[sybarite]

Greenbean, I think I know what you're saying about a suburban aesthetic... but I think it may be the other way around. I think people in bigger cities can be more conscious about how they look, innovative with style etc, because they're subject to a broader range of influences, from different ethnicities and cultures... or simply have access to more stores. There's less choice in the suburbs and less diversity (IME) so, in a way, bland reinforces bland.

Also IME it takes time and some money to eat well/healthily and dress with attention to detail.

I actually think it's a little insulting to men for women to buy their underpants regularly, or to routinely advise them how to dress. My mister's a scruff and is ideologically opposed to paying a lot of money for nice clothes. I get his family and friends telling me to 'put my foot down' about his recent beard. While I much prefer him without it (and like him in smarter clothes), the man is an adult and I wouldn't dream of telling him what he can or cannot do with his face. And ditto from him if I decide I want a Jean Seberg haircut.

Fwiw, most guys I know much prefer women with little to no makeup on, despite current trends...

[mornington]

as far as pressure coming from women, and women being socialised to look a certain way - I have to agree. Women - and I'm making vast sweeping generalisations here - are more "sociable" than men, and I think that the pressure to "normalise" goes hand-in-hand with that - sociablility is desirable, and if you have to normalise to be sociable, then women are going to be striving to fit in with the ideal/norm. It's also (imo) women who put this pressure on men ... an interesting thought... it's only since the victorians that men have been less flamboyant that women in terms of beauty.

But I do agree with greenbean in that image is more of a state of mind; someone who is happy with thier looks - no matter whether they're conformist or not - is more ideal than an "ideal body". (actually, can I just agree with all of greenbean's last post?)

And on an aside (lecture incoming)... arranged marriage is not, and never can be, the same thing as mate selection. Ven is right in that "smelling" the right person works on pheremones, the endocrine system and the like - mate selection runs on choosing the male with the best genes; testosterone inhibits the body's natural defenses against disease, so a healthy male with high testosterone (which is "smelt") is more attractive. It's called the sexy son effect. With people it's more complicated, but there are similar rules - with wealth & plastic surgery (& perfume!) masking the affects of testosterone. Wealth is why you get arranged marriage - the effect of wealth in creating healthier, wealthier, sexier, sons. As far as as females go, its the effects of oestrogen on the body that are attractive, but most females do the choosing - it's human society that alters this balance.

[greenbean]

Lemme see if I can explain better: I think your image is more of a state of mind than actual looks. I think you can just tell when someone is being true to themselves and when they are just trying to fit in. For instance, take plastic surgury,..a lot of the women who go overboard with the fake boobs and the fake lips seem like vapid and sad slaves to our media's ideals....BUT someone like Dolly Parton doesnt seem that way to me. I mean, she looks silly but she is proudly a cartoonish, bawdy lady who is doesnt rely on her appearance, its just packaging on a self-assured, funny, smart, talented human being. Does that make sense?

also--stillvery, one of those high school guy friends was my boyfriend, and he was the most disturbed by my new look, because he loved that I was on noncomformist.

and ven--I could handle folks looking bad, tacky even, I just think in the suburbs there is more conformity, more Walmarts and more laziness. I'm just saying if youre gonna look tacky then be balls out john waters trash! If you are cheap then shop at the thrift store and go vintage, not Walmart-evil-boring blech. If youre fat, right on! Work it! Just dont be sedentary, its bad for the heart. If youre gonna be skinny, do it right, dont starve yourself, its not cute. etc etc

[bklynhermit]

ven, that's a really good point!

seriously, out of all the single men i know, in their 20's-40's, like 5 of them buy their own underwear.

because my male roommate is currently single, i have to stand in and be his fashion arbiter, even though he has quite a different fashion sense than i do.

[venetia]

Also I think women are socialised to maintain a lot of stuff men take for granted, eg it's women who statistically buy men's underwear, it's women who are expected to make sure their husband wears something appropriate to his cousin's wedding, and women are a lot more aware of what will supposedly happen to you if you don't conform.

Greenbean no I think it was me who wasn't clear, I think I got what you meant - I just mean I don't care if someone is fat, unfit or wearing a hideous outfit or the worst version of themselves. Nothing wrong with caring though!

[stillveryangry]

well since women are the ones being pressured like hell to look a certain way and led to the assumption that all women should look that way, and as a result they can't grasp the concept of another woman not doing so. With men, they expect their girlfriends to look like eva longoria, but not their platonic girl friends who they don't tend to see naked.

