*If you read my column in the Sun-Herald or Sunday Age and hot-footed it over here just to see the photo of Cindy Crawford naked in the shower? Click here.
Cindy Crawford is happy to get naked for both men and women. She’s generous like that. Having stripped for the boys via Playboy in 1988 and again in 1998, Cindy decided to mark this decade by getting her gear off for the ladies in US beauty magazine Allure.
To celebrate looking hot, Cindy has been photographed wearing a full face of make-up and some strategically placed shaving cream. I am untroubled by this. The former supermodel looks exactly as you’d expect. Stunning. Sudsy. What troubles me – deeply – is the headline next to naked Cindy.
“THIS IS WHAT 43 LOOKS LIKE” it declares. Like hell it is. The caption underneath reads:
This would be fine had Cindy herself not admitted in 2006 that she first saw a cosmetic surgeon aged 29 and that “…creams work on the texture of your skin but to restore elasticity, I count on Botox, collagen and vitamin injections. I drink a lot of water, watch what I eat, and exercise. But I owe the quality of my skin to my cosmetic surgeon.”
Honesty points to Cindy. Such disclosure is rare. And an artfully extended middle finger to Allure magazine for failing to mention the cosmetic surgery, airbrushing the shot to oblivion and then pretending the result was achieved with a sprinkling of antioxidants.
When I posted the Cindy photo and an accompanying rant on my website, comments exploded. Women were exasperated at yet another example of media hypocrisy. Men were exasperated too. By the women. They couldn’t understand why we were kicking up a stink. Typical of this sentiment was a guy who wrote:
“What is it with women and rubbishing other women who are better looking than them? Yeah, no shit Cindy Crawford looks good at 43, she’s a supermodel. Allure is obviously trying to sell products, not report the news. Derr! Who cares if she’s had stuff done?”
I’ve heard this argument many times from men and while I understand their frustration, they’re missing our point. We’re not rubbishing women who are better looking than us. We don’t resent them for it, in fact, we can appreciate and celebrate female beauty as enthusiastically as men. This is not about jealousy. It’s not even about cosmetic surgery. That’s a personal decision between a woman and her mirror.
This is about deception. When celebrities and magazines claim the secret to flawless beauty and a hot body is confidence and some sunscreen, we know it’s poppycock. And that’s even before the image is heavily photo shopped, transforming it into something that appears human, but isn’t. “Why do you care?” exclaim men. “Why do you compare? JUST. STOP.” Excellent suggestion. If only it was so simple.
Let’s play pretend for a moment.
Pretend the world was full of pictures of naked men. On billboards and the sides of buses, in magazines and ads for beer, cars and deodorant. Imagine there were penises everywhere you turned and you couldn’t escape seeing them every day.
And ALL the images of nude men? They were fake. Every guy had had penile enlargement surgery and afterwards, his penis had been photo shopped to make it look even bigger. So now, all the penises you saw in the media daily were knee-length.
One day, next to a magazine article about a celebrity with a foot-long penis, you read the headline:
“This is what a 43 year-old penis looks like.” The caption underneath read: “Asked for the secret to his long shlong, former male model Marcus Schenkenberg insists he was just born that way. “I wear cotton boxer shorts and have daily showers” he shrugs. “That’s all I do.”
After reading a hundred stories like that and being bombarded by 10,000 images of men with surgically altered and digitally enhanced penises, do you think you might look down at your natural, un-photoshopped trouser snake and feel a little…. deflated?
Because that’s exactly what it’s like to be a woman in today’s media landscape. You don’t have to be fashion victim or a magazine junkie to be bombarded by images of women who have been surgically enhanced and drastically photoshopped. You can’t escape the pop culture wallpaper of it unless you hide under the bed with your eyes shut, which tends to be a little impractical.
I don’t know why so many of us compare ourselves with other women although I agree it’s entirely unhelpful. Particularly when we’re comparing apples with lies and airbrushing.
“So stop buying magazines,” goes the next argument. Well, we don’t want to. There are some wonderful things about magazines – features and interviews and stuff to make and do and buy. Sure, we can steer clear of the mags that make us feel bad and try to limit our exposure to fake female imagery elsewhere but it’s virtually impossible if you want to consume media and pop culture, which I, for one, absolutely do.
