Welcome to Crazyworld.
First stop: killing the ugly. Want to know what a person's like just before they become a serial killer? I'm guessing...about like this.
Careful. Every time we link to someone's blog they end up paying us a visit.
... and he's got WAY too much hair for this place.
*puts on hat, slumps down*
I love this...
"I could get with this chick, I think. I'd have to see her from another angle or two to be sure. And I'd have to teach her to read; she seems to belong to the dependent sort who think the game ends when they settle on a mate. With me, that's just when the struggle will get more enjoyable."
From her HotorNot profile:
HeY, My NaMe Is KaItLyN aNd I aM fRoM vAnCoUvEr,Wa...If U lIkE wAt U sEe, ClIcK YeS, If NoT, Ur LoSs...
teehee! I think you'll have to teach her more than just reading...
'sides... you can't kill all the ugly people. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... What one finds attractive another may find unattractive.
BeSid3S... H0t0rn0T iS tEh Gay, DoNT yOu kNoW.
Hillary Clinton is a seven
I am experiencing severe disagreement.
But did you play with that link they were discussing?
hotornot?
I got distracted for ten minutes until finally conceding that my estimations of 'hot' are 'not' the least bit congrous with the rest of the world. It was fun though.
*sigh*
/still menopausal.
I would not resent others for imposing her upon me. I can admire her ability because her appearance doesn't nauseate me.
a fair cop....
dxlifer, you're kinda showing your age. everyone on the internet has known about hotornot for about half a decade now, I think.
Some friends and I used to enjoy hotornot as an exercise in creative judgment. We'd try to assess each person's character and personality traits based solele on the picture, often coupled with some plausible backstory. The more interesting the imaginary person was, the hotter the rating we gave.
solely, damnit.
MCT, in a way it almost seems like you rate the same way he does. Except you're not projecting "empress" onto them. And you used it as a creative exercise while he considers it a genuine mating tool.
HOLY CRAP, I JUST REALIZED where I've seen his photo before. it was on hot or not. And he clicked "yes" to my photo. Probably a year ago. Okay, I'm going to go take a shower now.
Yeah, and hotness wasn't at all a factor. It was mostly a combination of expression and photo composition.
This guy's take on HotorNot is a little strange but that's alright. HotorNot is a little strange and I'm a fan, it's where my wife and I first met.
But alot of the MeetMe profiles are just depressing to read.
And I very, very rarely gave anyone a 1 or a 10. Mostly 4 through 8's.
Careful. Every time we link to someone's blog they end up paying us a visit
Only after someone from here apparently sends the blog owner a poke-with-a-stick link back to the thread to stir up shit for the person who did the original FPP.
Nice job, whoever that was. Next time, how about first contacting the individual who made the FPP that you find offensive rather than set up Monkeyfilter for trolling.
*hugs MJ*
Actually, it's quite possible we've got members now whose sole purpose is to be lurker/shit-disturbers rather than community members. Other boards do - so I guess we're not immune. Growing pains, maybe.
These livejournal links ain't working for me now.
You may be right, MJ, but we got you to call them out. That makes us hot, right?
Has hotornot really been around that long?
*blush*
I've led a sheltered web-life.
Welcome back, MJ! =)
LJ is having fits now. It does that on a semi-regular basis. It wasn't me who tattled; I wouldn't do that. I just know these things.
Monkeys are always hot. :)
I've led a sheltered web-life.
Wait until you discover those hot/not sites devoted to specific male body parts...
Glad to have missing monkeys back -- welcome, moneyjane, surlyboi, and Jerry!
Still no Zemat, no spackle, no certainsome1, and where's Nickdanger hanging out?...*sigh*.
*waves to MJ - hopes everything is better, if not all right*
I had the impression spackle was gone for good.
I'm afraid so, too, Wolof.
Novertheless, I keep hoping ...
Monkeys are always hot. :)
Yeah, well, this monkey is at the age that gets hot, and cold, and hot, and cold ad infinitum.
*grumble*
But you say there are just the body bits there? Really?
/gone to search and rate...
Am I really one of the few people that doesn't find HoN offensive? It's never made any sense to me, at all, to a) pretend that it's not the case that pretty much everyone cares about physical attractiveness; and b) to (pretend to) completely disregard it as an important (but certainly not sole, or most important) characterstic of a person.
Okay, sure, I understand that whatever people say, there's a bunch of them that only care about physical beauty. I understand the backlash against that. But to denigrate anything and everything that values physical beauty? No.
To me, physical beauty is a personal quality on par with a few others, though certainly not chief among them. If there was a site that allowed people to post their short quips called "funny or not" and other people could evaluate their sense of humor, would people complain about how shallow it is?
It doesn't really offend me. It strikes me as a shallow exercise in judgment, and it makes me sad to think that probably quite a few of those who post their photos are honestly seeking validation in what strikes me as the least meaningful way imaginable.
Sure, it's disingenuous to pretend that physical beauty doesn't rank at all when we're choosing potential mates, but I don't think it follows that physical beauty is "on par" with character or intelligence or sense of humor.
To me, physical beauty is a personal quality on par with a few others, though certainly not chief among them.
Well, that's why my trip over there went wrong, as well. I found my definition of 'hot' was essentially an evaluation of what I saw as the total potential for that person, as a person. I used their pose and expression and manner of their total presentation to determine if they were, whatever; the choices was quite inept. A hot one looks capable of being someone I might like to talk to, not fuck. Not was someone I would not care to have conversation with, or fuck. Male or female.
Personally, I am aghast at all uses of media that exploit human weakness and refuse to watch televion for that reason. I am, though, staggered that people will publicly exploit themselves for money and/or attention, regardless of the derision that usually accompanies it.
That's is disgusting, IMHO
There is vanity, greed and pride and I personally prefer the latter in people.
/ actually I found it all amusing and sent it to another ol' timer who is having a blast with it. He's waiting for his quadruple bypass and can't even get an erection.
We didn't have toys and games like this before computers, you know.
That's a good way to put it, mct.
Thanks.
/ validation...sad...must remember.
...but I don't think it follows that physical beauty is "on par" with character or intelligence or sense of humor.
Certainly not "on par" with character. But intelligence or, certainly, sense of humor? Why not? Seems about right to me.
Because beauty always fades. Most people have reached their peak beauty by age 25 or so. In the end, you're left with conversation - for decades. So in choosing a mate, it's much better to choose a lasting quality than an ephemeral one.
Most people have reached their peak beauty by age 25 or so
musingmelpomene, your age is showing, now.
There's a lot of folks in the latter decades after thirty that may disagree with that statement.
/ gone to look seriously in her mirror.
Cross-cultural studies have strongly affirmed that youthfull appearance is a universal attribute of human physical beauty. Most people will appear more youthful when they are, um, young. Therefore, it is true that most people will have reached their peak beauty by some point in their "youth".
Ha! Tell that one to Paul Newman or Sophia Loren.
That's ageism. We can't be perpetuating it.
Where's everyone else with grey hairs?
*HELP*
I'm just gonna crack thirty this year, but I'll back you up.
Lauren Bacall. Now, or then. Yum.
I've known and seen plenty of women in "middle age" that I'd definitely call beautiful, and not beautiful for their age -- BEAUTIFUL. And personally, I think I'm better looking now than I was at 25.
I think I'm better looking now than I was at 25
*polishes false teeth*
* polishes bald spot *
That's not "ageism". Ageism is discrminating against people on the basis of their age. If I said that most athleticism and some intellectual abilities peak by or before the mid-twenties, would that be "ageism", too?
That people are so sensitive on this issue demonstrates that they do, in fact, value physical beauty more than they ought, not that they value it as little as they claim.
I'm forty, have gray hairs...the few I have left, anyway.
Pahh! Under 25s don't even have any character lines. How can they be beautiful? Unless your definition is plastic Barbie and Ken. Give me a guy that's been around the block and shows it. Somebody smart, funny, and with lots of experience in life. Now THAT'S sexy.
Monkeyfilter: most people are annoying from a safe distance
Monkeyfilter: I've led a sheltered web-life.
Monkeyfilter: We didn't have toys and games like this before computers
dxlifer...
ratemycock.com is still out there...brings a tear to my eye... the nostalgia, the throbbing, the gnarly-ass web cam shots...
kmellis: When I read your statement, my first thought was "I used to think the same way when I was young". Now that I'm older (a few short weeks from forty) I see beauty...real beauty...in all ages. Then you said that you were forty? I'm surprised you don't see it my way too. Sad for you, really...you're missing out.
"I see beauty...real beauty...in all ages."
So do I. But not in the sense that "Hot or Not" presents it, nor in the sense that all these cross-cultural studies have validated the idea of "physical beauty". Maybe you're an outlier. Good for you. But to deny that there is a normative standard for human physical beauty, and that it matters to most people, is a denial of reality.
Furthermore, the assertion that this bias is cultural (which research has shown it is not) and that it can be wished away is counterproductive to the worthy endeavor of restraining that bias to only those matters in which it is relevant. Pretending that something doesn't exist doesn't make it go away.
I strongly suspect (though I don't have data to back this up) that Americans are, relative to other cultures, much more likely to overtly assert the "beauty is skin deep" maxim and to deny, as you do, that human physical beauty is in some sense objective, along with being very sensitive to and critical of overt appreciations of physical beauty (a la HoN)...while, perversely but in deep relation, communally obsessing over and celebrating these very traits that are supposedly being denigrated. Our (US) culture is simultaneously the most "shallow" (by these lights) and the most ostentatiously (and falsely) non-shallow (by these lights) of them all. It's pathologically hypocritical.
People are more sexually attractive, in general, when they're younger. Deal with it. Let it be what it is and perhaps it'll stop being more than what it is.
