Free The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille Page A

America is difficult. I often joke (though I am only half joking) that if I am ever reincarnated, I hope I don’t come back as an American woman. While I admire American women greatly, I wouldn’t want to have to go through what they go through. So many rules; so many tensions.
    Understanding the tension was only part of my task for Cover Girl, however. In order to discover the Code, I needed to dig deeper into the stories, to ignore what the participants said in search of what they really meant.

I was about fourteen and I was invited to this big party. I knew that I needed a new outfit. I really wanted to look good. There was a guy that I kind of liked. So I asked my mom for some money for my outfit. I went to the store and found just what I was looking for. I tried this outfit on and I looked hot. I danced all night with this guy and we started to date. I felt that this new outfit did the trick for me.
    —a woman in her fifties

Last summer. On vacation with my family. Ten pounds thinner than usual. Great haircut and color, good skin, manicure, pedicure, summer tan. At a deck party, I danced with my husband on the deck. I felt young and in love. My husband couldn’t keep his eyes off me. He said he was proud to be with me.
    —a forty-two-year-old woman

The only time I can remember looking good is when I remarried eighteen years ago to a wonderful man after being alone for seventeen years due to an unhappy marriage. Unfortunately, he died three months after that wonderful experience. I have not felt that I look that good at all since.
    —a sixty-five-year-old woman

My most powerful experience of looking good was when I was fourteen—got breasts, my period, the whole thing. I fell in love with a very nice guy that was five years older than me. My whole world changed.
    —a woman in her thirties

I was three or four years old and my mother’s cousin came to visit us. He made a great fuss over my smile and how happy I always was.
    —a fifty-three-year-old woman

In 1970, I met a man named Charles and we started dating. On one date, we went into the city for dinner. It was July and I had been going to the beach so I had the greatest tan. I had gone to a new beauty parlor that day and my hair was perfect. I wore a hot-pants outfit. I walked next to Charles with my shoulders back, my hair flowing, and I felt like a movie star.
    —a fifty-six-year-old woman

My lover made me a thirtieth-birthday party. I wore a lacy black dress. Before the party, there was excitement and anticipation. I looked good and I was loved. I felt cherished. I was the most special person to one other person.
    —a thirty-six-year-old woman

    The responses from the hundreds of participants in this discovery revealed something very poignant about the way American women regard beauty. When asked to go back to their first and most powerful memories of their own beauty, they recalled moments of romance, of attraction, of getting a man’s attention. Feeling beautiful was associated with dancing all night with a special man, with a brief, wonderful marriage, with falling in love, with feeling like a movie star, and with feeling cherished by a lover. Many of the stories revealed something even deeper. Statements such as “He was proud to be with me,” “He made a fuss,” and “I was the most special person to one other person” suggested that beauty not only attracted a man, but also changed him in a substantial way at the same time. A large majority of the stories women told about feeling beautiful related to finding a man—and a large majority of those talked about finding men who were life partners, not quick flings. The men who noticed these women weren’t slavering slobs, but people with strong, substantial feelings. There was something very powerful here.
    Men are programmed for sex and, as much as he might protest this, the average man is willing to have sex with just about any woman willing to have sex with him. If a man notices a