[greenbean]

Its funny the "mate" thing is brought up, because I feel more pressure from women to fit a certain mold than from men. I remember being the black sheep in a group of girls in high school, and they insisted on dressing me up for some football game. They made me wear heavy make-up, huge earrings, a preppy skirt and girly boots. When I got to the game my guy friends were all "eck! what happened? you look stupid!" It was music to my ears!

and ven, I sooo dont mean I think everyone should look the same, just the best version of themself I guess. Its hard to explain, maybe I'll try tomorrow when its not so late...

[venetia]

Boil the question down to its essential : would you rather be thought of well by society, or by yourself and of course they do. And if you're thinking about looks, well Julius Caesar was routinely teased for male pattern baldness by the Senators. Men have not historcally been immune to this stuff, even though women in our culture bear the brunt of it. And if things have changed so much why is my inbox full of penis enlargement and hair loss spam?

You might be right. But then I could say the same thing for eyeglasses - short sightedness is not being selected against. But... who does this matter to? I think human culture goes way beyond biology in so many ways.

p.s I think it's based on pheromones and ecrine sweat. I guess we could argue that sex before marriage works in favour of people getting the "right" mate because sooner or later you will smell the real person.

[nohope]

they ask it of guys? I read guys ask the question. But do they ask it of guys?

p.s. dose that mean that if someone smells good to you, one can assume that you smell good to them? What happens when there is a conflict between good associations that are connected to say a perfume, and bad information that is maybe more covered up by said perfume?

Also just because people who are not the norm are also finding mates, can we assume that extrinsic rewards and punishments are not causing them to make less advantageous matches than they would with out them.

Example: royal lines…. Making very poor mating choices as a result of extrinsic rewards and punishments.

[venetia]

Nohope biologically speaking we "sniff out" a mate who holds a different set of immunities to us. Someone with a complimentary set will literally smell better to us. Ever wondered why, for most of the bugs/viruses/flu you and your gf catch, one of you will get it waaay worse than the other? That's why. Genetic predisposition to immunity is far more practical than visual prettiness. (I get this from Robert Winston who is usually pretty current)

So, I guess you're right if people really are doing that - selecting on what the TV tells them to. (beauty is culturally specific, and the idea that it isn't is a classist racist myth imo). But I look around and I don't see all the non conforming/ non "ideal" people childless and alone.

And, I think it is just you. That kind of question has been asked by people since the dawn of time. Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, asks it. Ovid asks it. It's prevalent in folklore.

[nohope]

Is it just me or would this question never be asked a guy. Also what is the purpose of the question? What answer could it offer which would shed any light upon the root question here, is a society healthier that is "beauty blind" or one which creates strict norms to which people are forced to conform through a regiment of extrinsic rewards and punishments.

I know people will say that categorizing is innate, and that beauty is an integral aspect of Darwinian evolution. But that still begs the question of whether society should be beauty blind or not. After all the society can be blind even if the individuals are not.

i.e. since we each carry with us our own genealogical baggage which we hope to over come in our mates, it is only logical that beauty conform to an individual standard which balances out our own shortcomings.

i.e. the best mate would offer positive genetics that we don’t carry, or would counter negative genetics that we do.

However if society sets the genetic norm, then we are more likely to make a mating failure, as we all compete to mate with persons which are closest to the social genetic norm, at eh expense of overlooking those mates which would best compliment our genetic makeup.

[venetia]

To answer your last question first: very grumpily.

Hmm I would never pick the society's stanard beauty option, as it doesn't seem to fix anything! I should think it would make things worse if you didn't have self acceptance to go with your impossibly high standard. You'd freak out about ageing, for example.

I'm actually pretty happy with my looks, though. I can't think of anything I would change. But maybe that's only because I purposely stopped reading mainstream women's magazines 12 years ago.

ETA now that I see Greenbean - I don't get that. My best friend and my mother both have this real desire to have those around them look "aesthetically pleasing" - neither of them have conventional taste, either, so they don't get their own way much.

But to me people are like trees or something, they don't all have to be a particular species of healthy sapling for me to appreciate them.

[greenbean]

I'm flawlessly beautiful and I don't give two shits! ;)
But yeah, I've always dealt with subtle image bullying from people, they always have the urge to make me over. Sometimes I let them but it never sticks. Its funny how girlfriends seem to get so upset with me for resisting the "ideal beauty" mold.

