Has anyone besides me noticed the strange things going on with the boobs of our nation’s mannequins? Aside from the problem that the vast majority of mannequins hover somewhere around a size 2 when the average woman in this country is a size 12, there is something amiss here. It seems these days that if a mannequin’s breasts haven’t been grotesquely enlarged, they have at least been adorned with conspicuously erect nipples.
If we must have fake plastic people in the form of mannequins and dolls, I’m all for anatomically correct representations of the human body, but these don’t strike me as such. I mean, I know most of us have nipples, and that most of them have the capability of becoming erect, but I also know that that isn’t their default state. It takes either cold or sexual arousal to create an erect nipple, and something tells me these clothing stores aren’t trying to create an association between their products and a brisk winter’s day.
Then there are the new mannequins with the ridiculously large breasts. The makers claim that these mannequins are hot sellers because of the growing number of women having breast augmentation and the resultant demand for clothing designed to fit a size 4 with 34 Z breasts or whatever the fuck these are.
Isn’t this a symptom of the fact that our perception of what a woman’s body ought to look like has gotten away from us? That mannequin on the left looks like a fucking anime character, not a human being. Mannequins are supposed to represent an ideal body type, which makes this trend quite troubling. It means that breast implants are becoming so commonplace that the general public no longer thinks it odd for a female mannequin to have breasts six times larger than those that nature could provide a woman with. It means that the “ideal” body type is no longer something that can be attained without surgery. It’s distressing to me that porn culture (which is the source of the breast implant craze) has seeped into the mainstream to such an extent that the average woman now apparently doesn’t do a double-take when presented with a representation of the human female body that is so distorted that it reminds one of science fiction.
In both the erect-nipple and the giant-boob incarnations, these mannequins are a representation of the fact that women’s bodies are, in all circumstances, to be seen as sexualized objects, and that mannequin makers have (probably correctly) surmised that women have internalized that idea to the point that they won’t demur when confronted with such oddities. Fucking sweet.
(This is kind of a silly aside, but what if some people in the future found these two sorts of mannequins and, knowing nothing of 21st-century American culture, attempted to construct some conception of our culture therefrom? I would really like it if people commented with what kinds of theories they think these future anthropologists would come up with.)
5 Comments
February 28, 2008 at 2:20 pm
From a history text, circa 2915, A.D.:
“These artifacts, which date back to early in the 21st century, expose the American culture’s motivation against women’s natural body shape. Unheard of in today’s society was then common place - for women to risk life and limb to augment and adorn their bodies in order to promote sexual arousal in the men. This disproportionate model of the feminine form was accepted and expected. As a result, the rate of women undergoing such procedures was as high as 40% at the height of the Anglo-American Patriarchal Empire. The 2619 Rebellion resulted in a sharp decline of patriarchal civilizations world-wide. Confronting the ideology behind this grotesque phenomenon was one of the main ideas of the Rebellion, which enabled all world citizens to begin to enjoy more freedom beginning with the ratification of the World Egalitarian Acts of 2620 and the fall of the Anglo-American Patriarchal Empire.”
Idealistic?
February 28, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Good one. I’d prefer to make that the 2015 Rebellion, but that might be wishful thinking. And we’ll have to get rid of more than just the Anglo-American Patriarchal Empire. Patriarchy existed in a lot of places before the spread of western imperialism.
February 29, 2008 at 10:31 am
[...] boobs get a worse rap than you think 29Feb08 Speaking of boobs, another blogger points out a an interesting evolution going on in the mannequin world: today’s mannequins have [...]
April 24, 2008 at 4:42 am
Yeah; a wishful thinker who prefers to hope for a reality in which she might not be bombarded with reasons why she is inferior to men (not that unreasonable, is it?) might hope for something a little sooner than 2619… but unfortunately present rates would deny that.
I’ve never seen mannequins like that. Most of the mannequins in the stores I go to don’t have heads or arms, or anything notable about their breasts…
August 20, 2008 at 9:04 pm
You know, nipples are a weird subject for me. Mine are crazy. All it takes is drinking a glass of cold water and they pop out. For the record, I love my boobs, they are a great size for my body, and I don’t feel the need to wear bras that have padding and push up features to enhance them. Just a soft cup, please…
My beef is this: Why am I shamed for letting my tits be who they want to be? My boobs get stared at, and I get made fun of when my headlights are on. By everyone. Men women, friends, and of course the disgusting ogling by strangers. I refuse to wear something that shapes my boobs into something they are not, when what I have is perfect.
I’m starting a revolution- NO SHAME IN NIPPLES. It’s not about a fashion choice to be “sexy,” it’s about changing people’s behavior towards nips. They’re natural, people, and they are not going way. Stop staring at them like you don’t know what they’re for.
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