See Plato's Symposium for an example of how another culture can see things very differently. A good portion of the dialog is a celebration of Agathon's youthful and extreme sexual and physical attractiveness contrasted with Socrates's notorious physical ugliness yet most of the participants—and, notably, Agathon—find Socrates in some deeper sense the most beautiful person in the room. Agathon practically gushes over Socrates and is almost giddy to be sitting and eating and drinking beside him.
That's not culturally-specific, though, is it? In some deeper sense Jack Nicholson can be argued as the most attractive man in most rooms he occupies, despite the wrinkles, bald spot, belly, and so on.
An ex of mine was attracted to Alan Shearer, on the grounds that he was extremely good at his chosen profession, and extremely well rewarded for it...
In the end, you're left with conversation - for decades
unless you're lucky enough to score someone like my sweetie, whose sexual prowess keeps, um, "improving with age." seriously! we were together 20 years ago and reunited 3 years ago and i can honestly say his staying power just keeps getting better and better.
hurray for conversation AND hot sex!
Actually I'm playing devil's advocate, more than anything else.
I believe that one's personal preferences of beauty and hot are more determined by maturity and self-esteem than some universal standard, which doesn't really exist.
It is a spectrum of assessment chosen from according to the needs of the individual making the rating. I agree that youth looks beautiful, but they look ...so..young. With my daughter approaching her thirtieth birthday, I find my definition of 'kids' keeps creeping upward into different age brackets, although I intend to stop at thirty for such categorisation.
Then again, as suggested, this may be a reaction to others' definitions making me change my standards in self defence of my own aging.
I really have no desire to be a day younger than I am and truly enjoy being a l'il old middle-aged lady, when the mood hits me. Since I also enjoy playing with my outward image, I also slip-slide around most definitions anyway.
I can just hear da' daughter moaning, moth-e-e-r as I show up, not meeting her idea of how a mother should look and act.
oh my, moneyjane. Such an educational site. I had to send it to da' daughter who stayed with and married her high-school sweetheart.
There's a lot of circumsicion out there, isn't there. I like the ones with bends in them, especially if they bend just the right way!
Why do I keep returning to this?
/ because I just found this.
A more scientif approach, I think.
/ sorry if I doubled up, but I did search.
Beauty is momentary in the mind -
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
--Wallace Stevens
I hate that aesthetic game of the eye and the mind, played by there connoisseurs, these mandarins who 'appreciate' beauty. What is beauty, anyway? There's no such thing. I never 'appreciate' more than I 'like'. I love or I hate.-- Pablo Picasso, quoted in Giles and Lake's Life With PicassoBeauty is a series of hypotheses which ugliness cuts short when it bars the way that we could already see opening into the unknown.-- Marcel Proust, Within a Budding GroveAs a white candle
In a holy place,
So is the beauty
Of an aged face.-- Joseph Campbell, "The Old Woman"I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.-- Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Blackbird"
Good lord, I just discovered Wallace Stevens not twenty-four hours ago, including "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Blackbird".
Sometimes, I wonder about these things.
Some people try to pick up girls, get called an asshole
This did not happen to Pablo Picasso
Why he could walk down the street, girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole
Not like you
-- Burning Sensations
HOLY CRAP, I JUST REALIZED where I've seen his photo before. it was on hot or not. And he clicked "yes" to my photo.
Photo? Was ist der photo? pls make photoclicky-click kthx bye
I agree with kmellis.
1) Beauty is no more or less important to me than intelligence. While beauty may fade with age, so may my perception of it change. Many aspects of intelligence may fade too (memory, imagination, learning new languages) whiles others may improve (understanding, experience). Why should either trait be more important to me? Why should I value someone who can do calculus better than someone with strong cheekbones? If anything, the latter will last longer.
Character and values are certainly more important - there's no chance of me falling for someone in favor of preventive wars, for example.
2) Research has shown that there are cross-cultural standards of physical beauty. Smooth skin in particular is as close to an universal standard as they come, statistically speaking, and the trait is usually associated with youth. (though, it would be interesting to see studies on the relative attractiveness of acne versus wrinkles)
Finally caught up. LJ had a giant outage, after all. Oops.
That guy... that guy says what I feel most people think. The "I'd hire her" line bothers me a little, but let's be honest - it's not too far off what kmellis said. If looks are as important as character or ability, then why not base hiring practices on them?
My ex said that women are at their peak from 16 to 21 - I was 23 when we started dating, and to me this meant I could never be good enough. It was one of his justifications why he thought he should frequently discuss with me his plans to screw other women. All talk, no action, but still. When I repeat this anecdote to others I tend to get a round of "he sounds like a jerk," but here it is again, and it's taken much more favorably. Interesting. Maybe it's all in how you phrase it.
