The Sartorialist

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-streetangelika-milan.html
I have been thinking about this post and the backlash this week.  I think that the outrage is prompted because "curvy" DOES describe weight in today's culture.  It, as well as "sturdy" and "bigger" are some of the few words that woman with normal body sizes (i.e. - almost every woman over 25 not involved in the fashion industry) have left to describe themselves positively/neutrally.  To appropriate the words for a skinny woman simply because she's relatively large for their narrow community just adds salt to the wound that normal people experience in regards to image and self-esteem.

I think Scott puts up a pretty pathetic argument about the vagueness of the word "normal."  In fact, by definition, normal are folks that make up a majority of any particular characteristic.  It's the opposite of "outlier."  So, asking which woman - 5'0" or 5'9" - should be considered normal is a false question.  Neither of them is.  The women who are around 5'5" are normal.  So, since the average dress in America is a size 12, describing a woman who is, at most, a size 6, by words that belong to average-sized and plus-sized women is insulting.