This is a tentative translation of a excerpt from a larger text by Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese author. It may not be an easy piece, but I hope it can make some sense. I would like to have tentative comments from other members. I am not sure if a man can be graceful and strong at the same time, but it is for any of you to say.
<< Among the three forms through which we can conceive of physical beauty grace, strength, and perfection the female body only possesses the first one, because it cannot have the beauty of strength without breaking its femininity, that is, without the loss of its own character. The male body can, without breaking its masculinity, combine grace and strength. Perfection can only belong to the bodies of the gods, if ever they exist. If guided by sexual instinct rather than by aesthetical instinct, a man, as a poet, will sing only the feminine body. Such an attitude represents an exclusively moral preoccupation. However, since an aesthete sings beauty without an ethical preoccupation, he will therefore sing it just where he is more likely to find it, and not where sexual suggestion might induce him to look for it. As he is, thus, guided only by beauty, an aesthete will sing rather the masculine body, for this is the human body that can possess more elements of beauty, from among the very few that there are. >>
<< Among the three forms through which we can conceive of physical beauty grace, strength, and perfection the female body only possesses the first one, because it cannot have the beauty of strength without breaking its femininity, that is, without the loss of its own character. The male body can, without breaking its masculinity, combine grace and strength. Perfection can only belong to the bodies of the gods, if ever they exist. If guided by sexual instinct rather than by aesthetical instinct, a man, as a poet, will sing only the feminine body. Such an attitude represents an exclusively moral preoccupation. However, since an aesthete sings beauty without an ethical preoccupation, he will therefore sing it just where he is more likely to find it, and not where sexual suggestion might induce him to look for it. As he is, thus, guided only by beauty, an aesthete will sing rather the masculine body, for this is the human body that can possess more elements of beauty, from among the very few that there are. >>