Beautiful and Sexy and Problematic

Our culture has an addiction: an overload of thin. Our culture hoards thinness, falsely equates thinness with health, and values thinness as intrinsic in beauty. I agree with Kathleen LeBesco's revolt, to reframe the public view of fatness in a way that "alter(s) the discourse of beauty" (LeBesco 53).

I decided to sample how our culture perceives these ideals, a mini-experiment, if you will. Inspired by Chapter 3 of Revolting Bodies, I chose to examine the images recalled when searching online for "health," "beauty," and "sexy."  I decided to use Pinterest, which I imagine is a better reflection of women and culture than the very pragmatic and literal findings from Google Images.

[One quick sidenote: I realize that issues of body size are not strictly a women's issue, but I am going to focus on female bodies for my post, particularly in relation to male gaze.]

Health

Throughout her book, LeBesco examines how fat bodies are perceived as Other and diseased, how fatness is posed as a health epidemic, and how losing weight is often posited as a magic bullet solution to life's imperfections (41). Our culture falsely equates weight with health and denies the existence of a spectrum of healthy bodies. 

I expected the results to mimic this blurring of healthy and skinny. I see this in everyday life. Women are advised to diet and shed pounds in order to look their best. In our culture, health is centered around "looking" versus "feeling". Women want healthy, glowing, poreless skin. Women want healthy, shiny hair. Who cares about a healthy liver? because no one is going to see your liver. Health is an aesthetic. 

I searched simply "health" on Pinterest and here were the first results:

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Ok, let's pull out some headlines here (again, these came from just "health"): "Victoria's Secret...Workout," "35 Amazing Foods for Weight Loss," "5 Ways to Sculpt Lean Thighs," "9 Ways to Shrink Your Muffin Top," "Most Effective Fat Burning Foods." "5 Ways to Stop Craving Cards," "Apple Cider Vinegar... Clean Skin, Weight Loss, and More!"

The images shown vary from food, exercise poses, and lean white bodies.

All simply from "health"... are any of these really about health?

As I scrolled through the search results, there were occasionally less skinny-and weight-loss charged results such as tips of staying hydrated and health benefits from certain foods. But nearly everything was overwhelming soaked with a conscious of hyper-appearance. 

In Chapter 2, LeBesco discusses how in altering the discourse of [beauty, health, etc.] and addressing the public health crisis, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance focuses on locating the problems within the greater cultural industries instead of the behavior of individuals (36-38). If this smattering of headlines is any sample of the discourse of public health, than not only is fatness socially constructed through discrimination and submission and power structures, but so are our cultural ideas of health in general. 

Beauty

In Chapter 3, LeBesco explores fat in relation to ideas of "sexy" and "beautiful." Culturally, fat seems to be at odds with beauty. Our society likes to highlight *other* beautiful aspects in women that carry fat and encourage fat women to be beautiful in spite of their fatness. LeBesco challenges these ideas by sharing the work of Debbie Notkin and FaT Girl, among others, who encourage women to embrace their fat as a component of their beauty. LeBesco also highlights the elusive, ethereal, and unattainable goals that beauty constructs, citing that Wendy Chapkis wrote "to be beautiful is to exist in a moment framed by expectation and fear" (51).

Our culture posits expectations for beauty that ensure that no woman can perpetually meet them (51). The text highlighted cultural constructs of beauty are usually clustered around innocence, youth, and slightness, and I expected to find these results in my search.

I repeated the exercise for beauty:

Headlines include: "23 Unbelievable Beauty Hacks," "How to do Your Eye Make Up Correctly," "Coffee Scrub [for] Acne and Cellulite," and "Home Remedies for Stretch Marks". 

All the people featured are young, white, thin women.

No internal beauty. Nothing deviant. 

Even though LeBesco's book was published 10 years ago, I feel like there have been few advancements on undoing the cultural equation of beauty = thin. I think LeBesco's efforts are important, but sadly not embodied yet. I do not see progress at all.

[Interesting side note: I chose to search "beauty" and not "beautiful," because in the latter results, nearly 100% of the search results on Pinterest were Nation Geographic-esque pictures of animals. I am not exactly sure why every animal on Pinterest is filed under "beautiful," but I was pleasantly surprised on how the word beautiful transcended the Western white woman and her beauty tips. Interesting the differences between two variants of a word. Language is so interesting!] 

Sexy

Speaking of the intricacies of language, I think sexy is a loaded word and here's why:

I question if one can be "sexy" independently, not in relation to other people, without relying on others for value, without necessary judgment from others. I feel as if being sexy is something that stems from the opinions of others. Does being sexy necessitate a relationship with the gazes of others? A topographical relationship between bodies? A power dynamic? Does feeling sexy mean feeling like you're worthy in the eyes of other people? Does it depend on feeling socially competent? Is being sexy a social phenomenon? I am curious but unsure.

In Chapter 3, LeBesco details fictional work of Terry Early and her suggestions that "ultimate goal" of a fat wanted is "being wanted by "normal" men." Although fictional, LeBesco finds truth here: cultural ideas that thin women have better lives, and that in a fair world, size would be disregarded.

Last week, some of my friends were discussing this song, "All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor. I was not previously familiar with the song, but it centers around embracing bigger body types. Although refreshing to hear popular music take this perspective, the song (1) shames skinny women and (2) tells women that they should love their thicker bodies because that's what some men prefer. Men's opinions should not be integral for a positive self-image! Yuck.

Decide for yourself what you think of the song! Here is the video below. Also, notably, the singer is white, presumably straight, and conventionally attractive, and although perhaps plus-sized by our society's definition, not a terribly large woman. To be honest I could only get through half of the music video.

I think there is a problem with "sexy" if it is indeed a social phenomenon; if it centers around the male gaze, social relationship, and being deemed worthy my men.

The exercise for "sexy" yielded these results:

The images shown are all young, thin, white bodies, either in whole or fragmented [disembodied stilettos, braceleted arms, and a faceless fashion look]. The headlines are less captivating here - the focus is on the images. Shocking? Not at all. Influenced by the male gaze? Definitely.

I am extremely uncomfortable with the epidemic that women think men's opinions and social hierarchies are important to maintaining a positive self-image, and I am skeptical if one can claim "sexy" without implications of the male gaze. In altering the discourse of beauty, we have a lot to change.