For those concerned with Free Speech (or Porn), it is time to get active.

Can't disagree with you there.Women's magazines are probably generally worse than porn for women's self esteem.I'll agree to that.

I in no way meant to imply that India is superior to any other nation.I was using India's long tradition of the Kama Sutra nad sexual religious imagery and iconography to specifically counter your claim that societies which have such factors have all crumbled.India hasn't crumbled. That's all I wanted to point out.

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I might also point out that you are speaking from the male point of view, about what's "healthy" for MEN, while a woman really might have a lot healthier sense of security and healthier self-esteem if she could count on a man's finding all his sexual pleasure with HER just as she is without the threat of his thinking of someone else or wishing she looked or acted different.

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But women think about other men and wish their men looked or acted different all the time, don't they?I do.That doesn't mean that I love my husband less or that I am interested in breaking my marriage vows.But come on, I am not threatened by my partner thinking that Angelina Joeli is hot if he's coming home with me, just as he isn't threatened by my thinking that Jude Law is hot if I'm going home with him.Both of those people ARE hot and it would be stupid to pretend that we don't notice that.

I've always had the filter off.

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That is ridiculous and only indicative that you have never actually read Playboy. I will give you that it trends to youngish
(though they sometimes feature older women), and perhaps can be said to feature more caucasions. Outside of that you are dead wrong. They have lots of brunettes and red heads, and girls with both large and small breasts.

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Some stats from the Playboy website about Playmates:Average age: 22Average measurements: 35-23-35Average height: 5'6"Average weight: 115 poundsLightest Playmate: 85 poundsHeaviest Playmate: "they'll never tell"Percentage that are blonde: 40%Since the 1960's, the average height has increased by 2" but the weight has only increased one pound. This means that the models have become considerably thinner over the years. They won't even list the heaviest Playmate because clearly, if it were to be a normal or high-sounding weight, it would be bad. (?)So, that's a pretty high percentage of blondes when there are 3 other hair colors. That's also a pretty tall, VERY thin average height and weight, and the average measurements also indicate a very thin woman.

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If you want to leave out saggy breasts, and obviously overweight then that would be true. They also manipulate the photos to remove cellulite.

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Well, then this supports my contention that Playboy teaches men that cellulite, which is normal, healthy, very common female body fat is ugly and that women who don't have any are more desireable that those who do.I will remind you that the "medicalization" of cellulite is a recent phenomena. The word wasn't even invented until a couple of decades ago. Before that, cellulite was known as "normal female body fat", and even bathing beauty contest winners in the 20's and 30's had it.

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So youngish (I'd say youthful even if older), toned, and firm breasts (of whichever size).

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I'd say young rather than young"ish", if the average age is only 22. I'll grant that the average breast size is smaller than I expected, but the height is taller, the waist size smaller, and the weight is much lower than I expected.

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It depends on the personalities and the degree of addiction to porn, which really is a big problem in some marriages these days.

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Well, sure, if someone is addicted to porn then they have a problem, the same as if they aare addicted to alcohol they have a problem.But surely you don't suggest that since some people can become addicted to alcohol that all alcohol is bad and that those who are not addicted shouldn't be free to have a glass of wine or a beer now and then, do you?

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All it takes is a small percentage of men to be inspired to rape and murder, not the entire population, to make porn a bad thing. All it takes is a general tendency to a dehumanizing of women, only really noticeable in a small percentage of the population, to make porn a bad thing.

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[quote]All it takes is a small percentage of men to be inspired to rape and murder, not the entire population, to make military service a bad thing. All it takes is a general tendency to a dehumanizing of all people, only really noticeable in a small percentage of the population, to make military service a bad thing.

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That is essentially average height and weight for women is it not? That is to say when you average everyone and not what an "average woman" is?

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5'6" - 5'8" is not that tall for women, and while I admit 115 means a woman of that height has to be toned, that is not overly thin... and it is an average.

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Toned? That's more than toned, holmes, that's pretty skinny.You are also not addressing the trend over the years, which is that while the height of the women has increased two inches, the weight has only increased one pound.That translates into a taller, thinner woman overall being considered ideal now compared to just a generation ago.I am 5'4" tall, and when I was my thinnest and fittest as an adult woman I weighed 128 pounds and was a size 6. Even then my waist size was an inch larger than the average waist size of a playmate, while they were two inches taller and 13 pounds ligher.For a woman to be 13 pounds lighter and two inches taller than me, she would have to be considerably thinner and have pretty much no muscle tone.That means we are talking about an average Playmate who is 5'6" and a size 4 or 5 with a really tiny waist.That is far, far away from the general population of US women, even of the same age group.

