Attraction

Meet a very successful cam model.

Watch the clip first and see what comes up for you. I've added some commentary below.

"My job is... not for everyone." (Some content is NSFW) Check out more awesome BuzzFeedYellow videos! http://bit.ly/YTbuzzfeedyellow MUSIC https://soundcloud.com/cma-music/youre-not-alone-original-mix FEATURING Ashe Maree Instagram: https://instagram.com/kittenisodd Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashemareexoxo Tumblr: http://ixnay-on-the-oddk.tumblr.com GET MORE BUZZFEED: www.buzzfeed.com www.buzzfeed.com/video www.youtube.com/buzzfeedvideo www.youtube.com/buzzfeedyellow www.youtube.com/buzzfeedblue www.youtube.com/buzzfeedviolet www.youtube.com/buzzfeed BUZZFEED YELLOW Tasty short, fun, inspiring, funny, interesting videos from BuzzFeed.


So, thoughts?

Three things stuck out to me:

1. She notes that there is a subgroup of men who troll and harass her, and presumably say some nasty stuff. Why is this the case? What is going on culturally that there are men who feel entitled to demean, belittle, and harass female strangers on the web, especially those who do this type of work? I suspect it's because there's a group of sexually/romantically disenfranchised men who have been hurt or rejected by women, or who feel powerless and unattractive, and as a defense mechanism or to communicate their upset have become callous, mysogynistic, nasty, and abusive. You see this in the Pick Up Artistry scene, and in places like the RedPill on Reddit. They externalize their pain and suffering, and then create an entire ideology to support it.

2. She talks about body image and her struggles with her weight (in her case, being thin because of an illness). In some types of work, body appearance is a critical part of success (e.g., modeling, being a server in a restaurant, being a fitness/personal trainer, being in the media, etc.) - this has been an issue of much debate and concern. In camming, body appearance is also very central to success. So there is likely increased risk of body image dissatisfaction doing camming, which is tied to lowered self-esteem. It sounds like it is a real struggle for her, which might be worrisome. But, it's not for us to say, I suppose.

3. She mentions that she has lots of young followers, in particular female followers. I'd be a little worried about how these followers see her, and if they understand what camming and fantasy is about. Hopefully in her interactions with them, parts of her other than her sexuality become apparent. In other words, hopefully her followers can celebrate her sexuality, but also recognize that she is much more than simply a physically attractive object of desire (which actually increases her attractiveness to her fans - personality and interactions with fans play huge roles in cam models' success).

Everything is hot when you're aroused.

From Dr. Justin Lehmiller (check out his great blog here):

Almost Everything And Everyone Seems More Attractive When You’re Sexually Aroused

How attractive do you find the prospect of sex with animals? Do you think it would be fun to watch another person urinate? Do you find shoes erotic? If you’re like most people, you probably said that these things aren’t exactly up your alley. However, if you were asked these same questions while you were in a heightened state of sexual arousal, research suggests that you might perceive them at least a little differently. Scientists have found that when we’re feeling very sexually aroused, things that we might otherwise perceive as gross or disgusting don’t seem quite as bad.

As some evidence of this, consider a classic study by Ariely and Lowenstein published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. In this research, 35 heterosexual male college undergraduates were asked to evaluate the attractiveness of various sexual activities under two very different circumstances: once while in their normal, unaroused state, and once while masturbating. All of the sexual stimuli were presented on a laptop computer while subjects were in a private room. In the masturbatory condition, the men were instructed to pleasure themselves to a “sub-orgasmic level of arousal.” They were explicitly told not to ejaculate, but if they accidentally did, they should hit the tab key in order to end the study (on a side note, ever since I read this paper, I’ve never been able to look at a tab key without snickering).

Subjects were presented with 20 different sexual stimuli and asked to rate how attractive each one was on a scale of 0 to 100. These included:

“Are women’s shoes erotic?”

“Can you imagine being attracted to a 12-year-old girl?”

“Can you imagine having sex with a 40-year-old/50-year-old/60-year-old woman?”

“Can you imagine having sex with a man?”

“Could it be fun to have sex with someone who is extremely fat?”

