Pictures of fat(ter) women? Revolutionary.

Thanks to Shapely Prose and Jezebel, I've come across a couple of posts recently about plus-size models. These models, of course, are not the people we'd consider plus-size in real life: sometimes they're as small as a size 8. And they're still models: nicely proportioned, with beautiful faces and skin and all the rest.

But I'm emerging from my blogging hibernation to register just how powerful these images are. As I look at them, I think: she is really sexy! And then I think: wait, is it possible that I could look that sexy, too? Even though I have a belly pooch, flesh on my hips and thighs, and slightly unwieldy breasts?

Click 'em and weep.

This photo in Glamour magazine made a huge splash because it shows the model's little belly pooch. The same model also has much more generous thighs than most of her colleagues.

This photo shoot from Harper's Bazaar Australia did not airbrush away the cellulite on Crystal Renn's thighs.

I'd never heard of plus-size model Kate Dillon before, had you?

In all these comment threads, I think women are truly moved to see a female body that looks "real" to them: one they can identify with, one that rings true with their own experience of having a body. (Even if, as so many women are, they're larger than these supposedly plus-sized women.)

And these are beautiful, able-bodied white women who are making such a splash. I can only imagine how much women with disabilities, women of color, and unusual-looking women may be longing (perhaps unknowingly, as I was) to see images of themselves -- somewhere, anywhere -- in our media.