Maybe I’m Not As Shameless As I Thought

Anyone who has known me for longer than five minutes has most likely heard me say “I am completely shameless when it comes to promoting a good cause” or something very similar.  And it’s true, I am.  If I want your money to go somewhere, I will walk right up to you and ask you to send it there.

Like right here, where I’m saying you should go donate to my fundraiser for the American Lung Cancer Partnership.

See?

When you have something the very survival of which demands attention being called to it, if you don’t do it, no one will.  And I have learned over the years that one of the best ways to be as shameless as is necessary to market effectively, without turning people off, is to not even pretend you aren’t behaving like an attention whore.  Embrace your shamelessness.  Flaunt it.  Turn it into an asset.  Make it so shameless it’s funny.

I have some friends over on Facebook who market their modeling pages with posts along the lines of “You should go like my page, then tell all your friends to like my page, for no better reason than there are boobs.  Huge boobs.  Boobs just for you and your friends, over on my page, just go like it”.   That’s the right kind of shameless.  Self-deprecating boob-intensive marketing shamelessness.  And it works.  Because it’s so shameless it’s funny.

However, today I was on the receiving end of a completely different type of shamelessness, and I have to say I found it a bit offensive.

Over on another social networking site, I received a friend request from someone whose name I recognized and work I am vaguely familiar with.  I assumed it had been sent because this person also was vaguely familiar with my work, so I accepted the request and followed up with my usual “Hi, nice to meet you!” comment on that person’s profile.  The response I got to that comment?

“Go like my Facebook page!”

Um... wow, really?

I might have let it go, and not let it drive me into a fit of enraged blogging, had it been left at that.  It was not.  Following that comment was a message from this person, asking for me to go vote for a photo they had entered in a contest.

A contest in which I also have a photo entered.  A photo it never even occurred to me to go around asking random people with whom I have no previous connection to go vote for.  A photo this person seems to have completely overlooked in their quest to garner votes from complete strangers.  And not once in this entire exchange was there any mention of boobs.

This person may in fact be a really nice person, and not have any clue how offensive this whole thing was, but you don’t just walk up to people you don’t know and start asking for things, that is just not the way it’s done.

Or is it?  Is that the way it’s done now?  Am I really old-fashioned, to think there should be some sort of connection, or at least hint of reciprocity, before you start asking for favors?

There should at least be some mention of boobs, right?

(Seriously though, you should go like Naomi VonKreeps and Veronica Virgo.  For the boobs.)

Freakish! Shocking! And, oddly enough, A Crock of Crap!

Along my Facebook travels the other day, I happened across a photo and article posted by a woman who has quite a knack for posting things that will start discussions.  This post was no exception.  It was about a Romanian model named Ioana Spangenberg, her “freakish” figure and “shockingly” small waist.  According to the article, Spangenberg’s freakishly shocking measurements are a 20” waist and 32” hips.  And this is the photo circulating with the article:

The comments on FB ranged, predictably, from “eww OMG gross!” to “everyone is beautiful in their own way and you’re going to Hell if you think otherwise”.  I couldn’t even get to that part of the discussion.  Because I couldn’t get past my disbelief that people were A) accepting those numbers without question, and B) accepting them as shocking and freakish, also without question.

My contribution to the discussion consisted of pointing out that, in order for the photo in question to be showing a woman with a 20” waist above 32” hips, those numbers would translate to a flat 10” over 16”, and her hips in the photo would only be wider by 3” than her waist on either side.

My contribution to the discussion was resoundingly ignored as people carried on with their OMG-gross-ing and you’re-going-to-Hell-ing.  So, for those of you who think common sense and math are tools The Man is using to keep The People down, I will revert to what The People seem more receptive to believing: pictures.

The dashes are the same size font.  If the numbers in the article were accurate, the 10 dashes at her waistline would line up with her actual waistline, wouldn’t they?

