Newsflash: Survey of Respondents Shows Males & Females Equal in Naked Body Shots in MSM

This just in: I am changing the title of this article because it is only getting comments from people who think that I am a prude and that a stepford society is good. I would summarize the response thush far to be: males and females are equally represented in media and Internet pictures when naked. Most people are ectomorphs and mesomorphs and it is possible for any person to exercise and eat their way from being an endomporh into the aforementioned body types. Society is best served by a media dominated by images of airbrushed female nudes. Youngsters who regularly view this kind of "art" will be the ones with the highest self-esteem, regard for both genders, and success in personal and professional relationships. Ok. That is too long, so I'll use the one above. ###

After reading Scarlett Johansson's article, "The Skinny," with 274 comments, I was astounded to see that the nude Allure pictures post had 353,000 page views and 530 comments. The irony is that the Allure pics, Allure magazine, and the distribution of the pictures, are promoting exactly what Johansson is concerned about.

The selling of the "perfect" female body obviously has an enormous market value, but it also has a huge cultural cost. For children, adolescents and adults of both genders, this fake portrayal of the female body is damaging. Unrealistic expectations, a focus on only the external person instead of the whole person can crush self esteem and relationships.

The first amendment is not going anywhere, nor should it (!) But it places responsibility on citizens to engage in a dialogue about the ramifications of pornography on the Internet and other media, and it's effect on mental, physical and societal health.

Johansson notes that "as many as 10 million females and 1 million males living in the US are fighting a life and death battle with anorexia or bulimia." Those are high numbers, and don't even include the relational and personal toll of objectifying the body, male or female.

Just last week, Sean Hannity and the fashion police picked First Lady Michelle Obama's outifts apart. She was too casual, too fancy, too off the rack, too haute, too drab, too hot. Her figure was all right, and all wrong. In many ways, it's not the First Lady people were responding to. People were also reflecting their own views on the significance of female appearance and what role it plays. Also at play were their views of the role of women and men in society, and at this particular time in our country's growth.

My message is this: millions of young people are watching. They are forming their personal and professional identities, based in part on what they see around them. The images they see now have lasting effects on their self-image, their views of how they should behave in relationships and in their work. So what should we tell them about those things?

Comments

[bobrogers]

Amazing how much my 45 year old wife's body looks like these women! A little body make-up and she'd look better. She exercises and lifts weights and has healthy 14% fat ratio. I do the same and have 5% body fat. We both are healthy, look great and are very sexy to each other. We don't need pornography; we have each other. What is wrong with that? If more young people tried for a fit ideal, we would not have an epidemic of diabetes overtaking America. Fat is not a self-image issue, fat is a health issue, and if showing fit bodies helps, great.

[Venise Alstergren]

Which planet do you live on? If you were that chuffed about your wife you wouldn't be raving about her in public. you'd be keeping her in bed-good exercise-and keeping quiet lest any other man find out.

[The Ghost]

I'm sure everyone in their social circle already knows how fit and attractive his wife is. He's proud of her; what woman doesn't want her husband bragging about her?

[OtayPanky]

This blog is a good example of why feminism as a movement has lost traction, even though women still make only 70 cents on the dollar for equal work.

It's a damn shame, really - that feminism went off into the woods like this - what with making a fuss over porn/erotica, man-bashing, dismissing women who prefer a homemaker role rather than a worker role, demanding that women support Hillary for president, and on and on.

Unfortunately the word FEMINISM is toxic at this point, toxic like the word REPUBLICAN is - and the word LIBERAL was before 2006..

Hopefully some smart young women will muddle through all this and get to the re-branding stage - because the essential issue of parity that spawned the movement is still a real one here in 21st Century America, and even moreso around the world.

[flydoghead]

Ms. Donahue, please google image some clothed photos of Padma and you will see that she does
not try to hide, disguise, or cover up her "less than perfect" giant scar on her arm.

It is a foot long and two inches wide, come to think of it , it is perfect.

She is beautiful, very smart and personable and scared,( just like everyone on this planet, the scared part that is)

[Catothemuchyounger]

As noted by many, if you think this is Porn you have a very odd idea of it, shades, perhaps, of Dworkin-Ma­cKinnon."i­f it turns men on, its evil" and if it turns women on, it is still suspect due to the false consciousness created under "conditions of late patriarchy­." Or something like that.

