Beauty

What is our obsession with beauty? Or, to put it another way, why are we so OBSESSED with being 'perfect' or 'sexy' or 'stunning' or.... 'fake'. 

The fashion world has gone, in my opinion, too far in its quest for beauty. A beautiful woman who, 50 years ago, would be considered a pin up would today be called fat.  A woman who was once seen as too thin and boyish is the epitome of beauty in our modern society. It seems that there is a certain ideal that we must all aspire to. This, to me, is wrong. 


Take Marilyn Monroe, for example. She was once considered one of the most beautiful women on the planet. She was the subject of many mens desires. She was a highly sexualised pin up of the 50's and 60's. She was gorgeous. Yet she was naturally a size 14 (UK) - which is incidentally the average dress size for UK women. No one wanted a bag of bones, they wanted curves and breasts. They desired a healthy woman. If she was to launch herself today as an actress and model she would be labelled 'plus size' and would not be recognised in the same way. At all. You may hear people talk about her positively, but who can honestly say that she would have the sex appeal and the popularity today as she did 60 years ago? If it wasn't for Twiggy, our models would probably still look like this.

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Girls as young as 5 are beginning to feel concerned about their appearance. They wear make-up and have piercings and wear short skirts and heels. We are encouraging children to sexualise themselves and this gives raise to pedophiles, praying on innocent, naive young girls who don't realise the image they are putting across to horny men. Our mothers do not stop this. There are many women that encourage their young child to dress inappropriately because it is 'cute'. Their children are becoming fake, 'plastic' and often resemble Lolita. And we all know how that story goes...


Even Barbie has changed. She portrays the commercial view of what a beautiful woman should look like. And girls aspire to be her. If she were a real person with the correct proportions she would be something like, 9ft tall and 100llb which would make her severely malnourished and probably dead. Is this the kind of role model children need?

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Our current idea of beauty has stretched so far as to give a huge rise in eating disorders, particularly among teen girls. Now, it has been suggested that an eating disorder is genetic, but only occurs through triggering. Often that triggering is the media's portrayal of beautiful, perfect women. Most of these women have been photoshopped and people do not seem to acknowledge that these models' skins are not blemish free, their legs aren't that thin and that their faces are symmetrical. Some of the triggering comes from experiences at school, for example. If you are even a little bit overweight, or perhaps you aren't what they see as attractive (even if you are) then you will be bullied horrendously. I experienced this first hand for the majority of my school life, and still experience it now. It cuts you to the core, and whilst this bullying may be down to jealousy (as often you ARE beautiful and you ARE smart and you ARE thin), you will believe it. You will look in the mirror and all you will see is a fat, ugly freak who no one loves. Trust me, I experience this on a daily basis. Sometimes, this can become extreme and lead to BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) which is associated with OCD, Anorexia and Bulimia. 


Do we really need to starve ourselves in order to be beautiful? 


In theory, no. Everyone will openly state that they are NOT pro-ana. Modelling agencies state that their models need to be (UK) size 8-10. But how many of those catwalk models do you REALLY think are a size 8-10? How many do you really think are encouraged to eat healthily, to exercise with caution etc? 

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Beauty is NOT what you see on the catwalk. It is NOT what you see in the magazines or on the TV. If you look around you, there is virtually no one who looks like them. At all. Our desire to be beautiful should be based upon intellect and personality, not on the external appearance. I know this is what everyone says, but come on, if you see couples on the street, how many of them are what the industry labels as beautiful? Beauty comes from within you, and relationships aren't built on looks alone. The reason I have gone on a rant that doesn't even make sense is because I KNOW HOW IT FEELS. I experience this pain everyday. Perhaps I am a hypocrite, because I will starve myself. I will work to lose weight. I will look in the mirror and feel ugly. I will look in the mirror and feel fat. I will feel unloved and unwanted. But this does not make me right. No one will ever be 100% content with themselves, but we can still believe this is true. We can still KNOW it is true, even, because true beauty comes from within us. And everyone is beautiful in their own way. And just because I have issues, it is not because of the industry, because I disagree with their perceptions, hey are personal issues and nothing to do with them. So shoot me...