Vitiligo

I was watching the TV yesterday when an ad came on for a medication to treat vitiligo. I had no idea of what vitiligo was but it sounded like an Italian opera. I wasn’t sure what the cure for an Italian opera would be but I was relieved that science was working on it.

For the record, vitiligo is Vitiligo is a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes patches of skin to lose pigment or color. This happens when melanocytes – skin cells that make pigment – are attacked and destroyed, causing the skin to turn a milky-white color.

As the commercial rolled on and a number of women ‘suffering’ from vitiligo were shown I realized that if I cared for these women I would think they were hotter than women without vitiligo. Probably the same way every calico cat owner thinks their cat is the cutest.

Suddenly I wished that everyone had vitiligo. I’ve always been a fan of anything makes beauty more subjective and this would be amazing. So many different variables, each adding a unique spin on how we appear to others and ourselves.

And they want to cure it? I imagined a world where everyone has vitiligo and some crackpot offers to cure it. Who the fuck would take a medication that aspired to make you look like everyone else? They wouldn’t be able to sell a pill… or injection… or however these ghouls want to ‘treat’ it.

My mind wandered a little after that and I remembered how different body types were considered beautiful at different times in our history. From 1500 to 1900 a ‘substantial’ woman was seen as beautiful. A skinny woman with a tan meant that she spent all her time working in the fields and she couldn’t get a date at musketpoint.

So obviously the moment a time machine is invented I am going to go back to 1501 and spend the next 400 years hopping through time banging every girl in every field I can find. I might even be remembered as a saint. Saint Manion, patron saint of the pity fuck.

And just when I was starting to come off as a romantic.