I might be unusual in this regard, but I actually prefer women who have bodies substantial enough to keep them alive for the long-haul.
This is not at all to deny the plain fact there is something deeply sexy about a jaundiced skeleton whose breath reeks of her own rotting flesh.
It's probably past bedtime where dsquared is, so I will take it upon myself to observe that Details is for poofs anyway.
That details article basically makes the same argument as the first paragraph of Adam's comment. They just used a stupid picture.
Not that any of this is a huge deal, but it was just a moment of 'Yes, this is exactly why we're all insane.'
4: Sorry, that's bullshit. If you want to talk about how attractive women who are slim, but not actually starved, are without sending a message about how ashamed all non-emaciated women should be about their bodies, don't open it with a picture of a sow in heels.
In context, that stupid picture basically makes the same argument as Felix's comment.
God, I hate Pandagon. The headline and tagline about "fat" and "plate scrapers" is pretty stupid, but the article itself is quite reasonable. Just about all the women pictured are meaty by Hollywood standards, and there's no question that the writer thinks they look better for it.
I'm undecided about the pig in heels picture. It could be as stupid as the headline, but the juxtaposition of the pig with all the subsequent hotties could be a way to subvert the Hollywood notion that they're fat. I'm sure this possibility will be dismissed out of hand by the outraged.
Ahem. I would gladly lust (and enthusiastically!) after any of the pictured women, if only Hollywood were not trying to make me do so. Fuckin Hollywood -- I want the autonomy of my own perverted daydreams!
I'm thinking of something along the lines of "If that's a pig, I love pigs...."
Dude, Details is calling them 'platescrapers', and opening the slideshow with an unexplained pig. The women in those pictures are not anywhere close to overweight. Really. They aren't fat but attractive despite it, they're slim, just not starved.
That's not about subverting the notion that they're fat. It's about the magazine excusing itself for publishing pictures of women who aren't emaciated by making it clear that the writer knows they're fat, but has a perverted taste for them anyway.
Whatever you think of Pandagon, the Details article is sick.
I don't approve of the pig. Or the Jane Russell picture: where'd they get that one, anyway, and why didn't they use a better one.
excusing itself for publishing pictures of women who aren't emaciated by making it clear that the writer knows they're fat, but has a perverted taste for them anyway
I just don't see that at all. (And the writer's a woman, no?)
(And the writer's a woman, no?)
True, I'd missed that, but she's writing for a male audience.
Look, I'm terrible with actresses, so I have no idea who the woman in the orange dress is, but she's fucking skinny. She's not hipless, but she's little and has a perfectly flat stomach -- there's not an ounce of flab on her. In a world where it makes sense to illustrate a woman who looks like her with a pig, and a headline making fun of how much she must eat, emaciation is clearly the only acceptable norm.
That's completely, but completely fucked up.
the Details article is sick.
Did you read the article? I get your complaints, but 4 and 8 seem mostly right. Sure, you can say that even the women who it claims are "big" are pretty much still not, but the article acknowledges that.
I agree now that the slide show and title are stupid too. That probably is enough to slide the whole thing into the stupid article category.
Here is a completely different controversy about the pig photographer:
Jill Greenberg is a Sick Woman Who Should Be Arrested and Charged With Child Abuse
I get being upset about the pig. I didn't the article. But, uhh...
I'm torn on this. The article is clearly praising the women pictured as sexy and desirable and men who like them as praiseworthy; on the other hand, it's clearly crazy to describe Kristin Davis as someone who could be considered a 'plate-scraper' The biggest of these women is probably a size 6.
And to the extent that it promotes the idea that someone who is a size 6 is beautiful but heavy, it does women a disservice, since most women aren't a size 6 and can't get there absent serious dieting stress. And to suggest that the women who are a size six or lower are there by pigging out, come on.
Or, if I'd read the thread, what every guy has pretty much said.
OT, but I don't understand the controversy over Jill Greenberg. Sally Mann photographed her children naked for many years—well beyond an age acceptable under the norm. Moreover, she's actually a good photographer worth the discussion.
Oh man, that's mean with the lollipops.
The woman in the orange dress is Rose McGowan, and I agree that she's almost sickly skinny in that picture. She used to be what counts as voluptuous (not safe for work, probably, although she wore it out...) for Hollywood though.
Look, I'm not disagreeing that there are totally unreasonable body image messages everywhere, but this piece just doesn't seem like a very good example. I figure the typical Details reader is thinking something like this: 1. Picture of pig. 2. Pictures of voluptuous hotties. 3. Pigs are hot!
I can see the objection that these women are supposed to be pigs, but I think "pigs are hot" is a good first step for getting away from that.
See, I saw the pig picture, then the pictures of the actresses and thought, "Huh. I wonder if actresses are delicious, too."
Crucify the art director and editor(s), and consider skeptically the writer's point. I'll side with the critics here: there's nothing subversive or in fact reasonable about taking the moderate position on a Hollywood norm that is ludicrous across the spectrum. The writer's point in "WHY FAT IS BACK IN HOLLYWOOD" isn't that the norm is insane, but that a new trend has arrived (and is subject to reverse).
There you go, LB, insight into the male mind.
And I don't really hate Pandagon, just feminists.
But it is such an unrelated picture of a pig. Not a fat pig, or a pig with a personality, or a face even. It doesn't convey any charm, so you can't make it into "I could even like this pig, as I am stretching the outer bounds of my taste to include size 6 women". All that picture carries is a strangely backlit pig's ass, wierdo red carpet glamour and sparkly shoes. It is just there to pick fights, not to add to the message.
It's not feasible to change the whole 'women over size two are bloated sows who don't deserve love' notion in our culture with one article that uses every nasty slur a fat girl has every gotten thrown at her as if, hey, suddenly we should embrace being called chunky whores! So why are they doing it as if all the things they say won't be taken as calling those women unattractive?
It's the 'I was only joking' school of journalism for which Details is noted.
The Greenberg photos are great, though they sure do freak some people out. Her monkey portraits are fabulous, too.
I can see the objection that these women are supposed to be pigs, but I think "pigs are hot" is a good first step for getting away from that.
Sort of . Better than an article telling them they needed to go on a diet, but reinforcing the idea that such teensy women are pigs doesn't help the size 10s feel better. Would be sort of like if a women's magazine picked male actors with defined abs and called them flabby and out of shape, but still huggable.
I think the 'pigs' thing sends the message that these women are the outer edge of what is curvy and hot; any fatter, and they're letting down the side.
Pandagon needs to take a breath, though.
you have to cut this shit out.
And while it's been said already, the writer and photographer are both women, writing for a gay male audience. I'm not sure what I can cut out of that.
Hands up, all the straight guys here who read Details.
Hands up, anyone who reads Details.
But the writer and photographer likely didn't meet and discuss how best to capture this idea the writer has.
This picture, I think, would have been a better choice. Appropriate, since Greenberg should be writing her checks over to David LaChapelle anyway.
Armsmasher's 24 has it right. This is a trend piece which casts slim women as fat (and yet somehow still appealing!), not a piece arguing that Hollywood norms of beauty are insane.
Also, the crying baby pictures are neat.
19, 29 -- I don't understand calling Jane Russell or Marilyn Monroe teensy. A quick peruse of the internet gives double digit dress sizes for both of them. Am I misunderstanding the yardstick?
Not that I'm suggesting that unless a woman either looks like Marilyn or is a bean pole, she is hideously ugly.
The lady in the orange dress is Rose McGowan, of "Charmed". Was married to Marilyn Manson but I think it is over.
Yes, the numbers have changed. IIRC, Marilyn was between a 4 and a 6 in modern dress sizes.
the juxtaposition of the pig with all the subsequent hotties could be a way to subvert the Hollywood notion that they're fat. I'm sure this possibility will be dismissed out of hand by the outraged
I dismiss this possibility out of hand!
Ok, the article is making a reasonable point that non-emaciated is in, and that's a good thing. But, c'mon: "Why Fat is Back?" Kristin Davis and Katherine Heigl are fat? FAT?!
A picture of a motherfucking pig?! And Miss Piggy in the slide show? I'm sorry, but I'm with LB. I don't care what sex the writer and photographer are, this is gross.
Dress sizes have succumbed to vanity sizing; Marilyn's 10 or 12 is probably a modern 8 or 10. That isn't a very big woman.
The one Details I ever picked up had a long feature on how skipping out on child support was the male abortion (which was outrageously offensive in the, um, details as well as the thrust; it said things like, "There is little or no stigma attached to getting an abortion") and an article on air traffic controllers headlined "The FAA is looking for a few good men." It seemed like it was trying to pick fights about sexism. If it's looking for a gay audience, why would it bother?
Nerve asks whether Details is gay. It's not clear from the Gawker post whether they mean gay or ghey.
Ya got me, Tia. But the only houses I have ever seen a Details Magazine in all belonged to gay friends.
40: I did some more looking, and it looks as if she was a 6-8.
Any article that declares Monica Bellucci an unbeknownst-to-you hottie is one published by a gay magazine.
My gay friends actually have taste.
McGowan looked better with more weight. Now she just looks like every other starlet.
McGowan looked better with more weight.
So true. So sad that it took us fifty comments to start discussing the hotness of the actresses.
Yeah, seriously, who the hell reads Details anyway? I'm an Esquire girl.
I was charmed the other day when one of my best friends---who has probably picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder a literal thousand times--incredulously rolled his eyes when I tangentially referred to myself as not quite skinny. "What are you talking about? You're TINY!" Most of that was probably b/c his mother is a champion raiser of gentlmen, but I think some of that is just b/c he has a reasonable eye, and despite being a movie buff, is fairly immune to marketing. At some level if you just spend more time looking around you and less time contemplating airbrushed photography, you'll have more reasonable expectations for just about everything. In some ways magazines are actually worse than movies, b/c of the airbrushing.
All that said--the young Elizabeth Taylor? Wow. Smokin'.
McGowan looked better with more weight.
McGowan looked better before I knew she used to be married to Marilyn Manson.
38: She just dated/was engaged to MM; he's married to Dita Von Teese [NSFW].
The only person I know who reads Details is my son, who is gay. He, however, deplores the faminista look and feels that someone should feed Nicole Richie Real Soon Now. [But then, he's a chef, so he has a vested interest in encouraging people to eat.]
one of my best friends---who has probably picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder a literal thousand times
If you're old enough to be commenting on blogs you should probably be walking on your own by now.
Also, I may have to start watching Grey's Anatomy.
Some of us wanted to establish our feminist street cred first.
If you're old enough to be commenting on blogs you should probably be walking on your own by now.
There's a saying in Bengali that a person becomes lame when they see a horse. Who doesn't like to be carried around now and then?
But actually, this throwing over shoulders is usually in the course of mock-wrestling and does not often become a form of transport.
She just dated/was engaged to MM
She's looking better already. Just as long as she doesn't, you know, blimp out or anything.
I heard Cosmo had an article this month on how women are becoming more accepting of guys whose penises are only 8-10 inches long, rather than the 10-12 we used to demand. There's hope for all of you poorly endowed fellas yet!
Well, everyone knows that the size of a man's body parts should either change with the whims of female desire, or else they must suffer the consequences of our sexual disdain.
It kinda irks me that men, here and at Pandagon, think the point is that we need more men telling us that actually they'd prefer it if we were all size [whatever]s. Thanks. I'll get right on that. Oh, complete internet stranger whose sexual desire means nothing to me? You like size 12s, huh? Well, I'll save a wank for you tonight, then. Wink.
The problem isn't that men jerk off to women of a certain size. The problem is that anyone gives a shit whether some strange dude (or group of dudes) thinks you're fuckable.
60 is perfect, actually, because how pathetic would it be if guys with small penises then complained that they were being made to feel inadequate? "What about 6 inches? What about 6 inches?" they'd wail. We'd tell them to shut the fuck up and go back to servicing the family dog.
The problem is that anyone gives a shit whether some strange dude (or group of dudes) thinks you're fuckable.
This doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't everyone care whether any random person or group thinks s/he is fuckable?
It kinda irks me that men, here and at Pandagon, think the point is that we need more men telling us that actually they'd prefer it if we were all size [whatever]s.
But I'm not sure anyone said that.
63: Yeah, because men with small penises are every bit as oppressed as women whose bodies fail to conform to Hollywood standards.
60 is perfect, actually, because how pathetic would it be if guys with small penises then complained that they were being made to feel inadequate?
Yeah, "guys" and "they." Sure.
I just think we already had this conversation back when it was called "those Dove lotion ads." Didn't we figure out that no matter which of the "totally real" girls you wanked to, she was still a nudish chick in a debilitating pose whose "total realness" was as sexually shocking (and therefore titillating) as the first time you saw a razor-shouldered heroin-chic model in the 90's, and that it's still all about worrying what might cause the majority of American men to get erections? Who fucking cares? No matter how sexually prolific I ever am in my life, I'm never going to fuck the majority of American men. Not my problem.
because men with small penises are every bit as oppressed as women whose bodies fail to conform to Hollywood standards
You know, I'd guess that men with small penises worry about that just as much as women who think they're heavy.
Tim?
Look at that, Timbot and I just crossposted penis size insults. I love this place, when it's not oppressing me.
No matter how sexually prolific I ever am in my life, I'm never going to fuck the majority of American men.
Giving up hope before you give it the ol' college try?
But I'm not sure anyone said that.
There's a ton of defensiveness here on an issue that seems pretty black and white (plate-scrapers? a pig in high heels?), and I'm not sure where it's coming from other than some weird sense of male entitlement for absurd standards of female beauty.
You know, I'd guess that men with small penises worry about that just as much as women who think they're heavy.
When was the last time you got passed over for a job or a promotion because your penis was tiny?
But I'm not sure anyone said that.
Okay, that was at Pandagon, but many guys here were giving Rose McGowan suggestions for how to change her body to more efficiently make them aroused. I'm sure Rose is taking notes for when she knocks on your door.
I'm never going to fuck the majority of American men.
Not with that defeatist attitude you won't.
many guys here were giving Rose McGowan suggestions for how to change her body
Oh, come on.
were giving Rose McGowan suggestions
Oh come on.
71: You must have missed the old college try, back when it was called college. Oof.
many guys here were giving Rose McGowan suggestions for how to change her body
Oh, come on.
I'm sure Rose is taking notes for when she knocks on your door.
She used to be engaged to Marilyn fucking Manson. Who knows what she might do next?
When was the last time you got passed over for a job or a promotion because your penis was tiny?
You don't seriously expect Tim to answer this?
I don't think men win any misery poker with women, but I wouldn't underestimate the amount of anxiety men have about their penis size.
Okay, that was at Pandagon, but many guys here were giving Rose McGowan suggestions for how to change her body to more efficiently make them aroused. I'm sure Rose is taking notes for when she knocks on your door.
See this and sj's "defensiveness" comment strike me as completely incomprehensible. I'm not under the impression that McGowan reads Unfogged. And I don't really see any defensiveness. I took most of the guys to be saying that it was wrong to use the pig photo, but that the women were really hot, so who the fuck cares? But, really, the point was that the women are hot, and that was pretty much the end of the thought. I'm not sure why I would feel bad or defensive about thinking that that Jane Russell is hot.
I'm not sure why I would feel bad or defensive about thinking that that Jane Russell is hot.
I think you should feel bad or defensive if you wrote a magazine article saying that Jane Russell is fat but hot.
Jane Russell is fat but hot.
Jane Russell is 85 years old, you perv.
82: Yeah, but I didn't. I don't know if the author did, and I doubt 95% of the straight men with subscriptions (or "Fred") know either.
Just for the record, 75 was posted before seeing 74.
If you really want to turn the table on men, isn't the right measure buns or beer guts instead of dick size? (I mean if it was dick size, then it'd be cunt tightness/lip size or whatever, right)?
84: by Jane Russell I mean Jane Russell 50 years ago.
As a matter of fact, I thought she died 50 years ago. I guess I had her confused with Jean Harlow.
If you really want to turn the table on men, isn't the right measure buns or beer guts instead of dick size? (I mean if it was dick size, then it'd be tightness/lip size or whatever, right)?
And I don't really see any defensiveness. I took most of the guys to be saying that it was wrong to use the pig photo, but that the women were really hot, so who the fuck cares?
The objection is not that the women are or aren't hot; it's that the piece holds them up as something unusual (fat hotties!) whose non-rail-thinness marks them as curious outliers within the world of feminine beauty. To underscore this subtle point, it calls them plate-scrapers and compares them to pigs.
When Lizardbreath expresses her dismay regarding this article, Ogged replies that he hates Pandagon, that the piece itself isn't so bad, and that he's "undecided about the pig in heels picture." That doesn't strike you as the least bit defensive?
many guys here were giving Rose McGowan suggestions for how to change her body
Well, I tried to do it in person, but the restraining order pretty much put a stop to that.
I'm waiting for Val Kilmer to come into style.
Maybe he's prepping for The Doors 2: If Jim Had Lived.
I think what some of us are trying to argue is that men and women tend to have very different conversations about attractiveness. In a group of girls, I might say (and have said) I tend to like guys with a medium build, medium height, a nice smile, and a quick seduction method. Another girl might agree. A third girl will say she likes a guy who's tall, serious, and shy. A fourth will say she likes a little gut and a great sense of humor. None of us is implying any kind of generalization about "how men should be to please our gaze on the street" or "how men should be everywhere for all women" or "how celebrities should look."
Whether men intend to do so or not, their comments about how they like women to look often come out sounding somehow universal, as if all women everywhere should care and take heart, Blog Commenter X Likes Fatties Too. Given that men have had sway over women's bodies for pretty much forever, I hope you can understand why the red flags are going up.
I think that in the light of #10 above, it would be more realistic if this pooves' mag were to print a series of pictures of pigs and Ogged would say "come on, they're not so bad, I would definitely fuck the Gloucester Old Spot if my penis was big enough". Or something.
that he's "undecided about the pig in heels picture." That doesn't strike you as the least bit defensive?
Not really. It's just ogged being contrary and irritable.
I'm pretty sure everybody here was speaking about their own personal preferences.
There are many kinds of pigs, and many ways to love them. I'll let the apostropher take it from here.
I would definitely fuck the Gloucester Old Spot if my penis was big enough
A big penis is a disadvantage when pigfucking. What the hell do they teach you over there in those Welsh schools?
It's been a great thread for beautiful coincidences.
