TW for body policing and hat tip to Kate.
Brought to us courtesy of the Funny reddit, we have an alleged “joke” that has many unique traits, such as not being remotely funny, unless you happen to be amused by people who fail at humor.
A skinny man thinking “I got sweet abs bra” and a fat woman thinking “at least I have nice tits” are shown. Caption: abs on a skinny guy is like tits on a fat girl.
I… I don’t understand. What’s the joke here? I mean, I can compare two random things too! “Hats on a hipster is like xkcd T-shirts on a geek.” “Tabby on a cat is like spots on a dog.” “The half-rotten carrots in my refrigerator are like my partner’s collection of My Little Pony toys.” LOL I AM HILARIOUS SOMEONE SHOULD GIVE ME A COMEDY SHOW OR SOMETHING I AM SO FUNNY.
After examining the comment section in great detail, I have determined that the “joke” is that neither abs on a skinny guy nor tits on a fat girl count, because you’re still ugly. Don’t they have any quality control at the Funny Reddit? This seems like it belongs in the Painful Attempts At Being Funny Reddit. (Like basically all my jokes. Ba-dum-TISH.)
My first response is to point out that both of the people in the picture are totally fucking doable. Like, neither is a ten out of ten for me (for one thing, to be someone I’d want to fuck, that dude really needs fewer abs and longer hair) but I wouldn’t exactly kick either of them out of bed for eating crackers. True, there are some people who apparently think these people are Exhibit A for ugliness. But there are also some people who are like “hot damn I would bang that lady so hard it would create multiple new universes.”
That is because people are fucking different and find different things attractive. Do more people find thin ladies than fat ladies attractive? Probably! Except in Mauritania! (I am not discussing whether women find thin men less attractive, because I have spent far too long in fandoms where women perv over dudes who look like this to respond with anything except quizzical-face.) Part of the reason more people find thin ladies than fat ladies attractive is because American culture is all like “so, fat ladies trying to be sexy, they are all the hilarious? Thin women fap fap fap!” and some of attractiveness is socially constructed. But a huge portion of it isn’t and is based on random idiosyncrasies in the way your neurons fire and the porn you watched when you were fifteen and the girl you had a crush on in middle school and, I don’t know, the phase of the moon when you were born.
So basically: saying that you find thin dudes with abs unattractive is cool, because it is pointless to argue with what people find attractive! Saying that thin dudes with abs are objectively ugly is not cool and also not true!
I also find this interesting because it equates skinny men with fat women. Initially, that makes you think that fat men are the most conventionally attractive men, which is intuitively untrue. However, it’s a product of the way we tend to talk about body image– as a fat/thin dichotomy. In reality, in modern Western society, there are three body archetypes: fat, thin, and muscular.
No one is supposed to be fat. If you’re fat, you will, on average, get the most shit of any of the body types. People will police what you eat and wear! Doctors will assume that many of your ailments are directly related to your weight even if they aren’t! Assholes will call you a whale! For a lot of the culture, the idea of fat people being sexual is inherently hilarious, and no one is “really” attracted to fat people– they are just desperate or unable to get anyone else. Because the Beauty Myth tends to be stronger for women than men, the whole “fat people are ugly and undateable” thing tends to be harsher against women, but men get a lot of it too.
Women are supposed to be skinny. Skinny women are hot. It is possible to get “too” skinny, particularly if like many skinny women you have small breasts, at which point people will make all kinds of absolutely hilarious “eat a sandwich” jokes. (Yep. Never heard that one before.) Nevertheless, in order to qualify as conventionally attractive, a woman MUST be thin, and thin women experience a lot of privilege. Skinny men are (except, apparently, among fangirls) looked down upon as being ugly.
Men are supposed to be muscular. Once again, “too” muscular gets you all kinds of absolutely hilarious steroid jokes, but you have to have six-pack abs and good arms to be considered conventionally attractive. In fact, some studies suggest that muscularity is linked to masculinity. Muscular women are looked down upon as being ugly dykes.
My pet theory is that all this is rooted in the beauty ideal’s great fondness for sexual dimorphism, but that’s not really a falsifiable theory. But regardless of the cause, we shouldn’t be pressuring people to have any particular body: whatever is healthy for them (or as healthy as they can achieve, given life circumstances) is a good body.