What’s the answer? Is it for celebrities to start being more honest when asked about their looks? For everyone to Photoshop a bit less or at least declare it when they do? If you know, please tell me because I’m stumped.
Comments
81 Comments so far
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Important article, but remember that not all of us men are against you. I think (hope) the majority of us are with you. One of my girls from 2009 is anorexic – I was shocked when I saw her at her class graduation dinner in 2010: she looked 40! An 18-year-old girl who looked a fading 40 – not a good 40! I couldn’t convince her that it didn’t look good. I had to try to talk to her about “looking good” because that was her concern. And it does somehow contribute to violence against women… one of my girls from 2007 was brutally beaten by a boy friend. I’m a teacher – my kids are important to me.
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no, but men watch a lot more porn than women do, and men in porn have artificially large penises, so we still get the input and the body image negativity, we just can’t talk about it because of 1) it’s not manly to whine and 2) there is a stigma against porn
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Just get over it!
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FANTASTIC article!
I loved reading your come back to the male who said “no shit Cindy Crawford looks good at 43…. who cares if she’s had stuff done”
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I was in the Castro district of San Francisco one year with a male friend and it was exactly the situation you described–airbrushed pictures of men with no shirts on, glitzed up, etc…all men. My male friend said, this is funny and novel, but it’s a bit over the top and annoying. My female friend and I both boggled at him…”um, you do realize that this is LESS than what women face every. single. day. of their lives?” He didn’t. He was floored.
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I don’t think it’s just women who are injured by the bombardment of the “ideal” looking woman. I think there are a lot of men who don’t find love because they are ashamed to be seen with a heavy woman. Because of my career, I spent a lot of time hanging out and being “one of the guys”. At a party, one of the guys talked all night with a heavy woman. He liked her and was really enjoying her company. After that, the other guys teased him mercifully for hanging out with the fat chick. They were still bringing it up two years later! The guy ended up marrying a woman so skinny, it was painful to look at her.
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This is very perceptive of you, Nancy. I agree, it is not just women who are hurt, and both sides are hurt in a variety of ways. And even when the guys thinks they should be with a smaller women, they themselves then feel inadequate. It plants a seed in the mind of larger men that if they’re supposed to find a larger woman unattractive, they should consider them selves unattractive as well. And as you pointed out, even smaller men will possibly ignore amazing women because society demands they desire the preset mold, and peer pressure in many circles didn’t end in high school.
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lol, just a message to all the men who say that they ‘totally don’t care’ when they see bigger penises in porn, at the gym, in a urinal or in this Mia’s vision.. : of course you do.
that’s why need to measure it when you are a teen, why you lie about size and performance in your 20s, run in the gym at 30 and need ‘extra stimulation’ in your 40s..
in your 50s, some 30 years after you peaked your sexuality (oh no!), unless you’re very lucky, it’s game over or at best you get it going with the blue pills.
no wonder, you are spending your life putting all the focus on how women HAVE to look, it’s just such a fab distraction of your on insufficiency.. just give us a break, would you?
If women speak up today, to make this advertising fancy stop, and maybe prevent the next generation of girls to collectively embrace always more ways to stay fit, slim and beautiful instead of just enjoying their life, their body and their very own beauty, must you really come out and be smart about it ???
(and no, i’m no man hating crazed ugly lezbo. i love men and i have a great one at home. but i know you well..and size DOES matter, stop dreaming.)
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Delighted to give you a break since I agree with you completely!
Nah, you don’t need pills in your 50s – unless you’re in poor health or terrible physical condition. A man shouldn’t need them until he’s in his 70s. (I know this from experience, dear.)
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“After reading a hundred stories like that and being bombarded by 10,000 images of men with surgically altered and digitally enhanced penises, do you think you might look down at your natural, un-photoshopped trouser snake and feel a little…. deflated?”
“No.”
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Haha, that would suggest “all men” have egos inflated to such an epic scope that it would cause a blindness to reality and suspension of common reason.
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Sorry, I realised a much shorter way to say my point.
Mia’s question: Wouldn’t you feel deflated?
Men’s answer: No.
