But not with washboard abs and huge pecs and very low body fat. And a thin man without a lot of muscle could be sexy, too, like Mick Jagger. Or really large men with considerable body fat, like football players.
You continue to flit between men that are found attractive and men that are found attractive as an ideal. Mick Jagger... besides his fame... is not an ideal. Huge football players are also not an ideal.
I have know clue what you are talking about regarding Marky Mark. It is true that there is more imagery of men for the purposes of attracting women in commerce than there was in the past, and thus more showing of ideals. That is because women are becoming more of a target consumer base attracted by sexual appeals (a given for men in the past).
It is the increased concern with physical beauty in general (look at queer eye for the straight guy) which is now accepted by men. Images themselves did nothing. Indeed I would not want to look like Marky Mark.
No, it really isn't. At least, not from my perspective.
Yes it really is, and your perspective is skewed. Just as you pointed out the range (from thin to fat) of men that are attractive to women, so goes it for women that are attractive to men. The absolute mainstream generally limit themselves to the mainstream and so the narrow range closest to the ideal.
That is why "nerdy girls" type sites will look like fetish sites if you view anything outside of mainstream as fetish. What it is is independent, and so catering to markets outside the large corporate owned media which by its nature will focus on mainstream.
By the way, I was only trying to find sites which focused on posing models. If you wander into actual sex sites, then there are many many many indies devoted to normal looking women as they are run by normal looking couples. Most are a little older and a little heavier.
Capitalism combined with the lingering effects of a past where a woman's only power in a male-dominated culture was her beauty, and a more recent effects of male whim determining what they found beautiful in the female form.
Avoiding a lengthy discussion of how wrong this is from my own understanding, I would like to ask you what else is supposed to drive what men find beautiful in women except male whims?
You are using purposefully extreme language to downplay advertising's highly influential role in our culture. EVERYONE, even you, is influenced by advertising and the culture, even if you are media savvy. It's just a matter of degree.
Heheheh... I should have put the word "brainwashing" in quotes as I took it from you. Go back and check out the part of your post that I was referring to.
I do agree people are influenced by advertising, but more important than a matter of degree is a matter of how they are influenced.
I don't believe people get their notions of what must be beautiful from those alone, unless that is all they are surrounded with as an environment. Until advertising is our entire environment, your scenario just isn't true.
Clearly, we see a measurable, noticeable negative affect upon women's self-image when they look at fashion magazines, but they are not brainwashed.
How do people feel after hearing a beautiful performance by someone younger than them, or just plain look into the sky and think of how vast it is? Usually small and lesser in comparison.
If you view someone that you think is more beautiful than you, and dwell on that fact, then you are likely to feel down. If you don't think they are more beautiful then no matter how much everyone says so (and the pictures appear everywhere) you will likely not feel bad. In any case, dwelling on such things is the bad habit which must be addressed.
Was she brainwashed?
Yes she was. A girl found something that she thought was beautiful and interesting, and then a bunch of grownups told her it was "inappropriate" for her to find it beautiful and interesting. She was taught (explicitly or otherwise) that looks have meaning and she would have to conform rather than simply enjoy what she liked.
Unless you are going to argue that a child couldn't have found those looks beautiful and interesting without some form of social coercion, and so the relatives were "saving" this girl from some dire fashion fate?
Frankly I am at a loss for understanding why she inherently couldn't wear those outfits.
I think we have a greater tolerance for violence in the US, particularly anonymous violence, because of our violence-saturated media
I thought you liked Michael Moore? Have you not seen Bowling for Columbine? The idea that violence saturated media leads to anything is completely disproven... same goes for sex in media. The Japanese for example have violence in media second to NONE, yet have smaller rates of violence.
I am greatly saddened to see you believing there is even a possible connection.
Of course, Disney movies are clearly not real people. They are cartoons. Photographs of real women are a lot easier to compare oneself to. That's why they show the before and after photographs on the weight loss and cosmetic surgery ads.
This is true but for kids fantasy and reality are more mixed, which is why parents providing an environment where they learn the difference is important. The problem is that Disney is being used as a babysitter and pretty much has its messages replayed by parents and the "real people" which make up the rest of their environment. Pressure to reach ideals and conform is pretty great right now.
I don't think kids are that much affected by cosmetic ads.
