Michelle Nhung Le

Posted on: 2/3/2023

The world loves a beautiful woman. The world loves a beautiful dead woman. The world loves a dead woman. As women, when we surpass the age of 18 our birthdays begin to feel more like funerals. Perceived as expiring just as we have begun to bloom, and before we have begun to wilt. A fruit discarded as rotten before it is ripe.

Death is sad but if you’re beautiful it’s a tragedy. A romantic tragedy, airbrushed, and lipstick stained, plastic packaged, and commodified. But everyone loves a beautiful woman. When a sex icon dies young I can feel a sigh of relief. The woman may die but the fantasy lives on. The woman may die, but may our sexual desires will not be soiled by the aging qualities of time. Time and time again we see societies muses die too young. And even if these muses don’t physically die, I think many women feel a pressure to live an almost full life by the time they’re 29. Why are we so afraid to turn 30? Why are we so afraid to turn 40? Why are we so afraid to age? As if it’s slipping this secret and that ultimately kills the fantasy.

I think of statements like those from Picasso in regards to sleeping with a 17 year old girl when he was 42 years old; “It was perfect—I was in my prime, she was in her prime.” was his remark. And this same ideology expressed by Picasso is expressed so prevalently in the media we grow up consuming. A fetishization of youth seeped deeply into our subconscious.

A woman is valued for being beautiful first, young second, and anything else that comes after is just a bonus or burden depending on who you’re asking. Botticelli’s “Venus” could never age, the fictional women in the abundance of renaissance paintings could never age, Marilyn Monroe in “Some Like it Hot” will never age. Yet we’ve placed this same weighted expectation on the flesh and bones of our mothers and daughters. The yearning to paint our skin with the same youth of Botticelli’s paintbrush. But we never will be. We’ll never be the ageless woman in a painting.

I was only in my prime at 17 when I was 17, because that was my present moment. I will be in my prime in the moment I am 32, and 55, and 87, because that will be my present moment. My“prime” is not defined by any outside source or expectation. My prime is defined by your present human experience. I take a deep inhale into my stomach. That sensation is my prime. Not me 5 years ago, and not me 5 years in the future. The sensation of being present is our prime.

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