Truth Versus Beauty

I was watching some show last night and grinning about it. When I saw my reflection in the monitor, some old hag was staring back at me. I wasn't upset by this or ashamed of it. In that moment, it's what I looked like. It was the truth.

When I was a kid, people used to say that beauty is in the of the beholder. I rarely hear anyone say that these days, because I'm not sure most people believe that anymore. Beauty used to be in the eye of the beholder because we understood that certain things appeal to people and not to others. It seems to have changed.

Now beauty is often defined by how well one conforms to a standard. Do your teeth look a certain way? Are you within a certain weight range? Do you keep all the hair shaved off of your body? Can you contour your face? Does your vulva look like the vulva of the porn stars?

Is that what beauty has become? Is it all about erasing what is unique to the person? None of us take the damage of life in exactly the same way. No one scars the same or gets the same stretch marks. No one loses their hair in the same way or has the exact same patterns of hair on their body. These things, these flaws, define us. They are the truth of who we are.

Now, I'm certainly not knocking people's abilities to create illusions of beauty. As you know, I'm in awe of what people can do with hair and makeup. I find the structure of a well-disciplined body to be just as beautiful as anyone else would. I love the grace and power of it. Does it have bearing on the person who did the work? Of course. It says a lot about their character, but not everything.

How would it feel if the person who loved you and shared a sex life with you knew the way the hair grew on your body? How would it feel if they celebrated that? How would it feel to know they loved the wrinkles and freckles and crooked places? How would it feel to know those unique things were the cherished things? How would it feel to be THAT loved?