Walking through Times Square the other day, a fashion show projected on one of the big screens there caught my eye. A bodacious babe with breasts pushed up like melons, wide hips swinging saucily from side to side, and a soft sexy belly was walking the runway.
Well, that's good, I thought – an example of women with curves on the runway.
But wait a second. These girls looked more like soft-core porn stars. Or maybe hard core for all I know.
Are these girls any more normal than the skinny, androgynous models that are so often the target of criticism? Our choices seem to be oversexualized or emaciated.
Actually I'm not sure what "normal" is anymore. Where you bones don't stick out but you can still tell that you have them?
But I wondered if waif might be a better choice after all. I know people will argue with me, and I'm certainly not advocating anything that leads young girls, or any women, to body dysmorphia or unhealthy behavior — but somehow it seems less exploitative.
I say that in part because my goddaughter is very skinny, which seems to give random people license to foist their opinion on her, yelling at her to eat or accusing her of various eating disorders.
She stayed with me for nearly a month a few years ago. And although I'm not proud to admit it, our staple diet was pizza and brownies. Needless to say, I gained weight. She did not. And there was never an inappropriate trip to the bathroom. She's young and that's her metabolism. Let her enjoy it while she can (although her mother's still svelte at over-50, so she may blessed with this boon all her life).
Which brings us to the oversexualized option. In "Raising Our Daughters to Be Sexually Authentic Adults," Joyce McFadden began:
In her Wall Street Journal article "Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That?" Jennifer Moses argues that the reason we mothers let our daughters "dress like prostitutes" is largely due to our own sexual regrets."
But McFadden suggests this is only a small slice of the story, noting "ridiculously inauthentic and pornographic images of sexuality are constantly splashed in our faces."
Like the fashion show.
Sex sells; we're confronted with it everywhere. Which made me think: Is sexy always the goal?
As we get older, we love people telling us we look sexy. I do. Think about it: How would you react if someone said "Oh! You look really intelligent today."
Doesn't it sort of come off like an insult? Kind of like people describing a blind date as someone with a good personality. Uh-oh. But looking sexy seems to be the highest compliment you can pay anybody.
So does that lead us to dress more provocatively?
All of this reminded me of something Cindy Gallop told me recently. At 50, she proudly and happily dates younger men (for the record she also notes she's not a cougar; they seek her out). Doing this has given her an unusual, and alarming, insight:
Do to the prevalence of porn in our society – the Internet has made it more widely available than ever before – she says young people don't seem to know the difference between love, making it, and sex as an act of pornography. (To this end, she's started a website called makelovenotporn.com to help address this issue and clarify the two. It's gotten an amazing response, she says, especially from young people, but by no means limited to them.)
This mindset has made a profound stamp on fashion too: for instance, many of the shoes I see look like something a dominatrix would wear. Looking for something fashionable and not dowdy can be a challenge.
And I don't think I'm being prudish. Yes, I want to be sexy (although I don't want to wear dominatrix shoes). But I want to set a good example for younger women too. And men, actually. Friends of mine with sons find it just as much of a problem.
But with Real Housewives the order of the day, The Jersey Shore, and more, is that even possible? And where do we start?
Susan Shapiro Barash, author of You're Grounded Forever... But First Let's Go Shopping, who has two young daughters herself says:
Daughters, as young as tweens, are wearing revealing, vampy clothes and mothers today feel pressured to accommodate their daughters' style of dressing. If a mother puts her foot down, she puts her daughter at risk socially, and few mothers, according to my research, are willing to position their daughters this way. Basically, a mother takes her daughter to the mall and buys her an outfit she knows is unsuitable but popular. In this way, she keeps herself in the loop with the other mothers, keeps her daughter in the loop with the 'it girls' and pushes aside her own sensibility."
I actually don't think fashion can be the starting point here. And a fashion show with the average Jane as a model may not be much of a draw. Although if the clothes being parading down the runway look good on the average women, then wow — they must really be great.
But while we wait, I think I'll opt for waif. How about you?
More model behavior beyond the waif and the porn star: