My mirror is plain-speaking and tactless. It prides itself on speaking its mind, and not mincing its words. It lives in fear that I will rest on my laurels, and get above myself. Should I be so foolish as to catch sight of my body in a dim and flattering light, and think vaguely that it’s not all that bad, my mirror beckons me to come closer, so that it can remind me why I should re-evaluate my no-exercise policy, and enquire sternly if I regret my youthful bralessness now? When I feebly protest that bits of me seem quite OK, it delivers a lecture on Gravity; the inevitable effects of.
“The thing is”, one of my friends says, “men just don’t see our bodies the way we see them”. And thank fuck for that, or none of us would have had sex since we were 18. My mirror cares nothing for pleasing juxtapositions of curves and planes, of the way light gleams enticingly on flesh and falls gently into shadows; it has no interest in things you might want to run your hand over, to caress, or pinch, or probe. My mirror’s sole aim in life is to keep me fully informed of incipient cellulite, and thread veins, and excess or insufficient flesh. My mirror thinks I really should put some clothes on and cover up NOW, and even when I get dressed, bearing in mind all it has to say about disguising my myriad flaws, my mirror still reminds me that it knows what I am covering up.
Primed by our mirrors, we take our clothes off in front of our lovers, and expect them to recoil in horror, screaming: “Oh my God! Why didn’t you warn me?” Given the frequency with which we are reminded that men are visual creatures, you’d think they would echo our mirrors’ reproaches, and ask us sternly why we would want to expose our hideousness to them. But instead they fall on us with happy cries and rampant erections, wondering why on earth we have these stupid hang-ups about our perfectly desirable bodies.
Not all mirrors tell the same story, though. Catching sight of myself in a different one, after every inch of my body has been burnished and polished by strokes and kisses and licks and caresses, I wonder if my mirror at home isn’t lying to me after all. What I think when I look in this mirror, on my way back to bed for more of the same, is: “Fuck, I look good! Yeah - I’d do me!”
