I don’t buy women’s magazines very often. But I recently bought the two latest issues of Elle, to find out what the magazine is all about. My initial impression was one of shock. All these women in the photographs appear to be ready to orgasm! Half-closed eyes, swollen half-open lips. Indeed, almost every one of the models pictured was portrayed in a sexually appealing manner. This is interesting, given that the presumed readers of the magazine are mostly women. I wonder if women in our society learn to have a certain kind of self-eroticism? Is what turns us on, whether gay or straight, the pictures of our own sexuality?
Probably not, but it’s fun to think about the reason for this style. The orgasmic women are also very thin, of course, some so thin that no way would they have anything sexual on their minds. When one gets adequately anorexic sexual feelings are an extravagance that the body sheds in order to stay alive.
What the magazine sells is clothes and cosmetics. The clothes are very expensive; T-shirts for nine hundred dollars and itsy-bitsy evening bags (made out of crocheted wool) for a thousand or two. The jewelry is by Cartier and so on. Given that the average woman doesn’t earn very much it’s likely that most of Elle‘s readers don’t in fact buy what is shown in its pages. So why would such readers buy the magazine in the first place?
For the advice, I guess. The advice which tells us how to be a desirable woman in this world, which tells us how to repair our bodies and faces so that they comply with the unwritten rules. Also for the opportunity to visit this imaginary world where women might worry about which nine hundred dollar T-shirt to buy, or whether to go for gold or silver in bracelets this year. And for relaxation, you might say. Yes, but why does what Elle contains make us relax? That is the really interesting question.
I was pleasantly surprised by the articles, though. They are quite interestingly written and often informative. Some of them were even what I would call feminist in tone, though the word itself is not mentioned in the Elle world. The most recent issue, for example, contains an interesting take on the American myths of motherhood. On the other side, the issue preceding that one had a story about a woman making her peace with her husband’s internet porn addiction.
I come across very snooty and condescending here; as if I was somehow above those poor benighted women who read Elle or other similar magazines. Hmmm. How to rewrite it all so that my points remain but the arrogance is removed? Can’t be done within the time frame available. In any case, I want to get back to my Elle.
I think the sexy pictures serve two purposes. First, people do tend to put themselves in the place of whatever protagonists they see on camera. If the model is getting turned on, then so am I (likewise, when people watch acts of violence committed on TV, they feel like they’re doing it, too). Second, of course, the pictures show us that women are supposed to be super-sexy all the time.
But I would suppose that there must be a sufficient number of Elle readers who do buy that overblown merchandise if the ads continue to appear. The advertisers wouldn’t just throw their money down the sink.
So are the rich chicks subsidizing the magazine for the rest of us?
Disclaimer: The fact that I wrote in the first person does not mean that I have ever opened an issue of Elle.
I used to read all of the fashion magazines. I mean all of them, including some foreign ones.
What can I say, I love make up. I cancelled all of my subscriptions a couple of years ago because I noticed that I not only found none of the clothes or girls attractive any more, but every issue had at least one picture that horrified me. Horrified as in making me flash back on films of concentration camps that I saw in school.
I know women who are deep in debt trying to buy those clothes and live that life that really only a handful of women in Manhattan attain. I realized I was supporting a system that excluded the rest of the world, and that too many women, myself included, wasted time and energy trying to emulate genetic anomalies and anorexics. We were hypnotized for mindless consumption and impossible body images.
I also finally connected the few models I had known to the girls in the ‘zines. The diets in those pages are lies. Most of those women live on coffee, cigarrettes and crystal meth. A few of them are heroin addicts. I decided I couldn’t give another dime to that industry. The articles can be great, and some of them do promote feminist causes, but the cost to me is too high. I’ve seen too many issues where an article will preach body acceptance and the very next story will be telling you you’re overweight. No one seemed to notice that the advice would contradict itself even within a single issue.
That horrible “Sex and the City” program crystalized it all for me. I loathed those characters. I can’t imagine wanting to know people like that, let alone trying to be one. Yep, I sound arrogant, too, but that’s ok. I am openly hostile to anything that makes women feel as if we aren’t good enough.
Well, I have. I buy Elle on a semi-regular basis. It’s by far the smartest and the best of the fashion mags. I’m a big slob, but the clothes are fun to look at in the way that all sorts of unattainable but pretty things are fun to look at. And the articles, reviews and things are often pretty good.
I have no idea why they do the semi-orgasmic thing. My sense is that it’s a fairly recent trend and that it is a trend. It may date back to those Sophie Dahl ads for Opium. (Warning: you may find that link porn-tastic.)
It’s true that the clothes in Elle are all super expensive, but the ads tend to be for a wider variety of things. For one thing, most of the designers have lower-priced lines aimed at less-wealthy people. So the average Elle reader can’t buy Marc Jacobs, but she may be able to buy Marc by Marc Jacobs and feel like she’s participating in the whole world. Also, the ads are also for things like cosmetics and perfume, which even non-wealthy people might be able to splurge on.
Ahem. See also here and here.
Omar K. Ravenhurst, that is interesting. The question I have is whether these patterns are something that would apply in all societies or whether these patterns would be more noticeable in the West where a certain type of showing sexuality is common in the media.
I know many thin women who are neither anorexic nor asexual. Yes, there are impossible and oppressive beauty standards out there, but I don’t see that mocking thin women is going to help.
I don’t think anyone was “mocking” thin women. No one was mocking women, thin or otherwise, at all: they were simply pointing out that many fashion models are expected to attain *unnatural* and unhealthy levels of weight loss if they want to work at the haute couture end of the market.
I don’t get the impression that Echidne or any of the other posters thought this was the least bit amusing.
Omar, I didn’t see mention in the study of how the use of porn that is made generally for gay and straight male taste affected straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women who watched it. The porn itself could give some misleading results regarding women’s sexuality.
I haven’t read Elle but I used to read Cosmo. I’ve noticed that “orgasmic” look in many of the models back in the ’80s. When I modeled briefly in the ’90s, the photographer who took pictures for my portfolio had me take that “orgasmic” stance, which is basically the head thrown back, eyes at half-mast looking towards the camera, and mouth partly open with moistened lips. Hips are also thrust forward. My only thought at the time was that it was the same stance I had already seen in magazines. It’s interesting to view it as conditioning women to appear sexually appealing (to men, obviously) at all times.
One more thing – that eyes-at-half-mast stare into the camera is an unfocused stare. It makes it appear that the woman in question isn’t aware of what is going on around her – including the existence of people who are looking at her.
It probably is just that simple–they are trying to convince us that the route to sexual pleasure is starving ourselves and wearing expensive clothes. That message is more convincing than I’d like it to be, that’s for sure.
Ind–yes, some women are naturally very thin, and all models are instructed to say that they eat like horses, but very few do. One thing that “Sex and the City” definitely had going for it is they routinely showed the fashion models using coke and picking at their food–it’s sad how rarely women get even that bone of truth thrown to us.
Thanks, Individ-ewe-al, for standing up for thin women. It’s true that many models/actors starve themselves or use drugs to stay thin. But I, as a very thin woman, was a little offended by the assumption that the ultra-thin women in the mags are anorexic and without sex drive simply BECAUSE OF how they look. You can be 140 lbs and be anorexic, and you can be 90 lbs and be perfectly healthy. I was a teen model and regularly pigged out all the time (without barfing, haha).
Like Morgaine Swann, I used to buy those mags. I quit for the same reasons she did. I know a lot of women who obsess about their weight and complain about the “thin” standard. Then they turn around and buy those mags!
I once asked another woman about that, since she was complaining about the pressure to be thin. I told her that if women didn’t buy those mags, there wouldn’t be a supply of them. The thin standard can only be in place as long as women buy into it. So women are creating their own problems, so to speak. She thought about this for a while, then said, “But if I don’t buy fashion magazines, I won’t know what makeup to buy.” I shit you not, that’s what she said. How do you respond to that? I wear makeup, but I don’t look to magazines to tell me what to buy. I told her there are probably free resources on the internet (after smacking my hand to my forehead).
Furthermore, women who buy fashion mags like to hold the models under the microscope. It’s fun for them. They pick out ones they admire and ones they hate (all based on looks, of course). In my experience, these princess-wannabe women actually hate thin women in real life. They idolize the models, but God forbid a woman she KNOWS actually look like that. It’s all very frustrating for me. She blames the thin standard on me, not the industry she supports!!!
Anyway, I don’t think feminists are arrogant about this at all. I say, we need to be MORE arrogant. I mean, look at the approach IWF takes. They give their opinion with authority, no matter how dumb it is. I say feminists drop the whole leftist/pacifist approach and do the same thing. Let’s expose these douchebags for what they really are. We need to hold other women accountable, just like we do men. Women are buying the mags, watching TV, and spending their money on stupid shit trying to pass themselves off as entitled princesses. They are causing their own unhappiness and insecurity. Sucks to be them.
Following up on Trish’s comment — In my experience, arousal is not characterized by droopy lidded eyes. That’s the “bedroom eyes” thing that is supposed to be quite fetching in say, the James Dean type male.
When I’ve seen arousal it’s been actually a somewhat wide eyed, almost startled look. And — I almost NEVER see this in magazines. Which is generally not where I look for it…hehehe
I don’t think it’s mocking thin women to point out that the women in magazines are all very thin and that most women would, at that weight, not be healthy. But I do think people sometimes mock thin women in these discussions, and to me, at least, this bit was unnecessary:
There are some perfectly healthy, very thin women. That’s not the point. The point is that even if every single model in the magazine is perfectly healthy, it’s still a problem to favor a single body-type, and one that is dangerous for the overwhelming majority of women to try to attain.
Cosmo is a very different beast than Elle, fwiw. Elle is a fashion magazine, and Cosmo is a lifestyle mag. You could argue that they ultimately send the same messages, but they do it in very different ways.
I agree that there shouldn’t be just one body type that is sold as attrative. In reality, it isn’t even true. Most people don’t go for super-thin women or ultra-buff men.
But, as the situation is now, it’s almost as if there’s a fight over which body type should be objectified! Isn’t that the reality of it? Sounds like a lose-lose situation to me.
Sally, why did you think the comment about anoretics losing sexual feelings was mocking?
One of the physical consequences of losing enough weight is that your sex drive and libido evaporate: I don’t see that pointing that out is mockery, particularly given the magazine is effectively selling two images that are contradictory- the first a sexualised\orgasmic one and the second an ultra-thin one that is not safely achievable for the vast majority of women.
I’ve been anorexic, and I know that anorexics lose interest in sex (and everything else, other than food.) I think what’s mocking is the idea that you can look at any very-thin woman and assume that she’s anorexic and therefore asexual. If it were me, that would be true. I have known very thin women about whom it’s not true. Can you really not see the problem with assuming things about a woman’s sexual preferences based on the appearance of her body?
I just think there’s a way to discuss this stuff without making that sort of suggestion.
Sally said: “Can you really not see the problem with assuming things about a woman’s sexual preferences based on the appearance of her body? I just think there’s a way to discuss this stuff without making that sort of suggestion. ”
Yes, exactly! Assuming that a thin woman is starving herself for some crazy ideal is just as sexist as assuming a woman can’t change her own oil. I mean, *most* women CAN’T change their own oil. Does that make the assumption okay?
