Heh, well I suppose Kate Moss did have a healthy sex life too, after all, seen as she’s had a series of boyfriends many heterosexual girls and many gay men would equally envy. Not to mention it’s quite hard to get pregnant if you’re anorexic. Yet that’s what she was called for quite a while on the tabloids.

Watch this video (totally worksafe):
http://www.animero.com/warner/neworder/cdon/neworder.html
The guy is even skinnier than the girl. You literally see his bones. I’ve never heard the “anorexic” adjective used about guys like that. Why is that?

The claim made here is that the ones who are “so thin” would NO WAY have anything sexual on their minds. She didn’t say the ones who are ANOREXIC. She said the ones who are SO THIN.

I’m not as thin as I was in high school, but I am still a size zero. Like Sally’s friend, I was taunted daily about my thinness, and I was not considered attractive. I was gross. But hey, the modeling world accepted me, so I went where I was accepted and did some teen modeling. I was naturally 6% body fat at the time, which is well below the so-called essential 13%. (Heck, I’m STILL not 13%.)

I used to look like Kate Moss (probably even thinner), and my life was hell. Now I look more like Heidi Klum, which is only 5-10 pounds more, and still well below what many people consider acceptable. I thought about sex all the time when I was like Moss, and I think about it all the time now.

PS. I’m interested in ads, too. Looking at the way companies choose to communicate with their consumers is totally fascinating, and yes, I think design absolutely falls into the realm of art. At the same time, the attempted manipulation of consumers’ emotions bothers me–and at the same time, I understand why it’s a great idea.

There’s a commercial on TV now that makes my mind spin. Some movie or music star’s–I think it’s Puff Daddy; I’m not what you’d call familiar with his work–car breaks down, and so a passing Pepsi truck takes him to a movie premiere. Suddenly, everyone is driving around in fancy Pepsi trucks.

The implication here is that our decisions about luxury purchases are influenced by our idolization of celebrities. It’s an advertisement about the insanity of falling for advertising! It’s saying, “Look at all these people who want to drive Pepsi trucks just because Puff Daddy’s driving one; aren’t they silly?” And at the same time they’re saying, “Look! Puff Daddy! Buy Pepsi!” Their rationale is, I think, that we should support self-deprecating companies, companies that have a sense of humor about themselves, companies that do a wink-wink nudge-nudge routine in order to convince us that yeah, they’re advertising, but they aren’t doing it under false pretenses.

Problem is, that can be considered a “lifestyle”: somebody who’s in on the joke. So, really, Pepsi’s using their ads to attract the kind of people who like to think of themselves as (for lack of a better term) ironic hipsters. They’re doing exactly the same thing that they’re parodying!

Boggles the mind.

Full disclosure: I am currently drinking a Pepsi.

What about women who find them artistically interesting? That’s why I occasionally buy them. I like fashion (especially the artsy, “no one would ever wear that” stuff) because it’s a form of art. I like the ads because they’re also a form of art. Of course I don’t like all of it, and I do agree that there are serious problems with the way women are portrayed.

The orgasmic women are also very thin, of course, some so thin that no way would they have anything sexual on their minds. When one gets adequately anorexic sexual feelings are an extravagance that the body sheds in order to stay alive.

I don’t see the word “artificial” there. Can you show me where it is? In fact, she said “there is no way,” which is categorical. She didn’t say “it is highly unlikely that…”, which would have admitted the possibility that someone might be that thin without having an eating disorder. That’s what Echidne actually said. Saying “it seems obvious that…” is not a substitute for actually addressing the text.

My best friend in high school was 5′9” and 100 pounds. She was thinner than any model I’ve ever seen: she was thin enough that nobody thought it was attractive. She did not have an eating disorder, and she was not asexual. As an adult, she filled out, and she now has a model-type body. That really is just the way she is. Just as some people are naturally predisposed to be fat, some people are predisposed to be very thin. I’m sure that some models starve to make themselves that way, but some of them are just genetic-outliers when it comes to body composition. And as I’ve said again and again, I don’t think it’s a good idea to make assumptions about people’s sexuality (or their eating habits) based on the shape of their bodies. My high-school best friend endured way too many taunts about how any guy who slept with her had to worry about being stabbed by a hip bone.

As I’ve also said again and again, I’m not defending a beauty culture that holds that highly-unusual body type up as an ideal. I’m just saying that we can criticise the culture and the ideal without suggesting that it’s ok to make assumptions about women based on the shape of their bodies.

Sorry. I guess I lied about that being my last word. Now can we talk about Elle? Because this feels like a bit of a diversion.

I used to buy Elle and Marie Claire sometimes, years ago. Now the only glossy magazines I buy are architectural and interior design, and it’s largely the same thing, I’m buying a fantasy of a lifestyle. I’m never going to be able to purchase a renovated traditional house in Morocco or Argentina, or a solar-powered hi-tech cube house outside of Tokyo, but I can drool on pictures and descriptions of it for hours.

As for models, hmm, I have a feeling they’re not particularly more affected by anorexia, drug use or stupidity than the general population. Either that, or I’ve only met the wrong section of the population all along…

Language is such a tricky thing. Maybe there should be a different casual term to describe people who are thin, either because it’s their body type, or because they do control their weight out of vanity, to keep that definition separate from anorexia as full blown obsession of the clinical kind, that would make it very hard to hold any job. There is still some relation with how women are portrayed, it has to do with identity and gender and sexuality, but in a lot less direct and a lot deeper way than straightforward vanity or obsession with body image and the myth of thin beauty as portrayed in glossy magazines. See this article in the London Review of Books for a great thought-provoking take on the subject.

