It is truly remarkable the effort people make to express outraged offense. It requires so much! It would not be enough to ignore the point, which is about hope in the face of political hopelessness, you then had to then ignore the gist of the quote, which is that beauty is obscured by time, never lost, and then the coup de' grace, manufacture an attack! All of this to rise up to defend women from that attack, speaking down to the cruel jackal(s) that would reduce divine womanhood to nothing more than a piece-of-ass in this abhorrent way!

You, sir, are a true inspiration to anyone who ever searched for offense. You've shown clearly that all it takes is grit and determination, and you can find it, right there for the taking, that juicy plumb of outrage. Bravo, and well done!

You sound more a lot more outraged than me. I thought the Heinlein quote is kind of gross because it sits on the idea that the high point of a woman's life is to be 18. I'd feel similarly it if you replaced 'girl' with 'boy'.

It's also funny when people try to be poetic but just reproduce some of the most ordinary and depressing sentiments of their society. Something you and Heinlein have in common, I guess.

The quote speaks to the body, and it's representation in art. It acknowledges that the body decays and this is great suffering. Yet the inside is still filled with life and love, in defiance of the outward decay, and a great artist can show this. That in fact the bodies decay is even more interesting and beautiful than the beauty of youth and health.

By characterizing the quote in the way you have, you've willfully ignored this intent, which was clear in the quote and in my usage of it. You've denied the beauty of decay, the notion that value can be ascribed to the elderly.

And why, because Heinlein acknowledges what we all know, that the two universal indicators of attractiveness are youth and health? And that we lose both over time?

In any event, this is my last message on this thread; I've made my point. As for poetry, yes, I try and usually fail. But I try, and I will keep trying no matter what.