The Onion reports on a disturbing new trend:
Increasing Number Of Men Pressured To Accept Realistic Standards Of Female Beauty
The tragedy!
NEW YORK—Confronted on a regular basis with images of women who represent a diverse array of body types, a growing number of American men are reportedly feeling pressured to accept the increasingly realistic standards of female beauty now depicted in the media, social scientists confirmed this week.
“More and more, men today find themselves bombarded with un-retouched images, and with that comes the considerable mental burden of trying to reconcile what they see in these ads and magazines with their personal perceptions of beauty,” said sociologist Cliff Hillard, who studies attainable ideals of female attractiveness in the media and how they can create an overly realistic sense of what women ought to look like. “For most men, it’s very discouraging. Instead of seeing only rail-thin models, they’re now exposed to accurate representations of women whose proportions mimic those of actual human females.”
Look at it this way: it will make going to the supermarket and taking the bus less traumatic. Habituation can take the horror out of anything.
H/t G Felis
I’ve never really been sure what men even get out of conventional standards of beauty. My own lusts have been my own and varied without much regard for such matters, and I’ve been fairly happy.
The only reasons I think men might even care are these:
1. Women are status objects. Being associated with the right one increases status among male peers.
2. Failure to conform with such standards gives men a means of harassing or degrading women.
And don’t give me some evo-psych bullshit about beauty standards deriving from optimizing reproductive success. There are a huge variety of body types that are pretty damn fertile, and for every story they can spin I can spin another.
Oh good grief the horror…
Actually, I always wondered what special secluded Island all the models and music video extras were kept on. Certainly never one I’ve found.
Francisco,
The reasons behind beauty have nothing to do with evo-psych (how could they, when they vary so widely between cultures and centuries?) and everything to do with displays of social class.
In the Middle Ages, when most work was done outdoors, it was considered wildly attractive to have lily-white skin, because it indicated you were wealthy enough to not have to go out much. Now that most work is done indoors, a tan shows that you’re wealthy enough to spend leisure time at the beach or tanning salon.
When food is scarce, it’s attractive to be fat. When food is plentiful, being lean is a way of demonstrating your resources and time to go to the gym.
Like most things, it’s all about the money.
QFT
Its us menz that are the real victims here! Have some empathy! imagine the shock a young lad gets, in this day an age, discovering that women are literally covered in hair, spots and other unsightly nastiness.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/lorde-outraged-after-finding-photoshopped-3320432
I really liked that article.
…And then I looked to the right. The related suggestions included: “Rita Ora steps out make-up free and looking tired as she makes her way to a London recording studio,” “Kendall Jenner shows off her pert bottom while zip-lining through Thai forest on vacation with Kardashian Klan,” “Kim Kardashian fixes Khloe’s hair in sweet sibling snap – so they do love each other after all,” and “The night demure DIED: Knickerless Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace flashes boobs, bum and then naps on a wet shop floor.”
Sigh. Never look to the right.
Or the bottom, for that matter. A local rag I use for footy news, has then at the bottom, 10 ugly celebs without make up, 10 hottest etc. Eventually , I expect, they will all be in the middle and the actual things you are trying to read will be squashed round the edges. Still its nice to see the occasional young un, with some standards, and receiving twitter support for them too.