Thinspirational

[Brainwrong]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6935768.stm

"...
They swap stories on how they vomit until they cough blood, are often too weak to get out of bed and how they're scared family or friends will find out and force them into recovery..."

This is quite disturbing.

[Dub]

Originally Posted by Brainwrong

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6935768.stm

"...
They swap stories on how they vomit until they cough blood, are often too weak to get out of bed and how they're scared family or friends will find out and force them into recovery..."

This is quite disturbing.

Its a disease [as you know] so it shouldnt be glamourised on a website. Fukk me if I had liver disease or some such I wouldnt be looking for a website telling me how to make myself worse.

BTW I bought couscous today in the supermerkado just thought I would let you know - still intend eating meat though

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Dub

Its a disease [as you know] so it shouldnt be glamourised on a website. Fukk me if I had liver disease or some such I wouldnt be looking for a website telling me how to make myself worse.

careful Dub; i think i'm right in saying that in the US there's a rights lobby trying to get it seen as a lifestyle choice or human right or something, and prevent parents from trying to help anorexic kids etc.

what you've just said might soon be a 'hate crime' in this wonderful world of ours.

[Brainwrong]

Originally Posted by Dub

Its a disease [as you know] so it shouldnt be glamourised on a website. Fukk me if I had liver disease or some such I wouldnt be looking for a website telling me how to make myself worse.

BTW I bought couscous today in the supermerkado just thought I would let you know - still intend eating meat though

The missus (not a veggie as she thinks meat is too tasty!) made us a lovely couscous meal last night with kidney beans, chickpeas & peas. Bit of salt & ground pepper, very tasty.

We were out for lunch yesterday, she ordered some duck thing and said: "This is why I'm not veggie, it's just sooo tasty".

Don't think there would be any problem whapping some meat in yoyur couscous, probably pretty damn good in fact.

[Dub]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

careful Dub; i think i'm right in saying that in the US there's a rights lobby trying to get it seen as a lifestyle choice or human right or something, and prevent parents from trying to help anorexic kids etc.

what you've just said might soon be a 'hate crime' in this wonderful world of ours.

Wouldnt surprise me EGB. In the wonderful otherworld that is americas state of mind anything is possible. Puts me in mind of "the retreat of reason" which you kindly recommended and which I thoroughly enjoyed reading [although I lent it to someone and they lost it] not because there was anything in the book regards this but because these anorexics will be seen as a minority to be coddled rather than dissuaded.

[Colr]

Were do you think this pressure comes from? It can't be blokes 'cos most think scrawny chicks are minging.

I think its female competitiveness. Women can be really mean to each other about appearances and it matters to them quite a lot (so it would seem).

[Brainwrong]

Originally Posted by Colr

Were do you think this pressure comes from? It can't be blokes 'cos most think scrawny chicks are minging.

I think its female competitiveness. Women can be really mean to each other about appearances and it matters to them quite a lot (so it would seem).

Women and the magazines they run, in my opinion.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by Brainwrong

Women and the magazines they run, in my opinion.

They shouldn't be so hard on themselves.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

Were do you think this pressure comes from? It can't be blokes 'cos most think scrawny chicks are minging.

I think its female competitiveness. Women can be really mean to each other about appearances and it matters to them quite a lot (so it would seem).

Women themselves, who seem to hate each other in a way that leaves men in the shade (all that no wars if women ran the world guff, is precisely that - guff).

And also the gay men who run fashion, and who favour women who have had their female sexual characteristics starved off them (not to mention male like height, bone structure and so on).

read an interview with kelly brook in one of the missus's mags the other day; when she tried to get into modelling she was told she'd get nowhere unless she got rid of her curves. at that point she went to a glamour agency (the kind aimed at men) who took her on no probs.

laying this stuff at the door of men is a lie. and it's important it's recognised as such, because like other expressions of victim culture it hides the true nature of the problem, and thus precludes any effective attempt to fix it.

[Colr]

To be fair to the fashion industry, clothes do hang better when displayed on someone with no protruding bits.

Skinny dudes always look better in cheap suits as well.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

To be fair to the fashion industry, clothes do hang better when displayed on someone with no protruding bits.

I could not disagree more. Women look best as women, not pseudo-adolescent boys, and with clothes tailored for women, which work very well with those 'protuding bits' i find.

Skinny dudes always look better in cheap suits as well.

never liked that skinny look, and i used to be a skinny fecker myself. all that pete doherty style stuff is hideous.

[Dub]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I could not disagree more. Women look best as women, not pseudo-adolescent boys, and with clothes tailored for women, which work very well with those 'protuding bits' i find.

never liked that skinny look, and i used to be a skinny fecker myself. all that pete doherty style stuff is hideous.

And using Kelly Brook as a fine example of womanhood as you did earlier, I see your point. Not that I ever didnt in this regard of course.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I could not disagree more. Women look best as women, not pseudo-adolescent boys, and with clothes tailored for women, which work very well with those 'protuding bits' i find.

never liked that skinny look, and i used to be a skinny fecker myself. all that pete doherty style stuff is hideous.

But they are clothes hangers. Skinny folk make better clothes hangers. If they didn't they wouldn't use them. The industry is about selling apparel. They don't set out to represent anything socio-political.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

But they are clothes hangers. Skinny folk make better clothes hangers. If they didn't they wouldn't use them. The industry is about selling apparel. They don't set out to represent anything socio-political.

I disagree. If you wanted simply to sell women clothes, you'd hang them on women that looked liked women. (as an aside i personally think clothes look pretty unflattering on skinny people mostly.)

