Mainstream views of beauty

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I used the idea of beating 60 seconds in a 400m sprint as an example because most people can't do it if they are overweight (due to excess fat), if they are too muscular to do it, or if they are too skinny, meaning not enough muscle mass to perform such a feat.
But it is, at least to me, an example that is wholly spurious. If people had to, on a regular basis, run away from sabertooth tigers, then it'd be valid. But for most people, running a sprint is about as necessary to everyday life as leveling up in World of Warcraft.

Why would it be such a bad thing to place similar standards on female models, hire women who are in-between a bodybuilder and a marathon runner?
Models are hired because they make an item of apparel look good. That's it. Nobody cares if they can run a sprint. They don't need to. This is reading an awful lot to me like "Why don't they hire female models who have the body type that I, T Trian, find attractive?"

Wouldn't the majority of women be the healthiest that way (since AFAIK the exceptions to this rule are fewer than the majority)?
Once again, you are equating muscular with healthy. I think we've had this conversation already.

You are insisting that 'healthiest' matches up to a single body type. You are incorrect, particularly given that no nutritionist, physiologist, or sports scientist would define 'healthy' solely as 'being able to run a wholly unnecessary sprint'. And, in persisting in this, you are engaging in exactly the behaviour you complain about: dismissing all but one body type as acceptable.

No one -- not me, not other AW members, not models -- needs to have your approval to look the way we do. You have no basis for judging anyone as "unhealthy". And no one has a moral obligation to be healthy, for that matter. If someone wants to live on potato chips and Coke, or spend every night and weekend playing World of Warcraft, or bungy jump off bridges until they shake their brains loose, they have every right to do that. And if you make judgmental comments about how they look or how they live their lives, they in turn are likely to make judgments about what type of person you are.
 

aruna

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It might be a cliche, but finally, beauty really does come from inside. I wish the media would focus more on how to cultivate THAT sort of beauty, rather than diets, makeup, shoes and fashion.
 

kuwisdelu

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The point is that I don't think the same can be said about current trends in female models. I just wonder why does it have to be that way? Why can't the advertisement industry promote a similar image for women as they do for men? The point is that (at least to me) it looks like men are allowed, even supposed to look like they're smack in the middle of the two athletic extremes: bodybuilder and marathon runner, which (the middle ground) is where most men would be the healthiest (and AFAIK the exceptions to this rule are fewer than the majority).

Why would it be such a bad thing to place similar standards on female models, hire women who are in-between a bodybuilder and a marathon runner? Wouldn't the majority of women be the healthiest that way (since AFAIK the exceptions to this rule are fewer than the majority)?

I still don't get it: you're still conflating "athletic" with "healthy." If you don't need to run marathons, you can be perfectly healthy and still not be capable of doing everything you mentioned. I say why limit the standard of beauty to athletic people?

Actually I would imagine the majority of men would be happy with a girl like Keira. You see, the whole "women must be skinny and have big boobs"-thing is touted only by a small minority of men who should be dragged behind a barn by their balls and given a shotgun facelift. Granted, they are a loud and abrasive minority but a minority nonetheless.
And, oddly enough, I've seen plenty of women promoting that same, odd ideal. But the majority of men, honest to God, do not care if their lady has big or small boobs because most men love boobs, period. Big, medium, small, doesn't matter.

I don't find that odd at all. When I hear those kinds of critiques of women's figures, they're almost always coming from other women. This is just my own experience, but I've actually never heard those kinds of comments come from men unless the woman is seriously overweight or underweight.
 

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T. Triad, I too am scratching my head on your emphasis on athletic body types for women. You might find this attractive, and might consider the ability to perform certain physical feats as a sine qua non for a healthy person, but some women just are not made that way. I for one am not a sprinter or a weight-lifter and have no interest in being one, or in looking as if I am one. Yet I believe that for my age I am pretty healthy. The only time I've seen a doctor in the last 30 years ( apart from during pregnancy) was once for a wart on my foot, and, more recently, for a lump on my neck that turned out to be just a lump of fat, quite common, and harmless. I'd never fit your criteria for fitness/healthiness, and neither do I aspire to it.
 