[KillTheMessenger]

Men are turned on by two circles with a dot in the middle side by side. And if you put a downward pointing triangle below them, it's almost as good as hardcore porn. And since we all can imagine what I was just describing, I am a pornographer by the most extreme definitions.

:-)

[PatA]

If there are 10 million people suffering from eating disorders in the United States then there are the 10 million families, plus friends, who are suffering right along with them.

[The Ghost]

Eating disorders are NOT understood, and there is no proven correlation with the fashion industry, which ironically is supported SOLELY BY WOMEN.

[Amyland]

Please Please Please, someone tell me when a picture of a beautiful woman's body got to be turned into pornography. I am forty two years old, and a mother of three sons. I used to have a very thin body before that. My body has changed and is no longer what it used to be.I have accepted that. I believe that a woman's body in any shape or form should be celebrated. Shouldn't we worry more about violence and war and less about turning pictures of the human figure into "pornography"?

[dvschic]

what's wrong with porn? Chelsea handler isn't a rail thin woman, she has some curves, as does Padma, why can't we celebrate the nude form instead of complaining and whining about how objectified we are and how its so unfair that the skinny chicks get everything. We created this 'perfect' form and praise those that obtain it? now we hate that we're stuck with it? get over it

I'd much rather see more nudity, then go backwards and only show ankles..

[chuckincanada]

Pornography? As the vast majority of commenters note, you have no idea what constitutes pornography. I can only imagine (not that I will attempt to) what your reaction would be to actual porn.
What I find most offensive, though, is your claim: "The first amendment ... places responsibility on citizens to engage in a dialogue about the ramifications of pornography ..." Really? I presume that's in the secret codicil that also appointed you the arbiter of acceptable behavior and good taste.
Your interpretation of free-speech rights is more dangerous -- by several orders of magnitude -- than any photos of naked human bodies could ever be.

[KillTheMessenger]

If you trust the internet statistics, pretty much everybody with network access knows exactly what pornography is. The difference is merely that some people are faking outrage and others do not.

[JDM73]

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I guess), the world revolves around sex. Our very existence depends on it; we're *supposed* to think about it a lot. Attitudes about sexual activity and the "ideal" body would not go away if nude photographs were banned. People would still be thinking the same thoughts as before. They can't help it.

[tigerlyly]

"For children, adolescents and adults of both genders, this fake portrayal of the female body is damaging."

Those are real bodies in those pictures--perhaps airbrushed to even skin tone.

I can only speak for young women, but our sense of worth and body image is built in real life and while we might glance longingly at the skinny lady in the magazine--it's our real life relationships that truly shape us.

[marxmarv]

The beauty of a good retouching job is that you never suspect it was done.

[KillTheMessenger]

And the really good news is that skin tone does not matter once you turn the lights out. And she better gets goose pimples when you touch here... or something is wrong. So there goes the perfect skin.

[GreatNews27]

I guess the outrage is in the same place as the outrage over torture and murder by government agents. Oh, sorry, porn is SOOOOO much more important than torture and murder.

[BlackJAC]

The Supreme Court defined "pornography" as "having no artistic merit and causing sexual thought." The late Bill Hicks claimed that every commercial on television fit that criteria.

[TexasDem0]

Sexual thoughts are not pornographic.
The actual description is that which has no socially redeeming value and appeals to prurient interest only.

[ToddAP]

I think the greatest outrage is that I've seen these pictures and now I'm stuck at the office and unable to do anything about it.

[BlackJAC]

Yet I see no corresponding righteous indignation over Michaelangelo's statue of David, a full frontal nude depiction of the idealized male form. Apparently the effects of this so-called "work of art" upon young males today in the form of a body issue called "the Adonis complex," further fueled by reports of how Type 2 diabetic elementary schoolers who are 4 feet tall and 230 pounds is somehow an "epidemic.­" It also doesn't help these unrealistic body image expectations, as evidenced by that old Diet Coke commercial where all the women in an office gather to ogle the shirtless hunk working at the construction site next door, that evolutionary holdover programming drives us to seek out the lean and healthy for romantic liaisons on the grounds that they might produce similarly healthy offspring and live long enough to raise them to adulthood in order to repeat the cycle.

[alicetilden]

I have no problem with these photos. I just can't see getting outraged by this. I had no idea
Chelsea looked that good. I love her show. I also watch Dollhouse. What's wrong with looking at a great female body? I'm a woman and I can appreciate a good looking woman. I think you are making too much of this.