Today, in confusing media messages!

21 thoughts on Today, in confusing media messages!

1. This has allot to do with the enormous weight men place on a woman’s physical appearance. Men respond viscerally to visual stimuli and apparently it can even help cause men to adapt different psychological profiles.

   http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~roney/4554077_1_031803.pdf

   some interesting links: http://www.livescience.com/health/060213_attraction_rules.html

   http://wcbstv.com/local/love.first.sight.2.968793.html

2. Dear whatever you believe, why didn’t I love my body when it was healthy?

3. Still though, can we talk about how, much like how women are presented with a virgin/whore definition of their sexuality, our society has so skewed what our weight/bodies should look like that we’re left with this really weird dichotomy of obese vs anorexic?

   Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It’s amazing how “fat” is defined as the presence of having pretty much any fat on one’s body. And, as you state, how the difference between “too fat” and “anorexic” is about 10-15lbs in celebrity culture.

   I wanted to write my honour thesis on how this dichotomy plays out in the gossip magazines you talk about, years ago (‘Deviant Bodies, Deviant Minds’, I was going to call it), but I don’t think it’s all that far from the way many women – including at times myself – think about their own bodies.

4. That is a horrible article.
   The solution posited for an identified double standard and source of social exclusion? Lose weight. Don’t bother questioning how our attitudes got this way, just conform. Of course, nevermind that 95% of weightloss isn’t permanent, or that weightloss has been shown to increase mortality! Let’s not let the facts get in the way of our douchebaggy punchline about how altering one’s appearance is the answer to bullshit ideals enforced by kyriarchy. Let’s also gloss over the fact that fat women aren’t offered contraception because doctors are too embarrassed (read: grossed out by the thought of fat lady orgasms) to do their JOB. Ugh. Oh, and once again the media emphasizes conditions which may be associated with very, very high weight and implies that everyone with a BMI over 25 is prone to them. So lazy.

5. our society has so skewed what our weight/bodies should look like that we’re left with this really weird dichotomy of obese vs anorexic? Like, show a little cellulite on the thighs and all of the sudden you’re on the cover of US Weekly with a big red circle around your jiggly parts. Start a new diet or exercise routine? You’re on the cover again, only with SCARY SKINNY written in big red letters across your hip bones.

   The pro-anorexia t-shirts are particularly disturbing. They should be found to be legally obscene and banned, but this would require us to broaden the definition of obscenity in two ways. We’d need to broaden the type of material that can be labeled obscene beyond purely sexual material. Then, we’d need to abandon the “redeeming social value” standard, because almost anything can be said to have some sort of redeeming social value. Producers know this, and if their material is the target of an obscenity ban, they’ll just throw in something that could be said to have it.

6. They should be found to be legally obscene and banned, but this would require us to broaden the definition of obscenity in two ways.

   Why yes! Why hasn’t anyone though of this before?! Respond to paternalism with authoritarianism! What could possibly go wrong? How on earth could the power to label language we’d like to see disappear as obscene as a pretext for banning it be abused? I honestly cannot imagine a way in which such power would be used to reinforce the kinds of roles and rules the kyriarchy are so fond of. Liberalism is a dead idea, liberty is slavery, etc etc…

   /sarcasm

7. Everyone’s on the band wagon. Sex and fat scandals sell faster than a crack addict can find a fix.

8. I’m not sure this study design was the best way to do this research. The numbers are very skewed towards the people with normal BMI (3651 vs 411 women), and some of the differences between the groups are less statistically significant than the authors are making out. 80% of obese women have had sex in the last 12 months with one parter vs 90% of the same cohort of BMI 25ish. Plus, there were no controls for age in this part of the study, despite their being more older women in the obese group.

   The contraception information has unweighted data, but weighted percentages. How many of the obese group were in the 19-24 age bracket, because this might explain something about why there seems to be such a massive difference in contraception use.

   Also, the study only gives data on IUD, COCP and withdrawal methods. Are POP, IUD and implant methods not licensed in France?

9. What William said.

   I would love to see a lexical definition of obscenity that includes pushing young women into decades of self-harm, but I don’t think we should have a legal definition of obscenity at all.

   As appalling as those tshirts are, they’re just an explicit iteration of a message your average teenage girl already encounters approximately a hillion jillion times every day.

10. The pro-anorexia t-shirts are particularly disturbing. They should be found to be legally obscene and banned, but this would require us to broaden the definition of obscenity in two ways. We’d need to broaden the type of material that can be labeled obscene beyond purely sexual material. Then, we’d need to abandon the “redeeming social value” standard, because almost anything can be said to have some sort of redeeming social value. Producers know this, and if their material is the target of an obscenity ban, they’ll just throw in something that could be said to have it.

    Wait…are you being facetious?

