[VERY NSFW]Australian Porn and Labiaplasty

[Moldywart]

Interesting clip, though I think it's a bit of a stretch to blame the labiaplasty trend on the censorship of printed magazines in the age of the internet.

Originally Posted by Jay

The whole photoshopping women thing (like, in normal magazines, not pornographic ones) seriously gets to me because I had a lot of my female students back in the states feel HORRIBLE about themselves because of that shit. A few of them straight up passed out during PE because they hadn't eaten in days.

And it's even worse here in Korea. I'd say a good half the female population go in for eyelid surgery by the time they're 25 to make their eyes bigger. A lot of them get it for their birthday present in their late teens.

This however is bang on. Someone I heard on the radio recently phrased it really well:
"150 years ago, women competed with the prettiest girl in town, which was doable. 50 Years ago, women competed with Marilyn Monroe et al., which was hard. Today, women compete with Photoshop, which is impossible."

[Navarp]

Originally Posted by Moldywart

"150 years ago, women competed with the prettiest girl in town, which was doable. 50 Years ago, women competed with Marilyn Monroe et al., which was hard. Today, women compete with Photoshop, which is impossible."

Though to be fair it does create some hilarious shots as well.

[Sprint]

Enh, they've been retouching photos a lot longer than Adobe has existed.

[Peregrine]

I'm pretty sure that the second right hand in that Whitney Houston shot belongs to the person behind her in the red shirt.

[Moldywart]

Originally Posted by Sprint

Enh, they've been retouching photos a lot longer than Adobe has existed.

Yeah, because the point was totally about the exact moment in history when artifice became part of the beauty ideal.

[Navarp]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

I'm pretty sure that the second right hand in that Whitney Houston shot belongs to the person behind her in the red shirt.

You may be right though they look fairly far away and they are standing abreast/behind Whitney.

It may be just an odd shot. Also the caption is funny considering the picture.

Same with the "Kiss Kiss" in the last one.

[Pandir]

Is that women unhinging her jaw to eat the other woman?

[build me a star]

The last one is definitely Photoshopped. They were probably skimming the fat off her shoulder, and accidentally lobbed off her jaw in the process.

[ieya]

Originally Posted by Navarp

The WHO thinks it is a good thing.

While that document certainly is recommending it in the context of reducing HIV transmission, it also looks to be based on trials in Kenya and Uganda which I'd suggest are perhaps not a completely ideal analogue for those of us in the UK, USA, etc - as I think it would be fair to say that our countries are not ones with "generalized HIV epidemics" and so the advice isn't exactly targeted at us. Not to mention that availability of eg condoms is likely to be a lot higher, which will have FAR more impact.

I mean, yoinking some quick numbers from Wikipedia, around 62% of African males are thought to be circumcised, the USA is around 56%, Canada around 32%, in Europe generally less than 20% (UK around 16%, France 14%, Germany 11%, Finland around 7%, etc).

And then adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are around 6.7% in Kenya, 5.4% in Uganda, 0.6% in the USA, 0.3% in Canada, 0.2% in the UK, 0.4% in France, 0.1% in Germany, 0.03% in Finland.

So while the African countries are certainly far far worse for HIV/AIDS infection rates - which I think can be heavily attributed to a lack of education, condoms, and potentially even clean water and soap to wash with, when we look at the 'Western' countries ... the one with by far the highest incidence of circumcision, the USA, also has the worst HIV/AIDS infection rate.

Which leaves me thinking that this is a really weak justification for circumcision - because countries that don't generally circumcise have far lower infection rates, suggesting that routes such as education and condom usage are far more important.

Indeed, looking at the Medical analysis of circumcision wikipedia article, I note that the prevailing medical advice in Australasia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the UK, is all against circumcision.

If the benefits really were clear cut (ho ho) I believe that at the very least, the medical associations in those countries/regions would be far more equivocal (and the Dutch are particularly strongly against - "The official viewpoint of KNMG and other related medical/scientific organisations is that non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors is a violation of children’s rights to autonomy and physical integrity. Contrary to popular belief, circumcision can cause complications – bleeding, infection, urethral stricture and panic attacks are particularly common. KNMG is therefore urging a strong policy of deterrence. KNMG is calling upon doctors to actively and insistently inform parents who are considering the procedure of the absence of medical benefits and the danger of complications").

Now, equally, I'm not saying that it's the end of the world either - I don't think that on the whole it seems to cause huge problems either, the risks and benefits are fairly small either way - which is what to me makes it far more of a cultural/aesthetic choice than one which is genuinely and routinely medically justifiable.

And so ultimately, I'm happiest seeing it being an informed choice; even were it not routinely done at birth in the USA, it's quite possible that many men would choose to do it anyway because it's the "expected look" there.

Which brings us back to the labiaplasty; as long as it's not outright dangerous, if people want to have that done to themselves then it's their choice as adults ... but I do think in both cases it comes far more down to societal/cultural expectations or preferences (as opposed to any real benefit) than people would like to admit.

[GBGirl]

I decided to let any potential kid decide for himself if he wants to get circumcised when I learned that the place where a circumcised dude's skin changes color on his penis is the [Wiki link, NSFW because of examples of penis scars] scar from when he got circumcised. Some scars can show what kind of circumcision the dude got.

I looked into how circumcisions are done, and read about the Gomco clamp, one of the main tools used to do circumcisions. Here's a link on instructions on how to use it.

Since the foreskin doesn't pull back for babies (it's attached to the head), as a previous poster mentioned, they stick in a clamp, then tear the foreskin away from the head.

Then the baby is left with an open wound on an extremely sensitive part of its body, to be exposed to acidic urine and feces until it heals.

So, if my potential kid wants it done when he's older (and his foreskin will at least pull back, then), then so be it. I don't plan on doin' it to a baby in my care, though.

[danucleus]

I can't imagine any kid can really understand it beyond -some doctor is gonna cut away a part of my penis- I'd think most kids will not elect to do it given the choice. That said, I think I was 3 or 4 when my mom told me it was gonna be good and they'll put me to sleep during the procedure. I don't think I gave a hoot about it... anyway kids are impressionable I guess.

[Sprint]

Originally Posted by Moldywart

Yeah, because the point was totally about the exact moment in history when artifice became part of the beauty ideal.

What artifice? Like skull molding, done in the bronze/stone ages? Or footbinding? Or corsets? Or force feeding?

Not to give modern beauty/sexism issues short shrift or anything, but man things really have gotten better for women. Onwards and upwards and all that.

[build me a star]

Yeah, good thing now we're just slicing off parts of our genitals and putting balloons full of plastic into our breasts...?

edit: I'm not denying that things have gotten better, but there's still a ways to go, obviously.

[Damn Skippy]

Doesn't the whole hygienic thing with circumcision go even farther with making men less likely to contract STIs/STDs? I feel like I've read that somewhere, particularly about HIV and men in Africa.

EDIT: whoops, posted this at the end of the first page cos I didn't realize there was a second page. Saw it was mentioned in that WHO post.

[Sprint]

Originally Posted by build me a star

Yeah, good thing now we're just slicing off parts of our genitals and putting balloons full of plastic into our breasts...?

I'm not saying that things are perfect. I just don't like the "the pressures on women's appearance are greater than EVER" rhetoric, because in the past they still had visual art (hey guess what, painters and other visual artists don't have to go by what's physically possible either) to deal with.

This era is hardly the nadir of pressure on women's bodies.

[build me a star]

RE: circumcision: I mean, no matter how much you clean, it's still an issue of skin on skin forming an airless pocket, which is always more likely to be a breeding ground for infection.

edit: Yeah, Sprint, that's a very good point.

Look at this, for example:



WHERE ARE HER BONES

[build me a star]

UNREALISTIC STANDARDS FOR BOOBS

[build me a star]

At least ancient Greek and Roman sculptures tended to be pretty forgiving when it came to the female form.

[Jay]

Keep in mind a lot of Renaissance era painters were forbidden from using real female models for their paintings/sculptures, and would just have naked dudes come in and then add tits and whatnot in the art.

[Kamileon]

I think the ways in which it's worse in modern times is the prevalence of images in media. Okay, so a painting is portraying an inaccurate idea of what women should look like. How many average renaissance-era women would end up seeing that? How many men, who would try to influence what is expected of women would?

How many modern men see the images of what women should look like from porn?

[Jay]

I also think it's a lot worse today because a painting is, well, a painting. I'm sure a lot of people who originally saw those sorts of paintings could at least GUESS at the the notion of the artist taking some liberties.

The covers of magazines are photographs, and presented as reality. And a lot of people don't even know what the fuck photoshop is! Let alone that it's being used so extensively to make pretty women way prettier and super unrealistic. And that these images exist everywhere, from along the highway to on the rack in a grocery store to magazine racks in doctors offices.

[build me a star]

Originally Posted by Jay

Keep in mind a lot of Renaissance era painters were forbidden from using real female models for their paintings/sculptures, and would just have naked dudes come in and then add tits and whatnot in the art.

None of the stuff I posted was from the Renaissance, and I'm not actually sure this is true (it might be, but I've never heard this, and I majored in art/art history). And anatomical realism was pretty highly regarded back then, so I really don't think "dudes with tits" would fly as far as female figure painting went. The first one I posted, La Grande Odalisque, is early 19th century, which places it more Romantic Era/Early Modernism in style.

But obviously back then, the amount of people who would ever even see one of these paintings is way way lower than the amount of exposure we have to these kinds of images today, as you and Kami pointed out. Media is so much more pervasive.

[Odyssey]

I wish the big screen in Times Square would play John Waters' filmography on a loop forever.

[Erpin]

Originally Posted by build me a star

None of the stuff I posted was from the Renaissance, and I'm not actually sure this is true (it might be, but I've never heard this, and I majored in art/art history). And anatomical realism was pretty highly regarded back then, so I really don't think "dudes with tits" would fly as far as female figure painting went. The first one I posted, La Grande Odalisque, is early 19th century, which places it more Romantic Era/Early Modernism in style.

But obviously back then, the amount of people who would ever even see one of these paintings is way way lower than the amount of exposure we have to these kinds of images today, as you and Kami pointed out. Media is so much more pervasive.

From what I recall from my own art history classes: men were allowed to paint whomever they wanted in the nude, but female artists were restricted to using models with their privates covered by cloth. I would have to look further into it to confirm, but this is what my teachers told me.

It's kinda funny that you mention anatomical realism in the renaissance, because a lot of the work produced then was not anatomically accurate. In the painting you posted for example: not only does the woman not have a bone structure, but her anatomy has been elongated, and stylized in order to produce a painting of an idealized woman from those times.

[Benjamin Erle]

Well she did say it wasn't from the Renaissance.