Biotech: Help me justify good looking females with high strength values

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I agree with a view implied by several people posting in this thread:

If the setting in question is so much more advanced over ours that bio-tech we do not have in the real world and may never have is practically a consumer service, then why does said setting not also have different social priorities? A demand for strength augmentation (whether you read "strength" as "ST" or "HP" in GURPS terms) strong enough to create a booming business in such procedures implies that the surrounding society values strength rather highly, in which case it seems probable that visible strength would be admired, not hidden. The real question here appears to be, "Help me justify holding on to late-TL8 Earth standards of beauty in a setting with TL9 bio-tech," which is sort of like, "Help me keep skill at needlepoint marketable to potential marriage partners in a TL8 society that has automated almost all aspects of textiles production." That is, rather than focus on the tech, maybe it's important to look at the culture.

That aside, "good-looking" is entirely subjective anyway. Pretty much all of the people in all of the images linked in this thread are probably better-looking than average . . . that's why their images are spammed across the net. Whether a given viewer likes visible muscle mass is 100% a question of taste. It's important to realize that the "Top 100 Hottest" or whatever are voted for by a minority of people who self-select for liking a specific, manufactured look. That doesn't mean skinny people without much muscle provide an objective standard of beauty.

Except skill at needlepoint is either an economic or an artistic skill. If the later you don't need to justify it. Likewise you do not need to justify similar standards of female aesthetics existing. You can just say, "What the heck."

Fact is, in a technologically dominated universe, it is not even clear that strength will be at a premium in gengineering fashion. After all most guys today would look like wimps beside Hesiod and probably are but there is no reason anyone should care.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Fact is, in a technologically dominated universe, it is not even clear that strength will be at a premium in gengineering fashion. After all most guys today would look like wimps beside Hesiod and probably are but there is no reason anyone should care.

Athletes and the military have a use for strength and these industries have enough money to push gengineering to develop strength enhancement.

For the masses, many of the regular public will want a 'beach body' with low body fat and some extra muscle (the exact proportions will vary person to person) or they will want a body for sport/hobby purposes.

You know the cliché about a guy who takes up mountain biking and buys some high end titanium pro-racing frame? That guy now also buys big strong thighs and improved cardiovascular performance.

[AlexanderHowl]

Standards of beauty change every couple of decades or so though. Marilyn Monroe was considered ideal by the standards of the 1950s, was chunky by the standards of the 1980s, and is starting to look good again by the standards of the 2010s. A beach body represented strength in the 1980s, but it is a joke in the 2010s because bodybuilders are not really that strong (not when compared to athletes like weightlifters).

When superhuman strength and perfect looks are accessible to anyone without any effort, the beach body just becomes another archaic definition of beauty. When the average 4'11" and 110 lb woman can bench 800 lbs without effort and looks like an angel, who cares about the beach body? Technology, not self-discipline or fortuitous genetics, becomes the way to gain strength and beauty.

[mr beer]

I agree that fashions change but some things stay reasonably constant.

If you apply a reasonably broad definition of "beach body" to mean a man is lean, muscular, with a slim waist and broad shoulders...that basic model has been in fashion for a long time in the West, not in and out every 2 decades.

Likewise for women, tall and slim hasn't been out of fashion for a long time, though hips/bust ratios might change around.

Additionally, the fact that fashions change doesn't mean that humans will stop following fashions. It just means that last year's beach body model gets updated e.g. last year all the guys had to have large upper arms, this year it's all about the Adonis girdle. Last year the girls wanted D cups, this year they want good shoulder definition.

EDIT

I guess I agree tech will take over genetics and hard work. People will use it to create enhanced or idealised bodies, which will be influenced by fashion.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Fact is, in a technologically dominated universe, it is not even clear that strength will be at a premium in gengineering fashion. After all most guys today would look like wimps beside Hesiod and probably are but there is no reason anyone should care.

Well, for what it's worth, in my SF campaign high ST is valued as much as having any other stat high. Being able to carry more stuff and soak more injury (and especially having limbs be more resistant to being blown clean off) is valued highly by my players. As we've been playing for years over a wide point range, I think they probably a reasonable idea of ST's worth. The PCs very rarely get into melee combat, and almost every time they've been grappled it's been by robots so much stronger than they that their ST wasn't useful for the grappling contests, yet they still buy ST up when they can.

[Kromm]

"Average ST diminishes as TL increases" is a dubious assertion. The diet and medicine of the present-day developed world mean that – setting aside fantasies such as mighty-thewed barbarians, optimistic speculation on the results of training with longbows from childhood, and "back in the day we had to WORK to eat" nostalgia – we're on average bigger and stronger. I'd argue that we already have de facto bio-tech-enhanced ST as a result of having nearly unlimited access to high-quality proteins and medically induced immunity (or at least resistance) to all the maladies that would weaken the bones and connective tissues that are almost as important as muscle when actually trying to use strength.

