For many Western men — and women, for that matter — it is beyond unacceptable for a woman to have hairy legs or armpits: it is inconceivable. The perception that ‘normal’ women should be virtually hair-free is a young one: it began in the 1920s when the struggling Wilkinson Sword Company decided to boost its sales by targeting women, with an advertising campaign that claimed female underarm hair was unfeminine and unhygienic. (Of course, if the latter were true it would have equally applied to both genders, but then again advertising campaigns are notorious for preying on women’s insecurities.) This kind of attitude in advertising and the media is pretty one-sided: the target is almost exclusively women who are effectively told they are too ugly unless they buy into certain products or services, ranging from hair removal to diets to tanning creams and so on. A hairy proposition — Dollmag.ca  (via courtneybeth)

(via cat-lady-in-training)

[TRIGGER WARNING: Rape] Fat women are treated as utterly undesirable in our culture [and] are often turned into a ‘bizarre’ fetish object. The result is that fat women are told to be grateful for any sexual attention they receive from anyone, whether they themselves find that person sexually appealing or not. In other words, even more than your average women, fat women are only allowed to be occasional objects of desire and are regularly denied their right to have and pursue sexual desires of their own.

That way of thinking becomes very dangerous when sexual violence is mixed in. When fat women are raped, they’re often told they should be grateful that anyone wanted them, or, alternatively, disbelieved because it doesn’t seem plausible that anyone would want them ‘enough to rape them.’ These arguments not only rely on the dangerous myth that rape is about uncontrollable sexual desire (it’s not), but also propagate the message that fat women’s bodies aren’t valuable enough to the culture for their violation to be taken seriously. Jaclyn Friedman, What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety (via khaleesi)

(via yesysabella)

I hate how the phrase ‘have some self respect’ is used to shame women who are comfortable with their sex lives. ‘Have some self respect’? I do respect myself, that’s why I wanna have a fucking orgasm tonight, thank you very much. Unknown (via whitedrunkgirls)

(via wickhunny-deactivated20120204)