(Hat tip to Sociological Images.)
Below the cut, we have a fascinating video in which a man becomes both the “before” and the “after” body for a weight-loss, muscle-gain ad– within only a few hours. To get the after body, he lifts weights (to make his muscles more prominent), tans, sprays his body with PAM, takes the picture with good lighting, and flexes– not to mention using a little Photoshop. To get the before body, he relaxes on the couch for a few hours, consumes high-fat high-salt food and diet soda so he bloats, takes the picture with bad lighting, and pushes out his stomach.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M957dACQyfU]
Beyond the fascination of the transformations a body can go through in less than one day, why is this video relevant? As we talk about ad nauseam, women tend to have a Beauty Myth (“you can never be beautiful enough”) and men a Success Myth (“you can never be successful enough”). However, something I find fascinating is the way that both myths tend to bleed over into the “wrong” genders, often in particularly gendered ways. Women often face pressure to be Supermoms, with a successful corporate job, two well-adjusted intelligent children, a happy husband, and a clean house– and look good the whole time. And men are starting to experience a similar unrealistic beauty ideal, although with (as of yet) much less strength than the female ideal.
I think it’s because corporations, having already gotten rich off women feeling like shit about their bodies, have decided to explore the untapped gold mines of men feeling like shit about their bodies.
But, seriously, let’s nip the male beauty myth in the bud. Photos lie. Just as the skinny model with the C cup breasts is the beneficiary of genetics, plastic surgery, and unhealthy diet and exercise regimens, the zero-body-fat model with bulging triceps is the beneficary of genetics, steroids, and unhealthy diet and exercise regimens. While the male model may seem to be “healthy,” what’s really healthy is a well-balanced diet and sensible exercise plan– whether it leaves you with belly fat or six-pack abs. (Not to mention that people should feel no duty to be healthy if, in fact, doughnuts and bad TV are what will make them happier– but that’s a different point.)
It is even more ridiculous to feel like you have to live up to a beauty ideal that even the models don’t. Without clever tricks of photography and a little Photoshop, the man in the video looks like a normal, if very athletic, man; with them, he looks ready for the cover of Maxim. And, hell, I’ve met female models. You’d be surprised how ordinary they look without makeup and good lighting and Photoshop. There is no sense in feeling bad about how you look because you don’t look like an ideal no one does.
I have a before body. So do you, and so does the man in the video, and Hugh Jackman, and everyone else you’ve ever met. People with before bodies climb mountains, fall in love, save lives, raise pretty awesome children, create art, play sports, and generally live happy, meaningful lives. I am proud of my before body, and you should be too.
About ozyfrantz
@Suturexself: well, I guess my issue with the “there is a healthy way to lose weight!” thing is that all of the issues you mention STILL EXIST, and everyone wants to claim that their new gimmick is the “healthy, safe, effective” way – so unless you become an expert yourself, you’re relying on the expertise of people who may not know their shit, or may be out to just make a buck. So with “lose weight” as an unreliable goal (since you need to be superlatively savvy to sort through the industry), why focus on that, instead of healthy behaviors? Especially since fat stigma is so prevalent and harmful anyway, so not focusing on losing weight (as an overall goal in our society, I mean – I support individual choice/medical necessity when it is TRULY medically necessary*) has the added benefit of reducing fat stigma.
*As opposed to the physicians who blame everything that is wrong with a fat person on hir weight/tell the fat person that every solution is to become thin, and not to, say, become stronger.
@Startledoctopus: It sounds like you’re rightfully bothered by the snake oil industry that pretends to be the “weight loss” industry.
I agree very much that focus should be on healthy behaviors over losing fat – however, having been overweight and knowing the social effects of it, I support someone trying to lose weight, provided they’re going about it with a good mentality and by way of healthy behaviors.
@L
So what you are saying is that there are easily found examples, somehow you know this. But you can’t point to some of them?
