{"id":1359,"date":"2005-02-13T17:51:06","date_gmt":"2005-02-14T01:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/02\/13\/reading-iellei\/"},"modified":"2005-02-13T17:51:06","modified_gmt":"2005-02-14T01:51:06","slug":"reading-iellei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1359","title":{"rendered":"Reading Elle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI don’t buy women’s magazines very often. But I recently bought the two latest issues of Elle,<\/em> 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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>‘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?<\/p>\n

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<\/em> contains make us relax? That is the really interesting question.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

I come across very snooty and condescending here; as if I was somehow above those poor benighted women who read Elle<\/em> 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<\/em>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t buy women’s magazines very often. But I recently bought the two latest issues of Elle,<\/em> 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? Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-and-unpopular-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}