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Theresa Ruth Howard Dancer/Writer/Teacher Theresa Ruth Howard began her professional dance career with the Philadelphia Civic Ballet Company at the age of twelve. Later she joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem where she had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. She has worked with choreographer Donald Byrd as a soloist in his staging of New York City Opera's Carmina Burana, his critically acclaimed Harlem Nutcracker, as well as the controversial domestic violence work The Beast. She was invited to be a guest artist with Complexions: A Concept in their 10th anniversary season. In 2004 she became a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance. As a writer Ms. Howard has contributed to Russell Simmons’ One World magazine (art), and The Source (social politics), as well as Pointe and Dance Magazine. While teaching in Italy for the International Dance Association she was asked to become a contributor for the premiere Italian dance magazine Expressions. Her engaging, no nonsense writing style caught the eye of both the readers of Dance Magazine and its Editor in Chief who not only made her a contributing editor and has collaborated with Ms. Howard in See and Say Web-reviews. Her articles about body image prompted her to develop a workshop for young adult (dancers and non-dancers) My Body My Image that addresses their perceptions both positive and negative about their bodies and endeavoring to bring them closer to a place of Acceptance and Appreciation. She recently launched a blog by the same name to reach a broader audience (mybodymyimage.com) As a teacher Ms. Howard has been an Artist in Residence at Hollins University in and New Haven University in addition to teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount, Shenandoah, and Radford Universities, and the historical American Dance Festival. As a result of her work at ADF Ms. Howard was invited to Sochi, Russia to adjudicate the arts competition Expectations of Europe and teach master classes, and in Burundi, Africa where she coached and taught the Burundi Dance Company. Currently she on faculty at The Ailey School but also extensively throughout Italy and Canada. Ms. Howard's belief in the development, and nurturing of children lead her to work with at risk youth. At the Jacob Riis Settlement House in Queensbridge New York, she founded S.I.S.T.A (Socially Intelligent Sisters Taking Action) a mentoring program for teen-age girls where she worked to empower them to become the creators of their destinies. In addition she developed a dance program, which lead to an exchange with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Through her teaching and travels Ms. Howard began to observe a universal disenchantment and disconnection in teenagers that disturbed her, thus she set out to address it. Combining her philosophies of life and teaching, with the skills she garnered through outreach programs with diverse communities, she developed the personal development workshop Principles of Engagement: Connecting Youth to the Infinite Possibilities Within which gives teens a set of workable tools to increase their levels of success at tasks, and goals not only in dance, and all aspect of their lives. Theresa Ruth Howard is certainly diverse and multifaceted as an artist, and is moved to both write and create work; however she sees every student she encounters as a work in progress, and the potential to change the world one person at a time. The only was to make this world a better place it to be better people in it!

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Reverse Photoshopping (I’ll explain)

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When we think of photoshopping we think of a picture being altered to look better in a very specific way. We think of waistlines and thighs being reduced or wrinkles being removed, or hair, and bustlines being filled out. Well a former editor at Cosmopolitan, Leah Hardy just dropped a truth bomb. She penned an expose on how often the practice of photoshop is often used to hide a dirty little secret, the fact that often the models are too thin and don’t look healthy. That’s right, there seems to be a regular practice of erasing the evidence of starvation in these young blessed beauties by smoothing jutting ribs and filling out cheekbones…who would have thunk it huh? So if you think that the model in the ad looks too thin, think about the  that she might have had help looking that …full….

Check out this report from the Huffington Post:

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I think the greatest irony is that we are in this Goldilocks tussle between being too big or too small when we could just concentrate on health and make that a focus and the shape of the body would just be a by-product in look…What is oalso odd is that Jane Druker, the editor of the ironically titleed Healthy magazine admits to having to reverse retouch photos for the rag—my question then is why hire models that are so thin you have to fill them out in editing? why not hire the girl who actually looks and might be healthy. She admits toadmitted retouching a cover girl who looked ‘really thin and unwell’

Robin Derrick, creative director of Vogue, has admitted: ‘I spent the first ten years of my career making girls look thinner -and the last ten making them look larger.’
It’s kinda twisted and sick huh? here is the opening to Leah Hardy’s expose, and a link to the full article as well….

A big fat (and very dangerous) lie: A former Cosmo editor lifts the lid on airbrushing skinny models to look healthy

By Leah Hardy

Most of us are sensible enough to know that the photographs of models and celebrities in glossy magazines aren’t all they seem.

Using the wonders of digital retouching, wrinkles and spots just disappear; cellulite, podgy tummies, thick thighs and double chins can all be erased to ‘reveal’ surprisingly lean, toned figures.

Stars such as Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and Demi Moore have benefited from this kind of technical tampering.

'Reverse retouched': Cover girl Kamila was airbrushed to look healthier‘Reverse retouched’: Cover girl Kamila was airbrushed to look healthier

Kate Winslet – who shed a couple of stones this way in a shoot for a men’s magazine after her normally curvy body was digitally ‘stretched’ – complained that the practise was bad for women, who could never live up to this kind of fake perfection.

But there’s another type of digital dishonesty that’s rife in the beauty industry, and it’s one that you may well never have heard of and may even struggle to believe, but which can be just as poisonous an influence on women.

It’s been dubbed ‘reverse retouching’ and involves using models who are cadaverously thin and then adding fake curves so they look bigger and healthier.

This deranged but increasingly common process recently hit the headlines when Jane Druker, the editor of Healthy magazine – which is sold in health food stores – admitted retouching a cover girl who pitched up at a shoot looking ‘really thin and unwell’.

It sounds crazy, but the truth is Druker is not alone. The editor of the top-selling health and fitness magazine in the U.S., Self, has admitted: ‘We retouch to make the models look bigger and healthier.’

And the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, has quietly confessed to being appalled by some of the models on shoots for her own magazine, saying: ‘I have found myself saying to the photographers, “Can you not make them look too thin?”‘

Skinny: Healthy magazine's cover star Kamila as she appears normallySkinny: Healthy magazine’s cover star Kamila as she appears normally

Robin Derrick, creative director of Vogue, has admitted: ‘I spent the first ten years of my career making girls look thinner -and the last ten making them look larger.’

Recently, I chatted to Johnnie Boden, founder of the hugely successful clothing brand.

He bemoaned the fact that it was nigh on impossible to find suitable models for his catalogues, which are predominantly aimed at thirty-something mothers.

‘I hate featuring very skinny models,’ he told me. ‘We try to book models who are a healthy size, but we constantly find that when they come to the shoot a few weeks later, they have lost too much weight. It’s a real problem.’

I don’t know if Boden has been forced to resort to reverse retouching, but I have a confession to make.

I, too, have been part of the reverse retouching trend. When editing Cosmopolitan magazine, I also faced the dilemma of what to do with models who were, frankly, frighteningly thin.

There are people out there who think the solution is simple: if a seriously underweight model turns up for a shoot, she should be sent home. But it isn’t always that easy.

A fashion editor will often choose a model for a shoot that’s happening weeks, or even months, later. In the meantime, a hot photographer will have flown in from New York, schedules will be juggled to put him together with a make-up artist, hairdresser, fashion stylist and various assistants, and a hugely expensive location will have been booked.

And a selection of tiny, designer sample dresses will be available for one day only. JUMP!!!

 

Orange is the New Black’s Laverne Cox sets the record straight about Living a Transgendered life

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Transgendered actress of Orange Is the New Black Laverne Cox appeared on an episode of Katie Couric’s talk show to shed light on their experiences as high-profile transgender women in entertainment. In short Katie asked her if she would discuss the “transition” aspect of her life, now note Transgendered model Carmen Carrera had already evaded the question. But Katie decided to try to get the answer from Cox under the guise of “educating people” not just the salaciousness of hearing how a the sexual organs are transformed. Well Ms. Cox was not going in for it and eloquently explained the reason for her resistance. Here is the quote, but watch the video because it is worth it.

