superodalisque
Well-Known Member
recent attempts at SA seem to be sexually oriented rather than human rights oriented. early on as a girl in the seventies the message that i got was that i could work, get married, buy clothes, play sports, be an adventurer and all of the other things slim women were doing. right now it seems like for a lot of people fat rights for women means that i can be a pole dancer. big change.
a video was being passed around with this heavy gal pole dancing beautifully. everyone as absolutely supportive and awed that she could do it because it's obvious that it must be extremely difficult physically and showed exactly how fit fat and feminine she could be. i shared the video too and said it was great that it as showing that it could be done but that no one was asking whether it should be done. one FA friend commented that he would get back to me on that. he had to think about it. he is still thinking about it.
i found this article and thought i might pass it on. do you think even very marginal attempts to sexualize fat people by dove and others and call it body positivity in the public eye really help us at all or are they still just as likely to keep us the sexy secret under the bleachers we've always been to many? for me it's never been a secret that we are sexy. but the real issue has been that we are equal. is the exploration/exploitation of fat sexuality in this way helpful or hurtful in your opinion? where should we be taking things? or even after we have stamped ourselves with sexy all over like thin girls have where do we go next? IMO it's only going to get us where thin girls have gotten which it behind the curve when it comes to the equality we really want.
1/23/14
The Revolution Will Not Be Screen-Printed on a Thong
BY MAUREEN O'CONNOR
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/01/rev...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Promoting body acceptance is, at this point, a tried-and-true genre of advertising, but “real woman” ads nevertheless send me into a self-doubting spiral every time I see them. Stage One, playing into their hands: Real bodies! So beautiful! Stage Two, eye-rolling: Why do I need a panties-peddling corporation to affirm the “real me”? Am I supposed to be weeping for joy right now, like all these women who didn’t know they were beautiful until a soap brand (phonily) told them so? Stage Three, backlash-to-the-backlash: But attainable beauty standards are better than unattainable ones, right? If feminist messages sell mall merchandise, that means we’re winning. Stage Four, eyes rolling all the way around: Even if it’s pro-woman, it’s still patronizing.
Aerie, Dove, and their ilk are still catering to female insecurity; they’re just doing it in a feel-good way instead of an anxiety-inducing one. Like all “lifestyle brands,” they’re still in the business of selling women better versions of themselves; in this case, they're just presenting a slightly more modern ideal than Victoria’s Secret. The “real” you is confidently sexy, even in her undies with the lights on. She’s bigger than a size two, but has no cellulite whatsoever. When she gains weight, her shape maintains an optimal waist-hip ratio. Her skin is "flawless" and she has no blemishes — probably because she’s a professional model...
Unretouched photos are the ultimate female-media clickbait, offering the prurient appeal of ogling another woman’s fat and pores, under the fig leaf of feminism. I am a fan of cute panties and gratuitous nudity both— but let’s not kid ourselves about what’s going on here. This is not a feminist revolution; it’s lowbrow entertainment with a dash of feminism for flavor. Whether you’re celebrating Amber Tolliver’s midsection or gawking at Lena Dunham’s flab, the appeal is still the simple, base pleasure of staring at female flesh.
Somewhere in the process of questioning our desire to commodify skinny hot chicks, the general public concluded that an appropriate solution would be to commodify non-skinny women, too. Instead of reducing the attention we pay to women’s bodies, we came up with new euphemisms (“show off her curves”) and doubled down. Critics say it’s not enough for Mindy Kaling or Melissa McCarthy to land on the cover of Elle — they need to be stripped naked and their bodies need to be displayed, just as skinnier bodies are. "The implication was, 'What, Elle, you can't put her big, fat body on the magazine?'" Kaling later joked. "’Why? ‘Cause she's just fat and gruesome? Why can't we look at her beautiful fat body?'"
