Christina Hendricks: Esquire completely mutilating her figure

Just wanted to express how excited I was that the curvy 35 year old TV star Christina Hendricks from Mad Men and Firefly was named sexiest woman alive according to Esquire magazine, then was horrified when they did TERRIBLE photo editing to, get this, make her boobs seem smaller!?


What is wrong with this picture? Honestly, does that corset make sense in relation to Christina's breasts at all? The cup only seems to fill half of her breast, and the underwire cuts her boob in half leaving the rest of her boob to blur as part of her side. Especially if you look at the photos below of her in presumably the same corset outfit from the same photo shoot:



These photos show completely different breasts although she's in the same outfit. My question is that if Esquire claims that she's the sexiest in the world, and applauds her on ber beautiful natural curves, then why on Earth do they alter a photo to make her breasts seem smaller? Are breasts not "in style"? Below is a photo of Christina from a different photo shoot in which I believe her figure is shown more accurately, and you tell me if those boobs could have fit into the corset in the first Esquire picture!

After some interviews with her, she does not seem to have a negative view of her body at all. She doesn't even complain that she has a difficult time finding designers to make her clothes and dresses. Instead she finds that there are designers and clothes out there that work for her. Kudos to you, Christina, for being beautiful and confident!

Boobs and Bra Sizes Mythbusted!

Many of you have asked for this and I will now deliver unto you the truth of bra sizes!

8 out of 10 women wear the wrong bra size, because there is a lack of understanding as to how bra sizes work. I've even talked to some employees at Victoria's Secret and the ones I talked to did not understand nor place any value on correct bra sizes.

So when you hear 32AA, 34B, 36DDD, or 30G, what do these numbers and letters mean? Well the number is your band width, and the letters are your cup size. A couple different opinions exist as to how to measure this, but the one I was taught to do has been accurate for myself and my beloved thespians I've costumed.


Take a tape measure and wrap it around your ribcage right below your breasts. (Pictured above as the blue line labeled "1") Add 2 to that measurement. This is your bandwidth.

Now what most people don't know is that your cup size is the DIFFERENCE between your bandwidth and the fullest part of your breasts. A lot of people, even Victoria's Secret employees have the notion that there is a set cup size like a C cup that is plopped on to a 30 band bra or a 36 band bra, but the truth is that the cup size of a 30C will look a lot different than a 38C.

So, to find your cup size, take the tape measure and measure around the fullest part of your breasts without flattening them. (Pictured above as the green line labeled "2") Take that number and apply it to the oh so simple equation below...

Full Bust- Bandwidth= Cup size

AA= Less than 1 inch difference
A= 1 inch difference
B= 2 inch difference
C= 3 inch difference
D= 4 inch difference
E= 5 inch difference
F= 6 inch difference
G= 7 inch difference
H= 8 inch difference
I= 9 inch difference
J= 10 inch difference
etc, etc, etc...

So what about DD's and DDD's? where do they fit into the chart? They are pretty much alternatives for anything after D for people who don't know any better.

DD= E =5 inch difference
DDD= F = 6 inch difference
DDDD= G = 7 inch difference
etc, etc, etc...

Other double letters like FF often indicate half inches, or are bumped up to the next size like a G. It really depends on the manufacturer, bra specialist who is fitting you, etc.

So for an example, a woman measures around her ribcage and gets 30. She then adds 2 and finds out that 32 is her bandwidth. Next, she measures around the fullest part of her breasts and gets 36. 36-32= 4. Because she knows there's a 4 inch difference between her bust and bandwidth, she is a 32D

Math + Boobs! Huzzah



Other Boob Facts:

One boob is always larger than the other. Can you guess which one? Whichever one is on the side as your dominant is always slightly smaller than the other. I have heard of a rare instance where the breast was a full cup size smaller than the other... I believe one was an E and the other a D... that would suck! She ended up getting a breast reduction on both.

Recent surveys by bra companies have found that British women have the largest breasts in the world. Half the population has a size D or higher. I do know England sells high cup sizes more than the US does, in fact, most bras I personally wear are imported from Britain; and I don't know if that is because England genuinely has larger busts or if Americans and other countries wear the wrong bra sizes and are unfamiliar with anything higher than a D or DD.

