Boobonomics

Here is a good description of how agents create value for their clients’ nude pics.  It’s written by Janice Turner of the Times online:

A friend who spends his life negotiating with the agents of glamour models explained to me the principles of “boobonomics”. Let’s assume a pretty girl, who has been snapped in her bikini for a local newspaper, seeks a big-time career. Her agent phones a men’s magazine and proposes for a given sum, say £3,000 [ed: that's $5,800 USD or 3,800 Euros], that she pose in lingerie.

If she’s a hit with the readers, her agent will then suggest that for a greater sum, say £5,000 [ed: that's $9,700 USD or 6,300 Euros], she will pose topless, but with her nipples concealed by her cupped fingers (“hand bra”). Subsequently her fee will rise for each coy permutation: “hair bra” or “girl-on-girl bra” (two models face to face shielding each other’s breasts). Eventually, once this dance of the seven thongs has been exhausted and readers are believed to be slavering with anticipation, the agent will propose that for a huge sum say £50,000 [ed: $97,000 USD or 63,000 Euros] the girl will finally reveal all.

But the harshest principle of boobonomics is that after this shoot, the value of the girl’s assets which is what they are in a technical, business sense collapses. From this point she will only receive £20K for full topless, a sum she only recently received for showing far less. Her product life cycle is reaching an end. Now, however, agents have a new strategy for reviving the brand, rather as when Kit Kat launched peanut or orange-flavoured variants. He proposes that his client have a breast enlargement: would the magazine be interested in the first pictures, you know, when the scars have healed? The going rate for new knockers will never match her initial “reveal”, but raises her value momentarily to, say, £35,000. Jordan, the Milton Friedman of boobonomics, has amassed a great fortune increasing her breast size by increments in three operations.

 

Hat tip: http://arandomwalk.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

I had never heard the term “hand bra”. 

As a bonus, the article alerted me to a website I have never heard of: Assess My Breasts.  It’s sort of like the “are you hot or not” website, only for topless pics.  Women send in topless pics and people rate them.

What’s Wrong with a Post-pregnancy Tummy Tuck?

I came across the following article in Newsweek that reviews a picture book written to explain to young children their mother’s upcoming plastic surgery:

When she was pregnant with her son Gabriela Acosta ballooned from 115 pounds to 196. Acosta lost the weight but wound up with stretched, saggy skin. Even her son noticed it. He told her that her stomach looked “pruney,” the result, he thought, of staying in the shower too long. So the 29-year-old stay-at-home mom scheduled a consultation with Dr. Michael Salzhauer, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Bal Harbour, Fla.

Acosta told Salzhauer that she wasn’t sure how to talk to her son about the procedures she was considering. That’s when he showed her the manuscript for his children’s picture book, “My Beautiful Mommy” (Big Tent Books), out this Mother’s Day. It features a perky mother explaining to her child why she’s having cosmetic surgery (a nose job and tummy tuck). Naturally, it has a happy ending: mommy winds up “even more” beautiful than before, and her daughter is thrilled.

The reassuring tale helped win Acosta over—she scheduled breast augmentation and a tummy tuck…

What’s the market for a children’s picture book about moms getting cosmetic surgery? No one specifically tracks the number of tummy-tuck-and-breast-implant combos (or “mommy makeovers,” as they’re called), but according to the latest numbers from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation was the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure last year, with 348,000 performed (up 6 percent over 2006). Of those, about one-third were for women over 40 who often opt for implants to restore lost volume in their breasts due to aging or pregnancy weight gain. There were 148,000 tummy tucks—up 1 percent from the previous year.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132240

I take no position regarding explaining this stuff to the kids.  I’m passing along part of the article because it talks about the possible effects of childbearing on a woman’s body and efforts to remedy those effects.

I think many people in this country have an unreasonable antipithy toward cosmetic surgery.  I see nothing wrong with the woman in this article having a tummy tuck.  It restored her to her pre-pregnancy appearance.  It made her more appealing to her husband.  It’s a win-win situation and people shouldn’t complain about it. 

But a lot of people, especially women, are aghast at a woman having cosmetic surgery.    They seem to want to create a climate that discourages cosmetic surgery.  I don’t see why it is virtuous to go to the gym several times a week for a year or two to make yourself look better, but terrible to go to a surgeon for a tummy tuck.

Are couples happier where the woman is more attractive than the man?

Are couples happier where the woman is more attractive than the man?

I want to discuss another topic from the Kanazawa article discussed on the Psychology Today blog (discussion and link in my post immediately below).  He asserted:

…couples in which the woman is more attractive than the man are happier than the couples in which the man is more attractive than the woman. Why is this?

It is therefore quite natural that a man (whether he himself is handsome or ugly) who is married to an attractive wife is happier than a man who is married to an ugly wife, because it means that his attractive wife has a high mate value. Similarly, since physical attractiveness is not what women seek in their long-term mates (husbands), even though it is what they seek in their short-term mates (lovers), having a handsome husband will not necessarily make a woman happy with her husband or marriage, unless he is rich and powerful as well.

   

As we explain extensively in Chapter 3 of our book Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (“Barbie — Manufactured by Mattel, Designed by Evolution: The Evolutionary Psychology of Sex and Mating”), women’s mate value is primarily a function of their youth and physical attractiveness, whereas men’s mate value is primarily a function of their wealth and status. Men prefer to marry women who are young and beautiful, and women prefer to marry men who are rich and powerful. Of course, you don’t need no stinkin’ evolutionary psychologists to tell you that; your illiterate and uneducated great-grandmother, who never in her life set foot outside of her small village, knew that a hundred years ago. But she didn’t know why; we need evolutionary psychology to figure out why.

 

 

 What are your thoughts on these points? 

Why Did The Senator’s Husband Go To A Hooker?

No, not THAT senator. You thought I was talking about Hillary and Bill Clinton, didn’t you? The husband of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow apparently went to a hooker for a fifteen minute bout of sex. This sort of thing has been in the news a lot lately, and every woman I’ve talked to asks why these men would have sex with a prostitute.

I know nothing about the Stabenows’ marriage (actually, I don’t think they are referred to as “the Stabenows” because he has a different last name, so I’ll call them the couple). So I actually do not know why he had sex with a prostitute. But one possible explanation occurs to me. I will post a pic of this 21 year old prostitute and a pic of the 57 year old Debbie Stabenow:

I’m not condoning this; just trying come up with a possible answer to the oft-repeated question why. Men like to have sex with young, attractive women. I would also point out that the Senator was quite a bit older than her husband.

Should You Marry A Russian Woman?

You had to have been living in a Ted Kazinski type hut in the Montana wilderness, without access to television, the Internet, or magazines not to have a pretty good idea that there are a lot of beautiful Russian women. Here’s a bit of an article in slate by Anne Applebaum for those who doubt this:

Where Did All Those Gorgeous Russians Come From?

There was a particular historical moment, round about 1995 or so, when anyone entering a well-appointed drawing room, dining room, or restaurant in London was sure to encounter a beautiful Russian woman. Though the word beautiful doesn’t really capture the phenomenon. The women I’m remembering were extraordinarily, unbelievably, stunningly gorgeous.

http://www.slate.com/id/2182947/

A great many attractive Russian women would like to get married to guys outside Russia. For an interesting movie concerning this, take a look at “Two Brothers and a Bride”. The question is, should you consider dating/marrying one of these women?

When confronted with this topic, American women will, almost to a woman, really, really hate this idea. If you even bring it up in front of one of them, you will usually get one or all of the following responses:

1. The Russian women are only in this to get to the US. They will treat you badly, divorce you, slip you a mickey and cut out one of your kidneys to sell it on the black market, etc.

2. You must want to control one of these docile women. Note that responses one and two here are mutually exclusive. Either the Russian woman is conniving and ruthless or she is a passive victim; she’s unlikely to be both.

3. You must be such a loser that American women wouldn’t date you so you have to get a Russian woman.

As evidence for argument number one, they sometimes point to Lorena Bobbit and some friend of a friend who married a Russian girl. And they often issue a blanket generalization about Russian women (generally without ever having known one).

I’m familiar with these responses because one of my friends dated Russian girls he met online. I would occasionally mention the subject to female acquiantences. That is a mistake I no longer make. In fact, bringing this up to the vast majority of American women is very much like saying to a United Auto Worker’s Union guy, “How about those Honda Accords? They last forever and almost never break down!”

Great Site

Here is a great new website: the 50 hottest female athletes.  Here’s a sample, of a swimmer I had never heard of:

http://www.popcrunch.com/the-50-hottest-women-of-sports-1-10/

The site also has a rundown of the colleges with the hottest girls.  They’re all in the sunbelt (Ariz. St., USC, FL St., U of F., etc.).  So if there are any teenage guys reading this, don’t pay so much attention to the US News and World Report annual rankings of colleges.  This ranking is way more helpful.

http://www.popcrunch.com/hottest-student-bodies-top-50-universities-ranked-by-looks/

The Three Jessicas

I would like to follow up on the Ginger vs. Mary Ann post. I understand that today’s version involves the three Jessicas.

Jessica Alba.