But it’s not as though we’re considering any given thin woman: the issue under discussion is Elle magazine. Elle, and most other fashion magazines, continuously display and promote an ideal that is absolutely unobtainable for the majority of women without serious health consequences (one of which is lowered libido.) Given that they also use sexualised images and poses at the same time as promoting an ideal that tends towards the asexual, it’s not unreasonable to point out the discrepancy. One way of doing so is to point out that most people at the bmi many fashion models appear to be would be suffering lowered libido amongst other mental\physical problems.
“Following up on Trish’s comment ““ In my experience, arousal is not characterized by droopy lidded eyes. That’s the “bedroom eyes”? thing that is supposed to be quite fetching in say, the James Dean type male. ”
Exactly, it’s called “bedroom eyes’ because of the eye muscle relaxation during orgasm. It’s eye-opening (pardon the pun) that this look is encouraged by photographers in modeling shoots. Aims for that orgasmic look for women in clothing and makeup ads, although I’ve seen more wide-open eyes in stores for women in makeup ads.
I also know that most models are that thin because it’s their body type, not necessarily because they starve themselves. Still, the look is troubling for women who don’t have that kind of bone structure. It isn’t so much a matter of starving yourself to stay model thin as opposed to having a natural body structure that leads to thinness in early years, as many 15 to 24 year old models already have. When they age, and especially have childreb, they gain weight, but not necessarily a weight that makes them look like the average woman.
Bridget, my point was that I see the “bedroom eyes” as a marketing gimmich to men and women who have seen it. I’ve seen the “wide eyed” stare, and didn’t take it to be as sexually-oriented as the “bedroom eyes” stare.
We need to hold other women accountable, just like we do men. Women are buying the mags, watching TV, and spending their money on stupid shit trying to pass themselves off as entitled princesses. They are causing their own unhappiness and insecurity. Sucks to be them.
I understand your frustrations, Redneck, I really do. It sucks to have your weight criticized, no matter from which angle the critic is coming from. I’ve been told both that I’m too fat and too thin at times, and it always makes me upset.
But women who suffer from these images aren’t torturing themselves out of masochism. Quite the opposite. These magazines pretty much advertise that they have the secret to getting things the everyone wants–love, status, sexual attention–and women buy them because they want the secret to getting these things. And what the fashion and lifestyle magazines make very clear is that if you want sexual satisfaction, love, or even friends, you have to be rail-thin, so thin that most women can only achieve it through anorexia. Whether the models themselves are anorexic is almost beside the point–if the readers want love and sex, which they are told they can only get by being extraordinarily thin, they will have to starve themselves. It’s no coincidence that anorexics use fashion layouts for inspiration when hunger pains set in.
The hatred for thin women that this breeds is unfortunate, but there’s a real logic to it. When you are bombarded with messages that imply that your life would be so much better if you could just starve yourself, well, it’s easy to get resentful. And especially more so when someone is super-skinny without having to do all the hard, eating disorder work for it. To women who constantly diet and feel bad about themselves, a woman who says that she eats whatever she wants and doesn’t gain weight makes them feel roughly how you or I might feel if someone were to say they have more money than they know what to do with.
I buy that most models are naturally thin, but of all the women that I know that are naturally thin, none of them are nearly as thin as the fashion models! I think even for that tiny minority of women who are naturally thin, have appropriately striking (or bland) faces, and are model-tall, to get to the point of model-thin they are not eating and living the same way as the naturally thin women I know.
A lot of times it’s even hidden how exactly thin the models are. I noticed this in a bikini catalog the other day. They are all posed to maximize their curves because in the wrong position, I think a lot of them would really look too thin to be ‘sexy’, and possibly thin enough to cause concern.
My comment on extreme thinness and anorexia was not intended to mock the women but the culture. I used to have anorexia, pretty severely, actually, like close to death, so I know what I speak of in that sentence. But in general I am a sarcastic goddess.
The reason why the magazine sells is the same reason that giant SUVs sell, that useless exercise equipment sells, and that people plunk down huge money for the copper skillets at Williams-Sonoma.
