Body image
I had some thoughts I was pondering sharing, then I saw this which displays some of it very well:
From time to time a sexy-underwear-for-men company sends me a catalog. (I suspect it's really the sexy underwear for gay men company, but they don't ask or anything, they're happy to sell to someone who is hoping to impress someone with a little tiny penis nestled in amongst all those glorious folds, too.)
Anyway, as I leaf through the catalog, I think, wow, I really do not look like an underwear model. But, you know, women encounter photos of underwear models all the time whereas us dudes, not so often. And basically no one is going to tell me I ought to look like an underwear model, or insist I'm valueless because I don't. And, other important thing, even the underwear models don't really look like that. Aside from getting the job specifically because they don't look like average people, and even aside from the Photoshop job on the photos, those are very carefully posed. Hair fussed over, arms and legs positioned just right, kleenex stuffed in there to get the bulge just right (they do that, you know), this thing sucked in and that thing pushed out, a hundred photos taken and the best one selected to proceed to do the Photoshop job on. Even those guys don't look like that when they're just slouched on the couch at home leafing through a catalog. Remember that.
Click to viewFrom time to time a sexy-underwear-for-men company sends me a catalog. (I suspect it's really the sexy underwear for gay men company, but they don't ask or anything, they're happy to sell to someone who is hoping to impress someone with a little tiny penis nestled in amongst all those glorious folds, too.)
Anyway, as I leaf through the catalog, I think, wow, I really do not look like an underwear model. But, you know, women encounter photos of underwear models all the time whereas us dudes, not so often. And basically no one is going to tell me I ought to look like an underwear model, or insist I'm valueless because I don't. And, other important thing, even the underwear models don't really look like that. Aside from getting the job specifically because they don't look like average people, and even aside from the Photoshop job on the photos, those are very carefully posed. Hair fussed over, arms and legs positioned just right, kleenex stuffed in there to get the bulge just right (they do that, you know), this thing sucked in and that thing pushed out, a hundred photos taken and the best one selected to proceed to do the Photoshop job on. Even those guys don't look like that when they're just slouched on the couch at home leafing through a catalog. Remember that.