“I do feel there is a preoccupation with that. The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people. And then we don’t get to really deal with the real lived experiences. The reality of trans people’s lives is that so often we are targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionately to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average; if you are a trans person of color, that rate is four times the national average. The homicide rate is highest among trans women. If we focus on transition, we don’t actually get to talk about those things.”

As I have mentioned before I feel that being Transgendered must be one of the greatest body image issue that exist. Imagine not just not liking your body in terms of shape and size, but actually feeling that you are the born the wrong gender. So often the heterosexual community gets so caught up in the sexual aspect of homosexuality, and transgenderism (how they have sex, which one is the man which is the women in the relationship etc) that the people we are pondering cease to show up for us as just that, people, flesh and blood, having to live, work and pay bills just like the rest of “us”. We don’t think about the basic discrimination and judgment that they often encounter just being… I’m not talking about the obvious discrimination like extreme violence, no we get that, I’m referring to snide comments, side-eyes, and unwillingness to engage with them…Ah the great subtly of discrimination (if you are black and been followed around in a store you know what I mean..) I think that what Laverne Cox has to say is extremely important and should be taken in to consideration as it humanizes these individuals, making them more than their sexuality or sexual identification.

 

Illegal Ass Enhancements May Be America’s Next Health Epidemic

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This article gives new meaning to the terms “Brick House” and “Pain in the Ass!”. We all know that the world is been effected by an ass fetish. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s women (especially white women) were getting down with Jane Fonda, fast walking and tread-milling furiously to keep their hips and behinds flat and lean. Black women (and men) on the other hand have always embraced the booty, the bigger the better. In African American and Latino communities a young girl can be chastised if when she starts to get her breasts her behind does not fill out as well. For brown girls there is nothing worse than a flat ass, you can not have breast but, to be assless is… almost shameful.

Well in the late 90’s white women (and men) caught on to the craze, with both the lips and the booty. My theory has me thinking that when silicon injectables became more commonplace (and affordable) more women began to seek out that bee-stung pout and perky backside. The Brazilians and the Argentinians have also been way ahead of us when it comes to plastic surgery and implants (plus they are a both  cultures that are extraordinarily body aware- and they wear less clothes at times!). Butt–pun intended, the craze morphed into a fetish in with the millennium, the world seemed to have ass envy. All those white women jumped off of their treadmills and started doing  squats with J-Lo to Kim Kardashian’s pictures as body role models. As always when there is a high end procedure that is available to the wealthy, it begets the backstreet bootlegger who will promise those on a budget the same results for less. But as always…you get what you pay for.  I think we were all shock by the transexual in Oneal Ron Morris who was arrested for doing butt implants using cement, fix-o-flat, car oil, and crazy glue!! No one in their right mind could imagine that someone would allow their bodies to be injected with such things, but sadly this has now become a common thing.

Mug shots of Oneal Ron Morris, a.k.a. the Duchess, illustrate her transition. “She had the perfect body,” a friend said. “But she took it too far.” Photos provided by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office

 

I found this article recently that takes a very raw look at the issue. please take note that some of the language and photos are graphic but it is completely mind blowing!

 

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Buttloads of Pain

Illegal Ass Enhancements May Be America’s Next Health Epidemic

By Wilbert L. Cooper

The horror that befell Oscarina Busse’s backside began in July 2009. The 35-year-old Floridian felt a dull but persistent itch deep in the meat of her buttocks, one that was impossible to scratch.

It wasn’t long before Oscarina noticed that her butt was changing colors—first turning purple, like a throbbing finger that had been wrapped too tightly with string, and then a cadaverous gray. From there, things got much worse. Her flesh started to crust and painfully peel off until, a few months later, the whole mess collapsed like a badly baked cake. The cheeks of her ass drooped down, loaded with a stew of poisonous goop that collected around her lower buttocks. What had once stood high and felt supple to the touch had become hot and hard and stinging. Oscarina’s derrière had transformed so much that it no longer looked like it was part of a human’s body; her five-year-old daughter mistook her fluid-filled cheeks for a poopy diaper, calling it a “full Pamper.”

Like thousands of women across the globe and increasingly in the US, Oscarina was suffering from the side effects of a black-market butt injection. Because of its clandestine nature, it’s impossible to quantify exactly how many people in the US are illegally getting their butts pumped up like a pair of Reeboks. But the number is definitely growing; due to the proliferation of reported disfiguring cases like Oscarina’s and even deaths, law-enforcement officials and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons view black-market butt injections as a burgeoning epidemic in the US.

The crude inflation procedure consists of shooting a liquid substance such as silicone or mineral oil directly into a client’s butt cheeks and hips through a syringe. There is no substance that is safe to inject into your body to create more volume, not even medical-grade silicone, but these black-market “butt doctors” have, according to victims, allegedly used harsh substances like concrete and the industrial silicone sold at hardware stores in their procedures. After the injections, the exterior flesh wounds are sometimes closed with Super Glue to prevent the toxic slop from leaking out.

Anyone with a basic understanding of health and medicine knows that pumping someone’s body full of free-flowing substances like silicone is extremely dangerous. Hence it has been illegal to inject fluids like silicone into the body for cosmetic purposes since the late 60s, so these butt-pumping procedures are typically performed by back-alley quacks—rogue nut jobs with suitcases full of dirty needles and flasks full of muck. These procedures can trigger a strong autoimmune response as the body attempts to expel the foreign substance, resulting in inflammatory reactions such as polyps, boils, skin discoloration, and even necrosis. These substances have also been known to migrate through the body and fuse themselves to organs, or enter into the bloodstream, spreading infection throughout the body and causing septic shock—which can lead to the amputation of infected body parts or, in the worst cases, death.

In October, I met Oscarina at the beauty salon she owns in Coral Gables, Florida, to better understand why someone would inject their butt with toxic chemicals. She wore a form-fitting pantssuit, high heels that cackled against the salon’s linoleum floor, and a citrusy perfume that permeated the room as she paced back and forth from the shampoo bowls to her styling chair. Surprisingly, her butt seemed high and round. It looked pretty good, especially considering that only a few years ago her haunches had mutated into a distorted heap of poisoned flesh and immense pain.

Oscarina is lucky. She’s one of the few women who, after realizing something was very wrong with her new ass, managed to find a doctor who was willing to surgically remove the substances from her body and rebuild her butt, possibly saving her life in the process. She told me that the whole ordeal is something she feels gravely foolish about now, considering she was blessed with a shapely Dominican figure. But in south Florida, where gargantuan asses plop down every boardwalk and beach each minute of the day, just having a “nice butt” isn’t good enough for many. “No one [here] is ever happy with their body,” the beautician said to me sheepishly. “It wasn’t because I didn’t have it. I just wanted it to be better.”

Although it’s illegal to cram someone’s can full of mysterious substances, finding a butt doctor in the United States is like buying drugs; you just have to know a guy who knows a guy. These hookups happen through word of mouth, as well as via forums and social media sites. In Miami, America’s epicenter for clandestine butt surgery, it’s as easy as walking into a beauty spa where, among the massages, aromatherapy, and saunas, customers can allegedly order a bevy of illegal silicone butt shots off a secret menu.

So that’s exactly what Oscarina did, ordering her first set of injections at the beginning of the summer in 2002 for about $3,000. She wouldn’t tell me who had administered the procedure, but did admit that her clients recommended a certain spa in the area. She did it with the hope of getting her body in shape for bathing-suit season. She described to me the feeling of a syringe piercing deep into her butt and excreting as much as 600cc of industrial silicone simply as “filling,” as if her butt were a water balloon stretched over the nozzle of a garden hose.

Watch the trailer for Buttloads of Pain, airing next week on VICE.com.

 

It’s important to point out that there are legal butt-enhancing procedures. The FDA deems both implants and fat transfer—where fat is liposuctioned from areas like the patient’s stomach and transferred to his or her fanny—to be safe when conducted by a board-certified plastic surgeon. However, many women choose the black-market procedure to save money. Legal implants and fat transfers can cost up to $10,000 more than their illicit counterparts. For Oscarina, on the other hand, it was more about the shorter recovery time for injections than their lower cost. Fat transfer and butt implants require weeks of recuperation, and the final results don’t settle in for months. Injections result in a new rear end almost instantaneously, as if you’d put your backside in a butt microwave.

