Orange Butt Cheeks

BEAUTY, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

It is equally not.

Media images determine in a large part what is accepted as beauty in our society. As feminist icon and author Germaine Greer says in her book 'The Whole Woman' (Knopf, 1999):

“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her achievements,
she is a failure if she is not beautiful."

And if you had even just a passing glance of The Sun yesterday morning, (or access its e-paper), you will surely know she was dead right. For even as you escape hairiness, you will fall foul of cellulite.


The Sun, April 8 2005. Outside Front Cover

Cellulite is subcutaneous fat, pure and simple. It keeps women warm and softens the body contours for a feminine physique. If fat builds up, it often dimples. Whether or not your fat dimples is hereditary. Some women have tight smooth fat, some women have softer fat.

Once upon a time, men and women adored dimply fat. It took 20th -century marketing tactics to render it disgusting. As a way of inducing people to buy products of uncertain efficacy, women in particular have been subtly but surely infected with Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Among the perma-youth of stars who obsess about their imagined ugliness are Cher, Goldie Hawn, Demi Moore and Madonna. Sitting on top of this heap of distorted self-images is of course, Peter Pan.

Criminalising cellulite, manufacturers come up with Viagra-like cures to make a bundle out of women’s carefully cultivated disgust with their own bodies. A condition that practically all women "suffer from" is spoken of as unsightly and abnormal. Such tactics suggest, indeed make women feel that parts of their bodies are defective and should be worked on.

"You don’t have to live with it anymore."
"Go ahead, work your butt off."

What rubbish.

Dimply fat will only disappear if it is starved off; no amount of pounding or vibrating or massaging will transform riddled orange-peel butt cheeks into smooth peaches. Your cellulite is you and will be with you till death or liposuction.


Yet, even without media images and ads, people who are in good shape and have less fat on their bodies will be more attractive. Here's how you could deal with it:

a) spend the rest of your life eating right and staying in shape, or
b) spend the rest of your life not worrying about it.

But for God's sake don't spend the rest of your life trying to tell people what they should find attractive. If you want to be grossly overweight, be fat and accept that being fat is not synonymous with being attractive to 99% of the world. Neither is being deathly skinny. If you are fat and are trying desperately to lose weight but can't, my sympathies, and keep fighting. But if you don't want to be constrained by stereotypes and media representations of femininity, then tell them to eff off and believe in yourself. The only power it has over you is the power you give it.

Beauty, after all, is in The I of The Beholder.

What is cellulite?
What are the supposed "treatments" for cellulite?
How about liposuction?
What can be done about cellulite?