Beauty, Porn, and how John Ruskin was probably a closeted gay man
The author is probably correct in insinuating that John Ruskin may have been gay and repulsed by the female body. That is the only way I can really reconcile how his marriage, lack of consummation, and annulment played out. It is unclear why he married a young woman in the first place, though. Power? Money? Status? Are those things really worth the social humiliation of an annulment years later?
Today, many of us do have distorted ideas of what beauty is, in both men and women. I grew up when heroine chic was the pinnacle of beauty. Eventually extreme curves --and then outright obesity-- took over fashion and celebrity media. A lot of young boys' first exposure to the female body is pornography.
How do all these things influence what we find attractive?