Mainstream views of beauty

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K. Trian

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I hope this isn't terribly confusing that I reply after T. Trian. We do have different avatars and names. We are also two different people who, yes, share some opinions, but also disagree on some issues, and have different brains too (though some may argue whether we have brains at all).

Sad to say, but the idea of whiter skin has been prevalent before white people arrived in Asia.

This is also true in Indian literature/culture too.
Anita Desai's novels have sometimes discussed this skin-color aspect with women, and how it doesn't seem to affect men's standing in the society at all. There was also a time in Europe when darker, tanned skin was considered unattractive by the nobles, while the better folk were as pale as death.

I think this goes to show that men when in the dominant position in society have been dictating physical traits as personality traits for a long, long time, no matter what the culture they come from. Maybe this is the core problem. I still hear it from men. They think a physical feature means some kind of personality trait.
I'd venture to say that this depends on the culture. Haven't encountered this in Scandinavia much when speaking about people with Scandinavian roots. I'm not sure if this really limits to men only.

A Filipina friend of mine is part Japanese, so her skin tone is lighter than her friends', and she's told me she's considered more beautiful in her community than many other girls. In my wedding a relative marveled at my skin too, how pale it was even at the end of summer when people are usually tanned. While she's a great person, I found it somewhat odd a comment.

@ Mr. Flibble: Somewhere in the interwebz there's a picture of a wide-eyed, white owl who's itching to be attached after your post, but... I won't test my luck. I get what you are saying, but in order to speak about this, the interlocutors kind of have to judge the people by their looks, map out their assumptions and thoughts (and they remain treated as such instead of truths). I think one can judge estimate people by their looks to a degree, one can draw conclusions though they may here and there be inaccurate. Most people do it all the time (if you're completely free of it, good for you), think of the very skinny girl "oh I wonder if she's sick. She sure looks that way!" That was also what we did on the uni course when we talked about the functionality aspect. You have to generalize in order to have that conversation. But let's not have that conversation, it's not going well, so I'd rather just move on. (I'm sorry if I came off judgmental) Especially because you said something to really make my blood boil:
Ok. I went by what he actually said. (and he should answer, not you.) Nt what he meant - though I will grant that perhaps it was phrased badly in which case HE should come and clarify, not send you.
Yeah, feels like I'm some kind of an extension to my husband, instead of a person of my own. Very Victorian.

And you say he should answer and not me? Who are you to say what public discussions I can comment and what I can't? If it was the "afaik" that I used that threw you off, that was my blunder, should've used 'as far as I've understood this.' Sorry.

P.S. all bolding added.
 
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Mr Flibble

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First, I did not send K. Trian to do anything: she posts here as herself, not as my envoy. And just so we're clear on the subject, I post here as myself, not as her envoy either. Unless either of us specifically mentions that we're speaking for the other/posting on the other's behalf. I honestly expected this to be the default assumption on any forum but I hope this clears things up for you :)

Fair enough


But are you going to answer/clarify about the inferior capability thing? Or sidestep it again?
 

T. Trian

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But are you going to answer/clarify about the inferior capability thing? Or sidestep it again?

I must be getting dumber or something because I honestly don't know what you're talking about if my previous few posts haven't already answered that question. More than once. So... I'd really, honestly appreciate it if you spelled it out for me, I mean really go to town with simplicity/clarity and dumb it down so that I understand what you mean if all my previous replies have been sidestepping. :)
 

crunchyblanket

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I just wanted to step in here give my two quid's worth:

I'm 5'3, weigh just shy of 50kg. Appearance-wise, I'm petite and small and probably look a lot more like the 'anorexic models' than I do an 'athletic gymnast'. I don't have much visible muscle. My ribs are readily visible. However. I can deadlift my own body weight, benchpress more (60kg at my most recent gym visit) I'm working on the squats - I have arthritis in my hips and knees so that's tougher for me.

Despite the fact that I am physically quite strong, I don't look athletic. I'd love arms like Linda Hamilton. I've been working on the six-pack to no avail; the ribs preside. My muscles are toned. They just aren't obvious.

The point is: you can't presume to know my strength, athletic ability or cardiovascular fitness based on my appearance. I look skinny. I've been called anorexic more times that I care to recall.

So no, we can't accurately estimate anything about a person based on the way they look (most people don't know I've got the knee/hip joints of a 70 year old either. Cue odd looks whenever I have to get the walking stick out.) And as a lifelong skinny girl who's tried various ways to 'bulk out', through overeating, weight training and hypothyroidism (that last one wasn't intentional) I think it's just another type of reductionist thinking, and it's no better than assuming a fat person is less fit than a thin person.

How many ways must it be said? You cannot accurately judge a person based on the way they look.
 

aruna

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And me: I'm 61. I exact very healthily and probably much too little; not because I'm dieting but because I don't really care to eat and haven't got a big appetite. You'd probably call me overweight, a middle-age woman spreding out a bit. By the amount I eat I should be shedding weight like water, but I don't.
I'm not an athletic type, not a sporty type, and I hate running and the gym. But I do walk a lot, and I summer, cycle a lot. And I do yoga. Not the hour long sessions I used to do, but little exercises and stretched throughout the day to keep me flexible.
I can bed over and touch my knee with my head. I can stand on one leg with the other bent backwards for a couple of minutes. Headstands, corkscrews, no problem. I'm certainly more supple than my 27 year old son, who IS athletic with a good strong muscly body.

