2013 03 Styled Shoot Anna Karenina Spring Nights

When we separate “beauty” from sexuality, when we celebrate the individuality of our features and characteristics, women will have access to a pleasure in our bodies that unites us rather than divides us. The beauty myth will be history. But as long as women censor in one another the truths about our experiences, “beauty” will remain mystified and still most useful to those who wish to control women. The unacceptable reality is that we live under a caste system.

It is not innate and permanent; it is not based on sex or God or the Rock of Ages. It can and must be changed. The situation is closing in on us, and there is no long term left to which to postpone the conversation. When the conversation commences, the artificial barriers of the myth will begin to fall away. We will hear that just because a woman looks “beautiful” doesn’t mean she feels it, and she can feel beautiful without looking it at first glance.

Thin women may feel fat; young women will grow old. When one woman looks at another, she cannot possibly know the self-image within that woman: Though she appears enviably in control, she may be starving; though she overflows her clothing, she may be enviably satisfied sexually.