Anne of Carversville

Yummy Mummy British actress Greta Scaachi’s decision to put her gorgeous, 49-year-old body to work on behalf of overfishing is an escalating trend among Smart Sensuality activist women.

A defining trait of Smart Sensuality women is that they do not deny their physicality and typically work to cultivate a public persona that encompasses their sensuality/sexuality. Theirs is a more French, Italian or Brazilian approach than American one.

American women are notoriously uncomfortable being perceived as sensual and competent at the same time.

Years after the second wave of feminism, we continue to struggle with the good girl/bad girl aspect of sensuality. American women also believe that we lose our physical desireability much earlier than women in other countries.

Thankfully, there are exceptions to this negative, self-defeating mindset, even in America. We are called Smart Sensuality women.

Smart Sensuality American women do not believe that life is downhill physically after 28 — which is the peak age for American and British women surveyed by Clairol and, more thoroughly, by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Like French, Italian and Brazilian women, Smart Sensuality women believe they’s ‘hot’ at 45.

In America, Smart Sensuality women like Michelle Obama, Susan Sarandon, and Jennifer Lopez know that they’re not washed up at 28. We remain less inclined than women in other countries, to take our clothes off in an act of Cultural Creative activism.

This trend of turning sexuality into activism is gaining momentum globally. My recent journal essay on Shakira is the best example of a Smart Sensuality woman totally comfortable being a sexy activist. The comments, coming from a Shakira online forum, reflect a clear understanding of these two concepts — activism and sensuality — fused together.

Greta Scaachi Bares All to Save Fish

Just now I was writing a piece in Cultural Creatives about British gourmet fast food chain Pret a Manger’s decision to stop selling tuna, after its founder watched the new film “The End of the Line”. Researching this issue to me to British actress Greta Scaachi, who proclaimed a year ago that she was done taking her clothes off.

Scaachi lied. In response to the film “The End of the Line”, Scorcher Scacchi decided to make an impossible to ignore statement of her own about sustainability and overfishing, the dramatically documented theme of “The End of the Line”. London’s Telegraph tells the story.

Greta Scaachi is using her body to save the world’s fish stocks.

The half-Italian, half-English actress has also persuaded Emilia Fox to pose as if breast-feeding a cuttlefish; Barry Humphries just called and said that Dame Edna would love to take part “as long as she doesn’t have to take her clothes off”.

The Scaachi strategy is much more involved than posing for PETA for an afternoon. This is where the Smart part of the Smart Sensuality woman emerges.

Wanting ‘Deliverables’ is another hallmark of Smart Sensuality women. (See my recent piece on Michelle Obama: I Vote for Non-Bra-Burning, Eco-Friendly Feminism at the White House. But Liking Burqas? That’s a Tough Nut to Swallow. As always, I’m writing about more than one topic in the same essay, but a key part of the story is Michelle’s wanting Deliverables as First Lady. )

Greta Scaachi is gettinging ‘Smart’ about overfishing, wanting to use her celebrity to articulate mind-boggling facts about the problem. A premise of the film is that 30 years from now, the oceans will be dead from over-fishing. This assertion assumes that the garbage doesn’t kill the oceans first.

While a celebrity most always benefits from the ‘exposure’ such a publicity campaign can generate, it seems that Scaachi is approaching her passion on sustainability with a keen desire to articulate the issues.

Modern cynics of both genders, typically American, will accuse Scaachi of using this campaign to keep going when the going gets tough in films and TV plots for sexy, older woman. Scaachi will tell them to ‘get real’ and ‘get used to it’.

Smart Sensuality women have just begun to use their sex and brains in the fight for a significanty improved world. I sense that we haven’t seen anything yet. Anne

If I haven’t inspired you to make your way over to Cultural Creatives to read more about this story, watch the trailer: