Super models

I was watching the Tyra Banks show a few weeks ago. I don't watch it often, because she teaches women and girls that they have to be society's version of beautiful. Yes, she says that women of any shape and size can be beautiful, but they have to wear the "right" clothes and "right" makeup. She would never promote those of us who dress and do our makeup in a subculture style such as goth, punk, anachronous, or SCA. She wants everyone to be a lemming and follow what the media and Hollywood celebs say is beautiful. But back to my original thought...

I was watching the Tyra show a few weeks ago, and she was talking about finding this young man working at Krispy Kreme who she thought would make a great male model, so she asked him to do a photo shoot. She went on and on about how the camera loves him and he's so photogenic. Then she showed some of the pictures from the shoot.

What I saw was a young African-American man who had thin, spindly limbs. When she showed one of his shirtless shots, I could see every last flipping one of his ribs. A lot of the women in the audience were oohing and aahing over this guy, but all I could think was, "He looks like a starving man from Africa. He looks like he hasn't eaten in a month."

I don't know about anyone else, but I've never been attracted to skinny men. It feels like I'm hugging a bag of bones. I like men who are more cuddly. When people ask me what I physically like in a partner, this is my usual reply: "I like my men like I like my hamburger; big and beefy with a nice set of buns."

Now don't get me wrong. A man's physical characteristics are not near as important to me as his character and personality. I need a man who has high moral and ethical standards, which are very hard to find in a man these days. I also need someone who's smart, someone that I don't have to define words for that I use in everyday conversation. And he and I have to have several common interests, which is also difficult, since I'm hardwired for non-conformity. Usually, if it's popular, I won't be involved in it. I don't like feeling like a lemming.

But Tyra Banks seems to want everyone to be a lemming. Even though she says that women don't have to be the size of supermodels to be beautiful, she still pushes for conformity to popular culture's fashion and behavior standards.

In Tyra's mind, Kate Moss (below, left), who popularized the Waif Look in the early to mid 90's, is a beautiful person. Why can't a goth glam girl (below, right) be beautiful to mainstream society?

Just something to think about.

Always,
Lily