“Could you enjoy having sex with someone you hated?”

“If you were attracted to a woman and she proposed a threesome with a man, would you do it?”

“Is a woman sexy when she’s sweating?”

“Is the smell of cigarette smoke arousing?”

“Would it be fun to tie up/get tied up by your sexual partner?”

“Would it be fun to watch an attractive woman urinating?”

“Would you find it exciting to spank your sexual partner?”

“Would you find it exciting to get spanked by an attractive woman?”

“Would you find it exciting to have anal sex?”

“Can you imagine getting sexually excited by contact with an animal?”

“Do you prefer to have sex with the light on?” “

“Is just kissing frustrating?”

The researchers found that out of all 20 sexual stimuli presented, only one of them (sex with the lights on) was rated as less attractive in the masturbation condition; the other 19 were rated as more desirable when the subjects were masturbating compared to when they weren't aroused, including sex with animals, finding a 12-year-old girl attractive, and watching a woman urinate. I should note that of the 19 stimuli that increased in attractiveness, all of the differences were statistically significant except one: sex with another man. What this means is that perceptions of same-sex contact did not really become substantially more arousing, but everything else did.

These findings are consistent with a more recent study of sexual arousal in women that was conducted by a different set of scientists. In that study, participants were either shown “female friendly erotica” or not prior to being asked to engage in a series of disgusting tasks, such as putting one’s hand in a bowl full of (seemingly) used condoms. The researchers found that women who were sexually aroused from having watched porn were more willing to attempt the disgusting tasks and rated those tasks as less gross than women who had watched something else (you can read more about the details of that study here).

These findings tell us that sexual arousal changes our perceptions of the world around us. And we are not necessarily cognizant of these changes either—in other words, we may not consciously recognize that our perceptions have shifted when we enter a heightened state of sexual arousal.

There are huge implications of this for the development of our sexual interests. If this high state of sexual arousal leads to actual changes in our sexual behavior or if we start to create a psychological association between arousal and the presence of a disgusting stimulus, this could plant the seed for developing a fetish. I guess the take-home message from all of this is simple: be careful where you masturbate!

Androgens and bodybuilding.

Testosterone (an androgen) plays an important role in male sexual development, and in sexual arousal and response (although its role is nuanced). Androgens, including testosterone, stimulate muscle development, which is why anabolic steroids, which are androgens, are so popular with bodybuilders. By injecting large doses of anabolic steroids, bodybuilders can put on much more muscle than they could naturally.

Androgens, in large concentrations, can have a freakish effect on muscle development (along with lots of hard work in the gym):

Its great, its huge, its very huge... See it to believe it.

 

And not to be outdone by the men:

Caroline Wang, NABBA Austrian Championships 2012, Miss Physique - Place 1 * http://www.sportnahrung.at

Before-after fitness transformation advertising, debunked.

I imagine that you've probably come across ads showing photos of radical fitness/physique transformations. This video sheds some light on how these photos (at least some of them) may not be exactly what they appear to be. 

Subscribe to Furious Pete ► http://bit.ly/Sub2FuriousPete Limited Team Furious Apparel ► http://www.furiouspete.com This transformation is whats possible in less than 5 hours. I'm not stating anywhere in this video that supplements or programs (mentioned or not) don't work. I'm simply showing what is possible.

Straight men prefer some muff.

From the Daily Mail Online:

When it comes to 'ladyscaping' the Brazilian and the Hollywood are old news as it is revealed that men prefer a more natural look
  • Just 12% admitted to liking the Hollywood where all hair is removed
  • Most popular was the 'Bermuda triangle' - a neat, trimmed style
  • Least liked was the 'G Wax' which leaves a small square of hair

For years women have been convinced that porn star style waxing and vajazzles are the quickest way to impress their other halves in bed, with nearly two thirds saying that their look down below is calculated to please their man.

But it appears that it's time to wave goodbye to painful waxing for good, after a new survey found that men actually prefer a natural look.

According to the poll, which canvassed 1,000 men, the most popular look is is 'trimmed and tidy' – a far cry from the Hollywood, which involves having all hair removed.

