What American Apparel models teach us

If I don't accomplish as much in this life as I'd like to, I blame Michael Blowhard for introducing me to the models of American Apparel. No, not for wasting time in that way -- at least there, you can put out the fire and get on with real life. But when I go to that website, I just can't stop staring. But now that I've grown somewhat habituated to the images, here are a few lessons on human nature and biodiversity I learned while perusing that ruinous website.* Their ads focus only on raw sex appeal -- not luxury, glamour, and so on, as with other fashionable clothing. So for once, the data are free of a host of confounding factors.

1) African-American girls are not very attractive on average. There are 2 on the site (out of about 70): one who looks light-brown and has non-African facial features, and another who looks biracial. Since it is more their facial features that make them look non-African, it seems that this is what holds African women back in sex appeal.

2) Short or average girls are sexier. You see very few leggy girls on that site. This agrees with the finding that adult film stars are exactly average, and that short females are more fertile. AA doesn't list height data, so unfortunately I can't determine the mean and run a significance test. But it's clear "by inspection," as the mathematicians say.

3) There is likely something to the idea that girls turn their eyes away when flirting. Do Ctrl F "Nour" and click on her pictures. As the slideshow runs, you'll see two pictures (#3 and #8) where she's making this expression. Why girls do this, I speculated on in the link above. But here's more data that it nearly always involves looking to the right (and maybe a bit upwards too). Judging from her name, she is probably Arab, Persian, or South Asian, so this is further cross-cultural data on this trait. It is like smiling: everyone does it, and it means the same everywhere. Also, under the "bathing suits" pictures of Valeria, there are two pictures of her doing this -- one including a look to the left!

4) Blondes are not hot. I counted about 5 blondes and 1 redhead. Of all the girls in Sweden, they picked Sabina, who has chestnut hair! Whatever appeal blondes have is thus not due to sex appeal. Blonde hair is associated with greater behavioral inhibition within a population, so guys who dig blondes may be looking for a less wild partner. This agrees with other data on sex symbols that they are not very blonde either.**

5) Lingerie is made mostly for women to compete with each other, not to appear maximally sexy for their boyfriend or husband. Although maybe it exists to flatter less attractive figures. If the female is attractive, the hottest she can do is wear boy shorts like the "more views" pictures of these or these (probably NSFW). They're just androgynous enough, but no more. And they have just the right hint of ephebophilia, but no more.

Readers are welcome to include their own observations in the comments. I'll pre-empt Peter and say that most models do not sport natural hair down there, so let's move beyond that.

* Aside from the obvious, like large eyes and full lips are attractive, younger females are more attractive than older ones, and so forth.

** In the comments to that post, there are data from online dating services showing a slight advantage for lighter hair in females, but again the real world is messy -- AA ads don't have the confounds of all those other qualities men use in selecting a mate. Yes, "all those other qualities," we're not beasts.