Large breasts, thin waists, ripped muscles and 6-pack abs. Despite knowing better, most people still hold these visual ideals as the gold standards for how humans should look to be the most desirable. Besides being unhealthy and unrealistic, though, are we also ignoring our own more genuine feelings of desire, towards the real-life bodies we're _not_ being told to like?
A few weeks ago my significant other told me about her crush on the actor Henry Cavill. She said that if he asked her out, she'd "break up with" me. I really didn't like that, and a mini fight ensued. Her insistance that he was simply more attractive than me was something I just wasn't cool with. According to her and the internet - Reddit, specifically - I was being silly and hypersensitive. In the end I caved, tried to make a lighthearted comment about whatever actress. I think I chose Aubrey Plaza.
A couple weeks went on before the subject came up again. I'll confess, I'd been looking at pictures of Henry Cavill. At some point in the conversation I asked if she liked his abs, and if she'd like it if I had abs like that. "Oh yeah", she said, emphatically. Then I asked the question I regret; "Are my abs good enough?". Her response really got to me. She laughed. She _laughed_ and said "Honey, you do _not_ have abs.". I was upset, moved away from her, and furtively put my shirt back on. Before I'd said a word she was already yelling at me that I was overreacting.
The rest of the conversation was pretty dramatic, because it didn't stop there. It wasn't just my (way too common) fixation on my lack of visible abs, it was an overarching problem with my general self-image that went back to childhood. Like everything else, I connected the immediate to the big picture. She's not like me that way. Her focus stays contained, and shes fine with the idea that she should be seen as less attractive to me than images I consume of famous actresses. But like her lusting for Cavill, I find that idea to be bullshit.
She agreed in the end that we'd stop with the comparisons of me to him, or other celebrities. I'd been trying to go along with it, but in the end it just didn't feel right.
Every day pop media shows us glorified images of bodies that are exaggerated, distorted and even synthetic. These humans' appearances are more products than people. They are the result of extreme measures to shape them, ranging from live-in personal trainers to CGI body shaping to abdominal muscle implants (yes).
Logically, I would say that the healthiest bodies should be considred the most beautiful. There are two places to look for that, often aligned; medicine and sports. But looking at images of high performing athletes, you will rarely see a 6-pack.