Karma, by Maeve

When we speak of the "Beauty Myth", that imaginary physical ideal that seeks to enslave women of the western world, we speak of a "they", an enemy that profits off our dwindling self-esteem. And we have decided who this enemey is: men, specifically rich, white men. There is no question that, by and large, the money I spend on lipstick or anti-wrinkle cream or diet regimes ends up in the hands of these grey-hairs and their slick sons. But I have to ask myself, do they pay a price? Is their some cosmic karma that turns around and bites those men right on their baby-soft asses?

The first thing that leaps into most minds when I mention this possibility is all those polls showing an increase in male plastic surgery patients, men with eating disorders, beauty products for men. But if we just count the number of plain old dollar bills that are sunk daily into the vast machine we call "beauty", us gals still have guys beat hands down. No, these numbers only act as decoys, drawing our eyes away from what looks to me like a much larger issue. If you are one of those rich white sons and you have grown up in an environment where sex is about air-brushed 16-year-olds, crawling towards you across 15-foot billboards, crimson mouths open and ready, how can you have a satisfying sex life with your 50-year-old wife? If sex is about beauty, and beauty is about a constant parade of eminently replaceable movie stars that never ask difficult questions and simply disappear when they become old and therefore "undesirable", what do you do with the real woman in your life? The woman that actually does grow wrinkles and a pot belly?

Oh sure, after a taste of the woman he really loves, the hero in our favorite romance novel will never again look at those "perfect" model bodies. Meanwhile, the men in the tabloids just go ahead and have affairs with a seemingly endless parade of leggy blondes while their wives drown their woes in a sea of Manola Blahnik shoes. But what does my husband do?

Well, I can tell you the short answer or the long answer. The short answer is: he goes to therapy. The long answer is: first, he starts to lose interest in me, the woman he loves, but the woman he's had sex with already; the woman who doesn't have that skinny 16-year-old body anymore, the woman who asks way too many hard questions; the woman he has to work at desiring. And so he starts to flirt with a "friend" from work, a woman that he has never tasted; a woman who does have nice perky breasts, who does wear high-heeled shoes and make-up and cute little skirts; a woman who never aks him to take out the garbage or empty the cat litter or, god forbid, apologize for a mistake he has made. In short, my husband starts to fall for the "perfect" girl.

And so he starts to drift away from me, his wife. He starts to make excuses for inviting "our friend" over. He begins to find fault with everything I do, everything I am. He begins to comment on my weight, my hair, my mode of dress.... It would be easy to say, at this point, that here is a man who has fallen out of love with his wife. But is this fair? Is this even true?

Perhaps this is, instead, a man who does not know how to want anything but the quick jolt of instant sexual fulfillment. Perhaps this is a man who longs to desire the woman he loves, but does not know how. Perhaps this is a man who is caught, just as I am caught, by this socially constructed, economically agreeable, "beauty myth". For, if the only desirable woman is a beautiful woman, and a beautiful woman never ages, how can my husband be a "real man" if the woman on his arm celebrates her birthday every year like clockwork?

I look at myself every day in the mirror and on my good days I smile at the image reflected back at me and I say "You, my dear, are gorgeous." But I have bad days too, and on the bad days all the things that every beauty magazine, every advertisement, every TV show has told me every minute of every day of my life rise up within me, so I grimace at my too large pores and mousy hair, my pudgy thighs and untoned stomach. On his good days, my husband looks at me and smiles and says "You are the sexiest woman alive." But he grew up in the same world I did, and he has bad days too.