Men simply aren’t as insecure as that. (Surprise! The sexes *think* differently too)
I don’t ‘judge’ people by ‘size’ anyway; I don’t personally think that women should be concerned about how ‘large’ you are, so I don’t care how large I am either. I realise that I’m in the minority in not caring about how big a girl’s boobs are, but seriously, you have no need to be so concerned, it’s not a one-sided issue…
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Although I can understand that women might not like seeing breasts everywhere, consider that men *do* actually see penises everywhere (let’s face it, pretty much all men have at least seen porn, most of them watch it regularly), and it doesn’t really make them feel inadequate at all. Now I’m not saying that the media can be forgiven for inspiring teens to starve themselves to look ‘beautiful’ or anything like that, but I have to disagree with the sexist view that seeing semi-naked or naked ‘unrealistic’ pictures and videos of the same sex is only a problem for women (after all, if you compare the amount of porn watch by men with the fewer amount of sensuous pictures of women which are in common society, men probably see a lot more penises than women see breasts [unless women look up porn too])
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This has been a HUGE issue with me, being the single parent of a very impressionable 16 year old daughter. People just DO NOT understand the impact this has on young girls who are absolutely inundated with media and images portraying all these perfect women who look nothing like their images in reality. I have watched my beautiful Elisha Cuthbert look-alike daughter (that’s what everyone calls her) starve herself, hate herself, attack herself, pick apart herself, etc. to the point where it’s beyond heartbreaking, simply because she doesn’t think she’s ‘good enough’, or ‘pretty enough’. You missed this point in your article (albeit, a very good article). Grown women are used to dealing with this BS. Let’s focus on these impressionable girls who feel the incessant need to live up to something that clearly does not exist. THIS should be the focus.
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The answer to women having a healthier body image is, firstly, to realise that what we see in the magazines is not real. It’s a fasntasy. Hell, that’s probably why these magazines are so popular among us women anyway. It’s why porn is popular among men. Because it’s a FANTASY! When he gets into his bedroom, he doesn’t really expect the same acrobatics from you. (At least I think he doesn’t!) Likewise, we shouldn’t expect to see a Cindy Crawford-like image when we look at the mirror. Surely we know that these people only look like that after hours of make-up and wardrobe and styling and fanning. We know they don’t wake up looking like that. So why do we continue to toture ouselves by comparing our bodies to these digitally created images? I think women generally need to spend more time in the real world, looking at other (real) women’s bodies as sources of inspiration. I think more exposure to that will make us realise the difference between fantasy and reality.
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As a teenager I genuinely believed that all girls should look like the models in Dolly. I wasn’t aware that you could touch up photos, and even if I had been aware, even now I’m amazed every time I find out just how far these photos have been doctored.
I agree with Mia, its difficult to keep telling yourself “no I’m in a healthy BMI weight range, I exercise 1-hour 3x a week, I drink lots of water, I try to eat salad or veggies in every meal …” and then see a photoshopped image of what a healthy woman should look like not knowing for sure that her skin actually isn’t quite that flawless and she has had an inch or two shaved off her hips and thighs. It feels like healthy isn’t good enough, and healthy shouldn’t be what you are aspiring to. It doesn’t change the way I behave (I’m an adult so I can still make smart decisions) but the world would be a bit more pleasant to live in if it wasn’t trying to tell me that you’re only truly healthy if your body resembles this model’s.
So if its difficult for me as an adult to not be swayed into more extreme health measures to try and look like the unrealistic model, then no wonder its so difficult for teens.
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Hi Mia,
I am writing to comment with GLEE your article you wrote in the Age 5th April in the magazine attachment M, regarding ladies and models being airbrushed and have had cosmetic surgery.
My male partner read it out to me, with surprise, that another woman could think like me!
For many years I have thought and stated the exact things you stated in your article- especially the billboard scenario!. He has always thought that “no other woman could think like I do”.
I feel that men could not even bear the mere thought of male billboards undermining their masculinity, let alone actually living it on a daily basis.
If I was capable, I would love to organise psychology eternities, Universities etc to join with major marketing companies, to carry out a study (for some years), the effects on males (and relationships), if marketing was PREDOMINATELY MALE. This would mean, items such as large billboards with men looking sexually down on men as they drive through the city; men looking sexy in car magazines, television advertising, while depicting women just as a presence, not the central figure.
I believe that men would, only then, have an idea what it is like for women to have false women and high expectations shoved in their faces, where ever they look!
Good one you Mia- I know Thousands of women think like you do- go girl go!.
