So, by not caring that the picture is - and it is, very clearly - photoshopped, you’re also saying that you don’t care that you’re lusting after something that’s not only fake, but that you’re being played by a picture engineered specifically to elicit that response.
That’d make me feel slightly grubby.
And as to who cares, well. Maybe ask a real women how she feels about being constantly confronted with these impossible images of perfection and a man who freely admits to the suspension of his ‘higher brain functions’ when he drools over these fakes.
Please. Like us men don’t have to contend with girls drooling over Jake Gyllenhaal or whoever. Like us men don’t have our own images of perfection (be they financial, career success, sporting talent, height, confidence or just sheer good looks). We all have our own pressures to deal with.
I also really want a Ferrari. I’m not getting any nearer to a Ferrari than I am to Keira or Scarlett. I can quite easily differentiate between reality and a picture that has no connection to reality photoshopped or otherwise.
Saying I don’t care that it’s photoshopped is saying the girls look hot, and they still look hot weather it’s photoshopped or not. I’m quite happy to have them look hot. They can photoshop the image or not. I can’t tell the difference. I can’t tell if a girl is a natural blonde or not. They makes just as little difference to me.
Any social hangups anyone has on that is entirely their own. I’m perfectly capable of realising that how they look in that photograph is an irrelevancy in the real world and in my personal reality. You’re over analysing something where their is nothing their.
Girls do indeed drool over Jake Gyllenhaal. I myself have a particular fondness for Gary Oldman, and have no problem with men drooling over whoever they choose. However, present me with a picture of Gary Oldman, or anyone else for that matter, photoshopped to grotesque perfection and it would be an instant, utter turn off.
Gary would look hot, I have no doubt. But it wouldn’t be real. And knowing that
Whether you’re actually ever going to get the woman is irrelevant. Apart from anything else, should the fragrant Scarlett drop into your lap one day, she wouldn’t look anything as perfect as that picture. You say you can diferrentiate between the real and the fake, but your libido doesn’t seem to be able to and that’s what the creators of that picture are exploiting and that’s what’s cheap about it.
Men absolutely have their own pressures to deal with, I never claimed otherwise. In the body image department they’re not yet as great as womens, but it’s definately increasing and they’re just as depressing. And should I actually have found myself hot over a computer manipulated picture of Gary Oldman, I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing men any favours by justifying that desire.
Social hangups are created, they’re not hardwired in the genes. I don’t think I’m over analysing, I think you’re under-thinking.
You think images of men’s any any less manipulated? Maybe marginally. But they are not raw and untouched my anymeans.
And I’m not saying I can tell the difference by the real and the fake. In fact I’m saying that the fact I can’t means it makes no difference to me to care. I’ll find the undoctored picture just as much of a turn on. And it’s not like lighting and a bit of make up and all these other tricks they have without photoshop don’t alter reality anyway. I’m saying I accept that nothing is real and hence I don’t really care. It’s much easier normalise everything to “it is what it is” than care that something is photoshopped or shot in soft lighting or whatever. Also the photgrapher in charge of the photoshoot is one of the most renown photograhper in the industry so it’s perfectly possible that the image isn’t photoshopped and it’s merely done with a good eye and decent lighting. Or it might not. I couldn’t care either way. It’s a photograph of two attractive stars naked. I’m happy to accept it as such and enjoy what I see.
I’m not underthinking anything. I’m taking something at face value and weather it’s jimmied behind the scenes or not doesn’t change anything.
It certainly doesn’t change how I treat other women or what I desire in a partner or anything else. Much in the same way I wouldn’t not date someone because they wear make up or die their hair as being “phoney”.
I can’t even tell the difference between a doctored and undoctored photograph, yet if I was 5 inches taller, didn’t wear glasses and stayed clean shaven by chances with girls would be several orders of magnitude greater. I have to deal with more social hangups than I create or perpetuate.
Calling me up because I find two attractive naked girls hot on a picture that may have been photoshopped but I couldn’t tell is a cheap shot. If you think I may be shallow that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with photoshop, and I’m less shallow than most.
This isn’t even slightly about which sex is being expoited the most, and neither is it about you not being able to tell that the image is photoshopped.
A good chunk of what we think of as our own desires are actually dictated by the fashions of the day, with the media in its many forms being the main culprit. If the media churns out increasingly manipulated photos of women - or of men - these are the images that will shape our lusts. And the further these images are away from what real human beings look like the scarier, more disjointed and more fraught real flesh and blood relationships, sexuality and fucking - never mind issues of self esteem and body image - becomes.
We’re all insidiously - and sometimes, like above, obviously - influenced like this, and it absolutely DOES change our desires and the way we see others. I don’t care if you’re shallow or not, the only thing that concerns me was you ‘who cares’, because we all should.
