4 ms·

Folk history judges people by the quality of their skin (to the dismay of adolescents in particular). You see it in hollywood and in literature: the hero has c

by gumby 3y ago

Folk history judges people by the quality of their skin (to the dismay of adolescents in particular). You see it in hollywood and in literature: the hero has clear skin while the villain is surprisingly often described as being disfigured. This could stem from a long practice of disease avoidance before modern medicine, even when no disease is relevant (a birthmark, recovered from smallpox, etc). Years ago I worked in dermatology (pharma side) and I started out thinking that apart from skin cancers it was just about vanity. Wow, I could not have been more wrong! The point I started this comment with was pointed out to me. And because of that phenomenon, people with skin issues often do restrict their social activities because of it. In some extreme cases (say, fungal infections that you can't even catch from other people) they even become shut ins. Terrible.

pessimizer 3y ago
https://www.skinema.com/ https://www.skinema.com/ > "Beauty equals good" is an age-old trope in entertainment, points out Doris Bazzini, a professor of social psychology at Appalachian State University. In a 1999 study she co-authored, a panel watched 20 of the top-grossing movies in each decade from 1940 to 1989, rating characters by attractiveness and other traits. They found that the stereotype held true across all decades and genres. She discovered the same thing in a 2010 study on human characters in 21 Disney animated movies. > "Attractive characters displayed higher intelligence, lower aggressiveness and greater moral virtue," the study said. Even animal characters show similar patterns, Bazzini points out: The villain in "The Lion King" is literally named Scar and has one across his eye. "Evil as plain as the scar on his face," says one song in "The Lion King II." https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/why-does-hollywood-keep-equating-beauty-with-virtue/2017/05/18/8a9c1f72-397a-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/why-does-hollyw...
- nicup12345689 3y ago
  You can find reference to this in Chaucer. It's very very old = Homo sapiens
- masfuerte 3y ago
  It's always tempting to impute / unlikely virtues to the cute
  - e1g 3y ago
    “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness.” - Leo Tolstoy, 1889.
dredmorbius 3y ago
Historically the notions of cleanliness and health are excpetionally strongly aligned with virtue, and filth, disease, ugliness, and disability with sin or evil. This appears across a large range of Eurasian cultures that I'm aware of, and quite probably even more widely elsewhere (though I'm less aware of those). Even such attributes as handedness can be ascribed to virtue or sin, as with, well, sinister, literally, "of the left side", but with the evolved sense of "prompted by malice or ill-will". See: <https://www.etymonline.com/word/sinister https://www.etymonline.com/word/sinister> (And apparently "sinister" and "sin" are not related, though that possibility had occurred to me whilst writing this.) The same concept often extended to medicine and medical practice, and it wasn't until the emergence of germ theory of infectious disease that medical knowledge and practice began to emerge from its moralising of pathology to a general understanding of disease and dysfunction as being organic in nature. That shift is still incomplete, and there are places, institutions, individuals, and conditions in which moralisation remains a too-common occurance (obesity, addiction, sexually-transmitted diseases, and mental health most especially). We also see moralisation of pathology in other contexts, most notably in criminal law and politics.
- gumby 3y ago
  Yeah, I believe that the absurd “virgin” obsession in some cultures is an archaic holdover to try to avoid STDs.
  - giardini 3y ago
    gumby says >"I believe that the absurd “virgin” obsession in some cultures is an archaic holdover to try to avoid STDs."< No shit, Sherlock!8-)) But to characterise this as an "absurd ...obsession" is wrongheaded. Of course people don't want STDs! STDs for the most part killed people (syphilis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, et al). Only in the last century have we had antibiotics and only in the last 50 years antivirals. Were there a major war supplies of those drugs, along with the birth control pill, would dwindle or vanish. STDs are a scourge b/c we have nothing to make them go away permanently. Maybe someday we will, but until then being a "virgin" has certain very real advantages.
hirvi74 3y ago
An autoimmune skin condition damn near ruined my life, so I agree with your conclusions. I was somewhat fortunate that it didn't hit me until my mid-20s after a viral infection. Never gets better and will never go away. Treatments? Nothing but a cat and mouse game, and generally a waste of time, unless I want to subjugate my body and future to some truly heinous treatments. Still, I have a lot to be thankful for e.g., it could be worse, a different disease, etc.. I think the hardest part for me to overcome is the envy I feel when I see other people. I sometimes actually feel like I am a lesser person because of the disease. Despite it being a skin disease, the mental toll has been far worse than the physical toll.
- oasisaimlessly 3y ago
  Have you tried helminth therapy (assuming it's applicable)?
  - hirvi74 3y ago
    Never even heard of it. Thank you though, I'll Google what it is.

