Aphrodite Kallipygos, Plus Dr. C's (Pseudo)Science Corner

So, while trying to come up with blog topics for buttock augmentation, I came across the Aphrodite Kallipygos, who inspired me to write a series of blogs starting with "Does this Peplos Make My Butt Look Big?" about the appreciation of large buttocks in Western culture. I always knew that the Greek notions of what makes a woman attractive were ass-centric, but this statue of a woman lifting up her peplos to check out her own ass is classic.

Also interesting: a psychologist in Britain claims to have developed a formula for determining the aesthetic value of women's butts. Here it is:

(S+C)(B+F)/(T-V)

Where S is shape (highest rating: like a small peach), C is circularity (pair of pink grapefruits), B is bounce (doesn't quiver during aerobics), F is firmness to touch (latex-coated cricket ball), T is texture (like a baby's), and V is vertical ratio (like a pert pair of breasts). Apparently, the ideal number is around 80. Obviously, this is somewhat subjective, so it isn't really "scientific" (but when is psych ever?), but next time you go out to the bar, you can go up to a woman and tell her, "I'm trying to calculate the perfection of your ass, and the last data point I need is firmness to touch. May I?" See how that goes over.

This research is a nice complement to the breast biomechanics department at Portsmouth University. Let's hear it for the Brits!

Why Isn't Katy Perry Smiling?

Here is a pick of boombox babe Katy Perry on vacation. She's on the beach. She's in a bikini. She's on the beach. It's sunny and (presumably) warm. Q: Why isn't she smiling?




















A: That Corona obviously isn't cold enough. Perhaps someone can tell her where to get a colder one. . .

SPD's Gift Guide for Guys

Having trouble finding a gift for that man in your life? Here are a few ideas that are sure to go over well with guys of all ages.

Classic Erotica

Sure, he's read Fanny Hill, and can tell you all about the "vermillion-capped gentleman," and "any port in a storm," but it's likely that he's not familiar with anything between that and Anais Nin. Fill in the gaps in his knowledge with recent CHEAP editions of Victorian/Edwardian porn for his Kindle book reader. Titles include The Memoirs of a Voluptuary (an exciting bisexual tale), and The Erotic Adventures of Arabella. No matter how you feel about electronic texts, they do make available titles that no one would bother to print. And if he doesn't have a Kindle, hardcopies are available, too.

Sexy Calendars

Calendars, as a general rule, make terrible gifts, but a sexy calendar is a great gift. The calendar serves as a justification for having titillating pictures hanging around. And it will make it more fun for him to keep track of all your important dates. After all, when he's looking at Kim Kardashian's picture ten times a day, one of those times he's bound to notice that your anniversary is coming up.

Pinups Galore

What man doesn't love pinups? And now you can get all your favorite hot celebrities as pinups in the recent book Hollywood Pinups. This book has received some serious flak from Amazon users, but I think these people don't really understand pinups. Pinups are fun, flirty fantasies of impossible women. They are sexy, but really only at the same level as a wink. Pinups are not Penthouse centerfolds. They'll never be mistaken for a gynecological exam. Instead, pinups are idealizations of the feminine form to give men an everyday encounter with the kind of beauty that thrills on a visceral level.

If you want original pinups, you can always check out my favorite current pinup artist, Andrew Bawidamann, but if you want something from his shop, count on getting it for next Christmas--he's a one-man operation and can be a little slow to ship.

The Personal Touch

Feel weird giving your boyfriend or husband pictures of other women? Why not give him pictures of yourself? Used to be that if you wanted to have a sexy photo shoot, you needed to involve all kinds of people, but nowadays digital cameras and at-home publishing mean you can make your own sexy calendar or pinups. You may think he doesn't look at you that way anymore. Perhaps all he needs is a little reminder.

An Interesting Logo

This is the logo for the Healthcare Economist Blog. I guess I can accept that they'd pick a mountain to represent them (who doesn't love mountains?), but is it just me or does that mountain have a nipple?

Brits Get Special Treatment

While American gents were treated in their quarterly to much-promoted pics of Jennifer Aniston promoting her dumb dog movie














Their British counterparts were given a much better selection, with this sultry neo-noir spread of Jessica Biel.

















Jessica Biel has the distinction of being one of only two women to make both Maxim & FHM's top ten hottest women two years running (with Scarlett), and I think she's far more worthy than Aniston of receiving attention in a men's magazine.

Aniston definitely has gossip interest for some and certainly has her place in a woman's magazine, but to my mind Aniston hasn't been at all compelling since she ditched her Chotchkies' uniform.

Scarlett in Spirit

So I'm not particularly interested in Spirit. Independent of the strip (of which I know nothing), the movie looks like a lame attempt to recapture the success of Sin City. And since 300 made me wish someone would just cleave my head in half and get the whole thing over with, I really can't get excited about another Frank Miller piece.

But this promo pic of Scarlett Johansson is really hot. It makes me think that if I were a bachelor with no familial obligations on Christmas Day, I'd probably see the movie when it opens.

Not only is this a gorgeous representation of neo-retro-noir dangerous/sexy gals with the black, the hat, and the bright red lipstick, but Scarlett looks simply beautiful here. I'm very happy about the resurgence of Chix in Spex. Between Tina Fey, Sarah Palin, and now Scarlett, women are taking to big glasses in a big way. You just see it all around, and I like it.

