A General Observation, from a Woman's Perspective (but, all perspectives are welcome)

10 Jul 2013

This post is not a question. I guess it's more of a musing that I'm putting forth for your consumption. These are things that have probably been said thousands of times, including probably several times somewhere in the history of this very forum. I don't think I have anything terribly original to say about anything, really. But nonetheless, it's something that's been rolling around in my head for a while, slowly tumbling the unintelligible sharp points, and now hopefully honed into something that's coherent.

So, feel free to agree or disagree. I don't claim to be "right" or to claim any sort of authority, it's just the way I see things based on my own experience, and this seems to be a decent place to air it.

**

Why aren't we- not just at Lush, but everywhere in society- more "real" about how physical appearance affects the way we interact? I've come to understand that even discussing how the standards are different for attractive(or, "hot", or "beautiful", or "handsome", or aesthetically pleasing synonym you want to use) people is different based on who's talking about it. If it's somebody who is considered attractive by many, then it's taken as an unnecessary reminder of this double standard; 'scoreboarding' at the expense of everyone else. If it's somebody that's considered less attractive, then it's perceived as whining. Neither constitute any sort of serious discussion of it, though, nor does it negate the objective truth of the matter.

**

Confession: I'm complimented often on my physical appearance. I try not to internalize it, for fear that I'd become some sort of snotty, Regina George disciple, though when I think about it, I know that's not who I am or how I handle things. I don't really even know what it would mean to intentionally 'internalize' a compliment. But to some extent, none of us can help but be affected by other people's reactions to our appearance. Why? Because it's front-and-center all the time, it affects everything, and even dictates some things. So even though (or, especially because) I consciously try to not let compliments "go to my head", I'm always very self-aware.

**

I know what the so-called membership advantages tend to be for attractive people: people pay closer attention to you, they laugh at shit you say that's not funny (and sometimes at things that aren't even jokes, for fear that maybe it was, and thus they figure a laugh is what's appropriate), and in general, you get credit for being more interesting than you really are. People try to ingratiate for no concrete reason (yes, sometimes they want sex, but sometimes you know this isn't the case).

Then there are the negatives: It will be assumed that any gains you have are somehow ill-gotten, unearned, and due solely to your "looks." You can never be recognized for any skill without a qualifier which mentions your appearance. People will lack compassion and empathy toward you, and hold you to a higher standard. Hardships aren't recognized, because attractive people supposedly have no grounds to complain about anything. Some people will decide to hate you for no reason. They'll be inexplicably adversarial, and for a moment you wonder what you might have done, or what they might have heard about you, until you realize that it's really not about anything personal, because you've seen it before. That person is simply projecting a negative experience with some other female onto you, and the crime is 'being attractive'.

Quick example: page 3 of this thread. Look at 1Ball, with his 'many women are shallow parasites' rant. He would be (and almost certainly will be) quick to point out that he didn't make any comment about attractiveness, but that will be dog-whistle debating at it's best. The inference is clear: "the hot, shallow bitches aren't worth your time, so stop chasing them." It's as if attractive people are somehow predisposed to be manipulative, selfish, shallow, and Machiavellian, all the time.

I totally agree about shallow people in general, by the way- and that's regardless of gender. What I'm talking about is a wholesale, albeit sometimes subconscious, judgment of a girl's intentions and personality based on nothing more than appearance.

**

Of course, it doesn't stop with how others treat you, and because one can't help but be affected by it, you can't even think about things without questioning yourself. "Did I actually do something? Am I took quick to assume that I did nothing? Am I acting like a distant ice queen and don't know it? Am I actually undeserving of this thing that I think I've earned? Am I an idiot/bitch/unreasonable person without realizing it, because the subtle social clues, which would normally tip me off to reality, aren't being offered?"

**

Okay...so my thoughts aren't as well-structured as I thought. It's more of a ramble. If we had a 'ramble cage', that's where this would go.