That reason is: perceived access to a lifestyle.
I heard that phrase from a marketing person once, and I haven’t been able to put it out of my mind since. Very few items are directly marketed to the person you are; most are marketed to the person you’d like to be.
Want to be a rugged, independent manly sort that makes all his own decisions? Buy a pickup truck, preferably a big one with four-wheel-drive. Want to be a perfect suburban mom with lovely unspoiled children in a good neighborhood? Buy our laundry detergent.
Do you want to be the sort of person who actually considers, for more than one second, a nine hundred dollar t-shirt? And who wouldn’t want to be in that position–you can either buy the shirt and revel in your newly-purchased exclusivity, or you don’t buy the shirt and pat yourself on the back for your clever economizing…
Trish: I didn’t see mention in the study of how the use of porn that is made generally for gay and straight male taste affected straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women who watched it. The porn itself could give some misleading results regarding women’s sexuality.
Would you say a little more?
As to rest of the thread: yeah, the situation seems fairly bizarre. Though I guess previous times made equally absurd demands of women.
I found the following remark in the linked article very interesting:
“It would have been scientifically preferable to use actual people as our sexual stimuli, but this was obviously impermissible. Our study used ‘porn'”
I wonder if vegetarians had an ethical loophole like this would eating chicken nuggets be all right so long as no chicken was killed live in front of the vegetarian?
Alex, what’s being sold isn’t really the $900 shirt, it’s the magazine. Really, what people are buying when they purchase “Elle” are ads, not products.
I’m not sure this is a big enough distinction to have an impact on your argument, but I think it’s worth mentioning. Perhaps people like to feel like insiders, and if they can’t actually buy something that represents a certain lifestyle, they want to at least know that it exists.
I don’t think I’ve ever read “Elle,” except maybe at the dentist, but I like to page through fashion magazines for ideas. I can’t buy the $900 shirt–but I bet I can make something that looks a lot like it.
That’s certainly true about the fashion spreads: people buy the low-price lines, or they buy the cheaper knockoffs. And actually, if you read Lucky (“the magazine about shopping”), it’ll tell you how to replicate the outfit on a budget.
But magazines are funded by ads as much as (or more than) by the cover price. And advertisers don’t buy ads unless they think they’re getting something out of it. So someone is buying the stuff advertised, some of, but not all of which is also very expensive.
I do think there’s an element of buying the fantasy. It’s not just hte fantasy of being able to afford the stuff. It’s also the fantasy of having somewhere to wear it to.
Shoot–I just wrote a long post to this thread only to have it eaten because I didn’t understand that not adding up the numbers would prevent me posting. I actually read your notes above carefully and avoided typing the prescribed string…hate to admit this but your “add em up” thingie is pretty opaque. Why not just say ” help me prevent autospam–please add these numbers and enter the solution to save your post.” Just a thought. I’m at work and already being very bad to try to contribute to this thread much less read it…no more time to recapitulate *sigh*
Trish: I didn’t see mention in the study of how the use of porn that is made generally for gay and straight male taste affected straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women who watched it. The porn itself could give some misleading results regarding women’s sexuality.
Omar: Would you say a little more?
I was wondering how straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women would react to porn that they knew was not geared towards them. A lot of porn is made with a straight male audience in mind, in particular the ones with one man and two women going at each other. Knowing that they weren’t the target audience, how would that knowledge affect their arousal, as opposed to viewing porn that was made with straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women in mind?
Supposedly the grad students picked out the porn, and the articles don’t mention any male grad students that I can see, so maybe Meredith Chivers picked it all out.
his expertise is the reason why Chivers wanted to study at Northwestern.
“I did come to NU to work with Dr. Bailey because of my interest in sexual orientation research,” she said.
I don’t know. Perhaps you could ask Chivers or Bailey about this. I don’t know when we’ll see another study on the topic, with the ongoing war against sexuality in all forms. Or against ‘sin’ and ‘evil’, as the self-professed warriors put it.
