Oliver Benjamin
CHAPTER 2
Though pedantry demes,
It’s plain that the bible means,
That Solomon grew wise
While talking with his queens.
Yet never could, although
They say he counted grass,
Count all the praises due
When Sheba was his lass.
W.B. YEATS, On Woman
A woman can be rendered infertile by a body fat
content only ten to fifteen percent below normal.
Thus the male preference for skinniness seems
positively maladaptive. And even more puzzling is
that it seems to be new in history.
MATT RIDLEY,The Red Queen
1. Leona
Following the pow-wow, Undergrounds shut down for the night and
Leona repaired with Roy to the bedroom where they spooned in his
king-size bed. Too much chai had rendered her sleepless and so she
allowed her mind to roam back to the beginnings of this new season
in her life, one which held so much promise and yet, for that very
reason, frightened her that the promise might fail to take root.
Leona loved Roy immensely. Roy still loved someone else, but
that someone was gone now, and so he tried to love Leona the best he
could. He provided her sustenance, friendship, shelter, and the
liberal use of his body. But he could not give her what she wanted
most, his love, and she knew this. She blamed her weight: the bulk of
her unhappiness. She had been born at the wrong time. She could not
imagine why men preferred women frail and otherworldly.
To Leona the modern standard of beauty teetered uncomfortably
close to prepubescence. Most models resembled tall children,
boasting hips from which one could barely extricate the head of a
human infant. Their glorification seemed a rejection of nature, of
fertility itself. Mired in self-pity, she thought it portended disaster
not only for herself but for the entire human race.
Until only recently, skinny women had been abhorrent in the
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