Yvonne Biasol
Portland, VIC
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What a wonderful idea, Yvonne! I agree with you completely. What sauce for the gander should also be sauce for the goose…
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Dear Mia,
Please see email sent to you from me just before Easter, re your column on Cindy Crawford.
I perhaps sent it to the contact email address
info@mamamia.com.au by mistake instead of posting a comment here. Sorry!
Regards.
Vicki
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Just thought I would also add something else, have a think about this girls. If every woman in the world decided that they were completely happy with the way they are and that they did not need ANYTHING to make them happy (well maybe a lil bit of chocolate every now and again), whole companies would go broke, the stockmarket would freak and even the black market would be at a loss. Bit creepy when you think that companies are relying on the fact that your NOT happy with yourself.
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It is absolutely creepy. Marketing is about creating a gap between what you have and what you want. To sell more stuff, you make a bigger gap. i.e Thinner models, more photoshopping, more superwomen having it all, doing it all, raising perfect kids, with a great career and awesome sex with a loving partner every night. Oh my how exhausting! Bigger gaps mean more purchases to “fix” the problem.
My specialty is helping women realise that they don’t need to be fixed. Helping with their own self-esteem to know that they are perfect just as they are. I’m so glad that people like Mia are getting the message out there that the magazines are complete fantasy.
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hey ladies I just want to let you know that I can touch up any of your photos if you want. I am doing a bachelor of arts, design and communication and part of that course involves me using photoshop to edit photos. You want genourmous lips, you got it. You want big blue eyes, no problem. You want perfect plastic skin, easy. EVERY woman in the world needs to remember this EVERY time she sees an image that is out in the advertising world. Most ‘beauty creams’ DON’T work, its just false hope that most of these advertisements are selling. EVERY woman is beautiful in their own special way. Beauty is only an illusion!
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gigdiary, you think the penis analogy is laughable?
Isn’t the photoshopping of Britney Spears’ tummy being flat as a tack laughable? Aren’t breasts photoshopped to look like balloons laughable? The photoshopping of women IS as ridiculous as the analogy Mia represents.
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AK – I did things far far worse than air-brush out a mole. You want disclosure? I’ve written a book about it.
Hold on until September.
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Mia, you’re only right about one thing: “This is about deception.”
Deception about “lies and airbrushing”.
1. Lies
I’m not quite sure it’s fair for an ex-glossy editor to rant about non-disclosure when they fail to mention in a body insecurity column they were responsible for perhaps the three biggest culprits of selling said body insecurity: Cosmo, Cleo and Dolly.
You know why I say the ‘biggest’ culprits – these three mags aim squarely at young women who are at their most impressionable age. For many, from this point they are set up for life.
You asked for an answer because you’re stumped, so here’s two suggestions: get rid of these mags (or let’s hope the economic crisis does it for us; sales can only fall so far) or install editors who are honest (Vote 1 for Cindy!) and brave enough to resist the commercial forces that dictate perfection (L’Oreal, PBL Media anyone?).
2. Airbrushing
After the point above, you will possibly argue body love or some such initiative. But I remember a certain (lime!) SJP cover of a certain mag in which the SATC star was Photoshopped within an inch of her humanity and identity for you, as editor, ordered her MOLE be removed. Yes, that’s right. Her most identifiable facial feature was deemed a flaw by a woman who now suggests “everyone to Photoshop a bit less”.
That is but one example, for I remember loads of Cosmo covers with plastic fantastics in little hotpants during your time. (Disclosure: This is not to say I didn’t enjoy your mags, because I did). But I suppose writing about Photoshopping now is not deception, it’s hypocrisy.
Geting back to my point (and yours, of course): deception is worse. So here’s another suggestion to limit how ‘less than’ women can sometimes be made to feel by the media. (I know you’re talking about looks but being made to feel ‘less than’ in terms of intelligence is equally harmful.)
Surely, you or Fairfax should declare your previous role when you choose you rail against things in which you had a hand in a former life?
Mia, you were right about one more thing: “Such disclosure is rare”. Zero honesty points to you.
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I’m going off topic here. I’ve been a reader of MM for some time but only recently starting commenting after reading a post of Mia’s saying how much she enjoyed reading them. She likened the back-and-forth banter to that of a dinner party.
I really enjoy it when we can all sit around over a few wines and debate the issues. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when plates start getting thrown (like in the responses to this post). It makes me feel like I’m back at high school again.
