My two cents...

[pyrephox]

Yeah, yeah. This rambling is inspired by the Dove ad stuff, but completely unsupported by research or anything else other than my own strange brain.

Humanity has a lot of fetishes. Seriously, we take sex, which is a basic biological function that damned near every species on earth knows how to perform, and turn it into a three ring circus, complete with leaping through hoops of fire. Some fetishes are fairly common, others are fairly rare. One of the more common, and yet least remarked upon, seems to be the fetish that a marked minority of the population seems to have for turning the opposite sex into adolescents of their same sex. A lot of men seem attracted to small, skinny, breast-and-hipless women who look like teenaged boys. Conversely, a lot of women seem attracted to slender, long-haired men with 'feminine' facial features and mannerisms, who bear a striking resemblance to teenaged girls in both appearance and maturity. So, it's not something you can point at one sex or another and say, "You sexist so-and-so!" It just seems to be yet another way in which we make sex more complicated.

The real difference comes in, however, when one of these fetishes becomes entrenched in popular culture. Most men, I think, would not kick the Dove women out of bed. Quite frankly, after hearing about the ads, I'd expected them to be larger than they were. Instead, they're actually very average: sized 10-14. And yet, the adolescent boy-woman fetish has gained such industrial support, especially in the fashion/beauty/celebrity arena that seeing an average adult woman in her underwear on an ad (as opposed to a fifteen year old girl who looks drugged) is bewildering and, apparently, 'disturbing'.

And that's the tragedy. Not that many men are attracted to skinny women, but that the alternatives have been ousted from the public view, so that a bunch of very attractive women of average size draws a "Yikes" and catty comments about fat thighs.

Comments

[the-fool76.livejournal.com]

Heh reminds me of a similar discussion yesterday in jannyblue's LJ.

Even stranger, its ressonating inside my head with Wee Free Men wich I just finished re-reading recently.

Its like there is this large group of people who have gotten caught up in the dream of skinny being beautiful and now they don't know how to get out. So when someone says, "Hey, there are other kinds of beautiful too." they get all disorented and snarky.

As much as people don't like thinking for themsevlves, they dislike being told that they have been thinking the wrong things even more. Ironicly though, if the new way of thinking catches on, those same people will clame they secretly thought that way all along. People are very silly like that.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

See, though, that's the weird thing! It's not that the average man or woman on the street would look at those women and say, "They're ugly." Those ladies are attractive by pretty much any standards. It's just the in-an-ad thing that seems to be setting people off.

It's less they're-not-pretty and more they're-not-the-right-kind-of-pretty. Which is just odd.

[the-fool76.livejournal.com]

They are Real life pretty and not make belive pretty, and real life shouldn't be in my make belive! ^_^

All the rest of the addvertisers are currently paying very carefull attention to this. It goes against a lot of the basic ideas held by the advertising community. (You tell people your product makes them better, not that they are fine the way they are.) Of course the Dove add still does that, just on a more subtle level than most people are used to. "Our product will make you happier with who you are."

Its most amusing all the mind games advertisers try to play, is it any wonder that a lot of psych students go on to enter the advertising industry? ^_^

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

I like skinny women. My g/f is a skinny woman, so it'd be hard for me to deny.

These Dove women are attractive. They are, as they say, imminently doable. There's maybe one of them that doesn't float my trigger (to mix a couple metaphors). I wouldn't call her unattractive though, just not to my taste.

Call me a pervert, but women in underwear who are smiling? Sounds like a good time to me.

I think though, that this is a real winner for Dove. The controversy is just adding to the success of it. It's unfortunate some people don't see it that way, but *shrug*. I don't think I'd worry about it unless the ad was stopped by those comments.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Hee! You know, I think that's the thing that I like most about the ad. Those women look like they're having fun. They're grinning, they're acting rather playful. It's different from the usual 'fashion' poses, where the models look either bored, angry, or artificially sultry. I like it when people smile.

[the-fool76.livejournal.com]

The sexiest makup in the world is a smile.
^_^

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

*gains 50 lbs, just to be troublesome*

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

I made pretty much the same rant yesterday, because that article drove me up the WALL. I don't understand it... I don't like having make believe in ads, because the ads say "this is beautiful," so you just fall into thinking that's beautiful and nothing else is.

And everyone agrees, oh, we need to do something about it. They just don't want to see the effects of this something. -.-

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Whilst this may be oversharing, I think that is why I find the vintagte pron community pictures much more interesting than mainstream porn. Women have hips, and thighs and curves! not stick figures.

I haven't seen the add in question, but meh. Blonde stick figures such as are promoted as the image of beauty do nothing for me.

And lets not get started on totaly hairless women...heh sorry TMI again :P