Physiological Warfare

I was recently having dinner with friends. This group included two beautiful women. Beautiful, powerful, smart, and married women.

Our conversations were flies on a river fishermen’s casting. There was a rhythm to our dialogue, a pattern. Expletives peppered a dynamic and wide ranging discussion — this was not just polite conversation.

However, I noticed one thing about our rhythmic verbal dance — it always returned to the physical.

Are my teeth as good as they could be?

So and so thinks I was promiscuous before getting married.

I drink bubbly because it has less calories.

I think botox, used wisely, is a good thing.

Yep. Cow poison. Injected into the face. Is a good thing.

These are beautiful women, talking about injecting poison into their skin to ensure father time does not place his wrinkle spell upon them.

I suggested that I (and many other men) loved them, and women in general, as they were. Yes, women have different sized lips, wrinkles around the mouth and eyes, and often carry more weight than Vogue thinks is necessary.

I suggested that reality is sexy.

I was rebuffed while someone suggested that Joan Rivers, the poster child for physical enhancements to stop ageing, looked really good — before she died. Her death was the result of complications from plastic surgery. The irony was lost on them.

Later that evening, I replayed the conversations in my head and I honestly could not see a way to break the pattern. I thought of my niece, who is always being told she is beautiful. It’s everywhere, a diabolical and insidious cancer set upon women.

This can’t go on forever. There are ramifications to waging war on a group.

Seriously, what happens over time when we make half the population so insecure?

Peace.