i can't get no satisfaction

came across this great article series about one of my chief joys in life - fabulous undies.

it's actually an intellectual discussion about lingerie and feminism, among other things. there are all kinds great debates and ideas posed in these articles, i hope you'll read them. but these lines spoke so clearly into one my eternal struggles:

"As the Rolling Stones knew well, all consumer advertising peddles one basic thing: dissatisfaction. We're constantly being sold the idea that we could be happy if ... if we just fixed X problem by buying Y product."
- E.J. Graff, "what's so funny about pretty panties?"

this, dear readers, is one of the subtlest and most gripping torments with which i grapple regularly. this idea that i can buy myself into calm or happiness. or, when i really peel back the layers, the pressure cooker of the belief that the only way any boy will ever love me is if i look beautiful, smell like amber and vanilla, am as thin as i can will myself to be, commit time to shimmery eye lids and studiously en vogue bags and shoes. and, of course, i have mass quantities of fancypanties which i wear to give myself the extra boost of hidden sexiness that i hope will shine through to the outer me. something to get his attention and keep it. something to lure him in. because the stripped-down real version of me is too plain and entirely too unattractive to be, well, attractive.

the torment comes from the fact that on the very (very) rare occasions which these same said fancypanties were enjoyed by more than just me, they were, in all honesty, very well received.