I’m as much of an idiot as this Moschino bear because I subscribe to French Vogue and I don’t know French. I just want to look at the pictures. I read for a living so it’s no longer pleasurable and I feel guilty when I buy magazines so I don’t buy them any more except I do now and in a language I don’t speak. Now the guilt is twice as large: I can’t read and I wouldn’t read anyway!
Here’s an ad that made me wonder how many women’s lives would’ve been saved, had we always had regular women sizes in high-end fashion magazines. If I saw this ad at 17, when I first started to read VOGUE (in English, a language that even the Moschino bear has been able to learn), maybe, I don’t know, I would’ve never had the weird idea that my legs were fat because my thighs happened to meet at the top. There was an article in a glossy magazine about the sexy thigh gap. Kate Moss had it and so did every model (dying of anorexia) and men found it attractive since it’s a secondary sexual characteristic. While doing research for my book about cads and Pickup Artists, I learned that the nice men who liked to judge women according to a point scale considered a thigh gap instantly elevate a subject by two points. I did a quick Google search about thigh gap and the first article that came up came from a site that had this screaming on its landing page: The Best Years for Weight Loss so we’re not going to look but we can look here. Anyway, it’s nice to see different sizes, but after 20-odd years of skinny models it’s too late for me and most of the friends my age, everyone does secret crash diets, everyone is gymmed out (or feeling terrible over not going to the gym), everyone complains of bellies, asses, arms… Oh, “diet” is a bad word to say now, but today we call it healthy eating, which is really restrictive eating. I don’t have the energy to argue with you, sure, sure, it’s better for your health and everyone has gluten allergy. Time for a smoothie.
Nipples. Pubic hair. What can I say about what hasn’t been yet said about pubic hair or nipples? My 12-year-old came home and without looking at the cover started flipping through the magazine and at some point, he looked up at me and said, “Is this vintage Playboy?” (He’s also a bit of a Moschino bear since he never noticed the language.) Well, I think it’s sad that a child thinks a fashion magazine is a porn magazine just because it shows women’s nipples and pubic hair, but hey, he lives in the world where knowing the difference between sniper rifles, rail guns and pump guns is cool (I looked up weapons in a popular video game all of his friends play) but breastfeeding in public isn’t.