Open Writing

Like many a proverb, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” has served us well ever since Theocritus first coined the phrase in his Idyll, “For in the eyes of love that which is not beautiful often seems beautiful.” But though love may still have the power to beautify, at least in the eyes of the lover, chemistry, medicine and technology now are much more powerful tools in attaining the standards set by the arbiters. No longer would they have us decide for ourselves what is beautiful.

In the realm of the body beautiful, powerful commercial forces are at work persuading us that slim, long legged, blond haired, large breasted women with Barbie Doll faces are the desirable ones to procreate with. The “beautiful male” of the species is also tall, with dark eyes, beetling brows, a moody look, and abs you could scrub laundry on. If you don’t happen to fit those specifications, not to worry, a little pain and a lot of money are all that are needed to fix things, providing of course that your frame is not too far removed from the required dimensions.

If you have short legs and a long waist you’re out of luck, but don’t despair. Even as I write, medical experiments are being made to lengthen the leg bones of deformed children, so it’s only a matter of time before this technology trickles down to your friendly, neighborhood cosmetic orthopedist.

What got me started on this was a news release I recently received from the American Chemical Society. It starts out this way: “The "lipid flip" may sound like a rock and roll dance craze from the 1960s. However, it actually is a key biochemical process in which fatty materials termed lipids move into cells.”

See, those chemists aren’t as geeky as you thought! It goes on: “In an article scheduled for the September 19 issue of ACS' Bioconjugate Chemistry, Vladimir Sidorov and colleagues report development of a new, non-invasive method for monitoring the activity of lipid-flipping enzymes. Colorfully named [I’m quoting now, remember] flippases, flopases, and scramblases, these enzymes control the process in which lipid molecules literally summersault from the outer layer of a cell membrane to the inner layer where they can move into the cell itself. The actions of those enzymes can influence..…whether a cell lives or programs itself for death, and other processes.”

Well I’m no medical expert, but it seems to me that since lipid has to do with fat, and works with carbohydrates in human cells, it’s only a matter of time before we have a fat dissolving pill that really does what it claims. So if you’re cursed with a flipass, flopass, or heaven forbid, a scrambelass, (just couldn’t resist adding the extra s’s) fear not, because the chemical guys are coming to your rescue any day now.

Aside from the size and shape of the object of our affection, body hair is also receiving some attention from the cosmetologists. Of course we’ve been dealing with it as an unlovable appurtenance since the dawn of history. Why else did the Neanderthals die out? Current thinking says that Neanderthals co-existed, but rarely mated with homo sapiens, and there’s a very obvious reason for that – all that hair. Had our Neanderthal cousins been a little balder and perhaps bolder, they may still have been around today.

So there was clearly a great antipathy on the part of homo sapiens to hairy bodies back then that is embedded in our genes. It has given rise to all manner of techniques for removing the hirsute growth, from shaving (which is now hi-tech), to chemical depilatories, to laser based methods. Of course this doesn’t explain why some men grow beards, or why European women don’t shave their arm pits, but some folk are born to swim upstream I guess.

A puzzling aspect of this quest for “ideal beauty” is why the specification changes over time. The ancient Egyptians probably came as close as anyone to contemporary standards, at least as portrayed in their hieroglyphics, tomb paintings and statuary. They were then superceded by the rather more robust Greco-Roman model, which eventually gave way to the Rubinesque body that would nowadays probably be branded as obese.

Of course, if you happen to be black or Asian, you’re dealing with a completely different set of standards, and fortunately for you, the arbiters haven’t yet got their hands on what makes you a head-turner, probably because of the diversity. From the electrifyingly beautiful Somalis, Ethiopians and Masai, to the smoky beauties of India, to the winsome, delicate blossoms of the Pacific region, there’s no question that beauty will remain in the eye of this beholder, and a pox on the arbiters.

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