Dr. Jason Winters
Registered Psychologist
Sex Therapist
Body Image
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.
From Channel 4, a documentary about some men's pursuit of the perfect penis. NSFW:
This ground-breaking series explores all things penile. The penis is the organ most central to a man's sense of self, and the quest for penile perfection has driven some men to incredible lengths.
From NewsLinQ:
Mom Bakes Vagina Cookies For Second Grade Class. Wait….What?
The parent of a second grade student brought some very questionable cookies to her child’s class recently. The cookies were so strange that someone in the class couldn’t help but share the story behind them on reddit.
Posting on behalf of the teacher, reddit user JPstudly writes that the teacher asks a volunteer parent to bring snacks in for her students each week to reward good behavior. This week, a parent going by the pseudonym Autumn volunteered to bake some cookies and bring them to the class. When Autumn delivered the cookies, she told the teacher to use them as an opportunity to teach her students about vaginas. What do cookies have to do with vaginas? Our teacher was about to find out. Here’s what happened next.
“Baffled and completely caught off guard I slowly peel the aluminum foil off the pan to behold a plethora of sugar cookie and frosting vaginas,” the teacher writes. “Not just any old vagina, but ALL KINDS OF VAGINAS. There were small, puffy, white, brown, shaved, bald, and even a fire crotch with beef curtains. Perplexed, I give the parent the most professional look I can muster and quietly reply ‘I’m sorry Autumn, but I can’t give these to my students. This just isn’t appropriate.’”
That’s when things got ugly.
Autumn snapped back and said the teacher “should be proud of [her] vagina,” and accused her of “settling for woman’s role in life.” Mind you, all of this happened in front of the students.
The teacher says she had no choice but to “stand and stare at the woman as the word ‘vagina’ is yelled in front of my second grade class about 987,000 times. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, she storms out of the class leaving her vagina cookies on my desk.”
Later that night, the teacher received a scathing email from Autumn. In it, Autumns says the teacher is “closed minded” and “settled for less when you became a teacher because that is known for a women’s job.” She says that women need to stand together and “inform people about the vagina and how to please it.” She closes the email by saying “I hope you end up with an abusive husband that beats on you every night.”
Every year, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery publishes national plastic surgery statistics. I love these types of data. Here are some of the highlights from last year (click to make larger):
When these guys agreed to get bikini waxes, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. So much pain. Share on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/ZvjikQ Like BuzzFeedVideo on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/18yCF0b Share on Twitter: http://bit.ly/ZvjkcA Special thanks to ZENii http://www.zeniila.com/ MUSIC "Bandidos De Banderos" Licensed via Warner Chappell Production Music Inc.
This documentary did the film festival circuit last year and now is available on Netlflix (thanks for the heads-up Hayley!). Description:
When Patrick Moote's girlfriend rejects his marriage proposal at a UCLA basketball game on the jumbotron, it unfortunately goes viral and hits TV networks worldwide. Days after the heartbreaking debacle, she privately reveals why she can't be with him forever: Patrick's small penis. Unhung Hero is the real life journey of Patrick as he boldly sets out to expose this extremely personal chapter of his life by confronting ex-girlfriends, doctors, anthropologists and even adult film stars. Patrick has a lot of turf to cover on his globe trotting adventure to finally answer the age old question: Does size matter?
Trailer:
DVD Release: December 2013 Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Unhung-Hero-Patrick-Moote/dp/B00F7K5Q3O iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/unhung-hero/id784493975 https://www.facebook.com/unhungheromovie When Patrick Moote's girlfriend rejects his marriage proposal at a UCLA basketball game on the jumbotron, it unfortunately goes viral and hits TV networks worldwide. Days after the heartbreaking debacle, she privately reveals why she can't be with him forever: Patrick's small penis.
From their Kickstarter page:
IAmElemental Action Figures for Girls
IAmElemental Action Figures for Girls were designed to accomplish three goals.
