[quote CuthbertDibbleandGrubb]@CaesarsDream many people, women and men, are what I term 'fashion victims', blindly following fashion and being scared to be different from others. Make up and tiny bikinis are just two examples.[/quote]
If I didn't look like I was slowly melting from the ribs down, I'd happily wear a tiny bikini on a beach. With a bucket of factor 50, obviously. As it is, I'd wear a (superduper supportive) bikini top with tankini shorts that cover my overhang, because anything lower cut would disappear underneath it and irritate my section scar. And factor 50, because waking up at 3am glowing red enough to distract passing aircraft is neither healthy nor pleasant to experience.
Sometimes I wear makeup, most times I don't. Today, I'm wearing leggings, a T-shirt and some big, fluffy, black and red striped socks and my hair is like an oilslick and smelling extremely petrochemically because I've got a Psoriasis treatment sitting on it at the moment.
But I like wearing makeup, I like having the appearance of longer eyelashes, I like not having a full neckbeard. DP loves me whether I'm like this, whether I'm fully done up in my best workwear or whether I'm wearing clothes I'd regard as suitable for going out (and, no, they aren't heavily sexualised). They're all me.
Same way there's the him that I met during a rehearsal - the scruffy, skinny, shy, balding bloke carrying a shitty guitar. And then there's the man who comes in from work with his shirtsleeves rolled up showing a hint of his arm muscles (from using hand weights at home), collar open, jacket over his shoulder, slightly suntanned from the walk to work, clean shaven face and head, smelling lightly of a woody Chypre cologne. That's not the man I see at the weekend. But I love (and happily shag) both versions. They're still both him - he's not deceiving me.
But it's OK for him and not me? Because he's not marketing his body as I have to be if I do it?
The assumption that I have to be metaphorically selling myself to men through the addition of a bit of mascara, concealer and getting my eyebrows done feels equally misogynistic. And history echoes this, where wearing makeup was associated with being a prostitute and now, where it's apparently a really bad thing in some circles for women to have long hair after 40, wear nail varnish/have longer nails or to wear clothes that show a woman's shape.
It's the language of an ex. Anything I did up to and including brushing my hair and teeth was to entice and attract random men for hookups in the street. Which is offensively misogynistic.