Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    
    This story was also covered by our local radio in England. Is it true
    that US retailers want to sell it in brown bags as was reported here?
    
    Is the US really that prudish about the most natural thing in the
    world?
    
                    seals
    

        I saw the cover on the news last night.  You say it is
        the talk of the local AM talk shows...is it controversial?
        There was nothing objectionable, it was family oriented,
        and modest to the point of making one think about why the
        modesty was thought necessary.  Thinking about it now
        though the phrase "barefoot and pregnant" comes to mind.
        
        Dan

    The picture I saw, featuring her apparently nude, covering her breasts
    with her arms, was rather shocking, I thought. That is, when I saw it,
    I said to myself, "My God! Look at the size of her stomach!" ;-)
    
    And then I thought about how good the special effects people are these
    days. [Anybody remember the pregnant-Demi-in-the-bathtub from "The
    Seventh Seal"? Actually, I don't know whether that was a special effect
    or her real pregnancy, but I got the idea at the time that it was
    latex...] 
    
    Ah, well. As things-to-make-a-fuss-over go, this one's fairly benign,
    I'd say. (Come to think of it, the picture seemed to highlight her
    swollen belly so much that that was all that really hit the eye; could
    be titled, "A Pregnancy, accompanied by a woman".)
    
    -b

    
    I really thought it was a beautiful picture, and represented a good step
    forward in moving women from the situation of having to meet sexist,
    limiting, and largely sexual parameters to "look beautiful", to being
    beautiful as WOMEN. 
    
    
    Jamd

    Re:4 The movis was the 7th Sign... Great flick.... Watched it during
    a thunderstorm....
    
    REK
    
    Yes, talk shows are abound with rightous people.... I understand that
    the mag is in a plastic bag with a brown wrapper....
    
    Stupid.....

    
    	re: -1
    
    	Oh great, that blows my idea of checking out the cover.
    	While I don't read Vanity Fair, I would like to see the
    	pic.  I'm a big fan of Demi and it sounds like a very
    	tasteful picture from the replies in here......
    

    in re the Demi Moore picture, it is reproduced in the Boston
    Herald today on page 13.
    
    BJ

I think all preganant women look beautiful.  

(So do most non-pregnant women.)

I saw the cover on TV, and it looks totally non-objectionable to me. Not 
everybody shares my views, of course, but that is their problem. However, there 
will be some retailers who will put a cover over the cover. This is more of a 
marketing decision than a moral one, but the end result is the same. 

Bruce

semi-meaningful trivia...

in the "famous" picture of Natasia Kinsky, the one with her lying full
length with a large boa constrictor wrapped around her...she is pregnant.
Noticeably so.  Next time you see the picture, look at her distending
belly.

Truly beautiful.  I've always found pregnancy to be beautiful.

D!

    The pictures I saw on Entertainment Tonight were beautiful. She is
    beautiful, pregnant or not. Pregnant makes her moreso. Still not enough
    to get me to shell out for a magazine I don't normally buy.
    
    BTW, I own a copy of the 7th Seal and it is a good flic. Anyone who
    wants to borrow it, send mail. 
    
    PJ

    re. brown paper wrapper
    
    no, it's a partial white paper wrapper up to Ms. Moore's chin with big
    black letters saying 'MORE OF DEMI MOORE <mumble>' and the whole thing
    in sealed clear plastic.
    
    VF obviously planned ahead for the uproar and did two runs -- with
    wrappings and without.
    
    re. the photo[s]
    
    Demi Moore is a beautiful woman and Annie Lebowitz [sp?] is a stunning
    photographer.  The pictures are gorgeous.  I have no objections to the
    photos.  My first response was that I didn't like them so much as the
    Nastassia Kinsky w/boa, but stunning never-the-less.
    
    However, I believe that the incident [for lack of a better term] has a
    faint odour of exploitation.  Not because Ms. Moore is nude, certainly
    not because she is pregnant -- more because of the afore-mentioned
    wrapper with commentary and the hype it received prior to hitting the
    stands.
    
    On balance though, I like it.

    
    	In the category of "what's wrong with this picture" - 
    
    	"Entertainment Tonight" followed its segment on the Vanity Fair
    	cover with a promo for it's upcoming segment on swimwear - there
    	was more cleavage shown in the videos of micro-bikini clad models
    	than in the photos of Demi Moore.
    
    	I was particularly amused by the quote from one of models - "No, I
    	haven't tried swimming in one yet" (spoken in a doubtful tone).
    	clb

    I haven't seen the famous photo of Demi yet, but reading about it has
    made me wonder about a couple of things.
    
    1) If it is now considered attractive and acceptable for a
    conventionally beautiful, famous actress to be naked and pregnant, does
    that mean that average looking, normal women are, also, now considered
    to be attractive when they're pregnant?
    
    2) If a lot of people consider naked, pregnant bodies to be beautiful,
    then why don't most people seem to think that non-pregnant people who
    just happen to have fat, protruding stomachs look beautiful  naked?
    
    Or, do the people here who think that pregnant stomachs look beautiful
    also think that all fat naked stomachs look beautiful?  Or, is it the
    *idea* of someone being pregnant and having a baby (the beginning of
    life) inside their stomach that people think is beautiful rather than
    the actual physical appearance? 
    
    Does Demi Moore look beautiful when she's pregnant because she's
    pregnant, or because she's beautiful anyway, and we know that after the
    baby's born she'll be skinny again?
    
    Just wondering...
    
    Lorna
    

Good questions, Lorna, and I don't really know all the answers.

i do know that I find pregnancy beautiful in a way that I don't find bellies
distended with fat beautiful.  I am attracted to heavy women, but *in
proportion* - wide hips, big thighs, etc.  I don't find a big belly on
a thin legged, thin armed woman to be a attractive.  (Which isn't to say
I couldn't find such a woman attractive, just that that trait in particular
would not be attractive to me.)

So the *source* of the shape of the body has a lot of do with my attraction
to it.  Someone who looked pregnant would be physically attractive to me
until I found out she wasn't pregnant, and then she wouldn't.  I don't
know why this is - it certainly isn't because I love kids or anything. :-)
I think it is because it seems so natural.  Maybe it is because most of
the pregnant women I have found beautiful wanted to be pregnant, were
happy being pregnant and were radiant in their pregnancy.  The most beautiful
woman in the world is a happy woman and a woman who loves herself, regardless
of what she looks like.

Only two people I have ever been close to have been pregnant while I knew
them, and they were both extraordinarily happy to be pregnant and positively
*glowed* the whole time.  Perhaps I find pregnancy attractive because I
remember those two women.

Demi Moore, of course, would be beautiful having with a hang-over and dressed
in a burlap sack, so it is no surprise she is beautiful pregnant. However, my
attraction to pregnant women include *real* women, not just classical beauties.

D!

I think there is something innate in human nature that just makes preganant 
women look beautiful. (And most other women, too.)

Or maybe it's cultural? When I was growing up pregnant women were not considered
attractive, maternity clothes were designed to conceal swelling bellies, and
pregnancy was never mentioned in polite society. 

Bruce

    good questions Lorna.
    
    First let me say that I think the cover of Demi is GREAT!
    One of my girlfriends is pregnant and she is always feeling
    ugly.  Maybe this will help.  Actually though, I told her
    about it and she was depressed that she didn't look like Demi,
    so maybe it won't help.  Anyways I think it's a possitive step
    to society's thinking of pregnant women as beautiful, sexual
    beings, not asexual baby machines.
    
    I don't find fat to be beautiful.  Demi's stomach is hard looking
    not soft and full of cellulose.  I think Demi's stomach looks
    great because she's obviously taken care of herself and she looks
    healthy.  I don't think fat, including my fat, looks good because
    fat looks like someone hasn't taken care of themselves and isn't
    healthy.  
    
    Rachael Barlow

    In the movie the 7th sign with Moore and Michael Biehn (Terminator 1)
    Demi was truly pregnant for the bath scenes.  Most of the rest of the
    movie was filmed using whatever it is special effects folks use to
    make them look pregnant.
    
    When she first started filming the movie she was 8 months along and
    they shot all the "nude" scenes then.  She then had the baby and
    the rest was filmed after that.
    
    Great movie...I too own a copy if anyone wants to borrow it.
    
     
    
                                         L.J.
    
    rathole:  why is it that I, an athiest, love movies like the 7th sign
              and Jesus Christ Superstar?  :^)

    RE: Lorna
    
    According to the article I read, the publisher(?) of V.F said the pic
    (paraphrasing here) shows that a woman is "most beautiful" when she
    is pregnant".
    
    I detect a "back to the kitchen and bedroom" slant here, subtle tho' it
    may be.
    
    --DE
    

    
    Anyone know if VF is on sale in the UK?  I haven't seen one of these
    pictures yet and after reading all these I'm intrigued ...
    
    Sam
    

    re.18 Your faith is suspect >;-)

    re .18's rathole -- 
    
    the Force is strong in your family.

Re: .18

You just enjoy fantasy and fairy tales.