11. “…or that weightloss has been shown to increase mortality”

    My aunt died because she was underweight. But she was underweight because she had a rare form of thyroid cancer.

    I hate this argument, because it ignores the fact that people who die “of being fat” die because of health problems that stemmed from being obese, while people who die “of being thin” die because some disease causes them to lose too much weight. It’s so disingenuous, but boy does it sound good if you have an agenda.

    Yes, some people die because they starve themselves, but that’s not the bulk of people who die of weight loss. And just because you read deaths caused by “anorexia” doesn’t even mean it’s people who dieted too hard. My aunt’s official “cause of death” was anorexia. But she wasn’t starving herself. Her body was. Excess fat is more likely to cause a disease. Wasting away is more likely to be caused by a disease.

12. What could possibly go wrong? How on earth could the power to label language we’d like to see disappear as obscene as a pretext for banning it be abused?

    You tell me. Imagine having the ability to ban everything that encourages anorexia or anorexic beauty standards. Do you have any idea how frequent self-starvation and bulimia are? Their rates would plummet.

    Also, broadening the definition of obscenity would allow us to ban other things, too. Suppose we banned all depictions or allusions to sexual encounters that showed men pressuring women into having sex with them in a positive way, and banned all depictions of sexuality that did not show the female enthusiastically participating, and everything else that to the prurient interest in a way that enabled rape culture. We could seriously curb our levels of sexual assault too.

    I honestly cannot imagine a way in which such power would be used to reinforce the kinds of roles and rules the kyriarchy are so fond of.

    Are you talking about traditional gender stereotypes? To the best of my knowledge, material that ran contrary to those stereotypes was never banned qua defying those stereotypes.

    I don’t see any downsides to broadening the definition of obscenity, I’m afraid. Whatever those downsides are, they’d have to be pretty awful (and I mean awful!) in order for your position to make sense. Enlighten me.

13. “Excess fat is more likely to cause a disease. Wasting away is more likely to be caused by a disease.”

    Do you have evidence of this? Because there are plenty of diseases that are likely to cause weight gain and early death. And many of the diseases that people blame on fat (heart attack, stroke) can kill pretty quickly. Other diseases can be exacerbated by nutritional deficiencies, that are more likely to occur in the overweight and obese population in the US because of dieting and the correlation of obesity with poverty. I’ve yet to see a study that controls for all of the factors necessary to prove a link between obesity and early death. If you can find one, I would be very interested (I’m being sincere here! I’m a chemist and would be really fascinated to read how they separate out all of these variables!).

14. John, the reasons there are downsides to authoritarian responses such as obscenity laws is that it isn’t the theoretical “you” or vague benevolent-but-unnamed person who enforces them, it’s actual people and institutions, specifically the police, the Attorney General’s Office (or equivalent), and the courts. None of these tend to be particularly benevolent groups, and have in almost every single country in which obscenity laws exist/have existed been very happy to target critics of the state, especially those agitating for gender or sexual equality.

    Institutions of state power overwhelmingly support structures of kyriarchy. Giving those institutions increased powers to ban speech/t-shirts/whatevs doesn’t generally result in the kyriarchy being weakened.

    Case in point, the last time we had special new obscenity/annoyance laws enacted in Sydney, they were used to try to prevent people distributing safe-sex supplies and information during Catholic World Youth Day. So no, not so much a fan of the let’s-give-the-state-more-power-cos-they’d-totes-never-misuse-it plan.

15. Imagine having the ability to ban everything that encourages anorexia or anorexic beauty standards. Do you have any idea how frequent self-starvation and bulimia are? Their rates would plummet.

    Really.

    Leaving aside the problem of asking who gets to be the arbiter of such standards and how they’re determined, are you basing this thing on any statistical evidence or solid research, or are you just making suppositions?

    I don’t see any downsides to broadening the definition of obscenity, I’m afraid.

    Then you’re either incredibly naive, ignorant about history, human nature and culture, trolling…or possibly all three. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

16. Ugh. Screwed up blockquote tags. That last paragraph is mine and shouldn’t be in blockquote.

17. You tell me.

    Would you like me to start at the fundamental freedom of expression upon which modern liberalism is based, or should I start at the more pragmatic reality that the people in power don’t give a shit about women and would only use the ability to ban language to ban the kinds of dissent that help women?

    Imagine having the ability to ban everything that encourages anorexia or anorexic beauty standards. Do you have any idea how frequent self-starvation and bulimia are? Their rates would plummet.

    The problem with a totalitarian regime is that only the values of of those in power are enforced. Everyone else is suppressed. Look around, who do you think is going to be wielding that power?

    And yes, I do know how frequent they are. I’d hazard that I probably know better than you given that I’m a therapist who has worked with clients who face these issues and worked on research in the area of body image. Knowing what I know, I realize that the media is only a small part of the messages people receive that contribute to clinically diagnosable eating disorders in specific and the incredibly maladaptive relationship many people have with food in general. Unless you’re going to start policing language behind closed doors, raising children in the absence of their parents, and generally shifting society to resemble one of Huxley’s fever dreams going after the media isn’t going to do much.

