The Vulture in the Mirror

Paul and beauty, Paul Stewart and beauty are hardly two regular bedfellows. I was always the geek at school. Always the one with glasses and awkwardness like it was my super disability.

So it's never been my goal. I always thought it might be nice to be one of the beautiful ones, but I grew to have a rather conflicted viewpoint when it came to beauty standards.

I like curvy women, for instance.

And never had a problem with the idea of, if ever I was lucky (not very often, I hasten to add) to see or touch a woman all naked and find she had pubic hair, that didn't sound unappealing to me.

I did appreciate the more traditional beauties I grew up seeing, such as Kylie (I may have mentioned her a few times before), Kim Basinger and Cameron Diaz.

But I also liked less Hollywood-glam ladies and admired men who looked normal or different.

I was very much attracted to women older than me, too.

So, yeah, beauty and Paul doesn't sound like a good mixture. I'm now old; I have started regularly-ish shaving off my hair completely because I hate the patchy greys, and I can look like the most awkward, edgy, dodgy, grumpy man who ever did edge, dodge and grump.

So I might be ill-fitted to discuss beauty conventionally.

So I won't.

I bet you didn't see that twist coming?

You did?

Smartarses, the lot of you.

Over the years, I've continued to appreciate the same standards I did when I was developing my opinions and preferences.

I'm a contrarian, really. On the one hand, I find physically attractive people attractive but rage against the idea that that is anything close to a reasonable and just marker. I also have an addiction to pornography that doesn't help that contrarian nature.

I don't currently act out or partake in pornography, but when I did, it was a mixture of more conventional attractiveness and my own preferences.

I find it shameful to talk about, not least of all because I always tried to make myself principled as a teenager and tried to see women as more than just their looks, and to believe that beauty was more than just skin deep.

Ruth, my wife, whom many of you know, is 13 years older than me. Currently, I am 46 and she is 59 (I know, I know, she doesn't look anywhere near 60).

She is curvy, has noticeable breasts and a noticeable bottom.

All things I love.

Here's the thing, though: we've been together for 25 years and married for 24 years. While I am by no means anything close to a small speck of dirt that could be considered a model husband... well, park that just now.

What I would say is, her looks are important to me. I guess it's like the "you eat with your eyes" thing when choosing food.

But Ruth isn't just a tasty meal... there are a stack of unseen things that I love about her that make her beautiful.

She's kind.

She's principled.

She's family-oriented and cares.

She blushes when she drinks alcohol.

She can be coy and inward when she's a little bashful, and it's fricking adorable.

She can also be the life and soul.

She likes silly puns and laughs at some stupid things, but her laugh is beautiful.

As we met online, her chat and then her voice and a few pictures were all I had to go on, and I fell for her voice. It was so alien-sounding, so Essex-y compared to the Glaswegian or various forms of Scottish accents I had been surrounded with from birth to 21, when we first chatted.

She sounded very posh compared to the lassies I had spoken to before her. I may have swooned hearing her voice.

When she spoke quietly or whispered... damn.

Beauty as you age is an intriguing thing. I actually think Ruth is more attractive now than she was when we first met.

Yet I've still cheated online and did some things that would contradict that. Not that it really contradicts it; you can still find someone attractive and cheat, as it's usually not down to just looks.

So it's complicated. I've been selfish, thoughtless and nasty.

My perception of what is beautiful has deepened, though, and the things I think beautiful about Ruth or anything else are more expansive in some ways and more nuanced.

Even my love of animals, and the specific types of animals and breeds I like, will tell you something to that point, because I love lizards and reptiles, crows, ravens, Komodo dragons and vultures. Love a vulture, I do.

Spiders. Are beautiful. Scorpions. Beautiful, though I am less likely to want to touch them. Praying mantises, centipedes, millipedes and caterpillars: all stunning.

So what the hell does this have to do with what I was trying to say? They are often regarded as outcasts, the ugly, the scary freaks of the animal world, and that's kinda why I like them.

They don't ask you to look at them and think they are pretty like a beautiful macaw or a capybara. They don't give a shit.

They know they are important and actually benefit from the fear their appearances inspire.

This taught me, I think, from quite early on, although my feelings and thoughts on the subject have continued to develop as I've gotten older, that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. While there are whole theses and scientific and sociological evidence suggesting that some things and people are genetically predisposed to be considered beautiful, we shouldn't be tethered to that way of thinking or believe that it's the standard.

Since my teens, I have always held a strong opinion about industries that promote so-called standards because, while the people who met them were beautiful, and it's up to individuals to decide what they want to look like, I never bought into it.

And the older I get, the stronger I feel.

I love Ruth and am more attracted to her now than ever before because she has a clearer idea of how she wants to look and chooses her appearance for herself.