I think I'm pretty healthy, though I may not necessarily look it. (My face does look younger than my years; I have good skin ith few wrinkles, and only a few scattered grey hears. I'm never going to dye my hair.)


So I will second what Crunchyblanket just said. You can't tell. Yes, I would like to lose 5 - 10 pounds but it seems my body wants to hang on to them.
 

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I can bed over and touch my knee with my head. I can stand on one leg with the other bent backwards for a couple of minutes. Headstands, corkscrews, no problem. I'm certainly more supple than my 27 year old son, who IS athletic with a good strong muscly body.

I'm actually pretty envious :D I can't even stand up for ten minutes without needing a hot bath and a couple of Diclofenac.
 

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Aruna & crunchyblanket: are you arguing or stating?

Because this is e.g. what I wrote:
map out their assumptions and thoughts (and they remain treated as such instead of truths). I think one can judge estimate people by their looks to a degree, one can draw conclusions though they may here and there be inaccurate.
Also, what about the ladies (and why not guys too), who look at super skinny models, want to look like them and start losing weight, and then... many times fall ill? What about the pro-ana forums where they post pictures of very thin people and strive to look like them, then they post there their experiences, how faint they've felt, but how awesome they look. Are really all the models they idolize perfectly healthy, but these people who want to look like them, are somehow freaks because they often get sick? Okay, I think you know the answer to that.

In any case, I agree with you, but I'm slightly confused whether you're arguing against me or someone else, or if you're merely stating the facts that nobody in this thread has outright denied.

P.S. And since we're sharing: I'm quite petite (5'7'' / 105lbs), but can't deadlift 60kg. Yes, people are very different.
 
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crunchyblanket

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Also, what about the ladies (and why not guys too), who look at super skinny models, want to look like them and start losing weight, and then... many times fall ill? What about the pro-ana forums where they post pictures of very thin people and strive to look like them, then they post there their experiences, how faint they've felt, but how awesome they look. Are really all the models they idolize perfectly healthy, but these people who want to look like them, are somehow freaks because they often get sick? Okay, I think you know the answer to that.

At one point, I was working out so hard and so frequently that I did more damage to my already delicate joints in a month than I'd done in the six years since my diagnosis. That was because I wanted to LOOK 'healthy' and 'strong'. I wanted Linda Hamilton arms. I wanted Jessica Ennis abs. I made myself ill trying.

Before then - much before, when I was a little younger and thinner than I am now (22, 46kg) I went through a period of what was almost certaintly crippling body dysmorphia. I hated myself for being flat-chested and devoid of curves. I put myself on a 'gain-weight' diet, ingesting between 2800-4000 calories a day. I gained a stone and a half in weight. I also destroyed my metabolism, triggered a massive Hashimoto's flare and almost had to be hospitalised several times due to stomach pains.

I'm not meant to be curvy, and I'm not meant to be muscular. I'm meant to be petite and skinny. Some women aren't meant to be skinny; they're meant to be curvy, or muscular, or average, or whatever. If you try to force your body to be something it's not, you'll make yourself ill, no matter what ideal you're trying to achieve.

Any time you hold up a particular ideal as being 'better than', you're going to find that women (and indeed men) are going to put their health, physical and emotional, at risk to achieve it. It took years for me to undo the damage being called 'anorexic', 'skeletor' et al did to me. If they'd just bothered to get to know me instead of assuming I was sickly and unhealthy due to my small size, they'd have realised that I ate plenty and was physically quite strong.

That's why assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. It's also why combatting body fascism by presenting a different ideal as 'better' is counterproductive. The only way around it is to teach people that judging on appearances is bullshit, and that the only 'right' way to be is what is natural for your body.
 

T. Trian

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How many ways must it be said? You cannot accurately judge a person based on the way they look.

I agree totally. Although like K. Trian, I'm a little confused why you found it necessary to state what has already been stated many times in this thread. Or have I missed someone's post where he or she has said it is possible to accurately judge a person based on the way they look? I know I haven't claimed that, and after looking at K. Trian's posts in this thread, it looks like she hasn't either. After all, such a claim really would just be silly :D


So I will second what Crunchyblanket just said. You can't tell.

And I third it.

By the way, have you noticed how some magazines have started "banning" models who are too skinny on the premise that such models influence their more impressionable readers? I would imagine it's especially sad for those who might be naturally of a tad heavier build (like broad hips and shoulders e.g.) and then go to horrifying lengths on their quest to look like the skinny models who may be anorexic or perfectly healthy but naturally long-limbed and skinny (and whose pictures have practically always been touched up with photo editing software to make the models look slimmer, their boobs bigger, skin perfect etc)?

I've encountered girls and women (ages ranging from thirteen to over thirty) who will do almost anything to achieve the bodies of skinny models: they abuse diuretics, go through insane diets (stuff like one apple a day, just water, eating less than 500kcal a day for weeks, sometimes months etc), do copious amounts of exercise when they have only been drinking diet cola (one girl had trouble sleeping from hunger so every time she woke up, she got up and did as many push-ups as she could before either vomiting or almost fainting).

Another girl from the same circles took 50 laxatives (yes, fifty pills), and ended up curled on the bathroom floor, trembling and crying from insane cramps (when she wasn't on the can, shitting her guts out) with a stabbing pain in her chest, honestly thinking she was going to die.

