It is healthy, but not the way Simpson is doing it. I don’t know if Ashlee Simpson’s confidence has any kind of body acceptance, where she just accepts and likes her body no matter how it looks or whether the culture at large thinks she should hate her body. Maybe she is just currently a member of that 5-10% minority of women who have managed to force their body to look a certain way via excesses in dieting, drugs, exercise and cosmetics and currently feel more or less content. In that case, no it is not healthy. No more than having 90% of people feel discontent because they make less than 85k a year.
I know her sister does ads for acne cream, talking about how acne cream gave her self confidence. But that isn’t good self confidence. She isn’t accepting or liking herself, she is just using endless forms of modern technology to force her body to fit some unrealistic mold and after years of struggles she ‘won’.
You can read more of my opinions at my local women’s group.
Generally, I don’t take my social etiquette cues from Ashlee Simpson
I’m glad she’s over the anorexia, and would be glad for anyone who can deal with such a horrible condition. And I’m glad she likes her boobs, although it does seem like she could be switching one kind of body obsession for another, but it’s got to be better to be proud of your body rather than disgusted with it.
But I’m not going to start holding press conferences about my breasts, or even talk about them over the dinner table, just because a lame celebrity does. There’s a time and a place for everything, but the general public doesn’t need to know how each and every woman feels about her tits.
Treating your acne doesn’t mean you don’t like yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with not liking acne. There’s got to be some room in between “she doesn’t like herself” and “she takes care of her appearance.”
True. However I don’t know how far in one or the other direction she went, maybe she was just systematically insecure, maybe she just wanted to improve her appearance. Jessica Simpson, even with acne, was still more attractive than 98% of women, and she said she was alot more self confident after she got her acne treated. When a woman is more attractive than well over 98% of other women and has managed to make 90% of her body look the way her culture wants it to look but still feels incomplete and insecure that is a bad sign.
In this day and age, I bet there’s not a woman in North America that couldn’t give a long list of things about her body that she is dissatisfied with. We are constantly told how inadequate we are - our boobs are too small, too big, too saggy. Our legs are fat or skinny or veiny, our arms are flabby or hairy, our faces are spotty or greasy or wrinkly or covered in blackheads or whiteheads, our features are too big or too small or too thin or too pouty or the wrong colour, our hair is limp or frizzy or dull or damaged, our feet are too big or too bony or just plain ugly. Just ask the beauty industry, they will tell you all you need to know (and more!) about how unattractive we are.
Furthermore, every woman can be quite certain that the quality of her breasts will be evaluated by many of the men she meets, and will be the basis of many judgements of her overall attractiveness. I spend a lot of time listening to/reading about men’s thoughts about breasts. Why the hell shouldn’t we share our thoughts about them too - considering we’re the ones they’re attached to?
In such circumstances, I think a woman (ESPECIALLY one battling anorexia!) who boasts about her attributes should be respected for it.
It’s not women who put all this emphasis on breasts. Why shouldn’t we talk about them the way we want to?
(And yes, before you ask, mine are spectacular.)
Yes, absolutely, but it is astonishingly common.
(Experiment: Go find the most beautiful woman you know. Ask her what parts of her body she is happy with, and what parts she is unhappy with. I bet the second list will be much, much longer.)
Bragging or healthy self-confidence? Depends upon the context. If it’s a cow-orker just returned from “emergency Christmas surgery,” stopping at your desk to lean way over and show your her tan lines, then it’s probably bragging. If it’s the same woman now able to stand up straight & look people in the eye, then it might be healthy self-confidence.
The context of the Ashlee Simpson article is not bragging about breasts, or healthy self-confidence. It’s this:
The Simpson PR firm needed to plug her new single, so they write an article that they’re sure will be published. A little healthy controversy – “she’s talking about her BOOBS!” – is an old trick of the PR industry.
Johnny, you fell for it, big-time.
It’s unlikely that Ashlee Simpson said anything that appears in that article. She may have been skinny, and I don’t doubt she had an eating disorder – probably still does. Every time you read about her, or see her, it’s an event entirely made up for public distribution.
She’s a celebrity – it’s her job to just be there, and a whole herd of people are paid to make you notice her.
I am wondering where I can get tickets for the 1st annual (at least I assume its the first, if not linky please) SDMB Boobathon? My local ticketmaster outlet had no idea what I was talking about.
I agree with the posters who said that it’s a fine thing and even should be encouraged. Like most women, I have/had self-image problems. When I was younger I was very self-conscious about the size of my breasts especially when my 5-years-younger sister sprouted a chest 3x times my size in under two years. I would get compliments on my breasts but I brushed them off, thinking that the people were just being nice. I wore padded bras and even considered getting implants.
It has been a long road to self-acceptance. A few months ago I was admiring the recent growth my boobs had undergone and commented to a friend/ex-lover that I hoped they would become Cs. She told me that she didn’t like that idea and that if there was a problem with my breasts, it was that they were slightly too big. It reminded me that the idea of perfection in breast size is based on opinion. If Ashlee Simpson’s breasts are perfect for her and she wants to acknowledge that, that’s wonderful! I wish more women were able to feel that they had perfect breasts. After all, it ultimately doesn’t matter what other people think of our breasts or how perfect or non-perfect they are, but how we think of them.
OK, you can tell me I’m crazy or something, but I don’t think either Ashlee or Jessica are particularly attractive, or busty for that matter. I see better looking and bustier women at the grocery store every other day. The Simpsons are just schlepping it to the hilt, and some folks seem to find that sexy; I don’t, it’s just empty gesturing, IMHO.
