Saturday, April 20, 2013

Feel like I'm going insane!

So okay, I'm ready to go ape-shit and kill someone. I'm watching this ridiculous show my husband just put on... it's about Hugh Hefner's life. It's part of "how sex changed the world"... yeah, okay, maybe. First I obviously have a problem with that idea. Sex changing the world is a little silly to me. Granted, with my past sex doesn't rate highly to me. My husband is an amazing man, and well... he's pretty darned good in bed, so that has changed my opinion of sex and well... I'm pretty damned good too, so there's that.  But changed the world? Maybe nuclear power, or Issac Newton changed the world. Let's have that show.

So that's not why I'm so pissed I could go blind from it. Hugh just actually said that the 80s were a tough time. There was a lot of political correctness, which created a strong feminist wave. He actually just complained that he wasn't getting the credit for being part of the women's liberation movement of the 60s, which he believes "playboy was at least a small part of"....  yeah, a very fucking small part mate.

Let's examine playboy. First let's stop and acknowledge that the images in playboy are not reality, not at the start, middle or finish. I've actually had the privilege of being on a photo shoot. I majored in it, and after graduating got my first job working for a magazine. The women came in, had make-up, hair, clothing, lighting, spray tanning (before that was big, and yes I'm that old) artificial props and backgrounds, artificial wind to create that slow motion goddess effect.  The photo is made, SNAP. And THEN they start fixing it. The image of the woman, who is beautiful walking in, then made perfect, is then created to divine. The image is lengthened, her legs are made longer, skin is evened digitally, shadows are deleted, or created, hair is fulled or trimmed. Eyes and teeth are whitened, skin is whitened, a shine is put in hair, eyes, skin. So that by the time that magazine reached the rack that woman had undergone such a process that she wouldn't recognize herself. They could have made me look like her if that wanted to and I'm a short fat ugly hobbit!

What playboy does is worse. Instead of creating mere perfect goddess they are creating nymphs. Notice that the hair is removed.  The girl walking onto the playboy set has been shaved and plucked and waxed down to bald. She has had all hair of maturity removed to make her body appear clean and clear. Her body is super thin, small thin waifish hips and slender thighs. Small breasts that practically point skyward. What is her body supposed to remind you of? Clearly. She's a child. This woman has starved herself down to puberty. The lack of hair, the artificial (digital) removal of the uterine bulge, the small pert breasts, the lack of fat on the hips and thighs. This is a child's body. She is supposed to be the ultimate male sex object... a little girl? Men are gross.

Men are obviously not gross. Not every man on the planet is a pedophile. Many aren't. Many just think that they want this because they aren't given the choice. It's either love the playboy mythos or run to the reality of Hustler's Beaver Hunt. Which is truly gross... I mean, have you ever seen that? yuck.  But what bothers me the most is that I buy into this.

I want to be that beautiful, read thin. I want to have the body of a child. I like that my breasts have shrunk and in a few pounds will no longer require a bra. I love that my hips are 10 pounds away from pre-pubescent. And I secretly love that in a few months, if all goes according to plan, I will no longer menstruate. I think it's a compliment of intense love for thinny body and an intense fear of being fat. And not normal fat. I'm terrified of becoming 500 pounds. I watch supersize v. superskinny and I think of the terribly heavy people with each mouthful. Every morsel of food that comes into my body is accompanied with the mental picture of June, Honey Boo-boo's mom. So maybe playboy has done something for feminism. It's made us all anorexic.

Thanks Heff.

No comments:

Post a Comment