Slaves To Image

[Madonna]

What do you think about cosmetic surgery (for vanity purposes) and airbrushing advertisements? Better yet, what do you think about this image of an "ideal female" portrayed to society? I think men feel like they must be attracted to it and nothing else, and women feel they must imitate it.

Are we slaves to the images that are projected to us?

[quote] A Definition of Madness

From the magazine stands in the check-out line, come-hither looks beckon from faces and bodies to exceed the wildest dreams of Caligula (the mad emperor who claimed dalliances with Roman goddesses). Beautiful women are posed and shaded in ways to make them perfectly sexual.

It's madness.

Madness, after all, is nothing but mental distortion: an inability to see reality and the concomitant acceptance of unreality as reality. Distorted Woman — held up by magazines and movies as not only real, but a thing to be admired — is a source of madness because she presents unreality as reality.

Yet few speak against it.

So I will.

I have neither statistics nor empirical studies to support my opposition. I have only my experience as a man in his thirties, a sprinkling of philosophy, and a dose of common sense.

With such un-Dewey like evidence, I offer this declaration against Distorted Woman:

A Man’s a Man for A’ That

I am a man, and therefore am susceptible to swings of passion.
I understand the importance of what the Greeks called apatheia, a peaceful or calm mind, one not disrupted by thoughts it cannot control.
I have fully experienced the difficulty of retaining control of the passions in a natural environment and know that the difficulty increases when spiked with Distorted Woman.

I have an imagination.
I have an imagination that needs to be coaxed and trained to do good things but that, left to its devices, gravitates to bad things.
I have an imagination that races toward the bad things if I give it Distorted Woman.

I am a husband with an attractive wife.
I am a husband with a wife whose physical features are not perfect.
I am content with my wife as a partner, but would not be, if I held her next to Distorted Women.

I am a father of two daughters.
I believe my daughters have minds and souls, the highest faculties of human existence, that need to be cultivated and matured.
I believe that minds and souls are not valued — and therefore not cultivated and matured — in a society that celebrates Distorted Woman.

I believe men desire happiness and contentment, which must be found in the ordinary (or else the ordinary man could not attain it, which would be a cruel trick of nature).
I know the ordinary is downgraded by the glamorous.
I believe the ordinary woman is downgraded by Distorted Woman.

I am a logical man.
I believe in syllogism.
I believe that if a man prefers Distorted Woman, he cannot prefer his wife because she is not Distorted Woman.

I believe women should be allowed to pursue their goals.
I believe they should be allowed to pursue their goals without compromising their natures.
I believe their pursuit will be hindered in a society that celebrates Distorted Woman, unless they are willing to undergo the physical madness of Distorted Woman.

I have an almost mystical respect for truth.
I believe that problems arise when truth is suppressed, even though those problems are difficult to identify or articulate.
I believe truth is suppressed when falsity is promoted, and falsity is promoted and celebrated by Distorted Woman.

Facing the Future

Cosmetic surgery is increasingly prevalent: nose jobs, facelifts, tummy tucks, Botox injections for wrinkles, liposuction, and even cosmetic surgery for feet so they will better fit into designer shoes.

Why? Do we really want to look like Michael Jackson? Or, more precisely, do we really want to be like Michael Jackson?

With science moving forward at steady breakneck speed, it could be a scary culture. We are, in fact, at the doorway of something that sounds like a page out of Mary Shelley: Face transplants. Just as Frankenstein was assembled from bits of dead bodies that his creator found in charnel houses, technology is nearing the point where it will be able to take faces from the dead and dying and place them over the living's faces. It's meant to help people with disfigurements or whose facial nerve endings render their faces expressionless. But just as Viagra was originally concocted to help people with low blood pressure, I assume it won't be long until the face transplant becomes available for less-salutary goals.

If a rich, old woman wants to pay outrageous sums for the face of a dying youth, are we prepared to say no? Are we at least willing to disapprove? What if the youth's family needs the money?

Those are difficult ethical questions.

And the questions become even more difficult to answer intelligently in a culture where unreal beauty and perfection are presented as real and admirable.

Such a presentation, after all, is distortion, and distortion is madness.

And madness makes it very difficult to think.
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[Quietfire]

I am a wife with an attractive husband,
what I see in him is far different than what others see in him.
I see his kindness, gentleness, meekness, gratitude, thankfulness, humility, his strength, courage, concern, love and so many other beautiful qualities that make him that much more attractive to me.

Not everyone sees this.
I am a wife with an attractive husband, who doesnt see the beauty in him that I see.
He is not perfect.
Neither am I.
But what I see in him counters what is in me.
He is my balance, my partner, yet my opposite.
He is my sanity when I am insane.
My voice when I cannot speak.
My eyes when I cannot see.
My ears when I cannot hear.

I married him for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, til death parts us.

I did not marry him because his nose is a certain way, or his eyes are wide set, or for his perfect teeth, or his height, hair color or public status.
Those are all temporary things, and will one day fade.
We both know this.
We plan on growing old together. We plan to lose our teeth together, lose our hair together, lose our figures together.

Thats half the fun anyway.
Like I said, we plan to grow old together.

I'm still waiting for most people to grow up.



Peace.

[CatholicAndFanatical]

I think the whole 'image' thing is crazy myself.

Have you ever really looked at the models walkin on the runways?

Who wants to look like them? Now, dont get me wrong, I have good taste in women...but they are not it. Too boney for me.

Its sad that women try to look like them, with their anerexia and stuff.

I want a woman to look healthy.


thats a one guys point of view anyway.

Peace

[MC Just]

Wow. My thoughts exactly. I hate these distorted things.

[MichaelFilo]

Anyone who ever gets to see the make-up before the who they put on, the lives these people have to live for a figure, all these things, they go through to look good on a camera. The vainity. They should look real, natural, not a product of cosmetics and societies views on how a person should look like. Only when we point out to those people that these things are imperfections, not perfections, will the realize.

P.S. Mc Just, Crusade II R0x.

God Bless,

Mikey

[MC Just]

I went to the mall yesterday and had my head down the whole time. The women there were indeed dressed like roman goddesses. They are assaulting people. I get sick to my stomache when I see them.

[MorphRC]

I believe cosmetic surgery has its purposes, but it cant be taken over the top. For instance, if you crack some teeth, you need the dental surgery to fix it.

[MichaelFilo]

Well, braces are cosmetic surgery. You see, before our time when things like this existed not so freely, it was a sign of beauty to have straight teeth, it was not a sign of uglieness to not have straight teeth. When braces were introduced and became popular, it was still a sign of beauty to have straight teeth, yet you were ugly if you didn't.

Cosmetic surgery = no place in a Christian world.

God bless,

Mikey