The media churns our what people want. People want what the media churns out. It’s chicken and egg.
I don’t care if the image has been photoshopped because it’s not the photoshopping that I’m looking at but the nakedness. My reaction would have been the same was the image not photoshopped. I can’t care about something I don’t even know was done.
Additionally the media is behaving in a way the media behaves to suit a buying public that expects the media to give them what they want. I can’t care about that either. I can only care about my reaction and my reaction was pretty much “two hot naked girls - hoo ha”.
My reaction was all their was too it. All this was, but a simple blokish reaction to nakedness of attractive girls. Their was no subtext nor need their be. Even if you the image is photoshopped, I still can’t tell. That knowledge doesn’t make the picture any less hot. It doesn’t change anything. I don’t suddenly find the picture any less hot just cause I know it may be fudged a bit.
What exactly do you expect me to do? How exactly do you expect me to find them less attractive because of something being done to the picture I can’t tell.
I care about things that affect my life. This doesn’t.
Nasty vicious cycle, no? Women buy these monthly glossy magazines where every picture of every model is touched up in some way - is that what we really want and need, or is our desire led and infulences by such things? We live in a time and extract real desires from manufactured ones and this state of being affects everybody’s lives, whether you can tell the real from the fake or care one way or another.
The subtext exists whether you acknowledge it or not, and very many ‘simple blokish desires’ - and those of women too - are as fake and engineered as the picture themselves. In the end of course, people are still going to find photoshopped to hell pictures sexy for one reason or another, but for me, knowing that I’m being played is what turns me off.
Fashion has also reflect desire as much as desire reflected in fashion. No one is forcing women to buy these magazines.
Knowing you’re being played turns you off. That’s fine. Why should I have to have the same emotional response as you? Why is your emotional response the defined benchmark? Why is your emotional response acceptable, but mine not?
For me to care about the photoshopping would give credence to it’s value. I give none. Put two hot naked girls on a picture and I’m pretty happy.
You think the adverts putting forward a “normal unphothsopped body image” (e.g. dove) are playing you any less? It’s all marketing, and by playing on the counter they are being just as manipulative.
You’re expectation that I need to have the same response as you, is unfair.
So my higher brain functions are no less suspended.
I’m not underthinking anything.
Bwahaha! I love it!
Anyway, my other point about it being photoshopped is that they look like eerie wax dummies and that is in no way hot.
Beyond that, we already know Scarlett and Kiera are both beautiful women, IRL. That the ‘sexiest woman in the world 2005’ still isn’t perfect enough to be shown nella carne is creepy and odd.
Like I said, I can’t see any photoshopping. So it’s not creepy and odd.
I don’t think they look like wax dummies. I think they look a bit uncomfortable with being naked. Which I quite like. Makes them look more real, to me.
Noone is forcing women to buy these magzines only in the sense that noone is marching them to a cashpoint and then into WHSmith. Of course there’s pressure to buy such things, there’s pressure to buy all manner of things coming at us from all directions, and when you add that to many women’s insecurities that these magazines proffer to cure with their glamourous models and perfect lifestyles, that is coercion.
Dove and their bigger women campaign is one of the most manipulative beauty ads ever. If they really wanted to target ‘real’ looking women, they would have just shown plump women and not even mentioned it. I find it quite foul, and can’t imagine why you’d think I’d find it more palatable.
I never once said mine was the only acceptable reaction. I state it only in response to your own, a function for which comments boxes were intended. I find your response to a fake image creepy and base, your inability to distingush between a real and photoshopped image disturbing and indicative of a problem with society as a whole, and your insistance that there is no subtext behind such images and they do not affect your life simply staggering, but I do so without expectation of changing anybody’s mind, because I would have thought less of myself not to say anything at all.
I think they look a bit uncomfortable with being naked.
That uncomfortableness was probably added in post.
Which I quite like.
Now you seem creepy and odd, too.
Makes them look more real, to me.
My ironymeter is going wild.
Re that link you put up, Nuge, I actually thought she looked better before the photoshopping. There are much more dramatic examples out there. Check it.
I wasn’t suggesting you would find the Dove adverts more palatable. I was suggesting that it’s all marketing, something which I accept, ignore and move on.
I can’t tell how some professional artist has touched up an image. It’s his job for me not to be able to tell. I can however tell shoddy engineering work quite easily. We have eyes that pick up different things, and me not being able to tell something that seems “obvious” to you is unfair.
Also I never said their is no subtext. However when everything is photoshopped or edited or fudged then the subtext is actually the the reality of the day. I’m sure painters 100 years ago did the equivalent when doing a portrait.
Like I said, the media reflects the fashions of the time and the fashions reflect the media.
