The Truth About Women's Bodies!

[Sweet Emily J 172062]

Considering the recent discussions here on CERB about fat/skinny body shaming, I wanted to share this amazing website that I came across today!

 

"The Nu Project is a series of honest nudes of women from all over the world. The project began in 2005 and has stayed true to the original vision: no professional models, minimal makeup and no glamour. The focus of the project has been and continues to be the subjects and their personalities, spaces, insecurities and quirks."

 

It is quite a remarkable collection of photographs of a wide variety of real women. It is a showcases and celebrates the beauty in ALL women's bodies, in their natural state. All unique and beautiful in their own way! :)

 

www.thenuproject.com

 

 

Enjoy!

[Guest *l**e]

more women need to see this site. It's amazing to me how many women don't realize that most women are just normal, like they are; that photoshop, airbrushing, etc are all part of illusions that are meant to negatively impact their self esteem, usually to sell something. That famous actresses and models have round the clock trainers and dieticians that mold and sculpt them into some kind of ideal that most people can't and shouldn't achieve.

 

great post Emily

[Guest]

What a wonderful website Emily! I'm all for websites that say that beauty can be found in every shape and size and promotes self love. Thanks for sharing this!

[Athos 108589]

fabulous website ... great post Emily.

[Katherine of Halifax 113932]

Just a lovely post and reminder about a woman's beautiful natural look. We are all victims, men and women to the Hollywood glamour look.

 

Some men really believe that a woman ought to look like the pictures we see in mags, TV and of course the wonderful net. Thank you to those that do not, I have visitors tell me all the time not to fuss and fume with my "look", they are coming to visit me not my dress and all that adorns. Thanks guys!! :icon_smile:

 

I am just as much a victim as I fall all the time and forget that I am beautiful just as I am. Seems these days there is always something that needs fixing or doing extra to shine. It is much nicer to shine through our love and actions than the dress or body we present. Such a delima isn't it for all of us?

[CristyCurves 169032]

I think if women saw one another as men see us we may be less critical of one another. There is no one that is harder on another woman than another woman. Men don't see our flaws the way we see them. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but the beholder should realize beauty comes in all shapes,sizes and colors and true beauty isn't always visible.

[Phaedrus 209521]

Just clicking through that... the one thing that really gets me is how damn happy they all look.

 

It's really nice to see pics of normal looking people who seem to be having a good time, rather than the usual airbrushed pouty-looking trying-to-be-seductive thing that you see so much of...

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

This is a wonderful site. Thanks, Emily! Bodies have so much character, express so much about the person, it's a privilege to be on close, intimate terms with another's body, their lumps, bulges, scars and marks are all part of the map of their life. There is so much beauty!

[drlove 37204]

I love all women, all shapes and sizes. Every one of you are perfect just the way you are. As Cristy said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I'd also like to add that true beauty transcends the physical... it's the shining inner beauty in each of you that I admire most.

[Isabella Gia (Banned) 53881]

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-7797/thick-thighs-wide-hips-large-breasts-how-i-learned-to-love-my-museum-worthy-b.html

[Old Dog 179138]

I understand your point... but let's face it, the corporate demon argument is used and has been used for decades now to support countless claims of corrupting the minds of the world:

 

Rock music was turning kids away from Jesus.

Video games were making kids commit heinous acts of violence.

Rap music made stupid white kids think they were black.

Comic books were making kids lazy and --gasp-- a communist threat.

Big band music made girls easy.

Lingerie ads in magazines made early teenage boys masturbate behind the La-Z-Boy (okay that is the truth...)

...and so on and so on and so on...

 

The argument has some credence but only in the way that those who have minds that are easily manipulated will be easily manipulated. The vast majority of people will understand that they have certain parameters within which to work and will NEVER achieve that 36-24-36 frame, the washboard abs and the perfectly symmetrical breasts.

 

I guess my whole thought process comes down to the fact that we readily avail ourselves to any number of external forces and if we become offended, we are instantly victims of a cruel corporate monster. It's easier to shift the blame to a faceless aggressor than accept the fact that none of us is our own ideal and that we have to accept the hand that we were dealt. Once we can accept that, then the perceived shortfall in others becomes far less distasteful, in fact, the imperfection that each and every one of us bears makes us all the more attractive as human beings.

 

I hope you don't see this as aggressive, for that is certainly not my intent. I am just older and with that comes the cynicism of experience. Life is beautiful, and so are all of you.

[Sweet Emily J 172062]

I deleted my original response because although I feel strongly about the subject and stand by my statements, I'm not interested in a debate and I feel this discussion is taking away from my original post, which was a link to a positive website with a lot of natural and beautiful naked women.