All this talk about how beauty is sooooo unimportant misses the point entirely. People seem to think that personality and beauty are mutually exclusive, for some bizarre reason, that you can't say "In a beautiful person, a great personality is a wonderful thing, and if someone is beautiful and irritating, I can't stand them for long." And we know those things hold true, right? They aren't mutually exclusive at all.
Myself, I am ugly and boring/stupid, and therefore worthless on both scales. But it's a perspective that most people don't have. It's important; they're both important. This guy is harsh, but he doesn't seem that far off from what a lot of people think and don't say. You just don't know about it. Because you don't have to deal with it. Some of us do.
It's been my experience that perception of an individual's beauty or ugliness change with how well I'm acquainted with them. I've know some unattractive folks who turned out to have sterling personalities, and eventually wondered how I'd thought them ugly. I've also know some gorgeous people with unattractive personalities, whose good look began to take on a cast in my mind based on their transgressions. I think beauty is an important factor for first impressions, but loses a good deal of its importance over time.
All of which has led me think that the Victorians had the right idea - chaperoned dates and long engagements.
Different people peak with physical beauty at different ages. Me, I peaked at age 7. I was a really really cute kid, in the goofy grin and one tooth missing way. I should have been in an Oscar Meyer Weiner advertisement. But men in my fiance's family seem to peak in their forties and fifties - his dad is really distinguished looking, and I can see that he will grow into that.
Some people look best at 21 - but maybe they will fade when others bloom at 30. Often the best looking people in highchool aren't the best looking come the high school reunion (this is part of cosmic justice). It's all about how your facial structure works, and, of course, your lifestyle (no make-up, no wrinkles!). I love the young Katherine Hepburn, but I think she was a little better looking in her 30s-40s than in her 20s. And, of course, Sean Connery just gets sexier every year.
Add in the immense variation in what different people find attractive, and there is no possible way anyone can say "X is the peak age for women/men" with any real meaning.
To add to path's comment: I find the way the face is held (smiling or scowling, open and friendly or closed and distainful) to be a huge part of beauty.
jb:I find the way the face is held ... to be a huge part of beauty.
Precisely! Animation is so much of the perception of appearance.
path:It's been my experience that perception of an individual's beauty or ugliness change with how well I'm acquainted with them. [...] I think beauty is an important factor for first impressions, but loses a good deal of its importance over time.
I think it's more that beauty is not in the face (or what have you) but in the experience of the face. What we "see" when we look at a face is a very highly processed and constructed impression - just ask this guy - influenced by so many factors it's only distantly related to the raw image.
I guess I mean to say, I think beauty remains just as important over the life of a relationship or friendship or whatever, but what it means changes as your sense of the other changes.
fractalid - my mileage varies. I quite literally perceive peoples'physical traits differently as I get to know them. But, we really may be saying the same thing. We may just attribute "beauty" to a face at different stages.
And, I tried to look out the "this guy" link, but my browser seems to be a little cranky today. Much of the time, links "time out" when I try to access them. Will try again after I restart my comp(o)uter.
At this point, a socialist would step in and say, "Yeah, but others made them that way by their responses to their ugliness."
Where does he live where a socialist steps in and says things? my whole life a socialist has never stepped in and said a damn thing.
TANGENT re: above comments: how did people get into the habit of tacking "American" in front of things when they really mean the whole world or people in general? 99.99% of the time I find these statements could apply just as well to every non-American country in the world. It just seems to make people feel smart though, this idealization of the rest of the world or counter-idealization [yeah I made up a word, what are gonna do about it] of the US. As if somewhere just over the horizon is a msytical land where people are not bound by the same human nature as us, never judge on looks, never start wars, only make wonderfully deep and intellectual movies, etc etc etc etc etc
Wow, it would be so cool if I had a sociologist following me around to step in and add metacommentary when appropriate. Where do you get one?
drjimmy11 - I think people add "American" (and I add "North American" or "Canadian") to not generalise to bits of the world they don't know, and which may not have the same outlook. I find it polite when people do that - it is much better than assuming that people do have the same outlook, if you do not know their culture. Things like perception of beauty do change, they can be very different, even just between the UK and the US, which are two very similar countries. (eg. Plumpness among women is more highly regarded in the US - not overweight per se, but you see a roundness of face and body on tv and in advertising that you wouldn't in the United States or Canada.) That said, if you feel like something is more universal/you have seen it in different cultures, please do tell us. That is the good side of the internet - the ability to talk to people with very different knowledge than oneself.
Of course, having just seen three Studio Ghibli movies in one week, I know that the entirety of Japanese culture is about making wonderfully deep and intellectual movies. About Cat Buses.
I audition my 'beauty' every time I find myself in some luxe hotel hallway knocking on a hotel room door. I know they're checking me out through the peephole, and it's a strange sensation, because the performance starts right there.
I'm not a classic beauty, nor am I cute. I think the best word would maybe be striking, and I work that angle into the ground, because my attractiveness is not only being judged by an individual client's standard of beauty, but against a dollar amount as well.