There was another lady, she in her twenties, who abused laxatives for such a long time (the body gets addicted to them pretty quick and soon you won't be able to squeeze out anything without the pills) that she ended up permanently damaging her colon and intestines: she shat herself while out and about more than once because her body no longer worked like it was supposed to. She ended up with a colostomy bag because her colon simply didn't function properly anymore. And yes, she was still in her twenties.

Now, just so nobody gets confused: I do not think you can judge a book or a person by their covers. I don't think I've ever even thought like that.

Anyway, seemingly some magazines think it possible that girls/women like the ones I mentioned may end up with an even worse body image if they keep seeing these airbrushed and photoshopped fashion photos. And I'm not talking about those ridiculous images you get in Google's image search when you search for anorexic people; some of those images have been edited so heavily it's obvious they've been tampered. I mean those you can see in some "normal" fashion rags, images that have been edited lightly enough that someone (I would hazard a guess it's the younger/youngest readers) may very well think the models really are as slim as they appear in the magazines.

And we all probably still agree that one cannot accurately judge someone by their looks, yes? :)

P.S. This is off-topic but I thought I'd share one scientific fact about weight loss and weight gain: if you consume more calories than your body uses, you get heavier. If you consume less calories than your body uses, you get lighter. And if you consume approximately the same amount of calories as your body uses, you stay the same weight. Whether you gain or lose fat or muscle depends largely on your diet and level of physical exertion.
 

K. Trian

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P.S. This is off-topic but I thought I'd share one scientific fact about weight loss and weight gain: if you consume more calories than your body uses, you get heavier. If you consume less calories than your body uses, you get lighter. And if you consume approximately the same amount of calories as your body uses, you stay the same weight. Whether you gain or lose fat or muscle depends largely on your diet and level of physical exertion.
CaptainObviousMid.jpg



That's why assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. It's also why combatting body fascism by presenting a different ideal as 'better' is counterproductive. The only way around it is to teach people that judging on appearances is bullshit, and that the only 'right' way to be is what is natural for your body.
YES.
(though I'd rephrase a bit: can be counterproductive, in some people's cases it might turn out useful to idolize e.g. a fitness competitor.) Anyway, the simplest way the media often does it, is to replace the previous ideal with a new one. Kind of like banning very thin models even if some or many of them were naturally skin and bones, no health problems.

We're still talking of a bit different things though. I refer to mainstream, you seem to bring up exceptions.

Something of a wicked dilemma, this.
 

aruna

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I wasn't arguing, just adding my 2c to the discussion.
Ny
I'm not meant to be curvy, and I'm not meant to be muscular. I'm meant to be petite and skinny. Some women aren't meant to be skinny; they're meant to be curvy, or muscular, or average, or whatever. If you try to force your body to be something it's not, you'll make yourself ill, no matter what ideal you're trying to achieve.



Th.

I'm meant to be curvy, and that's that!

P.S. This is off-topic but I thought I'd share one scientific fact about weight loss and weight gain: if you consume more calories than your body uses, you get heavier. If you consume less calories than your body uses, you get lighter. And if you consume approximately the same amount of calories as your body uses, you stay the same weight. Whether you gain or lose fat or muscle depends largely on your diet and level of physical exertion.

Thing is, though that might seem obvious, it's not s simple as calories in- calories out. I can testify to that. We all have different metabolic rates, and some people really have the good fortune (based on contemporary standards of beauty) to be able to eat as much as they can without gaining weight. I'm the opposite. Once when I thought I needed to drop some pounds quickly I went on a fast and lost - zero. That's because the body thinks you are starving, and slows down the metabolism so as to conserve fat. Seem people have a thyroid dysfunction which also means a metabolic underfunction. My first husband was skinny and extremely hyper in temperament; he could eat three times what I did, and still I'd gain weight and he'd stay skinny. Not fair!
 

crunchyblanket

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not arguing either, merely contributing.
We're still talking of a bit different things though. I refer to mainstream, you seem to bring up exceptions.

Are we exceptions? Or is it just that our stories don't get heard as often? Body fascism is a singular problem. It doesn't discriminate. It tells us all that we are not good enough, whether through thin fashion models, improbably proportioned glamour models, magazines that simultaneously decry celebrities for being too thin AND too fat, the 'real women have curves' bullshit sentiment being touted as a 'solution' to anorexia (and the subsequent crop of facebook pages going around - 'curvy girls are better than skinny girls!' Uh, no, nobody's better than anybody else, and your attitude stinks just as bad as those who think all women should be a size 2)

The rise of the boob job suggests that starving oneself to achieve a stick-thin silhouette is just one of several ways in which the media has women punish themselves for the way we were born. There is no 'good enough'. I don't look at skinny fashion models and feel good because I look like them. I see actresses with slim waists and large breasts and feel bad because I don't look like them. I see athletes and feel bad because no matter how much I train, I'll never look like them. I'll always be a skinny, flat-chested cripple. I cannot state this enough: I am not an exception. I am just another facet of the female experience.

The answer is not to ban body types, or to promote new types as what's 'desirable', but to ban airbrushing altogether and raise our children to understand that what is normal and healthy for you is what is right, and nothing else, no matter what other people tout as 'perfect'.
 

Mr Flibble

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I must be getting dumber or something because I honestly don't know what you're talking about if my previous few posts haven't already answered that question. More than once. So... I'd really, honestly appreciate it if you spelled it out for me, I mean really go to town with simplicity/clarity and dumb it down so that I understand what you mean if all my previous replies have been sidestepping. :)

Ok.

