The black men I know who marry or date white women don’t seem to follow any particular type of trend body-wise; some date skinny minnies and some date junk-in-the-trunk babes, though those I’ve known who dated two or more white women while I’ve known them did tend to follow the same body type from woman to woman. White women I’ve known who date black men- and I don’t pretend that’s any kind of scientific sample- tend to date very tall and athletically built ones (not bodybuilder necessarily but more football player than basketball player in physique).
One of the oddest couples I know look wise is a fat-to-obese white male professor and his painfully-skinny black wife- they’ve had six kids and yet, to quote a co-workers talking about her, “poor girl ain’t got enough ass to last her til tomorrow”. Since there are a lot more multi-ethnic couples now than there once were major differentials in size are a lot more noticeable than race differences and it’s the difference you actually notice first in this couple.
Are you me? 
Some black men are attracted to larger women for sure, but obviously not all. There seems to be a childlike amazement to it all. One friend of mine dated a large girl - he said he wanted to prove he could “handle” her - it made him feel powerful - he’s quite a small bloke. When it came to marriage though - his wife is not fat. Typical comment to me when I’ve gained weight is “Things are going good with you.” Or “you a bust with fat” - and that’s a compliment. Another mate has a naughty secret - his girlfriend is normal weight - but he cheats on her with HUGE girls. I mean really big. He told me he would like to be with a big girl but it’s not socially acceptable - this is in a black community.
I don’t think so. It is more of a body type that black men* have a thing for. In my community it is called ‘thick’, and it is very specific. It actually has little to do with being a big woman, but a big woman can very well be thick, and therefore, considered incredibly sexy.
Again, not to beat you all in the head with it, but ‘thick’ means booty, hips, thighs and tits bigger than the middle, with no protruding gut. If you are a size 8 or 18, you can fit this description and be considered hot by black men. But a big booty doesn’t mean that wide flabby, flat behind that many women get when they let themselves go; it means big and round.
It is actually one of the things that I find fascinating about my own culture. The propaganda that has been pushed on the black community to conform to white standards of beauty have been an utter failure when it comes to thick women. Many women who are not thick actually go through a lot of stress and pressure to thicken up.
*I’m not speaking for all black men, just speaking from my perspective in my culture.
I just have to toss this in the ring. I once put on quite a bit of weight and for me, was rather large. I was lamenting my weight to a black male coworker, he said I didn’t have a weight problem, I had a geography problem, I just lived in the wrong neighborhood. He also stated I had a surprisingly nice ass for a white girl.
He went to this black dating site (blackplanet.com?) and we knew his user name had the word “thick” in it. Go ahead, go there, put in the word thick. You will be shocked at how many females have that as part of their user name. That really, really won’t be the case on a more white-oriented dating site, I can pretty much guarantee.
Also, my brother, who liked his girls a bit larger than normal, once got slapped for telling a girl he loved her thick thighs.
Another thing I remember reading (sorry, can’t find a cite) is that depressed black women tend to receive professional help less often than others. I found this article which suggests black women eat more to deal with the painful issues in their life. Certainly, I know the feeling of “life sucks, I’m going to eat a donut” personally.
Also, that link says 37.3% of black women are obese, compared to 23.5% of white women, just for anyone who wanted that statistic.
I was wondering…It is said black people suffer disproportionately from high blood pressure (I have no cite, I heard someone on Oprah) because they are descendants of those black slaves with the same condition who survived the trip over on slave ships. Genetics. Could it be that black people who were big survived that trip in greater numbers than the small and frail blacks? Or maybe whoever was seizing them in Africa to be slaves picked only the big sturdy looking ones as they were destined to lives of hard labor.
[hijack]You mean thick= curvy, right? The definition of curvy, not what others pass for it (sorry nyctea sandiaca). A woman can have curves at 0, 8, 18 and everything in between. One of this days I’m going in a one-woman crusade with an iron-cast pan correcting the usage of the word curvy. [/hijack]
There was a whole thread here several months ago at least debating the definition of “curvy.” There were the people like you who swore that skinny gals could also be “curvy,” and other people who recognized that it was a more appealing synonym for “overweight” that was often used on dating profiles because it sounded better than “a few extra pounds.”
You know, I am sure it would make me feel better to say that I am “curvy,” since when I am overweight, I get that classic “hourglass” shape - thinner waist and full hips/round butt. But that’s not really being honest - I’m overweight, about 20-30 pounds overweight. I am not going to sugar-coat it by saying I am “curvy.” Actually, Nzinga, Seated’s description is probably more accurate:
But that is just my opinion. See the “curvy” thread for 100 other differing opinions.
Well, yea, that’s what I’m saying. I am annoyed that people have taken “curvy” to imply “overweight”, when “curvy” is a body type (eh, like thick) that is not dependent on the person’s weight.
If you have the hourglass figure, you’re curvy. If you’re overweight, but lack that figure, don’t call yourself curvy (general you, not aimed at nyctea sandiaca).
And it seems to me that the definition given for thick makes it as if they’re almost synonims (admittingly, a “thick” woman may imply it can carry more weight than a “curvy” woman).
Look, you guys have got to stop with the I heard, i saw etc, please; I’m begging you. Hypertension is very low in Africa, especially in West Africa where the majority of African-Americans decend from.
http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/bprisks
What’s the difference between the two groups, the African-American and the African that can account for this? Two spring to my mind. 1. the admixture of European genes and 2. the environment, the food.
Back on topic, as noted there’s a difference between being attracted to full figured woman and an obese one. They are not interchangable; further an attraction to full figured woman, is not unique to black folk. You go to South America and you see women who are not size 2. You see women who are quite large, on beaches wearing tongs; unashamed of their bodies. You go the Mediterranean and you see similar things, even to a lesser extend in Europe.
It’s only in America and places that they have been able to export it; that you see entire industries telling women that if they aren’t a size 2 or 4, that they are failures. As **Nzinga, Seated ** noted, you have white women who just hate themselves, who dread the mirror and curse the scale.
That is not the norm, but we treat it as it is. In the world, this type of woman is the minority. They are not the standard and women who have support in their communities understand that and reject it.
Black women don’t have the same hang-upsas white women. When they see commericals and magazines, they are unable to relate the imagery on a sub-conscious level; they may be able to get to a size 2, but they will never be white and without that connection; the self-loathing is unable to take root. If you look at how heavy black women and latin women dress, there is no comparison to white women; regardless of similar social economic backgrounds. That projection of self confidence, of making the effort to look attractive in and of itself attracts men. I’m not talking obesity, there’s a difference between a size 10 or 12 and size 24; a 34 DD and 48 B.
I can only speak for myself, but a woman who projects that image of self confidence, of inner beauty is attractive, regardless of her weight (not obese).
The appreciation of the full figured woman is the norm, in Europe, in Africa, in the Mediterranean; hell even in Asia, a woman with large breasts and ass are considered to be an exceptional beauty. I think we need to understand when we question why whatever non-white race seems to have a different standard, that it is us who are often the minority and that our standard as Americans is the one that we should be questioning.
Sorry for the long post and YMMV.
Lots of people have reasons why they don’t want to exercise, but for many black women there is a cultural explanation. Black hair that’s “done” does not fare well against sweat. White people generally do the wash-and-wear thing with their hair. But things get a bit more complicated with coiffed black hair.
All the black women who I see jogging around the neighborhood have braids or natural hairstyles.
I was waiting for someone to make monstro’s point.
Here’s one Black man as a datapoint. I don’t find skinny women attractive - even though at one point in my life I was quite skinny. Shapely women are attractive to me - much of what Nginza points out is true. But I am not attracted to obese and overweight women as a general rule…
…however, I can think of many Black women who are obese and overweight that take great pride in their appearance, that are confident, witty, and snarky - this makes them fun to hang out with, and if I was single I could easily see myself dating one of these women. There’s also this idea that big women are more down to earth and skinnier women are snooty. (No experience here; I have friends that fit both categories and I wouldn’t say that one group differs much from another.)
I also think that big women are also more accepting of the imperfections of men.
If I was going to generalize, I would say the ratio of confident, funny, sexy big women that are Black compared to those that are White in my life is like 10:1. Among the big White women I know, they tend to be very introverted and obsessed with getting smaller. The Black women in this category seem to be of the opinion that they’re big, sexy, and if you have a problem with it, that’s too bad.
Another thing is that big women tend to like to eat and like to cook. Don’t underestimate what a huge turn on that is for a lot of guys…
It has long been a theory of mine that the obsession with Size 1 women - with no fat, no ass and skinny thighs - essentially “boys with breasts,” as Tom Wolfe says - is really a consequence of the fashion industry being so thoroughly dominated by homosexual men. I know it’s not a PC thing to say, but the fact is, if the guys who design clothes for women find the bodies of men to be attractive, and all of the high profile fashion models conform to the standards of female beauty set by these gay male fashion designers, the end result of it is that our ideal of “feminine” beauty is actually going to be the body of a male.
Umm, I’m pretty much a size zero (depends on where I shop), but I’m about 100 lbs/5’2, very little extra fat, and no one guys has ever mistaken me for a boy with breasts.
Well, you’re lucky enough to naturally have the ideal physique - but half a century ago you might have been considered “too thin.” I’m just saying the ideal has changed so much. (I’m sure you don’t literally look like a boy with breasts!)
That is so crazy that it actually makes sense. Had never thought of it that way.
I don’t know about that. Short women have never been considered to have the “ideal physique”, regardless of their overall size.
Except by me. 5’2" and 100 lbs. is pretty much my (physical) dream girl. I love shorties, and I’m not afraid to say it!
Thanks, Really! Yeah, I may be short, but I’m proportioned very nicely. I’ve definitely never heard anyone say I’d be perfect if I were only a few inches taller. I know guys get that sometimes, but I don’t think most dudes care about how short women are.
Nope. I can see where you’d get your theory, but no, I don’t think so. The thing about tall, skinny women is that they are easy to design for and fit. It’s HARD to design a garment that will look as good on a short curvy woman as it will on a tall skinny one. Curvier women will need more shaping in the garment, if it’s closely fitted. A long, unbroken line looks much better than a shorter line that swerves in and out to follow the curves of an hourglass figure.
Interestingly, the catalogs for larger sized women usually use standard sized models, SOMETIMES they will use a size 14 or 16 woman, but they generally use a standard size model (I forget what that is these days, size 6 maybe?) because they’ve tested various sized models, and even a woman who wears a size 24 is much more likely to buy a garment that’s modeled on a size 6 model. Same with sewing patterns…the garment is shown on a size 6 or so model, rather than a size 24, even if it’s marketed to the larger target. Every now and then, garments are modeled on plus size women, but it’s usually ONE plus size woman, and she’s modeling her own creations, whether they’re garments or patterns.
I try not to be affected by this in my own purchasing, but I will look at a slender woman in slim jeans and want to look like that. I have to stop and remind myself that even when I weighed under 120, I had an hourglass figure and needed some room in the hips and butt of the jeans, and I would not have looked like the model.
Female figure ice skaters used to be shorter and curvier and more muscled. However, the judges liked the looks of the longer, leaner skaters, who could make a longer, more elegant looking line when they put one arm forward, the other arm back, and extended one leg behind them, for instance.
I always thought models were stick thin because of the way the close hung or something. Like…the industry was seeking living hangers. Hense the similarity to wire frames.