Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies. The price we pay for artificially buoying up this market is our heart's desire. The beauty myth keeps a gap of fantasy between men and women. That gap is made with mirrors; no law of nature supports it. It keeps us spending vast sums of money and looking distractedly around us, but its smoke and reflection interfere with our freedom to be sexually ourselves.
Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
advertising, aging, beauty, body-image, cosmetic-surgery, cosmetics, culture, diet-industry, double-standards, eating-disorders, equality, fashion-industry, feminism, images, magazines, marketing, mass-culture, objectification, plastic-surgery, pornography, self-esteem, sexual-violence, sexuality, society