Musings of an Inappropriate Woman

Britney Spears and why it’s painful to be beautiful

I saw her on Thursday night.

A lot has been said in Australia about the quality of her performance, most of it centred around the fact that she doesn’t actually sing. To those people, I say, “who goes to a Britney Spears concert expecting her to sing?” We established 10 years ago that it wasn’t her forte. Back then I was pretty pissed off about it too (being a self-righteous teenager at the time - and one who sang at that), but these days she’s more a symbol than she is a singer. And her show is more a Circus-with-a-capital-C than a concert.

Even on that level, it had its failings, though. It was much like one of her albums, in that there were some incredible high points (multi-media, Perez Hilton, the first three songs and the last two or three), and a whole lot of filler in the middle. And she spent way too much time off stage. I paid [ridiculous amount of money] to see Britney Spears, not her dancers.

But five-song lulls mean time for thinking, and I spent most of it thinking about just how much the success of Britney Spears - and even her mental health - is measured and predicated on the way she looks. As I’ve written before: Britney with fat on her body is read as ”off the rails”; skinny, toned Britney means “she’s baaaaack” - as much so as the quality of her albums or songs.

She looked fantastic on Thursday night, absolutely beautiful. But looking at her made me feel sad, because it reminded me of how much work - and probably anguish - goes into keeping her looking like that.

Two and a half years ago, she shaved her head. Now her hair is long, blonde and half-way down her back, but you could see quite clearly where her real hair ended and the extensions began. Her body was perfectly proportioned and toned - but we’ve all seen enough photos to know that she doesn’t look like she did when she was 20 anymore without a lot of work. (And even then I recall reading that she did 1000 sit ups each day. And possibly had bulimia.)

Recently, I wrote a feature article about the lives of the ridiculously beautiful. One of the things that came out of it was that even for the proms queens of this world - the kind of women who get approached on the street by legitimate modelling agencies and put on their books - being “the beautiful girl” takes work.

And that even if you naturally possess all the qualities that make a woman considered beautiful by the majority of people, it’s still something you can turn up and down, even on and off, at will - through clothing, hairstyle, make up, high heels, etc. So much of what we think of as beautiful is really about performing femininity, regardless of your body shape or bone structure.

For the story, I spoke to Dr Meredith Jones, a researcher from UTS. She told me that contrary to the “ugly duckling” stereotype, conventionally attractive people were actually more likely to get cosmetic surgery than less attractive people. They knew the feeling that comes from being loved and appreciated from their looks, and were terrified of it going away. Or, you know, wanted to give that “love” a little boost. 

And so we see Britney Spears. A woman who has - I think, at least - all the gifts of conventional beauty, who gets shit lumped on her whenever she dares to gain five kilos, get a pimple or not blow dry her hair. And who gets showered with financial and emotional rewards whenever she follows the script.

Why I’m writing about STIs: an FYI (and a request for help)

Two recent exchanges.

The first, at my high school reunion over the weekend.

Me: [blah blah blah] Sydney Morning Herald, Vogue, Cleo…
Old friend: Doesn’t Cleo publish stories about sex?
Me: Yep, that’s what I write about. (Note: Well, that and other things - see my “Kanye West syndrome” story in Cleo’s latest issue.)

Second, the above tweet, which caused some amusement (and in one case horror) for a few of the guys on my Twitter list when I posted it last week. Fair enough - I guess it was pretty bluntly phrased, and an unusual question to throw out on Twitter. But it’s also an important one.

I feel like much of the time, when we talk about sex, we’re not really talking about the actual act of it at all. And as a writer, at least, that’s certainly not where my interest lies. What I’m interested in are the processes by which people make sense of their own and others’ experiences - and sex just happens to be a particularly symbolically- and emotionally-loaded arena in which to think about this.

Some of you may remember that this time last year I was working on a story about why so many people stop using condoms once they get into a relationship. Trust is a big part of the answer to that question (as is the ‘but it feels better’ argument), but I think that the sense that STIs only happen to ‘other people’ is too. People are very quick to assume that there’s no way someone they care about could have an STI - because, you know, that only happens to dirty, slutty, unloveable people. They might not say it outwardly, but that’s the underlying assumption.

Which is stupid, in case you didn’t know, and blatantly not true.

So I was really excited when I came across this book, by Adina Nack, in one of the journals I follow for thesis purposes - and knew immediately that I had to write about it.

Nack, a medical sociologist specialising in sexual health and social psychology, interviewed 43 women about how contracting a sexually transmitted infection impacted the way they thought about themselves and their sexualities. She focused on women with HPV and herpes, as these particular STIs are chronic and incurable, but (contrary to that first twitter post) I’m interested in speaking to people who’ve had any STI.

So if you’re between 18 and 35 (the magazine’s demographic) and are interested in participatng, you know what to do: email me. The interviews will focus on your beliefs about STIs before and after having one, and how you felt when you were first diagnosed.

And as always, I’d be keen to hear your thoughts on these issues more generally in the comments below.