Subscribe RSS FeedEncouraging women to look like children, as some glossy mags do, suggests that guys are turned on by prepubescents
When Alexandra Shulman, the editor of Vogue, announced recently that her magazine would no longer feature underweight or underage models, I can’t say I dropped my Krispy Kreme in sheer molten glee on the first count. I am not one of those fat birds who feels miserable because models are thin. Frankly, I feel more insulted by the idea that unless I see other fat birds in fashion magazines, I will be reduced to a snivelling wreck of a human being.
Whereas – prizing myself for qualities other than my appearance, as one should by the age of 52, unless one is a humourless bore actively seeking future mental health issues – I just don’t care. I wasn’t in the least surprised by that American survey earlier this year which claimed that black women have higher self-esteem than white women, even if they weigh more. As Victoria Coren pointed out in this newspaper, their lack of representation on the neurotic landscape of the fashion and beauty rackets might well in some way have contributed to their happiness – as opposed to leaving them grieving about their lack of role models among fashion models, as do the sad-sack plus-size sob sisters.
But what did surprise me about Shulman’s vow was the subsequent revelation in the press that about half of all models now start working between the ages of 13 and 16. That’s just plain kinky. And the knock-on effect of such extreme youth worship is spreading. Recently, a high-end women’s weekly magazine carried not one, but two pieces about the advisability of looking like a child if you want to attract a man.
I’ll declare my own interest right here at the start and admit that, like the vast majority of people, I find youthful looks appealing. My husband, whom I have been with since he was 23, hits 40 this year and still often gets ID’d when he buys alcohol. But there’s a big difference between saying that youthfulness is sexually attractive and saying that babyhood is. Under the headline “Is This the Sexiest Ever Face?”, a headshot of the pretty model Karlie Kloss (19 years old – modelling since the age of 13) was analysed feature by feature with reference to a book by Robin Dunbar, called The Science of Love and Betrayal. Alongside the usual do-this-or-you’ll-die-a-spinster must-haves like fine brows and a delicate jaw, the magazine said: “For maximum sex appeal, your eyes should be small and be positioned halfway down your face (like a baby’s – don’t ask) as a way of indicating youth and fertility. Think Kate Moss, whose low-set eyes sit on a par with the tips of her ears.” A few flicks on, a five-age beauty feature entitled “Oh, Baby!” imparts the following wisdom (under a photo of the model-of-the-moment, Lindsey Wixson, who is 18, looks closer to eight and began modelling at 15): “Spring’s most flattering beauty trends are inspired by the first flushes of youth – think virgin hair, cherubic cheeks and plump, peachy skin”.
“First-flush balms” to restore adolescent lip colour, “baby-skin secrets” to cheat a “childhood complexion”, “virgin hair” dyes to evoke “the soft-to-the-touch, angelic quality of children’s hair” and the best blushers to “mimic the kind of fullness we have in childhood” are shamelessly flogged using the sort of descriptive imagery that wouldn’t seem out of place at a paedophiles’ convention.
We are told every day of the week, it sometimes seems, that the “sexualisation” of children is one of the major plagues of our age. If I have to read Reg Bailey, head of the Mothers’ Union, yakking on one more time about how Rihanna videos are robbing our children of their scabby-kneed innocence, I’ll hurl. Kiddies have always found an excuse to behave rudely behind the bike sheds; once the government has rated Rihanna 18, what does Reg plan to demand next? The banning of actual doctors and nurses, the whole darn sexy lot of them, because that’s the way brats since time immemorial have found an excuse for interfering with each other?
To me, the reverse mindset – the insistence by magazines for allegedly intelligent adults that grown women must strive to appear as childlike as possible if they are to be sexually attractive to men – is equally objectionable and wrong-headed. For a start, I just don’t believe that most men are attracted to toddlers; it’s a super-spin – “all men are kiddy-fiddlers” – on the old “all men are rapists” line/lie which really needs taking down.
Most heterosexual men merely want a woman above the age of consent to wash, show up, bring beer and strip naked. They are far from the harsh taskmasters, when it comes to female appearance, that they are routinely made out to be and the idea that they go about rejecting every woman who doesn’t resemble a small-eyed baby is very much belied by the number of men who are frankly desperate to get themselves a girlfriend. And, yes, there is a tradition of baby-faced sex symbols, from Marilyn Monroe to Mila Kunis – but there is an equally enduring strand of women held up as ideals of female beauty, from Liz Taylor to Megan Fox, whose vampish appeal is based on anything but the appearance of innocence.
But if designers want to show their stupid, overpriced clothes on models who look like boys or anorexics, the rag-mag-hags will pimp out the appropriate-looking kids to them. And if you hold boys and anorexics up as beauty ideals that grown women should demean and distort and damage themselves to copy, it’s just a baby step to saying the same about little girls.
There are bad times just around the corner, during which women’s hard-earned economic freedom will suffer severe body blows – sticking your finger in your gob, simpering like a halfwit and hoping that some Mr Big Daddy figure is going to come along and take care of his little princess seems to be a recipe for disaster which, frankly, a child of five – “virgin hair’, “cherubic cheeks” and all – could see the folly of.
We all shuddered with amazed disbelief when the brilliant photographer Polly Borland published her studies of “adult babies” some years back. But give or take a nappy or two, is there really that much difference between this and the idea that women need to look like little girls if they are to find adult love?