Blogs

In the past few weeks, we've been subjected to extreme depictions of female beauty as represented by Keira Knightely and Kim Kardashian. Everyone knows by now that Keira, fed up with being airbrushed by the media, posed topless and demanded no Photo-shopping. "Here I am," she seemed to say. "Deal with it." As if her slim figure represented some kind of controversy, some outlier of femininity that needed to be "dealt with."

Next up, Kim Kardashian, whose butt occupies its own zip code. A glossy magazine featured a photo spread of her, oiled up, naked, and with God knows how much Photo-shopping applied. The picture, she said, has made her feel more "confident." Oh, snap. No college degree for this girl, no siree! Forget about that book learnin' - pumped-up boobs and butt is all a girl needs to feel "confident." Oh, double snap!

It's not new to notice that our culture is ca-razy when it comes to women's bodies - probably always has been, but it seems more perverted now than ever. Women are caught in a slip stream of sexism that vacuums up their thoughts, actions and self-esteem in a way that neatly bypasses men. Men are not subjected to the daily, hourly hammering of their self-image. Just imagine if men had to bob and weave and skirt and deal with full frontal scrutiny, criticism, contempt and downright hatred. Their productivity would suffer accordingly.

As much as we rail, though, who among us is immune to all the images of surgically enhanced "beauty" that bombard us every day? Not me. I admit to feeling the inexorable pull toward Botoxlandia. Will I be able to resist?

Fifteen years ago, I decided to have liposuction. I simply had to do something about my saddlebags - you know, those wobbly bits protruding from your upper outer thighs? In retrospect, I realize they weren't all that big, but I had lasered in on them like a heat-seeking missile, an enemy to be obliterated.

I scheduled a consult with a famous San Francisco dermatologist-cum-cosmetic surgeon who made frequent appearances on TV talk shows to tout his talents. He led me into a very cold exam room, ordered me to undress and to stand naked in front of a white screen. He whipped out his magic marker and drew lines around the places on my body he thought needed work. When he completed his drawings, he snapped a few Polaroids and handed me the photos of my front, back and sides. I glanced at them, horrified, at his handiwork. I'd been transformed into a trembling bovine, my body parts readied for market: here's the sirloin, here's the rack of ribs, here's the rump roast.

I donned my clothes and hurried away from this over-eager scalpel of a man, my hand clutching the outrageous cost estimate for allowing him to have his way with my thighs, butt and tummy. What I did instead was lose 15 pounds and exercise more. Now that I'm older and some fleshy stuff is relocating to a more southern hemisphere, I realize that if I had succumbed to his treatment plan, my lower body might be mistaken for that of a 10-year-old boy.

Several years after that humiliation, I learned the doc had lost his license because, during an eyeliner tattooing procedure, he stabbed a young woman in the eye and left her half-blind. Oh, triple snap.

But, have I learned my lesson? The siren call of Botox, with its easy-peasy promise of removing that pesky cross look of furrowed flesh between my eyes is getting louder and louder. I mean, who wants to look mad all the time when you're not?

Stay tuned.

- Rosie Sorenson

Rosie Sorenson is the award-winning author of They Had Me at Meow: Tails of Love from the Homeless Cats of Buster Hollow. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and others. In 2007, she won an honorable mention in the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition.