Your Vagina Isn't Just Too Big, Too Floppy, and Too Hairy—It's Also Too Brown

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Link:http://jezebel.com/5900928/your-vagi...also-too-brown

ugh

Good news, ladies! Society has discovered another new thing that's wrong with you, which means another opportunity for you to make yourself more attractive for your man. Score! Turns out, the color of your vagina is gross and everyone hates it. So bleach that motherfucker. Bleach it right now!

In this commercial for an Indian product called Clean and Dry Intimate Wash, a (very light-skinned) couple sits down for what would have been a peaceful cup of morning coffee—if the woman's disgusting brown vagina hadn't ruined everything! The dude can't even bring himself look at her. He can't look at his coffee either, because it only reminds him of his wife's dripping, coffee-brown hole! Fortunately, the quick-thinking woman takes a shower, scrubbing her swarthy snatch with Clean and Dry Intimate Wash ("Freshness + Fairness"). And poof! Her vadge comes out blinding white like a downy baby lamb (and NOT THE GROSS BLACK KIND) and her husband—whose penis, I can only assume, is literally a light saber—is all, "Hey, lady! Cancel them divorce papers and LET'S BONE."

Needless to say, certain citizens are troubled by this product—which, in addition to just being fucking insane, brings up painful issues about the hierarchy of skin tone within the Indian community. As if it isn't bad enough that darker-skinned people are encouraged to stay out of the sun and invest in skin-bleaching products like Fair & Lovely, and that white actresses are being imported to play Indian people in Bollywood movies, now everyone has to be insecure about the fact that their vaginas happen to be the color that vaginas are??? Splendid! God, I was just saying the other day that my misogyny didn't have enough racism in it.

So what are the pro-vadge-bleaching people thinking? Here's a hilarious explanation from a male ad exec:

It is hard to deny that fairness creams often get social commentators and activists all worked up. What they should do is take a deep breath and think again. Lipstick is used to make your lips redder, fairness cream is used to make you fairer-so what's the problem? I don't think any Youngistani today thinks the British Raj/White man is superior to us Brown folk. That's all 1947 thinking!

The only reason I can offer for why people like fairness, is this: if you have two beautiful girls, one of them fair and the other dark, you see the fair girl's features more clearly. This is because her complexion reflects more light. I found this amazing difference when I directed Kabir Bedi, who is very fair and had to wear dark makeup for Othello, the Black hero of the play. I found I had to have a special spotlight following Kabir around the stage because otherwise the audience could not see his expressions.

See? It makes perfect sense. We just want our vaginas to reflect more light—is that so wrong? I mean, WHAT IF MY CAR BREAKS DOWN AT NIGHT AND I DON'T HAVE A REFLECTIVE ENOUGH VAGINA? Really, the ultimate one-vagina-to-rule-them-all would glow in the dark like one of those deep-sea fishes. I need my vagina to attract more krill so my husband will fuck me again! (My husband is a whale.)

Basically the idea is to get as far away as possible from any color that vaginas actually come in. Because that's what's at the heart of this type of thinking—the perfect vagina would be something that's not a vagina at all.

Now while we are here, to allow for actual discussion to take place on this thread I'm curious of your experiences with vaginas. I think we can talk like mature leftists and have a reasonable discussion on the subject matter. So basically in addition to obviously decrying this reactionary practice I think it would be helpful if we can learn about vaginas from a female perspective and the experience with vaginas. I guess I'll start with a couple things.

As some of you know I am a transwoman and during my junior year my depression came back really bad when my ex cheated on me with a couple guys, and depression tends to trigger my gender dysphoria. And as some of you might know many transpeople experience phantom limb syndrome. So one day when it was really bad I was able to used the sensation of where the vagina ought to be to have a female orgasm. It was wooonnnddeeerrrffffuulll. Seriously I envy you cis-woman, lady parts are awesome! Maybe if you are all mature enough I will share some more things. I imagine considering the maturity level of revleft there is about a 1/4th chance this won't derail but hopefully this leads to a fruitful discussion that goes beyond us simply agreeing with eachother about how reactionary this product is and can allow for an actual educational discussion.