That said, I have to admit that I do prefer to be in a good-looking population by my standard, which is full of healthy, energetic, self-confident people of various identities. Like, I'm usually in metropolis areas where folks tend to exercise/eat healthy and style themselves according to their personality rather than society's standard...and honestly, I get a bit disturbed when I am in a more suburban place and everyone is well, so American looking I guess?

[_octinoxate]

Great thread.

Here's a question for you all: If you had the choice between being flawlessly beautiful (by your standards and/or society's) or truly not giving two shits, which would you prefer? Why? Also: which do you think is easier to obtain, the physical appearance or the self-acceptance?

I'd also like to comment that I too have found that other people have a big problem with my acceptance of certain so-called flaws: teeth that aren't blindingly white, grey hairs, furry legs (back in the days that I didn't wax them). I found/find it exceedingly hard to stay positive and self-accepting when it seems like everyone else is telling me I'm ugly and need to be fixed. Why do people do this? Is it to justify their own obsession with self-"improvement"? Is it because they instinctively react to difference this way after so much exposure to marketing and negative body talk? And more importantly, how do we resist this kind of subtle body-image bullying?

[greenbean]

bklyn, I totally agree with you. People are accepting of a person changing their look as long as it fits into society's ideal. I have very small, lopsided breasts, one is an A cup the other is barely A. I dont mind being small but the lopsidedness bothers me, so once I was thinking about augmentation. The thing is, I dont like the idea of having something foreign in my body, so I told my friends that instead of making them bigger, I would rather have the A cup reduced to match the barely A. Of course this was considered CRAZY! by my friends. In the end I decided to do neither, cuz they are just boobies anyway.

[mornington]

hehe... I was the same, syb. I was twelve, and lots of people had braces/wore night-time retainers. I got asked if I wanted my teeth straightened - the rub was that I would have to wear a retainer every night for years and years (seriously...he said four years)... I have slightly wonky teeth now, and I seriously don't care.

I get asked if I'd like them straightened every time I go see a new dentist.

[sybarite]

When I was 13, my dentist advised my mother to get braces for me in front of me, saying sotto voce 'for cosmetic reasons'. My mother asked (in a normal voice) 'Will she be able to use her mouth in a normal way? Eat, smile etc?', if I didn't get braces. The dentist concurred reluctantly that I would. My mum said thanks but no thanks.

I have been told since that I have unusual teeth 'for an American', because they are not perfectly straight. I kind of wish they were straighter, but not enough to put wire on them for years. And I like that they are idiosyncratic.

/slightly off-topic anecdote

[venetia]

As someone who stubbornly refuses to correct an overbite, I find it actually quite tiring. I have to have notes put on my dental files for example. "Venetia is HAPPY with the appearance of her teeth". Even then dentists feel they have to check. And as for everyone else... It's like people can't stand the thought that you don't have a problem with something that they have a problem with.

[smurfin]

It's not that I don't agree with you on the conforming issues, because that is obviously the whole point of surgery. It's that I feel that if someone is happier conforming, well, who am I to say they shouldn't?

(And, btw, my experience is that people often understand breast reduction more than breast augmentation. But that may be a cultural thing: here in the NL surgery is much less common than in the USA. So surgery that's probably (partially) because of medical problems is easier to accept)

[bklynhermit]

it's not that i don't think plastic surgery could make some people happier with their bodies.

it's that, in this particular conversation (and i've had it multiple times with various people, btw), the idea of my own personal preferences or what might make me happier has clearly not been the focus. if it was, when i said, "i've always hated my nose and wanted a bigger one" (which is true, btw), my friends would have supported me and my "choice" of a bigger nose.

but what would make me happy is contrary to the norm. so what i want is irrelevant, and they didn't support my desire at all. because really, cosmetic surgery isn't 'about' being happy or having more choice about your appearance. it's about conforming to a cultural standard.

it's the same reason you often hear people say that they don't understand why any woman would want to have a breast reduction, or NOT undergo reconstruction after a mastectomy. because large breasts are considered more desirable, and cosmetic surgery is for conforming to socially accepted desires. because women are supposed to have breasts, and not conforming to that is considered freakish. again, cosmetic surgery is implicitly seen as a tool for conformity. everyone has breasts. how dare you not want breasts? everyone wants bigger breasts. how dare you want smaller breasts? everyone wants a cute waspy nose. how dare you want a big ethnic schnozz?