"High ST goes out of fashion at higher TLs" is somewhat easier to defend, but only somewhat. I can't think of an era where demonstrations of athleticism weren't admired. There were moments where wealthy society got particularly sexist and attempted to turn women into anemic weaklings through privation, but on the whole the ability to do physical work and bear healthy children has always been a priority, and those things demand strength. I don't see a lot of modern technology – particularly cosmetic surgery – devoted to hiding muscle and giving the appearance of fragility, and men and women are about equally likely to undergo procedures that give at least the illusion of strength, such as thigh implants.

[whswhs]

Whatever the realities of beauty, history, and biology, there are a couple of things implied by the GURPS rules:

Appearance is primarily a species trait; it can be tweaked to "how you look to the most common species" or enhanced to Universal (+25%), but the usual interpretation is that it means you're attractive or unattractive to others of your own species.

Appearance is linked particularly to sexuality: under the standard interpretation (if you don't take Androgynous or Impressive), it gives you bigger bonuses with potential sexual partners, and it also impacts your Sex Appeal skill (and thus presumably does not impact other Influence skills for which such impact is not stated to exist).

Appearance is an objectively present trait: it will affect all members of your species (for certain values of "all," which can exclude those who have peculiar aesthetic sensibilities and those who resent you as a superior competitor), not just some subgroup who have specific tastes (except insofar as implied by the preceding point).

Given that, human Appearance scores should be based on things that apply in a diversity of human cultures. Examples might be bodily symmetry and evidence of good physiological health. In a campaign where cultural evolution isn't a theme, the standards of appearance of our own culture can be assumed to apply without raising questions; if you're trying to envision a different culture some of those standards become variables rather than constants. (I'm thinking, for example, of Courtship Rite, where tattooing and scarification are universally practiced, and unmodified skin is regarded as the mark of a nonadult.)

*****

Now, in my current GURPS campaign, I made up an extra bit as a species trait: Appearance tends to modify how others of your own species respond to you. So I have one species, elves, whose behavior pattern emphasizes harmonious cooperation, and whose typical Appearance is Attractive (they respond to each other at +1); and another species, ghouls, whose behavior pattern is assertive and combative, whose typical Appearance is Unattractive (they respond to each other at -1), and who make fairly common use of Intimidation. But that's not in the RAW; that's my interpretation of them.

[The Colonel]

Is the women's %body fat going to play a role here? A lot of the competition body builders force that down so that they muscle map better, but as a result tend to look less feminine (not to mention physiological problems that can result) - a woman strictly focused on strength over visible bulk could well afford to carry more fat and so be a more feminine shape even on top of serious muscle.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Kromm

"Average ST diminishes as TL increases" is a dubious assertion. The diet and medicine of the present-day developed world mean that – setting aside fantasies such as mighty-thewed barbarians, optimistic speculation on the results of training with longbows from childhood, and "back in the day we had to WORK to eat" nostalgia – we're on average bigger and stronger. I'd argue that we already have de facto bio-tech-enhanced ST as a result of having nearly unlimited access to high-quality proteins and medically induced immunity (or at least resistance) to all the maladies that would weaken the bones and connective tissues that are almost as important as muscle when actually trying to use strength.

"High ST goes out of fashion at higher TLs" is somewhat easier to defend, but only somewhat. I can't think of an era where demonstrations of athleticism weren't admired. There were moments where wealthy society got particularly sexist and attempted to turn women into anemic weaklings through privation, but on the whole the ability to do physical work and bear healthy children has always been a priority, and those things demand strength. I don't see a lot of modern technology – particularly cosmetic surgery – devoted to hiding muscle and giving the appearance of fragility, and men and women are about equally likely to undergo procedures that give at least the illusion of strength, such as thigh implants.

No but strength can look different. It might be preferred to give people a track star body then a stevedore one.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Is the women's %body fat going to play a role here? A lot of the competition body builders force that down so that they muscle map better, but as a result tend to look less feminine (not to mention physiological problems that can result) - a woman strictly focused on strength over visible bulk could well afford to carry more fat and so be a more feminine shape even on top of serious muscle.

Which is why most strong women actually have a feminine shape. Other than the members of specific subcultures (like bodybuilders), most people seem to consider the cut form of female bodybuilders to be unfeminine unless assisted by plastic surgery. The cut form is also unhealthy, so encouraging that type of appearance is detrimental to anyone who attempts to maintain it (bodybuilders accept the health risks as part of the cost of belonging to their subculture, but outsiders rarely understand how dangerous it can be).