Since I've been trying to lose weight I've noticed that the internet is filled with unhealthy methods of weight loss. You cannot do a single search without seeing some advertisement that claims to give you the methods of losing 20 pounds in 20 days (which is obviously extremely unhealthy) or flatten your tummy in a matter of days. Obviously, this is all very unrealistic and ultimately unhealthy. Yet many people are often buy into these sort of things. Even worse is the thinspo/pro-ana/pro-mia/pro-eating disorder community that is huge enough as it is and still growing. Girls know that these are horrible methods of weight loss yet they do it anyhow, starving themselves, purging themselves to get fast results and look like Elite Models. A couple of questions come up: why the rush? Why do you want to shed the weight so fast only to gain it all back? And also how much exactly, have runway models, or models in general influence girls around the world? Facts show that it's quite a lot; 1 and 4 girls have eating disorders. Which brings me to my point: Models and celebrities have been glamorized to the point that society has created an ideal body for women. We're expected to have long toned legs, flat abs, plump breasts, firm asses, long hair. Or rather we see these things so often in magazines, on the tv, in porn, that we feel the need to attain them and go to great lengths to get them. I'm living proof of this. At first, I was losing weight the healthy way and I was a lot happier. Then I joined tumblr and discovered the vast number of 'thinspo blogs' and these girls all posted pictures of beautifully (or I thought at the time) girls that had a gap between their thighs and their tummy didn't roll when they sat down. These blogs all had extremely low goal weights and so I thought maybe my goal weight was too high. These blogs advertised eating little or nothing at all and they seemed to be reaching their goals a lot quicker than I was and I was jealous and intrigued. I began eating 0-900 calories a day and I was seeing results. I loved it. Every day a new, low number came up on the scale and the days when the scale hadn't budged or gone up, I was in a funk. I wanted to be those girls with their ribs and hip bones sticking out of their skin. I wanted the gap, I wanted that tiny ass, I wanted those hollow cheek bones. I hated my body and thought I was disgustingly fat. I fasted every weekend, no food at all. All because these images had been drilled into my brain and I felt the only way I would be happy is if I looked like that. If I had seen none of that I wouldn't have developed my eating disorder. If I hadn't discovered tumblr, I might have lost the weight healthily and I might have been done by now. We shouldn't be made to feel like we're not beautiful unless we look like Kate Moss or Beyonce or Chanel Iman, yet this is what's being advocated in our society. We need to realize that we don't need to look like someone else to love ourselves.
Sex. Sex is definitely advertised in every aspect of media. Whoever said sex sells had it right because it definitely persuades people to do or buy things they wouldn't do or buy otherwise and quite frankly, I think this is horrible. Let's take porn. I've been wanting to write about this for a long time because this really annoys the shit out of me. I've seen just about all there is to see in porn, really nothing surprises me anymore. But what kills me is that most mainstream porn features girls with blown up, fake boobs, blond hair, loads of disgusting make up and a skinny skinny body. Girls who watch porn feel like this is what it is to be sexy. They feel like they need to look like these girls to please men. What's more is what these girls do. They commit all of these sexual acts that aren't necessary in normal sex lives but because of the mass of men who watch porn, men feel like this is what will please them and they want girls who will do these things with them. Girls feel like they have to do those things to keep a man satisfied in real life which is far from the truth. Goodness knows, porn is terribly scripted and fake. Hardly any sex in porn is done with any emotion and it's all extremely exaggerated. No, you don't have to take it up the ass to please your man. No, you don't have to put all sorts of foreign objects up your vagina to enjoy great sex. No, you don't have to moan and scream like that. No, you don't have to take it in that position. I rarely find a video that displays genuine sex. It's all very passive and fake, yet we feel like this is what we have to do to have great sex, to provide maximum pleasure, which is sad.
What would life be like without tv or internet or social networks or magazines the glamorize celebrities or unnecessary reports on what Ke$ha did last weekend? Would we be happier with ourselves? Would the market for self improvement be booming right now? Would we be starving or purging as often? Would that precious 11 year old girl think she was fat? Would we be spending thousands of dollars on quick weight loss scams? Would there be as many promiscuous girls? Would girls be less likely to walk around in what looks like her underwear? Would we go out of our way for the attention of men as much? What would America be like?
This post makes little to no sense, sorry. My brain doesn't work in order so everything's all jumbled in this post. And I'm pretty sure I missed about 5 paragraphs. The porn bit makes me want to do a post about my idea of what sex is. Really, why do I link people to my blog at all?
This song is cheesy, but it has a beautiful message and I'm just gonna leave this here. Don't judge me. :|
Labels: image, individuality, society
posted by loreal @ 3:27 PM