To Break Or Not Break the Internet

I knew the photos of Kim Kardashian for Paper Magazine had to be REALLY racy when MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ anchor Joe Scarborough and co-host Willie Geist sheepishly unfurled pages of the newspaper — daring to show Kardashian’s heavily oiled derriere on screen— while the nonplussed Mika Brzezinski just raised her eyebrows, giving the guys her ‘look’. Brzezinski is the perfect sexy brainiac foil to the testosterone-rich, guy-heavy ratings success story from 6am-9am weekdays. And ‘yes’ I am a regular viewer weekday mornings from 6am-9am, while updating AOC.

Perhaps my reaction to the Kim Kardashian Paper Magazine photos by French photographer Jean-Paul Goude is to be expected. I’m intrigued by those women especially who can just cut to the chase, articulating a response to the Kardashian images in a single summary, harsh comment on Twitter or web article.

After all, Kim Kardashian is a monster of a marketing machine in digital media. She has written the book on social media celebrity-making. And for all the accusations that Kim is trying to sell her Rizolli ‘selfies’ book, Elle reports that her free, ‘super addictive smartphone app Kim Kardashian: Hollywood raked in $43.4 million in the third quarter. Almost 23 million people have downloaded the app since its June 2014 release, playing it for more than 5.7 billion minutes.

For those who say that Kim Kardashian is the rare brainless brunette — a term typically reserved for blondes — Kardashian is far off her $200 million projections for year’s end revenues.

Indeed, the business woman has a business plan as well as a body. And this was the tenor of talk about the Paper magazine images on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry two-hour show on Saturday. Melissa delivered a blistering lecture to Lincoln University President Robert Jennings and his views on women students inciting sexual violence against them on the Lincoln University campus.

For the Paper cover, Goude re-created what is arguably his most famous shot, “Carolina Beaumont, New York, 1976” (above left). Often referred to as “Champagne Incident,” Goude’s picture is characteristic of the artist’s playful, winking approach to sexuality, writes 1stdibs.comAs for Kim Kardashian … well there was positive reinforcement for her Paper Magazine editorial and her marketing savvy all around the table. I’m sure Melissa — who is fearless in calling out acts of racism — knew that Kim Kardashian and husband Kanye West have been under the microscope for unknowingly involving themselves in a racist bit of black woman stereotyping in the hands of Jean-Paul Goude. Without accusing her of launching an attack, fingers point at Kim, accusing her of perpetuating negative, salacious myth of black women as savages from her rich, white woman perch.

It may be that the politically correct crowd is out in full force on this one. Or perhaps they are right in their accusations. As someone who believes that events are far more complex than the pc crowd would have us believe, I’m investigating and reading and researching before taking a firm position. That essay will come later in the week.

Anne’s Life Beliefs:

1. Humanity first began in Africa and then migrated across the globe.

2. Goddesses preceeded gods as the powerful forces of the universe, and monotheism’s one god. Monotheism finished off the goddesses for good.

3. Goddesses were frequently associated with procreation and fertility and those evolutionary beliefs are part of our DNA.

4. The earliest goddesses were most-likely dark-skinned and African. If that statement appears racist, there is nothing I can do about it.

5. Jung’s concept of the ‘collective unconscious’ is real. As humans we inherit a body of psychological, physical, social experiences in our unconscious minds. Fertility goddesses are embedded in our collective unconscoius minds, and they are not going anywhere.

6. Life provides us with teaching moments. Rather than verbally pummel Paper Magazine’s and also Refinery 29’s values with comments like this one from Katie, writing on Refinery 29:

I think perhaps what most people find disappointing in all of the posting about Kim Kardashian is because she doesn’t reflect what most of us would consider the values of a truly strong 21st century woman. R29, from what I can tell, values the forward thinking, independent, and stylish woman; someone who has a career, goals, and (gasp) orgasms. Kim is a mockery of all things that a female role model should be, and not because of her naked photos. Nudity isn’t even shocking anymore. What I’m basically saying is that we, as loyal readers, expect that the women and celebrities that R29 post about and celebrate is a reflection of the company’s values. Much like when there was an uproar over Vogue putting her on the cover because many felt that Kim didn’t reflect the ideal Vogue woman, I find myself resenting R29 for showcasing a woman who frankly defies many of the ideals R29 promotes (you know…like being an intelligent person who’s worth isn’t 100% defined by looks)

… could we talk about this topic and explore it from multiple angles? Note that Refinery 29 was taking heat for being the lead website writing and promoting the Paper magazine editorial. I admit to being astounded that Katie believes that Kim Kardashian is nothing but a high class porn star. It’s a bit like Victoria’s Secret’s Sophia Neophitou calling Kate Upton a footballer’s wife with a face anyone can buy.

Knowing that I want to write more on this topic and educate myself in the process, let me share some generally not-in-dispute discussions related to the Kim Kardashian Paper Magazine images and interview. YES, there is an interview!

Are Kim Kardashians’ Images Photoshopped?

Perhaps. But don’t go so quickly into digital-image altering anger mode, ladies. TMZ reports that the current ‘real-Kim’ images circulating around the Internet are fake.

USA Today asked cosmetic surgeons to weigh in and these are their responses. For $10,000 in Miami and a mere $5,000 in North Carolina, you could also have such a derriere.

“Without a doubt she had something done, probably two Brazilian butt lifts,” says John Zannis, head of the Zannis Center for Plastic Surgery in New Bern, N.C., who says Brazilians are increasingly popular and he does several every month.
It involves liposuctioning the torso, abdomen, flanks, love handles, back and lower back, then filtering and purifying the fat, then injecting it directly into the buttocks.
“Right into the the muscle,” he says. “You sculpt it. Mark it out so it doesn’t end up low and droopy…It’s completely round and firm and feels hard. And then softens up within a few weeks. Then it feels like a regular behind.”

Jim Wilson, a photo editor at USA TODAY, believes the images look manipulated.

“They’ve cut away a bunch of her real back (on the right side of her waist) and cloned in some of this backdrop,” he says.
He says it’s a “unicorn” picture: The top half is really her. “Then they took a picture of her butt up close and bigger,” he says. “Then they put the two together.”

Fitness expert Lani Muelrath reminds us that Kim Kardashian has a very long waist.

“She has many inches between her rib cage and her hips which gives her an exaggerated small waist and makes her hips and backside look bigger,” says Muelrath.

Neolithic Fertility Goddess

New York’s Met Museum Tweeted out their own contender for most beautiful butt in the universe, inviting the public to view their Neolithic female figure sculpted in the tradition of a person having steatopygia, a Greek word for a high degree of fat accumulation in and around the buttocks. The fat deposits are not confined to the gluteal regions, but extends to the outside and front of the thighs.

A genetic characteristic of certain peoples including the Khoisan peoples of southern Africa and some Bantu people, steatopygia was considered to be a sign of great beauty. From an anthropological viewpoint, it seems generally impossible to ignore the apparent similarities between Kim Kardashian’s derriere and ‘Venus’ figures discovered from Europe to Asia.

The Khosian and Bantu peoples are considered to be amont the most ancient of peoples, although the origin of humankind is believed to have occurred in and around the region of Lake Turkana, bordering northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. In the interests of clarity, even Wiki notes that Paleplithic Venus figurines an angle of approximately 120 degrees between the back and the buttocks, whereas steatopygia is diagnosed medically at an angle of about 90-degrees.

My first reaction to Kim’s pictures was that she is a modern-day fertility goddess. My view of Kardashian is unchanged after reading charges of racism against photographer Jean-Paul Goode.

Researching content for this article, I learn that a very pregnant Kim Kardashian has already been the subject of the controversy-courting sculptor Daniel Edwards. The artist’s life-size figure entitled ‘LA Fertility’ portrays the then 32-year-old reality star as a fertility goddess. The sculpture was intended to serve also as a commentary on the many unkind comments made to Kardashian concerning her pregnancy weight gain.

Irving Penn and Kim Kardashian

Renonwned photographer Irving Penn would have enjoyed photographing Kim Kardashian. Reflecting on Penn, Anna Wintour said the photographer “liked strong women, not waif”. I remember walking through Penn’s ‘Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn’s Nudes 1949-1950’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2002, looking at Penn’s robust nudes.