-bs

    
    re .0 
    
    bfd
    
    whocares? who even reads junk like that anyway

gotta admit, I don't give a hoot either

    Tempest in a teapot.  Although I have suspicions about whether VF
    thought they'd score a sensationalist coup, I was unimpressed one way
    or the other about the picture.  On the other hand, the picture inside
    tha mag, with Demi standing upright and draped in a length of fabric,
    is beautiful.  The artistic line of her pregnant belly and the drape,
    flowing into her leg, now *that* is *art*!
    
    -d

    I liked the photo on the cover and those inside as well.

    Mostly because Demi was very glamorous looking, terrific jewelry, good
    makeup job, looking like a star.  I hate hate hate pictures of pregnant
    woman and maternity clothes that make the woman look like she has no
    idea how she got pregnant.

    Demi was photographed as a grown woman, glamorous, luxuriously clad and
    bejeweled, sexual and lovely.
    
    The photography was by Annie Liebowitz, by the way.
    
       Margaret

    
    >luxuriously clad
               
    wasn't she nekkid ?

Evidently the photos inside the mag do include clothed shots as well, Robert.

I haven't been able to find the magazine locally yet, both bookstores had sold
out of it when I checked.

DougO

    
    
    	Heard on the radio this morning that stores (somewhere, I
    	don't remember where) have removed their copies of VF from
    	their shelves because it's 'indecent'.  Some speculated that
    	there wouldn't have been such rejection if she weren't pregnant.
    
    	sigh.....
    

    I THINK those stores were 3 grocery chains in NC, one of which is Food
    Lion.  I don't think those grocery chains carry any mags with bare
    females on the covers.
    
    ed

        >it's 'indecent'.  Some speculated that there wouldn't have been
        >such rejection if she weren't pregnant.
    
    Well, of course!  Flat bellies, (waiting to be made pregnant, no sign of any
    other guy having been there first!), and lips pouting at men are certainly 
    more "decent" [to the ones making the rules].  Demi's been "had",
    obviously, so she is of little sexual interest to men and hense, seems
    "indecent".  Now that there is visible proof of her sexuality, our
    society would be much more comfortable if she were more "modest",
    meaing, quiet about it.  Sexuality is supposed to belong to men alone.
    
        >I don't think those grocery chains carry any mags with bare females 
        >on the covers.
    
    I'd be willing to bet the rent they display the SI swimsuit mag 
    prominently.  But then again, even though that's the very next thing to 
    bare, more erotic than bare, actually, it depicts the woman with no 
    evidence of another man around, no sexuality of her own - a woman ripe for 
    men.  And that's ok.  You can't bare your breasts to feed your child 
    without a lot of societal fuss, but you can bare them on stage and shake
    them at men and that's simply "freedom of expression".  Men say that's ok 
    and will point to the constitution to quell any societal objection.  You 
    can't display your pregnant belly, but you can display your jutting 
    nipples.  Now I'd probably get flamed for drawing the conclusion that
    men are probably thinking of their own sexual interests when deciding 
    what is "moral" and what is "decent", what is protected and what is
    not.  But I can't believe anyone could actually miss that obvious
    conclusion unless their own sexual self interest compells them to turn a 
    blind eye.
    
    The picture is great if for no other reason than it exposes one's
    subconscious sexist attitudes.  We're looking at the reality of woman
    as opposed to the painted, poufed, propped and powdered fantasy we're 
    more used to seeing.  Now men get to find out if they like *women* or
    if they really like the props and symbols better.  What a question!  
    The fuss over such a straight-to-the-jugular question to men doesn't 
    surprise me.  Don't squirm or you'll give yourself away!
    
    Way to go, Demi.
    
    Sandy  

    
    And undoubtedly, it's the very people who bomb abortion clinics
    while carrying fetuses in jars trying to prove how sacred human 
    life is, who are having puritanical hissy fits over Demi Moore's 
    natural, pregnant, pro-life, bodily state.  It's commendable to 
    have a baby, as long as the process is hidden, and as long as
    you don't actually consider yourself beautiful, sexy, and proud
    during it.  Women who aren't meek and humble and laced with 
    shame frighten many.
    
    Carla
    

    I've now had an opportunity to see a reproduction of the cover picture
    which is under discussion.
    
    I don't particularly like it.  I don't believe that it is appropriate
    for a cover photo at all, and would prefer not to have to explain it to
    small children.  (I also am one who believes skin mags of all sorts
    belong behind the counter with a wrapper over it.)
    
    It has nothing to do with Demi being pregnant for me.  It has
    everything to do with nudity being private.
    