I went ahead and found an email address for each of them, to stay in practice. It seems the study also looked separately at “MTF” transsexuals, who more closely resembled the men in their sexual responses. (More or less.) “This shows that the sex difference that we found is real [as opposed to what, fabricated data?] and almost certainly due to a sex difference in the brain,” said Dr. Bailey. To me it suggests the opposite, that culture strongly infuenced these responses. (What organ does he think culture affects, the liver? Unfair, I know.) See here, however. I wish someone with less baggage would examine the question, at least by repeating the study.
Hestia–nobody buys a $900 shirt. At least not with their own money.
Elle is selling its readers the perception of being wealthy, slender, and fashionable. Its customers, on the other hand, are purchasing access to the eyeballs of people who desire, or at least fantasize about, being wealthy, slender, and fashionable.
Sally–it’s always the lifestyle that drives the sale. Always. Watch the backgrounds of ordinary TV commercials, and observe what is implied by them. The car, or clothing, or cellphone is always presented as a small-but-vital component of the Satisfied Consumer. Perhaps, if you buy one, through some sort of sympathetic magic, you too could be Satisfied….
Wish I could find my copy of Jean Kilbourne’s (excellent) book “Can’t Buy My Love”, but she describes that half-lidded look as a classic look of detachment, rather than arousal, and makes a good case that the sex that we’re being sold is a very detached, impersonal type. (BTW, I think this book is an excellent read on media literacy from a feminist standpoint.)
I also have to gripe a bit that on just about every discussion I’ve seen on this topic on feminist boards, the comment that most models represent a very unrealistic standard for most women ends up getting twisted around as being “thin bashing.” Yes, I know thin women get accused of being anorexic even when they eat like lumberjacks, and I’ve had a couple of friends like this. It sucks. Just like people assuming a fat woman sits on the couch eating bonbons all day. For *most of us*, we *would* have to be practicing anorexics to look anything like the women in the magazines. But to say that doesn’t mean I’m accusing all thin women of being anorexic, any more than I’d be accusing all women over 6′ of taking growth hormones if I said that it would be impossible for most women to achieve that height without them. I think it’s important that we keep speaking out that the images of women in the magazines are not realistic, if for no other reason than the sake of girls and young women who are bombarded with these images.
I have no problem with pointing out that fashion magazines sell an unrealistic ideal, that the models are clinically anorexic (whether or not they have anorexia nervosa), and that most women would be very sick and miserable if they did what was necessary to look like that. I do have a problem with bashing thin people or for that matter with making assumptions about people’s sexuality based on the shape of their bodies. And that’s what Echidne did. I don’t care that she was being sarcastic: I’ve been too bruised in the stupid weight wars to think that kind of comment is ok. And that’s my last word on the matter.
Well, sure. But I don’t think that most people who buy Entertainment Weekly or The Nation are buying a lifestyle in quite such an explicit way.
Yeah, Alex, that’s pretty much what I was saying with my “insider” comment. But now I’m thinking about the difference between a viewer’s reaction to an ad and a viewer’s reaction to a magazine in which the ad appears. There are more complicated reasons behind magazine-buying than “perceived access to a lifestyle.”
There must be a reason women buy magazines like “Vogue” and “Elle” beyond an interest both in fashion and in pretending to be someone who is fashionable. Likewise, there’s a reason people buy “The Nation” and the “New Yorker” beyond an interest both in politics and in pretending to be someone who is informed about politics. I’m not sure what that reason is…
The other thing is that it isn’t wrong or harmful to imagine you’re someone other than the person you really are. I’d argue that it’s unavoidable, even beneficial. Who doesn’t dream about what they’d do with a million dollars (aside from the people who have a million dollars)? The problem comes when you confuse fantasy with reality and blame yourself for not becoming a better, more attractive, more lovable person after you follow x instructions or buy product y. It’s also harmful when you consistently believe that being you is never as good as being someone else. This is the message that ads push–but not necessarily magazines.
I really like looking through “In Style” magazine. It feels like a treat; I’m not sure why. (I get a similar sensation from “New American Paintings” and most magazines about print and web design and other visual art.) But when I’m through, I put it back on the library shelf and go home, reasonably content with my life.
“I have no problem with pointing out that fashion magazines sell an unrealistic ideal, that the models are clinically anorexic (whether or not they have anorexia nervosa), and that most women would be very sick and miserable if they did what was necessary to look like that. I do have a problem with bashing thin people or for that matter with making assumptions about people’s sexuality based on the shape of their bodies.”
Amen, Sally. Those assumptions do nothing but pit women against each other.
“I do have a problem with bashing thin people or for that matter with making assumptions about people’s sexuality based on the shape of their bodies. And that’s what Echidne did.”
No, actually she didn’t. What she did was comment that when women are at an excessively *artificial* low weight, their sexual response is affected. And that’s true. That has nothing to do with women who are naturally thin at all.
In fact, Sally herself quoted Echidne’s lines: “The orgasmic women are also very thin, of course, some so thin that no way would they have anything sexual on their minds.”
To me, it’s obvious here that she is talking about extreme, unhealthy thinness, not the bodies of women who just happen to have a natural tendency towards low body fat.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out that extreme dieting and malnutrition are unhealthy, and do affect sexual response.
The fact that some people are quick to assume any very thin woman is anorexic is another question entirely, and a valid complaint to make. But I think we would have to be beyond naive to assume that most of the “waif”-style models were just born that way.
You know what’s funny – not just Elle, but even those cheap magazines that pride themselves in costing less than a coffee are packed with ads and features on clothes costing up to $3000. They are taking the piss.
I used to buy Elle and Marie Claire sometimes, years ago. Now the only glossy magazines I buy are architectural and interior design, and it’s largely the same thing, I’m buying a fantasy of a lifestyle. I’m never going to be able to purchase a renovated traditional house in Morocco or Argentina, or a solar-powered hi-tech cube house outside of Tokyo, but I can drool on pictures and descriptions of it for hours.
As for models, hmm, I have a feeling they’re not particularly more affected by anorexia, drug use or stupidity than the general population. Either that, or I’ve only met the wrong section of the population all along…
Language is such a tricky thing. Maybe there should be a different casual term to describe people who are thin, either because it’s their body type, or because they do control their weight out of vanity, to keep that definition separate from anorexia as full blown obsession of the clinical kind, that would make it very hard to hold any job. There is still some relation with how women are portrayed, it has to do with identity and gender and sexuality, but in a lot less direct and a lot deeper way than straightforward vanity or obsession with body image and the myth of thin beauty as portrayed in glossy magazines. See this article in the London Review of Books for a great thought-provoking take on the subject.
I don’t see the word “artificial” there. Can you show me where it is? In fact, she said “there is no way,” which is categorical. She didn’t say “it is highly unlikely that…”, which would have admitted the possibility that someone might be that thin without having an eating disorder. That’s what Echidne actually said. Saying “it seems obvious that…” is not a substitute for actually addressing the text.
My best friend in high school was 5’9” and 100 pounds. She was thinner than any model I’ve ever seen: she was thin enough that nobody thought it was attractive. She did not have an eating disorder, and she was not asexual. As an adult, she filled out, and she now has a model-type body. That really is just the way she is. Just as some people are naturally predisposed to be fat, some people are predisposed to be very thin. I’m sure that some models starve to make themselves that way, but some of them are just genetic-outliers when it comes to body composition. And as I’ve said again and again, I don’t think it’s a good idea to make assumptions about people’s sexuality (or their eating habits) based on the shape of their bodies. My high-school best friend endured way too many taunts about how any guy who slept with her had to worry about being stabbed by a hip bone.
