To think that the West is seriously fucked up on the bosom front?

[Hullygully]

Bags of poison sewn into our infant feeding parts.

How fucked up is that?

Thank you Hully. Just found this thread and will catch up later but in the meantime what's good is it looks like it's woken lots of us up a bit to educate our kids - male and female.

So sad so many of us parents think 'perfect' manufactured porn-women are fine to bring into the house via computer.

never played bioshock? its where we are heading. upgrades people...

its disgusting

Thing is, I really don't know many men who find the 'plastic barbie doll with massive fake boobs' look appealing.

I have never met a man for whom Jordan is the ideal woman, which is pretty odd when you think about it, as her whole shtick is her 'sexiness' and 'glamour.'

At her book signings and product launches, the audience is made up almost exclusively of young women. Which is probably even more depressing, in that they appear to see her as someone to aspire to.

Not everybody wants to use their titties to feed sprogs, k?

Fine Boomer, however, if you ever use the word 'titties' in my vicinity again I will come over to yours & get all medieval on your ass, k?

I'll hold your coat Spiders.

Is that a bad word here? I am new you know, I haven't even found the toilet yet.

I remember my cousin's husband telling me that there was a study done on porn about a decade ago, and what men actually go for. Pretty much, in the last 100 years, men have gone for "normal" women. i was reading an article yesterday about a sex addict, and the thing he was looking for most wasn't weirdy out there porn, but more voyeuristic, regular couples filming themselves.
There seems to be a shift now, but men of my generation and that don't really find women like Jordan attractive, they want a normal looking woman, with regular boobs. Unfortunately, I have been party to many conversations as to what my male friends find "hot", and it's not fake boobs. They also have a clear distinction between girls they'd happily shag and girls they'd settle down with.

so because I have a small bag of sillicone in my body, Im not normal?

Presume Abs is referring to a normal body shape, so depends on the size of the bags of silicone in relation to the size of the rest of you. Jordan is given as an example of "not normal" body shape as she has what my DH refers to as "comedy boobs", ie ridiculously large solid mounds.

I think many people are a bit suspicious of implants in general though and what they feel like. If women are doing it for men it's a bit misguided. Men like boobs big or small as far as I can gather... My DH thinks Cameron Diaz is gorgeous - small chest. He also thinks Kim Kardashian is stunning - huge chest. Attraction based purely on looks but the boobs or lack of doesn't come into it.

If a child is being teased at nursery, at age four, and the parents know about the teasing, I wonder what the teacher is doing about it? Surely that's something that she/he should be dealing with?

Hi BIWI. It's not a regular thing, but I know it has happened a couple of times. I don't even think it was particularly malicious, but she was upset about it at the time. Saying that, she hasn't mentioned it since, and I don't want to highlight it as an issue at this stage because I don't think that'll help her.

My main point was, even very young children are aware of the ways in which they are different to others, and begin to see this in a negative light. The pressure to conform is life-long.

That's what I mean - a woman who is in proportion, not someone like Lola Ferrarri or Jodie Marsh where they've had so much surgery they look distorted.

I agree Emma, but would also say that a hairy back is much more unusual, particularly for a female, whereas everyone of the three billion odd women in the world had different breasts. So it is a different case.

BTW I have a friend with three daughters, one of whom is very hirsute all over, and from the time that swimming etc started at school, she has has her body (inc her belly) waxed as often as necessary to stop her standing out.

One thing I found interesting yesterday ( when I was watching interviews with women who'd had implants ) was the re-occurring line that false boobs look good in clothes.

I'd have to agree, in general, they do.

In the flesh though, I guess unless it's a really good job, they look and feel weird. It's actually a turn off IME. Great to look at from a distance. Not so great when intimate.

And giving up any sensation in the nipples, and the ability to breast feed seems a rather high price to pay for vanity. add in the risk of surgery or ruptures and I don't think I'd personally want to go there if I was a woman unless I had a good reason like re constructive reasons..

I think we're so over exposed to breasts these days that it makes it 'easier' to judge because it's so common to see nicely proportioned boobs. And unfortunately nature doesn't bless everyone with perfect features throughout.

As said elsewhere, people have been doing stuff to themselves in the name of 'beauty' for millennia. In many cultures. It just happens we find ourselves in a time where (a) we see a lot more flesh than in previous generations, and (b) cosmetic surgery is more 'acceptable', accessible and has 'come of age' so to speak.

I think we're pretty fucked up on most fronts, not just the bosom front. It's all superficially, short term and materialistic.