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kuwisdelu

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T. Triad, I too am scratching my head on your emphasis on athletic body types for women. You might find this attractive, and might consider the ability to perform certain physical feats as a sine qua non for a healthy person, but some women just are not made that way. I for one am not a sprinter or a weight-lifter and have no interest in being one, or in looking as if I am one. Yet I believe that for my age I am pretty healthy. The only time I've seen a doctor in the last 30 years was once for a wart on my foot, and, more recently, for a lump on my neck that turned out to be just a lump of fat, quite common, and harmless. I'd never fit your criteria for fitness/healthiness, and neither do I aspire to it.

And I don't think it's necessarily what all women look for in men, either. At least I hope not, or I have no hope.
 

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I don't find that odd at all. When I hear those kinds of critiques of women's figures, they're almost always coming from other women. This is just my own experience, but I've actually never heard those kinds of comments come from men unless the woman is seriously overweight or underweight.

On the contrary, all the women I've met care little about insulting breast sizes. They're much more likely to (non-snarkily) comment on proper structural support.

The exception (which your avatar reminded me of) is in anime, but anime has a well-known obsession with breasts. I'd be more willing to bet that in that arena, the female characters are being used as mouthpieces for the (usually male) breast-obsessed creators.

On the other hand, I've seen and heard many comments from men about women not being large enough. Keira Knightly is a popular target for this, as crunchyblanket said.
 
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kuwisdelu

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On the contrary, all the women I've met care little about insulting breast sizes. They're much more likely to (non-snarkily) comment on proper structural support.

[...]

On the other hand, I've seen and heard many comments from men about women not being large enough. As T. Trian said, Keira Knightly is a popular target for this.

I guess our experiences just differ, then. Although, what I hear is mostly comments about her being too skinny. It's only in the media I've seen a big deal made about breast size.

The exception (which your avatar reminded me of) is in anime, but anime has a well-known obsession with breasts. I'd be more willing to bet that in that arena, the female characters are being used as mouthpieces for the (usually male) breast-obsessed creators.

The interesting in anime is that small breasts are no less common a fetish than large breasts.

I wasn't really thinking about that when I commented, though. Just taking from my own experiences with my friends and acquaintances.
 

aruna

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And I don't think it's necessarily what all women look for in men, either. At least I hope not, or I have no hope.

Ha! Neither of the two husbands I've had are athletic types. The first was a skinny musician, the second was/is more the hunter-gatherer-farmer type. I think most woman are not really looking for a cross between a marathon sprinter and a bodybuilder. I actually don't find an excess of rippling muscles attractive in men. I think you'll do!
 

kuwisdelu

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I actually don't find an excess of rippling muscles attractive in men.

Neither do, I personally. Though my type when it comes to males is a bit skinnier than I am now. I've been trying to lose weight, but I have little interest in getting muscular. (I could probably pass for more muscular than I actually am right now, but it's mostly fat I'd prefer to lose.)
 

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Health is not only physical well being. You can be muscular and athletic and be unhealthy.. mentally unhealthy that is.

I feel like to me, that my mental health matters more than my physical health. It's more my priority than having a fit looking body, because it'll never go away.
 

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I just finished watching High School Musical (I'm reviewing old Disney movies to determine if they're worth the hype), so my perception of attractive and not attractive is rather skewed at the moment, but I think Corbin Bleu and Vanessa Hudgens are prime teen examples of attractiveness. I'd date either. I'm not going to lie and say I don't categorize people by hotness and not-hotness and dateable and non-dateable. We all do. I don't have a type, persay, but I have non-type if that makes any sense. I'd never claim it was universal, though. Just my preference.

I will say I've never seen anyone here (besides Vince) with an overweight character/person in the avatar. Myself included.

As for myself, well, I've always thought I could lose weight. 5'4", 126lb. I used to be athletic. Not so much since winter hit.
 

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It might be a cliche, but finally, beauty really does come from inside. I wish the media would focus more on how to cultivate THAT sort of beauty, rather than diets, makeup, shoes and fashion.

Unfortunately, you can't stick "self-confidence" in a tube, make it available in 26 shades, or offer 82 complimentary colors of "kindness" and 12 varieties of "generosity" to go along with it.

Contrary to popular belief, vanity is the world's oldest profession - and commodity.
 

T. Trian

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T. Trian, you seem to be equating overweight with unhealthy.