Beautiful coincidences which are all the more beautiful for having a little extra weight on them.
Look, I got nothing against emaciated women, I just don't want to fuck 'em. I think valorizing thin women is a plot by gays to turn men off women.
Most men, I'm sure, are like me, and loves them some fat-assed chicks. Just look at the women on the covers of black men's magazines. You don't see them fall for any Details propaganda. They likes their women fat-assed, because they be men, not Details poofters.
I'd rather fuck a pig than a giraffe, and any man who says different, is a poofter fer sure.
Whether men intend to do so or not, their comments about how they like women to look often come out sounding somehow universal, as if all women everywhere should care and take heart, Blog Commenter X Likes Fatties Too.
meet
Most men, I'm sure, are like me, and loves them some fat-assed chicks.
I'd rather fuck a pig than a giraffe, and any man who says different, is a poofter fer sure.
Gays have sex with giraffes! James Dobson was right!
No fair using the troll against us, LB.
Hey, the fruit was low hanging.
I don't want women to take heart that some blog commenter likes fatties, I just want women to eat what they like without worrying about whether that makes them fuckable or not.
Only gay men and women like women to be emaciated. Real men don't.
But hey, if you want to impress gay guys, go ahead, starve yourself and be a fag hag.
But don't blame men for this, blame the poofter fashion designers, who like to see their clobber on giraffes instead of on pigs.
There are many kinds of pigs, and many ways to love them.
"But Dad, they're all... the same animal!"
"Oh, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."
I would like to note that I do not subscribe to Details. Gods help me if I do.
Also, I don't really care whether women are skinny or not. I'm Southern, it's in my blood to try to feed people more fried food, preferably drenched in gravy.
And maybe it's just me, but I don't sit around thinking about how my dick compares to others.
Now, if I'm so secure, what am I doing on the internet?
Jeez, I can't believe how idiotic/patronising/male I sound when I get into these body image issues. Gonna butt out before my butt gets chewed off again.
I do not subscribe to Details.
Robust picks his up at the newsstand.
I don't sit around thinking about how my dick compares to others
Me either. Schadenfreude is unseemly.
There was a frickin' hilarious Onion op-ed by a man opining that women should all be rail thin. But at the point where their boobs start to shrink...well, that's too thin and those women are anorexic.
1: the plain fact there is something deeply sexy about a jaundiced skeleton whose breath reeks of her own rotting flesh.
A fourth will say she likes a little gut.
AWB, what kind of perves do you hang out with? I have never heard a woman say this. So suck it up, boys.
117: Paid for by Jack Black's publicist.
I tried being the change I'd like to see in the world, but fuck it.
i don't think the 'pigs' reference was just because the women actually are in 'fat pig' classification by the author. they have quotes from this guys "“Curves are all good from where I stand,” says writer and director Neil LaBute, whose plays—The Shape of Things, Fat Pig—have occasionally been inspired by the subject of weight." its a reference to the article.
I've generally found it best to avoid bringing up pigs when discussing women's appearance. Somehow they tend to take it in the wrong way, no matter how carefully I explain that they're just being oversensitive and whiny.
DaveL, you crack me up.
But I'd still rather fuck a pig than a giraffe. Pigs are smarter than dogs or dolphins; almost as smart as bonobos. They're so pink and cuddly. Look at Miss Piggy -- don't women love her?
I say, redeem the pig (and fuck you, clown).
Why is there always an eruption of dudes praising non-skinny women and trumpeting their own favoring of Curves (not the gym) whenever this discussion comes up on blogs like Pandagon? Not only does it perpetuate the whole JUDGING ON SIZE thing anyway, it reeks of horny undergrad engineers trying to distinguish themselves by being the Nice Guy.
It takes away from the the arguments against the tasteless and insulting nature of the Details article.
Because Nice Guys love discussions like that. It's jam for the Nice Guys. They can look like sensitive New Age men and perhaps get a pity fuck out of how super Nice they are. Yuck.
123: If one sees this "women must be skinny" cause all this commotion among women, and yet one honestly don't buy into that, I think one might be prompted to step up with "hey, I like curves, and I don't get the whole problem." Seems like a natural response.
Not that I want to be the guy defending "Nice Guys."
The JUDGING ON SIZE thing is something women and gay men do, not men. Men never get a chance to say they like non-skinny women, or get a chance to see non-skinny women in the movies or in the media, so they yell and scream about their preference when they get half a chance, because they're so woefully underserved by the media in this regard.
Thank God reality supplies the world with hordes of non-skinny women.
Men are going to talk about what women are hot. Women (as far as I know) are going to talk about penis size. And what men are hot. The picture of the pig was dumb. Rose McGowan is hot. Details is for latent homosexuals. Why are we mad at each other?
is the problem JUDGING ON SIZE, or any JUDGING at all?
But it's loaded. Everyone has their own opinion about what "curves" mean, first of all, so it's a perfectly safe and meaningless thing to say. Second of all, women who think "guys idealize anorexic chicks a la the hop-an'-a-skip-from- kwashiorkor Ni. Richie" just aren't the norm, and it's thus meaningless to say so. So what's the point of speaking up? *Only to make you look good*.
Third of all, it's equivalent to "I find skinny flat-chested chicks ugly and repugnant, which is mean, but it's socially acceptable to say so, and maybe I'll score some points of the gals with D-cups and booty in the process."
Wait, we can score booty with this thing?
126: It's possible that these "Nice Guys" don't know why women get angry about stuff like this. From your suggestion, it seems like women are expressing outrage about a particular fashion in body size. I don't think that's accurate, which is why people suggesting other ideal body sizes is obnoxious. It's that we're pretty annoyed with male body ideals (gay, straight, cool, nerdy, black, white, Christian, atheist, or whatever) having anything to do with what we do with our bodies.
If we were to try to please guys by finding out what the general All-Round fave booty is shaped like, should we interview strangers online? Should we read men's magazines? Should we ask the guys hanging out in front of the deli? Which of those men has the authority to tell me what I should have for lunch?
But what is it that makes the article tasteless and insulting? (Well, everything, but bear with me.) Isn't a major part of the problem that it's marketing the idea that there's a universal standard of attractiveness and that the standard includes being thinner than most women are or should be? I get that it would be offensive and wrong to respond in a way that suggests that the problem is only that the article gets the universal standard of attractiveness wrong and that those overly-skinny models and actresses just need to add a few pounds to their breasts and butts to be perfect, but I think it's maybe a little harsh to conclude that that's what's happening in these posts.
I gotta say I disagree strongly with 131's #2. No, it's not only to make [us/them] look good. Maybe it's to rebut the false impression (reinforced by the evil media) that all guys DO only like sickeningly skinny chicks.
131's #3 is just ridiculous.
135: Never type "All-Around" when thinking "round booty."
Here is a summary of the Nice Guys posting at Pandagon.
'Whoa, I LOVE the bigger ladies! I am shocked, SHOCKED to discover that my admiration for larger women (insert come-on to any of the previous commenters who self-identified as female) is not the norm in our society! I like my girlfriends to have meat on their bones/like their food/have junk in the trunk, and all of you ladies can come to my house and have me prove it!'
I have no objection to beating up on the Nice Guys posting at Pandagon. It's the Nice Guys posting here that I have an investment in defending.
131: I understand all that you're saying.
OK, so if women complain about being supposed to shape their bodies to satisfy male ideals, a reply to the effect that "hey, you don't need to change your body too much to satisfy the male ideal" is not really addressing the heart of the issue, and carries a lot of baggage with it.
But, that doesn't make it *completely* devoid of content, or only pandering to make the speaker look good. I think there's something meaningful in the fact that male ideals do not purely dictate the steps women take to change their bodies.
137: My #3 is rhetorically excessive, but is a legitimate complaint a couple of my naturally wee friends have, having regularly been exposed to guys (honestly, yet deviously) trumpeting their delight in "hot round non-gross curves!1!" without thinking that they were being just as bad as the guys they were trying to distance themselves at the other end of the bar with the No Fat Chix shirts.
ut what is it that makes the article tasteless and insulting?
The swine in heels?
It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for a guy to respond to a post that tells guys to "cut this shit out" by saying that he's actually not in agreement with what "this shit" is saying.
If what's making people angry is that men's perceptions of what is attractive have some bearing on women's perceptions of same, well, sorry. It works the same way vice versa, and I don't know what to say to you, except that you might like living in the north pole, or something.
Generally, eagerness is annoying, so I understand anyone who wants to just make that point.
Who reads the comment sections at Pandagon anyway? Is it surprising that it seems to be composed of overeager young "nice guys"? Can't we just blame Baa for this?
I mean, sure, it would be nice if each person could decide on his or her own if he or she was sexy, but come on, hell is other people. Let's keep traffic moving here.
140: I've never seen anyone posting here pull the particular stunt I referenced. Nice Guys are a breed of their own and not simply a reference to civilized human beings who happen to be male.
142: guys they were trying to distance themselves at the other end of the bar with the No Fat Chix shirts
Right. But since we can all behind Ngo Phat chicks ('cause they're like, Asian, yo!), then I declare: comity.
so should every statement of preference in women be tagged with a disclaimer that women should feel free to do whatever the fuck they want, and they shoudln't base their happiness on whether they match up with that preference?
Or to put this in concrete terms:
Rose McGowan lost some weight.
Now if you want to say that she lost weight because she felt pressure to conform to male judgment, a reply to the effect that "My male judgment is that she looked better with more weight, and I think most men would agree" is actually quite relevant. That shouldn't be the last word on the matter, by far, but if you say that the reply is only motivated by a desire for a pity fuck, I think that's rather unfair (and wonder what your motivation for saying so is).
I posted 136 before I'd seen 135, but I didn't read the comments here as suggesting some other ideal of body size as opposed to just stating personal preferences (I don't know what went on on the Pandagon thread). If what's being affirmed is that what individual men find attractive is particular to them and that they don't buy into attempts to market a particular body type as the Ideal Woman, that's good, right?
I think there's something meaningful in the fact that male ideals do not purely dictate the steps women take to change their bodies.
This seems true, but I'm not sure I follow the logical link. Elaborate?
It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for a guy to respond to a post that tells guys to "cut this shit out" by saying that he's actually not in agreement with what "this shit" is saying.
Shrug. Matter of personal taste. Seems contentless at best and fawning at worst, but maybe my Usenet instincts don't apply in the modern bloggy age.
Shit, off to the ObBar. Figure I'll miss 100 posts now.
If what's being affirmed is that what individual men find attractive is particular to them and that they don't buy into attempts to market a particular body type as the Ideal Woman, that's good, right?
Yeah, but doesn't everyone agree on this to begin with?
A specific type of response is clearly prompted by a desire for a pity fuck, as you will see from the thread referenced at Pandagon. I did say that I had seen no one do that here.
Just so it's clear- I do not think anyone has expressed a personal preference in this thread with the intent of getting laid.
This seems true, but I'm not sure I follow the logical link. Elaborate?
See 149.
Details is clearly insane. As a wise man once said,
To the beanpole dames in the magazines,
You ain’t it, Miss Thing!
Give me a sista, can’t resist her
Red beans and rice didn’t miss her
Indeed.
143: Maybe I misread the post. I thought it was LB asking for responses to an issue (male desire as female rule, the objectification/animalization of women, etc.) of interest to intelligent women who have to deal with this crap all the time, more than an appeal for ratings of the jerkworthiness of the women and pig photos. I'm not saying you don't have a right to do so, but it's hardly possible that we're just being irrationally "complaining" or "angry" or "mad" for agreeing with the totally sane and moderate LB.
Everything I needed to know in life I learned from Sir Mix-a-lot?
It seems most women want to be skinny but aren't, yet when men say they like non-skinny women, non-skinny women get upset with them.
Shouldn't you gals get upset with yourselves? After all, you want to be skinny. What the hell is wrong with you that you want to be skinny? Are you out of your goddam minds? Why are you dumping on guys when you've made your own problem?
It's your problem you want to be skinny, not men's. We like you how most of you are, i.e. non-skinny.
For the record, this is a problem peculiar to American women. Women in the rest of the world don't have a problem with being non-skinny. Only American women have chosen to give themselves this crazy problem to get all twisted about.
Seems contentless at best and fawning at worst
What else are blog comments for?
But more seriously, isn't saying something like, "I don't agree with the shit you are rightly decrying" just another way of saying, "Yeah, I agree with you, LB!"
Yeah, but doesn't everyone agree on this to begin with?
Not talking about stuff we all agree on would shorten the comments threads around here quite a bit, and besides, talking about anything related to sex and attraction is kind of fun.
This comment thread is like a runaway grand jury. Comparing Liz Taylor to a pig is just dumb, and deserves mockery. That isn't because discussing women's sexual attractiveness is inherently wrong, much less something that can be changed. It is for the very reason that Liz Taylor was absurdly attractive.
A White Bear, I really don't understand your beef at this point. Is it that standards of beauty exist? I don't think you can blame that on "nice guys," annoying as they may be.
158: Yup, AA. Women just love giving themselves eating disorders. Women totally adore getting plastic surgery. We live for the moments when we can refuse lunch again. We made it up because it's all SO MUCH FUN.
Now, as a very lucky young woman, I don't give a shit what anyone here or anywhere else says I should do with my body. However, most women are not so fortunate. The men in their lives sneer at pounds, or force them to put them on. They use weight to belittle and demean women one way or the other.
I'm sure you're making, like, a totally hilarious joke, but it must not come through for those of us who have watched our friends go in and out of hospitals with bulimia.
161: Is it that standards of beauty exist?
No, it's that men often don't realize when they're reinforcing them.
Sometimes y'all just piss me off.
Look. The pig picture is clearly rude and insulting. There's no argument. The idea that it's some great revolution that "heavier" women are considered attractive in Hollywood nowadays is condescending and insulting: none of those women is any bigger than I am, and I'm a fucking size 2 or 4. (And re. Marilyn's dress size, I've tried on vintage dresses, and sometimes a 10 or 12 is too small. So yeah, sizes have changed.)
And the dick size thing just doesn't compare. No one says to you walking down the street that your dick is too small; most clothes don't emphasize the size of your dick; articles on dick size with vienna sausages as the lead picture don't appear in every major magazine every other week; people don't pass judgment on small-dicked men for being lazy or lacking in moral character because otherwise their dicks would be the "right" size; and so on and so on. We get that you guys are hung up on that stuff, but it ain't the same.
And really: when every woman commenting on the subject is offended, doesn't it give you at least a moment of pause about this whole, "I don't see what the problem is" thing?
the writer and photographer are both women, writing for a gay male audience. I'm not sure what I can cut out of that.
You can't pull the essentialist thing about "if a woman says it, it can't be sexist," any more than you'd let us pull the essentialist thing about "if a man says it, it's sexist." Big surprise: women who get published in mainstream fashion magazines write articles that reinforce norms about body size, beauty, and all the rest of it. Ya think?
thanks pretty glib, AWB. Sexual attractiveness isn't something men made up one day. It's likewise not something people can help but reinforce. So what?
However, most women are not so fortunate. The men in their lives sneer at pounds, or force them to put them on. They use weight to belittle and demean women one way or the other.
I'm sure you're making, like, a totally hilarious joke, but it must not come through for those of us who have watched our friends go in and out of hospitals with bulimia.
This has got to be the shit of the bull. I never heard of a woman getting bulimia over a man.
And I've yet to meet a guy who "sneers at pounds or uses weight to belittle women one way or another."
I guess I've got to get out of New York more.
that's pretty glib, I mean.
B, I think everyone agrees with you at this point, and we're on to whether commenting at all about attractiveness is offensive. Which, I don't think, all women agree on here.
The point, text, is that saying "but I like fat chicks!" is not exactly the hugely feminist move that a lot of men think it is.
I don't like fat chicks. Where's my cookie?
Isn't the point, really, that saying "I like fat chicks!" just makes you desperate and annoying?
I have gotten oinked at while I was running. I had a boyfriend tell me that my sister was far more attractive than I was because she was thinner, my sister with bulemia, who is six feet tall and a hundred pounds. I worked out until I threw up many a time because that boyfriend talked admiringly about how Kate Moss was so hot and would then comfortingly say to me, 'But I love you anyway, honey.'
But they're all imaginary incidents, because you haven't personally seen it happen.
bphd: instead of dick size, a better comparison might be social status/coolness/success/income. male competition can be destructive, and is one way males try to impress other men, and attract women. there are media created images of what 'cool/success' whatever is.
I've yet to meet a guy who "sneers at pounds or uses weight to belittle women one way or another."
Really? Because I have. In fact, I've heard it since I was a kid, from both guys and girls. Not directed at me most of the time, thank god, but at others. *And* I've participated in it myself, to my shame; as a kid I gave my sister all sorts of shit about being "fat," not that she was, and *to this day* it makes her feel bad that I did that.
173: But it's quite a bit easier for guys not to take that stuff seriously, no?
Men think "I like fat chicks" is a feminist move? Wow, now you're giving men more credit than they deserve.
fatties of both sexes get made fun of. Sure, that's lamentable. But it's not a gender issue. We should all be nicer to fat people. Resolved.
You can't pull the essentialist thing about "if a woman says it, it can't be sexist,"
What are you talking about? That's not at all what I said.
careful, ogged, you'll get fat. Then I won't love you anymore.
ogged, lay off the cookies. You're getting fat.
168: Is that what we were arguing about? I don't want to defend that position. I thought it was simply that saying "I don't think I'm one of the guys you're talking about" is not necessarily sexist.
173: Oh, please. Yeah, men have insecurities too, and yeah, a lot of those insecurities are mean and make guys feel like shit, and some of those insecurities are, in fact, about body size, not just how rich you are.
What I wouldn't give to have one thread, just once, about women and fat not turn into "I think you're overreacting/I like women who aren't too thin/men have issues too, you know." Seriously. It would be better if the thread had gone on to jokes about the stupidity of Details, or about whether the pig can really walk in those heels, or really, just about anything other than direct poo-pooing.
177: But who counts as fat? I'd be better off 20+ pounds lighter, but few people would consider me fat. A woman who's overweight to a comparable degree would be.
177 is a mite flip, too. After all, there are no sitcoms with a heavy woman married to a hot guy.
The comment that "real men" like curves is false. Considering the enormous supply of exceedingly skinny women in film, television, and magazines, then one must assume a very large demand.