    Alison

    
    
    RE: .32
    
    
    > I'd be willing to bet the rent they display the SI swimsuit mag
    >    prominently. 
    
    Actually, I don't think I've ever seen the SI Swimsuit Issue
    "prominently displayed" at a grocery store.  I know that I've found it
    in the back aisles where they keep the lower-volume mags....but then
    usually stuffed in amongst 100s of other mags.
    
    I can't see an SI Swimsuit Issue being a big seller in a grocery store
    (especially considering that most grocery stores cater to the women's
    audience at their checkout lines...which is, of course, another note
    entirely).
    
    Why is it so important, I wonder, to cast blame on WHY these grocery
    stores decided to pull this issue from it's shelves?  I haven't seen
    the cover, but from what I understand, she was nude.  Most grocery
    stores don't stock mags with nude women.....IRREGARDLESS of whether the
    woman is pregnant or not.  
    
    Why is this situation any different?  First I hear claims that nudity
    is pornography and that it's bad and that it should be banned from the
    shelves of all but adult bookstores..............now I'm seeing that
    just because Demi is pregnant, her nude body should all of a sudden be
    exempt to the previous claims.
    
    I'm confused.  Nudity is nudity.  Rules are rules.  Why do I feel like
    I'm reading mixed messages from people?
    
    kathy
    

    The Star (I think?) grocery store in Stow had the Demi Moore VF but
    with the plain cover over it.  (I've also seen SI Swimsuit issue
    there...I know I thumbed through it while in line.)  I thought about
    buying it out of curiosity when I saw, but didn't and now it's sold
    out.  So, now, of course, I wish I had bought it!  :-)
    
    re .32, Sandy, I really get a kick out of the way you say things.  I
    think you made some excellent points in this reply!  
    
    Lorna
    

    The magazine is sold in a plastic wrapper that has a large piece of
    paper over the cover.  No matter how you jiggle the wrapper, nothing
    is visible except the outer edges of the cover and the title of the
    magazine.  In other words, you have to buy it to see it or simply rip
    off the plastic.
    
    The cover photo is in profile, her hand and arm cover most of  her
    breasts.  (Certainly less of her breasts are visible than would be
    shown on a Cosmo cover for example.)  Her backside is visible, but only
    in profile.  I've seen swimsuit covers that show about the same amount
    of skin, except this time, you know there is no bikini.
    
    Basically, it is a photo of a very pregnant stomach.  Inside photos
    show her cuddling (fully clothed and on a beach) with her husband,
    wearing a green dressing gown that is open to show her stomach and one
    leg, and another nude photo.  I don't have the magazine with me to
    describe all the shots.  But IMHO, it is NOT porn, it is beautiful.

    Kath, I don't know which grocery stores you frequent. I have seen SI
    swimsuit issues in all the stores I have been to. IMO, the cosmopolitan
    covers are a close competion to SI swimsuit issues. And all grocery
    stores have them too.
    
    manisha 

    
    
    Yea, Cosmo is one of those weird mags...they pretend like they cater to
    women, but really more men purchase it than women.
    
    kath

    Well, Cosmo is next to every check-out lane but one at the Shop & Save
    [formerly Alexanders] at Post Road Plaza in Merrimack, NH.  Right up
    there with the Enquirer, the Star, Self, Modern Bride, People, Woman's
    Day, Yankee, Soap Opera Digest and others at random.
    
    Life made it to the check-out lanes when it had a woman in a brassiere
    on the cover masquerading as an historical anniversary. Also, there
    have been photo essay issues of various publications covering returning
    soldiers.
    
    I didn't find VF next to the check-out lanes; but weird of weird, it
    was next to the register at a Mobil station with other 'wrapped'
    publications of the usual sort.

Re: SI swimsuit issue and Cosmo

Yes, grocery stores do have these mags -- ya gotta remember, folx, that
these mags are not for the kind of people who read VF.

$ SET NOTE/MODE=OPINION

SI is basically for men and for the apparently small subset of women
who are into the same sorts of jock stuff.  I do not personally know a
woman who reads SI, although I am sure there are some who do.  The
swimsuit issue panders to voyeurism, mostly but not exclusively that of
men; women who read it seem to be doing so to get ideas about swimsuits
they can wear to look sexy.

Cosmo is intended for women who want to be sexy and attractive to men 
(just read the titles of their articles to see this editorial aim).

VF is intended for people interested in prominent figures and in the
"society" sort of thing -- clearly, it is not going to appeal to the
type of male who is your usual supermarket manager.  Lacking the
necessary appeal, it can easily be targeted as "obscene."  Delightful
scapegoat, that, serving as it does to make the complainers appear
moral and upright.  To me they look stupid.

