Women have been telling each other for years that we don’t have to be a size zero to be beautiful. Our husbands and boyfriends have told us the same thing. Not to mention countless articles in magazines, shows on television, wonderful ad campaigns like Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” and so on and so on.
And guess what. None of it works. We don’t believe a big girl can be beautiful for more than 20 minutes. Why don’t we believe it?
Because in spite of all the healthy messaging attempts, models are still super-skinny, as are actresses. Singers have a little more leeway, but not much. Poor Carrie Underwood looked perfect to me when she won Idol, but she is now more stylishly thin and it’s been noted. It honestly breaks my heart that the once-size-12 Zora, the raven-haired beauty who won the heart of Joe Millionaire against a bunch of size twos, now does diet ads. The message is clear: winning a good man’s affection was not nearly as big a victory as becoming a size 6.
I’m so very tired of this; aren’t you? I’m so tired of feeling all “you go, girl” after watching a good Tyra body-issue episode or feeling really pretty when my husband beams at me, but then sinking right back into body depression as soon as I pick up a magazine, read some celebrity gossip online or watch an episode of Desperate Housewives.
I always come back to the conclusion that everyone from Dove to my husband is actually wrong because I see that thin is fashionable. Thin is therefore beautiful. Period.
Only one group of people can change this understanding… and it’s not women and it’s not straight men.
Gay men hold the power to change our minds about our beauty.
This is an idea that has brewed in my subconscious for years, but it really popped out when I watched, for the first time, Lifetime’s series, “How to Look Good Naked.” In case you haven’t seen it: Carson Kressley, of “Queer Guy” fame, is the host and various brave, full-fleshed, different-than-model-proportioned women are his subjects. Carson convinces them that they are beautiful – so beautiful that they can be photographed naked.
When I turned the show on, I thought “How on earth were they going to convince these women? Hypnosis? Psychedelic drugs? Trick mirrors or camera lenses?”
And guess what. The show lives up to its promise without any tricks. The women really do change their minds about themselves. WHY it works, I realized, is The Answer. The Answer!!!
Carson Kressley is a fabulous gay man.
This is the reason why these women are actually convinced, in five short days, that they are not obese trolls. That they are actually beautiful and sexy.
Watching it with my husband, I could see that he had no idea why this was any different from any other makeover show I’ve asked him to endure. So I excitedly explained to him that, see, we women only believe – deeply believe, mind-change-ingly believe – that we are beautiful if a gay man tells us we are.
Here’s my own anecdote to back up this theory:
A couple of years ago, through a somewhat random circumstance, I was interviewed on a few network television news shows. One of my first interviews aired on Good Morning America. When I saw the tape, I wept. The woman who interviewed me was about a foot shorter than I was, so the camera angle was terrible and my natural tendency toward having a double chin was exaggerated beyond my worst nightmares.
I’d been exposed. Nationally humiliated. And reminded of the truth: Though I’m told that I am an average-sized woman and reasonably good looking, I am, in fact, obese and horribly ugly.
I was wiping the tears away at my desk, at work, vowing to never eat another fat or carbohydrate ever again, when I received an email from a fabulous gay friend of mine that said “Hey, gorgeous. Saw you on GMA. You were fantastic!”
And I was cured. Instantly. I stopped crying and stood up straight and proud that whole day. I could show you that tape today and not feel self-conscious. I swear.
Because, you see, a gay man called me “gorgeous” after seeing the bad-camera-angle-double-chin interview. So I must be attractive! I am not an obese troll at all! I am “gorgeous!”
Any straight man reading this is probably dumbfounded. Why do gay men have this mysterious power?
Let me break it down:
The fashion industry is led by gay men. They design a lot of the clothing and shoes and advertising, they are the editors and editorial directors of the magazines and so on. And the fashion industry dictates standards of beauty to society – particularly to women.
The gay influence over fashion and standards of beauty cannot be understated, though it is rarely discussed explicitly. When it is, gay men tend to say, “Yeah, DUH!”
I love the story of what happened to a friend of mine who was walking through a department store in New York a few years ago with her gay brother. She stopped to point at a mannequin display and accuse her brother and his People of something. She said, “Come on. Look at that. Those mannequins don’t look like women – they look like teenage boys. This is a homo-erotic image!” Her brother laughed at her. “Um, yeah,” he said. “Of course. It’s fashion. Fashion is homo-erotic. Gay men are in charge of fashion. Where have you been?”
It’s the great un-spoken! Because of their role in the fashion industry, gay men have been largely – not entirely, no, but largely – responsible for a fashionable image that is very thin, very short on curves, and often downright boyish.
They didn’t do it on purpose. They didn’t do it to make me feel like a fat cow. They just have their own sensibilities and an unexplained/uncannily good eye for design. But because they are the ones who told us that Kate Moss and Angelina Jolie (who look nothing like 99.99 percent of the every other adult woman I have ever met in my damn life) are incredibly beautiful, gay men now have to be the ones to tell us that we are beautiful, too – even if we aren’t model-thin. It would be great if they’d do it through designing some new clothes and hiring some different-sized models, but doing it on a TV makeover show is a very nice start.
Carson has a really funny line on his show when he introduces the ladies to an undergarment consultant. He says, “She’s the bra whisperer!” What Carson may not know yet – but I wish all gay men knew – is that he’s the woman whisperer. He is a gay man who really, truly loves women and it is his very role as a gay fashion ambassador that enables him to change women’s minds about the way they look.
I’m not sure if Carson knows his own power. But he’s using it for good, and I sure hope he inspires other fantastic gay gentlemen to do the same, soon. Because, ladies, we’re all overdue for a self-perception makeover.