High heels are bad for the feet. That poor pig will be suffering in the morning.
184: i've guesses but could you say why you would rather have thread just be about how bad the article is?
Sorry, people, I missed all this stuff about men demeaning women over their size -- I grew up in South Africa, where women are non-skinny, and both women and men don't give it a second thought.
Like I said, this non-skinny business is a peculiar American problem. Americans have a way of giving themselves BS problems because they don't have enough real problems like most of the rest of the world on Planet Earth. This thread would be incomprehensible to anyone on another continent.
186: But the men in those sitcoms aren't passed off as sexy. Look, we shouldn't be assholes to each other. We shouldn't be assholes to people who are overweight. And we shouldn't be crazy about what we consider to be overweight. E.g., Liz Taylor in 1960, not overweight.
But let's not go so far as saying any men who discuss female beauty are doing something wrong. You guys are really going to make ogged feel really unwelcome, if that's the case.
"It would be better if the thread had gone on to jokes about the stupidity of Details, or about whether the pig can really walk in those heels, or really, just about anything other than direct poo-pooing."
Quite right. But I don't think it got pushed in this direction in the way you seem to think.
Okay, so it's a working retirement. Sometimes I just gotta respond!
And I've yet to meet a guy who "sneers at pounds or uses weight to belittle women one way or another."
Just recently some guy on CL, after I arguably provoked him in some measure, wrote to me, "wipe the butter from your chin you fat cow. It's dripping." He didn't know what I look like. Recently, when Labs linked to The Superficial, I checked out some of the comments, and they were full of men going on about fat women. Although I have been lucky enough to avoid this in my own relationships, it's certainly not uncommon for abusive assholes to choose nasty comments about weight or efforts to control a woman's weight as a method. Not too long ago some guy who I'm theoretically still supposed to see sometime made a joke about how maybe I was taking too long about it because I needed an extra chair for my back fat (along with several other possible explanations). I wrote back to him about why I thought that was an ill advised remark, and he accepted my criticism gracefully. And a lot--most, maybe--of men express an active preference for thin women. I'm not saying people can't have preferences, but it's just silly to say that men have nothing to do with this stuff.
I suspect I'm being trolled, but still.
178: It's surely the implication of noting that the author is a woman, is it not?
177: Fat is not a gender issue. Uh huh. Next you're going to try to unload some real estate on me, aren't you?
Look, guys, I love this place dearly and I am awfully fond of each of you. But does it ever occur to you that maybe the fact that the women get kinda worked up about this shit is worth taking seriously? It sucks to feel like your male friends treat you as a silly little girl or a shrieking harridan. Does it make any difference that *every one of the women in this thread* seems to somehow take this fat thing kinda personally? Are all of us just humorless feminazis? Why is it that all the women here identify as feminists and yet most of the men seem to think that feminism is some kind of extremist position?
double reallys, dear God. I must hide my shame.
Yeah, I feel like I'm being trolled as well. What bothers me is that it always seems to be such a fun game, trolling the feminists. Ha ha.
See, this is why it's a bad idea to link to Pandagon.
Look, I commented because Pandagon said, According to Details, these women are fat. If you have tendons on your body to move you towards a plate-like direction, you’re a fatty fat piggy fatass. It just didn't say that. This wasn't some free-floating discussion about weight and gender, but about a specific article. And you all need to keep in mind that Adam Ash likes to troll us.
B, at least give strasmangelo jones some credit. He seemed to avoid all the male traps you're complaining about.
Sadly, I have nothing useful to add to this conversation, as fatness does not exist in my world.
Willy Voet, meet the funny rule.
It's surely the implication of noting that the author is a woman, is it not?
No, the implication was that 1) not writing the article, 2) not taking the photograph, 3) not writing the original post, and 4) not linking to it here, I'm at a loss what I wasn't supposed to have done to have prevented any of the above.
Why is it that all the women here identify as feminists and yet most of the men seem to think that feminism is some kind of extremist position?
Adam Ash notwithstanding, I'm not sure that's a fair categorization.
But before hiding my shame, b, I think this is one of those threads where we're all in different arguments. I at least agree that the article was dumb, and have no impulse to defend anything in Details. For what it's worth, I will stipulate that Pandagon and all of its comments are also dumb.
Men who call their girlfriends fat, they are assholes. I think we can agree on that one. So let's go a step further. There are fat men who also suffer in the sexual marketplace. But probably not as badly as fat women.
Do we still agree? Well here's my final step. It's not inherently wrong to discuss the beauty of any man or woman, provided that we aren't assholes about it. In short, we can't help it. None of us, men or women, can.
That's the only point I wanted to make in this here thread. Goodnight.
Resolved: women face a more stringent standard of beauty than men do, thanks in part to portrayals of women in the media; this trend is unfair and latently sexist, in that it objectifies women but not men.
I subscribe, and yet I feel there's something else going on here.
I mentioned that the author was a woman because LB wrote "the writer knows they're fat, but has a perverted taste for them anyway," and I thought that was unlikely to be true, given the author's gender.
198: The article didn't say that, but it implied it to the casual reader (which is pretty much anyone reading Details magazine). And fine, you think Pandagon is oversimplifying; that's a valid point. But I do think that the "God, I hate" is a bit dismissive, and that "will be dismissed out of hand by the outraged" is pretty clear troll bait, no? And the whole "I hate feminists" thing? I can't tell if you're just trying to yank chains or not, but in any case, chains got yanked and people got mad. Not a real surprise.
199: I said "most of the men."
Anyway. Not only is the pig picture just grossly offensive (and in the cheapest, least imaginative way possible), but those shoes the pig's got on are just a fucking crime against nature. Their art director should be fired immediately.
Bitch, you right, as always. But to some men, this female obsession with body image often seems plain nuts.
I know it matters to you, but it's hard to put myself in your shoes, because it matters so little to me. (I guess it would matter to me if I had a tiny dick, which is about the only body issue I could see a man get upset about.) It's just something that's hard for men to feel in their bones, the way women do. When we say we like non-skinny chicks, we just don't realize we're sticking our stupid heads into a feminist issue.
I'm not going to say that 198 gets it exactly right because I disagree with some of ogged's comments above - I think the pig is pretty tasteless and disgusting - but this
This wasn't some free-floating discussion about weight and gender, but about a specific article.
is right.
I'm not going to defend commenters at other sites or people elsewhere in life saying truly offensive things. If they want to comment here, we can smack them down. Denying that they exist, however, strikes me as bizarre.
And while we're all defending ourselves, I was mainly annoyed at Pandagon's "be outraged at this outrage!" style blogging. It's annoying when Atrios and Kos do it, and it's annoying when feminist blogs do it too. There are real outrages, and more power to the people who point them out, and there are ginned-up outrages, like this one. I don't understand why you aren't more annoyed with posts like this one by Pandagon, B, since insofar as people think this is feminism, it makes feminism seem stupid and hysterical.
204: And I think the crucial question here is "How can we get men to be as objectified and subjected to unrealistic societal expectations as women currently are?".
B,
It sucks to feel like your male friends treat you as a silly little girl or a shrieking harridan.
And it sucks to feel like your feminist friends condemn you alongside your chauvinist brethren for things you never did.
I don't know, maybe people might consider reaching for a narrower brush?
Just to clarify,
I'm mostly a lurker here; I don't mean to intimate that we're 'friends' on that basis. Rather, I've had the same discussion go the same direction in real life.
which is about the only body issue I could see a man get upset about
Hair.
It's not inherently wrong to discuss the beauty of any man or woman, provided that we aren't assholes about it.
Has anyone said otherwise? Certainly AWB, who I think you're mostly responding to, didn't say that.
Of course the female body image thing is fucking nuts. It's crazy-making. I'm probably the most confident woman I know, body image wise, and it makes me nuts anyway (in part because I know my confidence has a lot to do with not having been even remotely fat in my adolescence, which is really sad).
I, for one, think that men should be way more vocal about the liking women of all types thing. But AWB's point, that "I like women with curves" isn't an entirely adequate response to body image stuff (since it still presumes that what men like is what really matters, and that being non-skinny is okay only because some guys like that kind of thing), is a perfectly valid point, no?
214: I just don't buy that "I like women with curves" implies "what men like is what really matters, and that being non-skinny is okay only because some guys like that kind of thing" just because a man is saying it.
To be sure, if it's said with a dismissive flip of the hand, as if to say, "Don't you worry about body image, little miss," then it's a dick move. Or if, as winna pointed out, it's said to pick up chicks.
"I like women with curves" can't be the entire response, but can't it be part of it?
Hair? You mean on your chest? This is an issue? I love hair, especially between my teeth, but that's another story.
"Maybe I misread the post. I thought it was LB asking for responses to an issue (male desire as female rule, the objectification/animalization of women, etc.) of interest to intelligent women who have to deal with this crap all the time, more than an appeal for ratings of the jerkworthiness of the women and pig photos."
This was the argument I was responding to. I don't think anyone used the term "jerkworthiness" other than AWB. I don't feel right continuing to make arguments against this post, in AWB's absence. But B, it's bad enough when you disown your own arguments, don't do it on others' behalf.
209: I mostly ignore posts like that and don't do many of 'em myself. On the other hand, I freely admit that I am uncomfortable, for better or for worse, dissing the other feminist blogs. Amanda's basic point is correct, and the reality is that getting outraged over that kind of thing is a necessary stage, I think, for most young feminists. Who am I to get all heavy-handed about a thin blog post? Is Amanda making the same claims to be a mover and shaker that Kos does? I don't think so. (And anyway, I pretty much mostly ignore Kos and Atrios for the very reason you're citing.)
211, I think, is setting up a false equivalence. I think it's fairly clear that when a feminst blogger says, "guys, cut this shit out," she isn't accusing the specific readers of this specific blog--do any of you write for details?--of saying women are pigs. Honestly; I completely read LB's post as the rhetorical 'guys." Much as I'd read a post about, say, the View, that said something like, "ladies, if you ever want to date a guy again, cut out the giggling about how men can't be trusted" (or whatever). I don't do that; I wouldn't take such a statement personally; and I wouldn't feel compelled to say, "but *I* don't giggle about not trusting men!"
I might feel compelled to come up with some statement about how the whole not trusting men giggling is a frequent bonding strategy among oppressed groups, or something. But that's a different kettle of monkeys, is it not?
216: Hair on the back and lack of it on the head are issues about which many men have issues.
But AWB's point, that "I like women with curves" isn't an entirely adequate response to body image stuff (since it still presumes that what men like is what really matters, and that being non-skinny is okay only because some guys like that kind of thing), is a perfectly valid point, no?
But it's the only response that we as males can adequately make. Sure, as people we can say "eating disorders are unhealthy, just eat regularly and work out regularly," but everyone already knows that. If male ideals are what drive the unhealthy behavior, males can at least make explicit how flexible their ideals typically are (once sex gets involved, the rest is usually just gravy). If male ideals do not drive the unhealthy behavior, we have no place in the conversation and no one should get angry at men in the first place.
And of course men are going to assume that attractiveness to men is important. We know that our attractiveness to women is the one thing constantly manipulated by advertisers to get us to buy shit. If we were fed a consistant male ideal image, I know I'd be at the gym everyday to try and attain it if I thought it would help. It seems natural to assume the same inclination might exist in women.
This, I think more succinctly, sums up the argument I was responding to:
"It's that we're pretty annoyed with male body ideals (gay, straight, cool, nerdy, black, white, Christian, atheist, or whatever) having anything to do with what we do with our bodies."
217: What? I don't think you're quoting me. And I'm amused at being accused of disowning my arguments; if anything, I'm far more to blame for refusing to abandon them even when they've turned against me, the ingrates.
I was quoting AWB, whose arguments you were characterizing. In fairness, AWB has never argued in bad faith here, and I simply disagreed with her.
I'm trying to watch The Descent on Yglesias's recommendation, but even though there are six hotties in it, I'm bored.
Cookie?
214: AWB's point is indeed valid and helpful, but I'm not clear on whether you're now talking about bad attitudes or bad communication. If it's bad communication, then I think some of the responses to AWB were basically "no, that's not what I meant," and while it's perfectly legitimate to point out that it's a bad idea to say things that are likely to be widely misunderstood for reasons that the speaker isn't initially aware of, it's also pretty normal for the speaker to be focused on trying to explain what they meant and fail to acknowledge that they now understand why the initial attempt at communication failed.
218:
Fair enough.
I think that 215 is pretty good.
To a man, it does matter what a woman looks like, until he starts talking to her, and then it matters less and less.
When a man expresses a preference for a certain body type, he's talking about what he personally likes to fantasize about and jerk off to, not that "what men like is what really matters, and that being non-skinny is okay only because some guys like that kind of thing." This sounds like giving men power over women's bodies, which is absurd, as absurd as it is for a man to be anti-abortion.
I don't think the men on this thread are like that; we just have preferences, and get a little confused when women want to kick us in the balls for getting boners over a preferred body type.
Jeez, I can't help that non-skinny women get me hot, and I can't ask my dick to apologize for that. It will just tell me to fuck off.
it's the only response that we as males can adequately make.
Not at all. One could ridicule the pig's shoes; one could talk about the problem of audience--okay, women see this article and see red. Anyone with half a brain knows that a pig picture is gonna do that. OTOH, Details isn't a magazine for women; is alienating women part of the necessary appeal of the "men's magazine"? Do male readers find that part of their self-definition, as men? Does the broader culture try to construct "pissing women off" as a necessary part of masculinity? Is the article an attempt on Details' part to shed the gay image (I think I remember them being worried about that at some point) or is the whole Hollywood style thing aimed at gay readers? Is the pig joke intended as some kind of bitchy gay misogyny thing? What kind of pig is that, anyway? And like, seriously, what's up with the godawful shoes?
Those are just things, off the top of my head, that one could talk about other than whether or not one thinks the women pictured are hot.
Who am I to get all heavy-handed about a thin blog post?
[joke omitted]
224: I'd love some cookies, darn it. I don't think there are any in the house, though. I should have picked some up on the way home.
So speaking of watching boring shit, what did you end up getting with the Amazon certificate, if I may ask?
The last line of the post was an apostrophe addressed to "guys," so I can see how some guys might think that the most appropriate starting point for discussion.
Do you want us to say the pig should think about getting platforms, maybe two pairs, for balance? Or boots because they might help for walking through mud? Because I don't really want to expose my ignorance of women's shoe styles.
Not me, though. I'm all about hating on the shoes.
You're right, B, those shoes really suck. Must've been a man who picked them. Or maybe the pig did.
Those are just things, off the top of my head, that one could talk about other than whether or not one thinks the women pictured are hot.
That's just avoiding the difficult issue at the core. Women have a lot of problems with body image, they hurt themselves and get pissed off at guys because of it, and a guy like me can't figure out how the hell to make it any better. If we really have no role in the solution, please, let us know that now and it will save a lot of grief.
That said, my first thought when I saw the pig picture and read the article was "Ironically, that looks pretty skinny for a pig." This adds a whole new layer to Ogged's speculation about the article subverting the normal curves = pig fat conversation.
The hell of it is that that's kind of a scrawny-looking pig.
Fuck, this deep into the conversation, I manage to once again post just a few seconds late.
229: I'm glad someone caught that; I did it on purpose.
232: I dunno. I mean, maybe the pig should be wearing men's shoes, or at least gender-neutral shoes. Wellies?
Actually, given the whole cloven hoof thing, maybe pigs should wear flipflops.
239: If you had to deal with all the body image crap our culture lays on pigs, wouldn't you want some nice shoes?
235: Honestly, I think pretty much everything I suggested as alternate responses would be helpful. Women get pissed off at *everyone* over body image stuff--we're nasty about thin women, we're nasty about fat women, we're nasty about women who eat dessert, we're nasty about women who eat salad. It would save us all a lot of grief if it would just go away, but alas, it doesn't look like doing that any time soon.
I think 239/240 contain much, much wisdom.
That pig has really small tits. But don't get me wrong, ladies, I've got absolutely nothing against small tits. Nothing. Nothing, I swear.
The large-breasted women will now burn down Adam's house.
FWIW, here's the front of that pig.
FWIW, here's the front of that pig.
Jeez, would it kill her to put on a little mascara?
Actually, that is a very cute pig, as pigs go. Apo and Chopper should be driven out of town on a rail for their cruelty to pigs.
That pig looks awfully happy. Is she pleased with her shoes -- or did a man who doesn't care about her size just give her a twiddly finger job?
Is there really any doubt that the body image thing is different for women? I can't think of any male equivalent, and this is coming from a man the same height as Jean-Paul Sartre.
Men never ... get a chance to see non-skinny women in the movies or in the media
Seldom but not never. The pairing of Brad Davis and Marianne Sägebrecht is one of the many lovely things about this film.
Which of those men has the authority to tell me what I should have for lunch?
I have no such authority, but I recommend the salade niçoise.
This woman who wrote The Female Brain just said on NPR that women talk 20,000 words a day, and men only 7,000. Does this mean that women have more problems than men -- body image, etc. -- because they need to have more stuff to talk about?
it is extraordinary how people find it impossible to treat social issues involving women as being social issues. If we had a post about unemployment, nobody would think they were clever for saying "well I heard it's a good idea to wear a suit as if you were going to the office to keep in a professional frame of mind for your job hunt". If we had a post about health insurance nobody would say "well I'm pretty healthy myself but I could probably do with an eye checkup". But when it's to do with women, all the chaps seem to think that "hey I just found this opinion in my breakfast cereal" is an acceptable contribution.
Is the article an attempt on Details' part to shed the gay image (I think I remember them being worried about that at some point)
Really, this is the most boggling thing to me about this entire thread; I took it completely for granted that everyone knew Details as the men's magazine for gay men. (Well, except for the frat guys I saw reading it when I was in college, but that just made it all the funnier.)
251: Do people generally get slagged on for neglecting their ocular health, in your experience? Or for thinking that unemployment is a good thing?
This was a post about employment, actually.
Just a side point, but if your nation has an obesity/overweight rate of 65%, and the fat population is now at the size (pun intended) where airline seats have to be redesigned and CAT scanners have to be widened to accommodate the whale-like bulk of Joe and Jill Average, your society's most pressing problem is probably not "it is unacceptable to be any larger than emaciated". Because, for the majority of people, it is clearly perfectly acceptable to be much, much larger than emaciated. Your society's most pressing problem is probably more like "most people don't care about their weight, eat far too much and take far too little exercise".