[Was tun, wenn's brennt?]

To be crass, yet succinct and honest: I don't discriminate, I penetrate. The only time the color of a vagina would matter to me is if it called into question the health of the woman I was about to stick my tongue/finger/penis in.

[Alexios]

Uh where exactly is it implied that this is a common view amongst men? The article just says it's being sold by some company in India and has a piece from an executive defending it. Companies make products all the time that appeal to a minority. I don't see any evidence that this is a societal norm.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Uh where exactly is it implied that this is a common view amongst men? The article just says it's being sold by some company in India and has a piece from an executive defending it. Companies make products all the time that appeal to a minority. I don't see any evidence that this is a societal norm.

Well here is a link to another article which points out the broad desire for paler skin in Indian society, I imagine this can extend down to the genital regions

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-styl...icle-1.1498783

AFP RELAXNEWS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2013, 10:03 AM
Actress and director Nandita Das is fighting to change the idea that Indian women are only beautiful if they have fair skin.
AFP

Actress and director Nandita Das is fighting to change the idea that Indian women are only beautiful if they have fair skin.
MUMBAI - Looking to find a husband, make friends, and get ahead at work? Then you need to have lighter skin.

That's the all-pervasive message in India, and it's something that one actress is fighting to overturn.

The new poster girl of the "Dark is Beautiful" campaign, Nandita Das, has called out India's obsession with fair skin -- a prejudice she says has driven some young women to the brink of suicide.

"Magazines, TV, cinema -- everywhere being fair is synonymous with being beautiful," Das told AFP.

Described as having "dusky" skin as opposed to a fair complexion, the 43-year-old is well used to Indian preoccupations with color, and not just in the film industry, where she has refused requests to lighten her skin for roles.

"How can you be so confident despite being so dark?" is a question regularly asked of Das, who has preferred to star in unconventional, issue-based films but says she would struggle to get ahead in mainstream Bollywood movies.

'Beauty beyond color'

In May, Das became the face of the Dark is Beautiful campaign, launched in 2009 by activist group Women of Worth to celebrate "beauty beyond color".

Her backing has helped to generate increasing debate in the media, but the response has underlined just how ingrained the preference is for fairer skin, which has long been associated with higher social classes and castes.

"I started getting tonnes of emails from young women pouring their heart out about how they were discriminated against. Some wanted to commit suicide because they couldn't be fair," she said.

Das found her own photograph had been lightened by a newspaper even for a feature on the campaign. When looking for a nanny, she was told one candidate was "good, but quite dark".

RELATED: SKIN-WHITENING PRODUCTS RECALLED

Amid such pressures to be pale, India's whitening cream market swelled from $397 million in 2008 to $638 million over four years, according to market researchers at Euromonitor International.

Skin-lightening products accounted for 84 percent of the country's facial moisturizer market last year, their report shows.

The bias facing darker-skinned women was raised again in September when an Indian-origin woman, Nina Davuluri, won the "Miss America" contest in the United States.

"Had she been in India, far from entering a beauty contest, it is more likely that Ms. Davuluri would have grown up hearing mostly disparaging remarks about the color of her skin," said an editorial in The Hindu newspaper.

"She would have been -- going by the storyline of most 'fairness' cream advertisements -- a person with low self-esteem and few friends."

Vaginal whitening cream

Last year, a commercial for an "intimate wash" to whiten vaginas emerged, showing a young Indian woman who uses the product to successfully regain her boyfriend's attention.

The advert was widely panned, but a glance through matrimonial websites and newspaper columns suggests that fair skin, at least on a woman's face, remains key to attaining an Indian husband.

Aspiring grooms often state in their adverts their preference for a fair bride, while nearly all women's profiles describe their complexion as fair or so-called "wheatish".