MORE HEROINE, LESS HOOTERS
First, they are intended to be a positive and fierce re-interpretation of the traditional female action figure.
After scouring toy stores in search of action figures that are appropriate toys for young girls, we discovered that the typical female action figure on the market today is not actually designed for girls at all (or even boys). Instead, most are created for the adult male collector, decidedly more Hooters than Heroine.
We set out to design a series of figures with healthier breast, waist and hip ratios; fierce, strong females worthy of an active, save-the-world storyline that fosters creativity in kids.
IT'S CHARACTER, NOT CHARACTERS
Second, IAmElemental action figures encourage girls to reinvent the superhero myth by creating their own empowering stories. In the traditional, male-dominated superhero universe, action figures are endowed with powers from without (via a spider bite, mutant DNA, or some sort of "accident"). In the IAmElemental universe, the girl herself is the superhero - and she has all the superpowers she will ever need already inside of her.
We have converted the Periodic Table of Elements into "The Elements of Power," and we will unveil these powers, series by series, one after the other.
The first series, available first on Kickstarter, is the Courage Series.
The Elemental parts of COURAGE:
Using Joan of Arc as our Muse (because real heroes walk among us), each figure in the series is the personification of one of the Elemental Powers - and we are talking Superpowers.
Bravery, for example, is defined as not shrinking from challenge or difficulty, and her Superpower is the ability to create a protective force field around herself and others.
Magic and fantasy are critical elements of both imaginative play, and daily life. If you want the extraordinary to happen, you have to believe in the impossible.
We live in a world where product tie-ins are a de facto part of the average media marketing plan, and children are spoon-fed a perfectly-packaged storyline with the purchase of every action figure. Yet, we fervently believe that girls (and boys) are not only capable of creating their own stories, but that story creation is a vital part of their emotional development.
Why live vicariously through someone else? Why not be a real, live Superhero?
PLAY WITH POWER
Third, we set out to create a toy that is super fun to play with and collect. We knew from the outset that if the figures weren't well-designed, nothing else would matter.
So, we spent months carefully considering every aspect of the process, working collaboratively with the amazing team at EleventyPlex, in order to ensure that we ended up with the best 4-inch articulated action figure possible.
Go check out the rest of the photos and a video here.
They were hoping to raise $35,000 and they ended up with almost $163,000. Clearly this idea is well-supported.
Aye, equating success with being skinny. Yikes.
Young aspiring models are faced with severe pressures to walk the walk.
From the Atlantic:
Designer Parts: Inside the Strange, Fascinating World of Vaginoplasty
Why are some women spending upwards of $10,000 for complete "vaginal rejuvenation"? A visit to one plastic surgeon for a evaluation and sizing.
Dr. Ronald Blatt squats on the stool between the fuzzy pink stirrups propping up my legs. As I brace for the gynecologist to start poking around with his lubricated, latex encased paws, my eyes dart from a garage sale castaway of a seascape painting to an anatomy chart then back to the sole odd aspect of this setup: a mirror positioned so I can see my lady parts alongside Blatt's pink necktie-adorned head. Thank goodness I remembered to trim.
But the doctor I'm straddling isn't about to inspect my ovaries or administer a routine pap smear test. Blatt runs the Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery, and he's preparing to assess my vaginal tightness and to demonstrate how he might alter my labia.
I scheduled this complimentary consultation under the guise of wanting "to understand my options." Secretly, I want to explore why a growing number of women are modifying a body part so few can see by undergoing the elective surgeries in which Blatt specializes: vaginoplasty (removal of excess lining and tightening of surrounding tissue and muscles) and labiaplasty (reshaping of the labia minora, and sometimes the labia majora and/or clitoral hood). The former is often pursued by women who believe their capacity to enjoy sex is compromised by a loose vagina, which can be the result of a congenital condition -- as it was for Lucy Mancini in a Godfather plot point neglected by Francis Ford Coppola for the screen -- or childbirth. I'm especially interested in the latter, which is typically endured for purely cosmetic reasons. Although statistics on these operations are difficult to come by since most are performed by OB/GYN's rather than plastic surgeons, it is believed that the number of women having them is increasing rapidly -- some estimate by fivefold over the last decade. Perhaps most interestingly, an August 2011 study in the British Journal of Medicine showed that 40 percent of women who inquired about genital reconstruction reported the desire to go through with it even after being informed that their labia were normal.