A better question would be: Why can’t we just not obsess about bodies? I ask that in earnest — it’s possible that we actually can’t stop, that this compulsive corporeal scrutiny is some sort of biological imperative, or species-wide neurosis left over from millennia of treating women as chattel.
a video was being passed around with this heavy gal pole dancing beautifully. everyone as absolutely supportive and awed that she could do it because it's obvious that it must be extremely difficult physically and showed exactly how fit fat and feminine she could be. i shared the video too and said it was great that it as showing that it could be done but that no one was asking whether it should be done. one FA friend commented that he would get back to me on that. he had to think about it. he is still thinking about it.
i found this article and thought i might pass it on. do you think even very marginal attempts to sexualize fat people by dove and others and call it body positivity in the public eye really help us at all or are they still just as likely to keep us the sexy secret under the bleachers we've always been to many? for me it's never been a secret that we are sexy. but the real issue has been that we are equal. is the exploration/exploitation of fat sexuality in this way helpful or hurtful in your opinion? where should we be taking things? or even after we have stamped ourselves with sexy all over like thin girls have where do we go next? IMO it's only going to get us where thin girls have gotten which it behind the curve when it comes to the equality we really want.
1/23/14
The Revolution Will Not Be Screen-Printed on a Thong
BY MAUREEN O'CONNOR
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/01/rev...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Promoting body acceptance is, at this point, a tried-and-true genre of advertising, but “real woman” ads nevertheless send me into a self-doubting spiral every time I see them. Stage One, playing into their hands: Real bodies! So beautiful! Stage Two, eye-rolling: Why do I need a panties-peddling corporation to affirm the “real me”? Am I supposed to be weeping for joy right now, like all these women who didn’t know they were beautiful until a soap brand (phonily) told them so? Stage Three, backlash-to-the-backlash: But attainable beauty standards are better than unattainable ones, right? If feminist messages sell mall merchandise, that means we’re winning. Stage Four, eyes rolling all the way around: Even if it’s pro-woman, it’s still patronizing.
Aerie, Dove, and their ilk are still catering to female insecurity; they’re just doing it in a feel-good way instead of an anxiety-inducing one. Like all “lifestyle brands,” they’re still in the business of selling women better versions of themselves; in this case, they're just presenting a slightly more modern ideal than Victoria’s Secret. The “real” you is confidently sexy, even in her undies with the lights on. She’s bigger than a size two, but has no cellulite whatsoever. When she gains weight, her shape maintains an optimal waist-hip ratio. Her skin is "flawless" and she has no blemishes — probably because she’s a professional model...
Unretouched photos are the ultimate female-media clickbait, offering the prurient appeal of ogling another woman’s fat and pores, under the fig leaf of feminism. I am a fan of cute panties and gratuitous nudity both— but let’s not kid ourselves about what’s going on here. This is not a feminist revolution; it’s lowbrow entertainment with a dash of feminism for flavor. Whether you’re celebrating Amber Tolliver’s midsection or gawking at Lena Dunham’s flab, the appeal is still the simple, base pleasure of staring at female flesh.
Somewhere in the process of questioning our desire to commodify skinny hot chicks, the general public concluded that an appropriate solution would be to commodify non-skinny women, too. Instead of reducing the attention we pay to women’s bodies, we came up with new euphemisms (“show off her curves”) and doubled down. Critics say it’s not enough for Mindy Kaling or Melissa McCarthy to land on the cover of Elle — they need to be stripped naked and their bodies need to be displayed, just as skinnier bodies are. "The implication was, 'What, Elle, you can't put her big, fat body on the magazine?'" Kaling later joked. "’Why? ‘Cause she's just fat and gruesome? Why can't we look at her beautiful fat body?'"
A better question would be: Why can’t we just not obsess about bodies? I ask that in earnest — it’s possible that we actually can’t stop, that this compulsive corporeal scrutiny is some sort of biological imperative, or species-wide neurosis left over from millennia of treating women as chattel.
