Lauren Fleshman is a 31-year-old track star whose attractive looks have garnered her product sponsorships, magazine covers and fashion show appearances. Thus it represents a noble sacrifice for her to choose to reveal the truth about her beauty and fitness—that she’s human, and is not as perfect a specimen of the species as the media would lead us to believe.
On her blog, Fleshman struck a blow against vanity and for the acceptance of realistic and healthy female body images by exposing the kinds of photos of glamorous athletes like her that the public isn’t usually permitted to see. Images like this…
And this…
And this...
…all taken the same week that most of the public was seeing this:
Flashman wrote,
“….[I]n real life, people don’t walk around spray tanned and flexed. Out of the thousands of photos taken at the runway show after all that tanning and primping and posture-holding, one or two of them looked good. A lot of them looked pretty gnarly. Weird facial expressions, lumpy bits, zombie walks…but nobody would ever know… I want to post some pictures that were taken the same week as the Runway Show, in much less flattering positions. Who needs “Us Weekly” to capture unflattering images when you can post them on the internet yourself!… Never take the photos you see on magazine covers or online too seriously. Everyone has thigh cheese. It’s part of life. Nobody is perfect.”
What a wonderful, caring, brave and responsible message to be sending to the millions of girls and women of all ages who make themselves miserable, sick and sometimes dead reviling their own bodies and character, because they cannot attain a level of physical perfection that is an illusion, or at best a fleeting state that lingers only in photographs, taken at the right moment, in the right right light, from the ideal angles.
__________________________
Source and Graphics: Ask Lauren Fleshman
Ethics Alarms 
For once I can only heartily cheer, hoorah!
Now if only every woman in the public eye would be brave and do the same…
Excellent! A direct way to fight people like the modeling agency recruiting outside an eating disorders clinic: http://www.policymic.com/articles/36299/modeling-agents-recruit-outside-swedish-eating-disorder-clinic
An athlete is an especially valuable example. Now everyone who’s looked at her photos knows what a well-trained, unusually healthy body looks like.
That is a very creative idea.
Jack- wouldn’t it be great if every “ethics violation” story could be paired with a shining example of good character like the sample above.
And I’m sure they could be. The exemplary ethics are out there—it’s just that they are harder to find. With rare exceptions, these inspiring stories are in feature articles and city sections, or buried deep in news aggregation websites. There are also seldom described in ethical terms, so they are not picked up by typical search and research methods.
Reblogged this on Breaking All Illusions and commented:
Wonderful, I like what she did. Let’s see if it’s a media stunt or a genuine effort.
Can’t see how this could be construed as a “media stunt,” which has a strong negative connotation suggesting publicity is the desired end result. To the contrary, the risk is immense for her as an athlete considering the kind of exposure her sponsors and publicist would see as positive … but vastly beneficial to the rest of us, male and female alike. “Stunt” also suggests that this is something new. Except that it is nothing new for her. The website:, asklaurenfleshman.com, has been having this kind of discussion for many years, and her ethics seem to be consistently on the high end in other areas, for example “A Letter to Lance Armstrong, a Pro Athlete’s Plea” and “Why I’m No Longer with Nike.” If the 32-year old has indeed been previewing the start of a new career — a book, a lecture tour — more power to her.
She will never get the votes for sexiest, as unethical Kaitlin Pearson did from several male respondents on this site despite her incredibly contorted image. But Lauren (besides the fame of her own athletic career) will have saved a lot of girls from thinking as cruelly of their real bodies as the Pearsons – and the “perfect” celebrities and athletes – did as adolescents and will do again as they age. Those admired forms are fleeting.
Don’t you judge us.
Contorted poses are a value add. 🙂
Wouldn’t dream of judging you/y’all — if you’re into swaybacked amputees, so be it! That would be unethical (and worse: antisexual), and I do try to comport myself within the stated boundaries of Alarms. That being said, as they say … I reserve the right to express an informed opinion on horrifically distorted depictions of human anatomy.
Playboy magazine DID have some really good articles, though.