My dear Amerigo,

She is CLEARLY modeling a G-String.

I guess you were distracted by the belly roll.

My dear lady,

I suggest you look at the photograph again. The G-String she is supposedly modeling is practically invisible, being submerged in the rolls of lipid-rich tissue around her hips. In any case, in this photo it does not look as if she is modeling anything. More like she is on a break between shots in her skivvies.

The thing that so many, especially dear ladies, fail to note is that a clotheshorse is not the same thing as a pin-up. One is good for displaying clothes, the other for providing sexual fantasies for single men (and maybe some women).

Men and women have completely different ideas of what constitutes an attractive women, because they are using diffent yardsticks. To men attractive women are those who they think would be good sex partners. To women attractive women are those who have expensive haircuts and lots of shiny jewelry.

Hence for most women, Princess Diana was the ideal, a mousy shapeless female who spent a royal fortune on everything from dentistry to couture. For most men, the ideal is more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVtImnaKjOg

I'd kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe

[Elizabeth Hurley]

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/elizabeth_hurley.html

Monroe probably had different weights at different times of her life and no doubt slimmed down when she was filming. With the PR machine that movie studios had, you would never get the truth of the matter.

Her face looks rather full in some photos I have seen, but maybe I am wrong.

... condoms for blow jobs? Possibly they could get around the problem by having advertising slogans printed on the condoms to make up for lost revenue.

The overwhelmingly scrawny models you see in magazines and runways look good? In order for the Glamour model in this photo to look like them she would have to lose 60 lbs. These girls are emaciated and many are not even out of adolescence. Half the time, it looks like the art director is pulling a joke on the readers the appearance is so odd.

Knobby knees and jutting clavicles don't look pretty.

No, I agree. Victoria Beckham looks like shit from my point of view (heterosexual male), but then her function is to be a clotheshorse, not a sexual fantasy for me, and generally the media seem to comment on what she is wearing more than on her emaciated carcass.

Last week I weighed myself and was the heaviest I have ever been, which was 215 lbs at 6ft 1", which is gross, so I need to go to the gym and stop putting coconut milk on my cornflakes. However I am not a model.

From the point of view of sexual attraction, like most men, I imagine, I prefer a woman to be well proportioned. The photograph of the plus-size model reveals her to be a very attractive woman (actually the type I would date as I like tall women, though I don't think that the angle of the photograph displays her attributes very well (again speaking from the point of view of a heterosexual male.)

There ain't a thing that's wrong with any man here

That can't be cured by pullin' him near

A girly, womanly, female, feminine dame! [Oscar Hammerstein]

I imagine that women prefer the same of a man.

Marily Monroe was a fairly chunky lady, but she was a movie star and had a considerable screen presence, which is probably why she was marketed as a sex symbol. Purely from the point of view of attractiveness, I think this model probably has her beat.

... is that skinny models are hired because they make the clothes look better in photographs, not because clothing companies want to make normal women feel bad. The subliminal message, such as it is, is that if you buy our clothes, then you will look like a million dollars.

If you pick up medical uniforms catalogues, you can see some chunkier women, likewise in the pictures displayed in Wal-Mart, but the clothes look kind of clunky too, like home snapshots.

The woman who is the subject of the article is rather heftier than your usual model, but she would probably be hired to model plus size clothing.

The question here is why is she posing near-nude in Glamour. Is she modeling panties?

Will we ever see pin-ups modeling their sexual charms who have stretch marks on their bellies? The answer is obviously no, because you don't look sexy by reminding the viewer that you have already born children for someone else. This doesn't mean that average women don't have hubbies and lovers who find them attractive, but it is just a fact of life of the world of public body display.

... the women who most resemble men have the best chance of winning many events, so those women who have hormonal or anatomical abnormalities are quite likely to become world champions.

But this doesn't mean that most girls can't enjoy participating in recreational sports.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208759/Dad-teen-drink-related-illness-faces-legal-battle-son-life-saving-liver-transplant.html

... in my opinion there is nothing wrong with the NHS, as stated by many people who have used both systems.

But do we need a public option here in the US?

Well, I'm not an expert on financing, but if we leave it in the hands of the insurance companies we need:

1. An end to "pre-existing conditions".

2. An end to "co-pays".

3. Standardized policies that cover everything including lab work, radiography reads, and everything else.

4. Comprehensive coverage for mental health.

5. Reasonable co-pays for all generic drugs.

6. Incentives for physicians to promote weight loss, smoking cessation, and other preventive programs.

So maybe we should start with what we want and figure out how to get it, instead of starting with the method of financing.