the daily snivel

  No fat chicks

Via the inimitable Pandagon, we learn that Richard Roeper (yes, that Richard Roeper) admits that he has a problem. He can only get it up when he's looking at pictures of boney, angular, fantasy women in their underwear. Worse, he thinks that the problem isn't just with him -- it's actually with women who aren't fantasy-thin. In fact, he says, all men, everywhere, are also shallow, superficial, and sexist. After all, he says so. Well, why don't I just let him explain it in his own words:

Chunky women in their underwear have surrounded my house.

Billboards of chunky women, that is. If you've been downtown lately, you've no doubt noticed the ads for Dove soap, featuring regular-sized women in bras and panties. It's part of a nationwide "Campaign for Real Beauty," and it's drawing waves of attention from the media.
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Now here's where I'm supposed to say that I find it refreshing to see "real people" on billboards, given that our culture is so obsessed with youth and beauty, and that most billboards feature impossibly gorgeous, ridiculously thin women who have been airbrushed to a level of perfection that 99.9 percent of the population can never reach.

But the raw truth is, I find these Dove ads a little unsettling. If I want to see plump gals baring too much skin, I'll go to Taste of Chicago, OK? I'll walk down Michigan Avenue or go to Navy Pier. When we're talking women in their underwear on billboards outside my living room windows, give me the fantasy babes, please.

If that makes me sound superficial, shallow and sexist -- well yes, I'm a man. And I'll have to point out that most of the men who appear on billboards and in magazines and on TV commercials are just as genetically blessed as their female counterparts.

There you have it. He's a man, men are shallow, superficial, and sexist, and therefore it's "unsettling" to see billboards of women in their underwear -- unless they're a size 2, that is. Then it's alright. Real women, however -- you know, the ones you actually see outside the carefully airbrushed pages of Maxim and don't have eating disorders -- are so grotesque that the very sight causes his blood to flee the superfluous vessels in his shriveling member. Which is odd, since you'd think in that case it would head back to the brain. Nevertheless, "chunky" women just don't do it for him, so isn't it a shame that Dove has spoiled it for men everywhere by suggesting that women on the street ever escape their muumuus and burlap sacks and the paper bags they kept over their heads and show a little skin.

Take a gander, if you dare, at these hideous wretches unfit for the eyes of men:




As much as Mr. Roeper has the right to his opinion, he expressed it in public and that makes it a fair target for fair comments from women and men who take exception to the fact that he has painted all men, everywhere, with an insulting and sexist brush, and he has effectively labeled average, healthy women as unfuckable. I think men have a responsibility to call out stupid things like this. It demeans everyone to suggest that men don't find real women attractive, and enforces a continuing pattern of superficiality that ought to be decried. And given that the reaction by Mr. Roeper to a campaign stating "it's time to show real women's bodies (*) and recognize their very real beauty" is: "Oh, God, look at how fat and ugly they are!" you see why such a turnabout of the Kate Moss standard of beauty was so badly needed in the first place.

As I said, I think men have a responsibility to call out stupid statements about women and men. So I'll go on the record as saying it: I love real women. I love women, period. We all have buttons that can be pressed by certain body features, but couldn't you be swept off your feet by the right woman regardless of these arbitrary preferences? All of the women in the Dove ads are gorgeous, and what's more, they're all out of Mr. Roeper's sorry league. The female body has been celebrated for years in portrait and sculpture as the essence of beauty, and it's only in recent years that we as a society have turned against curves and softness and decided that angular bodies and boyish features are really beautiful. Myself, I'll happily smooch any woman who's funny, intelligent, healthy, and happy with her body, and I bet most real men would agree with me.

And to the bleating that men in mainstream advertisements are just as "genetically blessed" as the women, well, are they really? Yes, they're very good looking, but so are the women in the Dove ads. The difference is that men in ads are allowed to have a healthy size. They've bulky with muscle, not slender. I don't have a perfect body, but I stay in shape by going to the gym regularly, and I'm getting hotter with time. At the gym, there are a lot of fit, healthy, men and women. Most of the men you see at the gym have bodies would fit in place in an Obsession advertisement or other glimpse of scantily clad men. (especially if you airbrush the blemishes and get rid of the body hair). Most of the women you see at the gym don't. Both have average builds, but the women, with round hips, feminine curves, and sexy muscle tone, are the ones that make Mr. Roeper queasy.

As Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon concludes:

"Roeper never explains why it is that requests that he refrain from demanding that all advertisements, even those aimed directly at women, conform to his sex fantasies is somehow a demand for an apology for the fantasies themselves. He can dream of fucking a cardboard cutout of a skeleton stolen from someone's Halloween display for all I care, but that doesn't mean he has to petulantly insult women who maintain a body weight sufficiently high enough that they don't need a fleet of doctors following them to make sure their heart continues beating.

And of course, being told one is too fat to fuck for daring wear a size 6 should cause peals of laughter of the good-natured sort. You're right, Richard! I'm hideous! I hate myself, it's so funny! But women are sensitive babies, I guess. (If Roeper reads this, I'm sure he's dying laughing now that I've said the thought of him naked puts me off my lunch. Well, at least he's helping me get closer to acceptable to be seen in my underwear."

* -- Admittedly, a campaign aimed at the heart of women who still need to buy creams, potions, and magic elixirs in the endless pursuit of cosmetically-enhanced beauty and ultimately physical perfection.

 

  For the peace of mind of all my future clients...

... I did very well indeed on the criminal law exam for the Bar Admissions Course, beating the pass/fail point by a huge margin. I am now over halfway complete the academic process and thus presumably halfway competent to become a lawyer myself in a year's time.