I am a man. A married, heterosexual male of 39. Being a heterosexual male, I like women. A lot. Not all women, mind you, a great many of them I could care less about. What I like are curves. The bigger the curves, the more I like it. When it comes to breasts and backsides, I am a connoisseur; an afficionado; an enthusiast.
Please don't get me wrong. If you are a woman with an ample posterior, I will be the man who you catch staring if you look over your shoulder, and if you think you see lust in my gaze, you would not be entirely wrong. But, I seriously hope that you do not miss the look of awe and admiration riding along with it. There is just something about a big, round butt that touches me deeply, making me glad to be alive. It is almost a religion with me. High priest of the great golden ass. That's me.
It's hard not to feel so strongly about something without having some thoughts on the matter. What I think about the most is how the very things that makes me glad to be alive and bring me such joy are, for the women who have them, mortifying points of crying shame (owing to decades of indoctrination by the media). A true multi-billion dollar conspiracy by the fashion industry, "women's publications" (a new diet with EVERY issue,) the weight-loss drug/diet, cosmetic-surgery/medical combine. Propaganda that begins with the parents' purchase of their very first Barbie. It is this message that makes it a very rare woman who can look in the mirror without hating what she sees. And, that in most cases, probably owes more to her own self acceptance than how well she meets some other arbitrary body size standard. Truly, it's a slippery slope from meeting that standard to self destruction from one eating disorder or another.
Back in the day of Brown vs. the Board of Education it was determined that the doctrine of Separate but Equal was found to be injurious to the minds and souls of black children through the use of dolls. When presented with black dolls, the children were asked to describe their feelings about them, and the feelings were uniformly negative. There were described as "ugly, stupid, bad." In contrast with white dolls (pretty, smart, good.). The children were describing how they felt about themselves as fostered by Separate but Equal.
I suspect there is a lesson here. We can take it for granted that Barbie is the standard. What would be a telling sociological test would be to present girls, young and adult women with dolls that were made to realistic scale and ask what they thought about them compared to the Barbies that they are familiar with, just what would they say? It would not be hard to imagine that they would respond verbally with what they say to themselves internally when they look in the mirror.
If, as Leonard Nimoy explained on the Colbert Report, girls are performing oral sex to spare themselves the horror of baring their bodies for which they are ashamed, then clearly they have learned from Barbie everything they are going to. That, however, is only part of the equation.
The "super model" look is the child of the fashion industry which is dominated by gay men (am I wrong?) The whole thrust of the aesthetic is that models are only walking clothes hangers. The beauty of the female body is NOT the point, the clothes are. Just as the draw of Barbie is the outfits that come with it, the accessorising.
To address the other side of the equation you must remember that women are built the way they are to attract the attention and desire of men. Most men, heterosexual men anyway, are not captivated by how a woman looks with an eye toward how to accessorize her, but more towards imagining how her body feels. A point foreign to most gay men.
How could something like that be quantified? Again, with dolls..
Have boys, young and adult men look at a series of female dolls ranging from anorexic Barbie size to Venus of Willendorf, set in twenty pound gradations and see which size they think is most beautiful. I expect that that men will find the dolls that look more like real women to be more appealing. This is in spite of the fact that men receive their share of indoctrination from the media and it's only human to want of you perceive others to want. It appears that I may be an exception to this rule, but as I talk with other men on this subject, I find that I'm far from alone in what appeals to me, more than anything it seems a matter of degree. Men are far more concerned with what feels good in their arms and under their hands than what articles of clothing a woman is wearing. Something you never see in women's publications; the disparity between what women are encouraged to strive for and what men actually desire. That the most beautiful thing a woman can wear is nothing at all.
I personally prefer women at the heavier end of the scale. Why? I've got some ideas. I'm near-sighted. Without glasses - curves ,big curves, allow me to identify gender at a distance easier. Maybe that's part of it.
Too, I have known poverty most of my life. Among blacks and whites both…curves are appreciated because a well fed woman is a beautiful thing when hunger isn't far away.
I know for a fact that the inverse is true as well.
Supermodels are popular because they are fundamentally accessories in their own right. The trophy wife that goes good with the sports car. It's not because they look as if they feel good to hold, but because they are symbolic of wealth, status and prestige.
Similarly, big breasts are always popular, and more common than big bottoms, no doubt because they can be bought. Implants have all the softness and give of rocks. However, a woman who has implants wears the uniform of someone who associates with wealth and social status. If she's single and not a dancer or an escort, then it signifies that she is enough of a professional in her own right to afford them.
The only people who buy butt implants are men on their way to becoming a woman.
There is an honesty in a big, beautiful butt that I can't deny.
The primary argument for women to lose weight, regardless of what their size actually is, or what their frames are designed to hold, is that it's supposedly healthy to be skinny. There is a war on obesity being waged by the Surgeon General, and all manner of statistics about how obesity among children is on the rise.
