Just the way you are

There’s a classic caption in the Daily Mirror below a picture of Rebekah Vardy, the wife of footballer Jamie, who is currently engaged in a court case with Coleen Rooney, the wife of former footballer Wayne Rooney. It reads: ‘The stunning WAG always looks fab’. The accompanying story, from way back in 2020, informs us that ‘she’s had two boob jobs’ and ‘loads’ of Botox.  The Mirror refers to ‘an expert’ who speculates that Ms Vardy, ‘may have recently undergone the non-surgical treatment of fillers to her lips as she appears to have fuller lips compared to previous images – especially when smiling.’ Despite her listed occupation as a ‘media personality’, is she not a human being, too?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I happen to agree with that. As the 1970s pop star Ray Stevens put it, ‘Everything is beautiful’, although he did then qualify it by adding ‘In its own way’, but maybe that’s fair enough too.

If a woman – or a man, for that matter – chooses to have, say, plastic surgery, for one thing it’s a matter for them. I once had surgery, albeit not the plastic variety, to have a large birthmark removed from my face so I know what it’s like to look in a mirror and hate what you see. But trying to look at things more objectively, we are all of different shapes and sizes. More than that, we are usually stuck with the defects we were given unless we are wealthy enough to change them. But do we need to?

Some people do. Many women have breast enhancement surgery. Without trying to dig too deeply on this subject, I can honestly say that breast size, shape etc was never in my consideration when admiring female looks. I honestly could not care less. And I rather like it when people’s faces, women or men, show the lines of age. In fact, I find it attractive. Should other people have corrective surgery? It’s up to them, but I wouldn’t see them differently. Would I, should I be able to afford it? The answer is not no. So, what I am saying it I completely get why people would want to change the way they look, although I question as a third party why they should need to. But when I look in the mirror, which is as little as possible, I am not going to lie and say surgery wouldn’t improve me, or make me slightly less unattractive. But here’s the thing: that would be about me and how I feel and that’s why so-called WAGS have surgery. It makes them feel better. The results are still mixed according to the eye of the beholder but if people feel better after surgery, who is to say they were wrong?

My view is that people, although it’s usually women, are told they need to look a certain way. The tabloid gutter press and the gossip magazines reduce everything to how people look and, inevitably, people often feel the need to conform. But we still have free will and we can choose how we deal with the often relentless media pressure.

I like the ‘natural’ look, which is to say that we should embrace our flaws, not hide them or try to change them, even if I am contradicting myself here. You cannot look the same at 40 as you did at 20, so why bother to try? ‘I love you just the way you are,” sang Billy Joel. I think we should all sing that to each other. Otherwise, what do we love?

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