Nearly half (43 per cent) of those who took part in the survey, which was commissioned by waxing brand, Nads, said they preferred their women to look as natural as possible but with a 'Bermuda triangle' - trimmed hair and waxed edges leaving no bikini hair overspill.

17 per cent plumped for the Brazilian, a landing strip of pubic hair, while 15 per cent liked the heart shaped 'Heart Breaker'.

Just 12 per cent chose the full Hollywood, with most men saying they preferred their women to have some hair 'down there'.

The style that men hated the most was the 'G Wax' – a closely trimmed small square of hair that most felt looked a bit silly and a bit of a turn off.

Among the men who took part in the poll was Sidcup father of two, Mark Tailworth, who said: 'I’d hate my wife not to have some hair, I much prefer her to be well trimmed than sporting some ridiculous, unsexy design.'

Others, including 27-year-old Daniel Smith from Essex, said that they did enjoy seeing the odd Hollywood or vajazzle on their girlfriends.

'I like it interesting - like unwrapping a present and finding a surprise,' said Daniel. 'I do prefer some hair so a design like the landing strip or heart shape is good for me and no surprise, vajazzling is popular in our town.'

Nads CEO Sue Ismiel said: 'Pubic hair styles are fast becoming just as important as the hair on your head.

'Popular designs for women and it seems men are the landing strip, heart shape and triangle patch indicating some hair is sexier to sport than "the all-off". But make sure you know what you’re doing as once styling begins there is no turning back.'

Research: The average porn star.

While this study isn't academic in the sense that it was done at a university, was paid for by a funding agency, and went through the peer-review process, it is exceptionally good. The researcher (and authour), John Millward, waded through piles of publicly available data to determine the characteristics of the average porn star and what they do. The resulting article is entertaining and provides infographics displaying his findings. From John Millward:

For the first time, a massive data set of 10,000 porn stars has been extracted from the world’s largest database of adult films and performers. I’ve spent the last six months analyzing it to discover the truth about what the average performer looks like, what they do on film, and how their role has evolved over the last forty years.

‘Without any mental deliberation, picture the average female porn star. Just let her spring into your mind’s eye looking however she looks. Can you see her?’

I had bumped into a friend who I’d not seen in a while and this was the first question I asked him. He didn’t realise at the time that I’d been in self-imposed smutty exile for an untold number of weeks, working on the largest study of porn stars ever undertaken, and now I was out and eager to spread the news.

‘Erm, yeah, I suppose,’ he said.

‘What does she look like?’ I asked, struggling to hide my smile.

When he replied by saying ‘a blonde with big boobs’, I must admit I relished the opportunity to lean in, let the grin spread across my tired face, and say ‘That’s what everyone says. And in fact, it’s wrong’.

‘Oh,’ he said, after I explained how I knew what the average porn star actually looks like, as well as what her name probably is, how many films she’s most likely done and the probability of her having a tattoo or body piercing.

‘So you’ve spent all this time watching hundreds of porn movies?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve spent all this time analysing the demographic profiles and filmographies of ten thousand adult performers. There is a difference.’

‘I see’, he then said. ‘And how, dare I ask, does one go about doing that?’

Go read the rest here.

And the massive infographic depicting his findings (click to make larger):

Online dating partner preferences.

Online dating statistics reveal users still have racial biases. Post to Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1erBRaA Like BuzzFeedVideo on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1ilcE7k Post to Twitter: http://bit.ly/1erBSew Sources: http://www.ayi.com/dating-blog/online-dating-ethnicity-racial-preference-interracial-dating-ayi/ http://qz.com/149342/the-uncomfortable-racial-preferences-revealed-by-online-dating/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/11/04/hope-for-online-dating-study-shows-its-less-segregated/ http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/facebook-data-reveals-how-weirdly-racist-we-are-when-it-come Music: Kauf - "Relocate" (Psychemagik Remix feat.

Film: Her.

More info about the movie, which was written and directed by Spike Jonze:

Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, the story follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet "Samantha," a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.

It's been reviewed very favourably. The trailer:

http://www.joblo.com - "Her" - Official Trailer Set in Los Angeles, slightly in the future, "her" follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user.

