Dear Botheration,

I just remembered a quote from 'Judge Judy.' You probably know it too.

"Beauty fades, stupid is forever!"

So as dad would add, "Work it girl, work it!" (meaning the brain, not the body).

And, again Thanks for your kind words - your partner's a lucky guy!

My wife is just as beautiful, & sexy, as she was, when I met her, 36 years ago.

Our youngest daughter, in her late teens, [as one of Bob Hawkes silly old buggers, I was a late starter], is very pretty, & probably sexy. It will however, take a few more years living, for her to achieve beauty, if she is going to.

Dear Hasbeen,

You certainly don't sound like a 'Hasbeen.' You sound like a -
'Been-there-done-that.' A very cluey sort of bloke. And it's lovely to have a man acknowledge his wife's beauty, as well as his daughter's...

And I'm betting that neither of them have an 'image' problem. They couldn't with you around, telling them how amazing they are.
Ahhhhh, for more men like you!

AAh HAH ! now we know :) both Foxy and Botheration are 'female'.. no wonder their posts have a "gentle" twang to them :)

Corri said:

<<With such a focus on body image are females at a disadvantage during this stage of development? And are we setting up 30+ females for depression and an unachievable goal of rekindling the image as they reach their 30's, 40's and beyond.>>

No Corri, we have all invested in 'Cosmetic Surgery'Companies and expect a huge windfall when the girls reach 30 and start paying for that special body shape......

Ok..seriously now..... IFFFF our moral and cultural foundations are based on the 'existential self' and the philosophical unperinnings of postmodern life are drawn from the likes of Sartre, Neitzche and Derrida.... "truth is what you make it" etc.. and if we have abandoned the ethic of Jesus:

"If anyone among you would be great..let him be the servant of all, for the first will be last and the last will be first"

and if we continue to pander to the "me me me and more of me" and "if u've got it..flaunnnnnt it"

and if we continue to 'make it up as we go' ..well.. lets not be surprised if the outcome is as Corri described!

The 'world' (i.e. FM youth stations and popular media/MTV etc) says:

"Females are sex objects"
"Live for the sexual moment"

The Bible says: "Treat the younger women as sisters, in all purity"

Well I don't care HOW boring that might sound, I know it works for the individual and society.

Dear BD,

Sometimes you surprise me. In a nice way!

Thank you Boaz ... though it expands the initial thread it certainly focuses on the underlying theme. Have we lost our sense of ethics that were taught via Christian studies (or other religious beliefs)?

The consumerist society certainly has focused on the "me" or as Boaz so wonderfully put it, the existential self. But who is now defining the "me" ... the media? the corporates? Certainly not the individual.

There seems very little individuality in a consumer society.

How do we rekindle the ethics / cultural foundation? Or are we starting to see more of that now with the growth of the pentecostal churches such as Hillsong? Or are these churches just an extension of consumerism, the consumerist church?