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Happy Birthday Tim … I don’t mind having you around … I think some of the things you say are very valid … maybe you just need to try to be a little less abrasive ??
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Right back at ya gig !
This isn’t an issue that men need to understand & sympathise with … it’s an issue that women need to get over.
My brother shares a place with two Penthouse Pets (lucky boy ?) WRONG – they are gorgeous and sexy and total pains in the arse, constantly complaining how ‘imperfect’ they are – which makes him find them very unsexy & painful to be around. He said “i don’t care how hot they are, they’re head cases”
Maybe if we stop whinging, accept who we are, not bitch about other women who choose to enhance themselves & stop banging on about our insecurities to our men – relationships may improve.
Men aren’t going to go “oh, now I get it … complain til your heart’s content babe” – they are still going to think you are an insecure whinger who holds themself up to an unrealistic ideal.
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Oh Tim seriously?? I’d like to think that if we ignored you for long enough then you would fade away. But clearly that isn’t true.
What some of do and don’t write about on Twitter is completely up to us.
We are not obliged to run every tweet past you for your approval.
If you feel the need to follow our conversations on Twitter that’s your perogative but don’t pretend like you have some moral high ground and need to “call us out” on it.
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your spot on Tim! Happy birthday champ!
Hip Hip Horay!
From The REAL men of Australia
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And for all you twitterers out there, hate is a very strong word…best put where I can see it.
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Thanks Tom Cruise! Say G’day to L Ron for me!
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and tara…
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Numberchick and Angela…I felt the same way and just assumed that I was one of the few with which the article didn’t really resonate.
To some extent I agree with you Mia, in that men do sometimes struggle to understand why we go on and on and on about our bodies and celebrities.
But I also agree with Gig in that it’s not that they lack the brain function to understand but rather that they don’t really care to understand WHY it is so important.
Having said that, i know quite a few men who have body issues and who I have discussed this topic with on many occasions.
The comments I had from them was that they didn’t understand why women needed to bang on about their bodies all the time!
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Happy Birthday Tim. May a bird crap on your head.
That’s good luck apparently.
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I am now in love with RealSydney…
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oh Mummy. I’ll be good, please don’t tell Daddy…
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Exactly numberchick…manners back in please!
Not one of you has wished me happy birthday yet!
(Tom Cruise, one of the great minds of our time…and a dreamboat to boot!)
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Gig and Tim: ENOUGH!!!
Don’t make me threaten the naughty step.
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I wasn’t going to say anything either but I agree with you ACTinglikeamama. I didn’t really find the article funny or clever. I figured it was just me. Anyway we are all different. How boring would life be if we were all the same and how useless a blog discussion if we all just said “yep I agree”.
In reference to previous posts I’m simply going to quote Tom Cruise “put your manners back in!”.
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I have to say that while I am pretty much fence-sitting on this issue, I am hovering closer to Gig & The Real Sydney. Before I met him, my husband had pretty big body issues, he lost a heap of weight and looked really unwell. He would only eat one (small) meal a day and would go for a 1-2 hour workout everyday. He eventually overcame this attitude and started treating himself a lot better and reclaimed a healthy weight. Just recently he has put on a couple of extra kg’s especially around his waist and I have started to see some of the old behaviours he used to have resurface. Men do have insecurities and feel pressure to look a certain way, even more so now then before. I personally thought it was a bit of a cheap shot to use the penis analogy, and I understand why you did it and what you were trying to achieve Mia, I guess I just didn’t find it funny or clever, which is usually the reason I love your articles.
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Ha ha, the sound of cracking. Dish it out, take it…a simple formula my friend.
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Get your hand off it, Tim, your comments are irksome, you have been here a couple of weeks, yet you have endeared yourself to no-one. You are neither witty nor interesting. Obnoxious and interesting would be quite palatable. Plain obnoxious is just a bad smell.
Son, you smell. Your pathetic attempts at comments crawl with deserved contempt. I would have thought that the birthday boy, all of twenty eight, would display more nouse. You are embarrassing me by replying. You are embarrassing Mia’s blog with your inanity and ridiculously potentially abusive comments.
Go somewhere else, somewhere where flaming is acceptable, where childish behaviour is the norm.
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I agree with Gig 100% – I hated the penis analogy – and the fact that so many thought it was funny – it was embarrasing.
I thought it was completely demeaning to the intelligence of ‘most’ men. Not all men define themselves by their penis. Had a man suggested that vagina’s were displayed on billboards to make some kind of point, then this blog would be on fire with women up in arms!
If we are going to expect respect & equality then we need to walk the talk – that analogy was disrespectful.
Men are saturated with images of hot guys with six packs and pecs and perfect teeth and perfect hair – that have also been photoshopped.
I have never heard any of my male friends say “gee, I wonder if Brad Pitt has had botox – he should really admit it if he has”
or “I wish my package looked like David Beckhams in that Armani ad … there must be something wrong with me”
or “Shane Warne is on TV telling me hair loss is a bad thing … and I will be much better looking if I have hair” – but most of them just shave their heads and deal with it.
Why do we need men to understand our insecurities? To validate them?
The issue of female body insecurity starts at school – and maybe the Advisory Council needs to educate young girls on how the media manipulates them – rather than trying to change how the media works.
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28 eh?…impressive
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Dear Gigdiary,
“When you are in a hole, stop digging. But what if you don’t realise you are in a hole? What if you can’t even be sure which way is up? Sometimes, in our efforts to attain clarity, we create even more confusion. Sometimes, too, in our efforts to do the right thing, we become so full of false certainty that we end up doing the wrong thing. Someone in your world now, has good intentions but they are mishandling a sensitive situation. You can help by encouraging as much flexibility as you can, and by fostering tolerance, understanding and compassion”.
- today’s advice for Libras by Jonathan Cainer.
Ha ha ha, I think I might have misjudged astrology all along! Today’s advice for Librans relates DIRECTLY to this ongoing display of excess you seem to be flogging this morning.
There is indeed no need for me to go trawling books of big words and witticisms to keep pace with your vast intellect! Not only are you making yourself look sad and onanistic, but your star signs are telling you to pull your head in too! Priceless.
If I was you I’d be kicking myself with my sparkly silver shoes.
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Indeed, Mia, perhaps I am having a hurrumph moment. A good old dose of male menopause, and well earned I might add.
I should remember that I am rather atypical of the male gender, as my Dad has alluded to ever since I was a kid, much to my dismay. How do you protest to your parents that you’re not gay, whilst wearing silver shoes, pink shirt and blaringly blue baggies, & on the way to the niteclub. Doesn’t every seventeen year old do that.
I shake my head in wonder, as I’m sure they did.
(I was actually employed to play at the niteclub, not just party down)
Anyway, I still stand by my assertion that many men DO get it. We aren’t needful of infantile analogies designed to make women laugh, we are an intelligent bunch, despite the recent comment on your blog that tends to prove otherwise.
Although, as Angela has tweeted, perhaps I should go and listen to my wireless and not worry my GrampaGig head anymore with all this kerfuffle.
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I suppose you have to admire people who write like they’re pulling teeth, whose analogies and references make a visit to the dentist seem a pleasure. Whose wordage is akin to scraping ones fingernails down a blackboard. Whose attempts at wit are so excruciating as to be pitiful.
Perhaps such a person should be entertained. A begrudging acknowledgment of a word here or there used correctly. The feeble attempt at sarcasm considered admirable.
Yet never is the intellect made nervous, made to wonder at any power of dissension, only made to shake one’s head in disbelief at the self-ascribed inanity.
Underwhelmed as I am by such talent I find it difficult to respond, though any response is giving far more due than is deserving.
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Oh Gig – haven’t you yet realised how atypical of the general male population you are?
My penis analogy was not intended to be insulting or condescending. Just explanatory. If it didn’t resonate with you, well maybe that’s because you understood the issue already.
But many many men didn’t. Not because they’re dumb or insensitive or arseholes. Just because THEY’RE NOT WOMEN. I’m always trying to understand what makes people behave in a certain way and explain that behaviour to myself and others in what I write.
I quoted Tim because I think he is typical (as I wrote) of MANY men who think that way – men who are frustrated with women banging on about botox or retouching, men who genuinely throw up their hands at the way women are so self-critical.
With all due respect, I think you might be having a hurrumph moment (as you said)……
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28…wow! impressive..
