I have a few ideas and I think the reality is a mixture of all of them.
Women have more pressure to be beautiful
Women are taught to know the value of vanity while men are not
Men primarily select for beauty, while women select for other things, so women are essentially selectively bred for beauty, to put it in grossly clinical terms
About #2: Yeah I’m a guy and I’ve recently taken up makeup classes (mostly for theatrical/fantasy purposes) but sometimes I go out and I think I look bad and I just puff it up a bit now that I know to give me a bit more of a healthy glow. Just slightly so, tiny bit of powder, a bit of color to cover the dark under my eyes when I’m tired, stuff like that.
I think most women do this without thinking, as a man I was not even aware of the possibilities. I thought makeup was all the super obvious stuff. Like mascara, eyeshadow and lipstick.
Im glad you’re pushing the boundaries for men and happy it’s working for you. Personally though I could never see myself using makeup. I look like a goddamn revenant so I could use it but vanity is just so dysphoric for me in general. I want my outside to reflect my inside. I’m deeply cynical, pessimistic, and unfortunately very jaded. Putting on makeup, showing any skin, or wearing colored clothing kind of feels like a perversion of my self image.
Despite very little care for my appearance, people still tell me I’m attractive somewhat regularly. I don’t really feel it though. I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t believe it or because I don’t want it. I’m not really sure if I love beauty or hate beauty, or maybe both because it evokes so many polar opposite emotions for me simultaneously. Is striving to be beautiful a noble goal for anyone? In some ways I think we should all try to be beautiful, then I think some more and feel like it’s all a dirty trick.
Why do we even want to be beautiful? So we can trick people into treating us better than we deserve? So we can trick people into locking their life to ours when they wouldn’t otherwise? Or is it something higher level than that, like striving to reach closer to some divine form?
I’m in California right now, surrounded by beautiful people. It’s driving me insane. Seeing so many beautiful women fills me with such a strong feeling of sadness, knowing I’ll never be able to hold them, care for them, love them, protect them, etc. But why do I even feel this compulsion? I know nothing about them and for all I know they could be completely without any virtue at all. The more I think about them the more I feel that could be the case. I think back to all the time I’ve wasted chasing beauty, the numerous times I’ve completely fucked up my life for beautiful women. Then I come to hate myself knowing my perfect match may not be beautiful and I might never give them the time of day for that. Or I will, and live my whole life secretly resenting them for not being beautiful, wishing for something else.
I guess that’s the end of my unhinged rant. But I want to know, in your view, what is the purpose of being beautiful?
It’s about feeling good about myself more than about others. I tend to be pretty elaborate with party makeup, like in a cosplay sense. People like it when you make an effort. And it makes me feel better about myself which in turn gives me more confidence. And control over my appearance.
So for me changing my outward image also improves my self image!
The other stuff I mentioned is more just tricks. Sometimes I’m tired and I don’t want people to notice that too much.
Regarding your 3. point: Humans are the most heavily selected/bred species of all.
You have all heard about “domesticated animals/plants” - i.e. cows give more milk, apple trees give more and bigger and sweeter apples.
But i think more intensely than all these species, humans are selectively bred as well. We select for beauty, successfulness, intelligence, funniness, witfulness, idk what else. And that certainly drives evolution is a certain way. That’s why humans have evolved more rapidly than any other species in the last 10K years, including ability to speak, and other traits, i think.
Men primarily select for beauty, while women select for other things
Idk about that. Any high class club or bar in America will have That One Guy with a sorority’s worth of women just hanging off him.
Also, men will fixate on beauty. But they routinely select for compatibility and accessibility. Guys pair up with girls who are interested in them. And finding a woman who reflects your own interests and passions is as much of the dating game as looking good. The standard for physical beauty is highly relative, such that the cutest girl in the computer science lounge probably won’t look anything like a Vogue Cover Model but will still have a hive of anxious, sweaty, love-struck co-eds hovering around them.
women are essentially selectively bred for beauty
Beauty standards are all over the map. Read your Freud. Straight men tend to gravitate towards women who remind them of their childhood primary caretakers (ie, mom). Women aren’t “selectively bred” for anything. They reproduce a cohort of young men who adopt the beauty standards established by their elders.
