Yea, I think she's pretty as well. If she is considered plus size by her modeling agency, and they want to hire her, then power to her!
At the same time however. "Plus" suggests above the socially normal amount of weight. To say that she is "plus" is to say that "normal" is something drastically beneath her, that we would have to subtract a fair bit from "plus" to get there.
Now, if I've had my head in the sand all of these years, and my fellow man would prefer something skinner than that, then in all honesty, it decreases the appeal of this society for me. If this is actually the image of beauty that is hegemonic, then I am simply so out of touch with the world, so distant from it, that I have no hope of connecting on any level with my fellow man and I earnestly desire to find a place that is different than this one.
I'm not saying that I want everyone in the world to like big girls, of course not. That's unrealistic. But I was under the impression that girls like Stephanie Shiu would be considered skinny and thus fit within the standard sex appeal, that girls with a bit more meat on their bones would be considered chubby and while an adverage person might consider dating them, they would prefer these people if they lost some weight, and I was under the impression that I was attracted to a category of people called "plus sized", or just plain fat, that most people do not have a taste for. And I thought that this is the world I live in, and to be honest, sure there are problems in this world, but I think fundamentally speaking, it is a "fine place and worth fighting for" to use Ernest Hemingway's words.
But if what I am seeing here is true, if woman like Stephanie Shiu are in that "plus" category that I am supposed to lust for, and that anything below her is considered desirable by the majority of people. Well then I am lost for words.
Now, while I wanted to use this model as a chance to spark a discussion over the sense of social alienation we feel from the societal norms presented to us, a thread that contains a picture of a beautiful woman should not be spent gripping over yet another absurd action of the fashion industry, so while I do want to discuss this, I also acknowledge that there should be more pictures. So without further adieu, here are some photos from her career as a plus sized model:
If a man on the corner of the street were to show me these photos and say "this is a beautiful woman" I woulc concur. If he were to say "This is a plus sized model, surely you are attracted to woman of this size", then I honestly can not imagine how I would react, because such a scenario seems absurd to me.