Ekta Ghosh, a fashion designer in Mumbai who specializes in wedding wear, said the message that only fair is beautiful had been passed down to Indian girls for generations.

"Parents, relatives, they all keep saying you should do something to lighten your skin tone," she said.

RELATED: ADS IN SENEGAL: DON'T BLEACH, 'BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL'

India's mass market whitening pioneer was "Fair & Lovely", launched in 1975 by Hindustan Unilever and now selling in a range of other countries where pale skin is desirable, across Africa and the Middle East as well as Asia.

Indian consumer group Emami later came up with "Fair and Teen" for girls and "Fair and Handsome" for men.

Promoted by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, the latest advert shows him tossing a tube of the cream from the red carpet to a young male fan.

Dark is Beautiful has launched a petition against the "irresponsible" video and its message that "fair skin is a prerequisite for success".

So far more than 15,000 people have signed up in protest, but Khan has not responded.

"You're telling people they're just not good enough," said Das, who describes whitening cream adverts in general as "so regressive and derogatory".

Fairness cream producers suggest they help to boost users' confidence, although both Emami and Hindustan Unilever declined to comment for this article.

Not everyone, however, is convinced such creams are even effective.

Receptionist Prachi Chawan, 28, said she had been using Fair & Lovely products for three years "out of habit", but was yet to see noticeable results.

"There have been no side effects but no change either," she said.

Das believes whitening cream developers did not create Indians' color bias and insecurities, but have "cashed in" on it, creating a "vicious circle".

While men's fairness products are gaining ground, the actress says women and girls still face far more pressure over their skin tone, which she puts down to a general lack of respect and inequality.

"Until we let women have the same space as men and treat them as human beings, all this will carry on."

[Quail]

I don't think these products are necessarily limited to India, although there aren't any adverts in the UK. A while ago there were some funny reviews posted on Amazon for a vaginal bleaching product, but I can't remember the name of it. In any case (and on a more serious note) I think the beauty industry is just tapping into insecurities that they know women already have - in this case, both the worry that their vagina will be perceived as disgusting and the way that paler skin is promoted as a beauty standard.

As an aside, I have never really been self conscious about my own vagina and I've never looked at another woman I've been with and recoiled in horror. It's only really come to my attention in the past couple of years, the idea of people feeling insecure about their vagina, and part of me does think, "Is this something I should be concerned about now??" but most of me thinks, "Would I ever be offended by someone else's genitals? No? Then it's okay." The entire beauty industry is built on making people feel bad about themselves though so they buy products to make themselves more "acceptable" so it doesn't surprise me they're exploiting insecurity about vaginas - especially since I'm guessing most straight women don't tend to get too close to other people's vaginas?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

The same skin-whitening shit goes on in South Korea as well. And it's not just white skin - there're cosmetics over there made to specifically make people look 'European' as if that's some kind of beauty pinnacle . It's totally manufactured bullshit, and even people with more tanned skin tones who are ethnically Korean endure large amounts of racial abuse.

[Tim Cornelis]

The same skin-whitening shit goes on in South Korea as well. And it's not just white skin - there're cosmetics over there made to specifically make people look 'European' as if that's some kind of beauty pinnacle . It's totally manufactured bullshit, and even people with more tanned skin tones who are ethnically Korean endure large amounts of racial abuse.

The same in the Arab world.

[FreedomForAll]

No matter what happens in society you'll have people wanting to change their characteristics. We have no control over our appearances, so some people will gravitate towards altering theirs in some way. Since it is entirely subjective, the problem only exists when it becomes some sort of collective decision of what must be done. Still, I've never seen an agreement on what exactly constitutes an ideal, since everyone has differing tastes.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I don't think these products are necessarily limited to India, although there aren't any adverts in the UK. A while ago there were some funny reviews posted on Amazon for a vaginal bleaching product, but I can't remember the name of it. In any case (and on a more serious note) I think the beauty industry is just tapping into insecurities that they know women already have - in this case, both the worry that their vagina will be perceived as disgusting and the way that paler skin is promoted as a beauty standard.

