In the checkout aisle you'll almost certainly see magazine covers doing one of two, if not both, things:
First, expounding to women the virtues of, and ways to achieve, being sexually appealing to men (e.g. how to lose weight, how to seduce men, how to have sex, etc.)
Second, relating the sad tale of famous, sexually appealing women who are going through divorce.
So, these women followed the steps, they became the "perfect" woman, they got the "perfect" man, and then their lives fell apart. This is about as clear as the evidence can get that women who do their best to become sexually appealing to men will, in the end, not have a happy home life. And the evidence is right in the checkout aisle!
Women, if you want to be happy with a man, don't try to satisfy his animal desires! Because you won't get a man, you'll get an animal!
To clarify, I'm not saying that it is bad for women (or men) to try to be physically appealing. What I'm saying is that there is a whole lot more to this relationship stuff! And being sexually appealing should not, in my opinion, be the top priority, let alone the only priority. But the message conveyed, at least in my opinion, by the magazines in the grocery checkout aisle is that a woman's highest priority in a relationship should be to satisfy a man's sexual desires. Talk about trying to fill a bottomless pit! And what happens if you get married, and then you start to get old? (It's going to happen!) Do you expect a man to stop loving you because you are no longer an attractive young thing? Scientists have determined that physical beauty can basically be defined as "signs of youth and health" (i.e. baby machines, even though that's not what men are thinking consciously). According to the message conveyed in these magazines you should basically expect your man to lose interest in you, at the very least, as soon as you are no longer young. Why don't they talk about other things? Like how to strengthen relationships through learning how to appreciate each others' favorite pastimes? Why aren't there articles about how to find a good chick flick that you and your man can enjoy together? How about how to find a good action movie or video game that you can enjoy together? Or a restaurant? Why does it always have to be how to find out how to help you both enjoy sex and ogling each other together? Unless you die young, you are NOT going to be sexy forever. If you want to have a good relationship with your man of choice when your youth has passed, you might want to start thinking about that now. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a very good point about cultural awareness - as well as self awareness.
DeleteI recently read "The 5 Love Languages" by Dr. Gary Chapman, and found it to be one of the most interesting and illuminating texts about relationships that I've ever read. He describes the most common manners in which people express and perceive love, comparing them to languages we are taught from infancy (a mother language) or can learn through our own effort (second and third languages). Through simple observation, we can gain a much greater understanding of why our loved ones behave the way they do and how we can show them that we cherish them!
If checkout lanes had books from successful counselors and spouses such as Dr. Chapman and Dr. Harley, there wouldn't be nearly as many deep, dark, dirty secrets for the tabloids to share - because people in the grocery store wouldn't care so much and people in the stories wouldn't mess up so much!
btw, if you're interested, you should totally take the 5 Love Languages quiz to find out how you communicate love - and you can guess-take it for your loved ones, too, to get a better idea of how to express love for them!
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/