Hi, I read regularly but don’t comment often. However, this conversation I decided I need in on. I specifically want to comment on your last statement, “However when everything is photoshopped or edited or fudged then the subtext is actually the reality of the day.” That line of thought is exactly the problem with society today. Those photoshopped images are NOT reality — in reality, the AVERAGE woman is 5’ 4” or 5” and weighs 145 pounds. The average women does not enjoy seeing only those images and therefore having only those photoshopped women to compare herself to. And the reality is, you will compare. It’s impossible not to. Regardless of what the photoshopped images say to you, reality is not underweight — and almost all models are underweight.
I am not an average woman. I have been blessed with a body type more in line with the media’s portrayal of women. But you know what? It’s not good enough. I could list the deficiencies I see in my body, especially when compared to what the media portrays, but that won’t do any good. You’ll just tell me I shouldn’t compare myself. I ask you, what I am I supposed to compare myself to, when that’s what I’ve spent my whole life seeing, when I’ve been told just by seeing the covers of fashion magazines (which I don’t and have never read) that is the image of beauty?
I currently am struggling to remain in recovery from an eating disorder. While I do not entirely blame the media for this problem of mine, I do believe that it plays an important role. I know I have other issues that have led into the eating disorder — however, what the media portrays only makes it easier and quicker for the eating disorder to really grab hold. Do you know that there are women out there who take these pictures — photoshopped images of women (usually who are underweight) and call them “thinspiration?” They use those images to push themselves towards a goal, because that’s what they want to look like. You said your issues are height, glasses, etc — you can’t change those so you have to accept them. Weight, however, can be changed, and that’s why it’s so dangerous for the media to constantly portray women in this way.
Okay — I think I’m starting to lose my point, and this is just turning into a rant. Although first I want to agree with Jack about the Dove commercials — they’re no better, because they do point out what they’re doing, instead of just doing it. And one more note — 100 years ago, women were not painted at unhealthy weights, and people where not completely swamped with this images. One portrait is one portrait — not the cover of a magazine that you see in any store you walk into.
The media reflecting fashion is fine. Photoshopping away facial imperfections (zits, etc) is fine. Heck, they do that for the average joe when you get formal pictures taken. However, the media perpetuating an image that is unhealthy and unsafe for women to strive for IS a problem. And society supporting that is an even bigger problem.
Jen, I’m sorry to hear about your eating disorder and I wish you all the best recovery. Please understand that this is all debate and in no way an attack on anyone or anything.
I fully accept the media tends to perpetuate a body image of women that is unrealistic. Although photoshopping is just a recent tool to do that, and in itself is not the issues (models are still thin regardless of the photshopping). However the media is just feeding the public what they want. If people stopped buying magazines the media would shift to perpetuating a different body type near damn quickly. The media is giving the beast what it wants. The media is as to blame as the people who buy their wares. It’s very symbiotic. Sure the nature and delivery of the media has changed but the nature of the beast hasn’t.
And I feel feel for women I really do. But it’s not a gender thing. Men may have (currently) less body image issues but we have our own social pressure that are different. Do you think because I can’t change my height, that it makes it any easier to deal with? Do you think feelings of failure and inadequacy because I’m not as successful or earning as much as I perceive socially I should to be considered successful is any less emotionally troubling than not being thin enough. It’s just different.
But the same way you might look at a man and not know or care how much he spent on his suit, I can look at an photograph and not know or care that it has been altered.
Now if I started buying those magazines and chasing an impossible image of a women you could call me on it. But glancing at semi-naked chicks and going “woo hot” and then moving on, I don’t see what you are calling me. I very likely started at some non-airbrushed non-modelesque non-naked girl 2 seconds later and thought the same thing.
I don’t disagree that the media isn’t doing a lot of good to women. I do say however that the media is as much to blame as the public that buys their wares. I also say that pulling me up on this, is the wrong target. You’re turning a sideways glance into a social wrong, and all it really was, was a sideways glance.
What a cop-out. You can truly hold the two opposing concepts of “Who cares if they’re photoshopped?” and “The media is not doing a lot of good to women.” in your head and not feel conflicted. It’s not your problem. It’s okay because you’ve got your own shit to deal with, that balances things out, see? And if the media happens to punch up a few artifical images for you to ogle over as you breeze through your day? Not your problem. That’s just “the way it is”. Deactivate your higher brain functions and walk on by.
Wait, wait- stop and take a photo of it. Post it on the internet. Perpetuate it.
“This is what guys find hot, ladies. Get out those belt-sanders and take `em too your thighs for that extra translucence that’s so perfect it seems almost…computer-generated.”
Your attempts at equivalence are ludicrous, firstly because you do NOT have the same pressure to conform to a body ideal as women do and attempting to primp up other, gender-neutral issues to try to create some kind of balance is bizarre and perverse- but also because it doesn’t matter if there IS a balance. A wrong is a wrong, even if it has some kind of equal wrong on the other side of the gender fence- it’s still wrong. Shrugging your shoulders and saying: “That’s life.” doesn’t actually ever help solve problems.