Touching men's boxer shorts fires up women's reward system.

From the Huffington Post and Scientific America:

Touching Men's Sexy Boxer Shorts Activates Brain's Reward System In Women, Study Suggests by Kathleen D

It is often said that women and men are more different than similar. That’s not even mostly true; women and men are pretty similar. But there are a few spheres in which there are strong gender differences. One of them is sex.

Men want sex more than women do. (While I am sure that you can think of people who don’t fit this pattern, my colleagues and I have arrived at this conclusion after reviewing hundreds of findings. It is, on average, a very robust finding.) This difference is due in part to the fact that men, compared to women, focus on the rewards of sex. Women tend to focus on its costs because having sex presents them with bigger potential downsides, from physical (the toll of bearing a child) to social (stigma).

Accordingly, the average man’s sexual system gets activated fairly easily. When it does, it trips off a whole system in the brain focused on rewards. In fact, merely seeing a bra can propel men into reward mode, seeking immediate satisfaction in their decisions.

Most of the evidence suggests that women are different, that a sexy object would not cause them to shift into reward mode. This goes back to the notion that sex is rife with potential costs for women. Yet, at a basic biological level, the sexual system is directly tied to the reward system (through pleasure-giving dopaminergic reactions). This would seem to suggest a contrasting hypothesis that perhaps women will also shift into reward mode when their sexual system is activated.

Anouk Festjens, Sabrina Bruyneel, and Siegfried Dewitte, researchers in Belgium, wanted to test this idea. But first they needed to find a way to activate women’s sex drive. Women, more than men, connect sex to emotions. Festjens and colleagues therefore used a subtle, emotional cue to initiate sexual motivation – touch. Across three experiments, Festjens and colleagues found that women who touched sexy male clothing items, compared to nonsexual clothing items, showed evidence of being in reward mode.

Read the rest here.

Sassy sci-fi wear.

Clothes That Vanish When You're Horny by Inigo del Castillo

‘Intimacy 2.0’ is quite like that invisibility cloak you’ve always wanted. Except it’s the only one that disappears, leaving you in your birthday suit. Dutch designer, Daan Roosegaarde, created a clothing line that becomes transparent in response to your rising heartbeat. It’s made of leather and a futuristic fabric called, smart opaque e-foils, which switches from white to transparent in an instant. ‘Intimacy 2.0’ is best worn in the bedroom, where you can flaunt the invisible clothes all you want. Though if you want to exercise butt naked in the gym, be our guest. He’s already sold a few dresses, with other clients commissioning him for new ones.

When asked by VICE where who would buy this kid of clothing, Roosegaarde said, ‘We’re also designing a version of the dress for Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, who’s a complete fashion freak. She said, ‘I’ll wear it, but you should also make a version for men.’ That’s why we started the Intimacy suit for men—it’s a perfect fit for the banking world, [because] it becomes transparent when they lie!’

UPDATE: Recently, we got the opportunity to interview Daan Roosegaarde himself about ‘Intimacy 2.0′. Here’s a short look at our exclusive interview.

Why did you build a clothing line that disappears? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of wearing clothes?

Intimacy is about expressing the identity of the wearer through clothing he or she wears. This is a whole different interpretation of the definition of clothes. There is a strong connection between the revealing and hiding of the person when looking to the wearers emotions. Social interactions determine the garmentsʼ level of transparency, creating a sensual play of disclosure.

Aside from being used in the bedroom, where else do you envision ‘Intimacy’ being used?

A wearer of Intimacy is dared to explore boundaries in identity and intimacy. Therefore the bedroom would be the safest choice of decor and this is not the essence of Intimacy. As a high (tech) couture piece, Intimacy is design for rewarding events, such as red carpets and catwalks.

Facial hair transplants.

From the New York Post:

Hipster Wannabes Get Facial Hair Transplants By Natalie O'Neill

It’s shear madness! Brooklyn’s hipster beard craze has grown so popular that men in New York are rushing to doctors for “facial hair transplants” — surgery that helps make beards look thicker and less patchy, sources said.

Stubble-challenged guys are forking over up to $8,500 for the beard-boosting procedure, which has spiked in popularity in recent months, plastic surgeons told The Post.

“Brooklyn is probably the nucleus of the trend, it’s the hipster ‘look’ guys want. If you have a spotty beard, and you let it grow out, it looks sloppy, ” said Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a Midtown-based plastic surgeon.

“[Clients] want full beards because it’s a masculine look. Beards are an important male identifier,” he added.

Epstein performs two or three beard implants per week — up from just a handful each year a couple years ago, he said.

The specific hipster-inspired style  — a lumberjack-meets-roadie hybrid — was made popular in neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bushwick and Park Slope, doctors and patients said.

One happy patient  is Danny, 27, whose beard used to be so patchy, he was forced to “fill it in” with an eyebrow pencil, he said.

Two years ago, he paid $8,500 for the surgery, which he considers a fashion statement.

“I have a baby face but now I’m able to look older. My fashion statement is a little edgy, and I do like the ‘rugged look,’” he said,

He added, “It’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made.”

During the procedure, doctors remove hair from other body parts, including the head and chest, before implanting it in the face.

New beards grow back normally and can be shaved.

The hair-raising trend is also popular with female-to-male transgenders, Hasidic Jews, and guys who simply aren’t very hairy, doctors said.

“It’s the style. It’s just more common now to see scruff than 10 years ago,” said Dr. Yael Halaas, a Midtown plastic surgeon who performs the procedure.

“We’ve been getting a lot more calls about it,” she said.

A 39-year-old New Yorker, who works in the catering industry,  got a beard transplant to make him feel younger, DNAinfo.com reported.

“I had contemplated [getting a beard transplant] for approximately eight months,” he said. “Knowing the results, I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time deciding.”

More vajazzling by artist Frances Goodman.

From Killing Birds With Stones:

Johannesburg, South Africa – Frances Goodman is a visual artist whose work is presented as installation and sculpture.

“Her art focuses on the subject of middle class experience and prejudices; looking at everyday obsessions and superficial behavior, she explores the way individuals respond to our contemporary, highly materialistic society and their idiosyncratic coping mechanisms they develop. Her works reflect a morbid ambiguity of excess and loss, a dislocation between appearance and truth.”

See the rest of the photos here (NSFW).

And the artist's website here.

Vice: Buttloads of pain.

From Vice:

Buttloads of Pain Illegal Ass Enhancement May Be America's Next Health Epidemic By Wilbert L. Cooper

The horror that befell Oscarina Busse’s backside began in July 2009. The 35-year-old Floridian felt a dull but persistent itch deep in the meat of her buttocks, one that was impossible to scratch.

It wasn’t long before Oscarina noticed that her butt was changing colors—first turning purple, like a throbbing finger that had been wrapped too tightly with string, and then a cadaverous gray. From there, things got much worse. Her flesh started to crust and painfully peel off until, a few months later, the whole mess collapsed like a badly baked cake. The cheeks of her ass drooped down, loaded with a stew of poisonous goop that collected around her lower buttocks. What had once stood high and felt supple to the touch had become hot and hard and stinging. Oscarina’s derrière had transformed so much that it no longer looked like it was part of a human’s body; her five-year-old daughter mistook her fluid-filled cheeks for a poopy diaper, calling it a “full Pamper.”

Like thousands of women across the globe and increasingly in the US, Oscarina was suffering from the side effects of a black-market butt injection. Because of its clandestine nature, it’s impossible to quantify exactly how many people in the US are illegally getting their butts pumped up like a pair of Reeboks. But the number is definitely growing; due to the proliferation of reported disfiguring cases like Oscarina’s and even deaths, law-enforcement officials and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons view black-market butt injections as a burgeoning epidemic in the US.

The crude inflation procedure consists of shooting a liquid substance such as silicone or mineral oil directly into a client’s butt cheeks and hips through a syringe. There is no substance that is safe to inject into your body to create more volume, not even medical-grade silicone, but these black-market “butt doctors” have, according to victims, allegedly used harsh substances like concrete and the industrial silicone sold at hardware stores in their procedures. After the injections, the exterior flesh wounds are sometimes closed with Super Glue to prevent the toxic slop from leaking out.

