Thank GOD for Supermodels!

Did you ever stop to wonder where society would be without supermodels? US model agent, Eileen Ford, gives her perspective:

"Models do not have a negative impact on women. They have a positive impact because they set standards. Women are going to look like themselves but they will look like their best selves because models set standards. When you think you look your best and feel your best there's an aura around you of self confidence and self assurance. Models do that to women".

Wow. I never thought about it that way before. If it weren't for models, no one would know what was beautiful. If it weren't for supermodels, I wouldn't know that I'm chubby, my hips are too wide, my shoulders too broad, and, apparently, my breasts are either too big or too small these days. I wouldn't know that I have to aim for the body of a twelve-year-old boy in order to be attractive at the end of the second millennium. Unfortunately, biology did not give me the body of a young boy; it gave me the body of a twenty-two-year-old woman. But women's magazines tell me I can overcome nature with diet and ceaseless exercise. Whew. Thank God for supermodels. If it weren't for them, millions of teenage girls and women wouldn't be killing themselves with eating disorders, diet pills, and enemas (sick but true) for the unattainable body. That's real "self confidence and self assurance". Apparently, I was mistaken about the definition of those words, as well.

Well, I have a pair of twin sisters who are 16 right now. They often obsess over fashion magazines and whatnot, trying to make themselves look better. I laugh at their vanity.

I don't think it is the modeling agency or the model's fault. Isn't it the entire contemporary Western culture against fat dictates all this dieting and anorexia and uhh, enemas, trying to attain the "perfect body"? This is an excellent example of popular culture overriding sensible logical thought.

Due to the cultural pressure that surrounds them, people will never be content with their current bodies and do all that bullshit trying to look better. My sisters are pretty insane, IMO. Continuously throwing up after eating will not only make you weak, it will wreck your gastrointestinal tract.

Models are part of this filthy popular culture. However, I think there is as much fault in the women (or men sometimes) submitting to conforming with the cultural norms instead of ignoring it as the culture itself.

My older sister (who is 19 and more sensible) is not exactly model standards. She is content with her looks. She never spends hours thinking on diet plans and she never feels guilt when she eats.

Besides, to me she is beautiful. To hell with what other people think.

(Note: If you must downvote please say why.)

Thank god for supermodels. They give me something to fixate on. If there were no supermodels I'd fixate on something else. But I would still be obsessed. I'd still have that sense that I didn't exist, those pangs of despair that make me suspect I am in some way deformed, hopeless, a discarded rag doll.

Often, when I read what people have to say about women who are insecure about their appearance, I get the impression that they do not understand the depth of the insecurity. Ugly women with make-up don't put it on to look good. When your sense of self is totally crushed it's impossible to look good. They do it to look human.

I'm not on a diet for the rest of my life because I'm trying to maintain a weight that "looks good" I'm trying to maintain my humanity. If I gain a pound it's as if it is gone. I'm not a woman anymore. I can't live with myself therefor I can’t live.

I'm not saying that all "slaves to fashion" are in the extreme hell I find myself in-- but many are. These are not petty battles. Consider the humiliation some men feel if it's suggested that they can't get it up-- double that and you might understand how a sales clerk suggesting that I wear a size 6 (I am, infect, a SIZE 2) --could drive me to question my right to go on living. after all this work could I possibly look as FAT as a size 6?

But again, thank god for supermodels! I remember the first time I saw a supermodel. (I realize now that the boyish look of supermodels must be intentional. Adolescent girls are drawn to these women for reasons they can't explain. But to an adolescent girl what could be more beautiful than a boy?) I was at the doctor's office with my mother one spring day in 1991. I picked up a copy of Elle. For some reason I didn't feel safe looking at it with my mom there so I crept off the bathroom.

The room was bright lit by a wall of frosted windows. On the other wall was a huge mirror. I locked the door and leaned on the sink looking at each image. Then I saw kate She was in a wife beater and panties that looked liked they'd been washed a few to many times. Her legs were so slender-- she looked like she lived in a charmed world. I could picture her walking back from the lake barefoot at some extravagant (yet worn and rustic) farm where fascinating conversations and decadent leisure were the sole activities. I wanted to be there. I didn't even know where such a place could be-- I still don't-- in fact, I've started to doubt it exists.

AT that moment I looked at the mirror. This was the first time I really saw myself-- not as simply me-- but as a problem. Something that had to be corrected a great flaw.

I was horrified by my reflection. I had thought for a moment that I could be beautiful-- that I could enter that mysterious world. What arrogance! I'd be lucky if I could get up the courage to leave the bathroom. How did this happen? What kind of monster was I turning in to? Why do I have such beautiful dreams that reality by comparison is a nightmare?

Yes, the dreams make me sick-- but how could I possibly wish that I had never known them? It's like saying that blindness is a cure for a fear of heights.

A world without dreams? It's a long way down.