I see what you mean. If we can't agree on what the parameters of 'beauty' is, then it's inevitable we'll have drastically different viewpoints. If I consider a woman beautiful, I'd hope they'd take it as a compliment. There may be a sexual element to beauty and attractiveness, but for that I would make no apologies. (It's not an exclusively male thing, either!) As a man it's only natural and it is not something to be ashamed about. I would certainly not imply any denigration of a woman's self-worth on that basis, either. That's an entirely different matter altogether.
I agree with all this, and by what i was saying, I wasn't trying to imply there's any shame in it either. I hope you got that from my comment
I see what you're saying! Masculinity is an illusion, in a way...Do you have an idea/vision in mind of what the world would be like without the distinction between the two?
I don't think that I'm wrong for believing in the possibility of near-perfect food, or a near-perfect book, or a near-perfect flower, or a near-perfect perfume. But I would be wrong if I thought that everything striving for near-perfection had to be approximately the same thing. Perfection is not a single set of standards. In fact, I would say that almost by definition, beauty has to vary from a generic standard, because beauty needs to stand out from the crowd. Chanel No. 19 extrait is a near-perfect perfume. Aftelier Cepes & Tuberose is a near-perfect perfume. And they're wildly different from one aother. Cepes & Tuberose doesn't have to have a dry, stern line of green galbanum just because No. 19 does. No. 19 doesn't have to have a forest-floor buttery note just because Cepes & Tuberose does. They're both very different and very beautiful. Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint, on the other hand, is merely very pretty, not beautiful. To me. The pink cabbage rose Eden is beautiful. So is the white anemone Honorine Jobert. They're about as different as flowers can be, but they're both beautiful. Another flower, the double yellow Tahiti daffodil, is merely pretty and cheerful, not beautiful. To me. The world seemed to agree that Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn were both beautiful, and they were quite different. Does that mean that the world was wrong about one or the other of them? When you focus on visuals, yes, there is a distinction between beautiful and merely pretty, and a distinction between merely pretty and "well, they're a good person." But that doesn't mean that beauty has a single definition. The question of whether visual beauty exists, and the question of whether visual beauty has to comply with a single definition, are two different issues. Tall, fatless-but-not-too-muscular, mostly curveless (small hips and bust), "clopping" runway models may be beautiful. To men. Some men. But they don't serve as a single definition of beauty.
I give up! There's no agreed definition. Let's just say beauty is all things to all men (I know that statement will annoy feminists. Why not all things to all women!?!?!?! Just kidding, by the way ) I've come to realise this debate is like pissing in the wind...
I actually meant i dont like beyonce, i like the others. Haha I did not expect "fuckability" in the middle of that paragraph, i had to read it twice! I can only speak from a straight male's perspective, i fully accept the differences of the definition in gender and sexuality. I think i've made myself sound a bit shallow there, i do appreciate natural beauty, in some cases beautiful people are not people i would sleep with.
I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I'll chip in with something I've been thinking about regarding all this. Ancient Greeks had a fluid definition of gender based on a theory that originally, there were three types of humans - male/male, male/female and female/ female. When gods split them all in two, as punishment for something or other, the humans were from then on destined to search the earth looking for their 'other half'. It certainly describes beauty, attraction, genders, sexualities and their right to co-exist in a much more philosophical and tolerant light than out current ideals of beauty, happiness, family etc.
Woah, this thread moves fast. I'm bailing from the feminism discussion, though will probably make a thread on it when I've got more time. I'm just back to call the 'MRA presis' bit an incredibly cheap shot (sadly one that seems to be attached it anyone on the Internet who even so much as mentions that not only women have problems), and say that for the vast majority of human civilisation almost all of humanity has been owned and/or enslaved because of something they couldn't change - the circumstances of their birth.
Just make sure that, when you open a new thread or whatever, you don't 'exit the discussion' when people explain to you why your reasoning is wrong. Because, then you'll have to open another thread, and another...
I love this so much, because I notice so much under-representation of groups in the media, it seems whitewashed to me all the time. She is a beautiful role model and I'm overjoyed that she's giving confidence to girls , as they truly deserve it.