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We are not dogs, schraf. Playboy did not "teach" me anything except how to balance a magazine in one hand to keep another one free.

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The media teaches all of us a lot, holmes, and to deny that is a bit silly.Seventeen magazine taught me that I wanted to look like the models on the pages. Playboy (and really the rest of the culture) teaches men what is sexy and beautiful and desireable in a woman and that they can gain considerable status among their peers by having such a woman on their arm, and teaches women that they should strive to reach that ideal. I am not saying that similar pressures regarding fitness aren't true for men, but that is very recent. The pressures to look a certain way in order to be desireable have always been greater for women than men, because men have most often been judged by accomplishments WRT desireability.The parties at the Grotto are legendary and everyone wants to be invited to them, don't they?

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In any case, you are correct that cellulite is natural and men that can't stand it are going to be hard pressed to be happy for long.

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Or, they keep divorcing their aging wives and get a new younger, firmer one. Come on, haven't you ever heard the long-used term "trophy wife?"Or, if their wife is motivated, she gets a little nip and tuck or suck to try keep the illusion of 29 years old (and her man) forever.

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I guess that is a problem for men that cannot figure out the difference between FANTASY and REALITY.

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But isn't the point of Playboy that it is supposed to be about the "girl next door"? The beautiful woman who is also attainable rather than a professional model? That's the whole point of the magazine, right, that these are "ordinary" women you might meet at work or the grocery store? The wives and girlfriends of readers, too.

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Why, Schrafinator, are women so obsessed with their looks? All this minute inventory over height versus weight, etc.? Why, Schrafinator, are women so obsessed with their looks? All this minute inventory over height versus weight, etc.?

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There's no one answer, but there are a number of factors that influence it:1) It is part of our culture for woman to be very concerned with their appearence. It is considered an important duty, really, for women to keep themselves visually appealing and desireable to men. If they fail to maintain a certain standard (even after having children), women are often said to have "let themselves go" and "no wonder he left her", whereas there is not a tradition of women leaving their husbands for gaining a bit of weight in later years.2) Most men go apeshit over thin, long-legged, stacked, young, long-haired women. That's the type that they are generally socialized to find most desireable. Women compete for men, so they try to fit that ideal.3) Girls are socialized from a very young age that their appearence is very important and that they are probably not good enough.Therefore we have to buy a bunch of stuff like makeup, hair dye, high-heeled shoes, fake nails, and of course we have to watch our "girlish figures" (with Weight Watchers or Bally's) very closely if we want to attract the best kind of man.4) Stylish clothing is very difficult to buy if you are a woman has anything other than a thin, teenager-like body. IF you have some curves, you have to head over to the "mature" woman section, AKA "tentland".It is really, really difficult to mentally combat all of that as a woman. It is relentless, everywhere, all the time.

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Yeah, that's about it, you're still sounding hot to me.

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...even though I am 20 pounds heavier now and am a size 10?I was a size six the last time, oh, 13 years ago.

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The question I would want answered, though you may not have it, is what is the average height and weight of women, and what is considered a healthy weight range for that height. The "average" that you mentioned for Playboy does not necessarily sound outside of either.

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OK I looked it up and the average height for an american woman is 5'4", and the weight reange considered healthy is 108-144 pounds.So, you can see that the 115 pound average weight for a 5'6" Playmate is actually quite low.

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I will admit that you do not sound like an immediate candidate for a Playboy Playmate, but I'm sure they'd consider running you if you became famous. They do have pictorials of girls that are not Playmates and perhaps that is what is skewing some of these stats away from what actually appears in Playboy?

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Well, the stats from the Playboy page referred only to Playmates, I believe.

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No, that was Hustler. While Playboy may delve into that every now and then, and maybe they have tried to say they are that more recently (?), but the girl next door thing was by its competitors.

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I am at work at the moment so I can't go to the Playboy website, but this was specifically mentioned as a longtime aspect of how they choose playmates.

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I couldn't let this one slip by. Playboy doesn't teach men what is sexy etc, Playboy has to sell its product. It doesn't do that by telling the customer what they want, but by finding out what the customer wants and selling that.

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It does both.It is both a follower of trends and an originator of trends.Playboy might have done what you are suggesting in the early years, but it is also now really an institution and an authority at this point. It can and does have influence on what it's readers considers hot and sexy in women's appearence.