Some people feel society puts pressure on them to be unrealistically slim, and feel uncomfortable or distressed because of this, but the facts show that the vast majority (in both senses) either don't feel this pressure at all or aren't particularly bothered by it.
143: Maybe I misread the post. I thought it was LB asking for responses to an issue (male desire as female rule, the objectification/animalization of women, etc.) of interest to intelligent women who have to deal with this crap all the time, more than an appeal for ratings of the jerkworthiness of the women and pig photos. I'm not saying you don't have a right to do so, but it's hardly possible that we're just being irrationally "complaining" or "angry" or "mad" for agreeing with the totally sane and moderate LB.
AWB, You're just saying that, because you're fat and ugly.
I just want to clarify that the above was an attempt at irony. I was making fun of the common anti-feminist rhetorical technique.
It's also something that is, I've heard, is completely untrue. Apparently, AWB is pretty smokin.
Midwestern grad students living in NYC always are.
I don't know who any of those women are (by sight) but they're all totally hot, in case you were curious as to the opinion of the person who is, after all, the final arbiter on such matters.
Well, that'll learn me to comment before reading the previous comments.
I have a question about the pig, though: I can recall two sayings involving pigs and clothing; one involves making purses out of their ears and the other, I think, involves dresses? But neither involves shoes. So why shoes?
Like I said, this non-skinny business is a peculiar American problem. Americans have a way of giving themselves BS problems because they don't have enough real problems like most of the rest of the world on Planet Earth.
Whatever. I know you're a troll, and you have to get back to your bonobos, but that's just flat-out wrong.
Pandagon's mode of blogging is to find something and be outraged about it, and the comment threads are exceeded only by the ones at Twisty's (where crazy Pony, the retired whore who never gave a blowjob, muses about her 34FF breasts, which is just proof he's a troll) in terms of the manufacturing of outrage.
But LB is 100% right and this very dismissive, oh, don't worry about it, women just manufacture this problem is crazy. The women pictured are not fat. The women pictured are all probably 20% smaller than I am and I've been called tiny. The idea that guys can pat themselves on the back for liking fat chicks because they find someone heavier than Kate Moss hot is pretty ridiculous. And the idea that men never say anything to women is about their weight is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard on the internet, and that includes Instapundit and LGF.
. Your society's most pressing problem is probably more like "most people don't care about their weight, eat far too much and take far too little exercise
And indeed the two are related, as body-image problems also lead to overeating. The idea that Americans aren't concerned enough with their weight and that's why they're fat... okay man, whatever, the goal here wasn't to compete with Instapundit.
Maybe I should just delete all my comments in this thread.
Any of you who want to read a really great book dealing with (among other things) standards of female beauty and objectification, should check out Jennifer Egan's Look at Me.
If any of you are getting intrigued by my cessant recommendations of Egan's work: she will be reading from her new book next Wednesday in midtown. e-mail me anacreon at gmail if you'd like to meet up there.
Adam Ash let the mask slip in 112 -- I found it charming.
Yup. For all the men wondering "What are we supposed to say?" anything Bitch suggested would have been a good idea, as would "Man, that's fucked up. What are they on?"
I don't do all that much of this kind of "Oh my goodness, I'm outraged" posting -- what got me about this was the craziness of it. That it makes sense to someone out there to punish women who look like this by calling them 'plate-scrapers', 'fat', and pigs makes it really hard to rely on any sense of what's normal. Cala, as she says above, is 'tiny', but she's also fatter than the women pictured, who are as fat as a sow in heels.
If this stuff sinks in at all, which it does, it makes you nuts -- you just lose track of what reality is in terms of body image.
263 -- well I haven't been recommending her stuff constantly or anything, just frequently. "Cessant" means "occasional" or "periodic".
There's another one about giving a swine a pearl necklace.
After this thread I'm going away again but people are saying things that cry out for response.
Just a side point, but if your nation has an obesity/overweight rate of 65%, and the fat population is now at the size (pun intended) where airline seats have to be redesigned and CAT scanners have to be widened to accommodate the whale-like bulk of Joe and Jill Average, your society's most pressing problem is probably not "it is unacceptable to be any larger than emaciated". Because, for the majority of people, it is clearly perfectly acceptable to be much, much larger than emaciated. Your society's most pressing problem is probably more like "most people don't care about their weight, eat far too much and take far too little exercise".
Some people feel society puts pressure on them to be unrealistically slim, and feel uncomfortable or distressed because of this, but the facts show that the vast majority (in both senses) either don't feel this pressure at all or aren't particularly bothered by it.
1) Using insulting, condescending language, for example, comparisons to animals ("whale-like"), to describe fat people is unnnecessary. They look different than you. Maybe they have a health problem, but there's a live debate on whether, having already gotten fat, it's actually healthy to try to lose it, as opposed to changing your diet and exercise habits to raise cardiovascular fitness, etc. at your new weight. Most people who feel justified in insulting fat people say they do so because they had no self-control, and they've hurt themselves and their bodies, and that's worthy of derision. But do we have insults for smokers that carry the same, or indeed any, social force? No, because at the heart of it, all anyone who makes these jokes is doing is making fun of people they think are ugly.
2) Since when are we restricted to only discussing the most pressing problems? There is more than one problem to discuss, they can't all be most pressing. But that leads me to
3) Might these two problems, in many cases, be related? Crazy efforts to diet which wind up fucking up your body's internal hunger signals and slowing your metabolism don't always make you anorexic skinny; sometimes they make you fat. After I spent a couple months eating a half cup of Grape Nuts and two graham crackers a day when I was a teenager, I spent another couple of months coming home every day and eating four or five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I wound up getting fatter than when I started. Further, when you grow up thinking "normal" and "attractive" have always been out of reach for you (like I did, basically), it feeds into a sense of hopeless abandon about your body.
4) The "facts" do not show any such thing. You think most fat people, especially women, are totally cheery about it (some are, more or less)? There are all kinds of reasons people gain weight--depression, the surrounding food culture, whatever. People aren't perfectly rational machines who measure all their options and than act accordingly. It's more like, feel like shit about your body for a couple of hours, feel better when eating, don't think about it for a few days, repeat. In any case, implying that a bunch of thin women are fatties isn't a step towards fixing the obesity problem, and I don't quite know why obesity is ever brought up in these conversations, except as in my (3). Otherwise, it just seems like misdirection, similar to the "men have problems, too!" plaint.
Further, when you grow up thinking "normal" and "attractive" have always been out of reach for you (like I did, basically), it feeds into a sense of hopeless abandon about your body.
Yup, and particularly this. The message articles like this send is "If you look like the pictured women, you're sexy, but only to someone with a taste for fat chicks. If you're fatter than that, you're just flat out disgusting." And pretty much everyone is fatter than that. It makes you crazy.
clownae: Little Miss Sunshine is great. Except I totally don't believe in the father's redemption, if that's what is supposed to be happening.
There's a great scene where he tries to persuade his daughter to give up ice cream.
The whole movie is quite interesting on the cultural construction of beauty.
Really, Clownæ? It was more than a year ago that I read it, but I really didn't like Look At Me. I want to remember to skim it when I get home tonight to remember why.
Yeah the father's story was the weak point of the movie I think -- the end of the story had to be what it was and that didn't quite fit in with the father's character as it had been built up. But that seemed like a pretty minor flaw to me, I wasn't really paying attention to that. Agreed about the ice cream scene, the whole thing with her family helping themselves to the ice cream and then Olive pouncing on it was really nice. Also when she asked Miss California about ice cream. Did you catch Miss California grinning during "Superfreak"?
269 -- Huh. I'd be interested to hear why. I am loving it on a lot of levels. Only halfway through though, I guess it could end up disappointing or something.
"I'd be interested to hear why" should be understood as followed by, "as long as you don't give away the ending or reveal key details about the second half of the book."
Right. If the answer is: "The end sucks, because the part where she goes into space and fights the Hierarchy of Growlph was really unrealistic," I'll keep it to myself.
After slogging through this entire thread, I figured I should actually read the article. Am I the only one disturbed by its multiple invocations of the 'fat chicks are better in bed' myth?
I don't think we need to be beating up on the guys who piped in to say they find curves attractive. Yes, women's bodies shouldn't be all about what the men want, but I think the guys (in this thread, at least; didn't read Pandagon) were neither doing the skeevy nice-guy-pity-sex-trolling-thing nor implying that they, as a representative of the patriarchy, were giving women permission to look a certain way.
#276: you have an open, forgiving, trusting nature. Fancy a game of backgammon for small stakes?
But bear in mind that I will be unable to check mine.
Point taken - I wouldn't normally use insulting language, but I thought it might be justified in cases where someone has put on so much weight that they are actually impervious to hard radiation.
The "facts" do not show any such thing. You think most fat people, especially women, are totally cheery about it (some are, more or less)?
No - I'm sure lots of fat people would be a bit cheerier about it if they could lose 20 pounds - but they accept it. Unacceptable means you can't accept it. For a man, being bald is acceptable. A lot of bald men would rather not be bald, all else being equal, but will live with it rather than take heroic/expensive measures to not be bald. I think it would be good to play the piano, but I'll live with being unable to do so rather than take the time and expense of lessons.
The point I was trying to make is that by saying (a) "society puts immense pressure on people to be thin" you are making a predictive statement, along the lines of (b) "society puts immense pressure on people not to be naked in public". (b) predicts that you should observe either the majority of people wearing clothes or, at least, the majority of people naked but making significant efforts to obtain and wear clothes.
Looking around, we don't see the majority of people being thin, and given the well-known and provably effective ways of being thin (eat less, take more exercise), we can assume that the majority of people aren't making significant efforts to be thin either. They have, as Dick Cheney would put it, other priorities. (Yes, some people have slow metabolisms and other reasons why it is difficult for them not to be overweight. But not 65% of people.)
And the reason, Tia, that it's related is that obesity and thinness are related - they are, in fact, opposite ends of the same scale. And the supposition that Society is pushing people towards one end of the scale is rather contradicted by the fact that the majority of the population is content (in the sense of unwilling to make significant effort or sacrifice) to be at the other end of the scale. Whoever Society's pushing to be thin, they don't make up the contentedly-fat majority of the population.
In fact, if anything (as you suggest) it's worth considering whether Society, whatever that is, is pushing people to be fat, by creating a 'surrounding food culture' of immense portion sizes and saturated fat, by making exercise unfashionable, and by subjecting thin people to such ridiculous and unpleasant scrutiny that, as Tia suggests, people are simply throwing up their hands and deciding that it's a lot easier to be really fat than to be not-quite-skinny-enough.
To a man, it does matter what a woman looks like, until he starts talking to her, and then it matters less and less.
I disagree. I think what happens, with both men and women, is that what you see becomes inflected by what you hear. Take the picture of Elizabeth Taylor. I always see he through the lense of the character she played in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. So in that picture, she's not just a beautiful woman. Look at the way she lounges; look at the way she holds her drink. She's a beautiful, dissolute, crazy, dangerous woman.
is the problem JUDGING ON SIZE, or any JUDGING at all?
In one way, judging isn't a problem at all. If stopped judging people physically, we would try to relate to each other as totally disembodied. Brains on sticks, as B. says. This kind of life is neither possible nor desireable.
Of course, there are other ways of judging that are harmful. For the sake of others dignity, we don't want to simply condemn. I would also add that judging in a me-centered, desiring way leads to suffering. If I look at Elizabeth Taylor and think "damn, she looks so beautiful and dissolute." I'm fine. If I say, "damn, she looks so beautiful and dissolute, I MUST HAVE HER." I'm in trouble.
Perhaps this is all stuff that people will simply agree with. "No one is denying that we should relate to each other physically" you will say. True. I still think these things are useful reminders of stuff we all know, but sometimes loose track of. As Dr. Johnson said, people need reminding far more than they need informing.
How is exercise unfashionable?
That must be why the Pilates stuff has taken over an entire aisle at the local Barnes and Noble.
Also, ogged never got his cookies.
The point I was trying to make is that by saying (a) "society puts immense pressure on people to be thin" you are making a predictive statement, along the lines of (b) "society puts immense pressure on people not to be naked in public". (b) predicts that you should observe either the majority of people wearing clothes or, at least, the majority of people naked but making significant efforts to obtain and wear clothes.
Ajay, I think you're digging yourself a hole here. The observation that "society puts immense pressure on people to be thin" doesn't predict that people will be thin. It predicts that people will be self-conscious about their weight.
Well I missed that party. Re men's body issues (if anyone's still foolish enough to be interested in that strand), not that it holds a candle to the weight/shape thing for women, but for guys, it's all about the shortness. Not cock, but height.
I'd wager that for a guy, being even moderately short (say, 5'6" or so) makes you pretty damn invisible (in sexual terms) to the vast majority of women. Certainly there are exceptions, but they tend to be related to power and money, or the simple fact of being Dudley Moore. My understanding is that the most commonly cited male attribute in "woman seeking man" personals is tallness (though maybe that's code for "giant schlong").
I think the ladies ain't so good to the short man. But of course that's about what they find hot. Thankfully, it lacks the hectoring that you see with regards to female body shape: there aren't a lot of women driving pick-ups with "No short dudes" stickers on the bumper.
One could ridicule the pig's shoes
If I were dressing that pig--thankfully, I am not--I'd have bought him a pair of ruby slippers.
280: The result of the combination of (1) Society, whatever that is, is pushing people to be fat, by creating a 'surrounding food culture' of immense portion sizes and saturated fat, by making exercise unfashionable, and (2) society puts immense pressure on people to be thin is not that most people will be thin, but that most people will be kind of fat and unhappy about it.
I really only came back into this thread to issue a list of my demands for female body shapes, but I've lost interest in the whole business. The pig picture makes a good point: women are gross.
if I were dressing that pig
Gotta recommend sage, lots of sage and garlic.
Or, what mrh said in 283, but with added facetiousness.
Does sage and garlic go with ruby slippers?
283: True. And a lot of people are self-conscious about their weight. But they tend to live with their excess weight rather than making a significant effort to shift it. So I think I'm justified in saying that the pressure to be thin is "tolerable" or even "imperceptible" rather than "immense", at least for the majority of the population.
In fact, I'd say it takes a rather odd outlook to look at a society most of whose members are fat and say "Aha! Clearly this society puts pressure on its members to be thin!" It's rather like going to Beijing and saying "Aha! This must be a society in which using a mobile phone in public is frowned on!" or visiting London and saying "Aha! Obviously supporting a football team is regarded as shameful in this culture!"
289 -- the slippers add a nice texture and crunch.
This thread is insane. LB posts a link and says, "Stop doing this." We are not, in fact, doing this. So, after some polite language about how it was wrong to include a pig photo, we ignore the "stop doing this," because it doesn't seem to apply to people who aren't, in fact "doing this," and start talking about the fact that the women are attractive. And then suddenly we're 200 comments plus later, talking about whether it's bad to use weight to make women feel bad (is there really any disagreement here?), and whether women's body issues are related to media images (any? disagreement?). The most I can make out of this is that there's supposed to be some sort of formalized ritual involved here, like saying, "Fine," when someone asks, "How are you doing?"
So, forthwith-
LB: "It's terrible to make women feel fat and unattractive with ludicrously stringent body idealizations."
Me: I agree.
Now all of the rest of the guys can say the same, and comity will be restored.
The point I was trying to make is that by saying (a) "society puts immense pressure on people to be thin" you are making a predictive statement, along the lines of (b) "society puts immense pressure on people not to be naked in public". (b) predicts that you should observe either the majority of people wearing clothes or, at least, the majority of people naked but making significant efforts to obtain and wear clothes.
Against your claim, there's a billion dollar weight-loss industry that supports the claim that indeed, there is significant pressure to be thin.
Of course, whether there is social pressure to achieve a goal and whether that goal is achievable are two separate things. By your argument, there is little societal pressure to keep up with the Joneses, because so many people are still poor. Or little pressure for prep-school kids to get into Ivy League schools, since the Ivies only accept 10% of applicants.
If this stuff sinks in at all, which it does, it makes you nuts -- you just lose track of what reality is in terms of body image.
This, especially, compounded with an inability to judge accurately what one's own body size is. I think my friend who says I'm tiny is out of her mind. I am not tiny by anyone's standards because tiny means '110 pound chick'. But neither am I as big as I think I am, and I really should feel like I can wear shorts without grossing out the world.
to look at a society most of whose members are fat
But that "a lot of Americans are fat" is not our only data point about American society -- many of us live in it and experience every day the social pressure to feel self-conscious about our appearance (a major component of which pressure is related to fatness or thinness).
And I'm pretty freaked out by your assumption that if the pressure were in fact intolerable, why then we would see results -- people would be thin! The alternate result is that people could be depressed.
Fer instance, one of many possible reasons why huge pressure to be thin doesn't in fact result in much actual thinness, but only in a great deal of depression, is expressed in Tia's 266: when you grow up thinking "normal" and "attractive" have always been out of reach for you (like I did, basically), it feeds into a sense of hopeless abandon about your body.
292: This isn't really directed at you, SCMTim, but sort of inspired by your post. There seems to be an undercurrent of... how can I put this. When these sorts of discussions come up, men who are decent guys will quickly distance themselves from the sorts of guys who think that Rose McGowan counts as a porker. Fair enough, as you're a decent guy. But this seems to come along with 'I'm a decent guy, and I don't think like that, so women do this to themselves, because no guy really wants Kate Moss.'
And this seems to me to miss part of the point, which is that this isn't a problem just made up in women's heads. We've heard the comments, we've seen the men's magazines. Maxim doesn't carry a cover of anyone bigger then Rose McGowan or Evangeline Lily. Everyone was surprised, though not disgusted, by the Dove ads because they were something different.
So we women are left with guys assuring us that they don't like Kate Moss (but that the 'fat actresses' here are hot), realizing we're bigger than the 'fat actresses', and hearing that all the things marketed to men are some weird anomaly. And even if it is, and you guys would really prefer looking at the Dove women and the ads just haven't figured it out, it doesn't change the fact that being surrounded by all of these images is bad for women and that's it's not something we just made up.
I think Ajay makes a good argument, one that is at least far more interesting that ritual agreement. Ajay could even add recent surveys that show that fat acceptance has risen dramatically over the past decade. (Since this is his argument, I'll make him look them up.)
