The Science of Sex Appeal

Last night, I spent a good chunk of my evening sucked into watch the Discovery Channel’s “The Science of Sex Appeal.”  If you haven’t seen it and have two hours to spare, I highly recommend it.  It is a very scientific look into such a common experience.  They go from determining the most appeal body shape in the eyes of the opposite sex, to the effect of a person’s voice, to what makes us fall in love, and eventually what keeps humans in love.  Essentially, it seemed like everything boiled down to finding someone to mate with.  When asking men about their preferred body type, the researchers found that the ratio of 7 (wasit) to 10 (hips) was the most preferred because it was the healthiest for carrying children.  They had women smell men’s sweat at different periods in their cycle to show that women were most attracted to males when they were ovulating.  They also found that dopamine is the drug released when we are in love that keeps us connected to our significant other.  It was certainly interesting enough to keep me glued to the tv during finals week, but it makes me a little nervous that love and attraction can be boiled down to hormones and such a primative drive as the desire to produce offspring.

Feel free to watch clips of it here to see if you are fascinated by the science of sex appeal or if it makes you a little nervous too

some things never change?

Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bee’s and Wannabes casts types of girls to populate the high school halls, which include the Queen Bee, the Banker (she holds all the information that could ruin another girl!), the Torn Bystander, and of course, the Wannabe.  I’ll definitely be writing more on the book later, but I just wanted to mention that maybe some things never change?  There’s a new season of the show High School Reunion, which as you can guess, reunites high school classmates 20 years later.  Although the new season hasn’t started yet, the commercial features the classmates in terms of their categorized High School selves.  This places the people in terms of “The Player,” “The Snob,” and of course, “The Wannabe.”  It’s shocking that years later people are still willing to go under the same label as they were unofficially placed in in high school and even act accordingly once they’ve been replaced in that category.

words of advice

“College is all about hookups and having tons of having meaningFUL sex. You can settle down when you’re forty, drive a porsche, and have hair in the most unseemly of places. But for now, carpe diem spitter. carpe the volleyball team.”

-Cappy, from abcfamily’s Greek, giving advice to one of his pledge brothers.

“What if Prince Charming had never showed up? Would Snow White have slept in that glass coffin forever? Or would she have eventually woken up, spit out the apple, gotten a job, a health-care package, and a baby from her local neighborhood sperm bank?”

-Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

peace out hannah montana

I’m a little embarassed to admit that I’ve seen my fair share of Hannah Montana episodes. Interning at a DV shelter last summer and babysitting the young girls in the house gave me the opportunity to watch the blonde/brunette teen queen under the guise of work. But what I’m more embarassed to tell you is that I enjoyed watching the show. It was enjoyable in that good ol’ clean fun kind of way. Fortunately, the novelty of the show eventually wore off for me. But that is certainly not the case for the millions of pre-teen girls who are absolutely obsessed with Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus.

But after reading this article on eonline.com, it seems that we might have a pre-pubescent riot on our hands if Miley decides to leave her pop star counterpart behind.

In my pop culture saturated life, I feel like I have seen this trend before. See Britney Spears and Hilary Duff. It seems like as the actress grows up, she no longer wants to be associated with the kind of clean cut persona that brought her fame to begin with. It’s almost like a teenage rebellion against parents, but instead, it is against their parent companies and young fans that adore them.

90210!

So last Tuesday from 8 to 10pm, you could have found me perched on the end of my bed watching the series premiere of 90210. I’m pretty sure you don’t understand my particular excitement for this show. I was an avid viewer of the classic 90210, even though I was far too young to be watching Brenda Walsh lose her virginity to Dylan Mackay at prom, Kelly Taylor join a cult, David Silver get all hopped up on speed, or anything that Varlerie Malone did.

So what did I think of the new series?! I thought it was fully enjoyable. There’s a familiarity in the new cast that definitely draws me in.

But I think there is something to take note of in the differences of the two casts. I pulled up these images from google that are pretty striking (and not just for the horrible 90s fashion!)

Economics of Love

Win Ben Stein's Money

A couple of days ago I came upon this article by Ben Stein in the NYT. Ben Stein, lovingly known to my generation for “Win Ben Stein’s Money” and his various movie roles, is known to my parents as a prominent American lawyer and former speech writer for President Nixon. What really caught my eye about this article was that it involves two of my favorite things: love and economics. Strange, you may say, but it makes sense once you consider that I am an economics major who is obsessed with supply and demand curves and a product of Disney movies where young children were taught that true love was just a glass slipper away.

Stein poses a great opening sentence: “What could be scarcer or more precious than love? It is rare, hard to come by and often fragile.” I thnk anyone you ask – from the Sunday morning girl on her walk of shame/no shame/glory home to the woman on eharmony.com to the newlywed bride – will agree to the scarcity of love.

So to sum up Stein’s points, he tells us:

Seven strangers, picked to live in a house

I’ve grown up well into the MTV generation and I can’t remember a time when The Real World wasn’t on television. One of the first examples of reality television, The Real World puts seven strangers, picked to live in a house, work together, have their lives taped. I think it’s pretty interesting to see how over the past 15 years The Real World has changed, paying particular interest to the hook-up culture portrayed. Although the older seasons portrayed the casual hook ups that took place in the house, it seems that the newer seasons put their primary focus on it. I remember things in the Miami house (1996) that involved a supposed threesome in a shower and the Las Vegas house where hooking up was rampant.

Having not watched this season too carefully, but having seen enough to get to know the characters and (semi)understand the reasons behind their actions, I think The Real World: Denver is a really interesting look on today’s hook-up culture.

just a little fun

Last night’s episode of “House” went into the story line of co-workers Dr. Cameron (female) and Dr. Chase (male) pursuing a purely sexual relationship. Their sexual relationship began one night while both were high on drugs but now continues as a very casual relationship. They have sex on a patient’s bed and continue to flirt throughout the day at work.

But at the very end of the episode, Chase declares that he wants more than what they currently have. It is a stereotypical role reversal because instead of the woman wanting more than just sex, it is the man who wants emotions involved in the relationship.

Initally, I thought that it was a great example of the women that Stepp is writing about in her book.