N - I had another couple ideas about beauty ...relating to advances in
biotech engineering technology and life extension ...conceptual factors
part one:
youth = beauty
the mythology of "a short life"
Will increased life span and/or immortality make old age attractive in new
ways?
For now, we are mostly interested in youth. A plain person can be famous as a
beauty (see any of the teen idols today) if they are just young enough.
Women (including myself) seem far more preoccupied with "looking" young than
men, at this time. Especially good looking ones. For youth is beauty.
Of course, this is because prime mating time is early twenties for both men
and women, and particularly in women. This is perhaps why elderly men are
allowed to have gray hair and jowls on TV while their co-host counterparts
have hairdressers and more facelift needs. Some men can still have babies
even in "ugly" decrepitude, if they can convince a woman young enough to
accept such a path.
Is this enough? No. Men still hate to look old, and so succumbing to the
embarrassing "mid-life crisis" syndrome associated with the dreaded male
passage out of the hard body youth image - resisting transforming into those
balding, secondary sexual male bellies and wrinkled, puffy faces they see in
the mirror. Hoping to look young, feel young again, people do comb-overs,
work out relentlessly, apply cosmetics, even buy sassy little convertibles
and young lovers, ever aspiring to regain that elusive youth. Proving to
ourselves that we still have some "juice".\
Of course not everyone, for many age gracefully and/or resist aging in
sensible ways, taking care of themsleves and being lovely emotionally well
balanced people. Beauty is always inside anyway. The outside is merely a
reflection, is it not?
With biological tinkering allowing women the option of childbirth at later
and later in life, and men the option of staying at levels of endurance that
early youth fondly brings, the mating window will open, as will the career,
and the beauty window. Even today the strict ageist barriers are coming down
and sex symbols being harmonious with middle age, Nick Nolte and Lauren
Hutton for examples.
With the advent of longevity, perhaps youth (the power of longevity) will go
out of fashion. Perhaps enduring and mastering a long passing of time will be
seen as beauty, and the evidence of time - not hormone loss - but character,
wisdom, grace, knowledge and poise- will give one "beauty"...
20th centurions may become highly sought after individuals: ancient, rare,
complex and exotic, compared to the new crops of baby immortals who never had
to face dying, never knew what it was like.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:36:36 MDT