It is normal for women to have anywhere from 2 to 15 small hairs around their nipples. It's not weird, it doesn't mean you have too much testosterone, that's just how boobs are made. I assume it's for various pleasure reasons such as arousal during sex or attachment while breastfeeding. But if you don't like them, do not fear! They are easy to pluck, wax, or shave.

The skin around breasts are stretched very thin because they stretched while developing. They are more prone to dryness and dermatologists recommend moisturizing them from time to time. I'm sure it would be healthy for generous someones to help a poor girl out with such things, you know. :P It's for her health.

Body Painting

It is my goal in life to either one day body paint someone or to be body painted myself. I find the concept of using the human body as a canvass so breathtaking! Here are some images of body painting I've collected, some beautiful, some sexy, some humorous, and others somewhere in between...










I wrote a piece of flash fiction for a class last year that isn't EXACTLY about body painting, but it's related. I share it with you now.

Brush Strokes

Chloe watches him jab and knead the buttons with his thumbs, his sweaty palms slipping on the plastic controllers. The glowing TV ensnares his unblinking eyes. A woman appears on the screen, she’s wearing no bra and yet her breasts are somehow lifted into their perky positions by invisible hands. The screen says, “Push A to kiss her”. His thumb crushes the button into the socket. “Push AB to fuck her” His thumb races to obey the motions.

“Let’s go do something different tonight. Let’s go try that new coffee place in Western Springs. I hear they have live musicians there.”

“Just Let me just finish this level.”

Trudging down the basement stairs, Chloe gazes at the four oil paintings lying on the floor she had just completed for her art final: a picture of she and her boyfriend, the coliseum, a leopard, a ship at sea. She stares at the stationary images for minutes, but the sound of explosions from upstairs nudges her to set to work.

She props the paintings up and screws them together so the four images face inwards. She turns on music, the new-age kind that transports one to the primitive, the kind that he hates, and she ducks into her newly constructed canvass box. After tearing off her clothes, she pounds on the coliseum canvass to the sound of the drums in the song. The wet canvass resonates.

Pressing lightly clawed hands to the paint, she slowly spins, scraping the colors in smudgy lines across the leopard, coliseum, ship, and the portrait of he and she. She dances and rolls her entire body over the images, leaving her wounded with slashes of paint over her skin, the images on the canvasses blur from her naked brush strokes. She smiles.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

He stands on the stairs, controller in hand. Only her head is visible over the top of the canvass box, and he sees her hair clumped together in red, purple, and yellow strips.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Her smile drops.

“Turn that shit down will ya?”

Chloe crawls out of the box wearing only the smears of fresh paint over her body. She sways her hips as she saunters up to him, stretches her hand lower and lower towards his belt, grabs his plastic controller, and drops it into a can of paint.

He rushes to save the controller, she puts on her clothes.

I love how the picture above looks so real you can barely see the women in it! The artist wanted to use the female curves as lines and curves in his artwork. Success! Beautiful and way cool.

High Fashion: Exposed

Tessa sent me this link and I would love to blog about it, however, it speaks on it's own. I'd love to hear your reactions to it. Tessa had one really beautiful and cool reaction, I had another unique reaction, and I'm sure there are more spanned all across the spectrum.

Here are some of the hottest high fashion models completely nude...

http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/1987068.html

Society's Ideal Beauty is Relative to Wealth

One thing that I have conclude is that ideal beauty is partially naturally based in the sense of symmetry and such, but that ideal beauty is even more so socially based.

On that note, it is my opinion that society's ideal beauty is based on wealth and how money and power can attribute to a person's look.

For instance, before the 20th century, the ideal western woman was pale, plump, and had very little muscle. Only wealthy women could achieve this look because they could afford not to do heavy labor and could afford to eat heartily. The middle to lower class woman would have had tanner skin, muscular arms, and would have been thinner due to lack of nutrition.

But since the 20th century, this trend has flip flopped. Now tan skin and very thin waists are a sign of ideal beauty, and this flip happened because in the past 75-100ish years for only wealthier women can afford this look. The industrial revolution forced a movement towards more desk-related or indoor jobs rather than physical labor for the middle to lower classes, and so the middle to lower classed women tend to be paler, plumper, without toned arms. They don't have the money to spend on tanning salons or vacations to exotic beaches, don't have time to go to the gym or money to pay for a membership, and are often exposed to unhealthier eating habits by eating more processed foods and eating at fast food restaurants.

