Models and Body Types - On DU?
For the most part, fashion models are exceptional body types. Not exceptional as in extraordinarily desirable or extraordinarily typical. They're exceptional in the sense that they are an exception to the norm. Very exceptional, actually.
That the ultra slender human female body has become an ipso facto standard of beauty is also extraordinary. Extraordinary in the same sense. As an exception to the norm, it's an odd standard of beauty, indeed. An unattainable standard in most cases, since only a tiny percentage of women look that way.
Yet, that is the image displayed in the pages of Glamour and Vogue and even on the cover of Sports Illustrated when that publication attempts to show scantily-dressed women in order to boost subscriptions.
I sort of remember some slender teenage girls with that sort of body type, way back when I was also a teenager. At least I guess they might have looked something like those models, had I ever seen any of them unclothed. My own girlfriend did not have that body type, nor have any of the other women I have loved in my 68 years. I've seen some women with that body type from time to time, here and there, but have not formed relationships with any of them.
And yet, that exceptional body type is what is held out to us as a standard of beauty. It's held out as that to men, and to women as well. That is what someone supposes we should look like, or should strive to look like. But, that's not what women look like, except for a rare few for a few years of their lives, if they work very hard at maintaining that look.
I reject that look as the standard. It's far from standard. It's not even attainable, except for a very few people. I don't see it as desirable, even for those few, frankly. It speaks of deprivation and straining for something that isn't natural. It isn't attractive to me, because it's artificial.
And now, on DU, we're having a gender war over atypical body types being displayed on a magazine cover. Isn't that silly I'll wager that roughly none of the women who are on DU look like those models, and would be willing to bet a fairly large sum. Similarly, I'll wager that approximately none of the men on DU look like the male models and sports figures we see from time to time in publications.
As DUers, we look like a lot of things, I have no doubt. We probably run the gamut of human appearance, but vanishingly few of us resemble anyone who would be on a magazine cover. I've seen myself in a mirror, naked, and I can say most definitely that I would not be suitable for any magazine cover. And yet, I am loved and desired by someone, who also would be any unlikely photo on a magazine cover.
But who cares, really? It is not in physical appearance where we measure the attractiveness of those we love, in most cases. It's somewhere else. To me, all of the women I have loved in my life have been beautiful. Others might differ, but that's of no matter. And I suppose they've found me attractive, as unlikely as that seems to me.
On DU, we have no bodies or even faces, for the most part. Much of the time, I don't even know what sex or gender is represented by the average screen name here. So, I can't take part in any sort of gender war here. I'm here to discuss politics, not to find life or other partners. I don't put images of people in my mind when I see screen names here. I think of DUers in terms of the words that they write, and in those terms only.
Can we do that please? Can we discuss politics, please? I'd like that.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I've grown attached to it. 
Some people use the term informally to mean all humans and relatives of humans closer than Chimapanzee, but modern humans are the only extant species in such a small group. 
IN other words, humans ARE among the Great Apes, but the group you specify would be a sub-group of the Great Apes. The term "Great Apes" is sometimes used imformally to exclude humans, but taxonomically, that is incorrect, since in fact Chimpanzees and Bonobos are more closely related to humans than they are to Orangutans.
Yes, indeed! 
in both SI & Vogue or any other beauty-driven magazine, don't look like they appear on/in the magazines. They're photoshopped within an inch of their lives so it's a false sense of beauty people are attracted/drawn to. And that sir, Mineral Man, is the crux of body politics. 