Read the rest here.

And the trailer for the mini-doc:

Illegal ass enhancements could be America's next epidemic. Watch the full length documentary on VICE.com here: http://www.vice.com/the-vice-report/buttloads-of-pain Check out the Best of VICE here: http://bit.ly/VICE-Best-Of Subscribe to VICE here!


See the full documentary here.

Female (sex-related) aggression.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society just released an entire issue of the journal devoted to female aggression (you can read all the articles for free by clicking here). It has drawn substantial attention. For example, the New York Times summarized some of the findings in an article entitled, A Cold War Fought by Women, written by John Tierney. Here are some excerpts:

[…]

The existence of female competition may seem obvious to anyone who has been in a high-school cafeteria or a singles bar, but analyzing it has been difficult because it tends be more subtle and indirect (and a lot less violent) than the male variety. Now that researchers have been looking more closely, they say that this “intrasexual competition” is the most important factor explaining the pressures that young women feel to meet standards of sexual conduct and physical appearance.

[…]

To see how female students react to a rival, researchers brought pairs of them into a laboratory at McMaster University for what was ostensibly a discussion about female friendships. But the real experiment began when another young woman entered the room asking where to find one of the researchers.

This woman had been chosen by the researchers, Tracy Vaillancourtand Aanchal Sharma, because she “embodied qualities considered attractive from an evolutionary perspective,” meaning a “low waist-to-hip ratio, clear skin, large breasts.” Sometimes, she wore a T-shirt and jeans, other times a tightfitting, low-cut blouse and short skirt.

In jeans, she attracted little notice and no negative comments from the students, whose reactions were being secretly recorded during the encounter and after the woman left the room. But when she wore the other outfit, virtually all the students reacted with hostility.

[…]

The results of the experiment jibe with evidence that this “mean girl” form of indirect aggression is used more by adolescents and young women than by older women, who have less incentive to handicap rivals once they marry. Other studies have shown that the more attractive an adolescent girl or woman is, the more likely she is to become a target for indirect aggression from her female peers.

“Women are indeed very capable of aggressing against others, especially women they perceive as rivals,” said Dr. Vaillancourt, now a psychologist at the University of Ottawa. “The research also shows that suppression of female sexuality is by women, not necessarily by men.”

Stigmatizing female promiscuity — a.k.a. slut-shaming — has often been blamed on men, who have a Darwinian incentive to discourage their spouses from straying. But they also have a Darwinian incentive to encourage other women to be promiscuous. Dr. Vaillancourt said the experiment and other research suggest the stigma is enforced mainly by women.

“Sex is coveted by men,” she said. “Accordingly, women limit access as a way of maintaining advantage in the negotiation of this resource. Women who make sex too readily available compromise the power-holding position of the group, which is why many women are particularly intolerant of women who are, or seem to be, promiscuous.”

Indirect aggression can take a psychological toll on women who are ostracized or feel pressured to meet impossible standards, like the vogue of thin bodies in many modern societies. Studies have shown that women’s ideal body shape is to be thinner than average — and thinner than what men consider the ideal shape to be. This pressure is frequently blamed on the ultrathin female role models featured in magazines and on television, but Christopher J. Ferguson and other researchers say that it’s mainly the result of competition with their peers, not media images.

“To a large degree the media reflects trends that are going on in society, not creates them,” said Dr. Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University. He found that women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies did not correlate with what they watched on television at home. Nor were they influenced by TV programs shown in laboratory experiments: Watching the svelte actresses on “Scrubs” induced no more feelings of inferiority than watching the not-so-svelte star of “Roseanne.”

But he found that women were more likely to feel worse when they compared themselves with peers in their own social circles, or even if they were in a room with a thin stranger, like the assistant to Dr. Ferguson who ran an experiment with female college students. When she wore makeup and sleek business attire, the students were less satisfied with their own bodies than when she wore baggy sweats and no makeup. And they felt still worse when there was an attractive man in the room with her.

Read the rest here.

Androgynous models and our definitions of beauty.

Passed along by Lyore (thanks!):

I came across this article and found it really interesting.