The problem with the argument is that the bloating of America isn't caused by fat acceptance. It is caused by social changes only indirectly related to body issues, such as increased reliance on cars to run even the most basic errands, and the absence of enough free time to cook a decent healthy meal. These are real problems. In fact, I think that the social forces that are fattening America are a bigger deal than social pressure to be thin. They at least have more easily quantifiable harms, like heart attacks. But you miss the point if you think that mocking fat people will help.
Clown - that's assuming that, for most fat people, there is literally no conceivable way that they could lose weight - that they are in the same position as, say, a Korean subjected by society to intolerable pressure to be black, or a man with no hands subjected to intolerable pressure to play jazz piano. But that isn't generally true.
As for the value of your personal experience - you are one data point, and so the value of generalising your experience is limited. You may feel this pressure, and everyone you know, but it could still not be widespread. I'm fairly confident that, for some sections of society (teenagers, perhaps) this pressure is real and powerful, hence, for example, the phenomenon of eating disorders. But most of the population either don't feel it at all or can handle it pretty well without feeling they have to start cutting down on the waffles and Cokes.
The problem with the argument is that the bloating of America isn't caused by fat acceptance.
That's what makes ajay's argument a bad argument. Obesity is a problem, but it's not just the case that what we need to do to combat is pressure more people to be thin, or that obesity itself counts as evidence that such pressure doesn't exist.
You may feel this pressure, and everyone you know, but it could still not be widespread.
There is actual research done on this; this discussion hasn't been at the level of anecdotes for some time now.
I think Ajay makes a good argument
Yeah, not really.
In fact, I'd say it takes a rather odd outlook to look at a society most of whose members are fat and say "Aha! Clearly this society puts pressure on its members to be thin!"
Ajay has recently descended to his earth in his flying saucer, and his only data point about American society are the people he's seen on the street today. No wonder he draws the conclusion that there is no pressure to be thin!
297: 'I'm a decent guy, and I don't think like that, so women do this to themselves, because no guy really wants Kate Moss.'
I'm repeating myself at this point, but: some of us, when we say "I'm a decent guy, and I don't think like that," DO NOT mean also that "women do this to themselves, because no guy really wants Kate Moss." I'd like there to be a way to disagree with the evil patriarchy without sounding like a part of it.
The most I can make out of this is that there's supposed to be some sort of formalized ritual involved here, like saying, "Fine," when someone asks, "How are you doing?"
And here, you can't even respond to "Fine" by saying "I know you fine...but how you doin'?" without seeming to be a "nice guy".
Ajay could even add recent surveys that show that fat acceptance has risen dramatically over the past decade. (Since this is his argument, I'll make him look them up.)
Thanks, rob. Here's one from the University of Chicago, reporting the effect of obese characters on black TV:
http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2001/20010428-bptime.html
Anecdotally, the Fat Acceptance movement seems to be a recent phenomenon. Can't find public attitude surveys - anyone?
Fair point: Rob's saying that the price (in time, money, effort) of being less fat has risen recently, and that (rather than any change in desire to be less fat) is what's bloating the population. I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.
This thread is insane. LB posts a link and says, "Stop doing this." We are not, in fact, doing this.
SMCT: I don't mean to give you, personally, a hard time, and I'm sure you're better than most, and you're not mean to women about their weight. But we're not making this shit up -- most, bordering on all, normal weight women, who aren't naturally way, way, way out on the skinny end of the bell curve, have gotten a lot of crap about it.
This article, where skinny women are identified as pigs, is normal. It's not an aberration. And when I point it out as crazy, it gets a fair amount of 'come one, there's nothing wrong with the article' (all right, that was mostly from ogged, but he's not that much of an outlier.) Calling women who look like the pictured women fat pigs is a normal thing to do. And when you make a joke based on the fact that normal attractive women (or, as in the slideshow, very slender and superbly attractive women) should be mocked for their failure to attain some unattainable and imaginary standard of beauty, you're what's making us all nuts about this shit. If you don't like dealing with women who are all fucked up about their bodies, then disapprove of this crap when you see it, and don't do it yourself, even if you think you're kidding.
(A neat feature of the unattainable standard is that you can't reach it without overshooting and becoming hideous in the other direction. Amanda mentions in her comments that at her current weight she is both 'scrawny' and a 'fat pig' -- I'd guess that in person, the same criticism would apply to many of the women in the slideshow.)
I'd like there to be a way to disagree with the evil patriarchy without sounding like a part of it.
You may have done this upthread, but you disagree with stuff like this article by making fun of it -- "Man, that's crazy. Who thinks like that?"
Anything that comes off as 'Don't worry about it, my tastes differ from those in the article' doesn't work for reasons given above. The problem is what Bear says -- that the media, and men generally, compare women generally to some unattainable 'objective' standard of beauty.
he's not that much of an outlier
Wait, are we thinking about the same -gg-d here?
SCMT, I don't know what, specifically, you're talking about but for my part I've made two comments, one specifically addressed to ajay and one to Adam Ash, both of whom were saying something different than you.
305, in retrospect, is mostly a rewrite of Cala's 297.
LB, it seemed to me that we were getting into the territory where saying, "that's crazy, Liz Taylor was hot," was itself taken to be offensive and/or cloying. Which is crazy. Liz Taylor was hot.
It would be like putting up a picture of Clive Owen, in a post titled "Some Fool Things Clive Own is Ugly" and not expecting women to post "hey, crazy head, Clive Owen is hot."
Clive Owen is hot. Liz Taylor was hot. We should be allowed to say such things.
There is actual research done on this; this discussion hasn't been at the level of anecdotes for some time now
you forget that this is a thread about women, so there is a gravitational force which compels people to talk in anecdote. If only women were part of society, then we could talk about their issues sociologically.
some of us, when we say "I'm a decent guy, and I don't think like that,"
see, there we go. If this was a thread about unemployment, would we say things like "well, I got my job by talking to this guy I met at a party"? No because we would recognise that apart from the superficial connection, this has basically nothing to do with the general issue of unemployment. Similarly, the fact that you dig fat chicks (or otherwise; one of the odder pieces of information which emerged during the UK election campaign was that there exists a porn magazine titled "Skinny and Wriggly") is not actually, beyond the superficial, relevant to a discussion about images of women's bodies in the public sphere.
Actually there's an even better analogy. If it was a thread about black people's use of skin lightening and hair straightening products, would we have a heap of white guys saying "actually, I prefer black people to look black, they're so much more natural and healthier-looking that way"?
It's an aspect of wot the dreaded theorists call the "male gaze"; the way of behaving as if women only exist as objects of attention rather than subjects. And in general it's done without conscious malicious effect. But the effect is there.
(If any of the birds on this thread are still convinced that this bad stuff might apply to the comments elsewhere but not to the nice enlightened men here, I reiterate my complements on your open and sincere nature and offer of a game of strip backgammon).
Anyway, there is both unreasonable pressure to be thin, and a lot of social forces encouraging people to be overweight. Just like there's simultaneously pressure for women to be fun and sexually available AND not to be too much of a slut about it. These things can, you know, coexist. I don't see what's so hard to grasp about this.
I can see the objection that these women are supposed to be pigs, but I think "pigs are hot" is a good first step for getting away from that.
I quoted this way back in 29, but it bears repeating: no, not a good first step. Saying 'these guys are crazy if they think these women are pigs' is a good first step. Granting the premise that they're pigs but still hot, not a good first step. Because even petitish women like me are bigger than these gorgeous freaks of nature & plastic surgery, and I'm telling you, we don't take away from it 'men like women with meat on their bones' but 'gee, they called her a pig (even though they think she's hot)and damn, I haven't been that tiny since I was 13.'
And for the love of little apples, it's not because I eat too many waffles and drink too much Coke that I don't look like Rose McGowan. When I worked out three hours a day I didn't get that small.
a porn magazine titled "Skinny and Wriggly"
And they recently issued a cease and desist letter to a (decidedly non-pornographic) blog called "Skinny and Wriggly" that begins:
We represent *******, publishers of the gentleman’s monthly glamour magazine Skinny and Wriggly (Scrawny birds want your meat). We are writing to inform you that your recently published websites skinnyandwriggly.com, skinnyandwriggly.eu and skinnyandwriggly.ctn are a direct infringement of our client’s intellectual property rights under the Copyright, designs and patents act 1988, hence this cease and desist notice.
Firstly, the name Skinny and Wriggly is unacceptable for use by any other publication, and has been copyrighted by our clients since 1972 (previously, the publication was entitled “Sticky Goers”, a title our clients still maintain copyright of. Consider this a warning without prejudice to subsequent action on our part not to attempt to use that title, either).
Love the mag's subtitle.
I'd just like to point out that what dsquared calls "wot the dreaded theorists call 'the male gaze'" can exist almost independantly of actual, individual men or actual, individual male desire. I'm pretty sure that most of my body image issues come from my time in the all-female environment of dance, where the "male gaze" was sublimated into rigorous technique and aesthetics about a hundred years ago.
And it's previous title! BTW does the title "Skinny and Wriggly" make anyone else flash on the rockabilly song "Ugly and Sassy"? Anyone know who that song's by? Lyrics don't appear to be in any of the online databases.
Aha! It is "Ugly and Slouchy", and it's by The Maddox Bros. Lyrics
...offer of a game of strip backgammon
...for small stakes
Maybe we need to work on dsquared's self-esteem.
d^2, that's not quite a fair analogy. What I'm saying isn't "I prefer heavier women," it's "calling these women fat is crazy" I understand the power of the male gaze, but when talking about an article about attractiveness, it's hard not to bring up attractiveness.
the all-female environment of dance, where the "male gaze" was sublimated into rigorous technique and aesthetics about a hundred years ago.
Is there a readable history of this?
There must be changes within paradigms, shifts this way and that. I can remember as an adolescent, seeing stills from The Red Shoes, or pictures of dancers from old Life magazines, which may have been of chorus lines, to be fair, and not ballet, that the dancers looked "unathletic" to this boy's growing male gaze. Chubby knees, etc. All nonsense, of course, but an attempt at a data point.
dsquared, i'm in love with both your comments on this thread. and rob helpy-chalk's.
One underground part of the problem going on in this thread is that caring-about-your-appearance has been so completely feminized, esp. in the US. Clearly lots of women care too much (and they do so because they are judged on appearance in so many ways - ways that go far beyond attractiveness to the opposite sex and include being judged in the workplace and judged by other women). But men care too little -- are even pressured not to care ("it's gay"). Obviously this side of the problem causes less suffering but it's related and I'd like to shift the conversation away for a moment from "what's wrong or not wrong with women."
text's point that there are beauty standards for everyone is pretty limited. otherwise dating pools wouldn't be filled with grown men whose moms still buy their clothing for them, tv execs wouldn't think it's profitable to run those weird sitcoms where the women are conventionally hot and the men are fat schlumpy dressers, and -- this is the important point -- women would get to HAVE visual objects of desire a hell lot more of the time, instead of always having to BE them.
why does brad pitt gets ironically photographed in a dress so often when magazines like rolling stone do serious articles on him? because being visually attractive has been feminized. And it's not fair to women -- not just because we are pressured to *be* a certain way but also because we don't get very much to *look* at, ourselves -- and it's taboo to complain about it.
(if you're a man and you're irritated by my comment -- well, let go of it. you're having a feeling very closely related to the one most of the women on this thread already had, when they saw that Details article).
And for the love of little apples
little apples, big apples, they're all tits to me and I love them indiscriminately.
Similarly, the fact that you dig fat chicks (or otherwise; one of the odder pieces of information which emerged during the UK election campaign was that there exists a porn magazine titled "Skinny and Wriggly") is not actually, beyond the superficial, relevant to a discussion about images of women's bodies in the public sphere.
That would be a good point, if your description had any relationship to the actual post. LB didn't start a discussion, she noted something--there's a tendency in the media to promulgate absurd female body images. We all basically agree. To a great extent, I think the guys saying, "I like women with curves," (or whatever they're saying) are simply misperforming the ritual. They feel obliged, by conversational conventions, to respond in some way. They do so by trying to show solidarity of some sort, and they do it badly. Great. Now they know. But if what you're really saying is that they(we) should all repeat well-rehearsed arguments that we all know by heart, like some sort of catechism, in response, then we have different expectation about the way people behave informally among people they know.
It's not an aberration. And when I point it out as crazy, it gets a fair amount of 'come one, there's nothing wrong with the article' (all right, that was mostly from ogged, but he's not that much of an outlier....Calling women who look like the pictured women fat pigs is a normal thing to do.)
Ogged isn't an outlier, in part, because he's just being contrary. Did anyone else really think the pig photo was appropriate? If you simply showed the photos in a slideshow, absent any commentary, do you really think that any of the guys here would think, "Wow, hot fatties"? Of course not. Nobody thinks those women are fat. Some of them are clearly, in Hollywood terms, understood to be voluptuous: McGowan in the past, Sophia Loren. But has there ever been a single day in Loren's life when she wondered if she was attractive? Cripes, she might be the most attractive woman in film history.
And when you make a joke based on the fact that normal attractive women (or, as in the slideshow, very slender and superbly attractive women) should be mocked for their failure to attain some unattainable and imaginary standard of beauty, you're what's making us all nuts about this shit.
Made, not make. Over a decade ago. A mistake from which I learned. Over a decade ago. Based on the mistaken assumption that the woman involved would, of course, know that she was super-attractive. If I could find Mr. Peabody, I'd go back in time and not make that joke, for purely selfish reasons entirely unrelated to concerns about female body issues.
If you don't like dealing with women who are all fucked up about their bodies, then disapprove of this crap when you see it, and don't do it yourself, even if you think you're kidding.
Right, but everyone does disapprove of the characterization of those women as fat or whatever. Given the widespread disapproval, some didn't make it very explicit. Some did make it explicit, but apparently did so badly. No one here (not even Pants, if he's to be believed...) has a subscription to Details. I'd be pretty surprised if anyone here has a subscription (or is a regular reader of) any of the "lad" magaznes. Or (and this is an honest question) are you saying we should affirmatively and explicitly say, "That's terrible," when we see these things on the magazine racks?
I remember hearing a friend say (in public, in mixed company) that Carrie Underwood was a bit chunky but had the potential to be hot if she dropped 15 pounds.
she might be the most attractive woman in film history.
No way -- Brigitte Bardot is the most obvious counterexample.
323: I think that in most (all?) western European countries, there is significantly more pressure on men to dress well and maintain themselves (albeit nowhere near as much pressure as there is for women). A couple of days ago, someone on an American blog (perhaps even this one) asked something along the lines of: 'Is it okay to have a hairstyle that not only benefits from product, but requires it?' In the UK, that question wouldn't be asked; as far as I can tell, most straight men either take it on themselves to have such haircuts (because they want to get laid), or are required to by their girlfriends/wives (or else they won't get laid). (This is less true for working class guys, but still far more prevalent for them than in the US.) Since immigrating from the US to the UK, I've had to totally restructure how I dress, especially with regard to haircuts (I've gone from owning my own electric clipper to spending something like £350 per year in the salon) and clothes. On the latter issue, I had a friend over from America recently and had to explain to him that no, the 'American baggy' look was not acceptable over here. 'If you don't think you look gay,' I said, 'you're not well dressed enough to attract the type of women you're interested in.'
This is unrelated to any main point, but to this, I just wanna say:
But has there ever been a single day in Loren's life when she wondered if she was attractive?
I'm sure she did frequently. Having a ton of focus put on your appearance is not inoculation from body image issues; the contrary, even, since it makes you focus on it a lot, notice small flaws, get anxious about changes in your body because the valuable thing you have might be going, etc. etc.
Here's a little something for ajay, along with my sincere wish that his thyroid give out soon.
Oh come on, mmf, women have plenty of visual objects of desire. You mentioned one in your post, I mentioned another upthread, and if you take a stroll down 42nd Street, you'll find several more.
The sexual pressures on men and women are different, and for women, too much emphasis is probably placed on appearance. And our media sucks, generally, and makes us all stupid.
But is the dating pool really full of men who let their moms by their clothes? I think that's an overstatement. Likewise, I think Brad Pitt gets put in a dress (if he does, I was unaware of this) because he symbolizes manliness, hence, contradiction. Not because he's womanly. I mean, he just isn't. Did you see Troy?
We should all be less concerned about appearance. But don't tell me I'm offensive or cloying in pointing out that the women in the posted pictures are hot. They are hot.
To a great extent, I think the guys saying, "I like women with curves," (or whatever they're saying) are simply misperforming the ritual
Nope, they're performing it entirely correctly. The purpose is to remind women that the important thing about them is being liked by men and this is as good a way as any. There might be no malicious intent, one might just have been brought up and conditioned into it, but that's what they're doing.
If we had a thread about a magazine publishing an article about "Look At All These Jewish Moneygrubbing Crooks", how many commenters would pipe up saying "that's so unfair! The Jews on this list are just normal businessmen! In general Jews are really honest and no more concerned with money than is normal given their demographic and socioeconomic status"? Or would we notice that the inaccuracy of the statement was actually rather beside the point?
The weird thing about these body image hangups is, if only women knew how non-discriminatory men are deep down. We'll basically fuck whomever says yes. We're total dogs. You shouldn't have to worry about how you look. Portnoy fucked his family's dinner, for chrissake, and it looked nothing like Elizabeth Taylor.
Nope, they're performing it entirely correctly. The purpose is to remind women that the important thing about them is being liked by men and this is as good a way as any. There might be no malicious intent, one might just have been brought up and conditioned into it, but that's what they're doing.
Mmmhm. "Sure, there's an objective standard of beauty you need to attain -- that article just doesn't describe it well." And what mmf said in 323.
Or (and this is an honest question) are you saying we should affirmatively and explicitly say, "That's terrible," when we see these things on the magazine racks?
Not that you have to devote your life to searching out things to disapprove of, obviously we all have better things to do. But when something comes up, yeah, a quick "Man, that's fucked up," is a fine habit to get into. Like the same way you'd react to "Look At All These Jewish Moneygrubbing Crooks."
If only I could play backgammon!
333 hits the nail square on the head.
#336: See, chaps, that's how it's done. If you want to get the sleazy-nice-guy-sympathy-fuck out of these feminist birds, you have to be prepared to put some thought and effort into it.