I believe that what L is saying is that if you look around you, in your own life, in your own lived experience for these examples you will find them (and a wide range of other behaviours). If you have a rigid idea of “this is how things are/this is the way these people act”, then that is mainly what will catch your attention via confirmation bias. But change your environment, look for other behaviours, surf some other sites on the internet and you’ll find a lot of other evidence. Wild stuff, this variable human behaviour in a diverse society…I can tell you about my observations of my co-worker Walt and my sister Kate and the guy who works in the dry cleaners next door, but that won’t mean anything to you…but I bet if you look around real life (not the internet exchange of selected anecdotes), you’ll see some things that don’t fit the evo-pop-psych/gender wars/reductionist babble of the day.
@Kaija24
What L said
“Not wanting to consider someone dating material, or even like them for that matter, is a right we all have that doesn’t get acknowledged much when talking about tolerance and acceptance and all that.”
The claim was that MRAs get all in a fit when a woman’s right to do so is discussed.
I asked for examples of such. I have no doubt such things exist, but I ask for examples.
My experience is that it is female feminists who seem to have a troubled relationship with male preference. See Jill’s recent article on period sex for an obvious example.
@Dr. A:
I’ve noticed a tendency to treat any description of a male’s preferences by a male as some kind of claim of universal truth (rather than one of personal preference) unless care is taken to disclaim it (and even then, that preference might be evil and misogynistic), while not holding a description of a female’s preferences by a female (which are always automatically OK) to the same standard.
I suspect it’s a variety of confirmation bias. I also think the tendency to see misogyny everywhere but not see misandry (or in some cases not even believe it exists at all, or *even better* interpret all misandry as really being about misogyny) as being an example of the same thing — confirmation bias.
I was amazed that no one seemed to want to compare that article to the H.S. facials article.
“I’ve noticed a tendency to treat any description of a male’s preferences by a male as some kind of claim of universal truth (rather than one of personal preference) unless care is taken to disclaim it (and even then, that preference might be evil and misogynistic), while not holding a description of a female’s preferences by a female (which are always automatically OK) to the same standard.”
I did notice a recent post (I’ve generally stopped going to Feministe, not at all worth the stress) where a man says he wants a woman who wants to stay home and raise kids. The article, and all the commenters, pulled out their pitchforks and lit up their torches, all in a rage over how sexist he was.
Yet, in reality, he was just saying that he had a particular circumstance that he thought was ideal, and he wanted to find a partner who wanted the same thing. Somehow, I seriously doubt they’d be in such a fit over a woman saying “I want to stay home and raise kids, and I want to find a man who can support that kind of family structure.”
@Suturexself: A lot of that debate goes on in the BDSM world. You know what you tend to find? WAY more of a developed support network for subs and submissive-types than for the doms and d-types. Because basically what the situation is is “I want someone to control” vs “I want someone to control me”. Who, intrinsically, has more power and leverage in those situations? The person doing the controlling, obviously. So yeah, it’s a shitty knee-jerk, but people not in positions of power don’t tend to abuse that… non-power as much. And this is gender-neutral. I’m wary of domineering women who are out head-hunting for a wage-slave husband just as much as the alpha male head-of-household type who wants his steak and blowjob 5 minutes after stepping in the door every evening.
@Dr. Anonymous: I didn’t give you examples because I’ve got waaay better things to do with my time than spend 3 hours combing the NSWATM archives and thousands of comments over the past ??? months in order to prove a point that I really shouldn’t have to to a single stranger on the internet. It’s not like I have some sort of study I could point you to either anyways. C’mon. So like Kaija said, all we’ve got to work with right now is anecdote, and when it come right down to it, that doesn’t really hold water ever. For better and for worse.
My experience? My experience says that male preference is regarded with the same sanctity as gospel and the same clout as the writings of any Greek philosopher, and female preference is dismissed as girls just being silly. I mean, there is a narrative out there, after all, that says that women always wind up settling down with average-looking or even sub-par-looking guys (insert “beta male” drivel here), and who knows, maybe everyone thinks this subconsciously, which is why their preferences are so often waved off as useless and futile and why do we even bother having standards god women are so picky.
Combine this with male-gaze everything in media and advertising, The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, and female sexual preferences start looking pretty stupid, don’t they.
“I’m wary of domineering women who are out head-hunting for a wage-slave husband just as much as the alpha male head-of-household type who wants his steak and blowjob 5 minutes after stepping in the door every evening.”