Just to clarify: Your sideways glance is not the social wrong. The fucking image is.
I said I don’t care if it’s photoshopped because I can’t tell. Suddenly telling me it’s photoshopped doesn’t casue any change in me of suddenly finding the picture any less attractive.
Secondly don’t accuse me of perpetuating anything. Like I said several times, I can’t tell the photo is photoshopped. I STILL CAN’T. I put a picture up of two naked attractive stars as a ohh wow, and because I find them attractive. I wouldn’t have put pictures up of Cameron Diaz because although she is attractive I don’t find her hot. You’re reading social commentary into my actions where there was non. No more than any other picture I post of attractive naked women (and non of the Ibiza girls were photoshopped)
There was no attempt of equivalence. I said men and women have their own pressures. Women do not have sole ownership of the social pressures card.
I’m also not shrugging my shoulders and saying that’s life. I’m highlighting that this is part of the social structures that make up the world we live in, and has always been, and is not simply as simple as “the media is bad”. I’m sure their are countless lecture on sociology and anthropology on how the media and the society interact with each other. Simply blaming the media is a cop out.
Again I will say, having a go at me, for liking an image for failing I can’t see, is aiming at the wrong target. Telling me that the image is altered is all good and well (if it has). I can’t see it and I can’t see anything about the picture I don’t like. If you don’t like the picture, that’s fine, but you can no more suddenly find them hot than I can suddenly find them not hot.
Anyone who has an issue with the picture can take it up with Vanity Fair. No one has the right to tell me to find something less attractive. Just as no one has the right to tell me I cannot understand the social implication of the picture because I find it attractive.
Why not? I really don’t see the difference between you promoting this image and Vanity Fair doing the same- you’re just doing it for free. I think the accusation is perfectly valid.
No more than any other picture I post of attractive naked women (and non of the Ibiza girls were photoshopped)
Well, leaving aside the issue of you taking photos of women without their permission and then putting those photos onto a distribution platform, I think the point is that those bodies are real. They are not altered to form an unachievable ideal- they are the people you encounter in your day-to-days. This is entirely different to the image under discussion.
Women do not have sole ownership of the social pressures card.
Yes, but we’re not discussing ALL social pressures, we’re discussing ones that relate to body image. The fact that bulimia and anorexia are conditions that almost exclusively affect women between the ages of 15-30 isn’t some kind of odd genetic freak, it’s a condition that is created and perpetuated by, as you say, the consumer. You are perpetuating it and, at the moment, defending it.
No one has the right to tell me to find something less attractive.
Who is telling you this?
Just as no one has the right to tell me I cannot understand the social implication of the picture because I find it attractive.
Yet you clearly do not. And I do have the right to say that, come to think of it.
Clearly I’m an idiot. There can be no other explanation.
Well, one other explanation might be that you recognize that there’s a problem but seem unable to acknowledge your part in it. But you do seem very keen on your explanation-via-idiocy.
Without wishing to seem as though I am picking on you in any way here, I am now going to have to stand up and applaud Dan for the next twenty minutes or so.
Have a 32 comment long bash at me for the social ills because I found a picture attractive. Not at all.
I’m sure if you all tried harder you could throw in some decent disparaging of my character too. It’ll give me something to do from my normal torturing of women and forcing them to change their body shape.
Obviously I am too busy dating models however to care.
You’re opinion of me is what it is I can’t change that. Just as I can’t change who and what I am attracted to.
I think It’s ironic that I’ve being called on what I find attractive by being told the media is telling me what I should find attractive and then being told what I should and should not find attractive.
I’m closing this thread to comments, but you can comment on the blog post on this if you wish.
1. Destructor
Photoshopped!
2. Adrian
Nope, that picture is straight from phone to web.
3. matthew
Yeah, but the photograph you’re taking a photograph of is photoshopped to bits.
4. Adrian
Those bits look real enough to me.
5. matthew
Yeah, but they’re not hers. I remember Scarlet having a slightly larger, perter bum than in that picture. It’s clearly a fake.
6. Destructor
Yeah it’s clearly photoshopped (the image, not your photo OF the image). Legs don’t look like that in real life.
7. Adrian
I fail to see your point.
8. Destructor
My point is that the image is photoshopped. How you failed to get that from the words “It’s clearly photoshopped” is quite the mystery.
9. Adrian
So my higher brain functions are no less suspended.
I’m quite happy with the image and imagery.
I so the point of “It’s clearly photoshopped” is utterly meaningless to me. The best I can follow with is “so what” and “who cares”
10. Jack
So, by not caring that the picture is - and it is, very clearly - photoshopped, you’re also saying that you don’t care that you’re lusting after something that’s not only fake, but that you’re being played by a picture engineered specifically to elicit that response.
