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It’s no secret that the fashion industry promotes an idealistic and often problematic body image. Models seem to be getting skinnier every year and the number of women who suffer from body image issues and/or eating disorders isn’t exactly dwindling as a result.
In response, advocates of a healthier body image have been demanding diversity when it comes to the representation of women in the media, which is awesome. I like curvy girls, but you have to be careful and not buy into the whole “real women have curves” mantra, because it’s not about switching out one beauty ideal for another, but about creating a spectrum of body imagery that people can identify with and/or wank off to.
Progress is being made, sort of.
In May, the nineteen editions of Vogue magazine got together to sign the “healthy body” initiative:
The primary focus, they said in a joint statement from all editors, was to ban the use of models who suffer from eating disorders, or models that appear to encourage anorexic body images, or are younger than 16 years of age. The final point in their pledge was to discourage designers to showcase items in really small sizes, and discourage designers from “the use of extremely thin models.”
But as you can see from the header picture, which appears in the June issue of German Vogue, there is still a huge emphasis on super-skinny = beautiful. Now, I’m not saying that that particular model is unhealthy or anorexic, because for all I know that’s just her natural body type (they do exist) and the girl has the best eating habits in the world, but as Violet Blue pointed out this is the kind of imagery that makes porn look a lot better when it comes to diversity and a healthier body image.
Sooooo many people think of bottled blondes, with big fake tits, and bleached assholes (i.e. one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends) when they think of pornstars. Sure, that type exists and lots of people like them, but when it comes to porn, it’s much much much easier to find a variety of body shapes than you would in the pages of Vogue, and more often than not that imagery is “healthier.”
Don’t get me wrong, digital and print pornography makes use of Photoshop just as much as Vogue to create images that are sometimes beyond perfect and don’t represent a kind of beauty that is easily achievable for us good ol’ regular girls, unless you have a makeup artist at your disposal and a tech savvy photographer, but on film you can actually find a shitload of pornstars who have “flaws.” Some of these chicks have cellulite, chunky thighs, bellies, and even zits on their asses, yet they are still worshiped as goddesses by men and women alike. It gives a girl hope.
I love that in porn you can find women of all ages (18+ anyway); of all heights, sizes, shapes, and ethnicities. The amazing thing is that they all love their bodies and we love them for it. It’s all pretty heartwarming actually.
Via tinynibbles.com