    Also, broadening the definition of obscenity would allow us to ban other things, too

    Like frank discussions of sexual health, depictions of homosexual relationships, sexual education, abortion information, trans-positive speech, the list goes on. Once that door is opened all you can do is hope that the people with the guns and the “banned” stamp are on your side.

    Suppose we banned all depictions or allusions to sexual encounters that showed men pressuring women into having sex with them in a positive way, and banned all depictions of sexuality that did not show the female enthusiastically participating, and everything else that to the prurient interest in a way that enabled rape culture. We could seriously curb our levels of sexual assault too.

    Aside from the obvious problems with sentence construction, I have the same objections here that I’ve already noted. The culture goes much deeper than media depictions. I’d go so far as to say that media depictions are symptoms of cultural problems, not antecedents. Banning media depictions of things we do not like is like proscribing asprin for a broken leg. Sure, the pain might seem to lessen for a moment but that break is going to get worse because of it.

    Are you talking about traditional gender stereotypes? To the best of my knowledge, material that ran contrary to those stereotypes was never banned qua defying those stereotypes.

    What on earth are you talking about? The power to ban expression has been used extensively to ban the kinds of behaviors that those with power would like to restrict. The Stonewall riots were started because police were arresting men and women for wearing clothes of the “wrong” gender and dancing with people of the same gender. The strict policing of expression has a very long history. Banning media representations hasn’t generally been necessary because those in power have traditionally made the costs of public defiance so high that few would chance it.

    I must confess, it is difficult to engage with you in a discussion because the world you seem to live in is very different from the one I have always known. Just as a starting point, I have always seen authoritarian power as something which is used to oppress disempowered people, never as their tool. I suspect that part of the problem here is that you are arguing disingenuously. Perhaps you are a “conservative” (in name, few who identify as such have the education or temperament to understand or practice conservatism) who is under the impression that minority groups use their power (!) to force oppression on the majority and are trying to have a bit of fun baiting what you perceive to be a “liberal” (again, termed through an utter lack of political awareness or education) group. Perhaps not, though I’d be willing to wager I’m right here. Either way, your concern trolling run contrary to both my lived experience and common sense.

    I don’t see any downsides to broadening the definition of obscenity, I’m afraid. Whatever those downsides are, they’d have to be pretty awful (and I mean awful!) in order for your position to make sense. Enlighten me.

    To be honest, I’m starting to get bored with this, so I’ll just quote Nietzsche at you

    One has been a bad spectator of life if one has not also seen the hand that in a considerate fashion kills.”
    -Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, part 4, heading 69

    Increasing the power of the State rarely leads to better outcomes for anyone other than the people holding the guns or paying their wages.

18. I hate this argument, because it ignores the fact that people who die “of being fat” die because of health problems that stemmed from being obese, while people who die “of being thin” die because some disease causes them to lose too much weight.

    Actually Bonn, that’s completely misinformed. Yes, it can be difficult to get data on mortality and weight loss which reflects only intentional weight loss and not weight loss as a result of illness. It is at least equally difficult, if not currently impossible, to get data on mortality rates relating to weight gain which is not a result of underlying health issues, since so much weight gain is linked to existing conditions which, surprise surprise, correlate with high weight (weight gain is a symptom of pre-diabetes, for example). What is clear is that there is some correlation between weight and health but it is very unclear, and very doubtful, whether there is any causation (except, perhaps, in people who are extremely fat – certainly not the BMI of 30 mentioned as a cut-off in this article.) You may be interested in this study published in the International Journal of Obesity which concluded that “Weight loss of 15% or more from maximum body weight is associated with increased risk of death from all causes among overweight men and among women regardless of maximum BMI.” You don’t actually have to be ‘thin’ or ‘anorexic’ for weight loss to increase your mortality (although people who are ‘underweight’ are consistently shown to have higher risk of mortality than people who are ‘overweight’ or, in some studies, ‘obese’.) You also don’t have to already be sick.

19. certainly not the BMI of 30 mentioned as a cut-off in this article.)

    Its also worth mentioning that any statistic (and thus any finding based upon that statistic) is only as good as the underlying constructs used to develop the numbers. The BMI is popular because it is easy to measure and fairly reliable. It also happens to be virtually useless as a measure of health or fitness. Its specifically geared towards an ectomorphic/slim body type. People who are built more muscularly or who naturally carry more body fat will have significantly higher BMIs regardless of their overall health level. I carry more weight than I would like to, but I’m naturally muscular and broadly built as well. If I wanted to get my BMI down into the absolute top of the “normal” range I’d have to get my body fat down to 0% and still find 15 pounds to lose somewhere else.