[...]
Moments later, a middle-aged lady with a black bob in a white lab coat bounces toward me wielding pamphlets. She hugs me then steps back.
"You like my doctor? I love this man," she begins, eyes hypnotizingly wide.
"Have you had it done?"
She confesses that she hasn't, but not before reassuring, "I don't have one dissatisfied lady." Continuing, "This is a life changing surgery. You're saying boyfriend now? After this he's going to marry you. I'm telling you, my love. I'm telling you."
Blatt's hype woman escorts me on a tour of the facilities before wishing me well.
[...]
Luckily, the very World Wide Web that hosts all that porn also bestows us with Show Your Vagina, a Tumblr I chance upon while researching. Launched in September 2010, the site encourages women to post anonymous photos of their vaginas. Though shocking at first, the disparities are fixating, and I feel a whiff of empowerment for every female participant while browsing. It seems wrong not to upload my own spread eagle portrait.
Show Your Vagina is an overwhelmingly simple concept that highlights the importance of sharing and openness in combating body-related shame. Unfortunately, we can't rely upon our frighteningly remedial sex-ed programs. Nor can we rely upon popular women's magazines. When I naively pitched this piece to one such glossy, I was told: "Our EIC probably wouldn't take well to an idea that so prominently involves the word 'vagina.'" Exactly.
Read the whole thing here.
From her blog:
Stoya vs. Lady Porn Day
I am a porn star.
I am a lady that makes porn.
I hear a lot from women about how they are uncomfortable with their vaginas. They wonder if it looks right, smells right, is the right color, shape, size, proportionate, if their labia stick out too much (or even not enough).
I hear that they appreciate my comfort with my own protruding labia and take it as validation that they don’t need a hairless “coin slot” vulva where everything is all tucked in in order to be attractive.
It’s nice to hear that ladies like my body and like that I run around with no clothing on sometimes, but seriously, you need to understand something.
Dudes do not give a fuck.
I’m focusing on female/male sexual interaction here because men that only have sex with men have reasons for not wanting to touch your pretty lap flower that have nothing to do with its scent or aesthetic value, and I really hope that women who have sex with women are already openly down with the fact that pussies come in a wide and beautiful array of looks, feels and smells.
But seriously, dudes that are into chicks don’t give a fuck.
Read the rest of the entry here.
From the Rocky Horror Picture Show:
From The Hairpin:
What I've Learned From My Side Job Critiquing Dick Pics By Madeleine Holden
In September this year, I woke up to an excellent dick pic. I can remember it quite clearly: it was a low-lit shot of a firmly-erect penis straining sideways through boxers, and I was thrilled to receive it: it was subtle, it wasn’t unsolicited, and it was unusually sexy for a Snapchatted cock shot. It also changed the trajectory of my life. I don’t want to send anyone’s ego out of the stratosphere by saying that, but it’s not really an exaggeration: after I received that photo, invigorated and shot through with dopamine, I tweeted about how rare and encouraging it was to receive a decent dick pic. That sparked an online conversation about how to improve the dismal state of dick pics—I would classify them as generally dull, artless and unsolicited—and that lead to my rise as the Internet’s most beloved dick pic critic.