That’d make me feel slightly grubby.
And as to who cares, well. Maybe ask a real women how she feels about being constantly confronted with these impossible images of perfection and a man who freely admits to the suspension of his ‘higher brain functions’ when he drools over these fakes.
11. Adrian
Please. Like us men don’t have to contend with girls drooling over Jake Gyllenhaal or whoever. Like us men don’t have our own images of perfection (be they financial, career success, sporting talent, height, confidence or just sheer good looks). We all have our own pressures to deal with.
I also really want a Ferrari. I’m not getting any nearer to a Ferrari than I am to Keira or Scarlett. I can quite easily differentiate between reality and a picture that has no connection to reality photoshopped or otherwise.
Saying I don’t care that it’s photoshopped is saying the girls look hot, and they still look hot weather it’s photoshopped or not. I’m quite happy to have them look hot. They can photoshop the image or not. I can’t tell the difference. I can’t tell if a girl is a natural blonde or not. They makes just as little difference to me.
Any social hangups anyone has on that is entirely their own. I’m perfectly capable of realising that how they look in that photograph is an irrelevancy in the real world and in my personal reality. You’re over analysing something where their is nothing their.
12. Jack
Girls do indeed drool over Jake Gyllenhaal. I myself have a particular fondness for Gary Oldman, and have no problem with men drooling over whoever they choose. However, present me with a picture of Gary Oldman, or anyone else for that matter, photoshopped to grotesque perfection and it would be an instant, utter turn off.
Gary would look hot, I have no doubt. But it wouldn’t be real. And knowing that
Whether you’re actually ever going to get the woman is irrelevant. Apart from anything else, should the fragrant Scarlett drop into your lap one day, she wouldn’t look anything as perfect as that picture. You say you can diferrentiate between the real and the fake, but your libido doesn’t seem to be able to and that’s what the creators of that picture are exploiting and that’s what’s cheap about it.
Men absolutely have their own pressures to deal with, I never claimed otherwise. In the body image department they’re not yet as great as womens, but it’s definately increasing and they’re just as depressing. And should I actually have found myself hot over a computer manipulated picture of Gary Oldman, I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing men any favours by justifying that desire.
Social hangups are created, they’re not hardwired in the genes. I don’t think I’m over analysing, I think you’re under-thinking.
13. Adrian
You think images of men’s any any less manipulated? Maybe marginally. But they are not raw and untouched my anymeans.
And I’m not saying I can tell the difference by the real and the fake. In fact I’m saying that the fact I can’t means it makes no difference to me to care. I’ll find the undoctored picture just as much of a turn on. And it’s not like lighting and a bit of make up and all these other tricks they have without photoshop don’t alter reality anyway. I’m saying I accept that nothing is real and hence I don’t really care. It’s much easier normalise everything to “it is what it is” than care that something is photoshopped or shot in soft lighting or whatever. Also the photgrapher in charge of the photoshoot is one of the most renown photograhper in the industry so it’s perfectly possible that the image isn’t photoshopped and it’s merely done with a good eye and decent lighting. Or it might not. I couldn’t care either way. It’s a photograph of two attractive stars naked. I’m happy to accept it as such and enjoy what I see.
I’m not underthinking anything. I’m taking something at face value and weather it’s jimmied behind the scenes or not doesn’t change anything.
It certainly doesn’t change how I treat other women or what I desire in a partner or anything else. Much in the same way I wouldn’t not date someone because they wear make up or die their hair as being “phoney”.
I can’t even tell the difference between a doctored and undoctored photograph, yet if I was 5 inches taller, didn’t wear glasses and stayed clean shaven by chances with girls would be several orders of magnitude greater. I have to deal with more social hangups than I create or perpetuate.
Calling me up because I find two attractive naked girls hot on a picture that may have been photoshopped but I couldn’t tell is a cheap shot. If you think I may be shallow that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with photoshop, and I’m less shallow than most.
14. Jack
This isn’t even slightly about which sex is being expoited the most, and neither is it about you not being able to tell that the image is photoshopped.
A good chunk of what we think of as our own desires are actually dictated by the fashions of the day, with the media in its many forms being the main culprit. If the media churns out increasingly manipulated photos of women - or of men - these are the images that will shape our lusts. And the further these images are away from what real human beings look like the scarier, more disjointed and more fraught real flesh and blood relationships, sexuality and fucking - never mind issues of self esteem and body image - becomes.
We’re all insidiously - and sometimes, like above, obviously - influenced like this, and it absolutely DOES change our desires and the way we see others. I don’t care if you’re shallow or not, the only thing that concerns me was you ‘who cares’, because we all should.
15. Adrian
The media churns our what people want. People want what the media churns out. It’s chicken and egg.