 

www.thenuproject.com

[Old Dog 179138]

I am sorry to have upset you. That was not my intent.

 

My parting words on this topic. Thanks.

[Sweet Emily J 172062]

Related to the beauty in women's bodies...

 

I just watched a very interesting documentary called The Perfect Vagina. It explores the increasingly popular phenomenon of women altering their genitals in the form of a cosmetic surgery called labiaplasty... and it's a lot more common than you think. It made me smile, it made me cry. It even shows an actual surgery being done on a lovely young woman with a beautiful pussy.

 

You can watch it here.

 

I also posted my take on this subject tonight on my blog. :)

[VedaSloan 119179]

Great post Emily!

 

Not to hijack, but another great vid is model Cameron Russell talking about how she doesn't want little girls to want to grow up to be her--she won a "genetic lottery" etc. It's more relevant as something I think parents should show younger daughters, but it's a good message.

 

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

I think that a lot of women feel very insecure about their genitals because they imagine that whatever they have--large labia, long inner labia, heavy clitoral hoods, etc.--is somehow wrong. Most women never see another woman's genitals, ever, unless they're health care professionals. There are a couple of books with photographs, showing the incredible variety, but they're not standard coffee table fare.

 

I always feel a bit sad when a client tells me he wants to perform oral because his regular partner won't let him do it, usually because she seems to feel ashamed, awkward or ugly. That's so sad!

[MightyPen 67414]

Modern media has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with self hate. Women and men have ALWAYS compared and competed with each other in terms of esoteric perfection. It is not a manifestation of "modern media" - it's a manifestation of biology.

Hang on a minute though. In the era of Fox News, we can't dismiss the fact that corporate media can absolutely seize upon an audience's worst instincts and fan that flame into a bonfire if it will turn a profit.

 

I agree that men and women have been checking each other out and assigning themselves a rung on the ladder since the start of the species. It's not the media's fault that we're like that. But... it deserves some blame for reinforcing that message almost every minute of every day. Private media exists to make money, and it's hugely profitable to exploit people's insecurities about self-image and whether they actually deserve to be loved at all.

 

It starts with just showing us what we already want to see -- check out the conspicuous youth and beauty of everyone on American television. People will tune in more if every cop and scientist is hot. But there's also advertising that earnestly tells everyone in the audience that YOU have a beauty problem getting in the way of true happiness, and it has just the solution to sell you. What's that Don Draper says? "Love was created by guys like me to sell nylons".

 

I wish it was just the simpleminded who made easy prey, but even smart people can trip over their innate insecurities. And slickly produced media -- television, magazines, the ads on billboards and in bus shelters, everywhere you look -- spend a lot of money to exploit those insecurities and turn them into money. They've had a long time to get very, very good at it. There's a science.

 

We kind of take it for granted that the media works this way, but it doesn't have to. We can stop it. After all, you don't see cigarette ads any more; the ads themselves were bad for everyone. They made promises they could never keep ("You'll be as handsome and rugged as a cowboy!") and took your money and your health in the process.

 

Maybe we shouldn't stop with cigarettes. Is our mental health less worth protecting?

 

But there's a fight to be waged against a deeply entrenched habit of thought. Check out the sometimes ugly backlash against Girls, an intriguing show that defies conventions of beauty and the male's expectations of women's behaviour. One of its main artistic pillars: "fuck the male gaze". In the same way, the campaign that's the focus of this thread is still the exception in today's world of messaging... and that's pretty sad.

 

(Sorry, that went on longer than I planned. Constructed culture is a big subject for me.)

[CristyCurves 169032]

I think threads like this are more important than we even realize as self acceptance is first and formost in becoming a well rounded human being, hence living a healthy productive life. So if you are a parent teach your children messages like this, confidence, acceptance of themselves and others, to love because anything that is loved unconditionally will emit beauty. Share these lessons, messages and thoughts as they can never be told and seen to often.

I too am a beliver in the power of the media to convolute the minds of the weak, not unlike a bully who demeans a vulnerable victim and causes them to think they are unfit as they are and need to conform to something "ideal".

There is nothing more beautiful than a confident person, it truly is a persons best asset.

[Nicolette Vaughn 294340]

The link to the site EmilyJ posted is very interesting. We are all beautiful individuals and while no one is perfect, I believe our quirks, our scars and our flaws is what makes us who we are. Buying into the whole Hollywood look is not only obsessive but tiring and I think there is finally an awareness that skinny does not necessarily mean beautiful. What really constitutes as beautiful? Beauty is like art. it is so subjective that what one person may not find appealing to the eye, someone else will.

