Monday – Beauty is a Beast

[ninanevermore]

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My husband says he has always been attracted to “the girl next door,” and always found women considered to be classically beautiful to be sort of bland, he claims. He turns up his nose at the women in Playboy magazine, for example.

“They all look the same!” he complains, “And they’re so airbrushed that you can’t even tell what they really look like, anyway. Real women don’t look like that. Real women have stretch marks, and curves to their tummies, and thighs. I don’t see anything attractive about them. They look like plastic Barbie dolls. I like real women. I like women like you.”

Of course, as a woman, I interpret this to mean, I only love you because you’re ugly. Let’s face it: whatever a man says to a woman about her looks, he’s wrong.

I don’t tell my husband this, of course. It would upset him, for one. Also, I can tell he thinks I’m cute even with all my imperfections, and it would not be in my best interest to convince him that he’s wrong. Still, it’s an interesting conundrum, when you think about it. A woman who looks like a supermodel has to worry that a man is only attracted to her because of her beauty. Does that mean that a woman of average looks (like yours truly) who is married to a man who is attracted to average women need to worry that her man only loves her because she is average? It would be interesting to wake up one day looking like a Playboy Playmate, just to test his love for me and see if he still wanted me in spite of the fact that I was drop-dead gorgeous.

If he refused to touch me, I could then attack him with, “Ha! I knew it! I knew you only loved me because of my stretch marks and my big ol’ thighs! Now that I have this perfectly flat stomach and these unnaturally large breasts the size of your head, your true colors come out! That’s all I was to you was an average-looking woman for you to parade around on your arm! Now that I’m stunning, you can’t stand me!”

I suppose it’s sort of a relief to know this is never going to happen and my husband’s love will never be put to the test like this. Well, I guess I’m not really relieved: resigned is more like it. Or perhaps I'm a little of both.


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Comments

[m-malcontent.livejournal.com]

Attainable reality is a sketchy thing...you may be thin...but thin and buxom at the same time....with perfect features...is hard to attain without the aid of airbrushing, surgery or other artifice.

[m-malcontent.livejournal.com]

anyway I am sure you are beautiful..and I assume your boyfriend finds you so...but to be "perfect" is hard to attain...even if you are on the slim end of the judgement scale

[erinmack.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm certainly not skinny, just "normal". But yeah, I don't shave or wear make-up and I've always kept my hair very short, so I've completely discarded with the "artifice" you speak of in favor of a natural and low-maintenance look - this means that I'm not only not Barbie, but I'm not really the Girl Next Door either: a definite niche market. I'm grateful to have found a man who loves me as is (for the first time in 34 years - every other male I've dated only accepted me conditionally), but we're in an open relationship and sometimes it can be hard not to compare myself to his other partners. Imagine if your girlfriend was _also_ sleeping with the likes of Brad Pitt - you might feel a bit more inclined to worry about your lack of perfection, even if she continually reassured you that you were the priority.