But I guess all of this is to say: Isn't a trend of interaction changing based on appearance every bit is as problematic as- and way more common than- being treated differently based on gender or race? Now, granted, the worst-case scenarios of institutional bigotry and worse don't apply, but that doesn't make it any less wrong in practice. Yet, I wonder if there's any way to deprogram ourselves to the point where it doesn't happen. Is expecting everyone to be treated equally an unreasonable and naive expectation, given that much of what I'm talking about happens involuntarily? I'm thinking this is the case, but I still wonder.

Also, is there anything about human interaction that's not affected by physical appearance?

To state these things feels like one big "captain obvious" venture, but on the other hand, are we so resigned to these double-standards that we're unwilling to even acknowledge and discuss them? All experiences and comments welcome. And if not- thanks for letting me waste your time LOL. Sorry that I can't refund it to you.

10 Jul 2013

We've certainly placed a high premium on attractiveness. It caters to humans base instincts. I often wonder if there is some mechanism in the brains or instincts of animals to "seek out the hotties" of their fellow species or whether it is purely driven by instinctual Darwinism and whichever, let's say "panther" has the best breeding capability.

By and large, attractiveness is most likely a human construct. Whether that is by evolution of the mind or (de)evolution into "group think" where the majority, or society, has decided on what attractiveness is and those that fall outside of that sphere are somehow relegated to being substandard members of a community or what not.

Actually, take a look at history. Attractiveness pretty much is a human construct and it changes all the fucking time. Back during the height of the Greek and Roman Empires, the desired image was Aphrodite. All curves and hips. Small breasts. Fleshy. Basically what we now know as the "plus sized models" or girls with figures more "homely" than "lithe".

Then you get into the Victorian Era and corsets and tiny waists and flared hips and the breasts pushed up. And in the last 10 or so years, society deems slender, lithe, and often outrageously anorexic as "attractive" and the "ideal female image to strive for."

For men, it has changed some as well. Tall, slender, and tough. Then muscle bound. Then athletic and everything in between.

Every time a new fashion sense seems to emerge, the "ideal image" seems to change. These days, we aren't happy with natural beauty. We enhance flaws (many of which, imo, make women more attractive, not less) in the face, the waist, the bust, the hips, the eyes, the nose through image manipulation programs.

I find myself wondering. What the fuck is attractive these days? Some cold, unnatural robotic beauty? Or flawed, natural beauty?

And we've ALL bought it into at some point. We use it to put others down, to bring ourselves up. To make ourselves feel better. To make OUR self-worth mean more than the next persons worth.

It really is an epidemic and no different than race, religion, or creed. Hell, perhaps the biggest perversion in self-image is the status we apply to economic power. It is much more of a social handicap and ball and chain than attractiveness. There are the poor, the middle, and the elite. They rarely all like each other as they all have something the other wishes they did. Money is the biggest segregator in the world these days. And in a sense it IS tied to attractiveness. Hell, would that parasite and wacko Kim Kardashian be worth shit or would people even care if she wasn't attractive? Say she wasn't and everything else maintained status-quo. More than likely, the world never knows of her and she lives and dives in obscurity like most of us do.
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But I guess all of this is to say: Isn't a trend of interaction changing based on appearance every bit is as problematic as- and way more common than- being treated differently based on gender or race? Now, granted, the worst-case scenarios of institutional bigotry and worse don't apply, but that doesn't make it any less wrong in practice. Yet, I wonder if there's any way to deprogram ourselves to the point where it doesn't happen. Is expecting everyone to be treated equally an unreasonable and naive expectation, given that much of what I'm talking about happens involuntarily? I'm thinking this is the case, but I still wonder.

I wouldn't say it is as problematic and gender, race, or economics. It isn't better, just not as worse. You can be ugly as shit yet still have some of the greatest imprints on human history.

Also, is there anything about human interaction that's not affected by physical appearance?

True human friendship I would assume. You could argue love, I suppose. But then you can get pessimistic and say we collect friends less attractive than us to make ourselves feel better. If you're doing that, you're as petty and shallow as they come. It is a conundrum. I don't wanna assume, be crass, or talk out of my ass, but it would seem women are far more guilty of this than men, whether they do it subconsciously or not.