334: You know, while I know it's well meant, that really doesn't help either, because it simply isn't true. Men decide against sleeping with women all the time -- I'll bet every woman in this thread has been turned down.
The message most women are going to take away from the article is "There's an objective (and unattainable) standard of beauty you need to meet, or you're disgusting." The message we're going to take away from the "Guys will fuck anything, no matter how disgusting" meme is "If you've ever been turned down, you're really, really, inhumanly disgusting."
The truth is, that men, like women, have individual tastes with regard to what they find attractive, and for most men, like most women, those standards are broad enough to include some, but not all, of the people they encounter.
Totally.
Throw in some talk about Spinoza and you're in like Flynn.
Interestingly, I went and looked it up- the modern use of 'bird' to refer to women dates from 1915.
D-Squared: The official sleazy 'nice-guy' mascot of Unfogged.
333: I think that this analogy is perfect if you're talking about the broader issues here (and I presume you are). On the other, it overlooks the fact that the body of the post actually did say, "Guys, if you ever want to talk to a woman who isn't insane again, you have to cut this shit out."
Which would be kind of like saying, "Goys, if you don't want to make Jews all paranoid and shit, you need to quit insinuating that they're obsessed with money."
To which it seems a fairly reasonable response for non-Jews to say, "But we don't think of Jews that way!" So I can see why well-meaning people went down that route in this particular post.
But yeah, then it would be more fun to move quickly along onto the broader discussion about how fucking stupid it is for anyone to think that way, and how to go about cutting the ladies/Jews/appalllingly shod pigs some slack.
339 -- is that usage still current? It sounds really dated to my American ears.
Does have a kind of young Michael Caine quality about it.
322.--The short answer is "George Balanchine." I don't have the scholarly expertise to give a long answer I'd be happy with off the top of my head.
That kitten makes me so happy. Especially since the evil cat rescue centre in our area is refusing to give us a cat, on the notion that since my girlfriend is pregnant, once we have the kid we're going to suddenly not want the cat.
326 was supposed to have a point, but I got distracted.
I think the point was something along the lines of (1) he was being an asshole, she is not "chunky", she's thinner than average and very attractive, (2) given that, I wonder how many men here agree that she would be more attractive if she lost a few pounds (emphasis on few -- she emphatically should not lose a lot of weight, I think almost everyone would agree), (3) how many men would be willing to admit that in mixed company (vs. how many would shy away from it for fear of being labeled sexist pigs) -- and I don't mean to single out Ms. Underwood, I mean who would be comfortable labeling any particular woman as larger than he would ideally prefer, even here, pseudonymously?, (4) how many women, in contrast, would very comfortably and without hesitation be willing in mixed company to say that a man under 5'8", or 5'10", or 6' is "too short" for her preferences? I feel like (4) would be higher than (3), though I'm not sure what conclusions (if any) should be drawn from that. Also, to be clear, I think (2) is probably disturbingly high, and I think that is at least in large part the fault of our media. Although, at the same time, I think there is sometimes too much blaming this totally on cultural factors, and some people (a lot, in America) actually really do need to lose some weight.
I hope my phrasing above didn't suggest that I was answering (2) in the affirmative -- it wasn't meant to.
it overlooks the fact that the body of the post actually did say, "Guys, if you ever want to talk to a woman who isn't insane again, you have to cut this shit out."
Fair enough -- I was swiping with a broad brush, almost certainly unfairly to at least some of the people reading, given our readership probably unfair to most of you. But there is a lot of this stuff out there, and just playing the odds, some of you have said things like Brock's friend in 326. That should have said "To the extent that any of you treat this crap as normal or acceptable (coughoggedcough) or do similar things yourselves, cut it out."
The only reason men turn down women is because they get scared or are sexually insecure, which has everything to do with themselves, and nothing to do with the women. If a guy turns you down, it means there's something wrong with him, not with you.
348 is not true, and LB is totally correct in 338.
The only reason men turn down women is because they get scared or are sexually insecure, which has everything to do with themselves, and nothing to do with the women. If a guy turns you down, it means there's something wrong with him, not with you.
What the hell? Men turn down women because they don't find the women attractive, just like women turn down men because they don't find the men attractive. It's not literally true that all men will fuck anything that moves. It's not even close to true.
Just to be clear, I am 100% in agreement with the opinions advanced here by LB and others about how shitty and multi-layered and all-pervasive the body expectations for women are, and how even the most decent of guys are often unconsciously complicit in this dynamic. It's just that I can see how the post could very easily be misinterpreted.
(Though actually I'm only commenting again in hopes of seeing that kitten another time.)
348 was a pretty good trolling comment, though.
Concur with 341.
348: If this were true, then I would regret having turned women down in the past, now that I am not scared or sexually insecure, and would be wishing I'd been ready for them. But that's not what I feel atoll; I don't regret ever turning anyone down, because I had my reasons.
346.--I guess I'll take the certain-not-to-gain-me-any-friends position that Ms. Underwood would be more attractive to me were she to lose about five pounds. I usually wouldn't say anything like that in public, though. Also, my standard for male height is "not shorter than me" and "not so tall as not to fit into normal-sized beds." That, too, I'm not likely to say unprovoked in public.
348: Adam, do you really believe the things that come out of your mouth? Men are people, just like women. People with tastes and preferences. People who sometimes actually don't want sex, either at that moment, or with a given person, or both.
But that's not what I feel atoll
This is not the underwater sex blog.
Now that dsquared has neatly solved that issue, I hope we can cut to the other pressing matter: Jill Greenberg is in fact a bad photographer, whose portraits owe everything to gimmickry and Photoshop, and her newfound popularity is unfounded and appalling.
Addendum to 354: Maybe I just don't approve of Ms. U.'s outfit in the linked picture. The same body in Elizabeth Taylor's dresses could be hott. Aaand, with that, maybe I should just shut up.
If we had a thread about a magazine publishing an article about "Look At All These Jewish Moneygrubbing Crooks", how many commenters would pipe up saying "that's so unfair!"? yada yada...
I have no idea what point this is supposed to be making. If LB linked to white-supremacist magazine that said that, I think we'd immediately revert to jokes, as we previously did in some discussion of the "Jews control the banks" claim. And it would pretty much have to be a white-supremacist magazine to be even slightly analogous; the whole point of magazines like Details, which every man here denied reading, is to parade women about in stages of undress for the male gaze. So we don't say"Jews are OK," because...seriously, now I'm supposed to be rebutting white supremacists? Maybe I'm basking in my privilege, but I pretty much take it for granted that everyone treats "Jews control the banks" or whatever as idiotic tripe.
346: Good points all. (1) Absolutely true. (2) Lots. Lots of people who would say it wouldn't really mean it in the sense of being uninterested if she sat down at the next barstool and smiled invitingly -- part of the grossness of it all is that this sort of thing is a way to attack perfectly attractive women, and women who the speaker himself finds attractive. (3) I think you're overestimating the inhibition on this here. People are inhibited here, because Unfogged has a sizable population of us humorless feminists, and particularly in this conversation, because we're talking about the issue. But I frequently hear comments equivalent to the one your friend made -- my presence doesn't inhibit men into not saying that kind of thing. (4) The inhibition is less, and it must suck, datingwise, to be a short man, but (a) the social attention spent on it is comparatively miniscule, making it a really very different sort of issue and (b) to the extent that women have standards for height, they aren't comparable to this sort of standard for weight. Translating this article into an article on men's heights, this is like a slideshow of NBA guards illustrated with a picture of a Munchkin, and accompanied with text calling them more attractive than centers.
Apparently there is another notion that it derived from the poetic word for woman in Old English, which was burd.
Dear all, please stop responding to Adam.
Dear Adam, please find a new schtick.
Jill Greenberg is Anne Geddes with a mustache. Although I like the monkeys.
And it would pretty much have to be a white-supremacist magazine to be even slightly analogous; the whole point of magazines like Details, which every man here denied reading, is to parade women about in stages of undress for the male gaze. So we don't say"Jews are OK," because...seriously, now I'm supposed to be rebutting white supremacists?
You're not, because white supremacists aren't mainstream in America. They can be dismissed and ignored. Details isn't marginal in that same regard, so it's worth rebutting.
I totally agree with Armsmasher and mcmc about Greenberg.
Comity!
"and accompanied with text calling them more attractive than centers."
But they are more attractive than centers, the lot of them. Better proportioned.
Adam's missing his bonobos today. Alas, even bonobos have standards.
Height is one measure of attractiveness in a man, but, and I think this is important, while we can judge how thin an actress is presented, it's much harder to judge whether an actor is tall or short from a TV show, movie, or magazine spread.
Is Balanchine an example of that mid-century takeover of American culture by European standards, or what were represented as European standards by cultural entrepreneurs, that some, such as Michael Lind, have suggested set back indigenous cultural growth 50 years?
Mornning, slol.
Come on! It's fun to talk about who's sexy, is all that I'm saying. Roll out the men and let's be catty about them too. I'm not saying, let's do that all the time. But is it so bad to make aesthetic judgments?
Although I am compelled to say that a reliance on photoshop does not necessarily make one a bad photographer, though it may make one something other than a photographer.
I like the crying babies and the monkeys, but after going to her website, the rest of her stuff is pretty standard glossy adwork, and quite dull.
This thread is a plot to invite men into a women's issue so men can make fools of themselves. It certainly smoked me out.
BTW, I'm short. This means all women are bigger to me than they are to taller men, which is great.
370: In Jill Greenberg's case, it makes her a bad digital artist.
But is it so bad to make aesthetic judgments?
It's the difference between "The Butterscotch Stallion doesn't do it for me, I like them dark-haired with handsomer, less messed up features. George Clooney over Owen Wilson, every time!" and "Carrie Underwood would be hot if she lost 15 pounds." The first is me talking about my preferences -- the second is grading the subject of the sentence against an 'objective' standard, and finding her lacking.
There's nothing at all offensive about saying "Isabella Rossellini is much hotter than Brigitte Bardot."
I like the monkeys! They're very shiny.
how many women, in contrast, would very comfortably and without hesitation be willing in mixed company to say that a man under 5'8", or 5'10", or 6' is "too short" for her preferences?
I'm 5/6", and over the last couple of decades I've been told to my face, several times, by very nice females, that if I was taller they would fuck me. And this wasn't while I was hitting on them - in each case, it was apropos of nothing more than us getting drunk together, in mixed company. And I honestly think that in their own way, they meant it as a compliment, as in, "For a short guy, you're almost fuckable!"
What do I take from that? For one, the understanding that in almost any given situation, most of the women in the room are off-limits to me. That used to irritate me a bit, because I'd see guys who were less attractive than me in other respects, but taller, get girls who I couldn't. But in the big picture I'm not sure that this was a bad thing. Most guys (perhaps especially the "nice" ones), seem to genuinely believe that they stand a chance (or deserve to stand a chance) with pretty much every woman they see, even when the woman is completely out of their league. The world would be a better place if there was a lot less male self-entitlement in it.
I should note that I definitely don't think that I've had it as bad as do "fat" women. On the one hand, it's no fun to mention to a female friend that her mate is hot, and be told, 'Yeah, she thought you were cute, but just way too short.' Obviously, no nice guy would say the same thing to a woman, just substituting 'fat' for 'short'. But that's probably largely because women live in a world in which they're judged in far more vicious ways about their weight than guys are about their height.
In her prime, Isabella Rossellini was pretty much hotter than anybody.
Hooray for 374! Comity with LB! Comity for all! Cease fire! Ice Cream Mountain!
Obviously, no nice guy would say the same thing to a woman, just substituting 'fat' for 'short'.
This was precisely my point in 346.
shiny monkeys and 10,000 ponies! A chimp for each! Peace in the countryside! Loamy hills and drowsy sheep!
376: it's true, that sucks. I'm 6'4", so the unfairness of it doesn't hurt me in the slightest, but I am revolted at the ubiquity of this.
374: But what about the case with Rose McGowan, whom we discussed upthread? She previously weighed more than she does now, and I feel like my/apo/ogged/Timbot's instinct falls in line with the kind of comparison LB makes b/w Owen Wilson and George Clooney.
But is it so bad to make aesthetic judgments?
Not at all, and no one here is offended that the actresses posted are hot or that men think they're hot. There's a world of difference between saying 'Evangeline Lily is gorgeous and I like her much better than Carrie Underwood' and saying 'Rose McGowan is hot because I like chicks with meat on their bones who scrape their plates.' The first is a preference, the second implies, given our lunatic culture, that Rose McGowan is heavy and that the rest of us women must be whales eating too many waffles.
Or, on preview, what LB said. Except that one should prefer Owen Wilson over Clooney.
368.--Arguably? He certainly started up his company post-WWII, he was Russian by birth, and his cachet was probably snobbish; however, his technique was more abstract and precise than even avant-garde postwar European ballet. I would disagree that indigenous dance was thereby stifled, though; too many great American dancers and choreographers came out of Balanchine's (and Graham's) New York schools.
Comity sweeps across the land like wildfire! Baa lies down with McManus! Idealist lies down with Kotsko! Dances in barns with hot cider, the smell of hay, a donkey tries to kick you, but he misses!
the social attention spent on it is comparatively miniscule, making it a really very different sort of issue
This is exactly right, sayeth the short man.
it's much harder to judge whether an actor is tall or short from a TV show, movie, or magazine spread
On the other hand, I'm not sure this would have been much solace to me when I was in my 20s and wishing I was gay because at least then I could get some one night stand action every now and then. (In my experience, straight short guys can get plenty of sex, but it tends to be in relationships. We struggle to be physically hot enough to women to be able to pick them up in the one-night stand sort of way.)
376: I wonder if the 'what's dating like for short guys' thing is worth a post? I don't have much to say about it, other than that I don't think it's a completely unfair comparison to the way women get treated with respect to weight. Different, because the 'standards' getting applied are so much more reasonable, so it's a problem of short men being unreasonably maltreated, rather than of almost all men being irrationally hassled, and because I don't think it has a terribly significant effect outside romantic relationships. (Some, just not huge.)
Did your espresso just kick in, text?
383 brings peace with Cala! Hooray for delicate, sweet peace!
374 gets it righter than anyone has. 374 wins the thread! And since she started the whole thing, the circle is complete. Phew.
On the other hand, I'm not sure this would have been much solace to me when I was in my 20s and wishing I was gay because at least then I could get some one night stand action every now and then.
Oh, sure. I don't deny that it's a problem; I just don't think it's in the same league as the slim teenage girl starving herself because she was called fat.
364: You're not, because white supremacists aren't mainstream in America. They can be dismissed and ignored. Details isn't marginal in that same regard, so it's worth rebutting.
Dsquared's use of the "Jewish money grubber" slur as an analogy was a bad choice for any number of reasons, including that I can imagine sincerely rejecting the underlying ordering hierarchy ("Jewish people like money? Great.") in a way that I can imagine denying that there is an attractiveness hierarchy to which we all, in varying degrees, subscribe. (Though query whether the various "I like curves" comments were intended to make that same rejection.) But it might be worth noting that insofar as no one here reads Details or similar magazines, it's a pretty marginal magazine for the commenters here.
That's not to say that the male commenters here don't buy into idealized female body images, or make comments based on the same. But we're probably more self-critical in doing it, and therefore do it more rarely. If ogged, for example, had written the magazine article in question as a post, you'd have a stream of male commenters discussing the horrors of the male gaze. And then talking about who needs to drop 15 pounds.
People making this critique aren't arguing that people didn't grow, learn, adapt. Dance may not be the good example literature, plastic arts, social science concepts are held to be by this viewpoint. It addresses the content of expression, not whether the arts as a whole expanded their reach in those years. They clearly did, explosively.
I'm 6'4"
Now you're just taunting me. May your next flight be exceedingly painful.
mcmc: Here's a little something for ajay, along with my sincere wish that his thyroid give out soon.
Interesting. Thanks for your link, and I hope you develop psoriasis. Or would you prefer basal cell carcinoma, you strange person?
re: 388
Actually, as I mentioned once on another thread a while back, standards for what counts as short are also pretty unrealistic.
There's a fair bit of 'tall-flation' going on.
I'm 5ft 10 which is pretty much bang on average. I have been told quite often that I am short.
This short man women's preference for taller-than-them men thing.
Is it because women just genetically like to look up to men, to feel they can only succumb to some lord and master towering over them?
I'm 5ft 10 which is pretty much bang on average. I have been told quite often that I am short.
By whom, Mutombo? Sheesh, I'm pushing 5'7" and I always thought I was roughly average.
dsquared's metaphor lacks the requisite systematicity, and all day long we can discuss the ways that it doesn't map. But the first paragraph of his 333 gets it right.
Is it because women just genetically like to look up to men, to feel they can only succumb to some lord and master towering over them?
It's also because women know tall men will whup ass in the realm of intraejaculate sperm selection.
re: 401
UK average for guys is around 5ft 10. Just be thankful you don't live in the Netherlands.
Some interesting effects. My daughter's 16 and 5'10"; I've heard concerns lest she get too much taller, no doubt because her "pool" would be that much smaller, whether that's really true or not.
Also, the shorties have absolutely nothing they can do about it (other than perhaps get creative with their hairstyles). In contrast to the teenage girls who starve themselves or puke in the bathroom stalls. That of course also means no one BLAMES short people, as if their height is their own fault. In contrast to the fatties in the post, who obviously just eat too many waffles (a mora failure).
(Actually, I have noticed a lot of extra-buff bodybuilder types seem to be below-average height. Which may be an attempt to "do something about it", though obviously it doesn't directly affect things in the same way.)
I'm 5ft 10 which is pretty much bang on average. I have been told quite often that I am short.
I'm 6'1'' and have sometimes told people who are 5'10'' that they're short, but only because I'm being a dick. Are people really telling you this in earnest?
Also, did I say that there was something wrong with Photoshop? I didn't mean anything like that. Photoshop, loamy loins, text in a field with a lollipop! But the portraits are one-liners and the glossy is simply an unattractive presentation (and anyway is practically copyrighted by her immediate colleague and better, Dave LaChappelle).
388: You're the boss, but probably there's not a whole lot more to say on the topic, unless you or one of your fellow overlords is particularly interested.
