The Times Magazine 5ou know how a lot of
women – a really upsetting
number – have body
dysmorphia, whereby the
sufferer believes, whatever
the physical evidence of
their glossy hair, soft skin
and joyous smile, that they
are fat or ugly or repulsive?
I think I have the opposite of that.
Whatever the physical evidence, I think
I’m really, really hot.
When I’m putting on my eyeliner and
looking at myself in the mirror, I’m thinking,
“Wow, what a classic face. When I leave
the house, heads will turn.” I ponder the
unfortunate possibility that men, women
and maybe animals – mesmerised by my nose
or eyebrows – will miss their footing and fall,
or that a distracted driver will cause a small
pile-up. I have to confront the truth: there
could be a body count.
And then I’ll put on my anorak, bobble
hat and rucksack, walk to the station and be
genuinely mystified as to why no one seems to
notice that one of the world’s most entrancing
women is walking past, sashaying in a pair
of old Doc Martens with orthotic insoles to
correct their flat feet. Don’t they want to enjoy
my face? I am.
Of course, this is the point where I should
go, “Haha, I’m only joking! Of course I know
I look like a ham with a wig on it. Don’t
worry, world, I obviously know my place in the
comeliness order and I’ll just self-deprecatingly
pop myself back down the bottom, next to Lady
Kluck from Disney’s Robin Hood and/or any
nursemaids from Shakespearean plays.”
But... it’s all true. I’m just really happy with
how I look. I have no caveats, like, “My eyes
are too small,” “My wattle is very prominent,”
or, “My upper-arm skin is so loose that,
if I stand with my arms out, I look like a
pterodactyl.” If I don’t want to get roasted
on social media for being deluded and vain
for saying all this, I probably ought to.
But the reason I’ve genuinely spent three
years working up the nerve to write this
column is because I don’t think I’ve ever
seen another woman say, simply and happily,
“I think I’m beautiful,” and this seems
statistically berserk when there are almost
four billion of us. Whether you’re Penélope
Cruz (“I don’t think I’m beautiful”) or Margot
Robbie (“I am definitely not the mostY
CAITLIN MORAN
I’m beautiful. I’m really hot. Deal with it
When I look in the mirror, I think, ‘Wow, heads will turn’
ROBERT WILSON
beautiful”) or Salma Hayek (“I don’t actually
have a good body”), every woman, no matter
how unarguably gorgeous, has to hate herself
a tiny, delicious amount. Just 10 or 15 per cent.
That’s a vital part of being a good, likeable
woman. You show you are a good woman by
bullying bits of your face and body in public:
“I have weird elbows.” “I hate my knees.” “My
ass is flat.” A staple of interviews with famous
women is, “What are your least favourite
features?” It is absolutely presumed that
there’s a self-loathing button you can press on
a woman and stuff will pour out. Oddly, men
don’t seem to have that button. They are
never asked that question.
There’s a lot of weird psychological maths
involved in this issue. To say you are beautiful
seems to imply you think yourself superior to
your sisters. That by claiming a presumably
finite supply of beauty for yourself, you’ve
somehow spitefully stolen it from others.
Of course, perceiving beauty doesn’t
work like that. We can appreciate an infinite
number of lovely things. Just as, every day, I see
dozens of beautiful clouds and gardens, hear
wondrous songs or eat delicious things, I also
see 30 women, minimum, I want to run after
and say, “I hope you know you’re amazing! It
looks like it would be fun to have your face.”
There are millions of beautiful women.
It’s just that no woman is ever able to
say she’s one of them.
Instead, the rules are that you have to
wait and be told you are beautiful, which
seems dangerously arbitrary. What if everyone
around you is stupid? Or the current “fashion”
isn’t for girls like you? It’s a risky business,
emotionally, when the ownership of beauty is
something given to you by others, rather than
something you can just... claim for yourself.
I can’t bear living in a world where 13-year-old
girls have to stand on the threshold of
womanhood and wait, hope and pray that
other people will tell them if they are allowed
to like their faces or bodies for the rest of
their lives. What do those other f***ers know,
anyway? Darling girls, you don’t let other
people decide who you fancy. So why let them
decide if you fancy yourself?
The opposite of dysmorphia would,
I think, be “eumorphia”, which sounds like
euphoria. And that’s what it is. How could you
waste your life thinking you – alive and bright
and in your bobble hat – are not beautiful?
What would be the point of that? nThere are millions
of gorgeous women.
It’s just that no
woman is ever able to
say she’s one of them
Banca do Antfer
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