Watching a Penthouse swimsuit video the other day, it became obvious why we like to feature beauty in everyday situations here at Body in Mind. The ladies in the video were predictably Penthouse material - breasts like basketballs, long blood red fingernails, sneering come-hither looks as they rubbed their palms suggestively over the taut cheetah-print fabric of their bikini bottoms. The message was clear; these women's sole purpose for existing, it seems, is sex. They sway and pout and moan like they're at the height of orgasm, they call to a man's sexual desire but provide nothing for his mind, his plans, or his dreams for his life. That's what's wrong with it. No woman is ever just a sexual being, any more than any man is. No woman is ever defined solely by her ability to feel or inspire lust, and helping men to think that this is true only demeans men and their complicated desires. We prefer to show beauty in every part of life, as part of a woman's whole being, as something she poseses while she's working, or playing, or relaxing, or just being herself. We like to show that you can appreciate a woman's beauty in reality, and not just as a temporary fantasy figure. When you remove the luridly sexual component of appreciating beauty, it's much easier to savour it, and enjoy it for the uplifting and wonderful thing that it is. That's the kind of world we want to live and be sexual in: the real one.
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