 

Over the years and as I've gotten older, I've come to accept myself for who I am and not what I look like despite the business I'm in.

 

In terms of the escorting business and body types and body image, what I never understood is all these little people who come on other sites slamming women. No one is putting a gun to their head to see any woman, but of course they have to get their 2 cents in.

 

It could be that they're lacking something in their life so they have to put others down to make themselves feel better. And to their advantage, they can do it under the guise of a bogus internet handle which of course brings little to no consequences for them and makes them cowards imo. In my mind makes them a little person and I feel sad for them.

 

I don't have to justify or defend why I'm not skinny. Frankly I don't think I look good when I have a gaunt face and elfphin body under 110 lbs. I try to focus on my weight now in a healthier manner and not about what's on the scale or who says what about me. If I wanted to be skinnier, I would do it and not for anyone else and I am a healthy person. One of the things I have come to experience lately is self acceptance. It is one of the most freeing things in life.

 

And if someone doesn't like how I look, they can kiss my big fat ass! Hehe.

[aimtoplease1 1839]

Over the years and as I've gotten older, I've come to accept myself for who I am and not what I look like despite the business I'm in.

 

What I never understood is all these little people who come on other sites slamming women. No one is putting a gun to their head to see any woman, but of course they have to get their 2 cents in.

 

It could be that they're lacking something in their life so they have to put others down to make themselves feel better. And to their advantage, they can do it under the guise of a bogus internet handle which of course brings little to no consequences for them and makes them cowards imo. In my mind makes them a little person and I feel sad for them.

 

I don't have to justify or defend why I'm not skinny. Frankly I don't think I look good when I have a gaunt face and elfphin body under 110 lbs. I try to focus on my weight now in a healthier manner and not about what's on the scale or who says what about me. If I wanted to be skinnier, I would do it and not for anyone else and I am a healthy person. One of the things I have come to experience lately is self acceptance. It is one of the most freeing things in life.

 

And if someone doesn't like how I look, they can kiss my big fat ass! Hehe.

If I may put my 2 cents worth in...I looked at your profile pics & I saw well proportioned & beautiful!!

[Eric Northman 16522]

For many years my wife wouldn't let me go down on her and for someone who loves DATY, it was a bit of a problem from my perspective. There were many excuses but recently came out that she just doesn't like her vagina. She thought it was 'ugly' and 'weird looking' and it made her feel self conscious to have someone down there. Nothing could be further from the truth and you know what turned out to be the solution?

 

We started watching some porn together. I think she hadn't seen a lot of vaginas before and it's fun to hear her say things like, "Ooh..that ones got an interesting haircut" or "Look, her lips are big like mine." There's been a lot of negative talk about media but as a counterpoint, seeing a variety of women with different and unique bodies has helped her realize that she's not that different and there's nothing wrong with her. Things are looking up for me!

 

:-D

 

On an unrelated side note, if anyone has any good tips for 'couple friendly' porn, perhaps they could PM me? It's not always easy to find stuff that won't make a somewhat naive wife go, "Ewww...gross". ;-) Gotta work up to that stuff.

[Guest *Ste***cque**]

Northman, I would start with "Feature Film" type of porn instead of the gonzo sort. Something with a storyline.

 

Back to the thread, I think the media has a strong influence on our views of beauty, and it doesn't just affect the "weak minded". I'm fairly certain I read where Biden (US vice president) and Berlusconi both had hair transplants. I don't consider them weak minded... well, at least not Biden. Why else would they do this unless they were influenced by cultures ideas of virility or whatever. Various types of media are how that message gets out there.

 

All women have the right to feel Beautiful because they are Beautiful! Own it! That's what is sexy!

[Wolf Knight 29667]

I don't want to enter into this debate/discussion because I have extensively studied the psychology of selling and I can go way off on modern media and their manipulation of minds. Unfortunately, Old Dog the majority of people don't have the good sense that you think should be there. My daughter is four and unfortunately does not have the sense to realize that little girls don't have to look like princesses and barbies. Sadly they get trapped before they even know it. Not long ago my daughter came out of her play room dressed up like a princess and said, "I wish my hair was yellow (blonde) then I would be prettier". I almost cried and I'm not afraid to admit it. For her to mature through out her life under constant bombardment from all sides and come out whole on the other side will be difficult.

 

I love to see anything that places value on the beauty that is all our own uniqueness. Thanks Emily J for the wonderful thread and points. Stay beautiful everyone (men included).

[Nicolette Vaughn 294340]

Read that book "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle and he discusses ego, identity and how we self label ourselves based on words, our own perception of ourselves and society as a whole.

[Isabella Gia (Banned) 53881]