# Did people love obese women in the past? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 1, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920 "2012-07-01T18:06:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Standarduser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@Standarduser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standarduser)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/1 "2012-07-01T18:06:16Z")
Is it a myth, or a fact? ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/2 "2012-07-01T18:46:31Z")
Yes. Just like they do today. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/3 "2012-07-01T18:48:32Z")
It’s true. In the past, larger women were considered more attractive (and more likely to be of a higher income level, because they could afford the food.) Larger women were more likely to be able to have children and make it through famine. Look at art from centuries ago, and many of the models are (by 21st century standards) quite large. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/4 "2012-07-01T18:52:45Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Look at art from centuries ago, and many of the models are (by 21st century standards) quite large. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/5 "2012-07-01T19:02:00Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Cite? Ever heard of [Rubens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Three_Graces,_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/6 "2012-07-01T19:14:54Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Ever heard of [Rubens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Three_Graces,_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg)? The word “rubenesque” probably wouldn’t have developed had Rubens’s art not been an obvious outlier. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/7 "2012-07-01T19:41:49Z")
Rubens’ voluptuaries were a reaction against centuries of wan, thin women (such as those by Cranach the Elder). But it wasn’t about beauty: thin/skeletal figures were in those paintings to support the Church’s view that starvation and suffering in general is virtuous. Rubens and the (Northern) Rennaisance was saying “fuck that. Bring on the chubby babes and have 'em feed me grapes!” While fashions seesaw, and 1890’s 200-lb music hall beauties are replaced by 1920’s flapppers, then by 1950 starlets with ball-peen tits, then Twiggy, then 1980’s jazzercise hardbodies with shoulders pads… The cynic on me notes that there has always been one constant ideal in feminine fuckability: and it’s the woman just this side of pedophilia. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/8 "2012-07-01T19:44:46Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Ever heard of [Rubens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Three_Graces,_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg)? Those women are definitely fleshy but I’m not sure I’d go so far as “obese.” ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/9 "2012-07-01T20:00:54Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > The word “rubenesque” probably wouldn’t have developed had Rubens’s art not been an obvious outlier. I doubt ‘rubenesque’ was used until long after Rubens died and fashions changed towards thinner women. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/10 "2012-07-01T20:32:36Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I doubt ‘rubenesque’ was used until long after Rubens died and fashions changed towards thinner women. I’m sure it didn’t but regardless, most of Rubens’s contemporaries were not in the habit of depicting women who were as voluptuous as he painted. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/11 "2012-07-01T20:40:49Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Yes. Just like they do today. \<3 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/12 "2012-07-01T20:45:38Z")
Would the OP clarify what he/she means by obese, and who we’re talking about in “the past”? In general, super-skinny is not the norm for attractive in human women, nor is the-fatter-the-better. There is plenty of cultural and individual variation, though, and it’s not like everybody was the same in the past any more than they are now. All that I think it’s safe to say is that the portrayal of attractive women in visual media in popular culture in the contemporary Western world (and recent past) is thinner than seems to be the norm for human beings as a whole. I don’t even think that reflects our OWN culture, much less some break with an imagined past. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/13 "2012-07-01T20:46:08Z")
How confident can we be that old paintings showed what was the standard of beauty at the time? Is there a clear paper trail that rules out “politics”? I sometimes wonder if a painter knew that it would be expedient to praise the body type of the queen or his patron’s wife, even if it didn’t represent what he or most people at the time considered to be the most beautiful body type. On a similar note, how pale was fashionably pale skin? Was it common for someone to go too far and end up looking silly? Nowadays we certainly see a number of people who go too far in their efforts to get a fashionable tan and end up looking all orangy. We have people snickering, “He looks like an Oompa-Loompa!”; did they have people snickering, “She looks like a corpse!”? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/14 "2012-07-01T20:50:40Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > It’s true. In the past, larger women were considered more attractive (and more likely to be of a higher income level, because they could afford the food.) Larger women were more likely to be able to have children and make it through famine. > > Look at art from centuries ago, and many of the models are (by 21st century standards) quite large. Within limits. IIRC there was some early Abe Lincoln correspondence where he discussed some marriageable young lady in his area, but he characterized her as was undesirable/ unattractive because she was quite fat. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/15 "2012-07-01T21:03:19Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Within limits. IIRC there was some early Abe Lincoln correspondence where he discussed some marriageable young lady in his area, but he characterized her as was undesirable/ unattractive because she was quite fat. And a vampire. I would WAG that for many hetero men, of any time period, a woman needs to looks like a woman (curves of some sort) to be _physically_ desirable. IOW, “I want to have sexual relations with this obviously female person, wow wow.” Too skinny for curves may be some guy’s boat, as is so big that you have to move things around to get to the good stuff. Obviously, this is IMHO and YMMV and you may even have cites against my opinion, so there. Other factors would possibly also come into play, tho, just like today. Perceived qualities that are not physical in nature. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/16 "2012-07-01T21:19:30Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Ever heard of [Rubens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Three_Graces,_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg)? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/17 "2012-07-01T21:23:01Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Perceived qualities that are not physical in nature. But may be hinted at (correctly or not) by certain physical attributes. (got busy and missed edit window) ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/18 "2012-07-01T21:54:48Z")
I did in college a couple of times. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/19 "2012-07-01T23:24:03Z")
The paintings of Rubens are the best example I can think of to illustrate that cellulite is not really a modern phenomenom. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920/20 "2012-07-01T23:46:15Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > I would WAG that for many hetero men, of any time period, a woman needs to looks like a woman (curves of some sort) to be _physically_ desirable. Matt Ridley’s [The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341185984&sr=1-5&keywords=matt+ridley) brings up the research of psychologist Dev Singh as evidence that what really matters, in what men find attractive in women, is the waist-to-hip ratio. > [@](#): > > Singh noticed that however much the weight of _Playboy_ centerfolds changed, one feature did not: the ratio of their waist width to their hip width. > [@](#): > > he showed his subjects a range of drawings of female forms, which varied according to their weight and according to their waist-to-hip ratio. He found that a heavy woman with a low ratio of waist to hips was usually preferred to a thin woman with a high ratio. The ideal figure was the one with the lowest ratio, not the one with the thinnest torso. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-love-obese-women-in-the-past/626920.md?page=2)