An Apology

Guys and other fans, my apologies for being so remiss in my postings. Truth is, I have a job where I write about stuff like this all day. Here's an example of my work, with the promise that I'll get back to the Pleasure Dome very soon.

The Science of Beauty: Youth

Why is it that supermodels, singers, and Hollywood starlets keep getting changed out every few years in favor of younger models? How is it that Britney Spears, barely 26, is being seen as fat and old? Science tells us she's past her prime, sexually, since female reproductive fertility peaks at age 22. And now, especially since she's reproduced twice, her fascination to the collective male ego is on the wane.

But is that all there is to it? And if it is, why doesn't she just go gently into that good night and stop trying to shake her groove thing on the boob tube? And why can't the rest of us, past our sexual prime, do likewise, even if we have also reproduced and are engaged in a significant personal relationship that is generally fulfilling? Why do we insist on trying to maintain our youthful appearance?

Beauty Is Youth, Youth Beauty

First of all, it's hard to dispute the connection between the fading beauty of youth and the peak of sexual fertility. After about age 22, a number of significant changes happen in the face that decrease attractiveness in women, many of them making women's faces seem more masculine. The lips begin to lose tissue, making them thinner and flatter like men's lips. Also, the chin becomes more pronounced with age, also like a man's. Youthful eyes are wide and clear, and young women have high, arched brows, but with age the eyelids and the brow both droop.

In addition, the complexion begins to change, from smooth and lustrous to blotchy, wrinkly, and dull. All these things provide undeniable signals to the opposite sex that we are past our reproductive prime.

But Is that all Ye Need to Know?

But if that's the case, why don't we jus let ourselves go after we've found our soulmate and after we've successfully reproduced?

First of all, human reproduction is a long process, and is not considered complete until our children have children, so we're conditioned to try and keep beautiful as long as possible. (Not to mention pestering our kids: "When am I going to have a grandchild?")

Second, humans practice what anthropologist Desmond Morris called "supersex." In using the term, he is not saying that human sex is particularly better than that practiced by other species, although it's certainly true in some cases. What Morris is referring to is the fact that sex is not just sex. It's pretty much never just about reproduction: it's about bonding and emotional attachment. And more than that, sex is not just the act itself.

Unlike our closest relatives, the bonobos, human beings do not practice casual sex to bond the greater social body. Instead, we have substituted a thousand semi-sexual rituals to do that bonding work for us, from dancing to the hundred acts of casual flirting in which we engage every day.

And because these rituals are all linked to sex at their base, when we begin to feel ourselves becoming less sexually attractive, it is no wonder that we might feel socially insecure, even if we have no overtly sexual motives or goals. This anxiety is heightened by the numerous images of ever-youthful women supplied by television, magazines, and billboards that invade our personal environment and make us feel we are in direct competition with them.

She Cannot Fade:

For Ever Wilt Thou Love, and She Be Fair!

Fortunately, in this modern age many of the overt signs of aging can be, if not reversed, then diminished to a point consistent with maintaining our self esteem against the thousand needling doubts we cannot help but feel every time we look in the mirror or in the face of someone looking at us, their eyes darting over our face, making unconscious judgments about it.

It is possible to combat shrinking lips with a combination of injectable fillers and/or a lip implant.

A broadening chin can be corrected with a facelift, neck lift, or a chin implant. Often these procedures work together to complement one another nicely

The drooping of our eyelids can be corrected with eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty), and the contracting of the brow can be combated with a brow lift. Wrinkles can be smoothed with a facelift, brow lift, neck lift, or injectable fillers and laser collagen replacement. Finally, numerous treatments exist to keep our skin lustrous, smooth, and fair, including chemical and laser peels, facials, and microdermabrasion.

If you are interested in remaining a friend to man when old age has wasted this generation, consult the website of facial and ocular cosmetic surgeon Dr. Robert Fante and the Fante Eye and Face Center in Denver, Colorado.