I started Critique My Dick Pic(Not! Safe! For! Work!, and that goes for all links throughout) that same day; a blog with a simple, self-explanatory premise: men (and other people with penises) send me pictures of their dicks, and I critique them with love. “With love” refers to my policy of being neutral about the size of someone’s dick and refusing to shame sender’s bodies, but it’s not about being saccharine or coddling: I don’t mince my words when someone sends me a thoughtless, lazy shot (although I do still try to be somewhat encouraging and constructive).
The fact that I don’t critique actual dicks is difficult to fully communicate to men: I still get dozens of emails asking me for private dick reviews, and requests to describe the “perfect penis." That’s pointless to me, and I’m never going to do it. Just imagine it: imagine, for example, if I decided that the perfect dick is shaped like a coke can, and it’s uncircumcised, and it has visible veins (but not too many), and it’s rock hard and dead straight. Where does that leave people with thin dicks? Veiny dicks? Dicks that veer to one side? Are they supposed to feel shitty and miserable about a body part they can’t change because of the idiosyncratic ideals of some woman from New Zealand they were never going to fuck anyway? It’s nonsense. I find the idea of a “perfect dick” reductive and insidious, and I often have to underline the fact that I’m not here to critique dicks, I’m here to critique dickpics.
Read the rest here.
Letting it all hang out, literally (NSFW - Not Safe For Work):
'VALHALLA' IS SKI MOVIE OF THE YEAR! - Powder Video Awards BUY VALHALLA ON iTUNES: georiot.co/1ZKv Purchase the DVD and Blu Ray today at: sweetgrass-productions.com/shop/ Watch Trailer 2: https://vimeo.com/72229621 See VALHALLA ON TOUR: sweetgrass-productions.com/tour/ Patagonia Presents in association with Dynafit, Powder Magazine, and Whitewater Resort an excerpt from Sweetgrass Productions' VALHALLA From iconic shots of bare-assed chairlift riding to cliff airs wearing nothing more than socks and a smile, Valhalla’s naked ski segment is already sparking laughter through dark cinemas across the world, with skiers and non-skiers alike. For the full feature length film, head here: georiot.co/1ZKv Starring Cody Barnhill, Sierra Quitiquit, Alex Monot, Pep Fujas, Zack Giffin, Eric Hjorleifson, Molly Baker, and Kazushi Yamauchi Beyond action sports-- with Valhalla's totally unique style and structure, we've recognized an opportunity to put a daring new spin on the ski film, exploding the boundaries of the genre, opening the eyes and melting the hearts of any story-loving soul. With hard-hitting ski and snowboard action complimenting a more narrative-driven approach than our past films, or perhaps any other ski movie before it, we follow one man's escape into the Northern woods, and his wild journey towards satisfaction, understanding, and love in some of the deepest snows on earth. Weaving story and character with award-winning, face-melting backcountry ski and snowboard cinematography; Valhalla is a vivid explosion of color, character, snow, and nostalgic soul. Supported by: Patagonia, Dynafit, Clif Bar, Outdoor Research, Backcountry.com, Blizzard/Tecnica, Powder Magazine, Zeal, Osprey, Venture Snowboards, Flylow, Gentemstick, Kootenay Mountain Culture Magazine, Outside TV, and Whitewater Ski Resort. Locations: Whitewater, BC; Rogers Pass, BC; Revelstoke, BC; Golden Alpine Holidays-- Sentry, Meadow, and Sunrise Lodges, BC; Valhalla Range, BC; Haines, AK; Glacier Bay, AK; Juneau, AK; Eaglecrest, AK; Tordrillo Mountains, AK. Athletes: Eric Hjorleifson - Cody Barnhill - Carston Oliver - Zack Giffin - Pep Fujas - Kye Petersen -Johan Olofsson - Adraon Buck - Ryland Bell - Josh Dirksen - Aidan Sheahan - Molly Baker - Forrest Shearer - Taro Tamai - Stephan Drake - Eliel Hindert - Will Cardamone - Jaime Laidlaw - Trevor Hunt - Donny Roth - Jesse Hoffman - Austin Ross - Nick McNutt - Paul Kimbrough - Thayne Rich - Kazushi Yamauchi - Keely Kelleher - Ralph Backstrom - Piers Solomon -Johan Jonsson - Alex Yoder
The procedure is explained near the end:
Other videos of this series: http://goo.gl/Rdt7ii My other videos: http://doctorprodigious.wordpress.com . Visit our website: http://doctorprodigious.wordpress.com/
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.
