#20: But the example is really, really bad (i.e. artificial) since most of the modifications would not have been needed had they simply used a model of the right age. The result is not all that sensational either. Given half an hour to walk around campus, Clifford could probably take snapshots of 5-10 better looking women with that ubiquitous camera of his.

Now, I don’t know about Swedish feminists, but normal men do indeed find young women more attractive than children. Should we really be sorry?

Corollary: if that cover had actually been a commercial production, a competent photographer would have selected a woman rather than a child model, and saved most of the retouching work demonstrated in the download. Never trust state propaganda.

Carrie Pilby (Red Dress Ink (Numbered Paperback)) (Paperback)
by Caren Lissner

Now that Christmas is just around the corner and if you are still looking for a gift for a cerebral teenage girl, I suggest this book. (Disclaimer – I do not benefit in any way from the sales of this book. I really enjoyed reading it and have taken upon myself to give it more publicity.)

Well duh. This is something as old as the hills. You make art that shows an especially attractive woman (or man) by stripping out the “masculine” aspects of the model and pumping up the female aspects, to get something that is essentially 150% female (or vice versa). This has been going on since at least the Chola bronzes of India (11th century CE) which not only do this with respect to the physical bodies of the sculptures, but also with respect to their posing, which is, once again, taking the difference between how female and male bodies can move and pushing it to beyond what is physically possible.

I’m not going to comment on the issue of whether or not worrying about magazine covers is a sensible use of swedish govt funds, but lets not
(a) pretend this is some new pathology of the 20th century
(b) pretend that the results are not successful. Yes the original model was cute, but I am happy to admit that I find the touched up model even more attractive. If you want to claim that I am evil for finding this type of art successful in its intentions, go ahead, but don’t expect me or most of the rest of the world to take you seriously.
Neither is it especially useful to move from this claim to some blanket statement about how “men hate their womenfolk bcs they don’t look as hot as magazine covers” without providing a whole lot of evidence for this claim.

But, don’t listen to me, I hate make-up of all kinds. So there.

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Dissident,

Nowhere in my post did I say that I agree with the ideology. I was merely questioning the effort to use reason to counter what seems to appeal to many human beings.

You are right about how it should work. And sure, I would be very upset if they were pushing fundamentalist anything. But I’m not upset about this campaign because I agree with the idea. I guess that makes me a hypocrit.

What’s the difference?

When the state gets into the propaganda business, it goes from being the citizen’s servant, as it should be, to being the citizen’s master. Upon further consideration, you may realize that authoritarian rule is a pretty steep price to pay for a feminist campaign, no matter how dearly you happen to embrace feminist views.