I was saying it more in the spirit, of 3. Hi, Opal! but I suppose I’ll bite.
Most of them aren’t all that attractive to me, I suppose the woman in photo #4 is kinda attractive. I do have a preference for fatter women, maybe not so fat as needing to go on a fatty cart at the supermarket. I suppose I like lots of curves and as a fatso myself I like a woman I’m not liable to break. It’s not the only thing or even the primary thing I would find attractive in a woman but it’s definitely one of my preferences. Do we ever really know why a physical attribute is attractive? FWIW I don’t imagine many of those women photographed would be particularly attractive if they were lighter but YMMV.
I agree with others though above who say this doesn’t really work as art. Lucian Freud presented a more interesting alternative take on beauty in some of his paintings (painting but NSFW). The painting is ostensibly grotesque but there’s real warmth in it and Freud brings out something of the woman’s beauty. If you go on tumblr and search “bbw” you’ll find lots of artsy shots of larger women that are more artistically interesting and beautiful than any of the shots in the OP’s link.
Someone above posted a link to a Lane Bryant model. I find it interesting that plus size clothing companies are loathe to hire models that more accurately reflect their average customer. I know all clothing companies do this but it’s a disservice to the bulk (no pun intended) of their customers presenting models who are usually, if a little overweight, toned etc. I know in a sense they’re advertising aspiration as much as anything else but it must be annoying if you’re shopping for stuff and the only images you see of someone wearing an item are of someone far, far smaller than you.
What mystifies me is a few of these women (and some I’ve known in real life) are fairly normally proportioned from head to midriff, then their bottom half looks like someone pulled the cord on the inflatable liferaft. How do you end up that unbalanced?
I don’t think it’s that, at least not all of them. To be classified as Steatopygia, the angle of the top of the butt must be 90 or less. That is, ya gotta have a bubble butt. Droopy fat deposits that pull the buttocks down to a larger angle (measured off the small of the butt) aren’t Steatopygia.
Those huge fat deposits on the lower 2/3 of the body is just a very common fat distribution in the super morbidly obese. It’s often hidden in clothing, so you may not notice it, but take a (careful, respectful) closer look next time you see a very large woman walking down the street.
I suppose these women have put themselves out there to have their physical appearances judged by having these pictures taken but I don’t think I’d say it was ‘hardcore’. It’s not that hard to gain weight. Americans do it everyday. And it’s not like you really even notice the difference from day to day. It’s a gradual thing. You don’t wake up the next morning and find that you can’t zip up your jeans. But once you do realize that they won’t zip, it’s a painful experience and one that you can choose to deal with one of two ways. In case you haven’t noticed, weight loss is hard and maintaining that loss is even harder.
The other factor that I see going on is that these women are relatively young. Take it from an expert in this, it’s much easier to be significantly overweight when you’re younger. Which brings me to my next reply…
This is it exactly. It’s taken me a long time to come up with a reply to this thread. Having been significantly overweight my whole life (although never meeting the criteria for these pictures) and having lost someone very dear to me due to the effects of morbid obesity, these pictures just make me sad. I’m all for accepting yourself just as you are. I don’t think that you can truly lose weight and keep it off until you honestly like yourself as a person. But obesity can and does take a toll on a person even if it takes a long time to see the effects.
However, though, I also agree with phouka. The only thing that we know about these women is that they are overweight. This tells us nothing about who they are as a person. And so I send kindness and compassion their way.
What an odd statement. None of us has expressed any prudishness about theses pics. The nudity isn’t a problem as the salacious bits are rather eclipsed by the considerable non-salacious bits. We’re aware that a fetish community provides theses women with a near-worshipful level of attention. Fat, in and of itself, isn’t remotely transgressive, it’s rather common and unremarkable. I think the only person made nervous and uncomfortable is the OP who has yet to define or defend his statement about how, exactly, these photos “challenge our standards of beauty”. Since you have declined to share your POV, is it safe to assume you meant “Get a load of these ladies, wouldja?”