As an aside, I have never really been self conscious about my own vagina and I've never looked at another woman I've been with and recoiled in horror. It's only really come to my attention in the past couple of years, the idea of people feeling insecure about their vagina, and part of me does think, "Is this something I should be concerned about now??" but most of me thinks, "Would I ever be offended by someone else's genitals? No? Then it's okay." The entire beauty industry is built on making people feel bad about themselves though so they buy products to make themselves more "acceptable" so it doesn't surprise me they're exploiting insecurity about vaginas - especially since I'm guessing most straight women don't tend to get too close to other people's vaginas?

you mentioned the beauty industry and beauty standards and i think that's the key thing here. i was talking to my girlfriend about all of this after she said that a model in an advert (whose name i can't remember, she's famous though) was 'probably the most beautiful woman in the world'. i was perplexed and actually angry - we had a discussion about it and we agreed that this woman was the most beautiful woman in my girlfriend's world, because there's a standard of beauty that is spoon-fed to her in the cultural activities she engages in, one of them being fashion. furthermore, women feel pressured into shaving their vaginas because its more womanly, based on a socially-constructed ideal of beauty. what's more interesting is these standards of beauty change across sections of society - i mentioned my ex, who died her hair red as was the fashion, emulating the hairstyle of amy childs (the only way is essex). my girlfriend said that she couldn't stand amy childs, but this woman was 'the most beautiful woman in the world' to my ex - my ex was a working class, uncultured woman and my current girlfriend is middle-class and educated.

my point is that there is a standard of beauty and its all related to gender-roles, the demands of genders and the patriarchal industry behind the gender-based commodities whether its hair-dye, vaginal die or those specific vagina-cleaning products. i saw and avert for 'vagiseal' (i think its called) and asked my girlfriend what she thought of it? she's never used it, but we could see the strangeness of using a specific cleaning product to mask the natural odour of vaginas. vaginas have a scent, that's how they are. they have hair too, why are we obsessed with making woman have vaginas that look like they belong to a prepubescent? why do we have to modify their colour?

if you ask me, the wonderful thing about vaginas is that they're all different. the same with people. if it was up to marketing people and the patriarchal fashion industry, all women would look the same, with bleached vaginas, excessive make-up, the same hair-colours, the same clothes and the same everything. imagine what a boring world it would be, if everyone was the same. i'm reminded of adorno's work on the culture industry, how our superficial culture is close to fascism, how western, liberal society contains elements of the kind of identity-thinking that fascism thrives on. how television adverts, pop-music and other cultural commodities are reminiscent of fascist propaganda. the same goes for these products aimed at women which tells them how to look, making them feel insecure when they don't fit the ideal-type that society demands from women.

[Lily Briscoe]

Leaving aside the question of 'vaginal bleaching' which seems obviously tied to racism,

i was talking to my girlfriend about all of this after she said that a model in an advert (whose name i can't remember, she's famous though) was 'probably the most beautiful woman in the world'. i was perplexed and actually angry - we had a discussion about it and we agreed that this woman was the most beautiful woman in my girlfriend's world, because there's a standard of beauty that is spoon-fed to her in the cultural activities she engages in, one of them being fashion.

While she may find it difficult to rival your level of patronizing, maybe the next time you shave your face or go get a haircut or use body spray, your girlfriend can pull you aside and angrily give you a lecture about how you're a slave to cultural expectations and the male grooming industry, which has spoon fed these standards to you. I don't really see why some dude judging and lecturing his girlfriend for not fitting into some cultural standard of beauty is more problematic than some dude judging and lecturing his girlfriend for liking fashion or wearing makeup or shaving her legs or dying her hair. It doesn't make you a feminist warrior, it just makes you seem like a bit of an ass.

