Skinny Women

I got the idea to write an essay in support of fashion magazines using skinnier-than-average women as models after reading yet another letter to the editor (of a fashion magazine) complaining about this practice as "unfair," because "the average woman in America is a size" whatever. It seemed a ridiculous and impractical suggestion, since the logical progression would mean crappy, two-step recipes in cooking magazines, cramped, dark houses with cheap, mismatched furniture in architectural magazines, and mediocre scores and players in sports magazines. The really funny thing is how no fashion magazine (while they all professed to love the idea,) dared to commission such an article, as they're already super-sensitive to the idea that they might be "promoting anorexia" simply by printing an endorsement to diet. And so I pitched it to Gear, a men's magazine, and they happily said yes. Needless to say, no one wrote in to complain, no one cancelled their subscription because of the piece, which meant a lot of women didn't read it.