@jazzabel Thank-you for adding that, I've been doing a bit of research on Ancient Greek theories of human evolution and a bunch of different creation stories and this one is by far my favorite. It's the one I find closest to the actual human condition.
I believe that straight women and gay guys care just as much about s** appeal as straight guys and gay women. They're not all perfect , marrying for personality alone. Yes, looks matter to me. Personality definitely matters a lot more, but I won't date someone I'm not attracted to.
I see two answers to this. First, a straight woman is not likely to appreciate another woman's beauty based primarily on that other woman's sexual appeal. Second, I'm not so sure that straight women are as interested in a man's purely visual sex appeal as men are interested in women's. Or maybe I'm being unfair to men and the stereotypical view of what men find appealing is false, too. Maybe it's just me, but it's very rare for me to find a generically, societally-approved beautiful man, who is presented without any context, actually beautiful. I need character, personality, actions, words, interaction. I can't imagine being attracted to a male model on a runway, because I don't know him, not the least little thing about him. I don't mean that I'm not shallow. I don't mean that I need to have long detailed conversations with him. I just need the illusion of some small insight into his personality. For example, you know this year's Oscars commercial with a zillion people dancing? One of those dancers does a better job of achieving eye contact with both the camera and Ellen Degeneres, and of looking like he finds the whole situation absurd and funny, and that is apparently enough personality and context for me to perceive him as the most attractive dancer in the group. And that's part of why I can't wrap my mind around finding runway models beautiful--there's no personality there. I suspect that personality on the runway is not permitted in the job; it would presumably distract from the clothes. But without personality, I have trouble having an emotional reaction to beauty. If somebody made me serve as a judge, I might rate a man as a 9.9 out of ten in appearance, but if there's no personality, I shrug and look away.
You are being unfair to men. Yes, a man might think a woman is hot, but how long will he stay with that woman for? If he's a decent guy, that all depends on their personality.
I was with a hot chick once that told the same stories over and over and over and over. She had the intelligence of a door stop. Eventually I just couldn't take it anymore and despite how hot she was, and how often she wanted to have sex, I just had to break it off. Sorry, but not all men are so shallow that they will date a girl just because of her looks.
I'm feeling rather no-win'ish here, though. I'm apparently being a crazy unrealistic feminist to think that men should see beauty in anything other than the Approved List Of Characteristics (full lips, long legs, cloppity-clop). But when I consider that, OK, maybe men and women are different in the extent to which they need to see character before they can perceive beauty, then I'm being unfair. Feh. Edited to add: So I make decrees. Myrna Loy is beautiful. Felicia Day is beautiful. Karen Allen is beautiful. America Ferrera is beautiful. Most runway models have very, very impressive figures, but they're not beautiful.
I agree, models are picked to fit into certain clothes and look a certain way in them but the majority of them are not beautiful. They are angular and boney.
I have a huge stick up my arse about appearance and other people's opinions of it. I do not know how i got this way but i really am bitter about it. I have always been a tom-boy, raised with three guys, so i never fell into the feminine trap that so many girls are pushed into. I did play with barbies, ponies etc, but i never truly became a girlie girl. Sadly my looks and body did not want to follow suit and so i am stuck with a very feminine body and face that, much to my annoyance is commented on. I never knew what to say as a child when people would say 'you are so beautiful' and to this day i do not know what to say. I feel ashamed when people bring it up, as if i am meant to say, 'oh my goodness thank you so much,' and just blush like a damsel when in reality i just gape like a fish out of water, the person in question looking slightly offended at my lack of gratitude for their validation. I do not, i will not be thankful for those comments. My identity is not based upon my looks, not in any way shape or form. It is not my face that makes me, it is my personality, my mind, i pride myself on who i am, not what i look like, BUT society does not. I have had people say to me, "you are too pretty to be a teacher," "you are too pretty to put on weight," "you are too pretty to like women." They were all from family members. I was disgusted when i heard every single one of those comments, as if i am meant to change my life because of my face. I found this poem a few months back that i feel reflects what i think of the matter: Society puts so much pressure on people and their looks, not just women, men just as badly. We are flooded with so called perfect images and taught to judge others in order to fill the gap of emptiness inside. It is only normal to note other people's appearances, but to do so in order to mock them? Make them feel worse than they probably already do because of the pressure that is put on them by society? It disgusts me when people are so judgmental. I honestly think that everyone is beautiful in their own way, when they have a kindness inside, it could be a simple glint in their eyes, a curve of the mouth, an adorably innocent look. There are so much bigger issues in life to worry about than the fact that some of us have dark skin, some of us are larger than others and some of us have less hair than anyone else.
