HIPPY CHICK LIT:

Breathe in, girls: For two thousand years men have written about ladies with small waists (The Economist, Jan 11th 2007)

SOME gentlemen may prefer blondes, but almost all seem to like a waist to hip ratio of between 0.6 and 0.7. Breasts and bottoms should be substantial; waists should be slim. It should be the case all over the world and throughout human history. [...]

To make a stronger case for the theory, Dr Singh and his colleagues have turned to historical descriptions of beauties in the literature of Britain, China and India.

It is hardly poetic to write about a knockout's two-thirds ratio, nor equally appropriate across cultures to scribe complementary descriptions of bosoms and behinds, so the analysis focused on romantic references to female waists. Among the results, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, all 66 entries about waist size in the sample of British literature from the 16th to the 18th centuries described the waists as small or narrow--even though there were nearly four times as many romantic references to ladies who were plump overall, than there were to slim women.

Similarly, every beauty portrayed in first- to third-century Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, and in Chinese sixth dynastic Palace poetry, had a slender waist whenever that part of the body was mentioned. This is not proof, but it adds weight to the idea that men have been predictable since the beginning of time.

Maybe the last genuinely lively general interest magazine in America was New Times, where Frank Rich made his bones. It was liberal but not overly credulous, well-written and provocative. I subscribed with my allowance money for a couple years.

At any rate, I recall two cover stories they did. The first was on the Islamic Bomb. The worry then was that Pakistan had a nuclear program and once it had a bomb was going to put it to the service of the Islamic world. At the time that seemed such an odd worry. .. The other was about a concept I'd never even heard of: androgyny. Not only did it discuss the kinds of trends that would eventually gain the moniker "metrosexual," but it made the claim that just for evolutionary reasons the bodies of women would become more mannish and the hourglass figure would go the way of the powdered wig. As it would to any pubescent American male, that just seemed the most horrifying thing I'd ever heard in my life. It gave me night terrors for a while. Of course, back then we didn't realize yet that evolution was a complete crock.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 11, 2007 5:32 PM