In my experience as a consumer of pornogrpahy, models of Eastern European origin tend to display a greater incidence of visible moles, beauty marks, birthmarks, etc., compared to models associated with any other geographic region.
Is it fair to say that Eastern Europeans simply have more skin markings of this type than Western Europeans, Americans, etc.? (or is it just an airbrushing/makeup thing? And if it is, see 3 below).
If so, is there a biological explanation why?
Is the general aesthetic sense in Eastern Europe that such marks enhance or detract from a woman’s attractiveness, or is there no general consensus on the issue?
-Availability and means to have plastic surgery?
-Less hygienistic obsession than in the US?
I cant say I have noticed the same phenomenon, just a very high turnover rate of really beautiful and fresh looking Eastern girls, who, after one year into porn, turn into horrible looking California wannabe bimbos.
Without being Eastern European myself or having seen studies, I’ll vote for this, coupled with: because plastic surgery was less available and too costly, there’s less of a culture of it. The communist era obviously strongly discouraged those frivolties.
I’ve seen how slowly the trend of plastic surgery for frivolties - the last the botox wave some years back - spread first in the US and from there to Western Europe, but still California/ Hollywood has a much stronger peer pressure on women then Europe, although it is becoming more widespread. (Western Europeans go now to the Eastern European countries like Czech for plastic surgery, because, as with other elective procedures not paid by health insurance, the cost is cheaper in the East because wages are lower, but education is still quite good.)
How would that account for moles? They have nothing to do with hygiene. If anything, the obsession of Americans with bathing every day is harmful to the skin, because stripping away the protective outer (horny) layer makes the skin dry, which can lead to cracking, and more open to infections.
In German, it’s Hornhaut, a name without innuendo, but a cracked article (about how we do daily things wrong) called it horny layer and noted the potential for bad jokes. Don’t know the latin name for it.
I assumed it was meant to mean that Americans might perceive moles/birthmarks as dirty, or imperfect, leading them to have elective surgery to ‘correct’ the ‘defect’.
Yup, exactly what I meant. I remember that the only porns where I have seen someone stop to wonder or hide his disgust at a birthmark (and it wasnt especially gross) were US porns. There is something more “hygienistic” in US porn culture for sure.
In my experience, which means nothing statistically speaking, darker-skinned people tend to have more moles. Maybe it’s just a melanin thing? I can’t say I’ve particularly sought out the porn you’re talking about though.
My family is fair, of German/Euromutt descent, and our permanent blemishes are limited to the very rare light-brown non-raised freckle which is almost never on the face (although when my shoulders get tan, a lot of tiny freckles show up). Whereas the only people I’ve known who have the big honking facial or back moles have been darker-skinned–not black, but like… Mediterranean-colored. Olive? Brownish?
White America drives a lot of the international standards of beauty, unfortunately, which might account for why darker European people want to get rid of their moles.
I dunno if I’m buying that. I am super pale, blue eyed and light brown hair (1/4 German) and I have just as many moles as my mom and brother have, and they are olive skinned.
Now, the moles may be genetic, I’ll give you that…my brother and I have the same 2 parents - one is olive-skinned with jet-black hair and freckles, 100% Slovak and the other is blue eyed with light hair and skin and not any moles that I’m aware of, 75% Slovak - but my brother and I have completely different complexions with about the same amount of moles.
So while Eastern Europeans may have more moles, I wouldn’t say it’s 1:1 with skin color.