And, of course, not to be ignored is Scarlett's cleavage, which once again shows the superiority of natural breasts over fakies. Natural breasts have a subtle curve to them, something inscrutable, the product of the dramatic interplay of flesh and gravity. And it is this subtle shape to which true breast men, with a fully developed sense of breasthetics, are drawn.

Fake breasts take the shape of the implant, namely "round," or, more properly, circular. They are the shape of breasts that you learn how to draw in third grade to amuse yourself and your friends, and they stimulate at about that level. Don't get me wrong--I won't eschew them altogether--but fake breasts are like Velveeta, a plastic parody of the real thing. Better than nothing, but not sufficient to satisfy your real craving.

Incidentally, ever wonder who's responsible for much of the sameness of Playboy, FHM, and Maxim model's breasts? Michael Ciarivino, "The Breast Doc," wants to take much of that credit. With his streamlined approach, he says, he can do boob jobs faster than anyone, does more than just about anyone, and really likes 'em big & "round." The more I see, the less impressed I am.

The Tender Flower

The other day I walked into a conversation about how men have "junk" "down there," but women have a "tender flower," which reminded me of this add I saw for vaginal rejuvenation, which I thought was funny and obscene, so I've reproduced it here for your edification.

And of course, it brings up the subject of euphemisms for a woman's "most tender part," which is always a fun one. I've found a couple of good websites, although unfortunately one of my favorites, "butter groove," is nowhere to be seen.

http://www.starma.com/penis/muffy/muffy.html has some interesting stuff, although the site has many more euphemisms for a man's "fearsome engine."

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQTyRGW4u_yI46ds6m9H6kZ2wtrQqb5Zi8-CUZKWvjrzsvA4Gr8GuJX_Xz9w1MT8FtvtxLt2zUVntqwfRDowoTYf2IfX2qE-GmMyMJnoVRMavklxuQA8KXaTI9B11SFrccCrzqfB26UVP/s1600-h/v.euphemism.png is a bar graph of survey results of women about their favorite quiffisms.

And, in case you didn't have enough trouble finding your way to the well, here's a word search for love box handles http://www.wordsearchfun.com/58859_Euphemisms_for_Vagina_wordsearch.html

Have fun.

Ginger Spices up Award Show

I don't spend too much time thinking about the Spice Girls. I unfortunately run across Posh Spice all the time as an occupational hazard b/c of her big fake boobs. It irritates me that anyone thinks that expressionless automaton is at all attractive, let alone a model of beauty that other women should strive to achieve.

Much more attractive is Ginger Spice, Geri Halliwell, who is also appropriate to this season of gingerbread houses and gingerbread men. It's nice that she's shed the fake glam image of the Spice Girls

for a much more comfortable one of hot mama.

Over the weekend, she created quite a stir when her red dress was caught in the wind, revealing to one and all that she was not wearing any panties. Although she received a lot of flack for this, even receiving an "embarrassing outfit of the day" award from a blogger, I say this is totally unjust.

This is no Britney-style, I'm too drunk to realize I'm flashing my cooter as I get out the car in my miniskirt. This is a woman whose outfit is tasteful and, I think, attractive, who decided either on the basis of comfort or on the way it fit with the skirt, to go without panties, and the wind caught her skirt. It happens. In fact, I think it gives a very positive message: even responsible mothers can (and should) go without panties every now and again, and if the wind gives people a free show, count it as a sign from God that he looked down and it was good.

Skinny v. Curvy and Tits Aplenty

SvC is a blog I read pretty frequently. I discovered it when i was looking for material related to the Sex in the City movie, when there was an entry on Kristen Davis, who, apparently, showed how best to dress for the pear-shaped body. It said she had come to terms with her body partly by learning to dress for what she had and stop wanting what she didn't.

Since then, I've discovered that this blog, while superficial, is pretty good for collecting pics of celebrities in all forms of dress and using them as the focus of aesthetic discussions about what makes women beautiful. Since I like that topic, I return frequently, both for work and recreation.

So one day I came across this breast showdown. Now, Megan Fox may ostensibly be the hottest woman on the planet but to me the winner here is a no-brainer. Salma Hayek has some of the best breasts on the planet. There are a lot of things to like about Megan Fox, and they did a nice job of making her look pretty good in Transformers, which was considerate of them because otherwise there wouldn't have been anything worth looking at. But her breasts are nothing special. With all due respect to the readers of InTouch magazine, they certainly are not among the top ten pairs of celebrity breasts.

What surprised me about this post though, was that a number of readers commented that Hayek's breasts sagged too much. Really. It's pretty unbelievable. I guess there are a lot of people out there who don't understand that real breasts, natural breasts, if they are of any size at all, have a certain heft to them. They acquire a shape that is a geometric compromise of forces between gravity, mass, internal cohesion and skin elasticity that is not only natural, but is generally considered attractive. That shape is highly convex on the bottom, slighly concave on the top, with the two curves meeting at around the nipple/areola complex. You can squeze them flat to create convexity on top, which has its appeal in certain situations, but is overall not a really attractive look, in my opinion. However, according to a recent survey by the American Society of Plastic Surgery, that's how many women think their breasts really should look all the time.

Real breast sagging is only when both the concave and convex hyperbolae grow steeper, the meeting of the two descends, and the breasts grow flatter. I don't see any of that here. Just a pair of really beautiful breasts.

If you go to SvC to look at this post, you might also look at the ones about Hollywood Pinups (including Kate Hudson!) to get a preview of a future subject . . .