You said this:
uckily nobody here has said anything like that but I know quite a few people who do think like that and there's probably a (ludicrous) reason why modeling agencies, movie producers etc. favor... well, less physically capable women.

And I asked you (couple of times...) what you meant by less physically capable. Less physically capable of what? And maybe I'm being dumb (or it's this stupid earache I've got that won't go away) but I can't see where you've answered that.

So, less physically capable of what exactly? Catwalk modesl are certainly physically capable of many things (maybe not the same as someone who has trained for boxing, because they haven;t...trained for boxing) If you want specific model examples - Jodie Kidd was known as the 'locust kid' when she started modelling. Now, she's put on a bit of weight, but she's still 6 foot 2 and a US size six - which means she's a foot taller than I am and is still skinnier. So you know, pretty bloody thin. She also plays polo - a demanding sport - competitively. So does Katie Price ( a glamour/fashion model) She's also pretty slim - well except for her fake boobs anyway! These two spring to mind because I follow polo, but I'm sure there's more.

So, again, what do you think being skinny makes models physically incapable of?

Also PS: hand up who noticed that in my list of linked ladies one has a physical disability? one that doesn't stop her being physically capable of many things. :D





Despite the fact that I am physically quite strong, I don't look athletic. I'd love arms like Linda Hamilton. I've been working on the six-pack to no avail; the ribs preside. My muscles are toned. They just aren't obvious.

Exactly how I used to be when I trained. Couldn't put on muscle to save my life.
That's why assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. It's also why combatting body fascism by presenting a different ideal as 'better' is counterproductive. The only way around it is to teach people that judging on appearances is bullshit, and that the only 'right' way to be is what is natural for your body.

Exactly!


How many ways must it be said? You cannot accurately judge a person based on the way they look.



And if, T Trian, you feel frustrated at this being repeated, it's because your own words seem to indicate you feel the opposite. If this isn't the case, then maybe you could clarify your stance?
 

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Warning: this post is about twice as long as the Lord of the Rings in its unabridged entirety.



Thanks, honey, I love you too! :D


At one point, I was working out so hard and so frequently that I did more damage to my already delicate joints in a month than I'd done in the six years since my diagnosis. That was because I wanted to LOOK 'healthy' and 'strong'. I wanted Linda Hamilton arms. I wanted Jessica Ennis abs. I made myself ill trying.

My friend in misery, then
icon6.gif
I've hurt myself by overtraining as well. I wanted a trim but muscular body, kinda like olympic swimmers (even though I'm a guy, the bodytype we're aiming for seems to be quite similar; muscular but sinewy, good for bodyweight exercises, Crossfit etc). I have struggled with my weight all my life (I was a chubby child) because I gain weight easily; both, fat and muscle.


The only way around it is to teach people that judging on appearances is bullshit* [my comment for the first half of this quote is at the very bottom of this post], and that the only 'right' way to be is what is natural for your body.

If you take a look at what I wrote in italics above this quote, does my body's natural tendency to gain weight mean that I should allow my body to grow fat and heavy? I don't think so because when I let go and stop struggling against my body's natural tendency to gain weight, I end up doing more harm than good; I end up with visceral fat, the meniscus in my right knee has likely "chipped" and now that I'm 40-50lbs heavier, it hurts like hell when I run, squat, or walk down a sloping road or a staircase far more frequently than when I was lighter (actually, back then my right knee didn't hurt at all except throbbed a little after a 10k jog or an hour of kicking the heavy bag at the gym, the left was perfectly fine).
Now the left knee has started developing similar symptoms. Additionally I have suffered from degenerative disc disease (IV and V lumbar discs for some 4-5 years now) and lumbar disc herniation (I have two hernias there at the moment). The back hurts far more frequently now and because the discs are degenerating, the back pain keeps getting worse in sync with how much weight my spine needs to support.
I won't even mention how all the extra flab affects the mind of a vain idiot like me who used to have a six-pack and now has a keg.


Any time you hold up a particular ideal as being 'better than', you're going to find that women (and indeed men) are going to put their health, physical and emotional, at risk to achieve it.

Of course, that's very, very true. The problem is, even though I'm a devout individualist, I feel that when you're dealing with large numbers of people (such as whole countries e.g), it may sometimes be called for to choose the lesser evil and cut your losses and do what's best for the majority instead of trying to save everybody and that way risk hurting the majority in the process.

Isn't that (risking the health of the more robust majority) kinda like what's going on now? By promoting the notion that skinny is the way to be, the mass media is catering to people such as yourself and K. Trian since both of you are naturally skinny and don't need to mess with your health to reach the skinny-is-sexy -ideal.


It took years for me to undo the damage being called 'anorexic', 'skeletor' et al did to me. If they'd just bothered to get to know me instead of assuming I was sickly and unhealthy due to my small size, they'd have realised that I ate plenty and was physically quite strong.

When I was 7-12, I was chubby and got picked on in school because of it. During gym classes when the group was divided in two teams, the captains always chose their friends first, then the athletic kids, then the skinny kids, and the fat ones were the last to be grudgingly accepted into the team and told to be the goalie because they are so fat, they cover most of the goal or other some such "inspiring" quips.


Thing is, though that might seem obvious, it's not s simple as calories in- calories out. I can testify to that. We all have different metabolic rates, and some people really have the good fortune (based on contemporary standards of beauty) to be able to eat as much as they can without gaining weight. I'm the opposite. Once when I thought I needed to drop some pounds quickly I went on a fast and lost - zero. That's because the body thinks you are starving, and slows down the metabolism so as to conserve fat. Seem people have a thyroid dysfunction which also means a metabolic underfunction. My first husband was skinny and extremely hyper in temperament; he could eat three times what I did, and still I'd gain weight and he'd stay skinny. Not fair!

Oh, I agree whole-heartedly that it's not fair! K. Trian can eat whatever she wants and she never gains a pound while I eat two specks of dust and gain ten pounds!

Seriously though, what you're saying doesn't in any way contradict what I wrote in the P.S: when your metabolism slows down, the amount of calories your body needs also goes down, and if you don't know how many calories to cut off your daily dose during such a phase, you (I don't mean you specifically, btw) easily end up eating more than your body needs to survive which equals weight gain, annoying and unfair as it is. I feel your pain (mostly in my knees and lower back).


Are we exceptions? Or is it just that our stories don't get heard as often?

I'm not K. Trian, but she's at boxing practice now while I'm incapacitated by three sorts of strong painkillers and had to skip so I hope you don't mind me adding my 0,02 euros :)

People who are like K. Trian (and seemingly you too) as far as metabolism goes, well, presently she's the only person with that body type in our circle of family and friends (some 60-odd people). Girls like her were also rare in my high school, the Helsinki University, and all of our work places (i.e. there are a few here and there but they are few and far between), meaning a resounding "yes, your body type is an exception" to your question. Granted, that's just my observation, she will probably post hers when she comes back.


the 'real women have curves' bullshit sentiment being touted as a 'solution' to anorexia (and the subsequent crop of facebook pages going around - 'curvy girls are better than skinny girls!' Uh, no, nobody's better than anybody else...

I fucking hate that sentiment too. It's as if fat people have the right to spew bullshit about skinny people but if the skinnies retaliate in kind, the fatsos cry bloody murder. The same goes for beautiful vs. ugly people, i.e. us uglos are supposedly allowed to insult the beautiful but not vice versa... which is bullshit, if you ask me, a chubby uglo.


...and your attitude stinks just as bad as those who think all women should be a size 2)

Was that really called for? Mind, I'm not fighting her battle here, she'll probably respond to that one way or another when she comes back.
I just believe AW to be above ad hominems like that and hope it would remain so. I don't think anybody, including you (I hope), wants that she responds in kind and then an interesting thread turns into a useless flame war in which everyone loses (the participants as well as those who are not involved but try to carry out serious discussions in the thread).


The answer is not to ban body types, or to promote new types as what's 'desirable', but to ban airbrushing altogether and raise our children to understand that what is normal and healthy for you is what is right, and nothing else, no matter what other people tout as 'perfect'.

For the first part, I would venture a wild stab in the dark and propose a possibility: we may have been in agreement about this from the get-go but our different backgrounds, different cultures, myself and K. Trian being EFL speakers, the lack of facial expressions, tone, physical demeanor etc. may well have caused us to misunderstand each other in the worst ways possible until we remove all the aforementioned off this discussion layer by layer and come to the same conclusion. Wouldn't be the first or the last time that happens on a discussion forum, alas.

For the second part I bolded, italicized (sp?), and underlined: YES!!! That's exactly what needs to be done. However, us humans, well, we're a pretty dumb sort of animal and judging by how things have gone so far, I would venture an educated guess that while what you said is the sensible thing to do, it will always remain a utopia simply because of the fact that most people are dumb.


And I asked you (couple of times...) what you meant by less physically capable. Less physically capable of what? And maybe I'm being dumb (or it's this stupid earache I've got that won't go away) but I can't see where you've answered that.

Sorry to hear about your ear, hope it heals fast :)

Anyway, I'll refer to my first post in this thread and while I'm talking about guys here, it applies to ladies just the same:

Dumbass said:
When you look at pictures of hot guys, they are almost always slim but also muscular, you know, the swimmer body type that has just the right amount of muscle and bodyfat is below 10% so you can see their six packs. In a word, their body types are functional (not so muscular that they don't fit through the door [and be clumsy and slow] but strong enough to climb a rope, sprint 400 meters in 60 seconds, and carry an unconscious person out of a burning building. You get the picture).

The bit in brackets I added just now for clarity. The only real exception for women would be their bodyfat which ought to be around 15%-20%, give or take a few percents in either direction depending on the individual.

Anyway, I meant that sort of a thing, a kind of a golden middle road between super athlete and couch potato.


And if, T Trian, you feel frustrated at this being repeated, it's because your own words seem to indicate you feel the opposite. If this isn't the case, then maybe you could clarify your stance?

Regarding the underlined bit: I really don't, as I've said on several occasions in this thread :)

Is my stance on the matter clear now? Just askin' 'cause I'm starting to run out of examples :D
 

Mr Flibble

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Flibble
And I asked you (couple of times...) what you meant by less physically capable. Less physically capable of what? And maybe I'm being dumb (or it's this stupid earache I've got that won't go away) but I can't see where you've answered that.

Sorry to hear about your ear, hope it heals fast :)
Thanks, me too.

Only... I still don't see where you answered the question?

