15 thoughts on “Body Dysmorphic disorder explained”

  1. I wonder how many people out there have this disorder, but see themselves as more beautiful than the rest of the world does? This might have the result of boosting self-esteem instead of lowering it. OK, I’m procrastinating, must go back to work!!

  2. WOW! there’s a woman who has had a lot of face work done…It IS a woman, isn’t it? Or perhaps my question should be, is it human.

  3. Funny, we were talking about that at work. And yes, I’m quite sure that if does work the other way, if that 65-year-old woman I saw at the opera last month is any proof. She was in a strapless red satin mini with a rhinestone choker and a feather headpiece, dressed as if she had lost her way en route to the fetish night. Instead of being flattering, the outfit revealed her shortcomings. Let’s say she didn’t have the muscle tone to carry it off, and leave it at that.
    I was wondering aloud about that to my good friend G, and he said “Maybe she has that Michael Jackson disease – when she looks in the mirror, she sees something quite different than you do.”

  4. Kopper, if only having “that Michael Jackson disease” also affected how other people she us — now that would be an interesting use of the power of the mind. We saw a movie where Hugh Grant played an aging POP star and he actually complained that the women screaming at the stage “were menopausal women”. That kind of made me mad. So, if we aren’t 20-year-old models then we don’t count, aren’t attractive …???

  5. I’m telling some major tales out of school but Loki’s first reaction to learning of my getting knocked up with Keith was “I’m sleeping with a GRANDMOTHER”.

    Guys are genetically pulled towards light coloured, smooth hair, (means younger) a certain body shape (means nubile) and certain coquettish body language (means hittable). Not ALL guys are of course, because some guys get their programming messed with at an early age with abuse, powerful experiences or they are just plain queer and can admire a beautiful woman without wanting to impregnate her. Some guys possess such a fetishized sexuality that even if they are nominally straight they can’t have ‘regular’ ie “warning, pregnancy may ensue” sex.

    BUT, most guys want to get it from some female who can give them offspring. The ones I like are the ones who figure that they would rather have one good attractive over time woman they can count on than suffer the embarrassments and excesses of chasing pretty ones who will ask them for money or marriage or tell them to get lost. When we find one, let us have the sense to keep him happy!

    And yeah, it is fucking annoying when middle aged guys go EW over women their own age. But disregarding the whack in the eyes their own DNA is providing is not going to help… Do middle aged women count? oh yeah. But as far as Darwin is concerned our importance is in helping get our GRANDCHILDREN to breeding age. Else why would we get that little burst of energy around menopause?

  6. I guess in the original DNA programming, we (humans) would be lucky to live to be 40 years old SO it all worked out. Now we live longer and guess what, I still get the same reactions to attrative men as I always did. Yes, I am lucky, I have, as you say “found one” and I should have the sense “to keep him happy” BUT if he passed away where would I be then? Should I pray to DNA programmer for a redesign?

  7. Also, my brother Joe reacted strangely when he found out I was pregnant with Jenny. I guess the bottom line was he was in shock, it hadn’t occured to him that we were old enough to have children. He was married and in Teacher’s college, Toronto at the time. His wife, bless her heart, thought it would be cool for us to have our babies together and promptly got pregnant herself sending my brother into another round of shock.

    Question, Allegra. Is our importance getting our children to breeding age so we can have grandchildren OR helping our grandchildren to breeding age so we can have great grandchildren?

  8. Dunno. I think it stops at grandchildren, because of how short human lifespans were up until about 50000 years ago.

  9. D’accord. Always look for the evolutionary explanation. The ability of increasing numbers of us to be centenarians is a VERY recent phenomenon, and the relevant genetic programming will not yet have been imprinted…and now – with the coming of the Big Correction – might NEVER be imprinted.

  10. I guess the other factor is “How long is a generation?”. With the advent of birth control and women seeking higher education more woman delay starting a family. 50,000 years ago or more, delaying pregnancy wasn’t much of an option so a generation would have been a shorter period of time. I remember my doctor telling me that in Victorian times, women did not start to menstruate until about 17 yrs old. I also remember you saying that the current generation is about 2 years earlier than our generation.

    Say, I’m 60 when I become a grandmother, add 30 years for the great grandchildren, I will probably won’t see these grandchildren to breeding age. Maybe 50,000 ago, I would have had my first child at 16 and 2nd at 20, I’d be 32-40 by the time my children had babies SO I might NOT even see my grandchildren as it was unusual for a human being to even live to 40.

  11. My personal vote for those of us who are not worthy of NRE* because we have NRP** is to switch teams. After all. IMO very few of the eligible males in my cohort have the energy or brains to attract me. And there are getting to be fewer and fewer of them, because men die first. So that leads to a geometrically increasing number of single female baby boomers, and since we’re supposed to be the sex with preference plasticity, why not?

    *New Relationship Energy

    **No Reproductive Potential

  12. Well Kopper, I guess that’s one patch that could be made to the DNA programming. I was kind of hoping the programming patch would involve changing the DNA code of men to look at the continuance of there reproductive fitness through taking care of their wife, their children and hence their future grandchildren thus taking care of propagating their genes.

  13. BUT THAT’S BORING… re Debbie’s comment. Re Kopper’s comment. Snicker. I am not entirely switching teams… yet. It may come to that!

  14. Sorry, I can’t see this ever working for me. I will always be looking for a warm male body to share my bed. If that stops working because I’m too old and crinkly, I’ll buy a heating blanket or a dog. Hats off to those who can make the other options work for them.

  15. Hey, I didn’t say I was quitting looking, to the contrary! Quite the opposite, in fact I have (although I have not been talking about it) a prospect at the moment. However I think of a William Butler Yeats’ quote

    And many a poor man that has roved,
    Loved and thought himself beloved,
    From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

    when I think about switching teams. I will let my dreams speak for themselves… they are always about men. Okay, provisionally, I am willing to concede that Al Gore is a man, although I don’t have proof. I’m still having trouble believing I dreamed that, it’s like a nightmare, but not as nice.

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