We’re off on holiday in a couple of days, for a much anticipated week on the Dorset coast with some good friends, but something that the Lovely Melanie happened to mention about our holiday plans made me think.
Basically, we were talking about going on the beach and I happened to mention that I couldn’t wait to see her in a swimming costume, to which she replied something like, “Nobody wants to see that.“
Which left me a little bit shocked and saddened.
The Lovely Melanie is in her mid-30s now; she’s had two children and like many women in her situation doesn’t have time (or money) for manicures, expensive haircuts, facials or any other dubious beauty treatments you might care to mention. She doesn’t spend much money on clothes or make-up, doesn’t go to a gym and works bloody hard taking care of the girls and keeping our home clean and nice.
But I think she looks lovelier now than ever.
I really do – she’s a beautiful, natural, buxom, English rose, and I still get a huge, ahem, kick when I see her naked (sorry to anyone who just stumbled across that sentence unexpectedly!)
It’s impossible not to sometimes compare her with other women I see around, and every single time she comes out as being sexier to me, despite the ten years of marriage, two kids and everything else I mentioned earlier.
Every. Single. Time.
But I can’t seem to get this across to her, and to hear her say “nobody wants to see that,” is depressing not only because it means I won’t get to see my beautiful sexy wife in her swimming costume, but also because she doesn’t believe that she is still very sexy and very beautiful.
So where did this idea come from?
Well, my old enemy the Daily Mail is part of the problem rather than the solution, as usual, and it’s the excellent blog entry behind that link which got me thinking about this issue again today, so go and have a quick read of it.
Unfortunately I haven’t got the time here to dissect the shortcomings of our appearance-obsessed culture that dictates what individuals are supposed to find “sexy”; to discuss a mass media that defines and continually reinforces an extremely narrow vision of “beauty” and damns anyone who doesn’t live up to it, deliberately making people feel insecure about their appearance in order to sell them “cures” for their “problems”.
I haven’t got time here for that, I’m only trying to discuss my lovely wife!
Perhaps I’m getting old (or am just bloody weird), but all these images of celebrities in, for example, Heat Magazine don’t seem attractive: they all look exactly the same and only serve to reinforce a bland monoculture of “beauty” that I most emphatically do not subscribe to.
(this may also help to explain why nowadays I often find women older than me to be more interesting and – yes, let’s say it – sexier than teenage girls or young 20-somethings, because they’re not aspiring to look like Lindsay Lohan or Posh Spice, they’re aspiring, for the most part, to look like themselves – but I digress, as ever!)
Put my wife next to any supermodel in the world, any girlie popstar, any celebrity, and I prefer my wife over all of them everytime.*
And is there one last reason for preferring my wife? Yes. It’s because she’s real.
* she used to have some competition from Kate Winslet, but Kate’s slipped in my rankings since going all Hollywood
July 2, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I read your blog, which makes me laugh alot. I often think you should adapt lots of the parts about the children into a book. But sometimes you take me by suprise. Thats such a lovely piece about Mel. As a fellow mum of two small children I thank you.
July 3, 2009 at 9:00 am
Thank you, Sar – that means I’m achieving what I set out to with this blog!
And as for a book deal…well, if Pets With Tourette’s can get published then maybe there’s hope yet for my lowly efforts!
July 3, 2009 at 7:52 am
Well said, Stu.
The world thrives on creating fantasies and so-called perfection for people to live up to, knowing they never can. It’s a kind of capitalism, only worse because it extends to every aspect of life, and is spread by people who ultimately don’t like others to think for themselves and be themselves.
This creates the perfect sewer for the Daily Mail to spread its germs, although the problem goes way beyond the media.
The whole system can only work by taking advantage of people who are too shallow, too insecure or just too thick to be able to take people for what they are.
The worst of it is: most people are happy to go along with it because they think being a donkey chasing a carrot is OK, as long as they’re not being hit by sticks.
There. I feel much better now I’ve got that off my chest.
July 3, 2009 at 8:57 am
Thank you, too, but I think you’re a bit harsh in saying that only “people who are too shallow, too insecure or just too thick” are taken in by this system; I think a lot of people are just pulled along in the current of modern life, barely able to keep their heads above its waters, let alone stop and look around once in a while.
Hell, I know I don’t do that nearly as often as I should these days, and if a super-aware and mega-intelligent social chronicler like myself can be taken in then what hope is there for the rest of you??
July 4, 2009 at 1:55 am
However disturbing it is as Mels Sister to read that you still ‘get a kick’ out of seeing her……um….naked……I think your blog ROCKS!
I happen to think Mel is awesome too, just not in the same way of course!
On ya Stu