I don’t care if the image has been photoshopped because it’s not the photoshopping that I’m looking at but the nakedness. My reaction would have been the same was the image not photoshopped. I can’t care about something I don’t even know was done.
Additionally the media is behaving in a way the media behaves to suit a buying public that expects the media to give them what they want. I can’t care about that either. I can only care about my reaction and my reaction was pretty much “two hot naked girls - hoo ha”.
My reaction was all their was too it. All this was, but a simple blokish reaction to nakedness of attractive girls. Their was no subtext nor need their be. Even if you the image is photoshopped, I still can’t tell. That knowledge doesn’t make the picture any less hot. It doesn’t change anything. I don’t suddenly find the picture any less hot just cause I know it may be fudged a bit.
What exactly do you expect me to do? How exactly do you expect me to find them less attractive because of something being done to the picture I can’t tell.
I care about things that affect my life. This doesn’t.
16. Jack
Nasty vicious cycle, no? Women buy these monthly glossy magazines where every picture of every model is touched up in some way - is that what we really want and need, or is our desire led and infulences by such things? We live in a time and extract real desires from manufactured ones and this state of being affects everybody’s lives, whether you can tell the real from the fake or care one way or another.
The subtext exists whether you acknowledge it or not, and very many ‘simple blokish desires’ - and those of women too - are as fake and engineered as the picture themselves. In the end of course, people are still going to find photoshopped to hell pictures sexy for one reason or another, but for me, knowing that I’m being played is what turns me off.
17. Adrian
Fashion has also reflect desire as much as desire reflected in fashion. No one is forcing women to buy these magazines.
Knowing you’re being played turns you off. That’s fine. Why should I have to have the same emotional response as you? Why is your emotional response the defined benchmark? Why is your emotional response acceptable, but mine not?
For me to care about the photoshopping would give credence to it’s value. I give none. Put two hot naked girls on a picture and I’m pretty happy.
You think the adverts putting forward a “normal unphothsopped body image” (e.g. dove) are playing you any less? It’s all marketing, and by playing on the counter they are being just as manipulative.
You’re expectation that I need to have the same response as you, is unfair.
18. Destructor
So my higher brain functions are no less suspended.
I’m not underthinking anything.
Bwahaha! I love it!
Anyway, my other point about it being photoshopped is that they look like eerie wax dummies and that is in no way hot.
Beyond that, we already know Scarlett and Kiera are both beautiful women, IRL. That the ‘sexiest woman in the world 2005’ still isn’t perfect enough to be shown nella carne is creepy and odd.
19. Adrian
Like I said, I can’t see any photoshopping. So it’s not creepy and odd.
I don’t think they look like wax dummies. I think they look a bit uncomfortable with being naked. Which I quite like. Makes them look more real, to me.
20. Nuge
Good link for you on this subject: Click Here
21. Jack
Noone is forcing women to buy these magzines only in the sense that noone is marching them to a cashpoint and then into WHSmith. Of course there’s pressure to buy such things, there’s pressure to buy all manner of things coming at us from all directions, and when you add that to many women’s insecurities that these magazines proffer to cure with their glamourous models and perfect lifestyles, that is coercion.
Dove and their bigger women campaign is one of the most manipulative beauty ads ever. If they really wanted to target ‘real’ looking women, they would have just shown plump women and not even mentioned it. I find it quite foul, and can’t imagine why you’d think I’d find it more palatable.
I never once said mine was the only acceptable reaction. I state it only in response to your own, a function for which comments boxes were intended. I find your response to a fake image creepy and base, your inability to distingush between a real and photoshopped image disturbing and indicative of a problem with society as a whole, and your insistance that there is no subtext behind such images and they do not affect your life simply staggering, but I do so without expectation of changing anybody’s mind, because I would have thought less of myself not to say anything at all.
However,
22. Destructor
I think they look a bit uncomfortable with being naked.
That uncomfortableness was probably added in post.
Which I quite like.
Now you seem creepy and odd, too.
Makes them look more real, to me.
My ironymeter is going wild.
Re that link you put up, Nuge, I actually thought she looked better before the photoshopping. There are much more dramatic examples out there. Check it.
23. Adrian
I wasn’t suggesting you would find the Dove adverts more palatable. I was suggesting that it’s all marketing, something which I accept, ignore and move on.
I can’t tell how some professional artist has touched up an image. It’s his job for me not to be able to tell. I can however tell shoddy engineering work quite easily. We have eyes that pick up different things, and me not being able to tell something that seems “obvious” to you is unfair.
Also I never said their is no subtext. However when everything is photoshopped or edited or fudged then the subtext is actually the the reality of the day. I’m sure painters 100 years ago did the equivalent when doing a portrait.
Like I said, the media reflects the fashions of the time and the fashions reflect the media.
