InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Neil's new album rocks!"

Phoenix (凤凰) (spacelogic) wrote,
@ 2009-10-12 15:07:00

Current mood:	aggravated
Current music:	Bob Seger - Hollywood Nights

NOTHING IS RIGHT
Questions that have been bugging the crap out of me recently:

-If I drool over a photo of a woman in a mainstream magazine, is that a healthy expression of my sexuality and pro-woman or participation in the enforcement of unhealthy beauty standards that harm women? (Mostly hypothetical, because aside from women I actually know enough about to like for themselves/their work as well as their appearances, I tend to be attracted to moderately to quite chubby women who don't have bleached or straightened hair/too much makeup/obviously photomanipped everything, so the only magazine photos likely to affect me are ones of women with really cool eyes, which are a minority.)

-Where are the women I actually want to drool over, aside from in real life where they can break my heart? I can't even tell these freaking bottle blonds apart half the time, and the brunettes get iffier all the time, and the black women with suspiciously pale skin and obviously fake hair make my soul cry because nobody should have to do that much to be accepted as attractive. Culture, stop fetishizing fakeness and start catering to my tastes!

This post brought to you by the Society for Not Doing Homework Just Yet.

(This post was going to be much better, but I suck at writing today so it's not. Maybe some other time.)

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	atalantapendrag 2009-10-13 12:52 pm UTC (link)
	...if only On Our Backs still existed.... (Reply to this)

	shadowvalkyrie 2009-10-13 04:35 pm UTC (link)
	laughs and cheers (Reply to this)

kaesa
2009-10-13 11:44 pm UTC (link)

If I drool over a photo of a woman in a mainstream magazine, is that a healthy expression of my sexuality and pro-woman or participation in the enforcement of unhealthy beauty standards that harm women?

My feeling (and obviously I'm not everyone, and of course it's your sexuality, so the rest of us don't really have any authority to validate it) is that the drooling itself isn't a bad thing, it's the additional refusal to see women -- both attractive and unattractive -- as people. You don't seem to be insisting that all women should look like the ones you find attractive, nor do you seem to be fetishizing them. (And yes, fat women do get both "flattering" reactions. I have. They are really not flattering.)

All the sites I know of with pictures of attractive fat women seem pretty much non-sexual/-romantic, though, so I don't think I can help you there. But can I join the Society for Not Doing Homework Just Yet? I have to write a contract between Romeo and Juliet Montague and Hamlet's Catering and Party Planning, Inc. for their daughter Kate's graduation party, and mostly I am sitting here wishing my teacher had just written the AU fic and got on with her life.

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spacelogic
2009-10-14 06:10 pm UTC (link)

The bit I'm concerned over is that I might be seen as agreeing with the improbable to impossible beauty standards as good things and, thus, to societal pressure to conform to said standards. Even though I think the standardization of impossible appearances is terrifying.

The Society welcomes all applicants! Fill out our pointless paperwork full of silly questions instead of doing your homework, then kick back for a well-earned break. *beams*

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kaesa
2009-10-14 08:36 pm UTC (link)

It's just that, well, you can't really control whether you find someone attractive (unless you can, and I totally wish I could trade you for that superpower, because the only ones I have now are Invulnerability to Water Balloons, the Ability to Fix Any Zipper, and Conditional Invisibility) and your feeling bad about it won't help anyone. I mean, you still know and are concerned about these beauty standards being deeply fucked up.

My homework is to create pointless paperwork. ::sigh:: Although, I did all that work on the contract last night and I found out I didn't have to write it after all.

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