Baring It All
a 73-year-old woman gets naked in public
Welcome readers, old and new!
Please tap the ❤️ above for encouragement to step out of your comfort zone (if, in fact, you still have a comfort zone).
And about a discomfort zone: You might want to check out my recent story in Allure about the skeletal profiles we’ve been seeing recently on the red carpet.
🛬 🛬 🛬
Trying to acclimate my spinning brain to New York time after spending several months in Japan (put head in blender, hit puree, pour over all waking activity) always reminds me to relent on my striving for perfection.
I’ve been thinking more about this lately as my inbox fills with news about the many ways the beauty industry resolutely insists perfection is possible… even as its impossibility becomes more evident. (To wit: the undeniably weird results of some aesthetic interventions. Looking at you, Mrs. Bezos.)
The beauty industry’s idea of perfection—youthfulness, hypersexuality, a waxy erasure of any evidence of aliveness—leans ever closer to an AI template of beauty, the industry’s deus ex machina, which empties not only our wallets, but, finally, our souls.
What to do? What to do?
I’m sharing a video of a conversation I recently had with my friend Pam Redmond, a writer who came up with her own unique strategy for confronting the impossibility of competing with AI perfection.
When her online business, Nameberry, a hugely successful baby-naming website, was basically destroyed by AI scraping the information for its own profit, she wondered: What might she do that AI could never replicate or steal?
Old Woman Naked (or OWN), her one-woman play, was the answer—and it’s a doozy of an answer. I saw the play last spring in New York City; Pam has since had three more sold-out performances in LA (the third performance is tonight). And as you might suspect would happen when a 73-year-old woman strips naked in public, people have taken notice. By “people,” I mean The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, among others.
I’ve written about Pam before. Once, before she wrote the play, she came to my place for dinner and we wound up tugging down our pants to compare the state of our thighs (you had to be there). And again, after I saw the first performance of OWN.
Let me tell you something about Pam. She birthed three 10-pound babies and nursed them; her weight has yo-yoed over the years; and… she’s remarkably comfortable in her own skin. Her body tells a story, she says. In its imperfections, it is perfect.
In her Substack, Vain Feminist, Karen Flood recently wrote:
Ultimately, humanity is about imperfection. We only have true connection when we feel safe with each other, when we feel free to reveal our whole selves, bellies and all.
Click the “play” button below to watch my conversation with Pam. It’s long—a couple of friends meandering the way we do—so you’ll want to skip your way through. But I hope it motivates you to think a bit about the ways in which your body tells a story, too.
Val Asks You
Questions, questions, Val loves them! (Also, exclamation points.) What’s your most intractable appearance issue? Send your beauty-related questions to valeriemonroe@substack.com. If I don’t have a good answer, I’ll find someone who does.
Thank you for your Allure article; however, I take issue with the use of the BMI as the measure for health (not you but the entire medical industry). We know its odd history and medical doctors (and others) still use it, and frankly, I feel it perpetuates the on-going issue regarding weight. Recently I read through my medical records over a 40 year span (18 to 63 years old), and I discovered that I was actually 149 lbs at 5 ft. 4 in. when I started college and thought I was SO fat. Since then, my weight has fluctuated +/- 30 lbs. Nearly all the records refer to my having weight issues and noted that I was "obese" according to the BMI. Although I'm 30 lbs heavier, I exercise nearly daily, lift weights, have a low total blood cholesterol, low blood pressure, and low pulse rate. I eat mostly veggies and lean protein (and not too much of it). Yet, at my most recent doctor's appointment, I was told that though all my health indicators were good to great, I still needed to lose 15 pounds but was given no more advice beyond what I was doing. I asked if I should take weight loss medication or HRT and the doctor felt it was unnecessary. I'm at a loss as to what to do next, as I'm bombarded with these societal messages including my own doctor to "lose weight, lose weight."
“Waxy erasure” is the PERFECT phrase for what you’re describing!