“The recuperation was very easy,” Oscarina explained. “I went to work right away. I just had to get a massage with the shots because, otherwise, it wouldn’t settle properly.”

It wasn’t until she decided to undergo another pumping procedure performed by a different spa in 2009 that everything went, quite literally, to shit. “I got the shots,” she told me as she ran a tail comb through the frizzy hair of a teenage girl, “and six months later my butt turned purple. The product had eaten off my muscle, and my skin peeled like an onion.”

It’s impossible to know what the problem might have been the second time around—it could have been the reaction between the new shots and the first round, or perhaps the new shots featured a lower grade of silicone that infected Oscarina’s ass. What we do know is that months after the second round of injections, Oscarina started to lose control of her body. But she was too embarrassed to talk to a doctor, even though her ass was rotting off.


Dr. Constantino Mendieta leans on his McLaren sports car—one of his many automobiles—in front of his massive Pinecrest, Florida, home.

It wasn’t until the winter that Oscarina finally shared her plight with anyone. Unable to bear the discomfort caused by her rapidly worsening deformity, she told me that she opened up to a client at her salon. She abruptly stopped doing the client’s hair and asked the woman to come look at her bare ass in the back room. Minutes later, under hot fluorescent lights, Oscarina pulled up her dress. In the vanity mirror, her painful secret was revealed in her client’s expression.

“When I saw her face, I knew it was terrible,” Oscarina said to me, staring off into the direction of the private room. It was at that moment that she knew she had to swallow her pride and seek real help.

Due to the challenge of reversing such a botched and unsanctioned operation and the resulting potential for legal liability, many doctors will not help a patient like Oscarina. Injected silicone can be corrosive and can easily migrate throughout the body. When it breaks down, which can happen in a matter of hours or over the course of several years, it becomes almost impossible to completely identify or locate. According to a comprehensive history of silicone injections in the US edited by Harvard Law professor Peter Barton Hutt, 555cc of silicone can break apart into 30 billion small globules once inside the body, and each of those 30 billion pieces has the potential to cause an infectious reaction. In other words, getting this stuff in your butt is easy—but to take it out involves getting carved up like a doner kebab.

“After going to consultations with doctors, their reactions made me think I was going to die,” Oscarina said. “I had this painful problem and nobody would touch me.”

Finally, after searching and searching for a doctor who would be willing to help her remove the silicone from her butt and speaking to a few more trusted friends, one of Oscarina’s clients who had been through a similar experience recommended Dr. Constantino Mendieta. The doctor agreed to fix her ass and, by her reckoning, saved her life.

“When I saw him,” Oscarina told me, “I saw the glory.”

The same week that I met Oscarina, I visited Dr. Mendieta at his practice in Miami’s affluent Coconut Grove neighborhood—a tan, stucco building with the words PLASTIC SURGERY inscribed on its façade. Dr. Mendieta is one of America’s top plastic surgeons, a sculptor of buttocks on par with Michelangelo whose book on butts, The Art of Gluteal Sculpting, was published in 2011. Unsurprisingly, the butt business has been very good to him. In the driveway sat his revved-up Maserati, which he told me is his beater for his work commute. When he’s not saving people’s asses, he whips around in a McLaren sports car.

“The buttock today is what the boobs were in the 60s,” Dr. Mendieta told me inside his office. His face looked like a Clark Kent mask, his skin pulled back at his temples, and he wore a royal-blue, custom-made admiral coat of fine Valentino silk. “But butts are better. When you look at breasts, you have to look at a face. There is no room to fantasize. But when you turn it around, there is no face anymore. You’re free to put whatever face you want on that booty.”

Even if Dr. Mendieta’s explanation was a little creepy, he is absolutely correct about the growth in popularity of butt augmentation among Americans. The number of legal butt procedures in the US increased by 176 percent between 2000 and 2012, exploding into a $26 million industry. Dr. Mendieta has been happily riding the crest of this ass wave. Ten years ago, 20 percent of his practice was the buttocks. Today, it’s 90 percent.

And while Dr. Mendieta would prefer to focus on molding new posteriors, more and more he’s been finding himself reconstructing the buttocks of women who’ve received black-market injections.

“There’s no question that I’ve been performing these reconstructive procedures at an increasing rate,” he said. He explained that he’s fixed about 30 illegally injected asses in his career, and five in 2013 alone. “People are coming to me from all over the world, mainly the United States. It’s endemic in South America, Miami, and New York, and some in LA. But Miami is a bigger hub for this stuff. My feeling is that I will see even a higher number in the future, because it can take five to ten years for the injections to react.”

Florida law-enforcement officials agree with Dr. Mendieta that cases such as Oscarina’s are an increasing problem. Detective Bryan Tutler of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, who led the 2012 investigation of Oneal Ron Morris, one of the nation’s most notorious ass quacks, told me, “These things just started. If you go back three or four years, no one had ever heard of this. And now they’ve really picked up. Pretty soon, I don’t think that any law-enforcement agency is going to be able to hide from investigating these kinds of crimes.”

Which leaves Dr. Mendieta squarely on the front lines in the battle over illegal butt tampering—a battle that keeps getting worse. Of all the victims of illegal butt injections he’s operated on, he said that Oscarina’s was one of the most severe cases he’d ever seen.

“I had to cut a great deal of flesh out with the silicone,” he said, “because it had impregnated her tissue. We pulled out a pound and a half of pure, rock-hard substance from each cheek.”

The task of removing the damaged tissue and reconstructing Oscarina’s ass was such an undertaking that it had to be broken up into two operations. The $6,000 she spent on her butt injections no longer seems like a bargain; she estimates that it has cost her nearly $70,000 and counting to get her butt back into shape, and Oscarina still hasn’t undergone the second procedure in which the remaining impregnated tissue will be removed and her cheeks will be further fine-tuned. The truly sad thing is that she’s one of the lucky ones. There’s only one Dr. Constantino Mendieta, but who knows how many Oscarinas are out there suffering?

These images provided by Dr. Mendieta show complications from botched butt injections very similar to Oscarina Busse’s. You can see the discoloration throughout the buttock and the distorted shape. Like Oscarina’s, this butt was hard to the touch.

The use of silicone injections to increase the size of one’s assets is nothing new. The practice dates back to World War II, a hundred years after the synthetic compound was invented and a decade or so after it became commercially viable to mass produce. During the war, the US military used silicone to insulate electrical transformers. It was on the docks of Yokahama Harbor in Japan that American Army quartermasters first started noticing the relationship between their transformer insulation fluid disappearing and the increasing bust size of the local hookers. Although crude and certainly not medical grade, it was an ostensibly better option for Japanese sex professionals who up until that point had been pumping up their chests with paraffin and Vaseline.

American physicians started to take note of silicone as a breast augmenter. The practice of injecting silicone directly into the breasts spread throughout America in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, perpetrated by cosmeticians and plastic surgeons. Widely used by female entertainers, sex workers, and everyday women in the US—including Nancy Reagan­—and it took some time before the horror stories of botched boob jobs bubbled to the surface of middle-class America. Over the years, many of these women suffered silicone cysts, collapsed nipples, and painful, rock-hard breasts.

In 1965, the FDA made it illegal for doctors without a special experimental permit to perform silicone injections—however, plastic surgeons kept pumping under the assumption that if they purchased the silicone made in their home state, they were operating outside the FDA’s jurisdiction. This continued until the practice started to fall out of favor in the late 60s and 70s due to countless horror stories and increasing regulations—states like Nevada and California made injections illegal in 1975, and several others followed suit.

