I just checked out hubby's opinion on this and he says that hot, thin, model types are "too high maintenance" (whatever that means). I guess that makes me very low maintentance indeed! :lol:

More than once I have had female cashiers comment on the cover girls of "Oxygen" magazine when I check out. It is almost always an "ewwww" kind of comment. The last time the models 6 pack abs were what was mentioned, the woman said she thought a woman should have a little belly. Not sure what to make of it, but I think it is a commonly held belief. On a side note, one of my pet peeves are personal comments on the products I buy from people checking me out. I have had cashiers scold me for buying expensive cat food to commenting on how stinky feta cheese is.

Definitely true.

See, this is what we're talking about. And what a friend and I were talking about not too long ago... men see us differently than we see ourselves. To a lot of guys, Rachel would be considered fat. To us she looks great.

And men go around saying, "Well I don't want a stick-thin woman," yet the women that look "normal" to us are fat to them.

lol

Just like my husband and his friend saying they like women with meat on their bones. But when they look at porn, what do they go for? The women with the perfect bodies.

Men are just silly.

Those women are surgically enhanced to give the "best of both worlds", thin and curvy. If you limit the discussion to natural women then curves trumps thinness.

hmm, off topic but perhaps I should elaborate on what I said about weights. I never thought I was going to get huge like male bodybuilders. What I meant is a women's soccer player vs a women's swimsuit model. Two entirely different looks. Trust me I'm well educated in weight lifting and understand the difference between men and women.

That's very good to hear :)

It's ironic to me that for example Lindsey Lohan was labeled "fat" and Nicole Ritchie was Paris's "fat" friend and then due the pressure of being labeled that way they lost the weight and now are labeled "too thin" by the very ones that called them fat before. It's a shame what the media does to a young girl's body image that carries through with them as they grow older.

Agree entirely with the above. I think guys like girls who look happy (like Rachel) but their idea of who is thin and who is curvy is quite different from a woman's. And while yes, guys like curves, they usually like a few particular curves and don't so much like the others :D Porn stars shouldn't count either, they have scads of plastic surgery to get their curve+thin combos and I think in real life (wearing clothes) they'd look ridiculous. But while men may think of someone like Rachel as "chunky" that doesn't mean they won't be attracted to someone who is "fat". Maybe it's somewhat of a stereotype for guys to think on the thin-fat scale, but I also do think they are very flexible and while they may unconsciously see someone as a certain weight that won't affect their being attracted to a real woman.

Oh don't get me started on Lindsay Lohan! I thought she was drop dead gorgeous in Mean Girls and the like, what a hottie! :D But now - urgh! Give the girl a Mars Bar! :lol:

Hi, I started the same subject on another forum in a form of a rant a while ago and someone made an excellent point when she said some thing like it didnt bother her seeing these skinny celebs, but magazine and poster airbrusing does as it doesnt even portray a true image, a complete non acheivable body.
I have a big problem with magazines(gossip ones) and newspapers, one week theyll complain that these 'skinny celebs' are to thin, are ill and teaching generations to become ana and then the next, or even in the same issue show more celebs withthe caption 'who ate all the pies'
geeze.
example apparently sugars most recent single 'ugly' came from a remark they recieved from a newpaper calling them 'sugar babes? more like sugar lumps'
I love sugar babes music, personally I think they look great and thin, but not ill and they are inspirational
opps[/rant]

I agree, I remember when I was younger, I use to look in the mirror and think I look monster-ish, I had/have small eyes, nose and ear(which stick out) and my skin was noway perfect and all these girls I saw in my preteen mags looked perfect, I couldnt work out why I got the worst draw in life of that department.. Thank goodness that with age comes a little wisdom

Precisely. I have explained this before and will continue to do so til the day I die.

There is the "real figure" and then there is the "fashion figure." The fashion figure is unnaturally elongated. It does not look like the real figure, and it is not intended to. (Save for the ginormous boobs, Barbie is an excellent example of this.) It is an artistic conceit designed to better show off the clothes in the drawing. Somewhere along the line a designer decided it'd be great if models also had that fashion figure, with nothing annoying like breasts and hips that would get in the way of the drape of the fabric. Models are, therefore, chosen for their resemblance to coathangers. They do not look like "real" women, and they're not supposed to.

How they got to be held up as an ideal is beyond me, but I honestly suspect other women to be behind it. We tend to do most of this stuff to ourselves.

Barbie was modelled after a german "sex doll", which explains the unnatural proportions.

Why are so many women feeling compelled to compete with fashion models amd moviestars? When I play softball I don't feel bad about myself because I can't hit and field like Alex Rodriguez.

It's natural female competitiveness! ;)

I used to go to a girls school and we ALL wanted to be the best at EVERYTHING, not necessarily looks, thinness, but games, drama, maths, physics EVERYTHING!

Like I feel bad because I want my black belt before a girl who has been going to kickboxing for YEARS more than me. But I'm so het up about beating her (literally) that it's taking the focus off slightly. At least I'm aware of it, so sane frus can step in and say... "Hang on a minute... She's been here longer!" :rofl: