Do you ever find yourself apologizing for your size? It is a sad fact of life that many women do these days. We’ve been indoctrinated to think that big is bad and thin is beautiful, and that the emaciated waifs we see in the media have the perfect figure they should have.
However, history shows that it is actually large women that men find most attractive. The works of Renaissance masters such as Botticelli and Rubens show that even medieval women were the subject of immense fascination and scrutiny. Yet the women immortalized on these vintage canvases bear little resemblance to the super-thin celebrities of the modern age. Rather, Renaissance women are often depicted as gloriously full, with full breasts, ample bellies, and big butts.
However, they were still celebrated as objects of beauty…
Centuries later, American World War II bomber crews painted beautiful plus-size “blonde bombshells” on their planes for good luck, and during the great age of Hollywood, movie studios hired busty actresses like Mae West and Jayne Mansfield, more for their plump features than for their acting chops. The celebrated “hourglass” figures captured in these celluloid archives continue to fascinate men to this day.
Decades after her untimely death, buxom beauty Marilyn Monroe, definitely a plus size by today’s slim standards, can still hold her own against even the sexiest modern pin-ups; And who can forget Britain’s blonde bombshell, the late gloriously plus-size Diana Dors, still oozing sex appeal at 49, in Adam Ant’s “Prince Charming” video?
At a time when the term “plus size” had yet to achieve common usage, Dors liked herself as a naughty seaside postcard and unabashedly sold herself as “the first homegrown sex symbol…since Lady Godiva”. Beloved in Britain for her larger-than-life off-screen personality, Dors’s considerable acting skills too often played second fiddle to her ample figure, as directors cast her again and again in the role. curvy mermaid
As frustrating as this certainly was for talented actresses like Dors, however, they made the most of their ample curves to carve out highly successful careers and maintain a massive male fan base. It is curious also to note that Dors, Monroe and West are all immortalized on the cover of the iconic Beatles album, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
These women rose to stardom because the film industry and other media were dominated by men. At a time when feminism was still in its infancy, it was men who dictated acceptable standards of attractiveness. Busty, curvaceous women were preferred over skinny ones because this played into the male fantasy of the perfect “hourglass” woman.
On the contrary, modern famous women increasingly draw their own image from the plethora of glossy magazines published by women. Filled with airbrushed beauties and fascinating but often misguided articles, such magazines play an important role in our daily lives and have a powerful, sometimes negative, impact on the way we see ourselves.
In recent decades, the dictates of such media have reshaped our perception of acceptable standards of attractiveness, fashion, and size. Thin is good, fat is bad, and women all over the world now live in constant fear of gaining weight. The authorities believe that this has contributed significantly to the gradual erosion of women’s self-esteem.
While women like Diana Dors were once coveted by the male media, they are now increasingly the targets of ruthless criticism and ridicule. Where magazines used to help women in their lives by offering practical solutions to everyday problems, today many serve to complicate their lives. “How much should it weigh?” “How young do I have to look?” “What diet should I follow?” are just a few of the questions modern women face every day from the celebrity-driven, perfection-obsessed media. In fact, recent research suggests that women today are more concerned about gaining weight than developing breast cancer.
Every week, countless magazines publish the latest miracle diets and often medically flawed advice on how to lose pounds and get fit. The problem is that most of these brilliant gospels frequently contradict each other on what form it is supposed to be. As a result, confusion reigns in the mind of modern women.
Eating disorders, self-harm, and plummeting self-esteem affect women today like never before. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and addiction to botox treatments and plastic surgery are also on the rise. And few can now doubt the contribution that the mass media have played, and still play, in the development of these hitherto rare psychological events.
Medical authorities today are rightly concerned about the power these journals have over our daily lives. After all, on what authority do the journalists behind these sources of female “wisdom” base their advice? Aren’t they as obsessed with their own image as the rest of us? Doesn’t that sound like “does my butt look big in this?” jump out of their mouths as easily as it does out of ours? Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we only have to pull back the curtain to expose these self-proclaimed gurus for the bogus gossipmongers they really are.
Perhaps there is more to be learned from the practical and simplistic world of men, where the term “plus size” is more likely to have a man rummaging through his toolbox than looking in the mirror.
It’s not that men don’t care how they look, they do. In fact, men are just as vulnerable to the dictates of media ideas as women. But while a woman’s self-esteem is directly related to her physical attractiveness, a man’s, on the contrary, is related to her ability to wield strength and power. Even when it comes to beautiful bodies, a man’s motivation differs from a woman’s… While the size of a woman’s cleavage may be indicative of her sexual prowess, the bulging biceps and rock-hard abs that yearn men intend to intimidate others. men who attract the opposite sex.
Studies have also shown that when it comes to vanity, men are not hampered by the same doubts that plague a woman’s mind. Rather, men tend to look thinner and slimmer than they really are; and, indeed, anyone who has been to a British football match will no doubt be familiar with the plethora of bare breasts and bare beer bellies on display in the male-dominated crowd. Such confidence and carefree exhibitionism has much to endear.
So what’s wrong with having a little meat on our bones anyway? Studies have shown that when it comes to male expectations of a desirable feminine shape, women greatly exaggerate the importance of thinness in the male mindset. Furthermore, history shows that men’s tastes in female body shape have remained more or less constant over the centuries. Big hips, a big bust and a full butt seem to be the order of the day.
As the British rock band, Queen, once said:
I’ve been singing with my band
Through the water, through the land,
I’ve seen all the blue eyed whores on the road, hey
But her beauty and her style
Wear kind of soft after a while.
Take me to those rich ladies every time!
Oh, will you take me home tonight?
Oh, next to that red light of the fire;
Oh, you’re gonna let it all hang out,
Fat girls, they make the rock world go round.
Written by Queen guitarist Brian May, this figure-hugging celebration of women was a 1978 UK hit single. The cover of “Fat Bottomed Girls” controversially featured a curvy, semi-naked woman on a bicycle, while the lyrics expressed in a humorous but overtly sexual tone that larger women are more seductive and sexually attractive to men.
British male viewers seem to share this opinion. In 2006, plus-size TV host Fern Britton was voted one of the most desirable women on television; And in the world of comedy, comedic actress Dawn French is still considered by many men to be one of Britain’s sexiest celebrities. So much so, that even Sheffield hunk Sean Bean, star of Sharpe, troy Y The Lord of the ringscouldn’t resist a cameo appearance with her on the hit British sitcom, The Vicar of Dibley.
Clearly, the women are missing something here. Perhaps men are not as fascinated by the emaciated skeletons we see in the media as we might think. Just like men, maybe we too should see ourselves as better than we really are, instead of hating ourselves for what we’re not.
It’s easy to consider today’s super skinny celebrities the benchmark of female beauty. But it is worth remembering that the most beautiful woman in history is not found in the pages of our fashion magazines, nor is she seen strutting down the catwalks of the fashion world. Neither she nor she, in fact, she is captured by photographers on Hollywood red carpets.
Rather, she gazes at us silently from the paneled walls of the Louvre in Paris like a goddess…
She is of course the Mona Lisaa woman whose mysterious, voluminous features, wry smile, and enigmatic beauty have captivated the world for centuries.
Her creator, Leonardo Da Vinci, became obsessed with her, and for 500 years men have desired her. Some, perhaps, have even killed for it. And yet he has never had a makeover or bought a new suit.
Today, she is worth over £200 million…
What better plus size woman endorsement than that?