Upper Lip Wrinkles

After spending many years tuning my ears, I’m now in the habit of ‘overhearing’ other people’s conversations. In a busy restaurant I homed in on a group of upwardly mobile twenty-somethings discussing the merits of breast augmentation.  When one of the men asked why anyone would do this, his girlfriend replied in a somewhat incredulous whisper: “But … we’re doing it for you!” 

Even more taken aback was she when her beau was adamant that a pair of “plastic knockers” was not something he wanted. This wasn’t the first time I’ve heard (or overheard) men say they would rather have real flesh to cuddle than the lipo-sucked, nipped & tucked man-made versions churned out by the surgeons.

Ask many women what they believe men want and you’ll often hear Barbie-doll variations.  But Sam Keen – author of Fire in the Belly – claims that men listed the following qualities in women that turned them on: intelligence, sense of humour, physical attractiveness, independence, trustworthiness, sense of adventure, good values, self-confidence, sex appeal and kindness. When asked which quality they were likely to compromise on, physical appearance was the first to go – albeit reluctantly.  So if physical perfection is not a man’s top priority, then why are so many women obsessed with image neuroses? 

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