More On the Annoying Hot Pregnant Celebrity Thing From Maxim

Kelly Mills — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:04:00 GMT

When I covered Xtina's nude-knocked-up pics, I totally neglected to dicover that Maxim has a slideshow of the hottest pregnant women. It is, of course, not very interesting choice-wise. Maxim is generally boringly celebrity A-list fawn-y, only Monica Belluci is a good selection, and if you're gonna do it, uh, how can you leave out Gabby Reece? But leaving aside the merits of the Maxim slideshow selection process, I just feel even more annoyed with the pregnant-hot thing. There's the tagline: "When you're Christina Aguilera, you can pull off swollen ankles." Wow guys, thanks for your generosity in still finding your favorite pinups sexy even when they are with child. Oh, or Halle Berry's bit: "Descriptions like 'over 40' and 'with child' aren´t usually things we associate with looking hot, but Halle pulls off both better than anyone we´ve seen." Hmmm, why is this "we'd still do you knocked up" thing feeling just this side of condescending?

Maybe it's also lines like this when talking about Naomi Watts: "Naomi has always been hot, but a little on the scrawny side for our tastes. Once she got pregnant, she carried that baby weight in all the right places (boobs)." Look, as I said before, I'm already irked that now women have an unrealistic, airbrushed standard of pregnant beauty to try and emulate now, and so with this oogling maybe I'm getting het up over what's just a wider objectification net. Like, "Really? You guys would still beat off to these celebrities even though they have a bun in the oven? What sweethearts." It chafes, oh yes it does. This kind of ushering in of the full-bellied red carpet queens to 'sex-symbol' status feels about as comfortable as the maternity up-to-the-boobs underwear.

Pregcellent: Enough With the Naked Pregnant Celebrities Already!

Kelly Mills — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:32:00 GMT

Christina Aguilera is on the cover of January's Marie Claire, buck nekked and pregnant as all get out. I think that since Demi Moore did it waaay back in 1991 for Vanity Fair, we've had the opportunity to see about 75 thousand naked pregnant celebrities in magazines. If you are old like me, you might remember that when Demi posed sans clothes for Annie Leibovitz, there was a big brouhaha. Was it empowering or exploitative? Should knocked up ladies be sexy? But that was the 90's. Now? Eh. But don't worry, I can still manage to work up some pissy anger over the whole thing.

Lord knows I have no problems with nudity (in fact I'm on the pro side of it) and sure, pregnant women can be sex symbols. Be my guest. But I'm starting to get irritated with the phenomenon because of course the burgeoning stars are given the same treatment as everyone in magazines, meaning they are airbrushed and shrunk down and reshaped into this bizarre aesthetic. (I'll add that Xtina is one of those celebs who gets the mighty computer treatment in almost every photo I've ever seen, so she looks like she's made of a strange polymer. She might be a pretty lady in true life, but it's hard to know what she actually looks like with all that retouchification.) And the result is that instead of all these pics being an affirmation of the sexy power of a woman 7 months along, we get an impossible, unrealistic, and frankly weird standard of beauty that pregnant women get to aspire to. Joy.

Stretch marks, the pregnant ass, weird pigmentation, swollen ankles--hey, that's a normal pregnancy for you. But the only things these stars show is a round belly and the bigger-than-before boobies. I'll give my undying love to any famous lady who poses naked in a magazine, far along in her pregnancy and untouched by computers. It might even be sexy.

Strollerderby : sex symbol

More On the Annoying Hot Pregnant Celebrity Thing From Maxim

Pregcellent: Enough With the Naked Pregnant Celebrities Already!