At the same time though, It's a slightly different story when it comes to race. I've read articles about arguing how in the media paler women give off the image of pureity and female strength and are more goddess-like, and tanner women give off the image of sexiness and seduction. Tanner women in the media are more likely to be wearing less clothing than paler women. I realize there are a lot of factors that could be playing into this study such as race... but it was an interesting read.

I have noticed that when I go into the makeup aisle at Jewell, the pictures were all of black or mixed race black/white women who had paler chocolate skin to begin with that were lighted to look even more white. The 3 I saw were Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, and Beyonce Knowles. All three of them are drop dead gorgeous, but they are black women with whitish features. In this way the make up companies are trying to appeal to women of color by using black women as their models, but also to white women because all three have very white features that are heightened and highlighted in the advertising. It makes perfect sense, but I feel almost tricked in a sort of way.... it's a very backhanded way to say that darker skin and black features are undesirable.

Marilyn Monroe: Not Just the Girl with the Shape

So, for those who don't know, I've been on a Marilyn Monroe kick for a couple weeks now. I told this to a friend and he said, "who hasn't?". Well a lot of people. Up until recently, I just viewed Marilyn Monroe as a sex symbol actress famous for having wind blown up her skirt and singing Happy Birthday" to JFK. She wasn't someone I really wanted to idolize or study... I passed her off as a dumb blonde. Now after I've watched her movies for the first time, read her quotes, and studied her life, I've begun to understand exactly why people made such a big deal about her... Why she was so fabulous... How I could start to identify more with her than Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn who were my previous actress role models.

First and foremost, let me clarify that Marilyn Monroe was NOT a "dumb blonde". She oftentimes played the dumb blonde role in movies such as "How to Marry a Millionaire", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", "The Seven Year Itch", and "The Prince and the Showgirl"... BUT in all of those movies (with the exception of the first), the she plays a girl who PRETENDS to be a dumb blonde in order to get further in life, or is stereotyped as a dumb blonde but clearly is not. For instance, in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", Monroe's character is seen as the blonde who only uses her looks rather than brains while the brunette Jane Russell obviously uses her brain more than looks... however Monroe’s character reveals she actually is witty and intelligent and when asked why she pretends to be dumb responds, "because men prefer it that way". In the "Seven Year Itch" and "The Prince and the Showgirl" a man tries to woe her just to have sex with her, but she ends up waving away his advances and even makes the man look foolish for thinking. In the game of love, she wins with the upper-hand in both stories. The characters in her stories often reveal to have deep pockets of knowledge such as knowing German for example.

Monroe was very similar to the characters she played for several reasons. She was often labeled as a dumb blonde because that's what people wanted to categorize her as. She was often photographed reading or holding a hefty book such as "Ulysses" (pictured above) for the purpose of making people chuckle because they never could imagine her in a million years with a brain. But in fact she was very intelligent and loved to read. She was often seen on set reading the autobiography of Abraham Lincoln for example.

She also struggled with her sexuality and the big question of how to be an attractive woman in a man's world...

* How to be proud of and flaunt one's beauty without being considered vain
* How to be comfortable with one's sexuality without being considered slutty
* How to not care about what others think while caring about what image you project
* How to use both body and brains to succeed in life
* How to find real love when people just want you for sex and prestige

These are questions I wrestle with myself. I wrestle with my sexuality and all these questions on a daily basis, and I'm sure others do too. Really, I want to talk about Marilyn so much... in this blog I can only touch a fragment about her, I feel the best way is to focus on some of her quotes...

"Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature."

"The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up."

"It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on."

"That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather have it sex than some other things we've got symbols of."

"We are all born sexual creatures,thank God, but it's a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift."

On one hand, Marilyn Monroe was very comfortable with her body, beauty, and sexlife. Especially for being in the 1950's, this was all very progressive thinking. Even for nowadays, I would argue that this is progressive thinking. She had a sense of humor and loved her sexuality!

"Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered."

"I don't want to play sex roles any more. I'm tired of being known as the girl with the shape."

"With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else's ideas about you, but what's important is how you feel about yourself--for survival and living day to day with what comes up."