I think you're dead on the money with what you've just said re comparisons to women and body shape. Personally I don't have a lot of time for short guys who whinge about their bad lot in the dating stakes. (It's a piece of bad luck, not systematic oppression, and if you can't get over some relatively minor bad luck, then fuck off.) However, I bet that male shortness does play a fairly significant role in career success and other's views of your leadership capabilities. (But it's not half the hindrance that simply being a woman is, so again, I lean towards the "don't be a cry baby" side of teh spectrum.)
407: Kanabec County is relieved that their fair city is not a failure! They have a Waffle House right in the main street, so any lack of waffle eating is not the fault of the city planners.
410: I tossed up a quick post on it.
In contrast to the fatties in the post, who obviously just eat too many waffles
Now we know where the waffles go.
If women prefer taller men who tower over them like their lord and master, how feminist is that?
Dude, read the post I just put up. I think you're right that that's what's going on, and yes, it isn't feminist. But if you want to comment, move to the new thread.
395: I think cross-pollination is a very good thing, and I don't think this critique has much validity. It seems like an attempt to blame the capitalist evisceration of American culture on those snooty Europeans. I don't see how the influence of European cultural practitioners could somehow cause Americans to shift away from American content, if it had any depth to begin with.
Oh, you guys, lay off Adam Ash. He's not a troll, he's just playing around. We're always so hard here on anyone whose cock jokes aren't properly inflected by the nuances of academic irony. There are other things in this thread that are far more irksome than Ash's encomiums to women's asses.
By the way, I thought that my characterization of the blogger I linked to as Pa(man)ndagon was brilliant, and I haven't seen it elsewhere before. I'm saddened and hurt by the lack of plaudits. This is me sulking.
I'm 5/6", and over the last couple of decades I've been told to my face, several times, by very nice females, that if I was taller they would fuck me.
a friend of mine used to carry a milk crate around for precisely this eventuality.
Agreed with B. "Men will sleep with anything that moves" is a trope—that's obviously what AA is going for. No alarms there.
my characterization of the blogger I linked to as Pa(man)ndagon
I didn't get it. I still don't. And I thought the post had it as "Pa(ma)ndagon."
I liked the Pandagon/Amanda joke! In fact, just this morning I was thinking to myself how clever it was.
397: All right, that was very rude. Sorry.
The blog is Pandagon, the blogger is Amanda. So 'Pa(ma)ndagon'. I think I'm terribly witty.
405: Y'know, if it wasn't your daughter I'd be really tempted to make a joke about what body part "pool" referenced, but I guess I'll let it pass.
Paging Amanda Huggankiss -- I need Amanda Huggankiss!
(I too have illusions of being terribly witty.)
395.--I agree with mcmc's points above and would ask any person trying to argue that claim to define "indigenous." If "indigenous" means "non-white," then American culture had more problems than just an influx of postwar refugees and entrepreneurs. If "indigenous" includes white cultural forms, then there was already a gigantic European influence being exerted.
But do you have a link to somebody actually making this argument?
Also, to address a couple of comments upthread that say this blog and its commenters (being all enlightened and stuff) would never buy into this judgement of women, I give you. (Not picking on Ogged, just that post that has been in my mind throughout this discussion.)
416, 429: I don't have a link, but I've seen the argument made in other contexts -- that there was in the early part of the 20th C an American (not indigenous) school of what I will loosely and inaccurately call modernism, that rather than continuing to evolve in the later part of the centure was cut off and replaced by a European tradition. The example I'm remembering is architecture, where postwar American architects think of themselves as heirs to the Bauhaus, not to Frank Lloyd Wright.
I don't know enough to defend or evaluate it, but I've seen it.
430: Honestly, I've been kind of shocked by the not-getting-it evidenced in this thread. Yes, the guys on this blog are generally pretty good sorts and I'd probably date most of them, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a fair bit of cluelessness that rears its privileged head when topics like this come up.
417: Thank you, Dr B. This particular court gets so crowded with mock jesters, they wouldn't recognize a true jester if he bit the queen in her lovely fat ass.
[Adam]'s not a troll, he's just playing around.
I know, it's just that his cock jokes aren't properly inflected by the nuances of academic irony.
We're always so hard here on anyone whose cock jokes aren't properly inflected by the nuances of academic irony.
Oh, I am so pwned.
and I'd probably date most of them
Is this irony?
430 & 432: As the comments in the linked post show, we all knew ogged was trolling. Again, being contrary.
Don't get snotty, Standpipe, or I'll give you one of my patented stern mama looks.
435: No, it's me attempting to avoid getting everyone's boxers in a twist, as seems to happen whenever one points out that well-intentioned, progressive guys are yet not free of occasional unintended sexism.
heirs to the Bauhaus, not to Frank Lloyd Wright.
Perhaps this is more true on the East Coast; in Californian architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright is pretty much the wellspring.
I stopped reading around comment 350 or so, after I was the poster boy for saying the Details thing was acceptable and that I'm being contrary. I'm not being contrary, the Pandagon post was over the top, the headline and tagline were stupid, the article was fine, and I was undecided about the picture. All of which I've said previously. Thanks.
Thesis: there is no such thing as "unintended sexism".
I too thought Pa(ma)ndagon was very witty, but didn't realize you thought of it first. Kudos.
Don't get snotty, Standpipe, or I'll give you one of my patented stern mama looks.
The Internet is a bucket of uninflected cock jokes; I come to this blog precisely for, among other things, the "properly inflected" ones. Why should I want this blog to be just like the rest of the Internet?
In dance, one could make the argument that Isodora Duncan represents a kind of American proto-modernism that got cut off in the postwar European influx. (Well, that and the fact that she died very suddenly. You know that story? One of her billowing scarves got caught in the axle of her convertible, and as the car accelerated...oy.) However, Duncan's style of dance 1) was already firmly within European traditions, complete with Orientalizing primitivism, and 2) didn't really offer much in the way of coherent aesthetic principles or technique. She's remembered mostly for her flouting of the old rules.
416, 429, 431, et al. I've been trying to find Lind's piece, because I don't remember it that well, but LB had the jist of it. It was an interesting thesis, that emigre intellectuals "took over" American cultural, to some extent, in the postwar world, partly using our own anxieties and desire for instructed self-improvement, and that this diverted it to some extent.
Now, Lind is not somebody I take anything from without qualification, but whether the culture displaced was worthwhile seems a different issue from whether the displacement took place.
431: This sounds a bit like Tom Wolfe's "From Bauhaus to Our House" or whatever it was called (vice versa?). I think the argument is somewhat more convincing in commercial architecture than in any other field, but I can't think of any disciples of Wright who were swept aside, not that I know a lot about the history of architecture.
441: I'm sorry for mischaracterizing you, then.
Julia Morgan got plenty of work on the West Coast!
If I have time while I'm over in LA, I'll try to drop by Hollywood and tell them how fucked up they are about weight. And would it kill them to cast a wider variety of characters and personality types, and a wider variety of stories?
The cite is: Michael Lind, "Where Have You Gone, Louis Sullivan: Will America Recover from Its Fifty-Year Bout of Europhilia?" Harper's (February 1998)
Doesn't appear to be online.
Just thought it was an interesting thesis; bet LB and I both remember it from there.
I found it, although I had to subscribe to some research site to get it, and overall it seems a little crazy. Is he suggesting that, but for Arnold Schoenberg, university music departments would be teaching jazz? Does he know anything about the annoying American triumphalism of abstract expressionist painting? And the "American" architecture he seems to have admired is European beaux arts, as far as I can see. So big deal, an elitist European academic tradition got a European elitist update.
It's funny that he doesn't include Flannery O'Connor or Herman Melville among the American writers he mentions, (because they might undermine his argument, not being forgotten). And all of a sudden Emerson and Thoreau aren't American? Of this list: Longfellow and Edwin Arlington Robinson and Louise Bogan and Hart Crane and novelists like Theodore Dreiser and Nelson Algren and Robinson Jeffers and John Steinbeck and William Dean Howells and John O'Hara Hart Crane and Louise Bogan are not forgotten, and neither is Steinbeck, and the rest of them suck.
I wouldn't trade Joyce or Kafka or Walser or Marquez or Virginia Woolf for any or all of them.
Really he sounds like someone insulted him at a cocktail party, and he went home and wrote a ten-page rebuttal.
I'll send you a pdf, IDP.
Is he suggesting that, but for Arnold Schoenberg, university music departments would be teaching jazz?
I think he is arguing that: Gershwin, Copland -- there would have been an academic/classical/whatever you call it jazz tradition.
And on this: Does he know anything about the annoying American triumphalism of abstract expressionist painting?
I really don't know at all what I'm talking about here -- neither remembering the article very well, nor knowing anything at all about the intellectual geneology of Abstract Expressionism -- but I thought he characterized Abstract Expressionism as Europhilic: what American artists did with European ideas.
You go, girl! Sounds plausible enough to me, and well said in any case.
I do remember learning about Constance Rourke's American Humor from that article, which makes having read it worthwhile.
Please do send it.
He's championing Longfellow!? I had to memorize wide swathes from "Evangeline" in eighth grade, and it sucked then, it sucks now, and it's sucky suckerificness. Also: it tracks with contemporary European poetic trends.
Dreiser is far from forgotten, although I haven't read any of his novels. They're pretty standard reading for grad students in Modernist literature, and last season, the Metropolitan Opera put on a huge production of An American Tragedy.
Also, university music departments are teaching jazz. They're teaching the stuffing out of it.
Basically, any American not scorned by the academy is a European for Lind's purposes. As far as I can tell.
458: case in point, the Modesto Kid Brother teaches jazz in a university music department.
458: also, "they're teaching the stuffing out of it" makes me smile.
And the "American" architecture he seems to have admired is European beaux arts, as far as I can see. So big deal, an elitist European academic tradition got a European elitist update.
There was a good article several years back in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians on how Gropius came to Harvard's Graduate School of Design and set about wresting it away from Joseph Hudnut, the dean responsible for bringing him there. Very much an instance of a beaux arts design aesthetic being replaced by a later update. Hudnut's arguments against Gropius and the impact of the International Style on cities, of course, are now looked to as prescient.
My impression has always been that Michael Lind sometimes writes some interesting stuff, but is more than a bit of a crank.
I can't find a link, but Rochelle Gurstein had a good article on the decline (relative) of Longfellow in TNR a few years ago. I haven't read any of his writings, so I have no opinion on anyone championing him.
In other news, there don't seem to be any Hollywood casting people in this library, so I guess I can't take anyone to task over anything.
463: Particularly with his recent "get these immigrants off my lawn" stuff.
I've re-read it now, thanks to mc, and I'll say this: Polemical? you bet. Broad brush? try a roller. Complete nonsense, particularly if taken as a critique of survey teaching and its simplifications, rather than an attempt to set relative value on the work and worth of artists? I don't think so.
Perhaps this would not have happened had we listened respectfully to each other's concerns, had my memories of the mid-sixties been more like:
"The sniper, firing from the top floor of the iconic campus tower by important American Architect Paul Cret managed to kill..."
Hudnut's arguments against Gropius and the impact of the International Style on cities, of course, are now looked to as prescient.
I kind of like beaux arts, but not because its American. And it's arguable that the International Style as it has been realized in late twentieth century urban architecture is a corporate perversion, so it's kind of unfair to blame academics, rather than corporations, without whose money none of that stuff could have been built. If companies looking to promote themselves as radically modern hadn't glommed on to the International Style, who knows how it might have developed?
I would like to learn more about Hudnut. Any cites?
a critique of survey teaching and its simplifications.
This, yes. What about all the great renaissance painters who weren't Florentine? What about them, huh?
But the American Booster angle seems so weird.
I would like to learn more about Hudnut. Any cites?
Jill Pearlman is the go-to person. "Joseph Hudnut's Other Modernism at the Harvard-Bauhaus," in the December 1997 JSAH, was the article I was thinking of, and she seems to have a forthcoming book on the same subject.
If I'm not mistaken, the photo on the cover of the linked issue of JSAH is of Gropius surrounded by his young Harvard acolytes. The same issue has a fine appreciation of a great architectural historian as well.
332: text, i have no idea what you were responding to but it wasn't my comment. a) i didn't call you or anyone else offensive for finding these women attractive - ?! - and b) i didn't say there weren't any visually sexy objects of desire walking down the street for women -- i said that there isn't very much pressure at all for men to make themselves attractive to women -- and sometimes pressure against doing so. making yourself attractive to others is often gendered as a feminine thing to do.
i saw brad pitt in troy, it was fun, and there is no way in hell you will get me to believe that that film showed him as particularly masculine or upped his perceived masculinity in any way -- beefcake and naked bums?? boh?
[note, i am not making any comment at all about the actual masculinity of brad pitt himself who is an actor, and whom i don't know -- just about how he was portrayed in the film and how people talked about it at the time. ]
also, about this michael lind article that i haven't read: europeans have been pretty influenced and even obsessed by american culture for a long time too, of course. the lines aren't very clearly drawable.
right now the french are really into paul auster! go figure!
471.--Well, that makes perfect sense, in that Paul Auster gave French narrative theory a New York City setting and called the result a novel.
Oh, you were being sarcastic!
I ban myself.
472 gets it exactly right—Auster's terrible.
I like City of Glass, but I love Mazzuchelli's adaption of it, which I read recently.
You're not the first person to urge me to look more kindly on Auster's recent work, David, so I might check out this Mazzuchelli.
mmf, I don't really want to get into what counts as "masculine" and what doesn't. There's all sorts of overlap, where super-masculine becomes super gay. That's fun, but not when you're trying to make arguments in blog comments.
So in Troy, Brad Pitt was super ripped, and yes, masculine. Achilles is about as masculine a literary figure as one can summon. The movie was also a little homoerotic. So I guess that's interesting, but I don't really know what it says for our purposes: it doesn't change the fact that Brad Pitt is both a masculine figure and visual object of desire for women, and also for some men.
There are plenty of visual objects to go around, I think. In 1955, sure, men probably considered that worrying over their appearance was gay. But if you just read through the archives of this blog alone, I think you'll find a lot of neurotic posts regarding norms for men's appearance. Go to the gym this evening and you will find quite a lot of men inordinately concerned with their own appearances.
And I didn't mean objects of desire walking down the street, but rather portrayed on large bilboards. You'll find about as many male as female images these days. So sorry to be unclear about that.
And I didn't mean objects of desire walking down the street, but rather portrayed on large bilboards. You'll find about as many male as female images these days
Mmmmm..... no.
But if you just read through the archives of this blog alone, I think you'll find a lot of neurotic posts regarding norms for men's appearance.
I'm not sure that helps on the not homoerotic front. Let's be honest: we're all going to be playing "Ask" at top volume sooner or later.
Mmf, as far as the last part of 33-whatever, sorry to attribute any argument to you that you didn't make.
I think 470 gets it right. I further submit that Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" is the most subversive song of 2006.
come on, LB, comity! The info came out of my anustart, but all the same, one sees lots of men. I'll have to count them next time I'm in town. Misspelling "billboard" didn't help my cause any, I know.
And they don't have any shirts on! The women are all wearing bras at least.
one sees lots of men. I'll have to count them next time I'm in town
And they don't have any shirts on!
The city is an evil evil place.
You stay down on the farm, young text.
so you cityfolk can exploit my labor? Fat chance, Cat.
what's so gay about "Ask"?
That's city-music. Don't you go asking questions about things decent folk shouldn't know.
"Don't you go asking questions about things decent folk shouldn't know."
But that's what Uncle Jeb said when he told me to pick up that horseshoe over behind the shed, and look how that turned out.
Achilles is about as masculine a literary figure as one can summon. The movie was also a little homoerotic.
So was Achilles.
Hey didja guys catch the Editorial linkage?
uh, sweet? I wish the editors had picked a thread where I was more amusing.
I apologize if this has already come up, but after reading the first 300 posts this morning, I just don't have the energy to sift through the 190 something that have accrued since then.
Anywho, this yahoo news headline appeared pertinent:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060816/sc_space/menmuscleinonbodyimageproblems
There's pretty much nothing that hasn't been said here already, but the one observation that doesn't seem to have gotten enough attention is that media images that are objectively and undeniably directed at MEN, rather than at gay men or women, absolutely do not contain Kate Moss-esqe body types.
That's not to say that no men find Kate Moss attractive, and that's not to say that the images that ARE marketed to men do not adhere to narrow and difficult to attain standard of beauty.
But the Kate Moss ultra-skinny-heroin-chic-malnourished thing in particular? You simply can't lay that at straight men's feet. I don't understand what makes the fashion industry "go" exactly, but it ain't joe six pack.
Wait, I thought it was marriage the gays were supposed to be screwing up. But then I suppose they could do women's body image in all their extra free time, what with not being fit to raise kids and all that.
Cute Dave, but you should never miss the point in order to score a clever retort.
The simple fact of the matter is that straight men do not figure prominently in the fashion industry. If you can actually rebut that statement, I'm all ears.
you should never miss the point in order to score a clever retort
This is indeed the Cardinal Rule of Unfogged commenting.
you should never miss the point in order to score a clever retort.
Unfogged comment threads are about to become dramatically shorter.
494: OK, you've convinced me. American fashion, marketing and entertainment business are all about providing gratification to their gay male employees. Selling stuff by manipulating perceptions (men's and women's) of what should be attractive to straight men has nothing to do with it.
Although "blame the pigs on the fags" does have a certain ring to it.
Look, it's Halley's Comet.
Nice work, SB.
Upon returning to this thread after a day, it is perhaps ironically pleasurable that legends of my hotness have spread, lo, even unto Boston.
And I am deeply in love with dsquared, sitting in a tree and everything.
And, yes, average-height men are to be sought after. The greater in excess of 6'1" a man is, the more likely he is to place his hand on top of a woman's cranium as a sign of affection, rather than put an arm around her shoulder. (I am temptingly fluffy, too.) And I have had a one-night stand with a guy shorter than me. I find men within a few inches taller than me the most flexible for making out because I may choose to wear heels while making out, or then also take them off.
This thread annoys me. It's five hundred comments of "these women aren't fat!" Which is true, but a more important point is that fat != unattractive.
502 -- I think you missed Adam Ash's contribution to the thread.
Hart Crane and Louise Bogan are not forgotten, and neither is Steinbeck, and the rest of them suck.
Um, excuse me? Robinson Jeffers does not suck. I didn't think that Howells, Dreiser, Algren and Longfellow were forgotten, either.
Really he sounds like someone insulted him at a cocktail party, and he went home and wrote a ten-page rebuttal.