The way I do this is to be larger-than-life or iconic, so that the normal standards no longer apply. That's why I wear vintage and do my makeup in a style associated with another era, so I'm not being unkindly compared to the 19-year-old Jessica Simpson clone the client just had as a server at dinner.
I *do* have to worry about visible aging, and thank God for good genes and sunscreen, because I want to keep cosmetic surgery to a minimum. I need to look forever early 30-ish, and I plan to continue to escort until my fifties. With luck, there'll be products that will let me do that
I'd like to emphasize that, to me, and I think to most everyone, a whole bunch of things contribute to sexual and non-sexual attractiveness and the very specific thing I'm talking about here is only one part among many. But, if we restrict the domain to pure physical, sexual attractiveness (and both the "physical" and "sexual" parts are important), it really is the case that certain things strongly correlated to youth are universally preferred among humans everywhere.
I'd also like to strongly say (or repeat) that I have a very big problem with generalizing about someone's worth on the basis of their physical attractiveness and I'm certainly not endorsing that. But it seems to me that overeacting in the opposite direction is silly: physical attractiveness is one characteristic among many that, frankly, matter to most people. Does it make sense to say that it shouldn't matter? Well, it might. But I think a good case can be made that most of the things that do actually matter can be justified and are rational. Maybe a few aren't.
Also, someone brought up something implicitly that should be mentioned: I don't have any real facts to back this up, but I strongly believe that there are sex differences between men and women and how they experience sexual attraction. In particular, and deeply related to this conversation, I think that (generally!) a woman's sexual attraction to another person is much more dependent upon a variety of non-physical characteristics; while, in contrast, a male's sexual attraction (generally!) is more (much more) strongly centered around purely physical characterstics that are ascertained visually. Since people's appearance doesn't change that much, really, but people's character can be much differently acsertained as you get to know someone better, I think that a woman's sexual attraction to a given man (or woman, of course) can change quite a bit depending upon how well she knows him/her; while, in contrast (and, again, generally), a man's sexual attraction is roughly measured by physical/visual estimation and doesn't change that much (at least relatively). I've come to believe that this different experience of sexual attraction between the sexes is a source of a lot of misunderstandings. Women, generally, find men (and women) they've fallen in love with much more sexually attractive than they did before they fell in love. Men, in contrast, may often find their partners more sexually attractive when they're in love with them, but, even so, that attraction doesn't so drastically change from the initial impression.
kmellis - that may be a generational thing. When I was a teen (50 years ago or so) women and girls were content to go with the dominant male. The guys kind of laid back and took the adoration as their due. The truly happy relationships tended to be between more equal partners, where physical beauty took a back seat. (As did many of the couples, in those 1957 Chevies.) But physical attraction was not the be-all, end-all determinant.
That may still the the case, but it now appears to me that the guys are the anxious ones. The "I'd hit it" thing strikes me as guys wanking in the shadows over the cheerleader figures they never had a chance with. And, is impersonal sex what guys today want in the long run? I would posit that men are as likely as women to find that personal attraction is maybe more powerful than strict physical attraction for those who have grown up.
There is a study somewhere that did point out that couples are most often equal in perceived attractiveness as seen by others. The origin, I'm sure of the idea that in seemingly inequal matches, somebody "must be wicked good in the sack or loaded". In the money sense, though in much shorter term matches, maybe the booze sense as well.
The "I'd hit it" thing strikes me as guys wanking in the shadows over the cheerleader figures they never had a chance with.
Yep. As a relative youngin, this is the only model of male/female interaction I've ever known. I've known my whole life that all the guys want the best few girls, full stop. If I manage to snag one with money or by groveling, he'll still be longing for the cheerleader (or the hot goth girl), forever. I feel as though my generation never grew up. Or maybe I just have a bad peer group.
Did people really settle for average, back in the day? They were happy like that? Really happy, or did they just act like it?
To me there's a difference between beauty and sexiness. There can be significant overlap, but I think they can be seen as independent as well. For instance, I've seen women who I thought were quite beautiful, but were not at all sexy to me. I've also known women who were not classic beauties, whom I would have loved to bed down with.
It seems to me that the difference is the mind, the attitude, the sheer confidence exuded. The greatest share of sexiness lies between the ears, you ask me. Yes, looks can and often do enter into it, but to me they don't make up even a small majority of what makes a woman sexy.
Wurwilf: yes, but it wasn't "settling." There was genuine, mutual attraction. The relationships weren't always long lasting, but very pretty while they were going on. However, "love", as idealized in the 1950s, has to seem pretty naive today.
Wurwilf - I am in my twenties, very average (including averagely overweight), and my fiance does not appear to have any desire for a cheerleader. Unless maybe she was a cheerleader who liked Star Trek and would listen to him talk about naval and military history.
