I keep meaning to write deep, in-depth posts about these images, and they keep piling up on my phone, so here’s a quick dump. Imagine that I kept ranting for another ten lines about each one and you’ll get the full experience. You can probably copy-and-paste some of my older posts without disrupting continuity too much. It’s like Mad Libs!
“Bikini Ready” by May 1 or in just four weeks? Fuck you for implying that there is an arbitrary physical standard outside of which a body is not “ready” for a “bikini.” Fuck you twice for lying about your magazine’s ability to bring people into compliance with that standard in an arbitrarily short amount of time. My body is “bikini ready” the moment I decide to put on a bikini.
“Get my body back?” Where did it go?! You’d think I would have noticed! Fuck you for implying that my fat, flabby, middle-aged body is not “mine.” No matter what its physical condition, this is my body and I love it. I had better, because I am going to be in it until I die, and I can’t think of anything more miserable than spending my entire life in a body that I hate. Spending my entire life in a culture that encourages me to hate my body is up there, though.
“Guilt-free” food? Is there a moral component to my food choices that I’m missing? If you’re referring to feeling guilty about the terrible ways that animals are treated in industrial food processing, then I’m on board, but I bet you’re not.
#1 by Issa at May 6th, 2010
I have no deep thoughts to add, just that this:
My body is “bikini ready” the moment I decide to put on a bikini.
and this:
Fuck you for implying that my fat, flabby, middle-aged body is not “mine”… this is my body and I love it.
are perfectly expressed. Thank you.
#2 by anon101 at May 18th, 2010
id just like to point the horrible hard-looking fake plastic tits on the model in the top picture, yuck!
this seems to be joys of lowest common denominator marketing, ego-boosting, sex and consumerism for men, self loathing and supposed self-improvement for the women.
#3 by Issa at May 18th, 2010
@anon101 – Yuck to making nasty comments about an individual woman’s body. You can comment about marketing that insults us all and not get much argument here. But if your method of dissent is to just trade out one type of unacceptable body for another, you haven’t done anyone any good.
#4 by Joshua Bardwell at May 18th, 2010
@Issa: Agree. Making nasty comments about a particular woman’s, “fake plastic tits,” is no better than making nasty comments about a woman’s, “ugly fat rolls,” or, “big ass.” Pointing out how much you dislike someone’s body outside of some other context in which that makes sense (such as choosing who to date) is just hateful.