24. Jen
Hi, I read regularly but don’t comment often. However, this conversation I decided I need in on. I specifically want to comment on your last statement, “However when everything is photoshopped or edited or fudged then the subtext is actually the reality of the day.” That line of thought is exactly the problem with society today. Those photoshopped images are NOT reality — in reality, the AVERAGE woman is 5’ 4” or 5” and weighs 145 pounds. The average women does not enjoy seeing only those images and therefore having only those photoshopped women to compare herself to. And the reality is, you will compare. It’s impossible not to. Regardless of what the photoshopped images say to you, reality is not underweight — and almost all models are underweight.
I am not an average woman. I have been blessed with a body type more in line with the media’s portrayal of women. But you know what? It’s not good enough. I could list the deficiencies I see in my body, especially when compared to what the media portrays, but that won’t do any good. You’ll just tell me I shouldn’t compare myself. I ask you, what I am I supposed to compare myself to, when that’s what I’ve spent my whole life seeing, when I’ve been told just by seeing the covers of fashion magazines (which I don’t and have never read) that is the image of beauty?
I currently am struggling to remain in recovery from an eating disorder. While I do not entirely blame the media for this problem of mine, I do believe that it plays an important role. I know I have other issues that have led into the eating disorder — however, what the media portrays only makes it easier and quicker for the eating disorder to really grab hold. Do you know that there are women out there who take these pictures — photoshopped images of women (usually who are underweight) and call them “thinspiration?” They use those images to push themselves towards a goal, because that’s what they want to look like. You said your issues are height, glasses, etc — you can’t change those so you have to accept them. Weight, however, can be changed, and that’s why it’s so dangerous for the media to constantly portray women in this way.
Okay — I think I’m starting to lose my point, and this is just turning into a rant. Although first I want to agree with Jack about the Dove commercials — they’re no better, because they do point out what they’re doing, instead of just doing it. And one more note — 100 years ago, women were not painted at unhealthy weights, and people where not completely swamped with this images. One portrait is one portrait — not the cover of a magazine that you see in any store you walk into.
The media reflecting fashion is fine. Photoshopping away facial imperfections (zits, etc) is fine. Heck, they do that for the average joe when you get formal pictures taken. However, the media perpetuating an image that is unhealthy and unsafe for women to strive for IS a problem. And society supporting that is an even bigger problem.
25. Adrian
Jen, I’m sorry to hear about your eating disorder and I wish you all the best recovery. Please understand that this is all debate and in no way an attack on anyone or anything.
I fully accept the media tends to perpetuate a body image of women that is unrealistic. Although photoshopping is just a recent tool to do that, and in itself is not the issues (models are still thin regardless of the photshopping). However the media is just feeding the public what they want. If people stopped buying magazines the media would shift to perpetuating a different body type near damn quickly. The media is giving the beast what it wants. The media is as to blame as the people who buy their wares. It’s very symbiotic. Sure the nature and delivery of the media has changed but the nature of the beast hasn’t.
And I feel feel for women I really do. But it’s not a gender thing. Men may have (currently) less body image issues but we have our own social pressure that are different. Do you think because I can’t change my height, that it makes it any easier to deal with? Do you think feelings of failure and inadequacy because I’m not as successful or earning as much as I perceive socially I should to be considered successful is any less emotionally troubling than not being thin enough. It’s just different.
But the same way you might look at a man and not know or care how much he spent on his suit, I can look at an photograph and not know or care that it has been altered.
Now if I started buying those magazines and chasing an impossible image of a women you could call me on it. But glancing at semi-naked chicks and going “woo hot” and then moving on, I don’t see what you are calling me. I very likely started at some non-airbrushed non-modelesque non-naked girl 2 seconds later and thought the same thing.
I don’t disagree that the media isn’t doing a lot of good to women. I do say however that the media is as much to blame as the public that buys their wares. I also say that pulling me up on this, is the wrong target. You’re turning a sideways glance into a social wrong, and all it really was, was a sideways glance.
26. Destructor
What a cop-out. You can truly hold the two opposing concepts of “Who cares if they’re photoshopped?” and “The media is not doing a lot of good to women.” in your head and not feel conflicted. It’s not your problem. It’s okay because you’ve got your own shit to deal with, that balances things out, see? And if the media happens to punch up a few artifical images for you to ogle over as you breeze through your day? Not your problem. That’s just “the way it is”. Deactivate your higher brain functions and walk on by.
Wait, wait- stop and take a photo of it. Post it on the internet. Perpetuate it.
“This is what guys find hot, ladies. Get out those belt-sanders and take `em too your thighs for that extra translucence that’s so perfect it seems almost…computer-generated.”