Even though she was comfortable with herself and loved her body and sexuality, she was frustrated with the fact that that's all that people wanted out of her. The media, the public, even some who knew her in real life... they all wanted to see her as the "dumb blonde" with the killer body. So although she was not ashamed with her body, she was frustrated with those who either A) Wanted to see her as only as a sex symbol and a moneymaker through sex or B) criticized her for being a slut and only a slut. I know that I have the problem of seeing myself as beautiful in a world where the stick thin androgynous pre-pubescent boy look is hailed more than the curvaceous hourglass that my body is. I have to admit, that when seeing pictures of Marilyn Monroe nude, I looked at myself, and saw how similar our naked bodies look, and it comforted me and made me feel beautiful. It has been difficult to find bodies that look similar to mine, or at least classy women with bodies like mine. Her confidence gives me strength.

"It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone."

"A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left."

"Alone!!! I am always alone. I am always alone. No matter what"

She was vulnerable and sensitive. It's clear by these quotes that she had been burned by several men numerous times and wrestled with how to find love. If you read up on her many different lovers, you might get a glimpse of the heart ache she's been through with how to be herself and also hold on to someone she loves. In her journals, she made it clear that the last thing in the world she wanted was for her third husband, playwright Arthur Miller, to find disappointment in her, and when he did their marraige started to go south. She knew how to love, but oftentimes the men she loved did not know how to love her. It scares me, honestly, that even the most beautiful woman in the world who was so talented and smart, could not find true love and happiness in a man. I know she was searching, too. She often wrote or talked about it whether in journals or various public events, "I'm just a little girl in a big world trying to find someone to love" she said. and she knew the unselfishness of love too... she could have worded it "trying to find someone to love me" but she didn't, and I find that fascinating. I also identify with the quotes,

"I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't."

I've had it happen to me on many occasions that guys will fall in love with the idea of me rather than me. They will make up a character of who I am, a character that will glorify themselves, rather than loving me for me. For instance, there have been two or three guys who have told me that they were head over heels in love with me, not just like, LOVE. And they wanted to "rescue me from the hardships of my life" and give me everything I always deserved. Give me the happiness that I deserved like a new place to live, nice clothes, fancy meals, etc. They probably wanted this so that they could have the girl to go home to, to give them meaning to their life... someone to provide for so that they can fulfill their idea of manliness. But if you know anything about me, you will know that I don't want any of this. Even typing out this scenario leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want anyone to "rescue me"... if I need rescuing, I want to rescue myself. I don't want a man to have to provide for me, I want a man to provide with me. Even suggesting that they LOVE me without even knowing the first thing about me wants me to punch them for daring to slander the word of LOVE. You can't toss the word around like a frisbee.

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."

"I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made."

"You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself."

She also was ambitious, strong, a feminist, and very confident in herself for herself. It's clear she had a solid understanding of herself despite her huge insecurities. And I mean... she had HUGE insecurities. She never knew her father, her mother was a schizophrenic, she was often afraid she would become schizophrenic herself, she wrestled with her own image, her public image, yet still loving herself and trying to be true to herself despite what everyone wanted her to be. I think a woman can be strong and insecure at the same time. I think by recognizing one's insecurities, you can work on them and build strengths to compensate for the weaknesses.

Like I said before, I identify with Marilyn Monroe on so many levels, I guess mainly because I feel like I am a very strong person but also insecure. I wrestle with how to be beautiful but not vain, sexy but not a slut, how to view men, how to find true love and if it actually really exists. I find myself aching for love so much... but I don't want to settle for just anything, for anyone.

Actually, as an aside, since I was a baby, my mother sang me, "Goodnight, My Someone" from The Music Man. It's about singing goodnight to your "someone", your one true love that you haven't met yet or haven't realized you've met. To this day, I sing that song in my head before I sleep, I write letters (I've probably written a hundred by now), and even sometimes talk to my own Someone. I'll wonder if he's having a good or bad day today... hoping that he is happy and having a blast doing something crazy or ridiculous. Sometimes I'll tell him how horny I am and how it's unfair that he is so far away, or how I really hope that he's good in bed. LOL. I tell him a lot of things. But then I wonder that maybe this is all just my fantasy. That he really doesn't exist.

I mean... how is my faith in my Someone any different than having faith in God? God didn't create us in His image, We created God in our image.

I oftentimes get more an more cynical in my viewpoints... because honestly most couples I know whether married or not, do not live a life of "love" that I would ever want to remotely imitate. So, either I find someone who can invent a new sort of love with me, or it just doesn't exist outside my own head.

