(no subject)

[slammerkinbabe]

So this poll only took me ten years to do up. Holy shit, y'all. I thought no one was going to respond. I thought I was going to have to pad it out heavily with pictures of my own choosing. Yow.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM MAKING THIS POLL

• No one seems to know exactly what "conventionally attractive" and "unconventionally attractive" mean.
  
• A lot of you seem to think that if you find someone attractive, they're probably conventionally attractive to some extent. I think this demonstrates that you underestimate yourselves.
  
• Guys have an easier time of it than girls do when it comes to conventional attractiveness, I think. Not that we didn't already know this. But it strikes me that while all the guys whose pictures were submitted are fascinating-looking and generally very hot, a lot of them do have a smaller-than-Brad-Pitt's-but-still-relatively-sizeable fan base that recognizes their attractiveness. That wasn't as common among the girls, particularly the older women. It seems like irregular or unusual features in a guy are often considered unique and appealing, whereas on a girl they're more likely to be considered ugly. This only really seems to break down for guys who are "wimpy" or "dorky" looking. Or fat. Oddly, I don't think that slender/fine-boned guys quite get classed as wimpy or dorky solely on account of their slenderness or fine bones, even though you'd expect those features to be identified as effeminate, and I think this is because of the Adonis archetype. Also, I'm making all of this up, but it's fun. Also also, not being a straight girl or a gay guy, I guess I can't really speak as authoritatively as one would like about what the conventional standards for guys are. So feel free to tell me if I'm totally wrong.
  
• It's hard to find good-quality high-res photos of people who are not conventionally attractive on the Internet.
  
• So I really really wish the version of Photoshop that I have at work had a Smart Sharpen feature.
  
• This poll was neat to make because it actually did sort of refresh my mental palate and help me to fall into an alternate universe where fat and wrinkles and asymmetrical features &c. aren't hideous. Like, the first time I looked at the picture of that fat guy from Lost, I went "ew". Not admirable, but it was a visceral, unconsidered reaction. After looking at him for awhile, and then looking at the rest of the pictures for awhile, and then looking back at him? He's kinda sexy. Neat.
  
• Alfre Woodard is OMFG SO FUCKING HOT. OMGDROOL. The hair put me over the top.
  
• Opinions diverge wildly on what "conventionally attractive" means. I totally thought Alan Rickman was conventionally attractive, but at least one of you didn't, and seriously, I am so not the supreme arbiter of cultural standards of beauty. I would have done a separate question asking "which of these people, if any, do you think is conventionally attractive?" if it wouldn't have meant making a poll that contained 120 images omg.
  
• Writers are hot.

I'm sure I learned other things of interest, but I can't think what they are now. To the poll!

Poll

(Btw, my apologies to a couple of you - once again, I decided to keep the poll humans-only. I think kristenb615 was looking for nominations for a poll awhile back that was meant to be pictures of anything sexy, not just people...)

ETA: Yes, I did vote for damn near everybody in that poll. THEY'RE HOT.
ETA2: Btw, sorry about the weird appearance of that second-to-last guy. My computer was having some difficulty reading the grayscale info in the picture and it was very hard to distinguish him from the background, so I quickly upped the contrast between his head and the background - but I did it pretty sloppily. He doesn't really have those odd angles at the back of his skull, I promise.