Your attempts at equivalence are ludicrous, firstly because you do NOT have the same pressure to conform to a body ideal as women do and attempting to primp up other, gender-neutral issues to try to create some kind of balance is bizarre and perverse- but also because it doesn’t matter if there IS a balance. A wrong is a wrong, even if it has some kind of equal wrong on the other side of the gender fence- it’s still wrong. Shrugging your shoulders and saying: “That’s life.” doesn’t actually ever help solve problems.
Just to clarify: Your sideways glance is not the social wrong. The fucking image is.
27. Adrian
I said I don’t care if it’s photoshopped because I can’t tell. Suddenly telling me it’s photoshopped doesn’t casue any change in me of suddenly finding the picture any less attractive.
Secondly don’t accuse me of perpetuating anything. Like I said several times, I can’t tell the photo is photoshopped. I STILL CAN’T. I put a picture up of two naked attractive stars as a ohh wow, and because I find them attractive. I wouldn’t have put pictures up of Cameron Diaz because although she is attractive I don’t find her hot. You’re reading social commentary into my actions where there was non. No more than any other picture I post of attractive naked women (and non of the Ibiza girls were photoshopped)
There was no attempt of equivalence. I said men and women have their own pressures. Women do not have sole ownership of the social pressures card.
I’m also not shrugging my shoulders and saying that’s life. I’m highlighting that this is part of the social structures that make up the world we live in, and has always been, and is not simply as simple as “the media is bad”. I’m sure their are countless lecture on sociology and anthropology on how the media and the society interact with each other. Simply blaming the media is a cop out.
Again I will say, having a go at me, for liking an image for failing I can’t see, is aiming at the wrong target. Telling me that the image is altered is all good and well (if it has). I can’t see it and I can’t see anything about the picture I don’t like. If you don’t like the picture, that’s fine, but you can no more suddenly find them hot than I can suddenly find them not hot.
Anyone who has an issue with the picture can take it up with Vanity Fair. No one has the right to tell me to find something less attractive. Just as no one has the right to tell me I cannot understand the social implication of the picture because I find it attractive.
28. Destructor
Don’t accuse me of perpetuating anything.
Why not? I really don’t see the difference between you promoting this image and Vanity Fair doing the same- you’re just doing it for free. I think the accusation is perfectly valid.
No more than any other picture I post of attractive naked women (and non of the Ibiza girls were photoshopped)
Well, leaving aside the issue of you taking photos of women without their permission and then putting those photos onto a distribution platform, I think the point is that those bodies are real. They are not altered to form an unachievable ideal- they are the people you encounter in your day-to-days. This is entirely different to the image under discussion.
Women do not have sole ownership of the social pressures card.
Yes, but we’re not discussing ALL social pressures, we’re discussing ones that relate to body image. The fact that bulimia and anorexia are conditions that almost exclusively affect women between the ages of 15-30 isn’t some kind of odd genetic freak, it’s a condition that is created and perpetuated by, as you say, the consumer. You are perpetuating it and, at the moment, defending it.
No one has the right to tell me to find something less attractive.
Who is telling you this?
Just as no one has the right to tell me I cannot understand the social implication of the picture because I find it attractive.
Yet you clearly do not. And I do have the right to say that, come to think of it.
29. Adrian
I don’t understand the social implications.
Right.
I get it know.
Clearly I’m an idiot. There can be no other explanation.
Or you can read what I have actually written. Otherwise get off my case.
30. Destructor
Clearly I’m an idiot. There can be no other explanation.
Well, one other explanation might be that you recognize that there’s a problem but seem unable to acknowledge your part in it. But you do seem very keen on your explanation-via-idiocy.
31. Adrian
Or possibly I can divorce the greater social implications and intellectual debate from a the fact I find a picture of naked girls attractive.
Just because I find the picture attractive doesn’t mean I cannot debate the sociology of the media and the image they reflect.
However you seem more intent on attacking me for this, than realising it is possible for me to separate the two things.
I find a picture attractive and I’m suddenly responsible for social body image sins? Fuck that.
32. Jack
Without wishing to seem as though I am picking on you in any way here, I am now going to have to stand up and applaud Dan for the next twenty minutes or so.
33. Adrian
Picking on me? Surely not?
Have a 32 comment long bash at me for the social ills because I found a picture attractive. Not at all.
I’m sure if you all tried harder you could throw in some decent disparaging of my character too. It’ll give me something to do from my normal torturing of women and forcing them to change their body shape.
Obviously I am too busy dating models however to care.
34. Adrian
Ok I have taken a walk and calmed down a bit.
I hope (although I doubt it) I have described my thoughts better in this blog post: I’m not to blame.
You’re opinion of me is what it is I can’t change that. Just as I can’t change who and what I am attracted to.
I think It’s ironic that I’ve being called on what I find attractive by being told the media is telling me what I should find attractive and then being told what I should and should not find attractive.
I’m closing this thread to comments, but you can comment on the blog post on this if you wish.