As to Penn’s love of strong women, ArtNews writes:

One day in the winter of 1947, Irving Penn, a promising young photographer, walked away from a dressing room full of slender, beautiful models and boarded a plane for Haiti. He was not unhappy with his job at Vogue, but he felt the need for some “real women in real circumstances,” as opposed to those “skinny girls with self-starved looks.” Setting aside the concerns of fashion, for a couple of days Penn roamed about the docks and mixed with the people of Port-au-Prince until his natural vitality had been restored and he felt reconnected with his essential self. Evidently the Caribbean cure worked, for within a few short months of his return, he created several disconcerting and novel still lifes, had met the love of his life, and had begun his most important personal work, a series of photographs of female nudes.

Irving Penn’s Nude No. 1, 1947, is charged with physical and sexual energy. The artist’s urge to embody fertility in the form of the female body is as old as the Venus of Willendorf, ca. 24,000–22,000 B.C.Whether Penn had seen images of the Willendorf figurines, he was in touch with the same instinct that called forth that vision of Venus from her Neolithic sculptor.

Penn channeled the mysterious, procreative power of the female body that has symbolized creativity since the dawn of art. The urge to embody the earth’s fertility, human conception, or any creative aspiration in the form of a female nude is a fundamental artistinct.

In the fullness of their bodies, the Willendorf Venus and Nude No. 1 are original sites of art, and to create them is to embrace life at its fullest, deepest, and most generative.

Waist/Hip Ratios, Fertility & Intelligence

Many evolutionary scientists believe that males are attracted to the hourglass figure — even if their eyes might first land on a woman’s bosom. These scientists argue that the male attraction to a larger female bottom has evolved over thousands of years, due to increased intelligence among women — and frequently their offspring — among women with a smaller ‘waist to hip ratio’ of about .7.

Omega-3 acids are essential for growth of the brain during pregnancy and are found in the fat around curvy hips and thighs. Omega-6 acids — commonly found in stomach fat — will drive the waist hip ratio higher and do not bear the benefits of omega-3 acids. NOTE: in our debate over size 0 models, the terms ‘curvy’ women has taken on a multitude of meanings. A woman with a 38” waist and 46” hips has a WHR (waist hip ratio) of .82, whereas a model with a 32” bust and a 23” waist has a WHR of .82.

What is relevant in the argument is one I wrote about years ago in discussing Beyonce’s bottom: an hourglass figure with a 27” waist and 39” hips (plus size and rather out of control by modeling industry standards) can very probably be healthy, fertile, intelligent and attractive to men.

As Psychology Today explains in this 2013 article, even prehistoric figures living in what probably were ice age conditions and represented by ancient sculptures featured in this article maintain the .7 ratio between waist and hips. Acknowledging that extra body fat was necessary to survive during these periods of extreme cold, evolutionary scientists argue that the association between WHR and fertility — along with intelligence as measured today — is embedded in our evolved minds.

In 2007 ABC News asked ‘Are Curvy Women More Intelligent?’

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California at Santa Barbara looked at data from a study of more than 16,000 women and girls from 1988 to 1994 that detailed their body measurements, as well as their education level and their scores on various cognitive tests.
What they report is that women with waists that were about 70 percent of the diameter of their hips scored slightly better on intelligence tests and tended to have a slightly higher level of education than women with a higher waist-to-hip ratio, or WHR.
The study was published in the Journal of Evolution and Human Behavior.
“Controlling for other correlates of cognitive ability, women with lower WHRs and their children have significantly higher cognitive test scores,” the study authors note in the article.
And the study authors also said that men, whether they know it or not, tend to prefer mates with a lower waist-to-hip ratio because of this advantage.

Since 2007 AnneofCarversville.com has told women’s stories “from fashion to flogging”. I continue to see huge intersections around the topics of body image, fashion models, religion, female sexuality — and yes, the flogging of 40,000 women a year in Sudan for inappropriate dress.

As I work on part 2 of this article, something tells me that my mind will be getting a workout this week. How wonderful! It’s been a long time since I wrote one of those essays that lasts for years. Until we meet again … ~ Anne