Anorexic? Don't Blame Me

My medical dictionary defines "anorexia" as a loss of appetite, and "Anorexia nervosa" as a loss of appetite caused by an emotional disturbance, and goes on to say it mostly affects girls and young women and can lead to loss of weight and even death. Those, however, are only dictionary definitions, and aren't what most persons think of when they hear about somebody being anorexic.

What it usually brings to mind, I believe, is the refusal of certain persons, almost always young females, to eat or to allow their bodies to digest what food they do consume. This is usually referred to as an eating disorder but I consider that to be a misnomer. As far as I'm concerned, it is actually a mental disorder, and the anorexia is just a symptom. I call it a mental disorder because a person who suffers from the condition usually has a totally irrational belief that she is overweight and unattractive, and will go to extreme lengths to lose those imaginary extra pounds. Since I am writing about anorexic women here, I will use pronouns and other words denoting females.

I am not referring to women who actually are overweight, and are advised by concerned persons, such as their physicians, to lose some of that weight for the sake of their health. I refer here to women who are not overweight, although they may have been at one time, and believe they are now. They may be so thin as to border on emaciation, but they still persist in the delusion that they are fat, and must do something about it. These women are what people usually mean when they refer to "anorexics".

So, now you may ask: "What does that have to do with you?" I mean, you might wonder why anyone would blame me because some women are anorexic?

Well, it's like this. I don't really mean myself as an individual; I mean myself as part of the heterosexual male population. Given that anorexia is mostly a problem that besets women, Society, especially the female part of it, will contend that it's all the fault of men, particularly heterosexual men. Why that should be, I don't know, but whenever there is a problem, or some kind of self-destructive behavior that primarily affects women, they blame men, and that is particularly true in this case.

For one thing, they blame the clothing industry, especially the upper end of it. I have news for them. The high fashion industry is not run by straight men. I want to avoid stereotypes, so I won't go any further on that subject. A clothing model tends to be thin, for various reasons, but usually her thinness is her natural physique, which is one reason she has chosen that line of work. I have heard and read that stylish clothing comes from the designer only in small sizes. Obviously, a garment must fit the woman who will be modeling it, but once it has been shown, it can be made in any size. However, why women, unless they aspire to be professional models, should seek to emulate those thin women is indeed a mystery.

It certainly can't be to attract or please the men in their lives. Most guys find women who are pencil-thin high fashion models to be unattractive, even repellant. They make cruel jokes about such women, especially their figures. The butts of those jokes (no pun intended) laugh all the way to the bank. But those are professional models, who are actually helped by being naturally thin. At least, they usually have attractive faces, which is another quality that aids them to succeed in their career of choice.

Truly repellant to me are those women who are not naturally thin but, through extreme dieting and/or various methods of bulimia, try to look like those who are. Such efforts result, if no intervention happens to prevent it, in a bony, emaciated appearance. I have seen photographs of survivors of Nazi concentration camps, and the similarities are striking. When a face takes on that appearance, the woman's eyes sometimes appear to be bigger, giving her a waiflike appearance. Large eyes, under other circumstances, can be attractive, but not when they peer out from a face that is skin stretched tightly over bones. Besides facial bones, this hypothetical woman's ribs, shoulder blades, hip bones and the rest of her skeletal system become more prominent as well. Her breasts and buttocks, being mostly fat, shrivel to almost nothing, which is a huge turnoff by itself.

This leads me to ask a question or three. "What in the hell are they thinking of? How can anybody possibly think that normal, non-pedophilic men would be attracted to emaciated waifs? What would lead anybody to think that men have the desire to be able to count a woman's ribs while they are embracing her? The first answer is obvious: they aren't thinking. The second and third answers are equally obvious. People who think those things are not right in the head. As I said, anorexia is a symptom of a mental problem.

I have also read or heard of people describing centerfolds, such as those in "Playboy", as being thought of by men as "ideal women". I will concede they do have a certain point. First, however, let me say that there is no such thing to men as THE ideal woman. All straight men have their own notion as to what the "perfect" woman would look like. Some may even prefer the skin-and-bones type that I have been disparaging, although I don't know of any.

However, an enormous majority of men do prefer the kind of body which might land a gig for a woman as a centerfold. "Aha!" you may say, and point out that most centerfolds have slender waists.

This is true, and this is the certain point I have conceded. However, if you look at the waists of those models, and I have looked at a good many, you will not see any ribs. Some of this is airbrushing or other photographic tricks, and some is the fact that the women have a thin layer of fat under their very smooth and flawless, glowing skin. This is one of the things that make their bodies attractive, and make men fantasize about caressing and fondling them, or doing much more than that. They also have curvy hips and asses and large, full breasts, which add immeasurably to their appeal. Under no circumstances could they be called thin, although "slender" would sometimes be an appropriate adjective for some centerfolds.

However, a slender waist, in itself, is no big deal to most men. A woman's waist is just the part of her torso that separates her more interesting parts. Above her waist are her breasts, although they would usually be called "tits" or similar slang term when they are on a centerfold. Below the waist are her pussy and ass. If her hips have a nice flare, and her ass has a nice "shelf", and if her tits are big and round and full, with prominent, erect nipples, men don't care how big her waist is.

Personally, I have never heard of a man seeking a life partner who resembles a survivor of Buchenwald. I have never heard of a man advising a woman to diet nearly to the point of starvation. I have never heard of a man encouraging a woman to vomit after eating, or to force undigested food through her colon by using strong laxatives. If anybody reading this knows of such a man, then maybe that person can tell me why men are so often blamed for anorexia in women or girls.

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Thank you for reading this rant. If you agree, or if you don't, I would appreciate reading your views on the subject.