With legal injections off the table, plastic surgeons turned to silicone implants, which were thought to be safer because the silicone was contained in an inert elastomer shell. However, due to studies linking implants to serious health issues, the FDA put implant manufacturers under a voluntary moratorium in 1992. In 2006 the FDA reapproved silicone-gel-filled implants, and they’ve since made a huge comeback, comprising 72 percent of all breast-augmentation procedures in the US in 2012. It was during the past two decades—when the country was engaged in a nationwide dialogue on the risks and benefits of implants—that silicone-injection procedures moved into the seedy underground.

Above all, it was the transgender community that really pioneered the backroom butt-injection scene in the 1980s and 90s. For a male transitioning to a female at that time, it was a ridiculous notion to think that insurance would foot the bill for procedures that made their outside look the way they felt on the inside. The black market was the go-to place for these types of augmentations because it was considerably cheaper. Also, at the time, the fat-transfer method had yet to be developed. To get the results that were desired—round, feminine butts—injections were the preferred option for many in the transgender community. After some of these women made their transitions, they turned around and became butt doctors themselves, using the injection technique that they’d utilized on their own bodies first.

Since then, the practice has moved from the margins toward the mainstream. One of the poster children for the horrible effects of silicone pumping is a woman from Los Angeles named Apryl Michelle Brown, whose lower legs and arms were amputated after her body went septic due to complications from silicone injections she received in 2004. Another high-profile victim was a 20-year-old woman named Claudia Seye Aderotimi. In 2011, she traveled from London to Philadelphia to get butt shots from Padge Victoria Windslowe, a transgender lady known in some circles as the “Black Madam.” Claudia was an aspiring dancer, looking to enhance her figure so she could make it in the hip-hop music-video scene. She died of a pulmonary embolism almost immediately after injections of industrial-grade silicone entered her bloodstream and traveled to her liver, lungs, and brain.

The phenomenon of butt pumping has even crept into popular culture. Every time Kim Kardashian or Jennifer Lopez wears a swimsuit, tabloids and gossip websites furiously debate whether their bodacious butts are the result of an intense squat regimen or ass injections. Former stripper and hip-hop model Vanity Wonder, who boasts ample 34-23-45 curves, wrote a book about her addiction to illegal butt shots and the 16-plus times she had her butt pumped up. Nicki Minaj, who is known for her huge rump almost as much as for her platinum-selling albums, has commented on the phenomenon of injections and admitted, albeit facetiously, that she’s had them done. In her guest verse on the remix of Big Sean’s “Dance (A$$),” Nicki raps: “Kiss my ass and my anus, ’cause it’s finally famous / And it’s finally soft, yeah, it’s finally solved! / I don’t know, man, guess them ass shots wore off!”

Continue reading after the Jump it gets better!!!

Corey Eubanks isn’t the slightest bit bashful about his illegal butt shots and the body they gave him. Here he is showing off his hams in a super low-cut wrestling leotard at Collins Park on Miami Beach.

 

Jessica Simpson on the “Mom Jeans” Stoning of 2009~ Her Body Image is Strong and Empowered!!!

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“I think any woman who is pregnant and creating a life is pretty much entitled to eat whatever she wants as long as she’s healthy” said Simpson, 33. “I wasn’t going to let the media take away from what was one of the happiest times in my life.”

 

In retrospect, Simpson is amazed at the vicious press she endured while heavier. She points out that in the infamous “mom jeans” she  weighed less than she does now.

“What’s so unbelievable is that I was probably at least 15 pounds smaller than I am right now,” she said. “What’s more unbelievable is that the press could create something so crazy out of a pair of jeans. What woman wants to be brought down for that?”

 


Read my essay on how Jessica Simpson, through her pregnancy broke out of the Hollywood body standard and created her own, personal body standard by which he lives, and backs it up by forcing the industry and the world to deal with her as a billion dollar business mogul and her weight is not an issue when she is at the negotiating table in The Crooked Room of the Female Body Image! holla!

 

Alyssa Milano speaks out about Jay Mohr Fat Shaming

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I am sure that most of us have heard rumblings of this Alyssa Milano and Jay Mohr incident, basically during an interview he made comments about her body and weight gain. Here’s the thing: she had a baby. Her child is almost 2 and a half and she still has 10 pounds to lose to get back to her pre-baby weight. So Mohr’s comment was super jerky considering that her weight gain is due to pregnancy. But let me just say that commenting on  a women’s weight is not cool in general. * If you are unfamiliar with what went down I put the whole thing below my comments on the Video.

I wanted to bring you Alyssa’s  response to his response during an interview on Extra:

This has brought up a few things for me:

The first is how much I hate it that men feel they have a right to comment on women’s bodies at all. From the whistle, or comment as you are walking by on the street, to television shows where men (often homosexual) comment, dress, or make-women over to be “hot” and “sexy” as though we are helpless, hopeless dolls. I get tired of men talking about our bodies, and telling us what we should wear (in most cases to please and attract men not necessarily ourselves). There is so much focus and pressure put on us to please other people and rarely are we encouraged to think of or for ourselves, we are not encouraged or applauded for choosing our own comfort or style, or being self-empowered enough to say screw the status quo I like the way I look and I don’t care if I’m “Trending”. There are no shows dedicated to women (homosexual women) critiquing men’s bodies and fashion or beauty, and frankly the way some of them are running around, there needs to be and intervention. No, we don’t subject men to that sort of scrutiny because honestly they probably couldn’t bare up it. It really really makes my teeth itch to hear the entitlement with which men speak about women’s shapes and forms…

So that is the first thing.

The second strong reaction I had to this story and the way that it is being reported it the use of the term “Fat Shaming “. Yes I know I used it to. It’s like knowing the code. And that is what is a little alarming to me. I know it is a necessary evil but I greatly fear the by product of the codify of the language we use to talk about body image, and body issues. To me it denotes the beginning of desensitization, in the form of overuse and misuse. I see it akin to what has happened the word “Bullying” we hear it, we know that it is a real thing but when the boy cries wolf over and over, when you hear him  instead of running to his aid, you roll you eyes. Seriously we have grown ass women on Reality Television talking about how they are being bullied by castmates, come on!!! Someone teasing you, or even picking on you is a far cry from bullying. Inherit in the act of bullying is the fact that the person being bullied is powerless (physically emotionally or psychologically), and vulnerable, and has no voice or defense….Ladies grow up…

I feel words and terms that are being cultivated surrounding body image are going to take on that form. I fear that somewhere in the near future we will not be able to talk about people’s bodies be it a positive or negative way without being accused of judging, or shaming or what have you, (as a dance instructor we are already there, we can not discuss weight, for fear of law suits) this is not the answer, nor the direction we need to be heading. Let me be clear I think that what Jay Mohr said does fall under body shaming, it actually hits on two (at least) categories in my mind, shaming because he was talking about her post pregnancy weight  she had not shed, the shaming part could be found in the comment her made about her not wearing Spanx, as if because she is a certain size she ought to, because she should be trying to conceal her weight because it is shameful—even if it’s because she had a child. That opens it up the second category, of teasing or derision which could lend itself to shaming, but does not automatically constitute shaming.

Shaming is:  A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace. You can tell a joke, or even make a nasty comment that is not shaming- it can be mean but it’s not SHAMING. If we start to get overly critical or sensitive, then we run the risk of not being able to have a sense of humor, or even discuss the issue which as a stated before is not the answer!

Finally I talk about this whole post baby body insanity in my essay The Crooked room of the Female Body Image, check it out when you have a moment.

Here’s how it went down:

during a recent radio interview.

“She’s very tiny, in height,” he said about her appearance at the NASCAR Spring Cup Seires Awards last month, an event he hosted. “It seems like she had had a baby and said, ‘I don’t really give a s–––’ … I read it on her gut.”

Somebody sat in the director’s chair was not wearing Spanx and I was like ‘Jesus Christ!'”

Alyssa responded via Twitter:

.@jaymohr37 So sorry you felt the need to publicly fat-shame me. Be well and God Bless. Please send my love to your beautiful wife.

