Absolutely Furious

American Apparel apparently has absolutely no qualms objectifying women...or men. In a new contest on their website, women and men are asked to submit a picture of their butt wearing only underwear. In the contest, people can then rate the submissions with "the best butt". Although the winner is picked by the staff in the end, there is still this idea of a rating system. Two winners, one male, and one female, will be lucky enough to be flown to L.A., where they will be photographed and be the next "butt" models for American Apparel. The rating system is in place to decide the best ten butts who will each receive a gift bag of AA goodies valued at $300.00!!

In terms of rating, right now, the top two "butts" are: (SucreRoux (Left) and Maria (Right))
                                       

Maria tops out the chart at a 4.19/5 whereas SucreRoux remains strong at3.95/5.

Do women have better butts than men!? The whole foundation upon which I built my world has been cracked!

                                        
So there it is, another corporation creating that standard of beauty, or are they? Are they merely finding out what the public decides to be the standard of beauty for men and women. I feel that it is the first one. They are telling people that only certain women or men are worthy of being their models. One really has to wonder whether or not any of their employees (aside from their models) fit this "standard" that is constantly created and reinforced by corporations as well as the public.

This is exactly the problem, particularly with westernized societies. All of the advertising (aside from a select few campaigns) create a standard of beauty that is relatively unattainable by a majority of society. Well, it can most certainly be attained, but with a LOT of work. Sometimes more work than it's worth.

Just try to imagine a world where people were happy with their bodies and didn't feel the need to "perfect" their bodies, since there would be no "perfect" body.

Oh what a wonderful world that would be...

What really makes me mad about this whole contest is not so much the contest itself (granted if there was no contest, my anger wouldn't exist either) but the comments on the pictures that people post. One girl in the top ten female butts has over 150 comments. Some of these comments include:

(She listed L.A. as her hometown) "You can definitely see why it's called the city of angels!"
(Or, sticking with the religious theme) "The face of god.!!!"
"that is one FINE piece of american apparel ass! hubba hubba wowza weeeeee!!!" (pardon the swear)

It's these objectifying comments that really infuriate me, for it is these comments that create the standard or what is desired. How many girls would have a butt like this? Probably not many. My estimate would lie around 1 out of every 100 girls, maybe? Either way, it's an incredibly small amount. Regardless of the number, it shouldn't matter what your butt looks like!

Apparently there is a "best butt" on the face of the planet and American Apparel is set out to find it!

Just remember, men and women, it shouldn't matter what you look like, you're all beautiful just the way you are!