Sure, both are equally bad – but there seems to be an easier jump to a man preference meaning he’s the sexist “alpha” you describe than a jump to a womans preference of being a houswife meaning she’s a lazy gold digging bitch.
I see what you’re saying, though, about the power differential. I just don’t think its fair to so quickly make those types of assumptions (I’m not saying you are, just in general) when people admit their preferences.
I’ve been in one D/s realationship, as the D. The s abused the SHIT out of her position. Probably never going down that road again.
I don’t know if companies are just exploiting people ‘feeling shit’ about themselves. I think the market for fashion, cosmetics, ‘male grooming’ is partly to do with encouraging people to feel good about themselves! yes with the help of products but still it is often aimed at the positive not always the negative.
“I don’t know if companies are just exploiting people ‘feeling shit’ about themselves. I think the market for fashion, cosmetics, ‘male grooming’ is partly to do with encouraging people to feel good about themselves! yes with the help of products but still it is often aimed at the positive not always the negative.”
Well yeah, they tell you that you’re shit first, then they claim their product is the positive solution to that problem. So their product in itself is not negative, it’s just the societal attitude towards not having it. Like say, going make-up less all the time and being fine with it (my case), vs being so used to wearing it daily that you feel naked and don’t dare go outside the home without any (my mother’s case).
On my side I have youth, a generally pretty face, and formative years not being told anything about how I needed make-up to look any good. It’s then much easier to simply assert that much of make-up (at least for daily wear) is a waste of money and time. I’ll wear some, some times, mostly at the insistance of my boyfriend, or to have a different look. Still rather rarely.
@Mae West Fan: It’s both. It’s “This is what’s probably wrong with you/lacking in your life. All you need to fix it is to use our product, and keep buying it forever. If those things aren’t lacking/problematic for you, then you should buy our product to make sure that it’s never lacking because this is what could happen should you do otherwise.”
Marketing is all about manufacturing a need, even if that means destroying people’s self esteem.
@L
“Dr. Anonymous: I didn’t give you examples because I’ve got waaay better things to do with my time than spend 3 hours combing the NSWATM archives and thousands of comments over the past ??? months in order to prove a point that I really shouldn’t have to to a single stranger on the internet. It’s not like I have some sort of study I could point you to either anyways. C’mon. So like Kaija said, all we’ve got to work with right now is anecdote, and when it come right down to it, that doesn’t really hold water ever. For better and for worse.”
So to sum it up, as I said. You ‘know’ that there are lots of examples of this, but you can’t reference them. I see. The second comment seems that you are trying to tell me how much you don’t care what I think.
“My experience? My experience says that male preference is regarded with the same sanctity as gospel and the same clout as the writings of any Greek philosopher, and female preference is dismissed as girls just being silly.”
How exactly would this manifest itself? What does the opposite look like?
Forcing people to have certain preferences? Have you heard about gay-to-straight camps targeting MEN?
“I mean, there is a narrative out there, after all, that says that women always wind up settling down with average-looking or even sub-par-looking guys (insert “beta male” drivel here), and who knows, maybe everyone thinks this subconsciously, which is why their preferences are so often waved off as useless and futile and why do we even bother having standards god women are so picky.”
What are you talking about? All I see is women in their late 30s and 40s lamenting that they oh so would like a child but they can’t find a man they deem worthy and this is all the fault of the menses.
“Combine this with male-gaze everything in media and advertising, The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, and female sexual preferences start looking pretty stupid, don’t they.”
Wait, what did you just say? This makes no sense to me.
@ Dr Anonymous: Go to http://www.manboobz.com. Search the archives. You will find examples of what you are looking for, in abundance.
@M Dubz
I have read Manboobz, I have read it a lot. Yes, he takes up some examples. But still not close to Amanda Marcotte getting away scott free for passing judgement about men in shorts and sandals.
Please take up your obvious beef with Amanda Marcotte at HER blog. No one wants to listen to it here, and the comment guidelines clearly state that crap from other blogs is not up for derail.
The question was about feminists holding their right to preference sacred. I examplified.
Oh my God, I lovvvvez this blog! I’ll visit back to respond to this post.