Maybe Marilyn Monroe wrestled with this too. In the new issue of Vanity Fair (kindly given to me by Tessa, who totally made my week with that gift!), it features Monroe and explains how she was portrayed in her own journal entries. She was insecure, frustrated with love, etc. The article kept on suggesting that this was the REAL Marilyn Monroe, because all over her entries were dark. However, as a journal writer myself, I know that half of my entries are me venting about my frustrations, and I tend to view myself as more of a happy optimistic person than a frustrated sad one, but my journal would reflect otherwise. I think that's the same with Monroe. Yes, she was insecure and frustrated, but that is only a part of her. That doesn't change the fact that she had strength and confidence at the same time. Again, people try to pinpoint people as such narrow, shallow people, but we are all complex. We are all complex.

Beautiful, Strong, Insecure, Vulnerable, Confused, Enthusiastic, Brilliant, Talented,
Marilyn Monroe.

America's Next Top Model Cycle 15

So, my guilty pleasure show is America's Next Top Model. You would think, that someone such as me who likes to praise all sorts of different female body types would be repulsed by a show about modeling where they only really hail the look of the starved Amazon. However, I enjoy it because surprisingly they do address issues of various body types in relationship to the fashion industry, and that's what fascinates me.

(Ann in the fallen angel challenge, like all of her photos thus far, this was named the best)

This cycle, the prize is that the model gets to be on the cover of Italian Vogue and the Vogue beauty magazine. So it's really a whole different level of modeling than the show has delt with before. The judges are incredibly impressed with Ann, who has won best picture all four episodes! She is the tallest of the models, standing at 6'2" and is naturally thin with crazy large hips. She's awkward and disproportional, and best of all, she's a complete nerd! I love her, she seems like me in her nerdom. She seems genuine and honest, and the judges love her, which is really cool to see, and odd because usually the judges do not like my favorite. Although I think that Ann still falls under the catagory of a "starved Amazon" she is a different sort of starved amazon... she has strange proportions by having a tiny bust and large hips and also towering over most men, and a personality that is unique from other models. A real cool beauty.

(Esther showing off her chest as well as the rest of her body for the first time in the competition in the after-makeover photo)

The other very exciting thing is that there is a model with my bra size on the show! Her name is Esther, jewish of course, and she's a 30G! I was expecting them to boot her off right away because her boobs were so large and couldn't fit into the clothes they way they wanted, and in the first few episodes the judges were concerned about it and made a big deal about it. But Esther just calmly said, "don't worry, I hide them well." And so far she's been a favorite of guest judges and is hailed as a "classic beauty" which also makes me happy. Now, although I'm surprised and thrilled that she is doing well in the competition, my critique is that she and the judges try to play down her breasts a lot and almost pretend they are not there in fear of her coming off as too sexy and "sports illustrated". She because you have a body and show it, doesn't mean that you look pornagraphic. That's my critique.

(Kayla was runner up for best photo with this one, in which they had to choose a bully word that they were teased about and a power word to over come that negative word. She was overly emotional about it, but came out with a great picture. This was before her red hair makeover btw)

There also is a lesbian on the show named Kayla from Rockford who I love. I hated her at first... she had a normal model body and big curly hair and laughed like a dumb school child, but after her makeover with her hair a dark red, she's much cooler and edgy. She really has a good handle of who she is and how to bring her personality and her experiences to modeling.

Other than these three, none of the others really seem to appeal to me, I liked the "Flower Child" hippy girl but she was booted off in episode 3.

Tyra made it a point to boot off the deathly skinny girl right in the first episode for that very reason, a part of me wonders if they had her on the show just so they could boot her off and make the stand that the modeling industry does not want deathly skinny girls. Even if they don't want deathly skinny girls, only 8% of the female population can naturally obtain the BMI they look for. But still, I think it's a start.

I really think the ideal female body is going to change soon, it has to. If you look through the past 100 years like I did in my last post and see how society changes and repeats over and over... It's inevitable that the fashion industry's models are going to have to change too. I know it's easier to sell the clothes when they are on hangers... few bumps and curves to deal with... and because they are so tall, they will stand out as larger than life... but the androgenous and awkward look can only stay edgy for so long.