(I'm not attacking you, T.Trian, sorry if it comes across that way--your posts just made me want to butt in with some information that's relevant to the conversation *g*)

No problem, didn't see your post as an attack, rather as interesting :)

I think I should refer back to my earlier posts in this thread to clarify what I've been talking about when I say "fat"/"overweight": I mean people who are like The Biggest Loser-competitors when they enter the show for the first time.

I would argue that people who have zero weight-related health problems at those bodyfat levels are likely a minority and that the majority of population would be suffering from weight-related health problems at those bodyfat levels.

Just for the record, I don't put a whole lot of weight (no pun intended) on BMIs because I find it a poor way to gauge a person's health. And that's not even only because BMI doesn't differentiate whether the weight comes from muscle or fat.


Models are hired because they make an item of apparel look good.

And who says apparel only looks good on the skinny? Why should we, as a society, support that view? I know I don't. And mind, I'm not saying apparel does not look good on skinny people: it does, but apparel also looks good on XL models as well as athletic models.

I would also argue that XL models are being hired at a growing rate (not yet enough to affect the majority of ad campaigns but the direction is right). I just think that athletic women* should also start gaining recognition as a body type that makes apparel look good just like skinny people (and XL people).

*I say women because athletic men are already accepted as a standard aside skinny men when looking at men who make apparel look good.


You are insisting that 'healthiest' matches up to a single body type.

I'm not, even, not when you take it out of the context, that is, and the context is the majority.


No one -- not me, not other AW members, not models -- needs to have your approval to look the way we do.

I have not and never will claim anything to the contrary. Or if I have, it's been a typo or something like that so it needs to be fixed so could you please point it out to me where I've claimed something like that as I don't want to leave misleading information floating about in some post I may have messed up :)


If someone wants to live on potato chips and Coke, or spend every night and weekend playing World of Warcraft, or bungy jump off bridges until they shake their brains loose, they have every right to do that.

I would never, ever want to take away anybody's right to do that. Ever. What's more, I would fight for people to have the right to do that beause I believe anybody should be allowed to do anything as long as they do not harm others by doing it. I just believe that by actively promoting, say, binging on potato chips, soda, and candy and avoiding any exercise as a viable lifestyle on mass media would be wrong because then we expose the underage to that message and the majority of them would likely suffer from cultivating the example's type behavior on a regular basis and for extended periods of time.

Btw, for the record, I'm not discussing what body types I find arousing in this thread nor will I because I find that my romantic preferences have fabulously little to do with the subject at hand.


I'd be more willing to bet that in that arena, the female characters are being used as mouthpieces for the (usually male) breast-obsessed creators.

My guess would be that in some cases that is likely to be true.


On the other hand, I've seen and heard many comments from men about women not being large enough. Keira Knightly is a popular target for this, as crunchyblanket said.

I still maintain it is a capital idea to shoot men like that. Or shoot them into the sun if some insanely rich person would hand out the money to cover the travel expenses.

No, wait: did you mean "big enough" as in "big enough boobs" or "big enough" as in "too small body fat percentage in general?" If the former, my suggestion stands, if the latter, belay the orders :D

Ha! Neither of the two husbands I've had are athletic types. The first was a skinny musician, the second was/is more the hunter-gatherer-farmer type. I think most woman are not really looking for a cross between a marathon sprinter and a bodybuilder. I actually don't find an excess of rippling muscles attractive in men. I think you'll do!

I would hazard a guess that both men also had many good qualities that had nothing to do with their looks. Am I right? :)

Out of interest: if you were single and looking for a new partner and met a guy who was otherwise just perfect but did have an excess of rippling muscle, would that mean you'd pass him up?

What I'm coming at here is that I've observed that quite a few people look at their partner as a whole and for quite a few, the partner's looks wouldn't make or break the deal (especially as long as we're discussing things within the scope of "normal" since I have seen a man break up with his girlfriend because he couldn't stand and watch his partner kill herself with anorexia/bulimia and while I'm not saying I would do what he did because I believe a person like that needs all the support they can get to get healthy, I can understand how painful it must have been to see a person you care about hurt themselves in such a severe way).
 

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I know it's a natural part of a conversation, and I'm guilty of it too, but when a discussion is flooded with what we call "arkitieto" in Finnish (It's like common knowledge or every day knowledge, something that we gather from our own experiences, but it's not systematic, it doesn't explain contradictions between things), the discussion loses, what should I call it, "credibility". Also, it may bring in some snarkiness too, as everyone thinks they're right -- to put it bluntly. There will be as many facts in the conversation as there are participants.

