I get that we should all love our bodies and whatever but I won't feel happy with mine until I reach where I am striving to get to, I don't feel I should just settle and accept if I want something more, I'm happy for others who love their bodies in whatever way , thats cool, but for me personally there is a goal I want to achieve and I won't be any less real of a woman for not accepting how I look naturally and changing it for more 'artificial' beauty. If it makes me happy, it makes me happy. I'm pretty over the 'real woman' stuff too, though I do understand what the book is getting at, the whole 'real woman' thing has been thrown around a lot lately to make women who do have an 'idealized' body feel bad or to make larger women feel like they are better than those women. Imo whether you're born with it or paid for it you're still a woman whether your boobs are perky cause of implants or whether your girl part wasn't always your girl part.

I rarely come across women in RL that don't have flaws or a few extra pounds, or a lot of extra pounds.

Using the word "real" kind of annoys me but again to each their own.

I'm talking about in print - in magazines, on TV. The images you just saw are professional photos... how often is that done with imperfect bodies? That is what I'm talking about.

I LOVE that JohnP gave his daughters books like that. The only imagines that teens usually see are in magazines and TV and of naked or near naked? Things like Playboy or porno sites. Is that what most of us look like? NO!

That is what I'm talking about and what this REAL stuff is about - showing the world as we are so that we have better/healthier images of what is beautiful and normal and what is LIFE.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think non-sexual nakedness should cease to be viewed as something obscene.

Yep, in total agreement.

Also agree.

krampus: Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's obscene at all. I just don't see the point of showing my boobs and my v just because I feel confortable in my body. I just think that some things should be private.

I can see keeping it private in day to day life. I don't think we should keep it completely private for projects like this one or like the book that JohnP gave is daughters. Girls and women need to be able to see that it is in fact normal to have a body that does not look like a celebrity. As mentioned, growing up we are bombarded with images of women with amazing bodies through TV, movies, magazines, billboards ect... We rarely see naked women who have fat on them, saggy breasts, big thighs, stretch marks... Yet, the majority of women actually have one or several of these things!

I couldn't put it better than CherryQuinn has. Won't stop me putting my $0.02 in though

So what I'm aiming for may be the "idealised" version of myself, but I'm happy with that. I know how I looked when I was 112lbs and fit, and I liked it. I'm not going to wake up one morning 5'10" with legs up to my armpits looking like Gisele, but I CAN be small, and strong. I'm not "curvy" because I'm overweight, I'm just overweight. I'm not big boned, I'm probably more mesomorph than anything because I can gain muscle faster than some men I know (it's ridiculous). It's just how I work with what I have, which is all anyone can do.

I am kind of over the "real women" thing too. I often hear that real women have kids, and as I don't want them, I'm a bit fed up with being judged as being "less than" for that reason. That's probably a big factor. What I DO agree with is the fact that a lot of women we see in the media, especially advertising, are NOT real. They started out real when the images were transferred to the photo editor's mac, but they become more like CGI every day. I do Photoshop. I can do retouching. I can shrink someone in a photograph and make it look "real", but I know what the image originally looked like. Learning that was a powerful thing: models really do not have skin that looks perfectly like velvet! Someone has actually gone through that image and taken out every individual pore. Every. Single. One.

I'm completely in agreement that we should stop airbrushing photos that are aimed at kids in advertising. Imagine growing up and thinking a human being can look like that?! Healthy role models come in all shapes and sizes. But, that includes women who are more skinny, straight up and down, or whatever.

In short, I like the idea, but apart from whether an image has been airbrushed or not, anyone with lady bits (including anyone who's had them taken out, added on, or snipped) is a real woman

Candeka: You can see saggy boobs, cellulite and fat rolls in a two piece bikini...(havent you been to any beach?)
I see your point but it just doesn't change mine. No need to show when you can easily send the message across.

But yes, I do like the concept. When I was a child I always thought I would grow up to be tall and thin because that was the only body type I saw on TV, my mother had kids already so she didnt count. My aunt was tall and slim, so were my neighbors... You can image my surprise when at 13 I was only 5'2 with red stretch marks on my tights and a few extra pounds out of nowhere!!! Being tall and slim was not in the cards for me but as you get older you realized that there are, in fact, other types of bodies. You just move on and try to make the best out of the one you got

Haha, I live in the prairies... There is not a beach within 5 hours any direction. So what I see 8 months out of the year is people in sweaters. The other 4 months are people in t-shirts so you never see the saggy breast, stretch marks or other hidden issues. It's very interesting how your geographical location can determine what you grow up thinking is a normal body.

Ok full disclosure, I'm a man. If I can offer my perspective I would say the idea behind the so called "REAL beautiful" thing isn't about abolishing goals, it's about not striving to be a caricature. When you're a young man one of the first exposures you have to female nudity is in the pages of a playboy magazine. Fake tan, hair, boobs and extensive airbrushing, not to mention professional lighting and makeup. Then you get a little older and realize two things. One, that doesn't exist in nature. It's just not real. Two, that's not what you want. You want a woman to look like an actual human being, not a plastic barbie doll. So a lot of women are chasing an ideal that isn't humanly attainable AND isn't even all that desirable. Men suffer from this too (although it's much worse for women). Go to any bodybuilding site and you see ridiculous, almost cartoon representations of the "ideal" man. I know guys who chase after this with steroids, full body waxing, tanning, endless weight routines, diuretics, etc. Do some women desire that in a man, a silly looking Mr. Universe type? Sure but they're the same type that are chasing after the unattainable barbie doll look. As far as I'm considered those two groups can have each other. You can have goals for yourself as long as it doesn't get pathological and you recognize that "perfection" does not exist. I think it's getting worse too. Turn on the tv and you hear about cosmetic genital surgery. Give me a break. I don't mean to wax philosophical but has anyone ever heard about the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-sabi? It holds that it's the flaws or imperfections that gives something it's true beauty.

Candeka: Hahaha never mind then!
I'm just private, but if they want to show it all, more power to them

This idea of 'real women' is divisive. Divide and conquer, with diet plans, gyms, potions, magazines, etc. etc.

And is the real 'real body' the one that most approximates our own body, or the body to which we aspire . . . are some bodies more 'real' than others???

Also, I'd like to add, that the point of this book was to do fine art with women of all shapes and sizes .... the images may be photoshopped and touched up.

Still, who says fine art has to be limited to only ONE body type ..... these are women that represent the SPECTRUM of body types.

Anyone who identifies as a woman is a "Real Woman" to me ... the point is, its nice when print things show the spectrum of real women. And more importantly, show them in a way that shows that they TOO are beautiful.