If the guys you know really are like that (and you are not just projecting motives onto them), then perhaps you should think about a new peer group. Men I know my age (mid-late twenties) are just like women - they are looking for compatible companions, women who are interesting and fun. Physical appearance is a part of it, but not as important as personality, interest and intelligence.
We may just attribute "beauty" to a face at different stages.
For me, path that is a very good statement. I look at pictures that I know I would have found 'hot' a long time ago and am left wondering about myself.
But it is the character, as it forms the face, that determines attractiveness to me now.
It really is those lines and scars, etc.
/ my darlin's lines all turn upward in smiles.I knew then,when I met him, how his face had been set for most of his life before. Smiling...could I ask for anything better?
yep, the guys I know are like that. Admittedly, there aren't many of them, since - for obvious reasons - they don't want to be around me. Personality flaws on top of being one of the most hideous-looking things ever born are not a great draw to guys weaned on Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball and an internet full of free porn at their fingertips. Even online they find me offputting (the majority of my contacts are female), so it is a personality thing, not just a looks thing.
Wurwilf: yes, but it wasn't "settling." There was genuine, mutual attraction.Average people? Huh. That does sound like naivete, if they honestly believed that this average person was the best person on earth, ever, and that they could never get any better than this. Unless there's self-negation going on, "I can't get any better than this."
Anything other than that is settling for less, right? Anyway.
Think it's fascinating how a discussion of purported beauty has been limited to the physical atrractiveness/sexiness of adult humans.
Could a child have beauty?
Can there be beauty without sexual attraction?
Can things other than people possess beauty? Can music have beauty? Can a dog? A painting? A landscape? A flower? A swan? An elephant? A water pitcher?
Or has the word beauty come to have no meaning nowadays beyond beauty pageants or swimsuit competitions?
I'm confused, wurlif. Do you think it is better to be valued as a sexual person, for whatever amount of time that lasts, or a person of quality?
If you have chosen one for yourself, then you sound bitter towards others who are different.
If you are somewhere in between the two points, then, I think, that is where most people are. There's no point looking for partners whose personal needs demand something else than you have to offer. That's a rather masochistic way of viewing things.
I came through life with the other mis/fortune. I suppose I was too good-looking, although I was never pleased as I didn't fit the current vogue for beauty, as I saw it. Instead I became totally contempuous of men who came at me with their penis' drooling, as being base creatures who showed no self control. Quite frankly, I didn't see that I might, somehow, invite such attention.
It leaves one TFN until I was old enough to sort it out.
Now, I still suspect men of being base creatures, though. Women are more prone to think downward from brain to the genitalia while men seem to go in the opposite path. They think when it will benefit their penis. I have also seen too many women who have used their brain and then their genitilia to satisfy their goals. Those generally being of a longer term than immediate sexual gratification.
I worked in corrections and the first female warden of a prison was a former secretary. 'nuff said.
Of course, the whole formula shifts for men whose only goal is a long-term partner. And again, when I was young, I couldn't figure out why men were proposing out of the blue. I really was a dummy, but physical appearance has always been secondary for me for friendship and was startled when men suddenly thought it meant something else. I do admit I used to like fuckin' the young studs though, and am forever grateful that I went through the real spell of 'free love' and was trothed by the Aids appearance.
I remember quicky sex, no condoms and no guilt!
Now I'm content with my old darlin', who smiles like Santa and is a bit overweight and laughs with me, but...
I'm still menopausal, so what do I know?
Thought - provoking, bees. Now I must consider all my values as per beauty.
That does sound like naivete, if they honestly believed that this average person was the best person on earth, ever, and that they could never get any better than this.
Anything other than that is settling for less, right?
If you were to avoid choosing a mate until you found "the best person on earth, and ... could never get anything better than this" you'd never choose a mate. Period. Furthermore, the goal of a relationship in my book is not to "get" someone, but to build a fine experience with someone. To do that you have to start, and you really won't have any idea how it's going to go until you try it for a while. And then, if you find yourself happy, are you "settling" by not throwing that away on a whim? I think not.
Then again, I've been single for a long time now... what do I know?
Someone can be average looking (to other people) without being averagely good for you - they are wonderfully good for you. They make you happy, and they are wonderful, and they smell good, and are cute (or handsome or pretty or striking - or whatever it is that you love about them) - even if they aren't really a supermodel (though they would be, if you were the editor of the world). Love is not blind, but it makes your love's face the most beautiful thing in the world, even if it is green and warty. Just ask the Frog's princess.
Attractiveness is not simply a function of physical beauty - aside from all the different tastes, sometimes you find someone devastatingly attractive simply because you love them. I didn't really know this until recently - now I find that when I find other men attractive, it is people who remind me of my SO.
Wurwilf - I'm sorry to be blunt, but I fear that right now you are too cynical/bitter to really listen to what people are telling you. I won't say there is someone for everyone - because that isn't true. But it is true that if you walk around saying you are ugly and no one could possibly love you, it will probably be a self-fufiling prophecy. There are over 2000 monkeys - some of us may be models, some of us could have serious physical deformities. This does make a difference in society - attractive people do have advantages (as do smart people, tall people, educated people).
