Buxom Beauty
By ice rivers
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Last night at a 64th birthday party, I heard Susan complaining to her husband (Matt) about her perception that Matt was oblivious to her and never paid her a compliment. This observation was initiated when another woman (Kate) had observed how much she “liked Susan’s hair” and how “different it looked since the last time that they had met”.
After a moment of silence, Kate’s husband (Irv) said, “Nowadays men have to be very careful about any compliment that they pay to a woman.”
Irv related the story of his attempt to compliment his wife when Kate had gotten her hair cut just the day before. Irv had told Kate that the new cut had made her look even younger than she already appeared. He should have stopped there. Instead, he made the mistake of saying that Kate looked downright “buxom”.
This “compliment” didn’t go over well with Kate who delivered a scorching womansplanation about masculine breast fixation, objectification, infantilism, immaturity and wrapped it up with “I’m not fat.”
Of course Irv had a totally different concept of the word “buxom”.
a. Healthily plump and ample of figure: “A generation ago, fat babies were considered healthy and buxom actresses were popular, but society has since come to worship thinness” ( Robert A. Hamilton )
Kate was about the same size as Marilyn Monroe. Kate had often registered pride in that resemblance. Irv had heard Marilyn referred to as “buxom” so he had flippantly decided to use that adjective as a way to compliment Kate who looked particularly healthy, youthful and vigorous after her haircut which somehow made her look even more like Marilyn Monroe if Marilyn had taken care of herself and aged with the beauty and grace suggested in her youth. The word “plump” was not part of Irv’s perception of the word “buxom”.
So Irv made another unwise decision in response to Susan’s perception about Matt which she had decided to generalize an include not only Matt but “men in general” about their inattention to female detail.
Irv said that he had complimented Kate the day before and had been excoriated as a result of the attempted compliment.
Susan asked about the compliment and when she heard the word
buxom”, she replied “ Jezuz Christ, that’s no compliment. That’s an insult.”
Irv asked Susan what she thought the word buxom meant to which Susan replied, “an old fat bag of a woman with big floppy tits showing them off to scumbags with their tongues hanging out.”
Karen who had been listening, chimed in with her opinion of “buxom”. Let’s just say it included Mae West and not in a flattering way.
Karen agreed that her husband Jeff “had no fucking idea” how to talk to much less compliment a woman.”
Irv had thrown kerosene on a smoldering fire and before long the conversation had turned into a blazing seminar about the insensitivity of men and the inarticulate ways they use to “express” their ignorance etc.
Since all the ballgames had been cancelled because of the pandemic, Matt, Irv and Jeff listened in practiced silence and tried to stay out of sight as they idealized thier wives and endowed them with an estrogenic wisdom impossible to refute or ignore. Meanwhile they decided tyo stay low and remain as invisible as possible while whatever half inebriated libido had struggled to spark, slowly disappeared into the regimen of indifference which was perhaps the cause of the entire conversation in the first place,
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