I don't think there's anything socio-political going on either; i think it's simply a fantasy they're engaged in. The models are proxies for young men, just as the burds in sex and the city were proxies for the gay lifestyle the gay screenwriters couldn't get on mainstream tv.

[hibadelic]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I disagree. If you wanted simply to sell women clothes, you'd hang them on women that looked liked women. (as an aside i personally think clothes look pretty unflattering on skinny people mostly.)

You'd think it would be in their interests to sell clothes and that they might know best what sells them.

FWIW I think there's more to it than some sort of gay conspiracy.

Here's a theory: Men in most of the world prefer thin women to fat women. Women know this then take it to extremes, probably due to competitiveness, losing sight of the fact that men don't like malnourished women.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by hibadelic

You'd think it would be in their interests to sell clothes and that they might know best what sells them.

FWIW I think there's more to it than some sort of gay conspiracy.

i don't think it's a conspiracy.

i think that the reality of their business means they need to design for woman but that doesn't really do it for them, hence the preference for desexualised / mannish burds. people as different from me as beth ditto share broadly the same opinion.

Here's a theory: Men in most of the world prefer thin women to fat women. Women know this then take it to extremes, probably due to competitiveness, losing sight of the fact that men don't like malnourished women.

i don;t buy that. sure, fatties are no more men's first choice than women's but men generally like shapely women, not particularly thin ones.

whatever the cause, the fact is that it's the images targetted at women, not at men, that emphasis thinness. and it's a distinctly non-sexual form of 'beauty' that they aim for.

i think this is an interesting one; if you look at the evidence, it doesn't really point to heterosexual men as being the drivers at all, versus woman themselves certainly being in the frame, as well as the other factors i'm speculating about.

in fact if you read about the psychology of anorexia, it really does not at all lend itself to an interpretation based on pandering to men's sexual ideals; it's very often about destroying one's own sexuality.

and yet whatever the evidence (which I agree is hardly conclusive btw), it often seems that this scenario is usually first approached within the parameters of the victim / oppressor tropes we are also so steeped in.

ps as an aside, of the minority of male sufferers i believe the overwhelming majority are gay. i'm not sure what that tells us - perhaps this will change with the rise of the 'metro'

[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I disagree. If you wanted simply to sell women clothes, you'd hang them on women that looked liked women. (as an aside i personally think clothes look pretty unflattering on skinny people mostly.)

I don't think there's anything socio-political going on either; i think it's simply a fantasy they're engaged in. The models are proxies for young men, just as the burds in sex and the city were proxies for the gay lifestyle the gay screenwriters couldn't get on mainstream tv.

Totally disagree. Curvy women are all different so having fitted clothes for each of them would be impractical. If all modelsm are shaped like clothes hangers then they know how the clothes will hang and they will move freely inencumbered by lady bumps which will look good on a catwalk and will photograph well more consistently. They are showing off the clothes not the people. It also important not to confuse the media bollocks that surrounds the industry (and which it uses) with the core business of selling clothes. The media make these thing political, the fashion industry doesn't make any more money out of size issues byt they do make money from building brands and selling produce so the produce must look its best.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

Totally disagree. Curvy women are all different so having fitted clothes for each of them would be impractical. If all modelsm are shaped like clothes hangers then they know how the clothes will hang and they will move freely inencumbered by lady bumps which will look good on a catwalk and will photograph well more consistently. They are showing off the clothes not the people. It also important not to confuse the media bollocks that surrounds the industry (and which it uses) with the core business of selling clothes. The media make these thing political, the fashion industry doesn't make any more money out of size issues byt they do make money from building brands and selling produce so the produce must look its best.

1. how do they show how the clothes will hang, unless the target market is to be 'unencumbered' by their biology?

2. I don't buy the impracticality bit. if size 10 or 12 was the optimum for modelling, you'd get lots of size 10 or 12 models. the current freakshow is manufactured by the end goal, after all.

3. how in the fuck anyone with a normal view of female sexuality can think these close look best on emaciated waifs drained of their femininity is beyond me. i put it to you that this distorted image of 'what looks best' is central to the point being made.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

1. how do they show how the clothes will hang, unless the target market is to be 'unencumbered' by their biology?

2. I don't buy the impracticality bit. if size 10 or 12 was the optimum for modelling, you'd get lots of size 10 or 12 models. the current freakshow is manufactured by the end goal, after all.

3. how in the fuck anyone with a normal view of female sexuality can think these close look best on emaciated waifs drained of their femininity is beyond me. i put it to you that this distorted image of 'what looks best' is central to the point being made.

Its not what looks best as a person but what makes the clothes look best. Hanger appeal if you like as opposed to a serving suggestion.

[Dub]

Originally Posted by Colr

Its not what looks best as a person but what makes the clothes look best. Hanger appeal if you like as opposed to a serving suggestion.

I'm probably going over old ground here but fashion mags and the fashion industry themselves have built up the demand for [as EGB puts it] emaciated waifs drained of their femininity and surely EGBs point is that everyday people dont think that clothes look better on these waifs than they do on a curvier woman. Using the name that EGB dropped into an earlier post wouldnt you prefer to see Kelly Brook [or some such if she isnt your cup of tea]modelling clothes rather than some scrawny bint? I realise your argument is that clothes seemingly hang better off thin girls but they are unnaturally thin most of the time. Why not use young gay men in make up, thin ones only, I know its a ridiculous suggestion but they wont look any freakier than the chicks already do.