To state these things feels like one big "captain obvious" venture, but on the other hand, are we so resigned to these double-standards that we're unwilling to even acknowledge and discuss them? All experiences and comments welcome. And if not- thanks for letting me waste your time LOL. Sorry that I can't refund it to you.

Only captain obvious in that yes, it is a problem that has always existed and double-standards are present everywhere. I think we acknowledge them and sometimes discuss them. It's more a matter of changing engrained belief systems of attractiveness and such that may reach farther into the past than ethnic tensions. But you could argue "attractiveness" and racial discrimination are tied together. White folk were viewed as the ideal image of attractiveness and power.

So yes. It is a human construct. One that seems as old as time. Not so easy to dismiss, particularly when the standards of beauty are always changing.

It's a fucking crapshoot. Like most things, humans have fucked it all the way up. We're good at that shit.

Bah. I've ranted as well.

Here, lemme poor you a drink LadyX.

Pour Wine

We can share our rants together? dontknow

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For the record, the previously unreleased interview with Dustin Hoffman and his role in "Tootsie" sums it up succinctly and perfectly.

Really? How many beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, loving, etc, etc, people have we passed up and never interacted with before only because they didn't meet our prescribed level of attractiveness where we deemed them "worthy" of interaction.

I'm sad to say and man enough to admit that I've been incredibly guilty of such things far too many times in life. You look hard enough at yourself and you'll find things you really hate about yourself. Or you feel disappointing in yourself about. That you aren't a better person, or weren't in a certain situation where you easily could have been.

Mmm.

Thanks LadyX.

You just reminded me of the best days of my college life. Having mass philosophical conversations with my friends about such subjects into the wee hours of the night and the morning.

You have to wonder and I pondered this question before..

What if all humans were blind growing up? Or rather, we were never able to see the physical images of our fellow man/woman. All we saw were shadows until we reached a certain age.

Say 25.

Would notions of attractiveness have a place in society anymore? Would something else take its place?

10 Jul 2013

always happy to have a partner in contemplation, especially if drinks are involved. smile

Much as you've confessed, I'm guilty every day and all day of judging based on physical appearance as well. Sexually (biologically?), we're hard wired for that at the very least, so I'm not so naïve as to suggest that we can have a world without it. I own no high horse, and can claim no moral high ground, especially not when it comes to matters of vanity LOL.

Thanks for your reply.

10 Jul 2013

Well now. Women are more likely to not only judge themselves but others at times by their looks right or wrong. But unfortunately that is because we are raised and conditioned by society to do so. You never see models that are plain or even just mildly attractive. They are all tall beautiful girls. So if your short, you automatically feel inferior. Many of them are blonde so if you have dark hair then that makes you feel worse. At least until you have some self worth. I had this personal battle as I am only 5 ft 2 with dark dark brown hair. I rarely wear makeup as I am allergic to it and I wear glasses. In no way have I seen any models that look like me and society holds the models up as the ideal, right or wrong.

However, I would say that the guys also perpetuate this, not among themselves as I am not sure that they look at each other in terms of handsomeness but rather they make a women's looks key in whether or not they spend any time with her. I do not have any recent pictures of myself. But the first thing I get asked here by guys is what do you look like, will you send me a picture. What if I sent them a picture of a woman that was considered plain or weighed 400 lbs. Would they stop talking to me because of what they think I look like? I would say yes simply because it has happened before. Now I do not know if I would be considered plain or not as that really varies from person to person and while I need to lose weight, I do not weigh 400 lbs. But if either of these things or both were true, should that matter if you like who I am?

I totally get that attractiveness will often bring people together. But online, you have the chance to get to know one another without that barrier. The real question at that point is if you did meet, or share pictures, would that make a difference even if you have gotten to know one another? At that point it would depend on how shallow a person you are.

Did you mean this to be a philosophy session? d'oh!