He should hang out more with Kotsko.
oh, okay, Robinson Jeffers doesn't suck. Would you like me to send you the pdf of Lind's article, where he mourns the loss of so many great american artists drowned in the relentless tide of effete European invaders? Or would you prefer not?
Best threat I've received yet, hands down.
502: Aren't there two separate problems, both of which merit attention? First, what you're talking about, is the insanely punitive attitude towards actual fatness, which is cruel, stupid, and poorly reflects people's genuine esthetic preferences. Second, which was more the subject of this thread, is the psychotic no-win standards applied to all women: it doesn't matter if you're objectively slender and ravishingly beautiful, you're still a pig. Being a woman, regardless of what you look like, is sufficient justification for abuse.
I don't understand what makes the fashion industry "go" exactly
Coke. Duh.
When we look at another person, automatically we talk about whether we would want to date that person, which means ultimately, would we want to sleep with them. Sexual attraction is an extremely discriminating business. It's extremely manipulative and manipulable and yet everybody treats it like yoga or some healthy yogurty preoccupation. Inevitably "evo-psych" is discussed, which is code for utter and complete desublimation. Everybody, with a kind of existentialist zeal, lets the winds of biological determinism buffet their body images, never once wondering whether or not sex ought to be the defining paradigm for gender relations, self worth, and even broader societal concerns.
If I say I prefer someone over or under some height, weight, width, or depth, I have, of course, flattered myself, and I have also stung readers whom I've so easily kicked to the curb. And I can't not know that. If I then claim the state of nature as my guiding light, which no one may dispute, and which one always does with such a chipper attitude, then I have introduced a coercive element into the conversation by handing down my subjective preferences from on high, pretending at a consensus, and putting in the minds of the tall or short or fat or slender people that they might not have much of a role in the continuation of the species.
No matter how tempered conversations about sex and partnering are, they always perpetuate a status quo, which wouldn't exist in any form were it not for ruthless hierarchy. Nothing reminds people of their place more than whether or not someone would choose them as a sexual partner. Nothing can be done about that. And that's precisely why, when we bear a not too heavy a tax burden, are inconvenienced in no noticable way, and as we perpetuate incalculable tragedy the world over, without fail we are forced to consider our sexual attractiveness vis a vis celebrity culture and those alienated from themselves enough to issue the official caveperson consensus as if it were their personal preference.
Okay, so it's impossible to read this whole comment thread, but some searching suggests this hasn't been followed up on yet:
123: Why is there always an eruption of dudes praising non-skinny women and trumpeting their own favoring of Curves (not the gym) whenever this discussion comes up on blogs like Pandagon? Not only does it perpetuate the whole JUDGING ON SIZE thing anyway, it reeks of horny undergrad engineers trying to distinguish themselves by being the Nice Guy.
Or it could be because there are a lot of us who are continually irritated that our tastes are not reflected by the f'd up fashion industry. And who are futher irritated at being lumped in as if the problem was our fault.
I mean, how are we supposed to react? You're complaining about guys agreeing, "yeah, we don't like that either". Do you want us to say oink oink, so you can feel superior? Or should we just shut up entirely? After all, issues of sexism are just women's issues.
How do I say this so as to meet 94's standards for appropriate girl talk, rather than inappropriate guy talk? Personally, I prefer athletic, not emaciated. If she can make it to the top of the mountain, I'll probably think she's pretty hot. If that's "judging on size", then yeah, okay, there we are.
If she can make it to the top of the mountain, I'll probably think she's pretty hot
Cool euphemism. But probably reflects an inflated view of your own endowment.
"Personally, I prefer" is a reasonable start; recognizing that statements of personal preference in sex partners are interesting to other people to the extent that (a) they, personally, want to have sex with you, (unlikely in this, blogcommenting context) or (b) are somehow otherwise entertaining. There's not a thing wrong with your having preferences about who you want to have sex with, but they aren't obviously relevant or interesting in relation to this conversation.
The subject of the conversation was, originally, 'This article is crazy.' Responding to that with a perky 'I'm not crazy' kinda misses the point.
should we just shut up entirely? After all, issues of sexism are just women's issues
This is a little masterpiece of passive-aggression.
"it reeks of horny undergrad engineers "
Judging the horny, judging the undergrad, judging the engineers.
Judging athleticism or percentage body fat.
Judging, judging, judging. That's all you can do in this context. Flatter yourselves and make other people feel bad. I understand, it's efficient and therefore tempting.
There is a life outside of this stinking trench. There is a sun. There are trees with birds in them.
Come, grab hold of my arm.
Ballet and, in a different way, gymnastics really do fuck with a girl's sense of body image. Gymnastics is worse, because no adult woman could succeed in elite gymnastics whereas male gymnastics is definitely a sport for grown men.
The internalization of the male gaze in ballet seems to be the male gaze to the X degree which means that it is no longer really the male gaze.
There was a girl in my House in college who was a ballet dancer, although she wasn't in the class of people who could hope to be a professional. She was disturbingly thin, although she didn't quite have the look that screamed "dancer!" to me. I heard some guys (I think there were eomen there too) in the dinng hall describe a performance of hers at Arts First. They said that she looked so graceful and that the other girl looked chunky in a leotard next to her. These guys knew that the other girl wasn't chunky, and they all thought she was very attractive, but by the messed-up standards of ballet she was fat.
And the sad thing was, I think that I agreed with them.
But the course of this thread has moved very much darker, into heartache, helplessness and rage, from where many people must have thought it started.
I doubt I'll be saying much, to anybody, online about attractiveness for a while, and this is from someone who didn't offer an opinion to start with. The emotions were too raw and on some level, unexpected, at least in their vituperation.
This, to you, is vituperation? Chicago must be a very calm and civilized city.
Not the language, the evident feeling.
I doubt I'll be saying much, to anybody, online about attractiveness for a while
Yeah, best just to tell them to smile.
I may be accused of being confused, but I'm average weight for my height.
Yeah, I thought we were just getting warmed up.
Here's the thing:
None of us is implying any kind of generalization about "how men should be to please our gaze on the street" or "how men should be everywhere for all women" or "how celebrities should look."
Whether men intend to do so or not, their comments about how they like women to look often come out sounding somehow universal, as if all women everywhere should care and take heart, Blog Commenter X Likes Fatties Too. Given that men have had sway over women's bodies for pretty much forever, I hope you can understand why the red flags are going up.
Seems to be asking that we simply not make generalized statements of what we find attractive, not because nobody does it well, or it because innoxuous examples don't exist, but because it often doesn't go well, and even if we think, and who here doesn't? that we're not making universal statements, that's how they're likely to be received.
And then a lot of excruciating testimony about the shame, and the hurt, and the damage.
Am I misrepresenting?
If callling someone a fat pig is a compliment, then surely everyone defending the Details article will understand I'm just complimenting them when I say they fuck leperous goats.
Goats aren't susceptible to leprosy.
Otherwise fair enough.
Yeah, but who fucks armadillos? They're so hard and bony; I like a bit of flesh on an animal, me.
We're mostly pigfuckers here, Amanda, so you can probably understand the confusion the article would cause.
Goats, armadillos, it hits a little too close to home either way. Didn't you read the etiquette post?
I thought it was clowns. But give your pig some clown shoes and a red nose and you've got some serious hotness going. Soo-eee!
Those who, like me, are now curious about what sort of diseases goats do suffer from, may wish to consult this site, which suggests a range of possible afflictions including Anthrax, Alopecia, Bloat, Bottle Jaw, Brain Worm, Club Lamb Fungus, Floppy Kid Syndrome, Grain Overload, Grass Staggers, Keds, Lice, Liver Flukes, Lungworm, Nasal Bots, Orf, Pizzle Rot, Scrapie, Swayback, or Vibriosis.
Alternatively, Welcome to the photo gallery of diseases of the goat.
Felix, I kind of thought my Unfogged habit said bad things about how much I love my job. Your zoological wanderings about the Internets now have me wondering just how much worse employment can get.
Cheer up! At least neither of us has Pizzle Rot or Orf.
538: If you're concerned about that, you may wish to consult a person of experience.
As I was about to say before the post button jumped up and hit my cursor, while Tia is absent, it's good to know that so eminent a person as Geoffrey Chaucer has volunteered to answer questions for the perplexed:
And als, my newe posicioun yiveth me muche feyth in the wisdam of my conseil. If ye haue eny matirs on which ye mighte wisshe to seke myn advyce or conseil, emayle me at daliaunce AT hotmail.com.
Felix says: This is a little masterpiece of passive-aggression.
Thank-you! (Though, frankly, I thought it was just aggressive. It would be passive if I gave the impression I was actually volunteering to shut up.)
Lizardbreath says: The subject of the conversation was, originally, 'This article is crazy.' Responding to that with a perky 'I'm not crazy' kinda misses the point.
The way you intended your post is obviously not the way it came across to your male readers. What you said is, "Guys, if you ever want to talk to a woman who isn't insane again, you have to cut this shit out." I'm a guy. "But I don't do that shit," seems the only possible response.
You may have noticed that the post got a certain amount of "What? There's nothing wrong with that shit," apparently another possible response, and one which explains the motivation behind the post. If you don't do that shit, great. Have a cookie.
Those who do not learn from this comment thread are doomed to repeat it.
Well that's kinda fatalistic.
"What? There's nothing wrong with that shit," apparently another possible response, and one which explains the motivation behind the post. If you don't do that shit, great.
Your comment, of course, hides what the argument is about with its vagueness. What is "that shit" to which you refer? I believe some of us (myself included) agrued that the article you posted was not as disgusting as you apparently felt it was, and that, failrly read, it--notwithstanding the pig picture and some certainly infelicitious wording--was not intended to communicate that the actresses pictured were fat pigs, and that anyone who was as big as them, or bigger, was fat or disgusting or otherwise failed to meet the required standards of female beauty. So if "that shit" means "to believe that the article did not communicate what you said it communicated", yes, some people thought that that there was nothing wrong with that shit.
On the other hand, except for some trolling, I do not think anyone seriously argued that we do not vastly overemphasize the importance of women's beauty, and that this is wrong and creates huge, often damaging, pressure on women.
Now, there is some disagreement--or at least I disagree--with the notion that this is one more example of men oppressing women. Rather, I think that this is a problem that we--men and women--create together and must fix together, but that is a different argument.
I think a lot of the angst created in the thread was what I interpreted as the insistence by some that to disagree with the first proposition--this article was disgusting--was to disagree with the second--women's body image issues are a problem.
Now, you might argue that disagreeing with you on the first proposition shows such a complete lack of awareness of the overemphasis on women's beauty that it is impossible to truly agree on the second, but I think such an argument has little basis.
I believe some of us (myself included) agrued that the article you posted was not as disgusting as you apparently felt it was
I believe this is what LB characterizes as "a certain amount of "What? There's nothing wrong with that shit""
Mais oui.
OK, so the shit we guys need to cut out is disagreeing with you about the interpretation of the message communicated by article?
I hate to do it, but I agree with Ideal. On the whole, the guys said:
1. The picture was wrong;
2. Some said the article was bad, some didn't read the article; same with the language;
3. The women were very attractive.
There might have been some mild disagreement about whether some of the women fit into the Hollywood "voluptuous" category that the article was apparently about, but that's about it. Nobody said it was OK to call women "fat pigs." If you heard, "What? There's nothing wrong with that shit," I think you misheard. It was really closer to "And? That's more or less self-evidently bad, and we all know it. Is there more? OK, let's move on, and try to figure out which actress has the best breasts." Maybe not what one would hope, but not really "There's nothing wrong with that."
Ogged is a special case. But remember that he has cancer.
The shit you guys need to cut out is communicating the message communicated by the article. You believe that the article was unobjectionable, so there is nothing wrong with communicating the message it communicates. (You also believe that too much pressure is placed on women with respect to beauty -- you just don't see that as incompatible with not objecting to the article.) I think you're flat wrong about the unobjectionability of the article and messages like it.
Therefore, I want you, and other men who agree with you, to stop approving of or disseminating messages like the one in the article ("cut that shit out"). Given that that end will probably not be reached unless you agree with me about them, yes, I would like you to stop disagreeing with me about the article.
My apologies if you feel oppressed by this. (Yes, this is sarcasm. Not intended to be heavily veiled, or anything.)
549: Well, the question is whether you (or Ideal) is saying 'there's nothing wrong with that shit' or 'sure, it's wrong, but it's no big deal -- let's move on.' If the first, I disagree. If the second, I don't mean to call you a bad person here, but it is a big deal -- this stuff, from articles like this, to the joke you made about the GND's thighs (not that it's unusual, or particularly culpable, or that you would make the same joke today -- I'm just hauling it out at the pervasiveness of it all), to comments like Brock's friend about how Carrie Underwood should lose a few, all of it makes people crazy. Like, genuinely fucked up.
You may not get why it should be such a big deal -- it's hard for you to see because it's not aimed at you. But if you agree that it's wrong, and you see that the people who it's aimed at do see it as a big deal, then I think it's mistaken of you to put a lot of energy into disputing how big a deal it should be.
disseminating messages like the one in the article
Loathe though I am to re-enter this discussion, you and Amanda were the ones disseminating the article, right? The general consensus among the guys was that Details was too stupid to bother reading.
Please, apo. This article is a freakish anomaly, with no relationship to shit that's all over the place about what a cow any famous woman whose ribs you can't count is? If you don't engage in, approve of, whatever, this sort of thing, great. You're a fine, fine, specimen of a man, and second only to Mutombo in your worthiness to be sexed. But it's not a message that comes from Details alone, and acting as if it were is kind of silly.
I still have absolutely no inclination to read that Details article. Anyway, although I'm sure I'm no saint when it comes to the objectification of women, and am often guilty of unintentional sexism, I did find it a little annoying that the "I think most men don't have a preference for super-skinny women" comments were immediately met with "oh that's total Nice Guy bullshit, the problem isn't what you do and don't prefer, but that you expect women to care at all," plus a bunch of high-fives. If that was really the case this whole post obscures the issue: you don't need to post a picture of pig, you can just post any picture of a woman in one of these magazines and the "real" point will get through.
You're a fine, fine, specimen of a man, and second only to Mutombo in your worthiness to be sexed.
Comity!
If the second, I don't mean to call you a bad person here,
No, I think I am probably a bad person. Just not for the reason here.
to the joke you made about the GND's thighs (not that it's unusual, or particularly culpable, or that you would make the same joke today -- I'm just hauling it out at the pervasiveness of it all),
Which indicates, at most, that it was pervasive a decade and a half ago. Before the fruition of Generation Awesome.
You may not get why it should be such a big deal -- it's hard for you to see because it's not aimed at you. But if you agree that it's wrong, and you see that the people who it's aimed at do see it as a big deal, then I think it's mistaken of you to put a lot of energy into disputing how big a deal it should be.
The problem, as Apo, notes, is that we don't read Details. Pointing to something from Details as evidence of misogyny or the corrosive effects of the male gaze is like pointing to something from Stor/mfr/ont as evidence that there's a problem with anti-Semitism. In both cases, those problems exist; in neither case is the source of the material a very good indication of what the guys here (or, apparently, with Details, any straight guys) think. And at least some of the responses were a function of that problem with the source. To the extent energy was expended, it was to explain the reaction of the guys here; no small number of the comments by male commenters were about whether various male reactions were unobjectionable.
But, yeah, the presentation of those women as fat was wrong. Now can we talk about how many cup sizes McGowan appears to have lost?
We're going back over the same ground, here but let's see if I can clear it up some. The problem with responding to a gripe about the pervasive pressure on women to attain unattainable and insane beauty standards with "But I like curvy women" is that, for it to be anything other than a non-sequitur, it has to have something to do with "So what you're griping about isn't that big an issue." And that doesn't follow.
Brock's friend who's critiquing Carrie Underwood as 'chunky' is probably attracted to curvy women too -- he would probably lose his shit with delight if a woman who looked exactly like Carrie Underwood showed interest in him. But he's out there making the rest of us nuts by singing along from the "A woman who doesn't meet some insane and arbitrary standard of perfection needs to be critiqued and cut down for it" hymnbook.
If you don't do that, great. Get on the bench with the pure and perfect Apostropher. There should be more guys like you out there. My irritation was misplaced, to the exent it was directed at you. I apologize for making you feel bad when you didn't deserve it.
But the fact that you're personally attracted to heavier women doesn't have much of anything to do with the problem I'm talking about.
the pure and perfect Apostropher
I gotta say, it's about time I started getting the recognition I deserve around here.
556: I think you're living in a fantasy world if you think that "it was pervasive a decade and a half ago. Before the fruition of Generation Awesome." or "Pointing to something from Details as evidence of misogyny or the corrosive effects of the male gaze is like pointing to something from Stor/mfr/ont as evidence that there's a problem with anti-Semitism." This is very mainstream. The Details article was grotesquely quotable, but the judgment it makes of the women it pictures isn't unusual at all in the media.
Just as a point of academic interest, 553: it's not a message that comes from Details alone
I think someone pointed out earlier (was it JM?) that the "male gaze" can be a pretty abstracted thing, a kind of pernicious fiction constructed independently of the gazes of actual men but advanced on their behalf by a professional sub-class. The idea that men are/should be freakishly obsessed with female bodyweight is very, very heavily sold to women through the fashion industry, but far less so to men (in the universe of men's magazines, Details' perspective really is somewhat freakish).
Yes, obviously there are some guys who do buy into the Miss Bulimia supermodel beauty image, but it's pretty rare to do so exclusively. That beauty image is in heavy competition with the ultra-buff body type and variations on the ever-durable zoftig pin-up body type, and other standards besides. (That's not to say these things are necessarily benign; I think you could make a case for pin-up beauty's being responsible for a good chunk of the ridiculous breast implant industry.)
I'm not saying any of this by way of defending or exonerating the "male gaze" -- it's just an impression of the overall dynamics.
ironically, jill (the photographer who took the pig photo) was working on retouching a model to make her look too skinny as i read aloud to her some of the comments here. and jill, unironically, is a feminist and a size 12 and so on. the world is a confusing and difficult place.
well, it beats reading crazy people talking about fake child abuse, that's for sure.
I like, unironically, your wife's monkeys & crying kids.
a sow carcass? All art made using dead animals is disgusting. At least Josef Beuys shut himself in with a live coyote. And even that was not fair to the coyote, who was not a volunteer.
