Half the time, I post because I'm slightly peeved. Today, it's because of censorship on Reddit. The following was a "Shower thought" post that got deleted:
I've never seen a man complain about a lack of plus sized male models.
This was removed by a moderator when it reached the front page of Showerthoughts, with 1104 upvotes. The post had a number of popular comments which were also deleted, apparently due to wrong-think. The following was one of them:
We claim women in magazines are "unobtainable beauty standards". Nobody cares that men have airbrushed abs in the same magazine. Nobody cares about the young men who are doing steroids to obtain these standards. They don't consider the whimpy kid with a healthy weight who feels inadequate because he's not ripped with a stone jaw. (Not to mention a 8 inch wang.) Because in our culture, a weak female ego is expected, but a weak male ego is pathetic. (/u/Snoozetrain)
Guess the reason moderators gave for these deletions.

Come on, guess.

"Removed for quality."


The comment I quoted is right. Here is some stereotypical female beauty – as curated by yours truly:



If anyone cares, the models are:
  • Saoli Sabatini;
  • Anjelica Ebbi (aka Krystal Boyd, and other names);
  • Scarlett Johansson;
  • Jana Bider.
I may only hope my wife will forgive me. ;) I include her to make a point. (Edit: She did. See below)

You don't need to be a professional to look like this. You don't even need Photoshop, or a decent photographer. (As it is plain to see, I'm not one.)

What you need is:
  1. Long flowing locks (optional).
  2. Botox.
  3. Do not stuff your mouth.
  4. Shave.
I cannot overstate item 3. Do not stuff your mouth. That's the most crucial.

If you're lucky like Jana, the "not stuffing your mouth" is easy. You just never have the urge to eat beyond what it takes to keep weight.

If you're less lucky – like me – you have to maintain a spreadsheet. I've kept a spreadsheet like this for 10 years. It's the best way I know to maintain muscle mass, and not get chubby.

If you're female, you don't need to focus on muscle mass. You don't need a spreadsheet. All you need is an app like MyFitnessPal. Possibly not even that. Possibly, all you need is to get used to the idea that most of the time, you need to be halfway hungry.

Now, that may seem cruel. Such harshness! Imposed on you by unfair cultural beauty standards! Who wants to be halfway hungry?

But this is not imposed by society. It is imposed by nature. If you're not halfway hungry, you're going to grow just slightly larger each year. In 10 years, you're going to start failing society's "cruel and unfair" beauty standards. In 20 years, you're going to be obese. In 30 years, you're going to have diabetes.

I almost got diabetes, from zero-calorie drinks. I can tell you, it's so much fun when you can't sit through a movie, because your bladder is too full and you need to pee. It gets so much more fun when you have to constantly prick your finger, and poke yourself with insulin. Despite your best efforts, you slowly go blind, and develop neuropathy, until one day your toes fall away.

So, let's recap. If you're a woman, society's beauty standards motivate you to not stuff your face. The payoff is that you look great, and you avoid diabetes.


Now, let us consider society's standards for men. From age six or so, these are the ideals of masculinity that I grew up with:


I think you recognize these men.

The last one is He-Man. It was a cartoon. For children. In case anyone wants to compare to Barbie.

Now, compare these übermensch to my following, paltry physique:


That's from 2013. It's the best pic I could make after seven years of moderate exercise and diet.

Then, there's Dan Bilzerian. Here's what I would have to do, in order to look like him:
  1. Awesome beard. Mine is just average.
  2. Every day, all day long – weight exercises and meat.
  3. Steroids.
  4. More exercises and meat.
  5. Cocaine.
  6. More steroids.
  7. Do you even lift?! Have more meat.
Beard and cocaine optional. None of the rest is.

My points are:
  • The male beauty ideal is at least as difficult to achieve as the female.
  • Stereotypes of male physiques are near-literal freaks, dedicating their lives to it.
  • Meeting the masculine stereotype requires enormous sacrifices in time, health, and effort.
There's no way you're going to meet the male stereotype unless you work out all day, eat meat all day, and let steroids kill your fertility and shrink your testes. Ironically – the male stereotype is impotent.

You meet the female stereotype by maintaining long hair; getting Botox twice a year; not stuffing your mouth; and treating yourself to manicures. Boob job is entirely optional – many men don't like it.

I appreciate everything my wife does to look good. However, it's not Schwarzenegger effort. She has time to do other things. She doesn't train all day. In fact – she does not train at all, other than chasing Aaron. She cooks; she's a wonderful mom; and plays WoW at a world-class level. Most women can look like this.

Most men cannot look like Schwarzenegger. That requires dedicating an entire life to it.

And not least – if we don't have one, there's no way to obtain an 8-inch dong. I wish!


Clarifications


Q. Did you actually not ask Jana before posting that pic? I can't wrap my mind around this!

I posted while she was asleep. So no – I didn't decide to wake her up for this. That's because I think I have a reasonable idea of what might be okay with my partner of 12 years. It seems that I wasn't far off. She appreciated I find her hot enough to brag, and was amused by the surprised responses.

You see – among other things; Jana and I are swingers. Sending naked photos to strangers is the first thing one gets used to, when participating in this. We have been naked online for – oh, about 11 years. After a decade of being "careful" – consider us tired of it.

The above is an example of our artful and more reserved pics. It's lingerie from Victoria's Secret. She even wears gloves! Every part of her body is dressed. It's more revealing when girls post snaps from the beach.

We have photos both hotter and more recent that would be unsuitable here. My mom also reads this. She's going to bitch as it is. :)

So, yeah. Deal with it. ;)