I love looking at beautiful bodies in pictures. Who doesn't? I think it starts when we are little kids and see Cinderella and He-Man, these beautiful expressions of kindness and honor, charm and morality, and they always belong to the strapping, defined, broad-shouldered man, with a perfect square of a jaw. The damsel in distress that steals his heart is petite but busty and has long, glowing healthy hair and loves the animals, takes care of her sisters and the dwarves and she's good.
As a kid we're taught what the perfect body is because it matches the good guy. How often do you see a cartoon of a fat, bald, rich prince trying to climb a wall of Rapunzel's hair? Where's the Rosie O' Donnell She-Ra? When we're older, we seek these bodies in the people we want to marry, the people we want to fuck, and the people we want to be. It's as thought the 6 pack becomes the icon for virtue, and that this virtue stands ultimately for promise, for hope, for security, for happily ever after.
And after years of being bullied by the football quarterback and the cheerleaders, the perfection among the 11th grade population, we start to get a glimpse of how ugly "beauty" really can be. Still, we take the Dexatrim, the Hydroxycut, we buy the ab rocket, we read Skinny Bitch and we fast after 7 PM hoping and sometimes praying to have it all, like Alladin and Princess Jasmine.
In our 20's maybe we've found this hot body inside ourselves. Maybe we've found it in a partner. And it's confusing for some. Because by now we've come to see the catch involved in being around physical perfection--moral defection, sexual boredom (they just lay there, seriously), fleeting tightness of the skin, stupidity, insecurity, shattered dreams.
But we keep coming back for more, because the perfect bodies always get to step ahead in line. The guys with the pecs get the looks at the gym. The girl with the steel cut ass gets the whistle, and we want to be around that, even just as a spectator, regardless of the mediocrity she radiates.
So here we stand, or sit, or most likely, where we lie just hoping for an extra layer of depth, the kind we imagined the first time we watched Beauty and The Beast--and maybe, just maybe, we're finally on to something.
But we're confused, because Sleeping Beauty never had these problems, except the boring sex issue, maybe.
Which is why I decided, in my journey, to be happy with myself through the whole process. I'm happy right now, at 172 pounds, and I'll be happy at my goal weight (130) because I know that in addition to the hot body (and I feel pretty damned hot even though I'm still 40 pounds overweight), I've got intelligence, a good heart, and frankly, some gorgeous hair.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think, I was a Band Geek in high school. : )