I don't even know where to start with this one.

The first thing I wanted to see this morning was definitely NOT the dead model gallery (view at your own risk, may be triggering) from the latest episode of America's Next Top Model. Alas, they came up.

I've never been a 'fashion' person. I've only ever watched this show when my housemates are watching it and I happen to be around. I don't see the appeal of watching stick-thin woman-shaped coathangers parading around a catwalk, I don't see how anonymous individuals with vacant stares are supposed to make me want to buy things, and I've never understood the need to be in 'style' or 'trendy.' I have a couple of friends who actively follow this stuff, but I've never seen the appeal. It's just not something I'm interested in, and I hate the way the industry treats women. That has nothing on this.

When I saw the pictures, immediately I felt sick. The women are splayed in painfully awkward positions, made up with blood and bruises, and in some of them the poses and arrangement of their clothing suggests sexual assault. Each seems to portray a different kind of death in a different location. The expressions on their faces are hauntingly familiar - probably because even when they're supposed to be alive in pictures, to me, models always seem to stare vacantly. I'm amazed I even finished looking at all of them. I don't even want to imagine how someone who has been a victim or a family member of a victim of murder, assault, or even accidental death, might feel after seeing these images. Couple the violence with the inherent nature of the industry to sexualise everything, you can see how this becomes even more problematic. Violence and death are being made sexy. I shouldn't have to explain why this is bad, bad, bad.

Don't get me wrong. By no means am I surprised at the show and the fashion industry in general dehumanising women, I'm just appalled and disgusted that they would stoop this low.

See also: WIMN's Voices and Feministe.us.