love, as timidity or fear or opportunity lost. That’s the straightforward response. Maybe it was just hallucination from falling asleep in a pile of my dirty laundry (an experience I do not recommend, no matter what cats do), but I’d like to hope that some little part of Charlie Brown’s head was thinking. Not overanalyzing Peanuts with Sartre references in a Philosophy Now approach, but realizing some facts.

That small part of Charlie Brown’s brain with great insight could be reasoning beyond timidity. It knows about the full commitment necessary for happily ever after, and knew to embark on that journey wounded would be unfair. Or maybe that part could see that the little red-haired girl wasn’t ready to undertake a romantic relationship, and pressuring her now would not work. Not everyone is ready at a given time - there’s school and family and church and other parts of a healthy life. Maybe he knew something about her which would make it extremely difficult for her to commit. Linus and the others couldn’t know, because telling would break confidence; he takes the kick as honor. Maybe he feels that the current state of the relationship is best for her, that love means not causing pain, or leading to a place that might cause pain. Yes, Charlie Brown suffers, but keeping suffering away from others, paying the cost himself, is a truly honorable position. Maybe he just wants to be a decent example of a man, to counteract crude, rough guys like the schoolyard bully.

In this argument, if I were to poll, I would suspect the vast majority of Americans would prefer Shakespeare’s motto - “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” - instead of Charlie Brown’s. Why? What’s wrong with the blockhead? What’s wrong with dignified honor? What’s wrong with stoic bearing? (I tread carefully here, because stoic moroseness is horribly wrong. Charlie Brown still searches for happiness and joy, just taking his pains mostly privately.) In so many situations, the American impulse is to avoid challenge, to make everything comfortable and safe. Yet in romance we expect extreme aggression. It makes no sense. I won’t defend timidity, if that is the true basis of Charlie Brown. But keeping a dream, keeping the peace, keeping things understated - sometimes that’s alright. Not everything can become happily ever after.