Let's take the healthy lifestyle argument first. Granted, being heavy does place stress on the joints and frame over the long term, but the threats to the heart for a high sustained weight accompanied with exercise are less than that found with rapid weight loss and subsequent gain that accompanies yo-yo dieting. No diet is totally effective because the weight lost is often gained back, and usually with interest. The failure of diets is always assumed to be the result of a weak will. In truth, the body has mechanisms in place for the survival of famine conditions (which is how the body interprets dieting). Truly not a healthy state of affairs.
Among supermodels, the New York Continental breakfast - coffee and cigarettes, is the meal of choice because they are appetite suppressant . Mmmmmm, lung cancer and cardio-pulmonary disease. Yum, healthy! Not to mention cocaine as a favored dietary supplement. If models were forced to test for performance enhancing drugs, like coke or speed, we would find that Kate Moss is not so unusual. She just had the bad fortune to get caught.
The true depth of hypocrisy in the "thin is healthy" propaganda did not become revealed until the '90's "heroin chic" came to the fore. You never hear about it now, but not once did I hear anyone criticize it for being unhealthy. Obviously, if drug addiction and AIDS (one of the major risks of social heroin use, along with death by OD,) make you thin, then they can't be all bad. Better skinny and dying than fat and alive, I guess. In fact, it seems to me that the look that so many women strive for IS found among drug addicts, advanced cancer and AIDS patients. Clearly, sick is good.
Secondly, as a society, we are much enamored of our technological toys and conveniences. While experts bemoan our culture's sedentary life style, it is our dependence on motor vehicles for transportation, and on TVs, computers and video games for entertainment that keep us fat. All of which, except for the Wii game system, are used seated and with a minimum of physical expenditure. The only way we could win this war on obesity is if all motor vehicles were outlawed as personal transportation, along with TVs, computers, video games and anything else that can be done sitting down.
It is a truism that healthy food is more expensive than bad food. Also, that it requires more spare time and disposable income for exercise equipment, health clubs, trainers, and dieticians than most working class people have. In this way, physical fitness is a means of dividing socio-economic classes and supporting the idea that thin is better.
It is for this reason that I find more of the beauty that I appreciate in the parking lots of shopping centers in blue collar neighborhoods than I do in high end retailers.
For the reasons outlined above, the "Obesity Epidemic" is unlikely to improve anytime soon. For me this is not a bad thing. America is filled with beautiful women. But so long as they continue to pursue this Quixotic 'War', the women and girls they target will continue to suffer in their hearts, souls, and minds, (just like the black children under Separate but Equal). They will always be there to buy into the next diet described in their favorite magazines. Always ready for the next toxic Miracle Diet Pill (amphetamines, phen phen, etc.) Always putting their lives on hold until they get in shape or lose those next 15, 30, 50 pounds; never being able to stop because 'they can always lose more weight,' and hating themselves if they can't. As though personal worth was some inverse proportion equation that increases the right of a woman to feel good about herself in direct proportion to how much less of her there actually is. To be at the mercy of abusive husbands, boyfriends, partners who tell them they are undeserving of respect or esteem because their "ass is too big." That they can't love them if they don't lose weight, and then they justify the abuse by telling them that "it's for their own good."
Daughters crippled by mothers who themselves have bought into the propaganda and are worried about their children being fat just like they are.
It's no mistake that the countries and cultures that have lately embraced Western culture and its media ALWAYS see a rise in eating disorders among young women where there was none before.
Self-hatred among girls and women seem to be part and parcel for the American Dream, sadly.
And the dirtiest little secret are these women, who have so much trouble drumming up any self assurance, esteem, confidence. What will they not have trouble finding? Men who love them and their bodies. For men who truly love women in all their jiggly glory, there is no more painful question that a woman can ask him than "does this make my butt look big? Do I look fat?"
How can a man explain to his woman that her ass is big, that she may even be fat - but she is no less beautiful because of it. How can he tell her that everything she has heard and made to believe is a lie?
Would she believe him? Think he is misguided or crazy? Love him anyway?
One can only hope.
I think about these things a great deal. It is impossible to think at great depth about something and not feel anything about it. And how do I feel? Sick at heart and outraged. As the self-proclaimed High Priest of the Great Golden Ass, I can tell you that this facet of our culture and society is down-right abominable.
Back in the very dawn of time, when Man was young, there was something that so deeply touched him and moved him that he was compelled to memorialize it and to cast its form in the most permanent material at hand. Creating art…the very first step on the road to human civilization and culture. Creating an object that was at a stroke, the first abstracted, idealized, and realistic image - no doubt laden heavily with religious significance at the time. And it has survived to this day. And what was this image, this icon, which marked Man's first step on his ascent out of the world of the animals? It was of a woman. A woman with great pendulous breasts, huge hips, and a big sagging belly. It was the Venus of Willendorf and all of her small stone sisters. An image that is nearly a perfect antithesis of everything that is supposed to be female today when compared to Barbie. A perfect reminder of how far we have fallen from the grace we once knew…if we ever did.
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