YOu said this about people who aren't skinny/slender
In a word, their body types are functional (not so muscular that they don't fit through the door [and be clumsy and slow] but strong enough to climb a rope, sprint 400 meters in 60 seconds, and carry an unconscious person out of a burning building. You get the picture).
Do you mean that people you consider skinny/slender (who are so not the exception you believe them to be) can't do those things? (Also, in 60 seconds? That's not that much slower than the ladies world record! You'd be on a local team for sure....my local, very good, team's female record for 400m is 54 seconds. So there's plenty of what you term more physically capable people who couldn't manage it. I could train till hel froze over and not manage it)

And are those the only criteria for physical capability? Because lot's of healthy, not skinny people couldn't manage all of them but are great at other things - see models noted in previous post who play physically demanding sports cpmpetitvely. Your definition seems incredibly narrow.

I'm just trying to clear this up because it's still not at all clear what you mean....because that's STILL only one body shape you are extolling above others, and still judging by looking at someone (it seems to me)

PS: Not going to answer for crunchy...but we are allowed to think someone's opinion stinks. And say so, if we give a cogent argument as to why and make no personal attacks. Attacking an opinion is NOT attacking a person. It's like (for instance, not here but an example) if you say 'Don't be upset,' tell them something upsetting and then wonder why they are upset....

ETA: I think that's it for me, tbh. I'm not the first to leave this thread, but I've got better stuff to waste my time on.
 
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kuwisdelu

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I'm not really getting why those are important either.

I'll stick with finding people of healthy weight attractive, where I define healthy by, y'know, weight not leading to health problems.

I don't really care if someone is athletic or not. I'm not.
 

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not arguing either, merely contributing.


Are we exceptions? Or is it just that our stories don't get heard as often? Body fascism is a singular problem. It doesn't discriminate. It tells us all that we are not good enough, whether through thin fashion models, improbably proportioned glamour models, magazines that simultaneously decry celebrities for being too thin AND too fat, the 'real women have curves' bullshit sentiment being touted as a 'solution' to anorexia (and the subsequent crop of facebook pages going around - 'curvy girls are better than skinny girls!' Uh, no, nobody's better than anybody else, and your attitude stinks just as bad as those who think all women should be a size 2)

The rise of the boob job suggests that starving oneself to achieve a stick-thin silhouette is just one of several ways in which the media has women punish themselves for the way we were born. There is no 'good enough'. I don't look at skinny fashion models and feel good because I look like them. I see actresses with slim waists and large breasts and feel bad because I don't look like them. I see athletes and feel bad because no matter how much I train, I'll never look like them. I'll always be a skinny, flat-chested cripple. I cannot state this enough: I am not an exception. I am just another facet of the female experience.

The answer is not to ban body types, or to promote new types as what's 'desirable', but to ban airbrushing altogether and raise our children to understand that what is normal and healthy for you is what is right, and nothing else, no matter what other people tout as 'perfect'.

Okay, let's talk about the problematic word 'exceptional.' I think I see why it's so and I admit, it wasn't the best of choices, but I felt it can be used in this discussion since you yourself used the word 'average' to label a group of people earlier, would they be any happier with your label than you with 'exception?' We are also talking of mainstream in this thread, it kind of implies there's a large, more or less homogenous group of people accepted by many. If you don't belong to that group, what would you call them if you have the name 'average' for one group? Twice in your posts you have also said that despite your size your're quite strong. Why are you putting it that way if you weren't implying that you're something of a... what, for your size? To be honest, perhaps it's not that important 'cause you, I, everyone's perfect in a sense, everyone's a person of their own, an exception of their own as far as I'm concerned, but I'm slightly puzzled by your argumentation/views on this regard.

Otherwise, I naturally agree. Unfortunately the real world isn't there yet. And unfortunately, it's not just women who struggle with these "expectations" imposed on us. Men too may feel the need to be big and strong and "real men" as promoted in e.g. many adverts, and if their body type doesn't mold into the ideal... needless to say, they too can develop rather similar feelings to women who don't feel busty or skinny enough.
 

crunchyblanket

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Was that really called for? Mind, I'm not fighting her battle here, she'll probably respond to that one way or another when she comes back.
I just believe AW to be above ad hominems like that and hope it would remain so. I don't think anybody, including you (I hope), wants that she responds in kind and then an interesting thread turns into a useless flame war in which everyone loses (the participants as well as those who are not involved but try to carry out serious discussions in the thread).

I wasn't talking about anyone in this thread, I was talking about the people who make/join those groups and think they're acceptable. I thought that was clear. Apologies if it's not.

....meaning a resounding "yes, your body type is an exception" to your question. Granted, that's just my observation, she will probably post hers when she comes back.

Again, I wasn't talking about body type. I'm talking about hating one's body and being made to feel as if I ought to 'alter' myself to fit another ideal. I'm talking about the idea that even if you do fit 'thin is in', that doesn't give you a free pass. The world has plenty of fun of fun, restrictive beauty ideals for us to live up to even if our BMI is acceptable.
Isn't that (risking the health of the more robust majority) kinda like what's going on now? By promoting the notion that skinny is the way to be, the mass media is catering to people such as yourself and K. Trian since both of you are naturally skinny and don't need to mess with your health to reach the skinny-is-sexy -ideal.

But it's not catering to me at all. It's not enough to be skinny. You have to be skinny....but not skeletal (well, sorry, my ribs stick out, I can't help it.) You have to have decent sized breasts (Keira Knightley's forever being photoshopped and/or mocked. She's thin, but she's not acceptable.)