No, actually she didn’t. What she did was comment that when women are at an excessively *artificial* low weight, their sexual response is affected. And that’s true. That has nothing to do with women who are naturally thin at all.

In fact, Sally herself quoted Echidne’s lines: “The orgasmic women are also very thin, of course, some so thin that no way would they have anything sexual on their minds.”

To me, it’s obvious here that she is talking about extreme, unhealthy thinness, not the bodies of women who just happen to have a natural tendency towards low body fat.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out that extreme dieting and malnutrition are unhealthy, and do affect sexual response.

The fact that some people are quick to assume any very thin woman is anorexic is another question entirely, and a valid complaint to make. But I think we would have to be beyond naive to assume that most of the “waif”-style models were just born that way.

Amen, Sally. Those assumptions do nothing but pit women against each other.

There must be a reason women buy magazines like “Vogue” and “Elle” beyond an interest both in fashion and in pretending to be someone who is fashionable. Likewise, there’s a reason people buy “The Nation” and the “New Yorker” beyond an interest both in politics and in pretending to be someone who is informed about politics. I’m not sure what that reason is…

The other thing is that it isn’t wrong or harmful to imagine you’re someone other than the person you really are. I’d argue that it’s unavoidable, even beneficial. Who doesn’t dream about what they’d do with a million dollars (aside from the people who have a million dollars)? The problem comes when you confuse fantasy with reality and blame yourself for not becoming a better, more attractive, more lovable person after you follow x instructions or buy product y. It’s also harmful when you consistently believe that being you is never as good as being someone else. This is the message that ads push–but not necessarily magazines.

I really like looking through “In Style” magazine. It feels like a treat; I’m not sure why. (I get a similar sensation from “New American Paintings” and most magazines about print and web design and other visual art.) But when I’m through, I put it back on the library shelf and go home, reasonably content with my life.

Sally”“it’s always the lifestyle that drives the sale.

Well, sure. But I don’t think that most people who buy Entertainment Weekly or The Nation are buying a lifestyle in quite such an explicit way.

I also have to gripe a bit that on just about every discussion I’ve seen on this topic on feminist boards, the comment that most models represent a very unrealistic standard for most women ends up getting twisted around as being “thin bashing.” Yes, I know thin women get accused of being anorexic even when they eat like lumberjacks, and I’ve had a couple of friends like this. It sucks. Just like people assuming a fat woman sits on the couch eating bonbons all day. For *most of us*, we *would* have to be practicing anorexics to look anything like the women in the magazines. But to say that doesn’t mean I’m accusing all thin women of being anorexic, any more than I’d be accusing all women over 6′ of taking growth hormones if I said that it would be impossible for most women to achieve that height without them. I think it’s important that we keep speaking out that the images of women in the magazines are not realistic, if for no other reason than the sake of girls and young women who are bombarded with these images.

Elle is selling its readers the perception of being wealthy, slender, and fashionable. Its customers, on the other hand, are purchasing access to the eyeballs of people who desire, or at least fantasize about, being wealthy, slender, and fashionable.

Sally–it’s always the lifestyle that drives the sale. Always. Watch the backgrounds of ordinary TV commercials, and observe what is implied by them. The car, or clothing, or cellphone is always presented as a small-but-vital component of the Satisfied Consumer. Perhaps, if you buy one, through some sort of sympathetic magic, you too could be Satisfied….

his expertise is the reason why Chivers wanted to study at Northwestern.

“I did come to NU to work with Dr. Bailey because of my interest in sexual orientation research,” she said.

I don’t know. Perhaps you could ask Chivers or Bailey about this. I don’t know when we’ll see another study on the topic, with the ongoing war against sexuality in all forms. Or against ’sin’ and ‘evil’, as the self-professed warriors put it.

Omar: Would you say a little more?

I was wondering how straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women would react to porn that they knew was not geared towards them. A lot of porn is made with a straight male audience in mind, in particular the ones with one man and two women going at each other. Knowing that they weren’t the target audience, how would that knowledge affect their arousal, as opposed to viewing porn that was made with straight, lesbian, and bi-sexual women in mind?

But magazines are funded by ads as much as (or more than) by the cover price. And advertisers don’t buy ads unless they think they’re getting something out of it. So someone is buying the stuff advertised, some of, but not all of which is also very expensive.

I do think there’s an element of buying the fantasy. It’s not just hte fantasy of being able to afford the stuff. It’s also the fantasy of having somewhere to wear it to.

I’m not sure this is a big enough distinction to have an impact on your argument, but I think it’s worth mentioning. Perhaps people like to feel like insiders, and if they can’t actually buy something that represents a certain lifestyle, they want to at least know that it exists.

I don’t think I’ve ever read “Elle,” except maybe at the dentist, but I like to page through fashion magazines for ideas. I can’t buy the $900 shirt–but I bet I can make something that looks a lot like it.

“It would have been scientifically preferable to use actual people as our sexual stimuli, but this was obviously impermissible. Our study used ‘porn’”

I wonder if vegetarians had an ethical loophole like this would eating chicken nuggets be all right so long as no chicken was killed live in front of the vegetarian?

Would you say a little more?

As to rest of the thread: yeah, the situation seems fairly bizarre. Though I guess previous times made equally absurd demands of women.