Bones are structural and aesthetic wonders. They epitomize the melding of form and function.Each one is beautiful. What then accounts for the current chatter on social media regarding the “beauty bone”? Is this one really more stunning than the others? 

To look at the collar bone in isolation, it has a gentle S-shape with flattened ends, one connecting to the breast bone and the other to the shoulder blade. The collar bone is the only bony connection between our upper limb and the chest skeleton, which accounts for its proclivity to fracture when reaching out to stop a fall. It also provides attachment for a number of large and important shoulder muscles. Absence of the collar bones, a rare birth anomaly, allows the owner to draw the shoulders together in front such that they nearly touch–definitely not beautiful.

What then, in life, makes the collar bones, draped closely with skin, alluring? To some owners and observers, prominent collar bones signal “skinny” and “fit” even if the rest of the torso is loosely tented. The beauty bones become an easy and noncontroversial expression of sex appeal–perfection without apparent effort.

Ah, but the effort required to fulfill this obsession. Websites encourage wannabes to regularly perform pushups, abdominal crunches, shoulder shrugs, yoga exercises including bridge position, and local massage. How these help I am not certain. Weight loss through aerobic exercise and diet is paramount, and I suppose it is in the eyes of the beholder where allure stops and emaciation starts. For those less committed, makeup helps, and Youtube videos can show you the tips. To date, it seems that surgical enhancement has not been tried. Liposuction, anyone?

One can demonstrate the magnitude of the depression above the beauty bone by placing a stack of quarters in the hollow. (I’ve seen the photos.) It might also work with golf balls, but they would probably roll out during your backswing. For me, I noticed that the depression becomes more pronounced when I shrug my shoulders; so if you see me in a tank top walking with a Frankenstein posture, you will know that I am styling my beauty bones, but not obsessing over them, because the other bones are equally functional and aesthetic.

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