Jessica Biel.

Jessica Simpson.

Who would you pick? Although all three would rate very low on Mr. Sensitive’s scale, my selection would be Jessica Alba.

…now if you want to discuss Heather Locklear vs. Heather Thomas.

Marriage vs. Prostitution

I guess that I need to throw my two cents on the Eliot Spitzer affair (pun intended). I’ve never been a big fan of marriage. In fact, I’m convinced that it is nothing more than male slavery (more on that in a later post). But look at it from poor Eliot’s side. He wakes up every morning next to that same plain looking block of wood also known as his wife. You might have seen her standing next to Eliot looking like a hurt puppy while he apologizes for his misdeeds. But think about it for a minute. Could you really see her as someone who straps her freak on in the bedroom?

Didn’t think so.

So Eliot wants a little excitement in his life. He’s tired of looking at the same ragged dishtowel that used to be the hot young babe he fell in love with so long ago. You know that ploy that women use to trap men into marriage. Long, flowing hair. Make up that is perfectly applied. A body that is slender and athletic looking. Wild monkey sex on numerous occasions throughout the week.

Now?

Hair that is short and easy to manage (when she decides to do something with it). Little or no make up which exposes the imperfections, creases, winkles, etc. Ten to fifteen pounds that gets strapped to her ass and thighs every year.

And sex?

Maybe on your birthday.

When she’s in the mood.

Poor Eliot didn’t have a choice. His wife pushed him off that cliff.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m convinced that most married men will cheat on their wives if there is absolutely no chance that they’ll get caught. We can’t help it. It is our divine right to plant our seed in fertile ground. We must have sex otherwise our heads will implode. This basic concept is part of our DNA. Who are you to argue with the evolutionary process?

Eliot did what any normal man (with a shitload of money) would have done under the same circumstances. He just got caught. And every single guy across this country had the exact same thought about Kristin…

…damn she’s hot.

Take Advantage of Your Looks

Nearly everyone in the United States has given his opinion on the Eliot Spitzer affair. I couldn’t help but give mine. I want to discuss just one topic raised by this episode. No doubt most of us were stunned when we read that guys were spending thousands of dollars for an hour of sex with one of these girls (and way more for time with two of these girls, but that’s a topic for another day).

The call girl, Kristin (I think her name is actually Ashley, but I’ll refer to her as Kristin because I like the name better), is extraordinarily attractive.

 

It’s not surprising that beautiful women use their beauty to make money. In most occupations few people complain when beautiful women use their beauty to make lots of money. Few people carp and complain about beautiful models getting paid thousands of dollars a day just to pose for pictures.

And for those models who may comment huffily that it’s way more than just standing there, I realize you might have to get up very early in the morning to go to a photo shoot, sit there while makeup is applied to you, etc. But it ain’t exactly like being a coal miner or a roofer in Florida in the summer heat. So don’t complain to me. You might get a more sympathetic ear if you complain to Mr. Practical though. He’s very empathetic to models.

The Unknown Supermodel

Like any (straight) guy, I have a strong appreciation of uber-hot celebrity chicks. I tend to like the supermodel type—tall, long-legged, beautiful face—more than any other, and I’ve certainly had crushes on quite a few. From childhood to now, I’ve adored such models as Christie Brinkley, Paulina Porizkova, Linda Evangelista, Nadja Auermann, Adriana Sklenarikova, Rebecca Romijn, and Adriana Lima.

One model never quite made that list, and I think I just figured out why. Her name is Daniela Pestova. Sound familiar? No? Well, you may be surprised to learn that not only is she a top Victoria’s Secret Model, but also a regular on Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and on catwalks on, well, wherever the hell they have fashion shows.

I’d seen her before and definitely noticed her beauty, but for whatever reason she never really registered with me. Recently, for whatever reason, I googled her and looked at her pictures and figured something out:

She’s perfect.

She’s too perfect, if that is possible. Every supermodel I have ever seen has some defining characteristic that is either unusual or perhaps even a “flaw”. Cindy Crawford’s mole is unusual. Evangelista’s knobby knees are a flaw (she’s even admitted she hates them). Any and every supermodel I’ve ever seen has one or many defining characteristics.

But not Daniela. She is, to my eyes, absolutely perfect. She looks to me like what God decided was going to be a woman, and the rest of women could genetically diversify from that.

Anyway, that is my excuse for slighting her all these years (she is 37 now and nearing the end of her career), but I am more than happy to make up for it by making her my first ever “Mr. Practical’s Babe of The Day”.

While she looks stunning (as usual) in this picture, take a moment and do a search for her using Google images and see all the photos of her you can. You will be amazed.