A week and a half later, Mohr replied (a week later) –saying he was just kidding and posted this statement on his  official blog:

Comedians have a hole on their insides that can only be filled by generating constant content that is, many times, improvised in the moment. Unfortunately, in rare instances, it causes irreparable harm. I had thought (incorrectly) in an improvisational moment, that the incongruousness of my statements, when held up to the light of how beautiful Alyssa Milano is, would have been funny given that she is the size of a thimble. It wasn’t funny. Knowing that Alyssa, as well as her family, friends, fans, and especially her husband, heard things that were hurtful from my mouth crushed me. She has always been one of the kindest, most caring and beautiful people this town has ever seen. I will not make excuses for what I said. Although I immediately removed that segment from my podcast, it still doesn’t change the results. I know full well how much words can hurt people, having seen my wife get destroyed by the tabloids, and I am embarrassed that I didn’t think before I spoke. Alyssa is an extraordinarily beautiful person—both inside and out. Alyssa is a mother, a wife, an actress, and a class act that should always be celebrated. Sometimes comedians go too far. I went too far. I cannot change what I said, but I can assure you that my heart is broken that I hurt her. I am very sorry. With the utmost sincerity, Jay Mohr

Milano graciously accepted Mohr’s apology on Friday.

“Thank you. Apology accepted,” she wrote on Twitter, adding “(She grunts while aggressively yet cautiously prying off her head-to-toe Spanx) #PassTheCookies.”

Dancer Madeline Crawford – Her Body Story- (her secret to success- her Dance Journal)

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This is Madeline Crawford, a Junior at Professional Performing Arts School in New York, she is also my student in the Ailey School Junior Division. Two years ago Maddie became my student and recently we began to work together privately to address some of her alignment and technical issues. Through our sessions we managed to break down and break through some of her issues which in turn has begun to change her body. I wanted to sit down with her so she could tell her story. She not only has changed her diet, and her body (both by losing weight and by working differently in the studio) but her dedication to the work and how she approaches it has made her progress this year blossom. Plus she FINALLY really did an assignment I gave her class a year ago and is now reaping the benefits!!

 

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Maddie in 2011
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Maddie 2013

 

Here is a  guide to how to write a Dance Journal from Maddie 

How to Write a Dance Journal by Madeline Crawford

Get Organized

Purchase a nice medium-sized notebook that will fit in your bag and is visually appealing, so you’re more likely to use it. Set a format for yourself. If a teacher is giving you a format, use that as inspiration but only write what you think you will benefit from. For example: I never write compliments down very often because, while they help my self esteem and show improvement, I probably won’t benefit from looking back and reading about a good pirouette at barre I did or a well-placed Penché. Unnecessary sections of a journal make writing in it more tedious and less enjoyable.

For an easy format, use this:

Date:

Technique:

Teacher:

Corrections:

 

You can even throw in things like “Personal Goal” or “Class Concentration.” But don’t get too lofty with what you want to write everyday. A dance journal can feel like homework some days- an overwhelming amount will make you not want to do it at all. You could even just write down the date and corrections, making your notebook as succinct and purposeful as possible. *(I do think that keeping track of your compliments are important for balance, it can show that you are not a complete mess. Also your successes are just as valuable a learning tool as your failures, when you succeed you have to know why and how it replicate it *T’ruth)

 

Listen

If you’re the type that hates getting corrected, it might be time to change your mindset. This isn’t easy to do and it’s difficult to hear about something that you feel confident in.

For example: You may have naturally high extensions. If a teacher says to cool it down for the sake of hip alignment, you may feel belligerent and stubborn, not wanting to take it. But the only reason they say this to you is to keep your body healthy and refine your technique, not to hurt your ego.

Also remember that not every teacher wants the same thing, so while you may have to keep your leg at 90º in Teacher A’s class, Teacher B may allow you to kick it however high you want. Blocking out your teacher’s corrections won’t help at all, if you haven’t listened to them, you won’t have anything to write, and therefore you’ll never learn. It’s nearly impossible to remember every correction all your teachers give you during the week but every word helps you.

 

Find Patterns and Set Goals

Though not every piece of information you receive will be in your journal, you start to recognize a correction if several teachers say it to you. You may have heard “quicker spot” on Monday, you could have dismissed it or forgotten when it comes to writing everything down. But if another instructor says the same thing on Wednesday, it will click that you’ve gotten this before and it’s time to apply it. On Saturdays, on my way home after my last class of the week, I start a page that says “Weekly Review.” I collect every repeated correction from that particular week (or previous weeks if it’s something I really have to work on) and write on that page “Patterns in Corrections.” To clarify- if not only my Graham teacher says “deeper plié,” but also one of my Ballet teachers, I write down “deeper plie,” so that I know it’s something to focus on. I then read through all the patterns and choose one or two things to make my “Focus of Next Week.” In order to make sure you’re following through with each week’s goal, also write “Last Week’s Focus.” Record whether you did well with your goal or if you have to keep working on it. These corrections aren’t limited to what an instructor says to you! If you yourself can see that there can be improvement on a certain aspect, include that in your journal as well. If you’re constantly saying to yourself “I could have drawn that out a bit more,” or “I need to breath through all my balances,” then don’t wait for someone to say something to your. Make it happen!

 

Absorb

Make it a weakly ritual to look at your journal and read your weekly focus. Try to even look at it before every class. 2% of the work is writing notes down, it’s up to you to bring it into class and start to apply it to your dancing. If you repeatedly hear “energy through your arms,” it doesn’t count if you just have it written down, you have to absorb the correction in order to improve. Typically, when I make something my weekly goal, I tend to not hear hear the correction from teachers anymore, so it was effective. But always keep all corrections in the back of your mind. Just because someone hasn’t commented on it in a while, doesn’t mean you can forget about it. There’s muscle memory, but sometimes you will have to consciously tell yourself what to do.

 

Be Consistent and Don’t Get Lazy

I have plenty of days where I don’t feel like digging out my journal and meticulously writing every detail of class. There are definitely blank pages in my notebook, where I planned on writing but only got as far as labeling “technique” and “teacher.” This is inevitable- some days you won’t feel inspired and won’t have the motivation to put extra effort into something that it’s mandatory. No one is making you write the journal except yourself so it’s easy to slip up. It may be a nuisance to write about every single class, every single day but there won’t be much improvement if you don’t impel yourself.

 

When Do I Write It?

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put off writing until the next day (or the next week) and have completely forgotten every detail of the class. If you’re taking more than 2 classes a day it’s easy to blend classes (and even teachers or techniques!) together. Sometimes you have to force your self and maybe even sit down after class, right outside the studio, and write.

 

What If I Don’t Have Anything to Write?

Some days you won’t get corrections! There are always teachers that yell combinations at you instead of actually giving you useful information. It’s your job to make classes like those into sort of experiments. Concentrate on all the corrections that you’ve already gotten. These classes can be good, depending on how you look at them. Don’t waste a single class! Sure, we all have bad days but don’t let your lack of respect for a teacher affect your improvement. Do you want to slack off for a full 90 minutes or do you want to turn that time into useful learning time? Also, remember that every class correction is a personal correction. If a girl behind you is being told to lift her elbows in first, don’t look at yourself in the mirror to see how good you look your new leo. Look at yourself in the mirror to see whether you need that correction too. A teacher can’t always get around to everyone, so make sure you listen to everything they say for your own benefit.

 

Don’t Get Scared

Sometimes I look over a week of notes and freak out about the amount of bullet points there are on a page. Of course, it’s always good to get a correction from a teacher- it means they’re paying attention to you and want you to improve. But sometimes you can get nervous about the crazy about of stuff you have to work on. Just remember- this is the reason you’re writing in the dance journal, to improve. Most of these are tiny corrections, though. Your comments in class reflect your improvement. Instead of hearing major corrections that can take years to work on (articulating feet, higher extensions, stronger core muscles), the corrections shift to tinier things that are crucial but only a more advanced student can comprehend and absorb. I’ve noticed that I’m getting even more corrections than I ever was earlier in my training. Also, all you hear from professionals is that they’re constantly learning, they’re always something to work on. It’s important to keep in the back of you’re mind that corrections are necessary to succeed.