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Good morning,
On this, the day of my 28th birthday I woke to find I’d been quoted in Mia’s Sunday article. Prompted to read more by this, I was shocked to find myself agreeing with some of the overly descriptive and thesaurus driven paragraphs of my old arch-nemesis, the self-attested intellectually superior Gig Diary.
I agree that our penises aren’t exactly the equivalent of skin care and all female body parts. Certainly, men have body issues too and we wish we were all as solid as the guys on the cover of Men’s Health magazine. I simply understand when I see those pictures that I would have a hell of a lot of work to do to get into any kind of shape like that…not only this but also I would need the right genetics and so on.
Images of unattainability are everywhere in society. The image of Miranda Kerr in underwear on bus shelters shows men what they can’t have and women what they can’t look like.
But must we be so looks-based? Why can’t you look at an Einstein equation or some James Joyce prose and go ‘Oh they must have had brain work done?’
Sometimes you just have to accept that others are better than you at looks, sports, flying a kite, or in the case of Gigdiary…vocabulary.
Gigdiary has set the bar high for word play on this site, even with absolute shit spewing off his keyboard, like me being an illiterate neanderthal (something that I still find more desirable than calling yourself a ‘Libran’ despite allegedly being male- ha ha, how respectable, a bloke who’s into the secrets of the stars…so new aged!).
Despite agreeing with this pork chop on a few matters, I still had a chuckle over Mia’s analogy. I would feel more than a little inadequate with knee-length penises being billboarded all over town, and I appreciate the attempt by Mia to explain it, rather than do what a whole lot of her commenters do and just berate males for not understanding a complex female perspective.
Gigdiary, if you’re wondering what to write next, ring Jonathan Cainer…he’s got some very important news to tell you
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Brilliant article Mia.
Hey Gig, by your own admissions you are not ‘your ordinary bloke’ and therefore would be automatically excused from the ‘mainstream’ male opinion on photoshopping.
I really don’t think you need to take anything in this article to heart. I don’t feel that Mia was ‘dumbing down’ her arguement for the sake of male readers. I think she was focused on writing a great article about a serious topic but making sure she found a happy mix of informative, light hearted and comical points to make it something people would want to read and talk about – and I think she succeeded!!!!
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Maybe it’s me, though I like to think it’s some contrary Libran bug that’s going around. I usually sycophantically enjoy your writing but lately you have, by your own admission, been quite shouty! By the same token, as a Libran, I’ve become more annoyed than usual by pretty much anything written in the blogosphere or twitterverse.
For instance, Cerry and I are having a real barny of a Twitter at the minute and I don’t see it resolving soon…silly girl doesn’t respect Led Zeppelin, people older than, err, 19, and anything her parents do!
Mia, perhaps you underestimated the capacity of your thinking male reader. We aren’t in need of flash cards of penises to get the point across. We are able to understand the issue, although, perhaps, and I’ll agree, perhaps we haven’t been made aware of the issue.
I flippantly suggested ‘we just don’t care’. Perhaps I should have suggested we aren’t concerned, because we haven’t been made aware of the dilemma. With all due respect, your hubby saying, ‘oh now I get it’ is probably more due to ‘oh now you’ve told me what it’s about, of course I get it’.
We aren’t unsympathetic, perhaps the unsympathetic tag should go to your myriad commenters who did react to your post the way I felt it came across. They certainly picked up the ball, goaded by your writing. If I misunderstood your post, it’s obvious that they did, and are still misunderstanding your post.
I love your blog, your writing. I’m not here to throw a spanner in the works. Though it seems your spanner, this time, has opened the wrong can of worms.
Men aren’t the enemy, we understand the problem without kindergarten aids. Please treat men in the same way you hold respect for women. Quoting inane comments that ordinarily you would consider deleting is opportunistic, unfair and unhelpful to the debate. The lowest common denominator is hardly representative of the male half of the population.
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Oh my aching sides! Mia, top post. I have to say though I think it’s only a matter of time before the need for a foot long shlong analogy isn’t needed for most men to get it. Botoxed, air-brushed male bodies and ads playing on male insecurities about ‘performance’ seem to be gaining serious ground in pop cultural space.
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Absolutely brilliant as always!
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Mia , you just answered your own question in your last paragraph.More honesty, less Photoshopping, and more realism.Unfortunately, this is not gonna happen,so we must make our own judgements. No easy answer,though.Perhaps take these mag pics with a large grain of salt?,and a very large dose of scepticism.