Beauty(?)

What is it? This is a tricky one of course, because there are a multitiude of responses, none of which are wrong nor right.


I know many people may disagree with me, but I think that David Mitchell is the one of the sexiest men on the planet. (It's his piercing gaze in the '10 O'Clock Live' poster &goofy smile that really get me going.)


Where does our perception of beauty come from? What makes a six pack and rippling biceps any more attractive than a pair of love handles and a big bum?

Consider this: what if artists of old had portrayed heroes and heroines as big nosed, carrying-a-bit-of-extra-weight averages joes rather than the 'perfect' specimens we see in art galleries and magazines? Maybe, in this world Fat Joe would be a pin up and George Clooney would be banished to the ugly corner.


Of course, in the real world this would never, ever happen. But my point is that our perception of perfection could quite easily have been different if we weren't constantly fed images of gorgeously sculpted human bodies. And on a global level, this view of beauty is actually a bit odd. As one of my lecturers put it: ' In some cultures, if you're not atleast a size 24 and don't cast a decent shadow, you're not a woman at all.'


At this point it would be all too easy to go off on a rant about how the size zero epidemic and other bizarre (N.B. dangerous) dynamics are symptomatic of our society's obsession with perfection. But I'm holding back.


Beauty is that there never has been and there never will be another you. Further, if it wasn’t for our genetic variety- we’d die out. We’ve been fashioned this way so that we may excel naturally, spreading each facet of our inner and outer selves to future generations so that they too may be blessed with our big noses, small eyes, café au lait and English rose skin.


So remember, even if you don't have the thighs of a baby giraffe or Brad Pitt's abs, who cares? You're still hot.


Miss Dx