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Playboy has to appeal to the most people that it is possible to appeal to. The market drives the product. Whilst the product might influence the market, if the models that Playboy posted weren't already attractive to men - they wouldn't sell as many magazines.

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As I said above, Playboy is in a fairly unique position to do both.Any good business works very hard to BOTH find out what customers want and to try to influence the market to buy what it's selling.

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Truly beautiful women to me are specific to me, it would be great if Playboy could tap into my mind and produce a magazine full of women that represent my desires. They can't, so they go with models that are attractive to most men. Some men are 'totally into' that 'type', some men find it appealing and attractive, if not perfect, and some men don't like (most) playboy women. I am one of the latter opinion.

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Then you are rare.

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Playboy doesn't teach men what to think, men who think a certain way buy Playboy. Red Car Weekly wouldn't teach me that red cars were better than black cars, it would simply be bought by people who like red cars. Keeping in the porn world - Big Butt magazine won't teach a man that big butts and large ladies are sexy if he thinks they are repulsive...they will simply be bought by people who do think that way.

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But I'm not talking about niche markets. I'm talking about what influences the majority of people, and Playboy does that.Look, how many young boys find their father's stash of Playboys and have some of their earliest sexual experiences with those women on the pages? That has to have some power in forming what those boys end up thinking is sexually desireable.AbE: Think about it. Their father, whom they look to as an example of what it means to be a man bought the magazines, the women on the pages are clearly displayed in a positive manner WRT desireability, etc. I can easily see kids thinking that if it's in Playboy, it's meant to be viewed as sexy, can't you?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-30-2005 08:04 PM

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Have you tried turning off the TV?

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I'm not trying to be smart here. While it is true that these types of images are everywhere, they do seem to be more concentrated in certain areas of our culture, and certain types of media are more effective at promoting changes of attitude and expectations than others.

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I watch almost no mainstream TV. The TV I watch is usually really dorky or nerdy shows like NOVA, Antiques Roadshow, and sometimes What Not To Wear.I actually do not find TV that bad, but for a long time I had to just stay completely away from fashion magazines, even though I never really read them much anyway. They were a very negative symbol to me.

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The only time I watch a lot of TV is when I visit my mother -- there isn't much to do in my old home town, and my mom has cable. When I am watching TV I can actually feel my attitudes and desires being manipulated -- in fact, they are changed, even though I recognize that they are changing. Fortunately, once I am back home they change back to normal.

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That's good.

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I also note that studies done with women in East Asia seem to indicate that once American style advertising becomes the norm, women there also experience a drop in their self-esteem and body image. I don't normally watch much TV, and the only magazines I subscribe to are current events/political so I don't get a lot of advertising in my life.

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Interesting about East Asian women. Not surprised.

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At any rate, I do sympathize with you. As a chronically underweight male (when I was in my 20s I was 6'2" and weighed only 135 lbs) I, too, grew up with a poor self-image. As a child it was always foremost in my thoughts and really affected how I thought about myself and how I related with other people. I hope you find a way to overcome this.

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I hope you do as well.I am much, much better these days than I ever was from the ages of 11 through about 27, which is ironic, since I had a much "better" body back then in many ways compared to today.It's a daily choice to not be negative about my looks, and I am having a bit of a harder time with it over the last year or so for various reasons.Thanks very much for your support.

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It is at this point that "trendsetting" needs to be laid out. A trendsetter will experiment with some new things and AS THEY ARE FOUND POPULAR, stick with and so reinforce that taste, or fad. A trendsetter cannot ever tell you what you must like, unless you are a really shallow person with no tastes of your own.

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Well, most people ARE pretty shallow and don't have much taste of their own. There's a reason marketing and advertizing agencies are paid so much money. It's because advertizing works really well.Why else would millions of adults become obsessed with collecting Beanie Babies?

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The drive for a trend has to come from the people, the market, and not from a singular men's magazine.