 

Dance Journals Aren’t For Everyone and Do Your Own Thing

You may have intensely great memory so you don’t have to keep a notebook. You may have tried it, and have found no benefit. Maybe you’re not the type of learner that can handle writing everything. Dance journals don’t have to work for you, plenty of great dancers probably never wrote anything down. Also remember that pictures can help, if you’re a good artist. You can even try your own format, don’t feel limited.

 

Have Fun!

Yes, it can sometimes feel like boring work to write about dance, when you’d rather be actually dancing (or sleeping or eating). But try to put a positive light on your dance journal- thinking of it as a real, almost academic study to help you overall, instead of punishment.

 

The Crooked Room of the Female Body Image ~ Theresa Ruth Howard

I came across Melissa Harris Perry’s 2011 lecture at University of California on her book Sister Citizen: Shame Stereotypes and Black Women in America. In Sister Citizen she juxtaposes the results of the 1953 cognitive perception study of the Crooked Room to the being a Black woman in America.

 

The Crooked Room experiment goes as follows:

 

They sit a person in a dark room in a chair that tilts. When the lights come on everything in the room is set at an angle. The participants are then observed to see if they can find, or maintain their true upright despite what their eyes tell them. The result was that most people would actually try to tilt the chair to match the angle of the crooked room; few could find their true upright.

 

Harris-Perry sees the stereotypical images of Black women in America (Jezebel’s sexual lasciviousness, Mammy’s devotion, and Sapphire’s outspoken anger) as the “crooked images” that African American women are either tilting to match, or overcompensating against. These images create a virtual “crooked room” through which they must navigate, and which also shapes their experiences as citizens. This got me thinking about the images of the hyper-sexualized, over commercialized exploited and distorted images of female body that we see in the world today.

As women are living in a Crooked Room of the Female Image the question is, just how crooked is this room that we inhabit? Let’s look at some basic statistics. The average height and dress size of an American woman is 5’3 and a size 14, the average height and size of a fashion model is 5’11 and a size 4, that is huge differential. Is it any wonder that that most women find themselves tilting to fit that angle? Add to that, all media images are digitally manipulated to erase any perceived flaws and even alter the model’s body shape and size. Even the size 4 models are minimized. The room tilts a bit further on the angle. These magazines and ads create a concept of “beauty” that does not in real life, it is completely and utterly unobtainable, so what chance do “real” women have to find their center when we are living on a Tilt-a Whirl ride?

The most interesting aspect of the Crooked Room of the Female Image is that we all know that the images we are presented with are warped. Where the subjects in the 1953 study were unaware and caught off guard as to what to expect when the lights came on, we as women are completely cognizant of the visual and emotional manipulation ubiquitously visited upon us and yet we are still tilting or chairs trying to align ourselves to it. Our information driven society has created a demand for full disclosure, we want to go behind the scenes of movies and photo-shoots to see how things are made. Where once we could only suspect that someone’s image had been tampered with, now we can see the technology that warps these images. It is no longer a question of our “lying eyes” it is fact and yet, we in our real, un-retouched lives are still charging ourselves with matching the standard.

I grew up in not in just a Crooked Room as a woman, but a Crooked House as a Black Woman, and that house was located at the end of a cul-de-sac in crooked gated community of Dance. One cannot find a more crooked room then a dance studio. Where the dance world is fraught with twisted body ideals (especially the ballet world) as an African American girl/woman in that world, I was not only tilted I was set upside down. The fact that I was brown (which is the antithesis of the image of the ballerina) I was tall, muscular, and visibly strong (the preferred aesthetic for a ballerina is slight and lithe, which visibly belies the amazing physical strength it takes to be that graceful) plus after puberty I had thighs and a booty. As a female ballet student, acquiring your first body image issue is akin to getting your first pair of pointe shoes, it is a rite of passage, and like pointe shoes that body issue is just the first of many you will go through in your training and career. We  [dancers] were all gifted lifetime subscriptions to body issues that range from basic physical inadequacy (relative to our facility), to our actual body shape, form or weight. Our identities exist in the physical, how high our legs go, how arched our feet are, how many turns we can do, and how we measure up to the girl who is standing next to, in front of, or behind us who, we are charged to look exactly like…in classical ballet physical individuality can be like sudden death, the key to survival at ground level, is to blend. Have you ever gone to see a friend dance in the corps de ballet in Swan Lake? Good luck finding her *unless she is brownish…

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 In her lecture on Sister Citizen, Harris-Perry speaks a great deal about the power of shame when it comes to African American women identifying or being identified with those inaccurate, negative images. In the dance world body shaming is almost a foundational teaching tool. You can be shamed for not being able to execute the technique and movements properly, or for just not fitting the ideal aesthetic, or you could be a proxy for the lingering issues harbored by a teacher who lived in that crooked room before you. This “shaming” can take the form of weigh-ins and measuring, comments made about a girl’s body parts in class, or references made about her weight in partnering class. It is often acceptable for both teachers (male and female) and students (male and female) to comment, make snide remarks (openly or behind a girl’s back) about her weight or ability, it is woven into the culture. The shaming is not always verbal, it happens when you are consistently placed in back lines in class, not chosen for groups, or casting (when your actual ability is not a factor) or by simply being invisible- unseen, ignored, which equated to being un worthy of being, seen corrected, or taught. Often when young girls enter puberty they become invisible. Teachers wait to see how they will emerge on the other side. As breasts bud and hips spread they say nothing. This is the most dangerous and vulnerable time for a young girl in the studio, she can see her changing body as her getting fat and go to drastic measures to “correct it. A very clear-cut pop culture reference, which wrenches my soul, (as I know that when I write this, you will get it) is reality television personality Abby Lee, from Dance Moms… Clear enough for you? Now that is sensationalized but it resonates because anyone who has trained in dance is somewhat familiar with that tone and humiliation. * It is less common now because the parameters of abuse have been broadened.

 

I sat with a coworker a fellow dancer/teacher who told me that he loved those skinny, beautiful girls, even if they couldn’t hit the step, he said didn’t even want to look at heavy girls. He needed to be inspired… Now I found his comment particularly interesting and irksome considering that he himself is thick of thigh and behind. If he were a woman, he would probably not want to see himself dance—here we have that all too familiar syndrome were people support things that exclude them. People will vote against their own best interests. The idea that he so glibly could say that in his smug, aloof manner with his penis snuggled safely between his legs, making certain that he would NEVER have to be held to the same body or talent standard of a female dancer made my blood boil and my teeth itch. The reality is, if a man can partner he can get a job somewhere, whether he can balance on two feet or not, This is the culture of the Crooked Dance Room, try coming out of it with any sense of equilibrium it takes all the Pilates, Gyrotonics and core support to emerge standing. It is not for the faint of heart…

Where the World of concert dance is very specialized, we see evidence of the Crooked Room in action in the mainstream regularly when a young starlet emerges onto the scene that does not fit comfortably into the manufactured ideal. If she is curvy, with her increased success her body as well as her nose will get slimmer, her hair will get blonder and blonder, if she can survive she will morph into, or closer to the commercial ideal. Jennifer Hudson shrinks before our eyes; Kelly Osbou

rne, Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus have all had physical reducing body transformations. We see the media chronicling their weight fluctuations seemingly more than their career achievements. Even the girls who are “ideal” go further almost disappearing before our eyes in an effort to… be seen: Kate Bosworth, Keira Knightly, and Lindsey Lohan. I recall vividly when this was illustrated in the 90’s with the Ally McBeal era Calista Flockhart and Portia de Rossi and all the women on that show were scarily thin and kept getting thinner as the skirts got shorter.

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There are a few non-traditional females in the industry who have found their upright in the Crooked Room of the entertainment industry Adele, Rebel Wilson, and Melissa McCarthy come to mind (two of which are comedians- funny girls are allowed to be fat, ‘cause they giggle when they laugh). Adele has publicly and personally declared power over her body and her image; she is fine with who she is and what she looks like and has not made the physical concessions to be marketable. Just recently she turned down a 19 million dollar contract to be the face of L’Oreal, reportedly because she is focusing on her music —what she actually does, imagine THAT concept. McCarthy and Wilson have a “Fat Pact” they have agreed not to “change” for the industry.

