Today and through the weekend, the Sun is conjunct Nessus, a planet that addresses two themes apropos of sexuality: one is potentially inappropriate sexual contact; and the other is the psychological level of abuse often perpetuated on us by families and society. The two are related and are often one and the same thing.
This image is striking for its ironic contrast: the idealized woman and the real woman, side by side on a spring afternoon. Few would call this a form of abuse, but we all feel the results: as this odd tension in the air. Women are conditioned to constantly live up to something; then they project this onto men, who in my experience are far more forgiving of women’s supposed imperfections than most women are themselves.
And they project it onto one another. One result is a highly competitive (catty, is the word) environment among women comparing themselves to advertising and then to one another, in an effort to size up who has the most or the fewest imperfections and who is thus more or less worthy of love.
This crisis is set in a larger environment of sexual secrecy, and the relationship between feeling inadequate and the need to keep secrets may not be obvious at first — but it’s there.