I agree that the photography isn’t remarkable either.
Beauty is altogether different than attractive or sexual, but in these shots all I can think is unhealthy, disproportioned, and debilitating. I fail to even find much beauty in the sense of the macabre here.
I just feel bad for them and think framing their conditions in “fat acceptance” seems like a way to justify their size instead of seeking medical/nutritional help. I don’t think we’d apply the same aesthetic judgements had the subjects been horribly anorexic women or heroin addicts with bad teeth and sores.
On the contrary, the fat acceptance (no need for scare quotes, cmyk) is based on the need of obese people to live their lives without facing constant degradation, judgment, and mockery. I consider the Straight Dope to be one of the most consistently enlightened and compassionate sites on the internet, but even here, I’m constantly reading comments about ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ or ‘they’re not beautiful by anyone’s standards’. The first comment, at least, got called out - easy because it was such an obvious insult. The second is accepted as axiomatic by most of the people who read it.
Fat people spend their lives being told their ugly, disgusting, lazy, stupid, and worthless. We hear it in offhand remarks by our loved ones, we read it in comments on the Internet. It’s the subtext of doctor’s appointments, job interviews, class presentations, clothes shopping, and dating. We wilt with self-hatred under this constant barrage. If we want the space to live our lives without this, we have to find a way to cope with it. In many cases, it’s taking part in an outspoken cultural movement to challenge the prejudices many hold regarding us.
You’re right. If the pictures had portrayed victims starvation and addiction as “beautiful”, there’d be a hell of a lot more compassion for them. No one would be explaining “calories in/calories” out to the anorexics or telling the addicts that no one in the world thinks they’re beautiful.
What? So an anorexic never hears someone tell them to just eat a cheeseburger? A junkie never hears that they look like they are steps from death? The only parallell here is the one you’ve pointed out…each condition is technically under the control of the individual. Getting there is a whole other matter.
But we don’t have to worry about anorexics or the slim-figured because they aren’t “real women”, right?
You know better than this. There has been a constant low-level hatred towards thin women and models since Twiggy was popular in the 70s. The world isn’t any harder on the obese than it is on the underweight.
I sincerely believe you’ve read something into my statement I did not put there. Of course we should worry about victims of anorexia and addiction. They are both potentially fatal illnesses. The people who suffer from them deserve our and compassion support.
This is not a contest. If we insist on making comparisons to determine which class of people suffers more, we have missed the point. The point is that we should treat each other and everyone else with kindness, compassion, and dignity. This particular thread happens to be about severely morbidly obese women as the subject of photographs which purportedly display them as beautiful but most of us see as a cheap shot that diminishes the inherent dignity each of these people possess. If you would like to discuss the challenges those at the other end of the BMI spectrum face, it may be best to begin your own thread. If you do, I will post my support in it.
I . . . think it is. I have been both fat and thin. Being fat is waaaaaaay worse. There are many diametrically-opposed sets of traits one could have (I know that is awkward wording, bear with me), where each have their advantages and disadvantages but one is clearly superior.
For example: rich/poor. Yes, being rich does have its drawbacks. Being poor has some upsides! (lower/no taxes!). But it is much, much better to be rich than to be poor.
Smart/stupid. Yup, there are disadvantages to being smart. Still better than being stupid.
I think underweight/obese is the same. While being underweight is not sunshine-and-roses, it’s better than being obese. If you did a poll of people and asked them to pick which they would be, I bet underweight would win in a landslide.
This statement isn’t true. Anorexics are told to “just eat”.
Look, the photos in the OP do not in any way help the fat acceptance movement. They are as self-serving as any Playboy pictorial; they serve no other purpose than to expose a niche in the fetish market and perhaps serve to advertise the availability of the individuals depicted. There is no statement made for accessibility, for equality, or aesthetics.