Some people seem to be marrying together beauty with other things you look for when looking for a relationship I was of the understanding when talking about beauty we were purely talking about superficial looks, but, as was mentioned earlier, some posters here have a deeper notion of what beauty means, and that's fine
I'm not entirely sure, you might know better about this, but plastic surgery might also play a bigger part nowadays than it did e.g. in the early 1900s. Sure, they've done them for a long time, but since the risks are lower and results better nowadays, the temptation to go under the knife might be stronger for today's supermodel. Hah, I don't mind, I'm flattered, even though yesterday - after my dear hubbie read your post - he kept staring at me for the rest of the evening like he had never seen me before, so cheers (and you're very beautiful too, I'm not surprised you've modeled. I certainly haven't... Unless you count some album cover art done for friends, lol). I must disagree though, naturally Scarlett's way prettier than me even in The Horse Whisperer and The Girl with The Pear Earring where she wore barely any make-up... I think there are certain specs that count as "universally beautiful" in women, as @Mackers listed, like high cheekbones, wide eyes, good teeth, and a slim, smooth body, and these specs are achieved through the process of beautification or, in fitness models' cases, through hard exercise. Quite common fixes seem to be lip fillers, cheekbone implants, and nosejobs of course... I've heard female actresses, musicians, and models say that reaching the beauty ideals takes a lot of work, even the ideals that aren't unrealistic (like to get big boobs and a bird-boned body one has to often resort to surgery magic). It doesn't just magically happen. It seems to be great fun for the media to publish no-make up pics of celebs. Maybe to make us mere mortals feel better about ourselves? They sometimes do look like completely different people. This got me curious. Do you mean when you were out and about you asked each other like "would you hit that?" Did you guys ever specify why you would or wouldn't? Just for the record, women do look at men in a purely sexual way too and many don't care what goes on between the ears if they're out to just get laid. Thinking back to when I was still single and went clubbing with my female friends (hated it, but hey, you gotta go through it to know you aren't missing anything), it was clear we all had very different tastes (re to what jazz wrote about women's tastes). It didn't make us any less shallow, but there was no common consensus. I found that pretty interesting. A friend of mine had a thing for older goth/black-clad guys with big noses, but I admit, that was a bit curious even to me. We didn't do the yay or nay thing, though. Oh and Scarlett wins in the bod department, hands down. One word: boobs. She haz em, and if I've learned one thing about guys -- and beauty ideals for women -- a big rack compensates for other shortcomings. Maybe this is also why many women resort to implants: they're expected to have a low fat percentage, but the more you exercise, the more fat you lose, and well, breasts being somewhat heavy on the fat, they won't take kindly to fat loss. @KatieValino : I wager it's common, whether you're a man or a woman, to want something that you don't have, pretty girls wishing they were plainer, plain girls wishing they were prettier. I have wondered what it'd be like to have curves and wavy hair, I think that's why I have a girl crush on Rosario Dawson as she represents everything I don't have; curves, big breasts, full lips, black hair, dark eyes and skin... On the other hand, I don't mind being complimented at all and I'm quick to dish out compliments too. I don't do it to put the other person down or to imply their looks are all that matters. It's a form of politeness to me. Also, I don't mind men complimenting me (context!). I'm married, what do I care if -- behind that compliment -- there's a wish to get into my pants? It doesn't hurt me, just like my elaborate murder fantasies of that scantily clad, not-so-fit woman making orgasm noises at the gym won't hurt her. Of course if someone says "you're too pretty to be a teacher" or "to be with women", now that's just stupid and you can just respond "oh yeah? and you're too stupid to breathe, but look, somehow both things are happening, I'm a teacher and you're breathing." I've read something to this effect as well. I think in Crete they were particularly progressive when it came to gender roles and sexuality, but I should check that.