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The newest tilt of the room is the obsession with the “post pregnancy bodies” of women. At some point there was a competition launched to see who could have a baby and snap her body back in shape before the placenta was pressed out. Women today in the public eye are not afforded a break from the Crooked Room standard when going through the most organic process a woman’s body was built for. She now must adhere to the standard before, during and after her pregnancy, and should she some how not participate in the competition then she is shamed and ridiculed for being fat. Jessica Simpson was one of the first women to endure the public gauntlet of the media cruelly commenting on her pregnancy weight gain. It was as though they were pissed that (even though with child) she was defying her bombshell sex symbol image. She, with her pregnancy, and her unwillingness to play by the MILF in the making game (which kind of looks like you have a basketball tucked under your shirt) she reclaimed her body by letting it spread unapologetically. She ate what she wanted and grew larger and larger, and wore printed flowing moo moos and reveled in her impending motherhood. It seems like in her pregnancy found her upright. Pregnancy had set her free from the obligatory sex symbol pop star body type she had become famous for. The responsibility of “eating for two” released her from the obligation of starving for one in order to look “hot” in a pair of “Daisy Dukes”. For Simpson the ultimate act of female creation (or procreation) somehow set the room right.

pre baby dasiy dukes
pre baby dasiy dukes

Conversely Kim Kardashian went into full tilt during her pregnancy. She fought the organic push to upright with all her might and the

strongest Spanx reality television money could buy. Unable to surrender her sex symbol image, when her pregnancy weight began to show she often wore clothes and shoes that, though fashionable were ill-fitting, and though meant to be sexy, made her looked stuffed into, and uncomfortable. Her fame, and apparently her entire identity hinged precariously on her sex appeal. Yes she is known for her zaftig fuller figure, the classic hourglass that represents “womanliness” and “Femininity” yet when challenged with the ultimate act of femininity, pregnancy she had trouble embracing it. She cashed in on the media manufactured concept of beauty and sexuality, but when the authentic aspects of being a woman touched her life she repudiated them with ill-fitting couture.  Like Sampson and his locks Kardashian’s power lie solely in her waist to hip ratio, and when were waistline expanded she stuck to her sexy girl equation but unfortunately the math it didn’t balance.

 

She took heat for it in the media, but for different reasons then Simpson, yes they were both abandoning their bombshell bodies but they were treated with the same rancor for divergent reasons. Where the media chastised Simpson for not giving a damn and ballooning and loosing her figure while pregnant and, they berated Kardashian for not accepting and embracing her pregnancy and changing body, she almost tried to ignore the changes which for some reason incited people. Both women were damned if they did, damned if they didn’t. The Crooked Room sways precariously. Both were accepted back into the fold when they, like many other new celebrity mothers fulfilled their contract of restoring their post baby bodies to appropriate hotness. Kim posted the white one-piece bathing suit shot of her ass, to show all the “haters” that she was back to hot, and sadly still seeking the approval and validation of the masses. However Simpson seems to have stepped out of the Crooked Room altogether. After having her children, she has not only embraced her post baby body (which is fuller then her former pop star frame) but she is no longer, chasing singing contracts or acting roles. She is not seeking acceptance or validation from the media or the world. She has built an empire that includes a clothing and accessory line that is grosses billions. She has come a long way from the girl who didn’t know that the “chicken of the sea” was in fact fish.

 

Now an argument could be made that the Crooked Room of the Female Image might be tilting back upwards when we think of the new “curvy girl” movement. The poster girls for women with curves are the likes of previously mentioned Kim Kardashian, Jessica Simpson and Beyoncé, as well as Jennifer Lopez and Sofia Vegara. Where these ladies are not the typical size 00, and are still considered sexy and desirable, so where their curves might create a slight shift to the upright, their hyper sexualized images and “bombshell” labels in a way tilts it right back. They could be lauded solely for their authentic talent (okay for some of the examples that does not really apply) albeit their overly exposed bodies and images at times overshadow their work and their business acumen. All of these “Curvy” girls still lean into the tilt aesthetically, which in a ways nullifies the seeming correction. The few women whose weight (pun fully intended) could actually shift the scales (yeah that one too) are the likes of the previously mentioned Adele, Rebel Wilson, and Melissa McCarthy, and perhaps Glee’s Amber Riley.

 

There is no question as to whether or not the room is indeed crooked, and we agree that there are indisputably, unrealistic images of women projected at us at every turn. We know that the women walking down the runways at every fashion week are either fresh out of puberty or have spent the last month sucking on lemon soaked cotton balls, chain smoking, or doing coke to stay thin. We also concede their printed images could be considered virtual paintings after being airbrushed. We know that most actresses pay exurbanite amounts of money on glams squads of trainers, make-up artists and hair and fashion stylists, nutritionists, and chefs not to mention plastic surgeons to achieve a “look”.  In short we all know that the projected image of “woman” is truly just that a projection, not real something that has been manufactured… so what do we do with that? How are we exactly supposed to find our natural upright? How do we self correct?

When Scuba divers become disoriented under water and lose their sense of direction, unable to discern which way is up, they are taught to follow their air bubbles. Bubbles always float to the surface.  That having been stated, the diver first has to realize that they are in fact disoriented; they have to on some level get their bearings in order to find themselves. Women too must get our bearing in this warped environment of the female image. It is akin to addiction, and the 12 steps program, the first step is to realize and admit that you have a problem. Once you realize that it is the room that is crooked, not you, once you can see that it is the projection of beauty and the female form that has been twisted, and manipulated and that the reflection of your Self is the actual reality, the truth… only then can you begin to start look for, and find your center. Once you can get your mind around the fact that you are not broken the bubbles will appear. In order to follow our bubbles to the surface of ourselves and emerge upright, we as women in the Crooked Room of the Female Image have to first identify what those bubbles are so that we can train our eyes and minds on what will lead us out of the murky depths of this oppressive existence?

 

Creating Bubbles

 

In the Crooked Room we are taught to look towards images in fashion and the media that do not resemble us, usually they are taller, thinner (lighter) then we actually are, that is when we start to tilt. We can create a guiding bubble that acknowledges these images as a form of animation, the over exaggerated products of someone’s imagination and fantasy that has little to nothing to do with us as real, living, breathing, eating women. Real women have curves, wrinkles, fat, sagging parts, stretch marks and hair on places other then their heads…and just for the record so do men (only sometimes they lack hair on their heads).

 

These animations weight the room to one side. We can create buoyancy within ourselves if we stop or even limit the intake of that information. I know that when I look at fashion magazines, or watch certain television shows I find myself feeling crappy. For example I was in Bulgaria this summer, when in my hotel room I would absentmindedly turn on the television to keep my company. I have noticed that in Bulgaria (and a number of places in Europe) they are almost obsessed with Fashion TV, a network dedicated to the behind the scenes happenings of fashion shows and highlights models. It took be about 3 days for me to realize the tilt… at the beginning of my trip I was feeling a few pounds heavy, but I was fine with it.  I knew that once there I would drop weight.  In Bulgaria salads are the staple of almost every meal and there is virtually no snacking, it was like a culturally imposed fat camp. After 3 days of watching emaciated models walking runways in my room I felt the pressure, I was not merely 5 pounds over weight I was full on FAT, my ass was too big, as were my thighs and I was ugly. I was tilting, losing my sense of center… I turned the television off. It was like the room sighed, the walls started to widen, the tension slowly began to dissipate. Out of boredom I had made the fatal mistake of consuming something designed to destroy me.