Sex is emotion in motion.
Mae West

16 Jul 2013

From a guys point of view attraction is more visual;but I have always been attractive to other features as well,brains ,wit,class all add into the perspective.Sex is great but you can only do it for so long.Sharing each other is just as important knowing who your partner is.Can you trust her etc

17 Jul 2013

Quote by ramrod32784
From a guys point of view attraction is more visual;but I have always been attractive to other features as well,brains ,wit,class all add into the perspective.Sex is great but you can only do it for so long.Sharing each other is just as important knowing who your partner is.Can you trust her etc

All very true. Unfortunately many people are shallow and do not see beyond the physical. Noe if everyone was blind for a period of time as mentioned above by MadMartigan, maybe everyone would have more depth.

Sex is emotion in motion.
Mae West

21 Jul 2013

There are deep biological reasons for the importance of attractiveness in all advanced species. Evolution runs on optimizing your genetic success and optimizing mating opportunities. Individuals did well in the mating game are the ones that dominate future generations.

We are wired to respond to triggers that suggest genetic success. Signals that indicate current health (skin, physique, etc) as well as signals that indicate the potential partner has a good set of genes. In women, the current health factor is more significant because in our distant history,the ability to successfully carry a pregnancy and care for young demanded a lot of physical resources. Hence women that are healthy looking and young looking are especially sexually attractive to men.

The balance is a bit different in the other direction. The male can be a bit older and a bit battle scarred because that does not affect the quality of his genetics. Women are less likely to be as concerned with age because the older and perhaps more battle scarred males are also likely the ones with power and resources which brings a significant survival advantage to her young. It is no accident from an evolutionary point of view that powerful men attract physically attractive women. Both partners are instinctively playing off their strengths. This is how it works.

While it's fashionable to decry all this as 'shallowness' , it's biology. Deep and older than the human species. Now, with humans (for a number of reasons including the complexity of raising human young) we have acquired complex pair bonding behaviors ('love') which are much younger than the more primal mating instincts. This complicates things because the priorities of long term pair bonding can directly conflict with the priorities of our ancient mate selection strategies. The conflict between these two behavioral programs is still not worked out in humans, so there is always some tension and confusion.

[BTW there are always comments brought up about how beauty changes from time to place, and how this is societal. Partly that's true, in details (one of the most significant things about human evolution, perhaps even more than intelligence, is the very complex social structures we instinctively form, which enable societies to adapt to circumstances far faster that straight evolution could) there are also core triggers that are demonstrated by scientific tests to cross cultural: men look for youth, signs of health (including skin and long hair) a basic hourglass shape regardless of the culture they are raised in.

There is also some evidence that women especially respond to a kind of 'gene matching' from unconscious scent cues. Hence a nice looking, good guy may 'just not click' for her when they actually meet, while some other who would be less desirable in other ways may get her attention.

It's far from a situation of shallow/not shallow. We are a stew of instincts, inherited from our ancestors. Don't expect us to make sense.

21 Jul 2013

I think the advantage of Lush is that many people are simply NOT concerned about body image. I think it's very freeing and find that it's been easy to make friends and then when you get to know them, it doesn't really matter what you look like. Better than in real life, where you can't help but make assumptions based on appearance. Here personality is king and how you speak to and treat people is of the most importance. Yaayyyy LUSH.

" I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer"
Woody Allen

24 Jul 2013

Quote by LadyX
This post is not a question. I guess it's more of a musing that I'm putting forth for your consumption. These are things that have probably been said thousands of times, including probably several times somewhere in the history of this very forum. I don't think I have anything terribly original to say about anything, really. But nonetheless, it's something that's been rolling around in my head for a while, slowly tumbling the unintelligible sharp points, and now hopefully honed into something that's coherent.

So, feel free to agree or disagree. I don't claim to be "right" or to claim any sort of authority, it's just the way I see things based on my own experience, and this seems to be a decent place to air it.

