Along the same lines as my last post...

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Cosmo Radio on Sirius (I know, I shouldn't subject myself to that sort of crap, but there was nothing else decent on). They were doing a bit where they were inviting men to call in and talk about what they find attractive in a woman. There was the usual string of "I like great breasts" and "I like a nice firm butt" and even a few "I like a girl with a great set of eyes".

Then this guy called in and was talking about the size of girl that he's into. He starts off okay, saying that he likes a girl who is trim and firm and obviously works out, which I can't say anything negative about, because everybody has their own preferences and that's okay. But then he goes on to say that "it's okay if a girl has a little bit of extra weight, you know, some curves. A girl could weigh even as much as 120 or even 130, and that'd still be okay."

I was flabbergasted. 120 or 130 lbs is 'extra weight'? Seriously? I'm average height, and at 120lbs I look practically skeletal. Anything under 120lbs is considered underweight for my height and frame. How have we gotten to a point where someone being in their healthy range is considered 'extra weight'?

Photoshopping, that's how. It's both amazing and scary how processed the images in our media are. I wish I still had the address to this site I saw a couple of months ago that was before and after retouching pics of celebrities taken for magazine spreads. The amount of 'extra' flesh that was edited out of these photos for the sake of 'beauty' was astounding.

Edited to add: Nevermind. I found the site I was thinking about, but the 'artist' has since taken the befores out of his portfolio. I have to wonder if it was because the celebs were less than impressed with the public being able to see the unretouched versions, if maybe he got a whack of feedback from people telling him how 'wrong' his work is, or some other reason. Much to ponder...

Edited again: But I found an article that has links to several other retouching sites with good examples of what I'm talking about.