And yet in my experience "objective" physical attractiveness seems to have a poor predictive value on happiness in a relationship. I am really happy - there are women who are prettier or fitter who are not as happy. It was none of my doing, it was pure luck - didn't loose weight, put on make-up (actually, my fiance hates it), or act in any way but my own goofy, messy self. The two of us are probably very average looking, definitely nerdier than most and have the collective fashion awareness of an iguana (but he is an excellent costumer), but neither us have "settled" for anything but someone with whom we were very compatible and happy.
Okay. I'm done boasting now. My point is - feel free to wallow, but please don't bring include the rest of us average people with you. Many of us are happy in our mediocrity. Though, granted, it was a hard moment when I realised I wasn't actually the disguised son of an enchanted king, carrying a magic sword and defeating the villain with my inate wit and sheer courage, but a really klutzy, out of shape nerd whose takents seem to lie almost entirely in remembering obscure historical facts and wasting time on the internet. But at least I can still read about them.
The internet has become a way for me to decide that most people are annoying from a safe distance.
Dude, I didn't need the internet for that...
Wurwilf - the "naivete" thing was directed at how the attitudes of my generation must appear to those of today's. But, I think the idea that a relationship was built more slowly worked for us, even back in high school. Since sex came later in a relationship than (in my impression) it does today, one had the opportunity to find out whether interests, humor, attitudes, etc., were compatible. I really do think that early sex, especially for the young, can impose a different sort of bonding on a couple which doesn't tend lead to them to really liking each other, but can lead to their trying to stay together longer than they should. The person you lust for on first sight isn't necessarily the person you want to spend your life with, to take an exteme stance.
And, fractalid, I think I just said what you did, in a more round-about way, so I'd guess that you know at least as much as I do.
On preview, JB - you said it even better.
"Someone can be average looking (to other people) without being averagely good for you - they are wonderfully good for you. They make you happy, and they are wonderful, and they smell good, and are cute (or handsome or pretty or striking - or whatever it is that you love about them) - even if they aren't really a supermodel (though they would be, if you were the editor of the world). Love is not blind, but it makes your love's face the most beautiful thing in the world, even if it is green and warty. Just ask the Frog's princess."
Were that this were true. But it's not really that true, not in regards to physical/sexual attractiveness. People want it to be true, and people anecdotally claim that it is true; but any analysis of how people actually behave shows that, cross-culturally, they don't act as if it's true. People of all ages and cultures prefer certain physical features.
I'll repeat that compatibility, especially long-term compabtibility, and the more intangible thing that is "love" are not strongly correlated to these things. But who here has claimed that they do?
In fact, it occurs to me that the conflation of all of attractiveness and compatibility and love in the context of denying the importance of certain traits is unwittingly validating the premise--that I certainly don't hold--that these traits are all-important. It seems to me that people are either obsessed with affirming the importance of these traits (by how they select their celebrities, their models, how they want their children to look, etc. etc.) or obsessing about how these traits really aren't important at all.
Can't you see that making such a big deal about this, which includes strongly asserting this dreamy fantasy where skin-deep looks don't matter to anyone, is part of the problem?
Think it's fascinating how a discussion of purported beauty has been limited to the physical atrractiveness/sexiness of adult humans.
sigh. Bees, bees. The link was about the physical attractiveness of adult humans. Did you read it? Your statements are true, but that's not the point of the link.
Do you think it is better to be valued as a sexual person, for whatever amount of time that lasts, or a person of quality?
False dichotomy. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Just ask the Frog's princess.
You do know that's a fairy tale, right? - OK, kmellis went into that. It's prescriptive, not descriptive. ...Oh, just read his post, it's good.
Can there be beauty without sexual attraction?
I may be quite a minority, but yes, at least for some people, there can certainly be. It is very rare for me to find much connection in my own perceptions between physical beauty and sexual attraction. My response to physical beauty tends to be more aesthetic and intellectual, as if I was looking at a beautiful sculpture or painting. More visceral reactions have been extremely rare. There have been precisely four, and since they were all very different from each other, it probably had more to do with their personality and confidence as expressed in their body language and facial expressions rather than anything physical about them. One man was even not my cup of tea physically - my immediate reaction based on looks alone was a mental comparison to a small and somehow furry toad - but I was in lust anyway.
Rather than physical beauty, what I find sexually attractive are things like confidence, intelligence, playfulness, and sense of humor. Sense of humor and playfulness are probably the biggest hooks. The strongest and longest-lasting unrequited thing I ever had was for a friend who could make me laugh so hard that I actually fell off of the couch I was sitting on. This also applies to short-term attraction for me. I've had a couple short-lived flings, and in those cases, I was completely uninterested based on appearance. It wasn't until I got to know them a little - even if we only talked for an hour - before I felt any attraction.