**

Why aren't we- not just at Lush, but everywhere in society- more "real" about how physical appearance affects the way we interact? I've come to understand that even discussing how the standards are different for attractive(or, "hot", or "beautiful", or "handsome", or aesthetically pleasing synonym you want to use) people is different based on who's talking about it. If it's somebody who is considered attractive by many, then it's taken as an unnecessary reminder of this double standard; 'scoreboarding' at the expense of everyone else. If it's somebody that's considered less attractive, then it's perceived as whining. Neither constitute any sort of serious discussion of it, though, nor does it negate the objective truth of the matter.

**

Confession: I'm complimented often on my physical appearance. I try not to internalize it, for fear that I'd become some sort of snotty, Regina George disciple, though when I think about it, I know that's not who I am or how I handle things. I don't really even know what it would mean to intentionally 'internalize' a compliment. But to some extent, none of us can help but be affected by other people's reactions to our appearance. Why? Because it's front-and-center all the time, it affects everything, and even dictates some things. So even though (or, especially because) I consciously try to not let compliments "go to my head", I'm always very self-aware.

**

I know what the so-called membership advantages tend to be for attractive people: people pay closer attention to you, they laugh at shit you say that's not funny (and sometimes at things that aren't even jokes, for fear that maybe it was, and thus they figure a laugh is what's appropriate), and in general, you get credit for being more interesting than you really are. People try to ingratiate for no concrete reason (yes, sometimes they want sex, but sometimes you know this isn't the case).

Then there are the negatives: It will be assumed that any gains you have are somehow ill-gotten, unearned, and due solely to your "looks." You can never be recognized for any skill without a qualifier which mentions your appearance. People will lack compassion and empathy toward you, and hold you to a higher standard. Hardships aren't recognized, because attractive people supposedly have no grounds to complain about anything. Some people will decide to hate you for no reason. They'll be inexplicably adversarial, and for a moment you wonder what you might have done, or what they might have heard about you, until you realize that it's really not about anything personal, because you've seen it before. That person is simply projecting a negative experience with some other female onto you, and the crime is 'being attractive'.

Quick example: page 3 of this thread. Look at 1Ball, with his 'many women are shallow parasites' rant. He would be (and almost certainly will be) quick to point out that he didn't make any comment about attractiveness, but that will be dog-whistle debating at it's best. The inference is clear: "the hot, shallow bitches aren't worth your time, so stop chasing them." It's as if attractive people are somehow predisposed to be manipulative, selfish, shallow, and Machiavellian, all the time.

I totally agree about shallow people in general, by the way- and that's regardless of gender. What I'm talking about is a wholesale, albeit sometimes subconscious, judgment of a girl's intentions and personality based on nothing more than appearance.

**

Of course, it doesn't stop with how others treat you, and because one can't help but be affected by it, you can't even think about things without questioning yourself. "Did I actually do something? Am I took quick to assume that I did nothing? Am I acting like a distant ice queen and don't know it? Am I actually undeserving of this thing that I think I've earned? Am I an idiot/bitch/unreasonable person without realizing it, because the subtle social clues, which would normally tip me off to reality, aren't being offered?"

**

Okay...so my thoughts aren't as well-structured as I thought. It's more of a ramble. If we had a 'ramble cage', that's where this would go.

But I guess all of this is to say: Isn't a trend of interaction changing based on appearance every bit is as problematic as- and way more common than- being treated differently based on gender or race? Now, granted, the worst-case scenarios of institutional bigotry and worse don't apply, but that doesn't make it any less wrong in practice. Yet, I wonder if there's any way to deprogram ourselves to the point where it doesn't happen. Is expecting everyone to be treated equally an unreasonable and naive expectation, given that much of what I'm talking about happens involuntarily? I'm thinking this is the case, but I still wonder.

Also, is there anything about human interaction that's not affected by physical appearance?

To state these things feels like one big "captain obvious" venture, but on the other hand, are we so resigned to these double-standards that we're unwilling to even acknowledge and discuss them? All experiences and comments welcome. And if not- thanks for letting me waste your time LOL. Sorry that I can't refund it to you.

Not in the land of the average /common person.

I got a kick out of that thread you linked by the way. Some one wrote " stop reading cosmopolitan" yet a good portion of the advice that was given throughout the thread, sounded like it came from cosmopolitan.