Do you just wake up this beautiful?

"By renormalizing the model's waistline, Maxim Mexico takes a bold socio-political stance in the ongoing battle of the politics of representation, clearly referencing the oppressive reification of male-gaze heteronormative modes of synthesis in a semiotic blancmange of post-structural teakettle barbecue hatstand fishmonger."

From http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/06/
maxim-mexico-another-victory-for.html via www.bluishorange.com.

I think it was when I weighed 104 pounds at 5'4" that I was finally happy with my thighs. This surprises people; my default size is small, and I'm at about the right weight when I can fit into size zero clothing. I didn't break 100 pounds until after I turned 18 in college and didn't actually gain any substantial weight until I was 21 and started drinking rather than eating my calories.

Somehow, in spite of being what is perceived as tiny, I still wasn't happy with my thighs. Or my stomach. Or my arms or ... How is it that we live in a culture that is this broken? When I'm healthy and clocking in at 115 or 120 I don't feel skinny enough, I don't feel beautiful, and I worry that my partner will find me less attractive for those extra pounds. (And regrettably have had several who have explicitly said as much, I'm not sure if that is worse than those who said it implicitly...)

I didn't realize this was a demon men faced as well until I discussed it with the writer of http://geektheory.wordpress.com/. I was shocked; men didn't become "hags" in the media when old; there's a reason or six that George Clooney is still making film with his pick of amazing parts while great actresses like Jodi Foster have to fight for a few bit character parts.

Men age with grace, and they can have a bit of paunch. Hell, Bill Murray is still adorably sexy, as showcased with Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation. It makes sense that Scarlett's character is drawn to him, but were the ages reversed, the film ... just wouldn't have worked in today's media.

I remember vividly the amazement the girls I was studying in France held for French women. These women, regardless of body shape or conventional mass media beauty were somehow glowingly gorgeous all the time. Something about their hotness was there, you knew it, without make-up while in pj's, scrambling eggs sleepily. Part of it was certainly confidence, part of it was style. I've read French feminists, I've read American feminists [meat for other posts, in fact] but I can't say I've fully parsed what makes French women so notoriously, internationally known as beautiful.

My girlfriends, many more of them than I like to admit, they count every calorie. They know how many calories are in a 1/2 cup of celery or 6 french fries. I don't know where they store all this data. They can rationalize drinking lite soy milk and eating only shredded carrots for lunch. I can respect a careful, nutrition-savvy eater (and am a bit of a health-food-nut myself) but this behavior baffles me even though I see from whence it comes (the megatheocorporotocracy) and to whence it goes (anorexia, bulimia, a lifetime of misery).
[Term: megatheocorporotocracy lifted from www.blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com]

I wish they all knew in their hearts and souls that they are beautiful, each and everyone of them. What is needed is to have someone to tell them so on a daily basis. Because, on a daily basis, that's the only way to kill this beast. To have someone who cares for you and loves you and respects you, who looks you in the eye and tells you, "You are beautiful" without any caveats, with sincerity and belief.

Tell a women today that you've never told how good looking she is. It's not sleazy or smarmy -- it's true, and they need to hear it, again and again and again.