[Quail]

Leaving aside the question of 'vaginal bleaching' which seems obviously tied to racism,

While she may find it difficult to rival your level of patronizing, maybe the next time you shave your face or go get a haircut or use body spray, your girlfriend can pull you aside and angrily give you a lecture about how you're a slave to cultural expectations and the male grooming industry, which has spoon fed these standards to you. I don't really see why some dude judging and lecturing his girlfriend for not fitting into some cultural standard of beauty is more problematic than some dude judging and lecturing his girlfriend for liking fashion or wearing makeup or shaving her legs or dying her hair. It doesn't make you a feminist warrior, it just makes you seem like a bit of an ass.

I didn't get the impression from his post that Admiral etc. was lecturing his girlfriend because she didn't fit the cultural beauty standard, but rather that he felt upset that his girlfriend felt the need to compare herself to this model on the television, but maybe I misinterpreted.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The same in the Arab world.

Mental. Arab women are beautiful, why'd they wanna look more European?

[Decolonize The Left]

This is not limited to any one country wherein folks are generally not considered 'white.' When I was in south east Asia there was face whitening cream packets hanging in most rural convenience stores. While many Asian folks are of pale skin tones, folks up in the rural mountains are usually darker skinned and are discriminated against on that ground much of the time.

This article, which was hilariously written btw, reminds me of the vaginal shaving fad/hysteria which is currently underway in the US.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Aren't things like this always very unhealthy? We know douching is, bleaching your vagina can't be much better.

[Lily Briscoe]

I didn't get the impression from his post that Admiral etc. was lecturing his girlfriend because she didn't fit the cultural beauty standard, but rather that he felt upset that his girlfriend felt the need to compare herself to this model on the television, but maybe I misinterpreted.

I think I may not have phrased it very clearly. I know he wasn't judging and lecturing his girlfriend for failing to perfectly embody a cultural standard of beauty. Instead he was judging and lecturing her for thinking a model was attractive and being interested in fashion, and seems to have the attitude that women who dye their hair or shave their legs or wear makeup are like these mindless cultural drones and slaves to the beauty industry who need a good talking to. My point was that I don't think this attitude is any less problematic.

[Quail]

I think I may not have phrased it very clearly. I know he wasn't judging and lecturing his girlfriend for failing to perfectly embody a cultural standard of beauty. Instead he was judging and lecturing her for thinking a model was attractive and being interested in fashion, and seems to have the attitude that women who dye their hair or shave their legs or wear makeup are like these mindless cultural drones and slaves to the beauty industry who need a good talking to. My point was that I don't think this attitude is any less problematic.

Yeah, you are right. It is problematic to assume that all women who use beauty products are doing so because they're mindless slaves to the beauty industry, but then on the other hand loads of women use beauty products not because they find it fun and enjoyable, but just so that they don't feel bad about themselves. When you're growing up you end up doing everything automatically because your family and friends are doing it and you don't really question a lot of it. When I was about 12 or 13 my mum was like, "Right, we need to pluck those eyebrows!" and got out the tweezers so from then on I thought I had to pluck my eyebrows every time they grew back so they didn't look bad, even though I had never noticed or cared about them before. Everyone around me when I was growing up talked about how gross body hair was, so that was another thing I internalised and I shaved every other day or so for years out of the fear people would think I was gross if I didn't. My mum (and many other women) won't leave the house without make up. After being bombarded with messages about what is and isn't an acceptable way to look, it can be really hard to feel confident enough to ignore those beauty norms. That doesn't mean you're mindless or brainwashed or anything like that. Feeling good about yourself and accepting the way you look is hard in a world where you're constantly receiving messages that you look bad and need to change yourself (I know I'm not immune to it, despite not really using any beauty products - and none of this is to say that beauty products can't be used for fun and personal preference too). I guess my slightly long winded point was meant to be that it can be upsetting to see this in action with someone you care about (and often women will say someone else is beautiful as a way of putting themselves down) - so instead of getting the judgemental vibe from Admiral etc's post I read it that way. But I will have to let him actually clarify what he meant.