I posted this line of reasoning on my own FB page, along with the photo below as a basis for comparison, taken of me when I first started modeling back in the late 80’s and I too had freakish and shocking measurements of a 20” waist and 32” hips.  Except where I come from, that’s not called “freakish and shocking”.  It’s called “your dad’s people were a bunch of short large-assed tiny-waisted Italian women”.

The comments that photo received were all extremely flattering, along the lines of my shape looking more natural and being more attractive, and before I continue, I would just like to say thank you.  Seriously.  How much you all love my ass means the world to me.  So thank you very very much and, in case you didn’t know, there is a black & white graphic of that photo available as a poster in my shop.  Just sayin’.

However, flattering as those comments were, the comparison I was trying to make wasn’t between what’s attractive and what isn’t, or even between my late 80’s body and Spangenberg’s body.  The point I wanted to make was two-fold.  First, a 20” waist is hardly freakish, nor are 32” hips.  Second, there is just no way the article’s numbers matched the article’s photo, and it didn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure it out.  Simple arithmetic and a dash of common sense are all that’s required to spot that, if you’re willing to look.

The photo of Spangenberg being circulated is one where her waist is cinched.  There’s nothing wrong with that, if she wants to do it.  There’s also nothing wrong with a newspaper reporting that Spangenberg is able to cinch her waist down to a “shocking” mere 14” or 15”, which is my guess as to about what’s shown in that photo.  That is definitely unusual, because when I had that waistline, I could only cinch it down to about 18”, there was just nothing more to pull in.  So that’s impressive, and worth some ink on an otherwise slow news day.

But to quote the great Judith Sheindlin, don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.  Don’t tell me smaller than average measurements are freakish and shocking, and don’t tell me I’m looking at something that I can easily figure out is not what I’m looking at.  And next time you see something like this, please take a minute to question what you’re looking at, and compare it to what you’re being told you’re looking at.  Maybe if we all start calling bullshit often and loudly enough, people will stop trying to feed it to us.

Hot Woman with Great Boobs Needs Your Help

Veronica Virgo, contributor to the first issue of The Poetic Pinup Revue and all-around stellar human being, needs our help.  She has a photo entered in a contest to win a shoot with Roy Varga.  The winner of the contest will be determined by the number AND QUALITY of persuasive comments left on each photo.

This is Veronica

This is what she has to say about the contest: 

"I'm BROKE! I'd love to win some free photos! You don't have to vote for me, but please vote for someone! There are LOTS of deserving ladies!"

See, that right there is indicative of why she deserves to win.  Even when she's trying to garner votes for herself, she acknowledges that she is not the only vote-worthy option and is supportive of the entire contest.

Here's what I had to say:

"There is not enough room on FB for all the reasons I think Veronica should win. There may not even be enough room on the Internet. But I will try. Yes, she has beautiful eyes, fantastic boobs, and a smile that could light up a small country, but it's when you look past those things that you really find what makes her as special as she is; the warmth, the humor, the strength, the grace, the very rare and very real human being that she is. If Jane Russell, Grace Kelly, Indira Ghandi and Mae West each threw a dash of DNA in a test tube which was then left in the thick of a wild rose bramble to develop with nothing more than its wits and the occasional spring rainfall to help it along, the end result would be something very like Veronica Virgo. This is a woman who either needs to be cloned numerous times or captured on film as often as possible, it's the only way for there to ever be enough of her to go around."

And I meant every word of it.

Support the arts, the boobs, and the broke pinups.  Please go HERE, like the photo and say something nice about why you think she deserves to win.

Then go HERE and like her page.

Then, while you're clicking links anyway, you may as well go HERE and pick up a copy of that magazine she's in...

The Poetic Pinup Revue - Simply Artful. And Really Frikkin' Exciting

Yes, it's here.  The first issue of The Poetic Pinup Revue is now in our hands, still warm from the printer's warehouse, and ready to ship.

Go here to read all about it, order & subscribe.