 

Years before I realized that I had to “change my diet of media intake” I had a subscription to InStyle magazine and very single time I read it felt, ugly, fat, and poor. I started to ask myself “Why do I read this if it makes me feel so bad?” I stopped my subscription, I also stopped reading fashion magazines altogether. I stopped watching shows that in any way, shape, or form were perpetuating the image, and notion that in order to be beautiful, attractive, desirable, or worthy I had to look, or act a certain way, or have certain things. It took a surprisingly short time to feel the room straightening out. I noticed that when I was having a good day, when I felt good in my body, or I liked the way that I looked, I could sustain that feeling for longer periods of time if I was not exposed to media influence. I found that I could hold on to that positive feeling until an ad on a bus, or billboard knocked me sideways. The great lesson I learned was that I did in fact have some control over the balance of this Crooked Room. Even though it seemed ubiquitous and omnipresent I could in fact manage it by censoring and limiting my intake of negative images. It was a bubble…

 

One of the best bubbles I look for is one that we can create ourselves, when we can start to actively look for images in our daily lives that resemble ourselves that we find attractive, or beautiful. That sounds narcissistic, and it probably would be if we thought too highly of ourselves, but we don’t, so it can be a reassuring tool. Often it is easier to acknowledge, accept and appreciate positive characteristics in others then in ourselves. It is easier for us to claim the negative characteristics that we recognize and relate to, and it feels wrong, to acknowledge the positive. This bubble uses simple reason to rebuild or reestablish a more accurate sense of self. Say you hate your nose and lips, when you can see those similar features on someone else and you find them beautiful, then it stands to reason that you can then see your nose and lips as beautiful too. When we can begin to look out into the real world and find beauty in other women who share physical characteristics similar to our own, and we can objectively see them as appealing, we blow a bubble that floats upwards, and if we follow it we can start to right ourselves.

The exercise of looking for one’s self in others begets another important, substantial, and empowering bubble, which is that of creating your own definition and standard of beauty that first and foremost includes you. Each time you recognize beauty in another with whom you share like attributes, you reprogram not only how and where you see beauty, but also fundamentally what you find to be beautiful. Instead of looking for what’s broken in someone you start to see what’s working. We are not looking for perfection, but for truth. What starts to emerge is an appreciation for the infinite diversity that is humanity. You start to appreciate the beauty of shape, form, color and texture, the things that make up mankind. You begin to marvel at how physiologically we are all alike, and yet intrinsically different at the same time. That is beauty. When you can begin to see beauty- or even the validity of someone’s right to be exactly who and what they are (you don’t have to like it, or agree with it) but you honor them by respecting it, you invariably create a space for you too to be exactly who and what you are with out exception, without qualification. Then you can follow your bubbles upwards, break the surface and breath deeply.

 

It would be folly to think that one-day the crookedness of the female body image will cease to exist. The reality is beauty and the body is a crooked business; billions of dollars are spent on people trying to “match the angle”. Just like sex, in adequacy sells, when you can convince people that they are inherently broken, they will always look for the fix, the cure, or the camouflage. The sale of beauty is predicated on making someone feel less than. We also have to face the fact that the Crooked Room we exist in does not so much warp the mirrors; as much as it twists the way we see our images in them. They are akin to funhouse mirrors, when we look at ourselves, we do not see our true images. When we can find our centers, and see the Crooked Room of the Female image as a room and that is crooked, and not us, then we can finally begin to orient ourselves, exhale and follow the bubbles upward, break through and exit that room closing the door firmly and completely behind us.

 

FaceBook Group Plus Size Model : if this is your idea of what a Plus Size Barbie looks like… umm We’ll Pass

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This just makes me do a Meredith Grey “Seriously?”. They have got to be out of their minds if they think that this mock up of a plus sized version of Barbie is even to be considered, I just say just forget it, because you are missing the point all together. First off, before we get to plus sized, we could start with creating a barbie with realistic body proportions. proportions that actually represent the “average” woman’s breast, waist and hip size. There will always be issues with capturing an “Accurate” representation because women come in all shapes and sizes, but they could stretch into measurements that are in the ball park.

When I see gimmicks like this (and yes I indeed think this is a marketing gimmick) it turns my stomach because I smacks of people not taking the issue of how the distortion of the female body and it’s effect of females of all ages seriously. It’s a game to them. Here’s why I say that. We all know that the subject of obesity is in and of itself polarizing, and inflammatory. When you take a topic like this and start the discussion at an extreme, invariably you will end up arguing the extremity and not the real issue. So when you create a plus sized  triple chinned chubby mock up of Barbie, I get the feeling that you are just trying to get reactions- and not in an authentic,  supportive way, but in a way that generates a viral response. I find it offensive, just as offensive as this unrealistic, and frankly unflattering rendition of what was traditionally the doll version of idealistic beauty. We all know that there are some incredibly beautiful full figured women, we have all heard “But she has such a pretty face…” there are heavy women without double- or triple chins, and waistlines. This was an insult to full figured women and was in no way to gauge the public’s interest in there actually being a plus sized barbie or even a average sized version. I see it as a commentary on how this particular group feels about the subject themselves, but skewing the study they tipped their own hands to show their bias.

Hey FaceBook Group Plus Size Model, don’t do us any favors.

At All of 16, Lorde might be the Real Modern Day Musical Feminist…Just Saying

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On the heels of my post about Beyoncé’s Beyoncé and its feminist theme, I came across this quote from the 16 year old Lorde who in a way addresses my internal conflict head on. But before I get in to that, let me take you back and give you some quotes that ignited the whole feminism dialogue with Lorde:

After being asked about Selena music during an interview:

“I love pop music on a sonic level. But I’m a feminist and the theme of her song [Come & Get It] is, ‘When you’re ready come and get it from me.’ I’m sick of women being portrayed this way.”

Now she has been quoted on her sexual views, she said:

“People like to paint me in a certain way, but I’m a hugely sex-positive person and I have nothing against anyone getting naked. For me personally I just don’t think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better. It’s not like I have a problem with dancing around in undies—I think you can use that stuff in a hugely powerful way. It just hasn’t felt necessary for me.”

The section that I italicize basically illustrates how I feel about this whole “Feminism” in Music topic. Sexuality, and sensuality are natural and beautiful things. They are not inherently exploitative, albeit it I feel like when artists are running around half naked (in everyday life, and not just on stage) flashing their vaginas, and shaking their asses,it turns a corner. I get that that can feel empowered,  all eyes are on them (mainly because they have  no clothes on) but in truth manipulation is empowering, and sexual manipulations feels super powerful, ask any stripper, or porn star- the reactions they get in and from their lines of work make them feel like gods. That having been stated, there is an element of such behavior that smacks of the “Girls Gone Wild” syndrome, where all of the sudden when a camera is on, and guys were around, girls can be coerced to (at first) flash their boobs, (then) make out with their drunk girlfriends (finally) have sex on camera with almost any one…all to be considered hot…They were not empowered, they were fucked up and insecure and seeking attention and acceptance. They are doing it because some dude will think they were Hot, or Cool, or Sexy…They were not doing it because they, independent of that situation..chose to. They act out of weakness, the very opposite of what they profess is the reason for their behavior.

I feel that the industry creates the same scenario for young women, it pulls out a camera and holds a check in the air and says “What are you willing to do to be, Hot, or Cool, Or Sexy, or IT? Ok take off your close, bend over, crouch down, and spread your legs, oh can you put a finger in your mouth as you do that please?”.  S0 for me what Lorde says in terms of how she is willing/unwilling to use her body and its exposure is more in keeping with the way I would see feminism working in the music industry. *Lorde is not even a toddler in the game and is still under age so it’s a waiting game to see how this turns out…

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I will say that one artist that I appreciate in relationship to this feminism and music topic is P!ink. I have always felt that she is completely cognizant of the way in which she presents herself, and though she wears the flesh toned, bejeweled unitards and such, it never feels like she is trying to sexually manipulate us, (at least I feel that way) it feels (to me) like she is saying “I am sexy, sensual, powerful and a bad ass and if you think you can handle this take a step closer”. P!ink has throughout her career presented herself consistently. So I think there is a way be in the industry and not be of it, and yet still “sell”. But I think it has something to do with what you authentically believe in, and not chasing down what is “Trending” , or for that matter, setter Trends.

 

Just something to think about!