Racks and rakes

Hrmmm... that Pandagon thread. The boob one. I'm not linking, because it's a complete trainwreck already. I'm not going to address the original post besides "that article was obnoxious and unfunny", since the comment thread has gotten so far off track. I haven't even read the whole thing, and don't plan to.

But am I the only person thinking that people are getting the balance of appearance pressure on women all wrong?

I'm a busty girl, but I've only become so in the last few years. Before that I was a beanpole. And you know what that was like?

Pressure. Throughout my entire life, I can honestly say that the pressure I've been under to sport a huge pair of knockers is pretty minimal compared to the pressure I've been under to be thin. Skinny. Skinnier and skinnier, even.

Why are the women with implants being berated in a way that women who take drastic measures to be skinny aren't? I mean... there's this whole feminist rejection of fatphobia thing, but it's still not really considered OK in progressive circles to berate and shame people for taking extreme weight loss steps. Quite the contrary, in fact: on the blogs I read and the people I know in real life, there's a pretty heavy burden of "don't be an asshole about it".

Why? Is it because the women who take the extreme weight loss steps vastly outnumber those who shell out for breast implants? Is it because the pressure to be skinny comes from everywhere, while the pressure to be busty mostly comes from men and the media? Or is it because, despite everything we feminists say we think, we just can't stop associating boobs and sex like everyone else does?