Symmetry Versus Asymmetry
Nowadays descriptions of female beauty usually find their home, largely for want of anywhere else, in the literature of erotica. Take the following example, which is fairly typical:
For as long as I can remember I have found the sight or description of a pair of pretty legs of a young woman an object of delight. This is a fairly unexceptional declaration, as it would appear to be shared by the majority of the male half of the population, as witness the abundance of magazines, novels, advertising, books on body-care, fashion styles etc., which portray them. By the same token , the majority of the female half of the population would appear to recognize this male interest, and go to some considerable lengths to address this in the way they generally dress and present themselves. I would go further, and admit that my delight can be enhanced by the way the legs are displayed. There is a whole repertory of high-heel shoes, boots, stockings, suspenders, garters, laces, straps—in a vast range of colors, textures and shapes—which would suggest that this interest is unremarkable. Maybe it reaches the proportion of fetishism, but where is the dividing line between this and enthusiastic interest? The interest is not so obsessive as to constitute the only aspect of attraction to a woman. Personality, character, and intelligence count far more, even if the initial attraction may have been a pair of shapely legs.
But, very interestingly, the writer goes on to comment on his liking for monopedes—women with one leg missing—and attempts to relate it to abstract aesthetic rules:
But though symmetry and completeness have their place, what of asymmetry and isolation of the part from the whole? Is a leg in isolation any more strange a concept than a disembodied hand, ear, torso, lips? Isn't there more interest when perfect symmetry is replaced by more complex form, where contrasts are made, where distortions occur?17
It may be that there is a wider liking for monopedes than is usually supposed. This may be yet another area of human sexuality that has been taboo and will, when explored and revealed, be seen to be much more widespread than was previously thought. This was recently confirmed by the emergence of a group of amputation wannabes—people who wish for the amputation of a limb, typically of the leg above the knee. This has a strong sexual component and its onset is sometimes associated with powerful sexual attraction to such a maimed person during early adolescence. It could be argued that this is the cause of the preference: the occasion of exposure to such an unusual erotic stimulus at a critical period determining the sexual partialism. But it is doubtful whether such an event wholly determines the preference; it may more likely be the first sign of its impact as the genetic switch is thrown. Thereafter, a strong identification with the amputated condition emerges and becomes a lifelong obsession, to the point where sometimes a carefully planned act of self-mutilation is carried out. The satisfaction and relief—fulfillment is not too strong a way of putting it—that follows eventual loss of the limb is indubitable and profound.
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