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That's like saying that the trends in fashion have to come from people, not from the fashion designers.Well, if the fashion designers all decide that low-ride jeans are in fashion in a given year, then, hey, you'll find them everywhere in the department stores and in the fashion magazines, and all the celebrities will be wearing them in all the sit coms and TV shows and music videos.I have seen SO MANY college and high school girls wearing those low-rise jeans that looked terrible in them, but that's what's in style, and that's what for sale, so that's what they wear.Playboy IS an institution. Hugh Hefner IS an American icon who represents what "every man" is supposed to want (A buxom, ever-young blonde on each arm). Bart Simpson even dressed up as Hef in a Halloween episode of The Simpson's. The Playboy bunny head logo is everywhere. It's completely mainstram.I just think it goes without saying that Playboy has a significant cultural influence upon what the general populace of America considers beautiful and sexy in a woman.You say that "tastes change". Well, why do you think that is? And why do you think that tastes tend to change so rapidly in cultures where the public is bombarded with a great deal of product advertisement? And surely you must agree that tastes change far more rapidly now than they did, say 100 years ago.There have always been standards of beauty, and these have always been heavily dependent upon cultural influences.There are many, many big money businesses which benefit from women (and all people, really) feeling inadequate about their appearence. The more narrowly defined and relatively unattainable this standard of beauty is, the more money those corporations stand to make.Playboy is part of that culture which defines beauty in such a way that most women can never hope to attain it, yet many American men would gain a great deal of status and self-esteem if they had a Playmate on their arm, wouldn't they? I remember watching some talk show years ago and there was a couple on the stage. The man wanted his wife to get a makeover because he thought she was really sexy but she dressed too conservatively all the time. He said something like, "You can't tell with what she's wearing now, but I'm telling ya, she looks just like the Playboy Channel under there, seriously!"And everybody knew exactly what he meant, including me.

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I thoroughly agree that Playboy will attempt new things every once and a while, and they may become trends, and Playboy will help reinforce those tastes that have emerged, but if it was not enjoyed by the people Playboy would drop it in an instant.

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Right.They are trend-setters, along with most other successful companies that cater to the mass market.But if it's not "enjoyed by Hef" I doubt it gets on the pages of the magazine.Hef apparently has a VERY narrow standard of beauty that is unattainable by most women.

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A guy DOES NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM look at a Playboy and think to himself, gosh this must be what a hot girl looks like, and feel he must conform his tastes to that magazine. That is indeed why there are so many other men's magazines.

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So, if a 13 year old boy started telling his friends at school how hot he thought obese women were, what kind of acceptance do you think he'd get? What would happen if he started asking out all of the super fat girls at his school? He's likely get ridiculed mercilessly for even suggesting that fat was sexy and would most likely never get to the point of ever asking any of them out because the social price for him would be too high.Now, by contrast, what would happen if he told his friends that he thought Carmen Electra was super hot? What would happen if he started dating the Carmen Electra look alike at his school? Lots of accolades from friends and an increase in status and popularity in school, most likely.

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Your criticism of Playboy appears to be deeper than what happened with beanie babies. You are suggesting that it is capable of shaping trends and influencing cultural expectations.

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I don't believe this is true because Playboy is at the mercy of the Public.

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But aren't Beanie Babies purchased by "the Public", too?We are sort of talking about a chicken and egg situation. I agree that Playboy is at the mercy of the public to a sizeable extent, but it is also part and parcel of a culture that defines what is beautiful and sexy in women in a very narrow way and encourages women to believe they are inadequate if they don't reach it.

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Again, could you explain what men are supposed to be like according to Playboy? Most guys fall well short.

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Could it be that women really find the women of Playboy attractive because that is their taste as well, and are unhappy when they fall short,

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Remember, women and girls are raised in our culture to be very concerned and focused upon their looks, and that it is pretty much a duty for them to work to be attractive to men.One message to women from Playboy is that if you want to attract sexual attention, if you want to be considered really beautiful, then you have to look like a Playmate. And, as you say, genetics and luck have much to do with if she measures up. Of course, there is an entire industry devoted to cutting, peeling, abrading, augmenting, reducing, and otherwise changing nature by brute force. And it's only been recently that men in the general population have even been marketed towards by these businesses. I believe a big reason is because women are finally getting into positions of influence in these fields and have begun to go after men's self-esteem WRT their physical appearence because it's an untapped market.

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just as a guy might when he realizes he doesn't have a friggin' grotto or more personally a youthful chiseled chin or body worthy of an expensive shirt if in fact he could afford one in the first place?

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I notice that two of those things have to do with money, which can be saved and earned and handled wisely. These don't count as they are not related to physical beauty that one is either born with or not.Are you seriously telling me that Playboy is sending the message that men need to have fantastic bodies and chiseled chins to get laid? Hugh Hefner never had a fantastic body, ever, and he's rather average looking, really. I get the impression that's he's selling an attitude to men more than anything else.

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No, this is complete BS and I feel I must rebut this claim completely. While some teens may purchase low rise jeans because they are what's in and teens tend to be overconcerned with popularity, low rise jeans are popular for many different age groups.

