The real reason the feminist censors hate THAT poster

Well I guess the feminist groups must be happy. A commercial for some kind of protein shake has been suspended by the ASA following complaints.

Its hard to say what is actually wrong with the poster, which features an attractive lady and the slogan: "Are you beach body ready?”. There’s no swearing, no abuse or hate of any kind and no nudity (unless you count a swimsuit as too revealing).

The one and only criticism from the censor brigade is that the poster promotes “poor body images”, or “body shaming”.  This is the kind of lexicon I first encountered in my communication with Endangered Bodies. It’s such a vacuum of logic that it’s hard to know where to start dealing with it. It’s as if I’m a lawyer trying to respond to the Chewbacca defence.

On the one hand, I’m inclined to go down the road of comedian Andrew Lawrence.

'Body confident', 'Plus size' ,'Big & beautiful'- however you choose to celebrate your obesity, you're still a greedy cunt. x

— andrew lawrence (@andrewlawrence) April 28, 2015

'We need to stop all the fat shaming.' You should be ashamed, you ate too much.

— andrew lawrence (@andrewlawrence) April 28, 2015

Time for a ban on public ads showing attractive women, it's making the rough ones feel bad about themselves. In fact, hijabs all round.

— andrew lawrence (@andrewlawrence) April 28, 2015

But to do so plays in to the hands of the zealots who desperately need to feel like they’re disliked and oppressed by prejudice. So from here on I'll at least try to match the logic of the banshees screaming down anything that makes them insecure.

Like most human beings I have my imperfections. In my case, my colleagues and friends will frequently remind me that I’m skinny and/or small. That’s my thing. Now, when I see billboard posters featuring body builders I totally get it. Big muscles (to a limit, maybe) are evolutionarily desirable. That doesn’t mean you have to be that way to look good, but it’s a look most blokes would like to have.

It’s the same thing with women and slim figures. Like it or not it’s human nature that most men generally find slimmer bodies more attractive and most women like to feel attractive. Yes of course there are numerous exceptions, yes of course any female can be beautiful, desirable, charming and inspiring without fitting the stereotype but that doesn’t change the general paradigm. Thats not sexist, prejudice or anything else except realistic. Deal with it.

So why then, could an advert for a body-toning supplement without any form of offence, prejudice or negativity have upset the angry feminist lobby? Simple: the advert achieved its aims. In fact, it achieved them too well.

Many commercials appeal to our insecurities. 'Zit' creams want teenagers to feel insecure about their face. Security products play on our healthy fear of crime. Dietary supplements want to touch our insecurity about our physique. These companies spend millions on market research: I’d be surprised if they ever concluded that focusing on falling rates of burglary,  or the happy, productive lives of overweight people would shift more of their products. Fear sells.

Is it immoral and wrong? Possibly. But as usual when dealing with lefties, we have to separate the professed reason for their behaviour from the truth. The truth here is not righteous indignation about the morality of commercials, as Spiked have pointed out. Their real motivation is actually to be found in Andrew Lawrence’s crude tweets. Because Protein World visibly reminded everyone what an attractive female looks like, the angry minority have – or perhaps are so paranoid they believe they have -  been reminded of their own dark opinion of their own bodies.

It’s equivalent to skinny folk like me saying photos of a body builders “shame wimpy people” or photos of Stephen Hawkins “shame those of us with lower IQs”.  Essentially, it's a system of forbidding anyone else to feel good about themselves. It’s a response so illogical and ridiculous that only those with serious self-esteem issues could do so without seeing how cringe-worthily transparent they are.

When our bodies don’t match the look we want we have two options. Firstly, change it through diet and exercise. Secondly, accept it and move on. A very small number who choose option one will go too far, which is sad. Most will not. The feminist mob will seize on and exploit the tragedy of that small minority as propaganda for their cause.

The idea of laying the blame for insecurities at the feet of a poster model is not only remarkably vicious and dumb, it’s also dangerous. Dangerous because like so much of the left-wing philosophy, it’s an attempt to defeat human nature. That's a battle that can never be won, but can cause untold damage in the process.