Thread: Lipstick

So none of you can see the obvious potentially subconscious connotations?

Yes yes, vagina dentata and all that. It doesn't mean that's what a woman's thinking of when she puts on lipstick, even subconsciously. Just because the possibility exists doesn't mean it's what actually goes on.

What Tia said.

After first, I was like..."no way" but after thinking about it, it seems to make sense. I mean, we wear make-up to attract the opposite sex (typically) so how is it too far of a stretch to suggest that different forms and applications send certain signals?

Make-up is associated with sexual maturity otherwise we wouldn't get so upset about little girls wearing it. Applying it thick and heavy sends the message "I'm probably a raging whore" and wearing little of it is more of a conservative signal. I wouldn't be surprised if lipstick sent out a certain message yet we're not "aware" of it. It's kind of like body language.

The only lipstick I own is a hot, bright red color but I rarely wear it. It's definitely one of those things you only wear on a night-out. And I would expect to get attention from wearing it. Isn't that the point?

Lip gloss on the other hand I find really gross, and I kind of associate it with little girls, no offense to whoever wears it. I wear tinted lip colors sometimes but they are definitely not glosses, I guess they're more chap-stick like. I tend to focus on eyes and when I do up my lips as well and it's not a night-out, it just looks deliberately overdone and I feel silly.

Well, yeah, women wear make-up to make themselves look better so they're more attractive to men. That's plain as day. I don't think lots of make-up = whore and a little = conservative though. Some girls wear more make-up because they want to cover something up, some wear it because they like looking glamorous. There are plenty of 'sluts' who don't wear loads of make-up.

But making the link between lipstick and vaginas.... I don't know about that. And neither does anybody else for that matter. I don't buy it. It also only really works for white women too.

Neither does anybody else? What you mean, the five girls who've replied here (excluding Ghetto because she doesn't agree with you)?

The most noticeable makeup is the red lipstick. The subconscious mind sees this as a vagina. The vagina has to be represented as much as the penis because of the enforcement of clothes. The genitals especially must be concealed at all times in public for fear that we might recognize our animal nature (and so that sex remains as controlled as possible by the church which dosen't want us to realize that our genitalia were created primarily for pleasure and secondarily for reproduction).

Janis Mitchel: BC2 - The Male Syndrome

One theory is that it emphasizes a woman's sexuality. By amping up the color of the lips, a woman is subconsciously echoing the color of her vaginal lips, or labia, in an effort attract attention from men.

HowStuffWorks "Lipstick in Culture"

Moreover, the pubic hair is a visual cue for us primates, who are, after all, a visually oriented species. The hair showcases the genital area and allows it to stand out from the less significant landscape around it. If women wear lipstick as a subconscious way of evoking their pudenda in public, perhaps they are only following in men's footsteps. By growing a beard, a man turns his face into an echo of his crotch; and the capacity to grow a beard very likely predates the use of cosmetics by a few hundred thousand years.

Woman: an intimate geography - Google Books

So don't give me this shit about my friends being wierd (Tia), or about how no-one else agrees (Brew), because there are plenty of well-reasoned arguments out there that fully justify this line of thinking.

What I meant is that nobody knows. There's no 'proof' in any of those articles. It just makes sense from a certain point of view. Just like the idea that breasts are meant to resemble arses. I don't really buy it. If you look at women out in Africa, their hanging boobs don't look anything like arses and their lips don't alter in hue to look more like their labia.

...and being as they are entirely different products of an entirely different environment, you can't say, 'Well African women don't do it,' because the two cannot be compared. Society and social norms are different depending on where you live, I am asking this question to a western audience, who are much more familiar with such things as wearing make up to attract the opposite sex.

The two simply cannot be compared. Not that I've seen enough of Africa to be able to discuss 'African women' in such a sweeping manner anyway.

if the lipstick is supposed to more closely resemble the vagina to attract men or give of a subliminal message why dont more women put/grow bits of hair around it to further get the point across? after all we know the shaving of the snatch hasnt grown in popularity till the late 80s mid 90s

Because then they'd resemble men.

i wonder who/what decided hey this is how women is gonna be. to showcase their feminine traits to wear make up to be hairless and this is what makes them more women like besides having tits and a vagina and usually a wider hip. men to be muscular more hairy etc etc.

If the lipstick had anything to do with anything i think it would be a form of peacocking more than anything else to stand out from the rest of the pack and that would include blush and eyeshadow. competition among their peers to obtain the alpha male of a pack

I think nature and tribal living has had a massive effect on gender as we see it in today's society.

this lady must of came from a tribe