Remember that sweet little red head made famous by Disney and infamous for partying? She had great features, a gorgeous smile, and was probably the object of countless male-pioneered internet searches. What was her name? Oh yeah, Lindsay Lohan. Since then she has been replaced by a gaunt, sickly looking girl, with bleach-fried porn star platinum blonde hair. What happened, Lindsay? It looks like you had half a pea for dinner and saved the other half for breakfast the next morning.
I don’t mean to be hard on Lindsay; she was attractive once. The same can’t be said for other skin and skeleton divas like Calista Flockhart and the new Nicole Richie. However, I get tired of so many beautiful women (in and out of Hollywood) succumbing to the ever so popular trend of not eating. That said, I would like to point out that by no means do I proclaim to be in touch with some of the pressures that drove Lohan et al to accentuate their skeleton with a lack of body. But, I will strive to point out that whether or not I know anything about the female social psyche, guys never want to be able to play xylophone on someone’s rib cage.
Countless studies point to the fact that female body image is astronomically more negative than male body image. This is undoubtedly the result of a society employing extremely uniform and rigid standards of beauty, especially for women. The measuring stick for beauty is a physique that is only achievable by a miniscule fraction of today’s society. In fact, the Social Issues Research Centre indicates that the media ideal for thinness for women is attainable by less than five percent of the population. With that in mind, it becomes easy to see why dissatisfaction with one’s appearance is not hard to come by. But look, I bet I don’t look like Brad Pitt with my shirt off in Fight Club. However, I just want to harp on the fact that the media ideal is not the male ideal.
Men don’t want to be able to count each individual vertebra, or see a diaper butt on your swimsuit because your ass disappeared. Looking like a natural, healthy, human being goes a long way these days when every body part you can think of can be man made. And, I can assure you that the majority of men out there aren’t attracted to Lohan’s skeletal frame.
I know that as a guy I probably won’t ever be privy to any of the underlying complexities and issues I might espouse by tackling this topic, but that’s okay, I’m not trying to. I’m only striving to say that men are not fond of the girl that looks like she could be broken in half with a wet napkin, no matter what that coke-head super model says. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and favorite non-academic resource, indicated that researchers found that men generally judge the female figure they found most attractive as heavier than women’s ratings of the ideal body shape. Simply put, I’m not the only guy who’d prefer a little weight to an exoskeleton.
Finally, I know that whatever I say, a woman’s perception of her body will always be different than a males. But, no matter what I say a woman will never know what it feels like to get kicked in the jewels either, but they believe me when I tell them it hurts, so believe me when I tell you that thinner is not always better.
Archived article by Brad Hill
Sun Staff Writer