I do have a physical "type" that I prefer to look at, but it has no real bearing in the final analysis. Not one of the men I've been with has conformed to that physical type. For me, at least, sexual attraction and beauty are seperate things, and only sometimes coincide. The biggest factor in attraction for me has always been who someone is and not what they look like, and the overlap between someone I find physically beautiful and someone I find sexually attractive is pretty small.
As someone mentioned earlier, my standard of what I find beautiful changes as I get to know someone, particularly if my emotions begin to get involved. The guy I mentioned who first caused me to make comparisons between him and a small, furry toad? A friend of a friend, and as I got to know him and we became friends ourselves, I learned that he was a smart, funny, and interesting person. By the time I'd been friends with him for a while, that initial attraction had turned into a huge crush, and in my perception he'd become so cute I wondered what the hell I'd been thinking when I first met him and made the original comparison.
There are a couple of Monkey boys that I have MoFi crushes on. I don't even know what one of them looks like, and it doesn't matter because that's not what attracts me in the first place anyway. The other I've seen pictures of, and he is not the physical type I "prefer," and that doesn't matter either. The physical has never had much importance to me, even when I was a teenager.
kmellis, you're partially right. Universal physical attractiveness is important when all other things aren't considered. In other words, if you're led into a room full of strangers, you'll be most attracted to the prettiest/most handsome person in the room.
But if you're led into a room of people you already know, you may just ignore the classical beaty because you know she's a bitch, and instead focus your attention on the more 'average' looker who you know is a great personality match.
kmellis - I wasn't talking about how one becomes initially attracted, but how the person you love can become the most attractive person to you (and thus trying to explain to Wulwilf how it isn't "settling" at all).
Frankly, there may be some somewhat universal traits (e.g. men with wider shoulders than they have hips), but there is such a huge variation within that attractive range that it is stupid to talk about given ideals. My roommate and I are the same age, dating guys within 5 years of each other, and we find radically different (i.e. by about 50 - 100lb) men attractive. How does this represent a given standard, except one so wishy-washy it has no individual meaning, just statistic?
As for the appropriateness of the Frog's Princess, yes, it is a bad example. I should have said Frog's Pig. (You know, the one with the blond hair and big blue eyes, whom the Frog also finds beautiful.)
"Universal physical attractiveness is important when all other things aren't considered."
That's all I've ever claimed. I have been disputing the idea that it's not important at all or is arbitrary. It's not.
(Although I think that the "all" in your assertion is almost certainly an oversatement. "Many" would probably be a better choice.)
False dichotomy. They aren't mutually exclusive.
That's what I was trying to point out, wurlif. To me, it seems that you have forced yourself into an extreme definition that doesn't exist. Which would be fine if you were content with your self-classification as unattractive, but apparently you are not.
You always are a beautiful person here and that is the state of mind I hope you can someday embrace in all your life.
Now I'm left with this urge to bundle you up and hug you and then whip you around for a make-over to help you feel better about yourself.
/ I've always liked doing the 'dress-up' thing with dolls to people.
Do it to me. I need a facial.
I've never had a facial. I think I would really like it, if they promised not to put make-up on me afterwards - it would ruin all the good of the facial. (Do they do that? Or is that only a make-over?)
nah, facial is usually just a good steaming, exfoliation, moisturizing and toning of the face. sometimes there's hair removal/clogged pore treatment involved, but that's optional and costs more.
you can do this stuff at home, alone or with friends. a quick googling brought up these recipes for facial masks.
A facial is a great suggestion. A bit of pampering is a sure-fire way to feel and look good, even without make-up.
/I hate make-up, as well.
Actually, wurlif, can you manage a trip to a spa? I've only done it a couple of times, but it leaves one feeling soooo good.
dx, thanks, but see my profile; I'm not a cute little emo girl who just needs to cheer up. It's real and not a state of mind. But you know, I'm putting in a lot of effort to improve myself, and I really enjoy doing it, so someday I'll be all perky and cute and happy, brain chemistry willing. I'll probably be 40, but it'll happen.
Oh wow, that was a set of run-on sentences of ultimate doom. Eesh.
MonkeyFilter: Run-on sentences of Ultimate Doom!
And, hum, what wrong with run-on sentences? Forgive me, my first language is French, but it looks A-OK to me.
wurlif, all your profile shows is your words, saying the same thing as here.
*puts on Dirty Harry persona*
"That's a bad attitude you got, gal."
/I still want to come give you hugs and see what you are doing wrong with yourself.
/This poor girl needs some of my magnificent nurturing.
-- Pablo Picasso, quoted in Giles and Lake's Life With PicassoBeauty is a series of hypotheses which ugliness cuts short when it bars the way that we could already see opening into the unknown.-- Marcel Proust, Within a Budding GroveAs a white candle In a holy place, So is the beauty Of an aged face.-- Joseph Campbell, "The Old Woman"I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.-- Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Blackbird"