So then do you agree that the culture gives children a body image "accent" that is harmful?
Yes and no. I do agree that a child can be raised in an environment such that it is likely (boy or girl) to have body issues, or problems which lead to body issues later, that can be detrimental.
I do not hold "culture" to blame, as parents are supposed to be raising their kids and not the market place or society at large. If the parents fail at that, then that is their fault.
If a child turns out with these habits it is a shame. Most will NOT have problems like this, but those that do are tragic. It will be upon them to learn how to overcome their problem, not on everyone else to dumb down their lives to fit that person's issues.
It is often at the expense of ethics, sorry. The larger the corporations are, the worse the ethics, usually.
I cannot agree with your position, though neither can I offer evidence to disprove it. I will agree that corporations are more impersonal as they grow bigger, and they are not encouraged to be ethical.
There is oversight not because they are more likely to be unethical or that they are intrinsically unethical, but that that is how you prevent certain unethical actions from occuring.
I really do agree that modern corporate capitalism raises problems, but I find them to be much more practical problems, than what you are describing.
You never asked to be victimized nor injured. You may be left with scars.
Absolutely. But it is wrong to then live your life focused on those scars and trying to "fix" the world so that others will not have those same scars, by blaming culture as a whole and demanding they change what they like.
If your injury is that you have come to hate yourself and want to alter yourself, because of broadcasts regarding what other people like the best, then it is partly your fault and that is entirely where you should focus your attention on what to fix.
You instead want to blame what got me to even realize that it wasn't me that was at fault in the first place. You would like me to reject the lifeline that Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth" threw me 15 years ago.
I don't mean to say that there was no value in feminist literature such that you could not gain by it. The problem is not realizing, once you are moving on to health, that it has some problems and you can let go of it. Its sort of like never removing the training wheels and getting angry with people who tell you you don't need them anymore.
Have you ever read the Autobiography of Malcolm X? That is a great parallel. He was "saved" by militant black Islam. There is absolutely no question that it took him out of a very bad situation, believing in certain stereotypes that he would perpetuate, and gave him power to break racial oppression. Despite all that it did for him, he then researched actual Islam and his own movement only to discover great flaws, devastating flaws and so broke with that very thing that "saved him", because there was something still better that he could move on to.
Malcolm X is one of my greatest heroes for that very reason. Always question, even the people and ideas that helped you up and beyond your current situation. There is perhaps something higher still.
Dude, not only was she a Playmate, she was Playmate Of the Year in 1993.
Ahhhh, my error. I had not realized she was a Playmate. I thought she had been just a celebrity shoot. I will admit that there are periods where I have not followed Playboy. That year (and a few around it) I was immersed in grad school and barely had time for a movie (and never watched TV).
What you call a "variety" of looks in Playboy pretty much look the same to me. I've flipped through it a few times and looked at the website coverpages.
They vary well beyond the stereotype you mentioned. One thing that can be annoying is the similar way they look in that they are almost always lit the same way and have make-up. As I said before, they do not run the gamut of all attractive looks, which is exactly why it had competition and still does today.
So, you can see that the average Playmate is at the very low end of normal, but only for some of the ranges. She is below normal on others. And, since we are using an average, that means that a fair portion of the playmates are actually below ideal or normal for their height.
Actually I had gone out looking for lists on my own, and discovered that there were a number of different ones and ways to break them down (beyond height and weight).
I also saw an interesting discussion on where some of the first tables came from. I have to admit a general skepticism about them at this point.
That said I did discover, and so agree with you that the Playmate average certainly does hit the low-ideal to low-unhealthy range, depending on the table. I'm not quite sure what conclusion to draw from that beyond that the average is of low weight as I am now dubious about tables in general and even if I wasn't, I'm not sure which to go with. As long as they are within a healthy range, I don't see why there is a problem if the average is low.
Certainly it does suggest that some models are too thin for their own good. You can see that with the Barbi Twins, who actually make me queazy to look at. No matter how much Hef and others said they looked great, they look like skeletons to me. Though I should add that they do have an eating disorder and are aware of it and are trying to deal with it privately, so I don't mean to be making fun of them or their condition.
I might note that they had their disorder before they became models. It was a counter reaction to initial overeating problems. They did not try to do this to themselves to become models or what others wanted. (I just saw a doc on them and their eating disorder last week).
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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