“When did “this” become hotter than “this”?

“When did “this” become hotter than “this”? (To see the full article visit JayKilgore.com)

A few months back, trending on Facebook, Twitter, etc was “When did ‘this’ become hotter than ‘this’?” and it displayed a photo of various women on the beach that were thinner in nature and pit them against pinup images from the 1950’s – 1960’s. Originally started by the Dove Beauty Campaigns, this put thinner women vs non thinner women and had their fans picking sides.  While this debate has morphed into newer issues (“I had three kids what’s your excuse?“) it still targets the same thing; Women and their acceptance in the world. The main target in this argument is men and their unfair assessment of what is hot. As a Glamour photographer I hear from women all the time: “Men are responsible for the mindset of women. We starve ourselves to look good for you guys”. I challenge those who think that way and will do so here in this re-post from my blog. I look forward to discussing this here as much as when I first published this article.

If you visit my Facebook, you will notice I have thousands of friends. As with my real life, majority of my friends are females. When I look at Facebook updates, I’m looking for photo updates and those I want to shoot next. Often times, I see posts where women are saying men are totally responsible for making women “starve” themselves as that’s all that’s in the magazines. I’ve often found this funny and by the end of this blog post, you’ll understand and possibly find it funny as well.

One of the main images I see floating around and even trending on Twitter is:

VERY powerful image as it matches a thin female to a thicker female counterpart. The ladies use this image to further their point that men are driving women to starve themselves or worse, dreaming up an image that is unobtainable for most women. This is deadly as there has been several women who have died from malnutrition and poor eating habits in an attempt to be thin. Several years ago Anorexia Bulimia was huge as it was just discovered and no, it wasn’t just females. MANY young men, high school and college aged were drinking and eating laxatives in an effort to trim down for football, wrestling and other sports. Women on my facebook page say they don’t have it to be a model because they aren’t thin like the model girls. When they tell me this, I tell them I’m the glamour guy, I like meat on the bones. I like curves and I invite them to look over my portfolio and I show them my boudoir clients. They relax and realize I love all women. They don’t realize that when they post images like the one above, and make comments about the “Skinny bitches” they are protecting themselves from being victimized, but they are also victimizing someone else;

Those “Skinny Bitches”

I can’t tell you how many young ladies I shoot that wish they could pack on a few more pounds. I have a beautiful young lady that wanted to get a Brazilian Butt Lift but couldn’t as she couldn’t gain the 10lbs required to take from her oblique’s and put into her butt. She was very upset and she’s sensitive about her weight. There’s another female that is thin who I had at my workshop. While we were shooting, one of the guys said; “Wow! you’re a tiny thing! You are super skinny!” I picked up right away on how the model felt-he didn’t. I quickly jumped in and changed the subject. After everyone left, the model had a good cry as she felt he was picking on her as she eats everything in sight in an effort to gain weight. She detests being small. He completely ruined her day by what he considered a great compliment.

Why do I find this all funny? Simple; WOMEN are giving EACH OTHER this false idea of what is perfect!

All my female readers are saying “Jay! How DARE YOU!” or “Totally something a man would say.” or my favorite; “Look at any magazine and see the girls in there! They’re thin and unrealistic with their air brushing and Photoshop” And this ladies, is where I get you and laugh.

Ladies, let’s be serious for a moment: If you’re walking down the street with your hetero male friend and you see a hot chick, who is going to look at her and say she’s beautiful and who is going to look and ask who dressed her? Yes, the male will say she’s “hot” or “beautiful” and the female will look to see her shoes, makeup, clothes and if her purse matches. Ok, you say that one was too easy, it was a gimmie. You go to the club and you see another female in your dress, the exact same one you have on, are you going to make a big deal about it? or will you laugh and move on? Of COURSE you make a big deal about it and point it out to your friends. Your friends will even say you look BETTER than that tramp who has it on.

The main reason why I laugh at the assumption that men are ruining the women world is a simple look at Editors will make you stop and think:

What does this prove? or why am I telling you this? every single one of these Editor’s in Chief’s are female! Majority of these magazines have FEMALE Art Directors and are RESPONSIBLE for the images you find in ALL these FEMALE driven magazines! Each of the above listed magazines are what young ladies read and these magazines are catered to females. Still think men are the bad guys?

If you don’t know, I’m the proud father of FIVE daughters. No sons. Just the other day, my wife was shopping at Hollister for my 12 year old. Now my 12 year old is 5’5″ and about 125lbs. She is a muscle bound girl with a gymnastics body. She is very fit. Being that she’s 12 and just under two inches shorter than her old man, she wasn’t able to find ANYTHING in Hollister that fits! What message do you think this sent to my 12 year old?

If you still hate me, I found an image that I think sums up my attitude best:

As photographers, we have to encourage our clients to be proud of who and what they are! Be proud of their body and love themselves REGARDLESS of how thick or thin they are. One way we can help these women accept who they are, is by shooting and displaying a nice range of women! I try to do this all the time as it not only helps me keep up with photography and the technical aspects (can’t shoot a 95lb woman the same as you’d shoot a 175lb woman) as well as giving me variety and INCREASING my clientele which let’s face it, is how we pay the bills.

*These Editors are for the US based magazines only.