[Art Vandelay]

Well I just finished that article and don't have enough time to type up a proper response, since I got to run to work, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around this. Like I knew the beauty industry was some sleazy shit, this almost reminded me of reading about african american women who bleach there skin in the U.S. to become more 'beautiful' (and it has all sorts of negative health consequences), but did they really have the audacity to take it this far? Has anyone ever seriously been with a woman and had that thought cross their mind? That the pigmentation of their vagina wasn't up to their standards? This is just beyond absurd to me.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I think I may not have phrased it very clearly. I know he wasn't judging and lecturing his girlfriend for failing to perfectly embody a cultural standard of beauty. Instead he was judging and lecturing her for thinking a model was attractive and being interested in fashion, and seems to have the attitude that women who dye their hair or shave their legs or wear makeup are like these mindless cultural drones and slaves to the beauty industry who need a good talking to. My point was that I don't think this attitude is any less problematic.

quail was right about why i got upset and the rest of it.

my problem is with the arbitrary nature of attraction and beauty standards and how people (yes, men too) internalize the notions that they have to look a certain way. this set of cultural norms is far more problematic than me "lecturing" my girlfriend. i'd prefer it if we called it cultural criticism, too - it was a discussion and you're assumption that me and my girlfriend can't have discussions like this without me patronizing her is more patronizing than me discussing these things in the first place. she's an intelligent woman and we had a fruitful discussion in which we both learned things.

if you read me properly, you'll understand that i view this issue structurally. the same applies to the male-grooming industry and all of these industries operate within the remit of (obviously) capitalism and patriarchy. patriarchy demands roles from men and women, it just so happens that, as the more oppressed gender, females have it worse and also there's the fact that this thread was about a product intended to women. read what i said but flip it and take a male-grooming product in replacement, the same things apply in a generalized sense. in fact, me and my girlfriend explored this question while i was busy "patronizing" her.

as a side note, my hair is long and my beard unkept, partly because i'm always on the road and partly because i don't listen to what the male-grooming industry tells me because i would rather look how i do than modify my appearance to look like joey essex or whatever other tool people are currently trying to look like. however, if the level of this discussion is based on assumptions rather than sociological analysis, then i'll assume that you took offence because you buy into the cultural norms that i criticize. this is fine, however, and if you want to discuss things properly then know that none of what i said was personally against anyone, but rather against certain social norms as a whole. we're all guilty to varying degrees, yes, but this doesn't negate the fact that the things we are talking about are structural, whether we embrace them or enjoy them or not. it is our duty to understand the society around us.

[Lily Briscoe]

quail was right about why i got upset and the rest of it.

my problem is with the arbitrary nature of attraction and beauty standards and how people (yes, men too) internalize the notions that they have to look a certain way. this set of cultural norms is far more problematic than me "lecturing" my girlfriend. i'd prefer it if we called it cultural criticism, too - it was a discussion and you're assumption that me and my girlfriend can't have discussions like this without me patronizing her is more patronizing than me discussing these things in the first place. she's an intelligent woman and we had a fruitful discussion in which we both learned things.

if you read me properly, you'll understand that i view this issue structurally. the same applies to the male-grooming industry and all of these industries operate within the remit of (obviously) capitalism and patriarchy. patriarchy demands roles from men and women, it just so happens that, as the more oppressed gender, females have it worse and also there's the fact that this thread was about a product intended to women. read what i said but flip it and take a male-grooming product in replacement, the same things apply in a generalized sense. in fact, me and my girlfriend explored this question while i was busy "patronizing" her.

as a side note, my hair is long and my beard unkept, partly because i'm always on the road and partly because i don't listen to what the male-grooming industry tells me because i would rather look how i do than modify my appearance to look like joey essex or whatever other tool people are currently trying to look like. however, if the level of this discussion is based on assumptions rather than sociological analysis, then i'll assume that you took offence because you buy into the cultural norms that i criticize. this is fine, however, and if you want to discuss things properly then know that none of what i said was personally against anyone, but rather against certain social norms as a whole. we're all guilty to varying degrees, yes, but this doesn't negate the fact that the things we are talking about are structural, whether we embrace them or enjoy them or not. it is our duty to understand the society around us.