Marnie Goldenberg is a sex educator from Vancouver (check out her Facebook page here and her blog here). Her work is brilliant and ties in nicely with the themes discussed during the section on Sex Ed that we're covering this week.
The Vancouver Sun recently published an in-depth article about here work:
Sexplain that!: Raising sexually intelligent kids is a job for parents By Denise Ryan
When I told my son that I was going to a get-together of parents to talk with an expert about how to talk to our kids about sex, he flashed me the kind of look you would expect from a 12-year-old boy.
A mix of horror, revulsion, and something else I couldn’t quite identify. Curiosity, maybe?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.
He struggled to find the words, finally settling on these: “It’s just that I think you moms are a little bit naive.”
Armed with that assessment, he was dispatched to spend the evening with a friend and I set off to find out just how naive I was.
Marnie Goldenberg launched her Vancouver “Sexplainer” salons after making a career switch from lawyer to sexual- health educator. Now she’s offering sexual-health education for parents, aimed at helping them raise “sexually intelligent kids.” In the casual atmosphere of private homes, parents get together, split the cost — about $300 for an evening — and have a facilitated discussion focused on how to communicate effectively about sexuality with kids of all ages.
“Educated kids are safer kids,” says Goldenberg. “I want to give people skills, and empower them to be proactive.”
Goldenberg is tapping into a growing need. Parents want, and need help navigating conversations with kids that are growing up in a culture of sexuality that is changing at warp speed.
Read the rest of the article here.
From the Scavenger:
What is ‘fake’ and ‘real’ in the sex industry?
Porn has hijacked our sexuality, according to anti-porn author Gail Dines. Her sentiment is not unlike that of other ‘raunch culture’ commentators – the sex industry is damaging because it represents ‘fake’ pleasures and ‘fake’ bodies. Both queer and feminist communities have produced porn/magazines/performances aiming to represent desires, bodies and acts that are ‘authentic’, ‘genuine’, ‘documentary’ and ‘real’. But is this line between ‘fake’ and ‘real’ so clear-cut? Zahra Stardust explores the issues.
by Zhara Stardust [bio in link at bottom]
As someone who works in the sex industry – in spaces that purport to be ‘real’ as well as spaces that are accused of as being ‘fake’ – it seems like there is no distinct line between the two. As someone who works with a body that is sometimes perceived as ‘real’ and other times read as ‘fake’ – it seems that the bodies which move across these spaces are equally fluid.
As someone whose pink bits have been airbrushed in magazines, but which have also been on explicit display; who performs both with and without make-up; whose ‘real’ name is my stage name, distinctions between ‘fake’ and ‘real’ don’t always make sense.
[…]
At the same time, websites that purport to depict ‘real’ or ‘redefined beauty’, often seem to be just as conventionalised as the mainstream genres they criticise. ‘Alternative’ nude modelling site Suicide Girls gives calculated instructions on their website about the kinds of photos, make-up and aesthetic sets they accept: ‘tasteful’, ‘picture perfect’ shoots with ‘a little bit of face powder and mascara and freshly dyed hair’, but specifically not ‘cheap wig[s]’, ‘top hats’, ‘stripper shoes’, ‘food’ or things that look ‘cheesy’, ‘gross’ or ‘creepy’.
Similarly, the ‘girl next door’ look of the Australian all-female explicit adult site Abby Winters represents an alternative to glamour photography, featuring make-up-less, ‘amateur’ adult models – but models are still required to cover up hair re-growth, remove piercings, and not have any scratches, marks or mosquito bites for the shoot in order to appear ‘healthy’.
Other sites I’ve shot for speak about the importance of models representing their ‘own’ sexuality, but then go on to qualify: “We might get you to tone down the eye make up a bit”, “Maybe don’t talk about politics”, “Lesbians don’t really use double-enders do they?” One company asked me repeatedly to stop wearing frills.
In doing so, these sites produce bodies of a particular class, size and appropriate femininity, which are marketed as ‘real’, but which are equally constructed, conventionalised and cultivated. This fear of replicating ‘cheesy’, ‘predictable’ mainstream porn means that depictions of ‘real’ sexuality are often similarly clichéd, albeit with a different set of aesthetics.
[…]
Sure, we may play with, embody and embrace hyper-femininity, but we are no less ‘authentic’, or political, or real, because our lip gloss is hot pink instead of ‘nude’. We don’t need to ‘tone-it-down’ to be any more queer, radical or ‘real’. Our bodies may look ‘unrealistic’ to you, but the labour of preparing for work gives erotic performers a sentient, working knowledge of gender performativity.
Much of the time, our work is far from glamorous. I return from work with smudged mascara, sticky lube, patchy fake tan, knotty hair, smelling like sweat and vaginal fluid – and the customers experience this up close and personal. My vagina certainly isn’t airbrushed when I get it out at buck’s parties, complete with shaving rash, discharge and blonde hair caught in my clit ring.
[…]
The irony is that you can never win – ‘appropriate femininity’ is unachievable. We are either too much or not enough. Our hyper-femininity is often so far beyond normative feminine ideals that it brings us social censure – our make-up is too thick, our heels are too high, our breasts are too large. As Rosalind Gill writes about women in media, our “bodies are evaluated, scrutinised and dissected” and are “always at risk of “failing.”
Read the rest here.
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.
From Science Daily:
Earlier Onset of Puberty in Girls Linked to Obesity
New research in Pediatrics shows obesity is the largest predictor of earlier onset puberty in girls, which is affecting white girls much sooner than previously reported.
Published online Nov. 4, the multi-institutional study strengthens a growing body of research documenting the earlier onset of puberty in girls of all races.
"The impact of earlier maturation in girls has important clinical implications involving psychosocial and biologic outcomes," said Frank Biro, MD, lead investigator and a physician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "The current study suggests clinicians may need to redefine the ages for both early and late maturation in girls."
Girls with earlier maturation are at risk for a multitude of challenges, including lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression, norm-breaking behaviors and lower academic achievement. Early maturation also results in greater risks of obesity, hypertension and several cancers -- including breast, ovarian and endometrial cancer.
The study was conducted through the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Program, established by the National Institute of Environmental Health Science. Pediatrics is the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Researchers at centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, Cincinnati and New York City examined the ages of 1,239 girls at the onset of breast development and the impact of body mass index and race/ethnicity. The girls ranged in age from 6 to 8 years at enrollment and were followed at regular intervals from 2004 to 2011. Researchers used well-established criteria of pubertal maturation, including the five stages of breast development known as the Tanner Breast Stages.
The girls were followed longitudinally, which involved multiple regular visits for each girl. Researchers said this method provided a good perspective of what happened to each girl and when it occurred.
Researchers found the respective ages at the onset of breast development varied by race, body mass index (obesity), and geographic location. Breast development began in white, non-Hispanic girls, at a median age of 9.7 years, earlier than previously reported. Black girls continue to experience breast development earlier than white girls, at a median age of 8.8 years. The median age for Hispanic girls in the study was 9.3 years, and 9.7 years for Asian girls.
Body mass index was a stronger predictor of earlier puberty than race or ethnicity. Although the research team is still working to confirm the exact environmental and physiological factors behind the phenomenon, they conclude the earlier onset of puberty in white girls is likely caused by greater obesity.