It's not as black-and-white simple as 'thin = sexy'. There's a whole raft of caveats that come with it.
 

crunchyblanket

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wice in your posts you have also said that despite your size your're quite strong. Why are you putting it that way if you weren't implying that you're something of a... what, for your size? To be honest, perhaps it's not that important 'cause you, I, everyone's perfect in a sense, everyone's a person of their own, an exception of their own as far as I'm concerned, but I'm slightly puzzled by your argumentation/views on this regard.

Here's the thing. I don't think I'm exceptional at all. It's other people who think it's strange that I can be petite AND strong. And that's what I'm getting at here: people are making assumptions based only on my build, and they're incorrect. At my gym, there women (and men) smaller than me who can lift more than me, and women and men bigger than men who can't. I'm not an exception at all.
 

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Here's the thing. I don't think I'm exceptional at all. It's other people who think it's strange that I can be petite AND strong. And that's what I'm getting at here: people are making assumptions based only on my build, and they're incorrect. At my gym, there women (and men) smaller than me who can lift more than me, and women and men bigger than men who can't. I'm not an exception at all.
Ah, I get it now. Thanks for clearing it up. I misunderstood your wording before, that you somehow implied you were considering yourself an exception, and then I was a bit surprised as you suddenly "contradicted" it, you know, from my POV.

And yeah, thankfully I got it right what you meant about the stinky attitude x) Though, I guess I sometimes do come off as a poohead.

On another note, if someone's interested in reading more about some topic related stuff, this article concerning plastic surgery in Japan and elsewhere in Asia is interesting though sad and shocking too: Changing Faces
Just makes me want to scream 'why?'

And if you aren't familiar with this, there's also a fairly heart-wrenching project by Kiri Davis called 'A Girl Like me'. You can find it e.g. on YouTube, here. There're interviews about Afro-American girls talking about their ideas about beauty. It also discusses the doll experiments that were conducted in mid 1900s. Food for thought.
 
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Cyia

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I'm not an exception at all.

It's physics (aka the "ant principle").

Most people look at someone small and think they're strong "despite" their size, but they're thinking backward. You're stronger because of your size, not in spite of it.

Ants can lift and carry a significant portion of their body weight, but if they were any larger, they couldn't.

Gymnasts are small for the same reason.

It's a matter of weight distribution and torque ratio.


On another note, if someone's interested in reading more about some topic related stuff, this article concerning plastic surgery in Japan and elsewhere in Asia is interesting though sad and shocking too: Changing Faces
Just makes me want to scream 'why?'

And if you aren't familiar with this, there's also a fairly heart-wrenching project by Kiri Davis called 'A Girl Like me'. You can find it e.g. on YouTube, here. There're interviews about Afro-American girls talking about their ideas about beauty. It also discusses the doll experiments that were conducted in mid 1900s. Food for thought.

I wish I could remember the site that used to host it, but anyway -- there was an experiment of sorts about 5 years ago. The site would show you an image of a face, and then by moving your mouse left to right over the face, the skin tone would change from fair to deep. The idea was to stop when you thought the person looked "healthy" based on their underlying skintone and bone structure. It was an interesting study of how people's perceptions match up with reality.
 

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I still don't see where you answered the question?

Then I suppose we better call it a night on this one and move on, no hard feelings on my part 8) But since I feel like it, I'll give it one more go just for old times' sake :)


Do you mean that people you consider skinny/slender (who are so not the exception you believe them to be) can't do those things?

About the bit inside the brackets: are you saying the majority of, say, Americans aren't overweight after all? I bet the Surgeon General will be happy to hear the good news! j/k :D On a more serious note, are you saying that there's no worrying trend of growing numbers of overweight children (and adults, I would think) in most western countries?


(Also, in 60 seconds? That's not that much slower than the ladies world record! You'd be on a local team for sure....my local, very good, team's female record for 400m is 54 seconds. So there's plenty of what you term more physically capable people who couldn't manage it. I could train till hel froze over and not manage it)

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 sure, let's say 65 seconds or 70 seconds, that's not the point, it was just an examle. The point is that if you look at the current trends in male models, most of them are guys who at least look like they could do it. They have enough muscle mass to pull it off or at least get close yet they don't look like Markus Ruhl who likely has too much muscle mass to be able to beat 60 seconds.

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)?


PS: Not going to answer for crunchy...but we are allowed to think someone's opinion stinks. And say so, if we give a cogent argument as to why and make no personal attacks.

A friend once told me "don't be afraid to call an asshole an asshole." Solid advice and I tend to do that IRL. However, online there aren't many repercussions for doing that and hence, at least to me, it loses a lot of its validity. Now, I could say your opinion stinks, sure, I don't believe anyone would be banned from AW for saying that, especially not when they back their claim with their opinions, but, well, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. You see, I find that online misunderstandings are much more frequent because we lack things like facial expressions, tone of voice, physical demeanor etc. so even though we are allowed to say something like someone's opinion stinks, I would opt for a more polite and respectful expression because it can be said politely and respectuflly too. AW is such a good source for a myriad of things that I believe it's worth the extra effort it takes to be polite and respectul even when IRL you wouldn't be.
I think like this also because online saying something in a less-than-polite-and-respectful manner can easily ruin a good thread and change it into an exchange of pissy retorts. I'm not saying anybody here's been pissy, only that that's the risk one takes when one doesn't bother to put in the (small) extra effort to be, yes, polite and respectful.
And yes, I know I'm a hypocrite for saying this because I'm a pissy asshole sometimes but I try not to be and I've found people respond better when I do succeed.

Oh, and another reason why I'm more likely to call some guy an asshole to his face IRL is that if the situation develops into something beyond just words, the repercussions for the insulting party (be it me or or the other guy) are very real, as they should be. And I stress that this is not a veiled threat or anything stupid like that, there is nothing hidden between the lines here and I don't think anyone here is guilty of a transgression that would warrant even being called an asshole much less anything more :) So moving on:


Again, I wasn't talking about body type. I'm talking about hating one's body and being made to feel as if I ought to 'alter' myself to fit another ideal.

But... that's the norm for me: I've always had an ideal in my mind and I've done my best to cram my sorry body into that mold even if I have to smash it in with a sledge hammer.

I've hated my body ever since I can remember and can't really imagine what it would be like not to hate my body. I hated it as a fat kid unable to keep up with the rest in gym classes. I hated it when my morning workout was either 90-120 minutes of fast-paced swimming or 15 reps of HIIT at the nearby race track (1 rep in my workout was a 30-second sprint followed by 30 seconds of jogging) and in the evening I would go to the gym and do ten intense 5min rounds on the heavy bag with 1min rests just to warm up, then do five cirquits of 40 push-ups, 25 pull-ups, and 15 reps with the ab wheel so that each time I went down, I went so low my nose would touch the floor, and 15 burpees (those are just some random videos from youtube to demonstrate the exercises), and my bodyfat was hovering somewhere around 10%. Oh, and I did that 5 days a week; on weekends I trained just once a day.

And you can probably guess that I hate my body even more now that it's broken (possibly for good if a bunch of orthopedic surgeons and physiatrists are to be believed) and not even because I trained too much or anything but simply because of (according to the doctors and specialists) bad luck; when my spine was going through the assembly line, the worker responsible for ensuring the 4th and 5th lumbar discs were strong enough was out having a smoke :D


But it's not catering to me at all. It's not enough to be skinny. You have to be skinny....but not skeletal (well, sorry, my ribs stick out, I can't help it.) You have to have decent sized breasts (Keira Knightley's forever being photoshopped and/or mocked. She's thin, but she's not acceptable.)

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.
 

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[edited; thought better of it, sorry guys]
 

Corinne Duyvis

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T. Trian, you seem to be equating overweight with unhealthy. Lots of studies have proven that that's not the case, and many overweight people are perfectly healthy in all relevant areas.

Similarly, there are a lot of problems with the 'obesity epidemic'--I don't recall the details, but I believe it's based on the seriously erroneous BMI principle. It also has larger problems as a whole. It's a regular fearmongering campaign based in fat-phobia and it hurts--and kills--many people. (Example: a fat person goes to the doctor with a medical complaint. Doctor takes one look at them and says, "Oh, just lose some weight and you'll be fine." Fat person proceeds to die of medical complaint that has nothing to do whatsoever with their size. This happens at an alarming rate.)

For some people, fat is a sign of ill health. For other people, lack of fat is a sign of ill health. In both cases, it's none of anyone else's business.

The problem is twofold: one, people need to mind their own business and their own body and stop either judging or emulating other people's bodies. Two, in order to focus on their own body, people need to have access to information about good nutrition and exercise, and to various kinds of food. Right now, across many places in the US, this doesn't exist. If a poor family has no time to cook from scratch, and there are no fresh vegetables or fruits nearby and/or affordable, yes, they're damn well going to get KFC--because they need to survive and calories are sort of essential to that. Is it healthy? No. Is the family shamed and ridiculed? Yes.

(Also, if a fat person wants to eat KFC, that's cool too. Chicken is delicious. No food is off-limits or 'bad'. The problem isn't that people don't eat healthily--because again, that's no one else's business--but that alternatives need to be available so that people aren't forced into eating something they'd prefer to avoid.)

Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there, but I think if you're going to have a conversation about body image and weight, you shouldn't engage in fat-shaming or fat-phobia. If a couple extra pounds aren't healthy for your body, more power to you for getting rid of them, but you can't judge other people by that same measure.

I agree that the current Western standards of beauty have a negative effect on a lot of people, and I long for more body diversity--but that's exactly what it needs to be. Diversity. This includes fat people, and it includes athletic people, and it includes not shaming skinny women as being stick-like, anorexic, or telling them to eat a damn sandwich.

(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*)
 

Kitty27

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Interesting discussion,though a tad snarky. Let's remember to respect each other,please.

Weight carries different meanings culturally. I'm 5ft 6 and 150lbs,38-27-45. If I go by mainstream standards,I am considered "fat".

If I go by my culture's standards,I am a brickhouse and my frame is coveted. In my community,there are women who are a size 2 aka mainstream perfection doing everything they can to gain weight. There are women spending thousands on butt injections,fat grafts and the like to get that coveted backside that is practically a Black institution. Rihanna's body isn't coveted whatsoever. But Ki Toy Johnson's is the ULTIMATE. We are the complete reverse of mainstream beauty ideals when it comes to body type. Nobody I know wants a Victoria Secret's model's body. NONE. But they all want that video vixen frame.

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. Not to say you shouldn't already love yourself on your own,because you should. But to know your body type that you might have felt self conscious about is admired and there isn't anything wrong with it means something.

I just wish the emphasis on this particular body type would ease a bit as it makes Black women who are small,petite or thin feel unwelcome and bad about their bodies. Every body type has its own beauty and all should be celebrated.
 
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