I'm sure there are women who do feel 'anguish' at having what they perceive to be small breasts. What is mind boggling is that they feel no anguish at having major surgery, suffering loss of sensation and carrying around a health risk for ever more. It really is an extreme form of cognitive dissonance and I hope that such surgical procedures will be viewed in the same way as foot binding in the future.

yy

It's a shame that all the drive and creativity and restlessness we feel as a species goes into tinkering with the body and messing about with it.

Imagine if all that energy was harnessed to improve the lot of the rest of our species, you know, the basics: clean water, food, medicine.

Oh wait, there's no money in that.

Don't forget the enormous profit motive that drives the creation of a culture that encourages surgery.

Money drives fashion, make-up, hair, surgery. Like it's about women's "self-esteem."

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

MrGin if people are really having surgery because "false boobs look good in clothes" that's really mind boggling. Padded bras people!

I've been thinking about this, Hully... I'm actually feeling quite uncomfortable regarding our culture. We don't celebrate womens' brains generally, perhaps we don't see them in the same way that some of us automatically would, a man's achievements. I've thought of how I'm guilty of that and it's really, 'surprise by exception' when women are high achievers. It doesn't register to me when men are, but it does when women are... I don't know where that came from, but I'm appalled at myself for it. :(

The reason I was thinking about that is that I was pondering why some women feel so dissatisfied with themselves that they follow the 'dive to the bottom' that is the 'celeb' culture we're now in. It is men that drive that, it really is. I don't know of any woman who finds implants attractive in another woman, even if they understand/empathise/sympathise with the reasons for those. Men demonstrate that they find these images attractive, whether they say they do or not. They fully support surgically inflated breasts through they patronage of porn media and clubs/organisations that employ women for the purposes of entertaining men.

Take Page 3, going back to the 80s, nobody seemed enhanced. Women were still objectified but in their natural state, more or less. Now, not so. We're bombarded with horrific and quite grotesque images of pumped-up women. I don't even believe that those women have free choice exactly, they don't really. Perhaps they feel unable to reach their potential in any other way other than following the others for artificial breasts when their own weren't in any way lacking. That has a knock-on effect because it's become the 'norm', it's gained a tacit accepatability and in fact, if you don't conform to that ideal, well you're not really worthy of note.

What chance do our children have? Boys and girls will have to have very strong internal self-reference to swim against the tide and go against what is perceived to be 'normal'. A girl, and perhaps boys also, who choose not to conform is also a target for bullying from her peers, constantly having their values and beliefs checked and found wanting by others applying a lower barometer of what is acceptable and what isn't. :(

This is really dreadful. I'm really referring to the forceful wave of cosmetic 'norm', rather than the choice that any person has to elect for surgery for themselves. I'm truly not judging - not any woman, anyway - but I'm so shocked out of my reverie. I feel a little like entropyglitter, that I've had a revelation... it doesn't feel comfortable AT ALL.

Hully... I can see where you were going with your OP and I owe you an apology. I'm sorry.

So many points I want to comment on! I was one of the girls at school with hairy legs, and was picked on about that, and was then allowed to borrow my mum's epilator (ouch)
However the bullying really made me angry, why the he'll should I conform to what everyone else wants etc. This sparked the feminist in me and from then on at school it was all about equality eg why did girls have to do dancing when the boys were allowed to do cross-country? ( I was then allowed to do cross-country and even played rugby with the boys - not because I was a toy boy, or even built like a rugby player - I was a very petite thing in those days!)

My point is where is this spark in today's young girls? Why aren't they saying "wait a minute..."
How can we get girls an young women to value themselves and not feel the news to conform to an increasingly ridiculous ideal? I don't know the answers but I suspect it will have to start with their own mothers trying to give them that confidence- but how??

I have 3 boys and am partly put off having another in case it's a girl- I would worry so much, and I'd feel under huge pressure to shelter her from all this crap. On the other hand maybe I could have a girl like me with a strong sense of self worth from within. I guess I have my mum to thank for that.

This is not meant as criticism of anyone elses parenting, more of a musing on how hard it must be to bring up girls in this messed up culture

tomboy.

molschambers . I agree. But then my mind used to boggle when I'd open XP's bathroom cabinets. The amount of bottles, creams, pencils, tools, make up etc etc etc was like a mini Boots store in her bathroom.

I have about five items. Toothbrush, nail clippers, toothpaste, soap and shampoo.

And I suppose once a man begins relationships with a woman you get an insight into all the 'tricks' . Padded bras, 'control pants' , hair colouring, anti-ageing creams, hair straighteners or hair curlers, false eyelashes and so on.

Boob jobs are a fair old step on from all this, but clearly with the same aim.

No need for apologies. When we are deeply embedded in a culture, it's hard sometimes to step back from it and assess it with detachment. Let's try and make it better for our kids!

Kate moss looks pretty good in her clothes