It's a year old, but I only discovered it now. It's a short interview with the model Andrej Pejic who was the first transgendered model to be featured on the cover of a major fashion magazine (Elle).

I find it really interesting that Andrej doesn't define himself by the traditional concepts of sexuality and just sees himself as androgynous. In his interview he says that his gender is open to artistic interpretation and that he doesn't see himself as either male or female-gender is irrelevant to him. I also find it really cool that the fashion industry has been so open to transgendered models in the past few years even though it has been a bit controversial. It does make me wonder though if big fashion labels such as Jean Paul Gaultier have taken advantage of models like Andrej Pejic for media coverage and ultimately for their own benefit (other then just showing openness and acceptance in the fashion world to more ambiguous and non-traditional gender roles)

From the New York Daily News:

Androgynous model Andrej Pejic pushes gender boundaries on the cover of Serbian Elle magazine

Inside, the 21-year-old cross-dressing beauty, who defies categorization, wrestles with female and male versions of himself. “I’ve left my gender open to artistic interpretation,” Pejic once said.

By Carol Kuruvilla

The androgynous model French designer Jean Paul Gaultier called his “otherworldly beauty” is now an Elle cover girl.

Twenty-one-year-old Andrej Pejic is featured front and center on Serbian Elle’s January cover, the Telegraph reports. The cross-dressing model is fitted head to toe in Gaultier and trades in his trademark platinum locks for a choppy black wig.

Inside the magazine, he wrestles with male and female versions of himself in a feature named “Victor Victoria.” The female Pejic wears skimpy La Perla lingerie, while a more masculine side of Pejic looks aggressive in suits.

At a twiggy 5 feet, 11 inches tall, the hipless, chestless Pejic is a fashion designer’s dream. The versatile model has hit the runway in both men’s and women’s fashion shows.

Pejic doesn’t plan on having sex reassignment surgery. Whether he identifies as male or female doesn’t seem to be the point: Gender is irrelevant.

“I’ve left my gender open to artistic interpretation,” Pejic told New York Magazine. “It’s not like ‘Okay, today I want to look like a man, or today I want to look like a woman.’ I want to look like me.”

Pejic is the second model to push gender boundaries on Elle, transforming what the fashion world considers feminine. (Brazilian model Lea T wore Givenchy on Brazilian Elle’s cover in 2011.)

In 2011, Barnes and Noble censored an issue of a magazine in which Pejic appeared bare-chested on the cover.

But Pejic is no stranger to controversy. His mother is Serbian, and his father is a Croat, which placed his parents on opposite sides of the Bosnian war in the 1990s. A few months after his birth, fighting caused his family to flee to Melbourne, Australia. He was discovered at 17 while working at McDonald’s, the BBC reports.

See the rest of the photos here.

Lyore also sent along a Buzzfeed link to photos of several androgynous models. Check it out here.

Makeup.

 

From ViralNova:

Vadim Andreev is a 29 year-old makeup artist from St. Petersburg, Russia, who has been honing his skill since the age of 16. He has become so talented at his craft, he proves that almost any woman can be as beautiful as a model if she really wants to. All it takes is some well-applied makeup.

But it’s important to note that this kind of beauty is superficial. There’s nothing wrong with emphasizing our natural beauty, but some girls out there are depressed because they can’t achieve what the magazines say true beauty is. Here’s a wake-up call to show you what these women really look like.

Vadim’s goal is to prove to women that they don’t need harmful surgery in order to transform into beauties. With the right makeup and hair, any woman can look like a model. They just have to play to their strengths. Knowing a few makeup tips wouldn’t hurt, either.

Vadim is only 29, but he has been perfecting his skills as a makeup artist for 13 years. He has worked with Russian celebrities, but he also loves to help every day clients. He prepares women for events or weddings, showing them what beauty they all possess. He even passes on his knowledge with workshops and how-to videos. What he knows isn’t magic. Anyone can learn how to transform themselves into a stunning beauty. It might just take some practice.

Of course the real story here is that superficial beauty is just that – superficial. Any woman can have it, but it’s what’s on the inside that truly sets you apart.

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