The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

We Are All Under 40 Now

This excessive Botoxing and retouching has something to do with the collapse of the classes, or at least the shifting in what used to define the super-rich. "The 'luxury' experience has become thoroughly middle-class, even prole (two words: 'Gucci T-shirt')," Sandra Tsing Loh wrote a few years ago in the Atlantic, in a rare book review that did not reference her children's school. When I was in my 20s, my dermatologist was a product peddler, but in a sad pushcart kind of way, selling some kind of skin cream only he could provide (now Clinique sells it). I remember my mother once took me to Georgette Klinger, and I felt like I was in the Trump penthouse, and I in fact was so uncomfortable among the minks and lapdogs that I had to leave. Now Georgette Klinger is like the MacDonald's of spas; the super-rich go to these souped up urban spas where you can color your hair and get a face-lift in one session. I went with my post-mastectomy friend to the plastic surgeon once, and it was just how Melinda described—two doctors who looked identical, with absurd winter tans and actual golf ties. The place was gleaming, and they had their own chocolates! To me, the blending of boob job and cancer was very jarring. But they clearly considered both just facts of middle-class life. And they were just here to serve.

I'm sure there is no connection here, but since this is my latest obsession, I will try it out. If all classes have gotten bumped up a grade, does this explain why prostitutes are so middle-class now? In the escort service trial now unfolding in D.C., the latest call girl on the witness stand had a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and held clinical and academic positions all over the world. She started working for the escort service when she was 56. Not a typo. She was caught serving a john at 63. Surely she must have had some work done.