Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 14, 2012 at 4:55pm

I am very glad that L'Oreal in the UK has been charged with false advertising. It's not only even the 'real' females that can't keep up, even magasines and celebrities can't keep up.

In a media-frienzied world where we're constantly bombarded with near naked flesh, it is important that our media portray all formats of naked flesh, and it's also important that we portray our flesh to ourselves and our peers.

I remember being on the beach in San Diego one day and hearing a group of males sitting behind me bitching that a large sized like me (I vary from 13 to 18, depending on cut/style) should not wear a bikini. I growled back at them, stood up, faced them, then walked down to the water and had a swim.

We need to SPLATTER our fleshy selves all over the faces of morons who seek to impose their skinny view of the world upon all average people. Because if us average to large (and large is pretty average these days) people keep our flesh hidden from view, nobody will ever know that bones showing through skin is not the norm, not for humans, nor for animals in the wild.

I once read another interesting analysis of the reason for trends in the fashion industry: gay males. They rule the fashion industry, and their prevalence in the media industry in general in higher than in the rest of occupations. For Homo sapien males it's normal to be at 1/3 to 1/2 the fat percentages of females. This analysis proposed that one of the subconscious aims of male-gay dominated female fashion is to iconise females who look more like young males (instead of females)... no hips, no breasts, no fat. Models please gay male eyes, and that outlook dominates, and heterosexual males have simply adopted it, because it has become the media norm. And the few females that have succeeded in that biz have also emulated the biz.

I love the fashion shows on BET. I have learned so much about self body love from black women in the USA (while I lived there for 10 years). They have much less shame and puritanical instincts than white women.

Permalink Reply by Mary O'Grady on January 14, 2012 at 7:03pm

I too find that there is much more acceptance and celebration of large-sized women in African-American culture. Maybe part of that is because blacks were not included in popular US culture for so long (advertising, TV, etc.). Exclusion kept away the brainwashing.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 14, 2012 at 7:34pm

Ah yes, goes to show how cultural diversity is important, and that cultural barriers and some degree of insularity can create situations that are more desirable. It's related to why I'm very much against a lot of our cultural imperialism. There is something to learn from all cultures.

Permalink Reply by Mary O'Grady on January 14, 2012 at 6:59pm

What you say is true.

I have a hilarious old picture, from "Esquire" magazine, I think, a photo of Marilyn Monroe with many notes about the ton of plastic surgery that would be advisable for her today (and weight training to firm up her upper arms, to be fair). It reminds me not to take the messages of advertising, modern TV, and current movies seriously. I find I need a lot of reminders.

Something else I find very helpful is the blog "Advanced Style," which shows over and over that beauty comes in all shapes and all ages, and that we each have the freedom to dress in ways that please us and look wonderful. It's downright inspirational.

Permalink Reply by Sendero Rojo on January 14, 2012 at 10:42pm

Neither obese or “plus-sized” Amerikan women, who grow fat from feasting on the blood of third-world people and who live lifestyles that are destroying our planet, nor women who are anorexic or bulimic so that they can attract a higher bidder in a dominant culture that views women as commodities are “real women.” Typical Amerikan women make up around 5% of the women in the world and consume roughly 25% of resources used by women. That’s not real women, those are parasites you‘re seeing.

Regarding more acceptance of obesity in Afrcan-Amerikan culture, this is also true in modern Latin American culture and I suspect any peoples that have been economically oppressed. Being obese is a sign of financial security and becomes an "attractive" thing to those struggling for a secured survival in the sick capitalist world that we live in.