Padaviya

Two years ago we posted about the Ashley Madison Agency. Several readers brought our attention to a new ad campaign for the company, so we’re reposting it; scroll down for new material.

Lisa C. sent in a link to the Ashley Madison Agency, which she heard advertised on a talk radio station that generally targets a male audience. The site specializes in providing dating services to married individuals looking to have an affair:

The company clearly plays on its notoriety and the shock value of the idea that a dating site would cater to married people looking to cheat on their partners — as well as, in this case, appearing to promise men oral sex.

The company has come out with a new ad campaign that has received significant criticism. The ads, sent in by Danielle Q., Christie W., and an anonymous reader, combine “promotion of adultery, body shaming, and female objectification,” according to Christie. They present wives as fat (and therefore presumably unappealing) women who practically drive men to cheat on them with the thin, hot women they deserve to have sexual access to:

(Via.)

(Via Jezebel.)

One source of criticism comes from Jacqueline, the plus-sized model used in the two images. She apparently posed for a photographer years ago and is now faced with seeing her image used to elicit disgust at large bodies. As Jacqueline pointed out in a post she wrote for Jezebel, these images aren’t just about mocking large women; they’re about policing all women’s bodies:

A size 2 woman who sees this ad sees the message: “If I don’t stay small, he will cheat”. A size 12 woman might see this ad and think “if I don’t lose 30lbs, he will cheat”. A size 32 woman could see this ad, and feel “I will never find love”.

Thus, all women are told that they are perpetually in competition with all other women for the sexual attention and approval of men, and always on the verge of being ridiculed for the failure to meet impossible standards of feminine attractiveness.

(post from Sociological Images)

It’s no surprise that being skinny is an advantage for women in our society. Just how much of an advantage? About $15,000 worth.

A recent study by Timothy A. Judge of the University of Florida has revealed that very skinny women — those weighing an average of 25 pounds less than the “normal” or “average” weight for women of their group — earn $15,572 more per year than women of average weight.

Hooters waitress Cassie Smith, 20, was told during her employee review that she would have to lose weight within 30 days or risk losing her job. The ever-sensitive corporate bosses offered Smith a free gym membership. Not that I expect a ton of awesomeness from Hooters, but still - gross.

when i trawl around tumblr i find that i am only ever confronted by images of super skinny models, thighs that don’t touch, and collar bones. i’m flooded with retouched images of perfect skin and white teeth on girls who look so sick that i’m suprised that they could even do the photoshoot. more so these photographs advertise these super skinny teenagers surrounded by tables of cupcakes, as if that is how they spend their time. they all smoke cigarettes and have ‘this too shall pass’ tattooed down their exposed ribs.

i admit as a young woman i am concerned daily with the way i look. yeah, i wish i was skinnier, i wish my skin was nicer and my hair longer. but i’m not unrealistic. these young girls reblogging on pages such as ‘gluttony’ idolise women who don’t exist. i too find beauty in a slender figure, a classic audrey hepburn, or a beautiful photograph. but those exist in their own universe. just because i like purple doesn’t mean that i am going to drown myself in the colour.

i know that these girls have a problem. that it is a problem which has been dictated by the media which pries on the already low self esteem of teenage girls and feed on their desires to be the unrealistic ideals that are presented. i feel so angry. i want to get these girls and shake them by their frames, tell them that there is no pride in what they are doing. that they are perpetuating their own depression and self loathing. that being skinny isn’t the end of the world, nor is being overweight, or any weight. that people will only like them for who they are, not the contrived figure they desire to present. that they can change, and feel good about themselves. but i know that their ears are as deaf to those remarks as they are blind to their own image in the mirror.
-cara fox, australia.

ABC, it seems, refused to air the commercial during Dancing with the Stars and limited the number of times the ad could be shown overall. (Though ABC is now claiming it did not reject the ad, other reports say Lane Bryant is right and ABC is just trying to save face.) FOX, on the other hand, demanded edit after edit. The network rejected the ad three times before Lane Bryant threatened to cancel plans to buy ad time altogether. FOX ultimately decided to let it air during the last ten minutes of American Idol.

After all this time, fat is still a feminist issue, and so is the national hobby of dieting, especially for women. We subject each other, and sometimes ourselves, to contempt when all our extensive efforts yield insufficient or short-lived weight loss.  But, as I’m pleased to report from experience, The Weight Talk doesn’t have to include contempt and shaming.  Here is what I’ve learned:

The correlation between obesity and ill health is much weaker than most people believe.  Weight is often used as a stand-in for health, but it’s a poor substitute. We know intuitively that thin people can be unhealthy; it’s also true that people can be both “fit and fat.”

In the March 5, 2010 issue of Entertainment Weekly, Kate Ward has a feature about the women displayed on the covers of a number of novels featuring female protagonists who are clearly depicted as anything from “curvy” to “plus-size” to obese. Ward draws attention to the fact that despite how the female characters are portrayed in these novels, the cover models are often quite thin.