-d

             <<< IKE22::$3$DIA5:[NOTESFILES]WOMANNOTES-V3.NOTE;1 >>>
                        -< Topics of Interest to Women >-
================================================================================
Note 909.32       Vanity Fair Cover - Demi Moore pregnant photo         32 of 39
TALLIS::TORNELL                                      41 lines  16-JUL-1991 10:39
                    -< It separates the men from the boys. >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 >> We're looking at the reality of woman
    as opposed to the painted, poufed, propped and powdered fantasy we're 
    more used to seeing.<<



The photo I saw of of Mz. Moore sure as hell looked "painted, poufed and
propped and powdered. I could find not one blemish on her skin or any sign
of stretch marks. 

    Because the real thing, with *none* of the accompanying mail-aimed
    symbols we've come to expect would be just too "horrendous" or too 
    "obscene" for any store to be willing to display it.  You won't see the 
    varicose veins, the hemorrhoids, the vomiting, the water breaking, etc.  
    This picture is a transitional one.  It eases us into the acceptance of 
    its subject by making sure that some of the requisite male-aimed symbols 
    are there.  Annie Liebowitz is no fool!
    
    But even though these concessions were made to "society", (men), to make 
    it more palatable, it is still far more real than the Cosmo covers which 
    are 99 and 44/100's percent fantasy.  The realness of her pregnant belly 
    is *still* the most obvious feature where in the other rags, the props are 
    the most obvious and the most important and the woman herself, the mere 
    "platform" for all these props, is the least important part.
    
    It doesn't matter to whom individual magazines cater.  The point is
    that a picture of a woman planned and shot with a "come-on" mood for
    men is ok for display in the local grocery store, but a picture of a woman
    shot with a "thanx, I needed that!" mood is going to raise a few hackles.  
    Cause a "hissy fit" as Carla said.  Perfect expression! 
    
    Sandy

I saw the cover in the King Soopers checkout line last night. Someone had been
so kind as to remove the white insert. What's funny is that I'd never seen VF
in the checkout line before and I shop at Soopers all the time. Must have been
a special purchase. liesl

    
    I saw the Demi cover this morning in the newsagents at the
    train station.
    
    No cover-up, no special wrapping, no comment and no problem.
    Haven't heard a peep about it over here.
    
    'gail
    
    

    
    The VF cover also appears in this week's Newsweek (near the back)
    
    Carol

    
    I was in Bergeson's in Acton buying a cup of coffee this weekend when I
    overheard two elderly women talking. One was telling the other that her
    husband saw the cover of VF and said "Now I know what you looked like
    when you were pregnant!"...
    
    I personally haven't seen the cover, but my Fiance has and he thinks
    Demi Moore looks as stunning, as she did in the movie `7th Sign'.  He
    thinks all pregnant woman are just like a beautiful piece of art!  I
    agree.
    
    Donna

>He
>    thinks all pregnant woman are just like a beautiful piece of art!  I
>    agree.

I think the human body is a beautiful piece of art, in whatever state it
appears (except, perhaps, dead.)

D!

    re:  -1
    
    Caution young Will Robinson, you may have insulted a few necrophilic's
    out there.  ;^)
    
    Kelster

	re: .43 (Sandy Ciccolini)

	> It eases us into the acceptance of its subject by making sure 
	> that some of the requisite male-aimed symbols are there.  

	Absolutely.  Sandy just described one example of the term
	"trimtabbing" (as it's applied to activism), i.e., pushing at
	the boundaries of what society finds acceptable.  

	I originally read of this while vacationing in Florida in an
	article about Teresa Fischette, the Continental airlines 
	employee who refused to wear make-up.  The point of the 
	paragraph was that *requiring* a female employee to wear makeup
	is now found unacceptable by a critical mass of our society.

	I'll see if I can dig up the original and post it.

						nancy b.

	p.s.  I believe it said the term originally meant steering
	      a big ship with a small rudder
    

    I know this is old, but I have to share my 2 cents!
    
    When I first heard about this photo I thought it was in poor taste. 
    But then I thought that it was good that pregnancy was 'coming out of the
    closet'.  But when I saw the photo I was a little sad. Sad because 
    women are bombarded with the 'perfect' feminine images, how to look,
    how thin to be etc and I thought it was sad that there were no flaws,
    not one protruding vein or stretch mark. Now there is a new image that
    says, 'well, if you *must* get pregnant, please look like this!'.
    
    Hannah