Obsession!

Smooth, butter-like, petal-soft, flawless, oh so flawless!… Skin.

Squeaky clean, bouncy, shiny like a 22 carat carbon unsheathed!… Hair.

24-inch (preferable), curvy, with a button that could be an erogenous zone or such a turn-on if it’s pierced… Waist with a belly-button.

Slim, tapering, small, strong, long, creamy smooth, hairless... Legs.

Luscious (clichéd I know, but it’s the only adjective that best describes it), bee-stung (yup! This is another, especially after Mme.Jolie gave lip service to it), pouty, pink, and oh so kissable… Lips.

Round, perky, tipped to perfection, firm, no stretch marks, just enough to hold… Breasts.

And the sparkling, long and thickly fringed eyes, delectable, deliciously suggestive arse, fanny, bottom, butt, or tush or what-you-will, the smile and you get the picture.

We’re obsessed. Obsessed with being perfect. This I know has been debated ad nauseam by feminists, male propagators of female ‘liberation’ and Germaine Greers all over the world. But I just felt I had to make my point of view known too.

I have warts. My skin is not honey smooth and has blemishes.
And my breasts are not the perfect 32-B or a 34. They’re not the perfect stress-buster-ball shape either.
I have legs which have cellulite and my body is not hairless.
My hair is limp, short and just about crowns my head.
My ankles are not slim and my toes are not pretty.
My fingers are short and stubby and I have gnarled feet. No varicose veins yet.
I have a gummy smile and eyes that even with L’Oreal’s Shimmer whatchamacallit eye-shadow will still look bare.
I have a laugh that echoes around bare walls and a voice that will be called raspy.
No high-angled cheekbones or the perfect moue, the chiseled nose or the delicate but stubborn jaw.
Naah! I don’t have none of this.

But I have a brain. I have a voice inside my head that asks questions. I do. I work. I write. I listen. I hear. I shout. I give a high-five. I don’t write like Shashi Tharoor or Arundhati Roy or The Unknown Guy (with or without his penchant for obscenities, his humour is a gift) and use high brow words like ‘revanchism’ (what in the name of Merriam Webster is that?) and no didactic, unleavened prose for yours truly. Well, to cut a long story short – I am who I am. A thinking, feeling, loving, caring, doing, human. Like you. Like the multitudes of real people. Why do I forget that I am beautiful as I am? Why do I give in to the artifice? The pressure of fantasy and superficiality gets under my skin.

Because you see, I’m weak too. I can be influenced, I can be brainwashed, I can be conditioned. By me. By my environment. And then the inexorable downward spiral commences. And my resilience and strength are called to the fore. How long can I hold out?

Obsession is sinister. It is insidious. It is odious. It is delirious. It is notorious.
Obsession. Of women by women. Of women by men.
Obsession of beauty. Obsession of wealth. Of fame. Of illusion.
Obsession with perfection.

But perfection is so boring. Who wants Utopia? (And so how goes it for men?)