You are incorrect, particularly given that no nutritionist, physiologist, or sports scientist would define 'healthy' solely as 'being able to run a wholly unnecessary sprint'.
and
But it is, at least to me, an example that is wholly spurious.
To you. Yes, to you. Ironically, I will counter it by saying, thank god I can dash friggin' fast that few hundred meters or else I would've missed my bus this morning and frozen my ovaries in the lovely Finnish winter.
But these experiences, this personal knowledge, gets us only so far. It rarely shows patterns, it doesn't generalize (that is, if you wish to generalize), and it doesn't explain, merely describes.

On another note, have you noticed how experts often simplify things, straighten the curves so to speak?
Like when I talked with my brother who used to coach one Finnish runner (European Champion), and I asked him, how would you, based on your education and knowledge of human physiology, define a good fitness level. He replied: "a person who runs 400 m under a minute." I was like "wtf, rly? Narrow much!" But when I started to think about it more, it kinda does make sense. If I could run it under 60secs, maybe I wouldn't get tired so fast in boxing, maybe I could maintain that 11km/h tempo when I run laps, maybe I wouldn't get all winded if I had to run away from some bad folk on a Friday night when making my way back home from the train station. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but the 60secs (I'm almost there!) is my white whale.

Models are hired because they make an item of apparel look good. That's it. Nobody cares if they can run a sprint. They don't need to. This is reading an awful lot to me like "Why don't they hire female models who have the body type that I, T Trian, find attractive?" ...
And if you make judgmental comments about how they look or how they live their lives, they in turn are likely to make judgments about what type of person you are.
I'm sensing you're struggling to find the connections discussed here between beauty (read: bodytypes) and healthy? This is certainly a meandering discussion, and a phenomenon that's laden with personal knowledge and experiences, which in turn, seems to lead to dragging in another participant's personality. I'm not a huge fan of that. Although, as you can see it, I do discuss my own experiences, use that common, personal knowledge too. I wouldn't use it in a research project, or any academic work for that matter, but I guess here it's ok 'cause this isn't the lecture room.

Weight carries different meanings culturally.
Oh yeah, and come to think of it, perhaps the most famous black supermodels, Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell weren't very curvy in their hayday. Banks kind has it, and her weight has fluctuated, but even she's not all that "bootilicious."

There are women spending thousands on butt injections,fat grafts and the like to get that coveted backside
Another scary example how people try to morph their body to match an ideal their bodies were never meant to match.

I think our cultural standards as expressed in our music and videos have given women of other races who fit that body type some validation and empowerment they otherwise wouldn't receive from their own communities.
An interesting point! And perhaps a good thing, even though I think we've all agreed you shouldn't replace ideals with ideals, but still, sometimes ideals may bring positive things too.

It's funny though, now that there's been talk here about men's attitudes as well, but do you think men make these "I like that there's something to hold on in a girl" comments more than the opposite?

P.s. all bolding added.
P.p.s. the reason why I rambled about the common, personal knowledge stuff was because I started to wonder why these discussion often become so... emotional? Note: I'm still pretty new to internet boards (used to frequent one wild west -like when I was 17-18). It shows!
 

aruna

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TTriad: if I were young and single and looking for a partner and met a guy with rippling muscles who was otherwise perfect - no I wouldn't pass him up BUT rippling muscles in a way suggests to me a sense of vanity and awareness of build and looks that would be initially off-putting and he'd have to be really special if that were the case. I prefer men who aren't too hung up on their bodies and their looks!
 

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Unfortunately, you can't stick "self-confidence" in a tube, make it available in 26 shades, or offer 82 complimentary colors of "kindness" and 12 varieties of "generosity" to go along with it.

Contrary to popular belief, vanity is the world's oldest profession - and commodity.

'Vanity' is one thing, but societal pressure is another, imho. I had an eating disorder for several years when I was young, and I've heard people talk about that as just the girl's vanity. OMG. There was so much constant societal and peer pressure to do the things I was doing that I can't imagine where my own vanity came into it.