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Low rise jeans should be worn on certain body types and not others to be flattering, yet almost all the high school and college girls wear them regardless of their body type. I've seen really quite attractive, curvy young women wearing super low rise jeans that made them look like a sausage bursting out of their casings. They would have been much better off in higher rise jeans that made the most of their curves insead of fighting with them.

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What's more important however is that there are no girls that look bad in low rise jeans. If you think they do then that is your taste... or you must live near mutants.

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If one has rolls of flesh hanging over the waistband of one's low rise jeans, it is not that great looking. Believe me. A mid rise would be more flattering on a woman who carries some weight in her midsection.

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The hatred of low rise jeans certainly is catching on among prudes everywhere, and I keep hearing that nice little catchphrase that girls look bad in them.

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I didn't say all of them looked bad in them. Many of them look fantastic. Some of them do not. Yet they all wear them.

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Low rise is designed to showcase their bodies, not the jeans.

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Indeed can I ask how a girl that looks bad in low rise jeans will look better in any other jeans? What would be the difference, and so what you would be objecting to in the low rise model?

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Mid rise would be better for many women's bodies, and they are better for mine. Basically anyone who doesn't have a pretty flat stomach and little body fat.There is also the problem of low rise jeans having to be hiked up every three seconds, and the fact that you can't sit down in them without showing your underwear of butt crack.

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We are hoping these stay in style not just for looking at others, but so that we can feel comfortable.

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Oh, I'm not talking about the nasty high-waisted jeans from the 80's.Nobody really looked good in those except people who were really long-waisted.

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Yes, Playboy and Hef are icons. They are icons of what "every man" wants. James Bond is the same thing. So what?

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Women spend billions on products and services, some of them life-threatening, to change what they look like in order to be what "every man wants", which is a very narrow range of what is "beautiful".Men can and do attract women with their personalities and accomplishments over their looks. Most of the couples I know are such that the woman is more attractive than the man. I only know one couple in which the man is more attractive than the woman (conventionally speaking). How many young women get breast implants and nose jobs? How many young men get penis enlargements and nose jobs?Sadly, we will see men getting more insecure with their appearence as time goes by and the corporations which stand to make the money get their hooks into them at a young age.Here's some stats:http://www.edap.org Magazines for women 18-24 contain 10.5 times more diet information then for males. All of these advertisements stated that weight loss would improve appearance. 74% reported that they lose weight to be more attractive. 1 out of 3.8 commercials sends messages of what is and what is not attractive. On average a child will see 5,260 of these commercials. 42% of 6-8 year old girls want to be thinner. 81% of kids 10 years old are afraid of being fat. 51% of girls 9-10 feel better when they are on diets. 25% of men and 45% of women are on a diet every day. We spend an average of $40 billion on dieting and diet products.

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If an individual sets their ideal as what most people find to be the best, then there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. If they define their entire worth according to one category of life then they are not properly defining reality. If they believe the ideal is a realistic expectation to be met, then they have lost the difference between fantasy and reality.

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If there are stats indicating that a growing percentage of the population has specified one category of life as overriding in importance and must be considered a failure if it does not reach the level of cultural ideals, then there is a cultural problem in dealing with reality.

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That is not an indication that there is a problem with what its ideals are.

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Actually, it means that they are human.If a culture values certain physical attributes in a woman like a tall stature, flat stomach, slim hips, long, thick hair, smooth skin, and large, high breasts, and bombards it's people from day one of their existence with near constant images of those attributes being associated with being loved, desired, and acheiving success and happiness, it's a perfectly normal human response for little girls, adolescents, and women to want to appear the way the culture says they should and to hate or be unhappy with the parts of themselves that do not fit that ideal.We are social creatures, after all, and are pretty much built to respond to social pressure.I am not saying that standards of beauty are wrong to have.What I am saying is that the pressure on all women in the US to meet those standards of beauty is very great, begins when we are born, and that the narrowness of that standard means that most of us will fail.I am telling you this as a woman who has struggled with this every day of her life. It's not a failing within me that I have body image problems when I live in this culture.AbE: And it's been happening to men over the last 20 years, too. The Soloflex guy and Markey Mar's underwear ads are two of the best known images of the new, unattainable male standard of beauty. More men are unhappy with their appearence, more men are undergoing cosmetic surgery, more boys and men are abusing steroids and developing eating disorders and unhealthy body images.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-05-2005 09:36 AM