I think the internet loves body-hate. Or society — whomever. People who live very sheltered lives in ivory towers without the benefit of experience. Reddit is ripe with this kind of thing because it’s teenagers and teenagers have got fuck-all in the way of responsibility, so they go out looking for other people to criticize as if their vicarious decision making makes them a wiser, better person. If you’ve been on this earth for two decades where 90% (18 years worth) of decisions were largely not under your control, you’re chomping at the bit to prove that you’re not a… Read more »
Seriously you don’t get this? It’s not at all about “you’re still ugly” AT ALL. It’s not a negative body thing about either one of them. The point is… all (or most, or at least many) skinny guys have abs, just like most (or at least many) fat girls have big boobs. Point is, it’s nothing to brag about. And in the context in which it was given, it’s much more a dig at skinny guys than fat girls. It’s when guys brag about having 6-pack abs, when they weigh like 150 — it’s nothing to brag about. Having 6-pack… Read more »
THANK GOD! I was reading the comments and was genuinely worried that nobody got the very obvious point of this picture. Also, that guy is maybe pushing a buck 40 soaking wet…if that. Glad someone understood it.
I think there’s also a subtle but important difference between “should” and “could”.
At least some of that has to do with the fact that men inform random women passing them on the street what they should do to be more attractive. I imagine that sours a lot of women on the subject.
@daelyte
Your girlswithmuscles link made me think of Io, from Wonder Woman canon
http://www.gregrucka.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/io-design-a-1.jpg
Awesomesauce.
Reddit, for all its avowed liberalism, is actually quite bigoted and sexist. Film at eleven.
Funny thing; I’ve hear certain SJAs complain about prejudice against fat people, while simultaneously claiming thin people are never oppressed because they’re thin. I’m old enough to remember the tabloids musing whether Calista Flockhart was anorexic every five minutes.
Sounds like good advice for men seeking to improve their attractiveness.
Yet when men suggest what women should do to be more attractive to men, it’s often considered chauvinist and/or sexist. It’s a weird double standard.
@makokmk:
“men’s standards of sexual attraction do not align with the media’s claims”
Exactly.
“men who work out should keep their butts in good shape too for the benefit of heterosexual women that like that kind of thing”
Sounds like good advice for men seeking to improve their attractiveness.
@dancinbojangles:
How many men and women get their impression of what the opposite sex wants from such sources?
Yet another subject for a gender-egalitarian seduction site. What do real men and real women actually find attractive? We could have a whole section on it.
daelyte: Hm! I… Guess I didn’t know precisely how stupid women’s magazines were!
@dancinbojangles: “I don’t understand, this would seem to contradict your point. Scarlett Johansson is practically the definition of conventional attractiveness, and is a household name in media.” http://www.wwtdd.com/2011/04/scarlett-johansson-isnt-pregnant-just-fat/ http://www.hollywoodgrind.com/scarlett-johansson-is-fat/ http://www.celebjihad.com/celeb-jihad/scarlett-johansson-is-fat “Hollywood and women’s magazines are really stupid and sexist about a lot of things, but how can it be said that their opinion on attractiveness falls outside of current consensus if their poster children for attractiveness are the very DEFINITION of that consensus?” Hollywood considers these actresses to be PLUS SIZE, tolerated because their “exotic curvy look” appeal to a “small minority” of men who have an “obesity fetish”. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/most-models-meet-criteria-for-anorexia-size-6-is-plus-size-magazine/… Read more »
Makomk: do you have a link to that thing about the false rape claim?
@monkey: I’ve kinda given up hope on the whole thing and to be honest there isn’t one good link that explains it, but this is a good description of the problem (though the rest of the discussion there is mostly pretty awful). Also, these were linked in the Reddit post and say a lot: before and after pictures of the comments section on the original troll’s blog when someone tries to call them out for rape apology.
@Rhubarb: “If that’s true, then how can you express a preference without “implying” that everyone else should fulfill it?” You can wait till its relevant to the conversation, and say “I like ABC, I’m not attracted to XYZ”. I dont think we can reasonably compare what the person posting the picture did to simply “Expressing a preference”. Not only did the person who made/posted the picture attempt to use their opinion (that skinny guys = bad and overweight girls = bad) to shame others, they invited others to join in on the shaming. That’s pointedly disrespectful and humiliating, and was… Read more »
@daelyte: Sorry, didn’t read your first couple paragraphs very carefully. “According to many studies, the sweet spot on the weight bell curve of what men find attractive US size 14, which includes the average american woman, the average for internet pornstars, and such actresses as Christina Hendricks and Scarlett Johansson. Basically Hollywood and Women’s Magazines have it wrong.” I don’t understand, this would seem to contradict your point. Scarlett Johansson is practically the definition of conventional attractiveness, and is a household name in media. Hollywood and women’s magazines are really stupid and sexist about a lot of things, but how… Read more »
Also, after examining the comments section I think I can safely conclude that a lot of Redditors are not exactly great fans of the body hate. Other conclusions from the Reddit comment section there: men’s standards of sexual attraction do not align with the media’s claims, and apparently a reasonable number of Redditors think that men who work out should keep their butts in good shape too for the benefit of heterosexual women that like that kind of thing.
