Sex Secrets of an American Geisha (10 page)

Just as weight loss can positively affect beauty in a general way, so can exercise of various sorts affect the beauty of your skin, shoulders, arms, back, breasts, stomach, upper and lower legs, and butt. Of course, you could always undertake invasive surgery for such things as breast augmenta tion or reduction or liposuction of thighs or stomach. Though you could do this, I will not recommend it. I believe you can use the weight plan in Chapter 9 and some simple, completely noninvasive procedures to increase your beauty without resorting to surgical procedures. Haven’t I suggested quite a goodly number of actions you could take that would not involve the surgeon’s knife and the anesthesiologist’s skills? Over time, accomplishing some—not necessarily all—of these little improvements in your appear ance will add up to a big, obvious change in your overall beauty. You can lit erally spend months and years becoming more beautiful and feminine every day, just a little bit at a time, just a little bit more each day.

There are a very few situations in which I believe a woman might want to consider surgery. Most noses are just fine as they are, but if yours is somehow beyond the rather expansive range of “normal” or has been dam aged by injury, consider rhinoplasty to reshape and resize it. Noses are not usually a critical area of beauty, because it is not an element of the face that men usually focus on. I believe that men usually notice the hair, eyes, mouth, and shape of the face before they notice the nose or ears. The ears are a second possible candidate for surgery. But again, only if they are re markably misshapen (rare) or overly protruding from the head (somewhat more common). As to the breasts, I believe that all shapes and sizes are seen as beautiful by different Good Men according to their preferences. Con sider breast-reduction surgery only for overly drooping, pendulous breasts, or overly large breasts that distort the natural beauty of the areola and nip ple or that cause back pain or other physical discomfort. I do not believe a woman should
ever
have surgery to enlarge her breasts. Small breasts are not just “fine”; they are beautiful! (My husband says, “Any more than a mouth ful is wasted anyway.”) If childbirth or other events have left you with a loose, inelastic vagina (and if you are not helped by the Kegel exercises de scribed in Chapter 5), you might want to consider “vaginal rejuvenation” surgery, for both your Good Man’s and your own increased sexual-emo tional satisfaction. Finally, if the connection between neck and chin is obvi ously sloped, creating a “weak chin” or “chinless” appearance, it may be a strong candidate for corrective surgery.

I do not recommend that you follow
all
geisha habits of beauty and femininity:

After finishing at the hairdressers, I went to the barbershop to have my face shaved, a common practice among Japanese women. My face was shaved for the first time by my father after he gave me my first hair cut, on the day I turned one year old. I have had it done once a month since then.
4

One last thought about the beauty of your body before we move on to consideration of your wardrobe. When you do something that increases your physical beauty you often increase a man’s perception of your sexiness and femininity at the same time. For instance, if you lose excess weight you’ll probably increase your beauty. At the same time, the average man would also probably see you as sexier and more feminine, since a heavy size is generally regarded as unsexy and unfeminine. If you remove unwanted hair from somewhere, chances are that many men would say that you look sexier and more feminine since “hairiness” (except on the head) is consid ered a masculine trait.

We American Geisha are quite fortunate that as we make ourselves more beautiful, we may also be perceived as sexier and more feminine. I think of it as a womanly “bonus” of sorts. The same is true of your war drobe: Beautiful clothes can help you to look more feminine and sexy.

WORK TO IMPROVE THE BEAUTY OF YOUR CLOTHES

I was so oblivious to fashion that I should have looked into getting some professional help with my wardrobe selections. What about you? Don’t you want to dress with a sense of class, whether you go upscale or middle-class, urban chic or artsy bohemian or sporty fresh? Of course you do. Even when you dress sexily, you don’t want to project a low-class image, do you? Do you want your clothes to complement your physical beauty and to have a feminine (and, if appropriate to the setting, a sexy) quality? This can be done on any budget because it has more to do with taste and judgment than it does with the actual cost of the clothes.

Become more fashion conscious. Subscribe to two or three women’s magazines that appeal to you, according to your interests, your age, your geographical location (rural or urban), your profession. Be open to the fashion and makeup tips offered, but certainly not a slave to them. Pay at tention to the seasonality of fashion. Approach those of your girlfriends who seem most attractive and well put together for help. Ask for some tips and frank critiques of your fashion sense. If you are lucky enough to have a gay male friend, buy him dinner and wine and see if his insights about your clothes and use of eye shadow or lip color could be helpful. If you seek professional help by approaching a cosmetics counter for a makeover, be cautious! I’ve seen some pretty scary makeup jobs on the very women who offer to teach you what would be flattering on you. (Don’t they look in their own mirrors?) Remember, you know yourself best, so don’t surren der total control over your look to a stranger who is probably working on commission. Often, less is better. And, of course, the best for you may be no makeup, or just enough so that it
seems
as though you are wearing none.

Unless you have money to burn, I suggest that you consider the resale shops, either a thrift store like Goodwill (where I’ve found many cute, sexy pieces for three dollars or less) or a more upscale, Beverly Hills–like store that recycles designer apparel at much-reduced prices. Somewhat different in philosophy is the vintage store, where the prices can be fairly high but the merchandise has a more quirky, past-era style to it. Some of the pieces bought in these stores can be improved with scissors, needle, and thread. I like carefully chosen pieces from resale shops for the obvious monetary sav ings they offer, but also because by wearing them you add a unique flair to your appearance. No one else has exactly the same item as you do, especially after the scissors and needle do their work. I believe that you want to dress differently and better than the average woman, so that you are more notice able to potential Good Men.

Along with subscriptions to fashion magazines, sign up for a free e mail subscription to the
New York Times
, where you’ll be able to review arti cles, still shots, and video with commentary regarding the latest fashions. Be inspired by what you see as you put together your own wardrobe.

You’ll also buy clothes that are appropriate to your interests and to the socioeconomic environment in which you seek to find your Good Man. Are you outdoorsy (and do you want him to be, too)? Is the theater more your interest? Are you a big-city girl? Small town? Happiest on the farm? Like sports cars or drive a pickup? Wine-tasting events? Art exhibit openings? Love baseball? Prefer tennis at the club? So many possible interests, so many possible men to meet through those interests, and so many wardrobe choices to make based on those (your!) interests.

Whatever the label might say, your goal with your clothes is to high light your best physical attributes (say, your long, toned, bony back), while masking your weak spots (say, your lower legs). Thus, you might opt for a vertically striped, tight top that hugs your back and ribs, and pair it with full-length, narrow-cut pants. The options are literally countless. Just be sure you know your best physical attributes and dress to attract attention to them. Likewise, be aware of your less beautiful endowments and dress to downplay them. Finally, remember this basic: Dress with a sense of
class.

As you think about increasing your sexy femininity, remember that simply by becoming more beautiful and dressing more beautifully, you will tend to encourage men to think of you as more feminine and sexier. Once again, it is that strong connection between beauty, femininity, and sexiness. Fortu nately, then, when you work on any
one
of these three aspects of yourself, you receive the bonus of positive change in the other two areas. I do not want you to think of beauty, femininity, and sexiness as three separate and discrete dimensions of yourself. Instead, as many of my research respon dents seemed to do, allow yourself to dissolve the boundaries between the three, and see them combined into what I call your Geisha Attractiveness.

I’ve mentioned that having a sense of class is important. Let me be more specific. Everything you do to attract appropriate Good Men should be done with attention paid to the tasteful and refined image that you want to put forth. A Good Man may or may not have money, a great job, or so cial standing, but he does have the basic characteristic of dealing with the world in a higher-class way. He operates with honesty, integrity, and kind ness. You always want to attract this type of man, and you will do so if you display your beauty, femininity, and sexiness within the context of being a woman with class. Put another way, an American Geisha always engages in the classy behavior of a Good Woman, thereby attracting the appropriate attention of an equally classy Good Man.

You can easily imagine how “class” can be associated with beauty and with feminine behavior. The more difficult association is probably between overt sexiness and class. To begin with, let us remember not to separate beauty, femininity, and sexiness. Instead, let’s mix your three-part Geisha Attractiveness with classiness and see how you can set yourself apart from the competition. I’ll use just one example from that last long list of what re spondents found sexy and feminine: “Her clothing slightly reveals some of her body.” When you dress this way, you will be perceived as being sexy, feminine, and beautiful; all three aspects of your Geisha Attractiveness will be on display.

The Asian Geisha must be very careful to do this in a tasteful way or she risks putting off her very class-conscious clients and developing a reputation for inappropriate, unclassy behavior. For you as an American Geisha the situation is similar. You, too, want to attract and satisfy classy men, not so you can build your business but so you can eventually attract the right Good Man to you, fall in love, and marry. Let me suggest a few possible ways to implement “revealing some of your body” with the proper consid eration for both your Geisha Attractiveness
and
classy behavior:

• You reveal your best weight and your toned thighs with a black miniskirt (key to classy: not
  too
  short).
  
• You wear a traditional business suit to work, with the hem four inches above the knee (key to classy:
  not
  eight inches above the knee, and custom-tailored to flatter your body).
  
• You go braless in a classic button-front white shirt (key to classy: not
  too
  many buttons undone).
  
• At a party, your neckline plunges practically to your navel (key to classy: nonchalant confidence, yet awareness of maintaining good posture).
  
• At a party or dance you wear a Wonderbra to enhance your décol letage (key to classy: not too many shirt buttons undone, and your breasts do not look scrunched together under enormous pressure).
  
• You wear Brazilian-cut, hip-hugging jeans and a cut-off T-shirt (key to classy: the jeans are not so low-cut that your backside looks like that of a plumber fixing the garbage disposal unit under the kitchen sink).
  

Remember, classiness isn’t just about how you dress. You can pick any of the items from the list of what my respondents found feminine and sexy and imagine for yourself how they can come across in a classy (or unclassy) way. Classiness is a concept that each of us, dear Younger Sister, will define somewhat differently, according to our backgrounds and experiences. Whatever your definition of “classy” might be, your Older Sister is sug gesting that as you seek to increase your beauty, femininity, and sexiness— in sum, your Geisha Attractiveness—always keep in mind, as the Asian Geisha must, the image you project to prospective Good Men. Remember that the image should always be that of a classy Good Woman.

Finding the Time and Money for Beauty
and Sexy Femininity

You must depend on your great desire for sexuality, love, and marriage as your basic motivation to find the time and money to implement your plan to be more beautiful and feminine (much as that same motivation will pro vide the energy behind your success with your weight and exercise plan; more on that topic in Chapter 9). However, just to stimulate your creativity, below are two short lists of ideas for finding time and money to devote to the further development of your beauty and femininity.