by gumby 3y ago

pessimizer 3y ago

https://www.skinema.com/ https://www.skinema.com/ > "Beauty equals good" is an age-old trope in entertainment, points out Doris Bazzini, a professor of social psychology at Appalachian State University. In a 1999 study she co-authored, a panel watched 20 of the top-grossing movies in each decade from 1940 to 1989, rating characters by attractiveness and other traits. They found that the stereotype held true across all decades and genres. She discovered the same thing in a 2010 study on human characters in 21 Disney animated movies. > "Attractive characters displayed higher intelligence, lower aggressiveness and greater moral virtue," the study said. Even animal characters show similar patterns, Bazzini points out: The villain in "The Lion King" is literally named Scar and has one across his eye. "Evil as plain as the scar on his face," says one song in "The Lion King II." https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/why-does-hollywood-keep-equating-beauty-with-virtue/2017/05/18/8a9c1f72-397a-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/why-does-hollyw...

nicup12345689 3y ago
You can find reference to this in Chaucer. It's very very old = Homo sapiens
masfuerte 3y ago
It's always tempting to impute / unlikely virtues to the cute
- e1g 3y ago
  “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness.” - Leo Tolstoy, 1889.

dredmorbius 3y ago

Historically the notions of cleanliness and health are excpetionally strongly aligned with virtue, and filth, disease, ugliness, and disability with sin or evil. This appears across a large range of Eurasian cultures that I'm aware of, and quite probably even more widely elsewhere (though I'm less aware of those). Even such attributes as handedness can be ascribed to virtue or sin, as with, well, sinister, literally, "of the left side", but with the evolved sense of "prompted by malice or ill-will". See: <https://www.etymonline.com/word/sinister https://www.etymonline.com/word/sinister> (And apparently "sinister" and "sin" are not related, though that possibility had occurred to me whilst writing this.) The same concept often extended to medicine and medical practice, and it wasn't until the emergence of germ theory of infectious disease that medical knowledge and practice began to emerge from its moralising of pathology to a general understanding of disease and dysfunction as being organic in nature. That shift is still incomplete, and there are places, institutions, individuals, and conditions in which moralisation remains a too-common occurance (obesity, addiction, sexually-transmitted diseases, and mental health most especially). We also see moralisation of pathology in other contexts, most notably in criminal law and politics.

gumby 3y ago
Yeah, I believe that the absurd “virgin” obsession in some cultures is an archaic holdover to try to avoid STDs.
- giardini 3y ago
  gumby says >"I believe that the absurd “virgin” obsession in some cultures is an archaic holdover to try to avoid STDs."< No shit, Sherlock!8-)) But to characterise this as an "absurd ...obsession" is wrongheaded. Of course people don't want STDs! STDs for the most part killed people (syphilis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, et al). Only in the last century have we had antibiotics and only in the last 50 years antivirals. Were there a major war supplies of those drugs, along with the birth control pill, would dwindle or vanish. STDs are a scourge b/c we have nothing to make them go away permanently. Maybe someday we will, but until then being a "virgin" has certain very real advantages.

hirvi74 3y ago

An autoimmune skin condition damn near ruined my life, so I agree with your conclusions. I was somewhat fortunate that it didn't hit me until my mid-20s after a viral infection. Never gets better and will never go away. Treatments? Nothing but a cat and mouse game, and generally a waste of time, unless I want to subjugate my body and future to some truly heinous treatments. Still, I have a lot to be thankful for e.g., it could be worse, a different disease, etc.. I think the hardest part for me to overcome is the envy I feel when I see other people. I sometimes actually feel like I am a lesser person because of the disease. Despite it being a skin disease, the mental toll has been far worse than the physical toll.

oasisaimlessly 3y ago
Have you tried helminth therapy (assuming it's applicable)?
- hirvi74 3y ago
  Never even heard of it. Thank you though, I'll Google what it is.