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Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ in October 2013, Cher was asked whether she consciously felt the pressure to stay looking young. Replying frankly, the feeling had not apparently gripped her until the age of forty five but elaborating further on the modern world in which we live, the singer/actress added dispairingly – ‘even the young are under pressure to look young’.

A 2012 survey in Britain reported that the average woman in Britain starts to feel “invisible” at the age of 46. Despite being natural and inescapable, ageing, with diminishing fertility, fading beauty and sexual power, can involve a profound loss of identity. Furthermore, younger women in their twenties and thirties are reportedly now expressing concerns – the words ‘terrified’, ‘ancient’ and ‘dinosaur’ featuring heavily amongst their Twitter posts.

The number of women having Botox each year in Britain broke the million mark in 2010, with the global market set to reach £1.9 billion by 2018. Even Lord Sugar, against his better judgement, recognised that beauty clinics are the way forward, by selecting a blonde 25 year old doctor with plans to open a whole string of Botox clinics, as his ‘Apprentice’ winner in the 2013 BBC Tv series.

The Beauty Industry is now encouraging women to ‘go to war’ against marionette lines/perioral wrinkles around the mouth, naso-labial furrows, laughter lines around the eyes (crow’s feet), spider veins and liver spots. Twenty somethings are already using creams containing Retin-A and Renova, and most worringly of all, a 2013 National Health Service (NHS) report in Britain, found that more than half of young girls aged between 11 and 16, were feeling the pressure to look like celebrities. Elsewhere, surgeons are reportedly coining the term ‘Facebook Facelift’ to describe the increasing trend amongst the young to perfect their profile pictures on social media sites. It looks as if we’ve lost the plot somewhere.

It seems, to me at least, as if once again, the worldwide media is to blame for our preconceived notions on so many topics, not least the subject of physical attractiveness. More than forty years ago, the English novelist John Berger defined the differing depictions of both sexes, namely; that men were supposed to be effective, and women were supposed to be attractive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger

Social media, a worldwide communication channel I persistently view with extreme caution, suggests this decades old view remains as topical as ever. A range of female personalities nowadays profess to being ugly despite the fact that their looks are, like millions, rather ordinary. Fortunately, as a man, my ordinary looks makes me feel positively ‘normal’, principally because I’m in such good company. Women, on the other hand, may seek, but find precious little comfort in the world of anonymity. As court jester for the world’s media, John Lennon made a valid point whilst appearing inside a bag before the Dutch press in 1969. Espousing the cause of ‘total communication’ he promoted the benefits of ‘bagism,’ and its enforced removal of our preconceived notions about strangers, based on their appearance, ethnicity, religion, native tongue and outward status.

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In his autobiography “Pieces Of My Heart”, published in 2009, Robert Wagner wrote about attractive women and Elizabeth Taylor.

‘Some beautiful women are passive in the bedroom. They’re gorgeous, they know they’re gorgeous and they don’t feel the need to do anything beyond being gorgeous. Elizabeth Taylor was not one of those women. Being with her was like sticking an eggbeater in your brain.

I first met her at one of actor Roddy McDowall’s parties before I signed up with 20th Century Fox in 1948. Like every other male animal around the world, I was crazy about her.

People always talk about her spectacular beauty or her violet eyes, but that is to overlook her emotional appeal, which I think is centred on her vulnerability.

She is a wonderful woman in an unusual way: great humanity and great sensuality are not commonly packaged together, but, when they are, the whole world knows it.

I loved her and I think she loved me, but on a practical level, Elizabeth was not the woman I needed in my life. With Elizabeth, there was a great deal of maintenance. This is not a woman who gets up in the morning and fixes breakfast: by the time she comes downstairs for breakfast, it’s time for dinner. Elizabeth’s life is built completely around Elizabeth and she needs a man to service her life 24/7’.