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COPYRIGHT 2002 Curve Magazine, Outspoken Enterprises, San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 863-6538
MY GRANDMOTHER used to say, "You must suffer to be beautiful."
That statement seemed so definitive, I never asked for an explanation. The axiom did seem to cover a multitude of unpleasantness: leg-shaving, eyebrow-plucking, girdle-and underwire-bra-wearing and the endless battle to be thinner.
My grandmother, petite with lush, blonde hair and the perfect complexion of her Scandinavian genes, had the kind of beauty that transcends the vagaries of fashion and trends. Hers was classic beauty for which she never seemed to suffer. Thus, her dictate seemed more personally directed: You must suffer to be beautiful.
Why me and no one else?
How many other girls, given that axiomatic caution or not, feel the same way, that they and only they must push and prod and pluck and squeeze to be beautiful?
And then there's the peril of the quixotic nature of beauty. How long will the beauty of today be the beauty of tomorrow? What suffering will be incurred...
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