alice34
25-02-2008, 11:49 PM
OK this is probably kind of banal and interesting all rolled into one. - I'm just typing while I think here, so dont expect anything I write to hold together.
Just been familiarising myself with this whole "Thinspiration"/"pro-Ana" thing going down...see there's rather alot of groups for and against it, and aside from the serious implications to peoples health of not eating, it's kind of got me all rather confused about humans:
There's people starving themselves because they want to be thinner ( and considered beautiful),
There's people who fatten themselves up or are fed by their partners, till theyre grossly obese because they want to be considered beautiful too,
there's people who are starving who look like the people who want to be thin/anorexic ( but they're not considered beautiful - their considered unfortunate )
There's people who think that anorexia is an illness who are trying to convince everyone who's starving themselves for beauty that their ill, and if they carry on they're going to die..
There's people who think being obese is not beautiful who are trying to convince people they would be healthier and more beautiful if they were skinny, and if they carry on they're going to die...
And then there's me, who being a red-blooded male ( well maybe more of a fop ) but all the same who has to ask myself if I see a skinny girl..do I find her attractive or not physically wrestling with all of the above ( if she is pro-ana ) , and then wrestling with myself by saying that maybe I find women on the thinner side more attractive because I've been conditioned to associate beauty with being slim....
Not to say I dont like a bit of plumpishness either ofcourse...
But sometimes when I look at the pictures of skinny girls ( not the ones that look like they've just stepped out of a famine) who are pro-ana I cant help finding rather yummy....especially when I see their collar/clavicle bones.
I was talking with my flatmate about it, who was musing over the issue too, and it really ran home the whole thing about beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
She ( my flatmate ) said that she thought Angelina Jolie was a picture of beauty, and after watching a video of her ( I didnt really know who she was ) I thought she was ok, but nothing like this french tv host who leaves me weak at the knees...
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
Now admittedly neither Angelina Jolie or this french TV host are anything out of the ordinary ( extremely large or skinny )...but my flatmate had about as much appreciation of this French News reader as I had of Ms Jolie.
Anyway maybe I'm kind of going off the point, but it's weird seeing all these body-issue things, because on one level I realise that we are all imprinting upon each other ideas of beauty and reinforcing stereotypes by our choices for partners.....
All this culminates in a continuation of the human race, being bred according to our preferences and sense of an acceptable partner...and I think we are now at a time when archetypal preferences are gaining a real stranglehold over both the minds of men and women due to the material and media age we live in...
Is any of this new? - not really, it's just its become more acutely observable I guess...breasts get bigger, men find ways of expressing power, hemlines go up and down, hairstyles change...and more and more baby humans just get pumped out willy-nilly ( no pun intended ).
Sometimes I really wonder whether women have deliberately bred a bunch of dumb aggressive males to fight over them, and men have bred a bunch of air-headed females to starve themselves silly and look pretty to fight over simply through the unconscious manipulations of our own physical attraction...and maybe a little personality thrown in...
Ok mental splurge over. I'm sure I'm looking at all of this far too simplistically.
Just been familiarising myself with this whole "Thinspiration"/"pro-Ana" thing going down...see there's rather alot of groups for and against it, and aside from the serious implications to peoples health of not eating, it's kind of got me all rather confused about humans:
There's people starving themselves because they want to be thinner ( and considered beautiful),
There's people who fatten themselves up or are fed by their partners, till theyre grossly obese because they want to be considered beautiful too,
there's people who are starving who look like the people who want to be thin/anorexic ( but they're not considered beautiful - their considered unfortunate )
There's people who think that anorexia is an illness who are trying to convince everyone who's starving themselves for beauty that their ill, and if they carry on they're going to die..
There's people who think being obese is not beautiful who are trying to convince people they would be healthier and more beautiful if they were skinny, and if they carry on they're going to die...
And then there's me, who being a red-blooded male ( well maybe more of a fop ) but all the same who has to ask myself if I see a skinny girl..do I find her attractive or not physically wrestling with all of the above ( if she is pro-ana ) , and then wrestling with myself by saying that maybe I find women on the thinner side more attractive because I've been conditioned to associate beauty with being slim....
Not to say I dont like a bit of plumpishness either ofcourse...
But sometimes when I look at the pictures of skinny girls ( not the ones that look like they've just stepped out of a famine) who are pro-ana I cant help finding rather yummy....especially when I see their collar/clavicle bones.
I was talking with my flatmate about it, who was musing over the issue too, and it really ran home the whole thing about beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
She ( my flatmate ) said that she thought Angelina Jolie was a picture of beauty, and after watching a video of her ( I didnt really know who she was ) I thought she was ok, but nothing like this french tv host who leaves me weak at the knees...
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
Now admittedly neither Angelina Jolie or this french TV host are anything out of the ordinary ( extremely large or skinny )...but my flatmate had about as much appreciation of this French News reader as I had of Ms Jolie.
Anyway maybe I'm kind of going off the point, but it's weird seeing all these body-issue things, because on one level I realise that we are all imprinting upon each other ideas of beauty and reinforcing stereotypes by our choices for partners.....
All this culminates in a continuation of the human race, being bred according to our preferences and sense of an acceptable partner...and I think we are now at a time when archetypal preferences are gaining a real stranglehold over both the minds of men and women due to the material and media age we live in...
Is any of this new? - not really, it's just its become more acutely observable I guess...breasts get bigger, men find ways of expressing power, hemlines go up and down, hairstyles change...and more and more baby humans just get pumped out willy-nilly ( no pun intended ).
Sometimes I really wonder whether women have deliberately bred a bunch of dumb aggressive males to fight over them, and men have bred a bunch of air-headed females to starve themselves silly and look pretty to fight over simply through the unconscious manipulations of our own physical attraction...and maybe a little personality thrown in...
Ok mental splurge over. I'm sure I'm looking at all of this far too simplistically.