We used to call that nebulous string-puller “The Patriarchy,” but then feminists discovered POCs, the disabled, transfolk etc., so now we call it “kyriarchy.”
How come some people are considered unattractive by a majority of the population: Because Kyriarchy!
How come not everything in the media is tailored to boost my personal self-image? Because Kyriarchy!
With so many real issues out there, the fact that navel-gazing has been reduced to actually gazing at navels is simultaneously hilarious and pathetic.
“Our culture has a “consensus opinion” that doesn’t reflect the actual consensus of what most men and/or women actually find desirable”
Is that, in fact, true? I don’t think we should be making that assumption. Certainly, those who are not content with the current paradigm are most likely to speak up, but I’m not convinced that they make up the majority of the population. At the very least, it seems to me that those who do conform to the current notion of attractiveness possess a controlling interest. Then again, I don’t know. Are there metrics for this sort of thing?
Is it me or does the guy in Exhibit A look like Jason Dohring? “Do more people find thin ladies than fat ladies attractive? Probably!” According to many studies, the sweet spot on the weight bell curve of what men find attractive US size 14, which includes the average american woman, the average for internet pornstars, and such actresses as Christina Hendricks and Scarlett Johansson. Basically Hollywood and Women’s Magazines have it wrong. The fat girl in Exhibit A has limp greasy hair, and her clothes hide her curves instead of accentuating them. If she had nice hair, brick lipstick,… Read more »
Nice article Ozy, but I find the objection to sexual dimorphism odd. It’s the way that most every species do things, whatever the case may be for who’s the dominant one. Hell, the deep-sea lantern fish has those parasitic, tiny males. I don’t think it has much at all to do with “culture” that humans are attracted to exaggerated displays of our already existing sexual dimorphism. The idea of this strange nebulous culture I find strange, too. It always sounds like there’s some string-puller or like an Illuminati that determines what the culture is. Really what’s meant is “consensus opinion.”… Read more »
unDeleterious: If that’s true, then how can you express a preference without “implying” that everyone else should fulfill it? We’re getting to the point in the fat wars at which it’s impossible to talk about bodies at all without being accused of “implying” we hate everything else. Some well-meaning fool says something along the lines of “real women have curves,” and the angular types say that you’re denying their femininity. Use a skinny guy on an ad for a piece of fitness equipment and the HAES people are all up in your grill. Sometimes I think the only way to… Read more »
To crying in the bathroom: that article is terrifying.
To Rhubarb “Nobody is telling the person on the right to lose weight or the person on the left to bulk up.”:
Not explicitly, but they’re implying it.
To ozy: 0_0 are you in… Bandom?
So your definition of ‘skinny’ means ‘neither obviously fat, nor obviously muscular’, like the guy in your photo, rather than ‘gaunt’? There are a lot of nearly synonymous adjectives available that carry different connotations: slim, slender, slight, lanky, boney, rangey….
Dunno, how would the guy in the Reddit pic look if he were standing up?How woud the guy in your pic look lying down ?
I’m not defending the Reddit thing, and I’m not asking you to find it funny.
But… there are lots of skinny guys that don’t have abs. o.O There are a fuckload of skinny men who look more like this.
I don’t think it’s funny either, but there is a correlation there: Skinny guys ” have abs”(that you can see) because they ARE skinny. The abs aren’t necessarily particularly well developed, they’re just visible because the guy has so little body fat. Fat girls(some of them) have big boobs because they ARE fat. The extra body fat which makes them big everywhere else also makes their boobs bigger. In both cases, the ‘desirable’ feature (visible abs, big boobs) is a consequence of the ‘undesirable’ feature (too skinny, too fat). Personally, I wouldn’t rate either of the individuals pictured as unattractive… Read more »
Is voicing a preference the same thing as publicly humiliating everyone who does not conform to your preference? I agree that the two individuals in the image were humiliated, but the message – which seemed to be Ozy’s concern – is nothing more than the expression of an opinion. Nobody is telling the person on the right to lose weight or the person on the left to bulk up.
Rhubarb
Everyone has the right to their preference, man and woman and other alike. That is not the same as publicly humiliating everyone who does not conform to that preference. This second obligation applies to man woman and other equally.
I found myself to be a much happier person when I realized that not all media was for me. In a world of functionally unlimited bandwith, there is as much room for Twisty Faster as there is for Reddit. I pick and choose what I want to read and I don’t judge what other people find funny as long as they treat me with respect. People have preferences w/r/t which body types they prefer, and that’s OK. Some preferences are more common than others. If you are one of those people who share the set of preferences implied in the… Read more »