Getting pissed off at your girlfriend for finding a model attractive, and then proceeding to explain to her that her opinion isn't valid, she's just brainwashed - if that isn't patronizing then clearly I have no idea what that word even means.

People should be encouraged to look how they want, without feeling pressured to meet somebody else's expectations against their own wishes (or being judged for failing to do so). Whether its some bro judging women for not being tall blondes with enormous breasts, or some hippie judging women for not being sufficiently au naturel, or some moralist judging women for showing too much skin, I don't really see what difference it makes. There is always, always somebody judging though, no matter what.

Anyway, despite your insistence to the contrary, I don't think you actually have offered much of anything in the way of "structural" analysis, and what you've said doesn't really get beyond the level of 'ideas' and 'culture'. Instead it basically amounts to 'women feel pressured to look a certain way' because 'women buy into/are spoon-fed cultural norms' - which is hardly some groundbreaking structural insight.

If you wanted to actually do something resembling a 'structural analysis', maybe you could look at the tangible ways that women's physical appearance effects their material situation - not just the way they're treated in everyday interactions (although this too), but also their ability to get a job, their ability to keep a job they already have, their ability to make decent tips if they're waitresses/servers/baristas/bartenders/whatever, etc. etc., and I think this is related to the nature of a lot of 'womens/affective labor'*, rather than a product of some cultural conspiracy on the part of the beauty industry to plant false ideas in the heads of women (who are apparently universally gullible so they lap that shit up). I don't think the beauty industry invents 'cultural norms' out of thin air, it just cashes in on cultural norms that already exist.

But none of this is to imply that the only possible reason women, or men for that matter, modify their appearance is because they're pressured into it by external factors. Many grooming rituals are as much about functionality and comfort as aesthetics. Also, to the extent that you can meaningfully speak about 'human nature', I think it's pretty reasonable to say that humans tend to be creative and aesthetically-minded. People living in primitive communal 'societies' were modifying their appearances in various ways for millennia before the development of agriculture and the rise of class society, and I see no reason why the abolition of classes would necessarily mean everyone deciding to look like Chewbacca.


*I think by this same token, the rise of the whole 'metrosexual' thing and increasing emphasis on male grooming rituals in a lot of 'the west' is to a certain extent related to the rise of service sector economies and the 'feminization' of labor, where more and more men are going into jobs that consist of serving/caring for/pleasing people and being 'the face of the company', as opposed to jobs in production.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Yeah all of the emphasis on fitting social norms of beauty is not only dangerous but absurd. The more uniformity in beauty norms, the less beautiful people become as they become indistinguishable. Then again, it's clear how it fits the needs of a consumer market because it's easier to market goods to a population that wants to look the same.

Getting pissed off at your girlfriend for finding a model attractive, and then proceeding to explain to her that her opinion isn't valid, she's just brainwashed - if that isn't patronizing then clearly I have no idea what that word even means.

People should be encouraged to look how they want, without feeling pressured to meet somebody else's expectations against their own wishes (or being judged for failing to do so). Whether its some bro judging women for not being tall blondes with enormous breasts, or some hippie judging women for not being sufficiently au naturel, or some moralist judging women for showing too much skin, I don't really see what difference it makes. There is always, always somebody judging though, no matter what.

So its fine for a woman to implicitly call every woman who doesn't look like some unrealistically beautiful model on television unattractive or even ugly but its soooo patronizing when Admiral G says to her that those beauty standards are artificial? You seem to think that there is no political ramification for reifying the beauty categories but there is for opposing them, or that it's fine to believe a reactionary or oppressive value system but wrong to tell those who hold it that it's harmful.

I have to say, I'm offended at the words of his girlfriend because it implicitly calls the women I find beautiful to be "ugly" and I am offended on their behalf, since I know those women don't fit some stupid gender norm imposed on them by someone else.