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From:  "Caio Rossi" <caioross@z...>
"Caio Rossi" <caioross@z...>
Date:  Mon Feb 12, 2001  2:41 am
Subject:  OFF: WEIGHT CONTROL


Hi,

As a big coincidence, a local newspaper referred to this book last Thursday:
"The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession", by Harrison G.
Pope, Katharine Phillips and Roberto Olivardia ( Free Press, 288 pages, US $
25.00 ).

According to them, and translating what Contardo Calligaris says about the
book, in the last decades the body is becoming in charge of determining the
differences between male and female. You can't tell men from women for their
respective social functions anymore. Therefore, virility is expressed in a
strong and powerful ideal body.

Unfortunately, Calligaris continues, that ideal is harder to fulfill than any
complex examples of moral strength. Get a GI Joe doll's measures and calculate
what an adult would have to look like to be proportional to it. The doll he
used had the waist of Britney Spears and the biceps fourfold that of
Schwarzenegger's!!

Being a 'man' used to be an enigmatic and intricate spiritual ideal. Now, it's
an impossible body, and that's also valid for women ( he suggests that women do
the same thing with a Barbie doll ).

Most of those who declare not to be satisfied with their bodies say they try to
achieve the ideal in order to seduce women. Sistematically, although, tests
show that the male body that would drive women crazy is 10 kg ( about 20 pounds
) OF MUSCLES heavier than the one women actually apreciate.

He concludes saying that seduction is only an excuse. Men want to be impossibly
muscular not to conquer women, but to impress other men.Both for men and women,
the hope of being appealing to your the opposite sex is less determining than
being object of our fellows' envy.

Bye,

Caio Rossi






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