How withering it is to say of someone "Of course she's losing her looks." So many awful implications packed into one short sentence! So many sexist and ageist assumptions so blandly expressed!What does it actually mean? First, that the person is no longer attractive or sexy and no longer so appealing to potential boyfriends or girlfriends, or their spouse. They'll be struggling to date anyone or stir their partner's passions.
Second, that your looks naturally change from a positive feature to a negative one as you age. As soon as a few wrinkles or a bit of sagging flesh appear, this can't be anything but a turn-off to other people.
Third, that you've lost something rather than gained something. You've been depleted, belittled, made less significant.
Fourth, that you've passed your peak and are now generally going downhill. You're declining, deteriorating, falling apart.
No wonder many women who're told they're losing their looks (or who think it as they gaze critically into the mirror) feel somewhat depressed and alarmed. With the battery of confidence-shattering assumptions the phrase conjures up, it's hardly surprising. They feel they're heading for a dismal future of being ignored and downgraded which they can do little about given the inevitability of the ageing process. The desperate rush to plastic surgeons for a make-over is grotesque.
And how unfair that men are much less likely to be damned with the same phrase. It seems men don't so much lose their looks as become more distinguished and venerable, or even charmingly avuncular. Even if there's hair sprouting from every orifice, they have a pot belly the size of a cauldron and skin like a farmtrack, nobody seems to notice and criticism is strangely muffled.
How refreshing it would be if people were seen as changing their looks rather than losing them, and if a much-wrinkled face was considered no worse or better than a wrinkle-free one. How uplifting if wrinkles were seen as a sign of wisdom and experience and not as some sort of personal disability. How heartening if taut-skinned teenagers weren't so absurdly over-rated and idolised and were given their proper value in the scheme of things.
And pigs might fly.