Granted, the ringleader of my little clique had to be hospitalized for anorexia in a couple of years, but we were young kids and didn't know how abnormal we were. We used mainstream media ideas to lose weight. We cut out pictures of mainstream models and kept them in our inspiration scrapbooks. One girl was clearly overweight, and talk of diets and such just pleased her thin mom.

I was trying to control one of the few things I thought I could at that age, so it was definitely a psychological problem. However, society made it more than easy. It was expected for a girl my age to be very thin and thus attractive if she weren't 'lazy' or a couch potato, right? That's exactly how things came across, anyway. Being the perfectionist sort back then, I was on it. If it could be done, I was going to do it. I got A's in everything, so an A in skinniness seemed easy enough.

We really have to shut up about choosing only one standard of beauty, imho (one in one's own culture, too). We start so young with kids that we screw too many of them up, and it's a serious problem. I believe one of the reasons our culture is so overweight is because of the nearly impossible standard. We make it so much of a headf*ck that we cause problems that really do lead to serious health consequences.

There are many, many ways to be physically attractive. And it's not necessary to be attractive anyway, although society tries to convince us otherwise, especially females.
 

T. Trian

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BUT rippling muscles in a way suggests to me a sense of vanity and awareness of build and looks that would be initially off-putting and he'd have to be really special if that were the case. I prefer men who aren't too hung up on their bodies and their looks!

You do know there are, oh, maybe a couple other possible reasons for having a muscular physique besides bling, right? :D

Joking aside, someone in this thread called judging people by their looks a stinky attitude and while I don't find that the best term, well, to me it seems that you are doing just that: judging people based on their looks and associating negative traits to said people. What if it turned out the guy actually needed a crazy strong physique? Like a Navy SEAL, a firefighter, perhaps a serious athlete, or even an office worker with a bad back who must train a lot to keep the pain at bay? Or maybe his labor is just so physical that he just ends up developing a muscular physique as a by-pass product?

Anyway, your post gave me an idea for a new thread. Can I ask for your permission to quote you in the opening post? I could PM the rest of my intended post to you before posting it :)
 

kuwisdelu

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I still maintain it is a capital idea to shoot men like that. Or shoot them into the sun if some insanely rich person would hand out the money to cover the travel expenses.

No, wait: did you mean "big enough" as in "big enough boobs" or "big enough" as in "too small body fat percentage in general?" If the former, my suggestion stands, if the latter, belay the orders :D

Why? Why is one any better than the other?

Lots of women get picked on for being too skinny when that's just their natural, healthy weight. I don't see how criticizing that is any better than criticizing boob size.
 

T. Trian

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Why? Why is one any better than the other?

Lots of women get picked on for being too skinny when that's just their natural, healthy weight. I don't see how criticizing that is any better than criticizing boob size.

Actually, you're right. Men who demand their girlfriend should be fatter are just as bad as men who demand their girlfriend should have bigger boobs.

Up until recently I spent a bit of time on this forum that literally dumbs you down and my brains are still recovering, switching to such a "politically correct" mode that the thought process here was "you need to support big people ergo if someone encourages a skinny person, who must be evil somehow, being skinny, to put on a couple of hundred pounds, it must be good." Well, it's not.

Thanks for mentioning that. The next time just toss a small rock at my head or give my shin a good kick :D
 

Mr Flibble

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Up until recently I spent a bit of time on this forum that literally dumbs you down and my brains are still recovering, switching to such a "politically correct" mode that the thought process here was "you need to support big people ergo if someone encourages a skinny person, who must be evil somehow, being skinny, to put on a couple of hundred pounds, it must be good." Well, it's not.

Sorry, popped back in to see if it was safe.

:roll::roll::roll:

No, they said pretty much what crunchy, unimportant, kuwi and aruna have said right here in this thread....

(I am a member of said forum)

ETA: this is obviously a matter of perception (because I saw nothing of that sort at all, only the same arguments as here), but I don't see much in the way of difference in the argument, only (perhaps) in the method of its presentation. The crux remains the same.
 
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Mecegirl

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So has anyone else heard about Caroline Wozniacki "imitating" Serena Williams by stuffing her bra and skirt? The difference in response is interesting.
 

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I saw a short news article in one Finnish tabloid, but it only read something like "Wozniacki amused the audience by imitating Serena Williams and then she lost the match to Sharapova" or something. What kinds of differences have there been elsewhere in the media?
 
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