urrrrgh

[arguchik]

my face is all broken out! i'm nearly 40. shouldn't i have outgrown acne by now????

Comments

[jennaxide.livejournal.com]

werd. i had peaches 'n cream skin until i was 18, then it all went to hell. now i'm getting wrinkles AND acne. stupid acne.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

stupid wrinkles.

i'm embarassed to admit that i'm *swayed* by some of the promises made by manufacturers of anti-wrinkle creams. i also know, though, that it's all bullshit. everybody ages, just like everybody poops.

what we *really* need to interrogate are the ways in which our culture devalues people as they age. i wonder if there's a cream for *that*???

[jennaxide.livejournal.com]

i hear you. the truth is, i pay more than i think i should for a brand of skin product, because when i stopped using it (i thought it was vain and all those products are the same; it's a play on women's insecurity, right?) my skin got really, really unattractive. but it's cleansers, not groovy creams that promise to lift things. but it took me a long time to decide that toner wasn't just pink water.

that being said, i'm proud of my wrinkles. i've earned every damn one of them, and i expect to earn more. i think that advertising inflates the value of youth, which could be perceived as devaluing the aging, but i don't. do you have an example you're thinking of?

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

one example that comes right to mind is my online dating experience. soooooo many men in the 40+ age bracket are looking for women who are significantly younger than they are. it's disgusting. i once had a really nasty email conversation with a guy who was 48 and listed an upper age limit of 37 in his "what i'm looking for in a date" criteria. i asked him about it, expecting that he would say something like "oh, i just picked numbers out of my butt. they don't actually mean much to me." instead, he laid out a rather extensive argument defending this aspect of his criteria, explaining that women over 37 are "too focused on having a baby *right now*" and "too set in their ways." i.e. they are not as willing to bend themselves to his will, priorities, and lifestyle as a younger woman would be. i thought...WTF????? mind you, this is a guy who clearly considered himself at least lefty- and feminist-friendly. he responded to my ad, after all, in which i described myself *explicitly* as both of those things (also id'ed myself as an academic and union organizer); and he described himself as "progressive" in his first email to me. it was so offensive. i wrote back to him that his attitude seemed really agist to me--and that i was actually approaching my 38th birthday, i.e. my "expiration date" according to his criteria. he responded that i was being very close-minded. i, of course, told him he was a fuckwad who should go get bent.

p.s.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

he also had the nerve to tell me that he's "much younger, really, than his chronological age. everyone tells him so."

[jennaxide.livejournal.com]

that guy sounds like a scab. that is so unutterably narrow-minded of him. not to mention he is making a huge mistake by missing out on a hottie like you.

perhaps it's this guy that is shallow, and that's why he's so defensive? i know that i was raised to respect the aging. i know that the aging rank the preferred times of their lives backwards: their most favorite decade was the most recent, like if they were 70 they said their 60's, and then their 50's, then 40's, 30's and dead last was their 20's.

you think as a culture we devalue the aging?

[xtingu]

I'm 35 and still enjoy the pleasures of zits. I've been commanded by my skin care specialist that women over 30 should treat zits only with salycilic acid, not benzoyl peroxide. I used to spend maddd cashhh on this stuff until I noticed that Clean and Clear's Advantage Acne Spot Treatment has the same active ingredients in the same concentrations, but it's like $18 less.

It's great for putting it just on the zit, and it's great as a preventative -- put it all over your face.

[maeveh.livejournal.com]

"i, of course, told him he was a fuckwad who should go get bent."

Sweet!

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yes, i do. we certainly fetishize youth, in the same ways in which we fetishize thinnness or other beauty markers. also, there's the prevalence of age discrimination in the workplace, forced retirement, etc.

[jennaxide.livejournal.com]

*sigh!* you are right, companera. a much as i wish it weren't true, you are right.