One of my favorite cult classic movies is “Frankenhooker”. After an unfortunate and fatal accident involving a lawnmower, a young scientist who still lives with his parents loses his girlfriend, but retains (and this part is gross, so you might want to close your eyes) her head in a jar. He realizes that talking to her head is not enough, and in the manner of all Frankenstein knock-offs, tries to re-create her in unsavory ways.

I am slightly embarrassed that I like this movie because of the misogynistic messages in the film, but again, the movie is a spoof, so I don’t take it too seriously when he tries to piece together different women’s parts to “re-make” his girlfriend.

In a way, my friends and I actually do this when we get together. I consider myself fairly non-judgmental, but I can’t help comparing myself unfavorably to other women in terms of body parts, which hopefully is more a reflection of society than me. Sometimes, I’ll catch myself thinking: wow, her _______________ is so much better than mine. I even caught myself recently jealous of a 15-year-olds perfectly long, shiny hair.

When I’m with certain friends, occasionally we’ll talk about how if we combined our natural, physical assets, we would be the hottest women on the planet.

I’m not going to tell you what my particular attribute is, but I’m sure you’ve had similar conversations yourselves. They usually go somewhat along the lines of this:

If I had hair like _________________, boobs like _________________, a flat stomach like _____________________, legs like ___________, a butt like ____________ and so on, I would be rocking......

But it doesn’t really make me feel any better about my looks when I do this; it more or less just shows my own insecurity (which has strangely been reduced as I’ve aged), and how little I think of my own body parts. I don’t ever compare myself favorably to my female friends and those around- and I don’t think most of them do either- even the younger ones have their own body issues.

Maybe I should take a lesson from “Frankenhooker”- when the guy tries to piece his girlfriend together through body parts, she becomes a crazy, psycho-killer and looks about as mis-matched as the Pamela Andersons or Heidi Montag’s of the world.

I think the lesson for me to learn is that I should try to look my best, but that I should measure myself against myself.