20. And yes, I do know how frequent they are. I’d hazard that I probably know better than you given that I’m a therapist who has worked with clients who face these issues and worked on research in the area of body image. Knowing what I know, I realize that the media is only a small part of the messages people receive that contribute to clinically diagnosable eating disorders in specific and the incredibly maladaptive relationship many people have with food in general. Unless you’re going to start policing language behind closed doors, raising children in the absence of their parents, and generally shifting society to resemble one of Huxley’s fever dreams going after the media isn’t going to do much.

    By “media” I don’t just mean movies and television. I mean beauty magazines and other such publications. For example, I think that any set of visual depictions (e.g. a magazine) that portray unhealthy levels of thinness as being attractive should be banned. Also, beauty magazines et cetera that depict only average-sized women as being attractive should be labeled obscene as well; they should have to contain plus-sized women too.

    But you’re right, the media isn’t the only problem. Another part of the problem is what is known as “male gaze.” Take a look at these images. When I look at them, I don’t even see attractive scantily clad women. All I see is Constitutionally unprotected obscenity. These images depict women in a way that says “these women only exist as objects of male desire.”

    Women are constantly depicted in this way, and this can put quite a bit of pressure on them to look beautiful. And since beauty is a social construct, and is generally portrayed in the media (this includes magazines) as being exemplified by extreme thinness, women feel they have to starve themselves to look beautiful. It’s not just the portrayal of beauty as extreme thinness in the media, it’s the combination of “if you want to be beautiful you must be unrealisically thin” and “you only exist as an object of male desire” that contributes to our alarming rate of eating disorders.

    Banning both of these would reduce our rates of eating disorders and go a long way towards eliminating the perception of women as objects of male desire. I don’t think that anyone who was opposed to anorexia would bother to get offended at these images if they were symptoms rather than causes of a culture of female eating disorders.

    What on earth are you talking about? The power to ban expression has been used extensively to ban the kinds of behaviors that those with power would like to restrict. The Stonewall riots were started because police were arresting men and women for wearing clothes of the “wrong” gender and dancing with people of the same gender.

    You don’t understand. I would actually support… never mind, I’ll wait for you to get there on your own.

    Like frank discussions of sexual health, depictions of homosexual relationships, sexual education, abortion information, trans-positive speech, the list goes on. Once that door is opened all you can do is hope that the people with the guns and the “banned” stamp are on your side.

    Keep going…

    I suspect that part of the problem here is that you are arguing disingenuously. Perhaps you are a “conservative”. . . trying to have a bit of fun baiting what you perceive to be a “liberal”

    : )

    who is under the impression that minority groups use their power (!) to force oppression on the majority

    No, that sort of claim is just a popular reactionary strategy against the loss of privilege. (MRAs who whine about rape shield laws would be an example of this.) There are many, many other examples of privileged classes claiming that the minorities or other classes they’re oppressing are really oppressing them, but a comprehensive discussion of them would take us too far afield.

    Banning media depictions of things we do not like is like proscribing asprin for a broken leg. Sure, the pain might seem to lessen for a moment but that break is going to get worse because of it.

    To be honest, I’m starting to get bored with this, so I’ll just quote Nietzsche at you

    I feel I must return the favor.

    What! What!

    (It’s somewhere in the Birth of Tragedy, I think, but my copy is all the way up in my room and I’m too lazy to go get it and look through it.)

    You ignored everything I said about media that promotes rape culture. Do you really believe that banning all media which positively depicts men pressuring women into having sex with them, or “stripping them of their dignity,” as Chris Surette described doing in a positive way would not reduce our rates of sexual assault? What about banning rape jokes? Imagine if Chris Surette and every asshole comedian who thought it was funny to joke about rape was arrested on obscenity charges. People would take sexual assault much, much more seriously.

    Sexual assault can cause eating disorders, so it’s relevant to our discussion of eating disorders. I’m not trying to derail this thread and make it about my extraneous beliefs about obscenity.

    I wasn’t trying to “concern troll” or anything like that. Concern trolling involves claiming to share the goals of a group while stealthily working against them. In reality, I do share your concern for our alarming rates of sexual assault and eating disorders. I do not share your penchant for obscenity, I openly and vehemently oppose it. This is why I wanted to comment on this thread.

    If you’re unwilling to compromise on a narrow definition of obscenity to curb our rates of sexual assault and eating disorders, there is something deeply and terribly wrong with you. I’d quote Plato for you, but I can’t copy and paste the entirety of Book IX.

21. If I wanted to get my BMI down into the absolute top of the “normal” range I’d have to get my body fat down to 0% and still find 15 pounds to lose somewhere else.

    Meh, that wouldn’t be so hard; God gave you a spare lung and a spare kidney for a reason… ;p

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