Oh dear. There's a creeping sameness about contestants up for the title of South Africa's sexiest woman. The annual poll by the FHM men's magazine has readers voting for the supposedly sexiest local woman and the world's 100 sexiest women.
On the local front, the poll has narrowed to four "hot favourites", tipped to take the title from long, lean, leggy blonde Minki van der Westhuizen (second internationally to Britney Spears, would you believe).
It pits one long, lean, leggy, blonde newcomer, Carla La Reserveé, against three long, lean, leggy brunettes, Lee-Ann Liebenberg, Tanit Phoenix and Sam Katz.
All of them are models, all are white, with not an Afro or peppercorn in sight. Surprising in this day, age and stage of our history?
Not really. They all fit perfectly into the mould of the Western ideal of beauty, as do the bodies of the very few black women, among them the stunning Mirriam Ngomane and Hlubi Mboya.
Magazine editor Brendan Cooper says the title of South Africa's sexiest woman is "still anyone's for the taking". La Reserveé was looking good until Liebenberg edged ahead.
It's not really true that "anyone" can take the title. If past experience and the current Miss South Africa are anything to go by, that anyone will be someone who conforms to the Western ideal.
That cuts out the majority of this country's sexy women, who have what are called "African trademarks" - big breasts, bums, and lips.
Competitions such as these are a relative business, and like beauty, being sexy is in the eye of the beholder. However, the reality is that any black woman with delusions of sexy grandeur would have to look, well, in a word, white.
If she really wants to be a serious contender she should take a leaf from the strategy book of the Nigerians.
For years, they sent entrants to Miss World pageants without success until they tried a new tack in 2001: judges were told to select
a beauty not in local eyes, but who could "represent the country internationally" - a euphemism for someone who fits the Western ideal.
Results were quick and gratifying: the first African winner in the contest's 51-year history in the person of 1,83m, skinny, sculpted Nigerian beauty, 18-year-old Agbani Darego.
At the time, Darego declared that "black is beautiful", which sounded a little hollow alongside uncharitable descriptions of her as "a white girl in black skin".
But she did raise her country's profile on the international stage, and the image of thin people on her home front.
Her "victory" gave substance to concerns that behind the creation of apparently African "ideals" lie images continually peddled by the white, Western world.
Clinical psychologist Leonie Marais says it's not surprising that the Western ideal predominates among contestants for sexiest woman in South Africa. After all, the concept on which this kind of competition - and beauty contests in general - are based is a Western notion.
However, she believes there are signs that we are slowly moving from exclusive definitions of beauty to a more "global consensus" of what is beautiful and sexy, irrespective of race and colour.
If only that were true. Johannesburg sociologist Hilda Shindondola doesn't believe that for a minute.
Shindondola, a doctoral fellow and junior lecturer in the sociology department at Johannesburg University (formerly RAU), says the Western ideal of beauty is still prevalent, thanks in part to the power and influence of Western media. It remains a form of discrimination based on race and notions of superiority and inferiority.
It is the reason African women are increasingly and desperately dieting to try to look the way the media project beauty and fashion to be, she says. They need to be thin to squeeze into hipster jeans and mini skirts that are dictated by fashion.
One sign is a significant increase in eating disorders that were practically non-existent in black communities. These days they are the norm, says Shindondola, and showing up in black girls as young as 10.
More black women - and some men - are turning to cosmetic surgery and using skin lightening creams to look more white, she says.
The Western ideal is also about business - and modelling and competitions like these are businesses.
"Businesses don't promote what is not selling," she says.
Few bother to promote African beauty ideals because of the perception that they "don't sell".
This won't change unless black women with African trademarks stop subjecting themselves to unhealthy lifestyles in the name of Western beauty, she says.
There's nothing wrong with promoting beautiful black women with slender figures, as long as those who are not naturally slender don't feel pressured to conform to the thin ideal.
In every culture and society there is a definition and acceptable standard of beauty. That is being lost in this country and things won't change unless women do it for themselves, says Shindondola.
They need to stand up and say they are proud of their dark skin, kinky hair and voluptuous bodies.
To do otherwise is to deny themselves, and that's not healthy or beautiful for body, mind and spirit, she says.