As I’ve also said again and again, I’m not defending a beauty culture that holds that highly-unusual body type up as an ideal. I’m just saying that we can criticise the culture and the ideal without suggesting that it’s ok to make assumptions about women based on the shape of their bodies.
Sorry. I guess I lied about that being my last word. Now can we talk about Elle? Because this feels like a bit of a diversion.
There must be a reason women buy magazines like “Vogue”? and “Elle”? beyond an interest both in fashion and in pretending to be someone who is fashionable.
What about women who find them artistically interesting? That’s why I occasionally buy them. I like fashion (especially the artsy, “no one would ever wear that” stuff) because it’s a form of art. I like the ads because they’re also a form of art. Of course I don’t like all of it, and I do agree that there are serious problems with the way women are portrayed.
Exactly, Kate. People read magazines for all kinds of reasons, and I don’t think it’s helpful to narrow those reasons down to, “because they want to pretend to be someone different.”
PS. I’m interested in ads, too. Looking at the way companies choose to communicate with their consumers is totally fascinating, and yes, I think design absolutely falls into the realm of art. At the same time, the attempted manipulation of consumers’ emotions bothers me–and at the same time, I understand why it’s a great idea.
There’s a commercial on TV now that makes my mind spin. Some movie or music star’s–I think it’s Puff Daddy; I’m not what you’d call familiar with his work–car breaks down, and so a passing Pepsi truck takes him to a movie premiere. Suddenly, everyone is driving around in fancy Pepsi trucks.
The implication here is that our decisions about luxury purchases are influenced by our idolization of celebrities. It’s an advertisement about the insanity of falling for advertising! It’s saying, “Look at all these people who want to drive Pepsi trucks just because Puff Daddy’s driving one; aren’t they silly?” And at the same time they’re saying, “Look! Puff Daddy! Buy Pepsi!” Their rationale is, I think, that we should support self-deprecating companies, companies that have a sense of humor about themselves, companies that do a wink-wink nudge-nudge routine in order to convince us that yeah, they’re advertising, but they aren’t doing it under false pretenses.
Problem is, that can be considered a “lifestyle”: somebody who’s in on the joke. So, really, Pepsi’s using their ads to attract the kind of people who like to think of themselves as (for lack of a better term) ironic hipsters. They’re doing exactly the same thing that they’re parodying!
Boggles the mind.
Full disclosure: I am currently drinking a Pepsi.
“The orgasmic women are also very thin, of course, some so thin that no way would they have anything sexual on their minds.”?
The claim made here is that the ones who are “so thin” would NO WAY have anything sexual on their minds. She didn’t say the ones who are ANOREXIC. She said the ones who are SO THIN.
I’m not as thin as I was in high school, but I am still a size zero. Like Sally’s friend, I was taunted daily about my thinness, and I was not considered attractive. I was gross. But hey, the modeling world accepted me, so I went where I was accepted and did some teen modeling. I was naturally 6% body fat at the time, which is well below the so-called essential 13%. (Heck, I’m STILL not 13%.)
I used to look like Kate Moss (probably even thinner), and my life was hell. Now I look more like Heidi Klum, which is only 5-10 pounds more, and still well below what many people consider acceptable. I thought about sex all the time when I was like Moss, and I think about it all the time now.
I thought about sex all the time when I was like Moss, and I think about it all the time now.
Heh, well I suppose Kate Moss did have a healthy sex life too, after all, seen as she’s had a series of boyfriends many heterosexual girls and many gay men would equally envy. Not to mention it’s quite hard to get pregnant if you’re anorexic. Yet that’s what she was called for quite a while on the tabloids.
Watch this video (totally worksafe):
http://www.animero.com/warner/neworder/cdon/neworder.html
The guy is even skinnier than the girl. You literally see his bones. I’ve never heard the “anorexic” adjective used about guys like that. Why is that?