It is not women who change to reflect male tastes but men who change to reflect female appearance.
Where you see this pattern go off the rails is among latchkey kids who are exposed to mass media and denied access to a large cohort of IRL caregivers. When TV raises your kids, they’re going to grow up to believe Women On TV are what women should look like. But then beauty standards are established by TV production companies, not natural selection.
I have a few ideas and I think the reality is a mixture of all of them.
About #2: Yeah I’m a guy and I’ve recently taken up makeup classes (mostly for theatrical/fantasy purposes) but sometimes I go out and I think I look bad and I just puff it up a bit now that I know to give me a bit more of a healthy glow. Just slightly so, tiny bit of powder, a bit of color to cover the dark under my eyes when I’m tired, stuff like that.
I think most women do this without thinking, as a man I was not even aware of the possibilities. I thought makeup was all the super obvious stuff. Like mascara, eyeshadow and lipstick.
Im glad you’re pushing the boundaries for men and happy it’s working for you. Personally though I could never see myself using makeup. I look like a goddamn revenant so I could use it but vanity is just so dysphoric for me in general. I want my outside to reflect my inside. I’m deeply cynical, pessimistic, and unfortunately very jaded. Putting on makeup, showing any skin, or wearing colored clothing kind of feels like a perversion of my self image.
Despite very little care for my appearance, people still tell me I’m attractive somewhat regularly. I don’t really feel it though. I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t believe it or because I don’t want it. I’m not really sure if I love beauty or hate beauty, or maybe both because it evokes so many polar opposite emotions for me simultaneously. Is striving to be beautiful a noble goal for anyone? In some ways I think we should all try to be beautiful, then I think some more and feel like it’s all a dirty trick.
Why do we even want to be beautiful? So we can trick people into treating us better than we deserve? So we can trick people into locking their life to ours when they wouldn’t otherwise? Or is it something higher level than that, like striving to reach closer to some divine form?
I’m in California right now, surrounded by beautiful people. It’s driving me insane. Seeing so many beautiful women fills me with such a strong feeling of sadness, knowing I’ll never be able to hold them, care for them, love them, protect them, etc. But why do I even feel this compulsion? I know nothing about them and for all I know they could be completely without any virtue at all. The more I think about them the more I feel that could be the case. I think back to all the time I’ve wasted chasing beauty, the numerous times I’ve completely fucked up my life for beautiful women. Then I come to hate myself knowing my perfect match may not be beautiful and I might never give them the time of day for that. Or I will, and live my whole life secretly resenting them for not being beautiful, wishing for something else.
I guess that’s the end of my unhinged rant. But I want to know, in your view, what is the purpose of being beautiful?
It’s about feeling good about myself more than about others. I tend to be pretty elaborate with party makeup, like in a cosplay sense. People like it when you make an effort. And it makes me feel better about myself which in turn gives me more confidence. And control over my appearance.
So for me changing my outward image also improves my self image!
The other stuff I mentioned is more just tricks. Sometimes I’m tired and I don’t want people to notice that too much.
Regarding your 3. point: Humans are the most heavily selected/bred species of all.
You have all heard about “domesticated animals/plants” - i.e. cows give more milk, apple trees give more and bigger and sweeter apples.
But i think more intensely than all these species, humans are selectively bred as well. We select for beauty, successfulness, intelligence, funniness, witfulness, idk what else. And that certainly drives evolution is a certain way. That’s why humans have evolved more rapidly than any other species in the last 10K years, including ability to speak, and other traits, i think.
I think she’s just gay
In many places men are bullied by their peers if they put “excessive” care into their appearance.
Idk about that. Any high class club or bar in America will have That One Guy with a sorority’s worth of women just hanging off him.
Also, men will fixate on beauty. But they routinely select for compatibility and accessibility. Guys pair up with girls who are interested in them. And finding a woman who reflects your own interests and passions is as much of the dating game as looking good. The standard for physical beauty is highly relative, such that the cutest girl in the computer science lounge probably won’t look anything like a Vogue Cover Model but will still have a hive of anxious, sweaty, love-struck co-eds hovering around them.
Beauty standards are all over the map. Read your Freud. Straight men tend to gravitate towards women who remind them of their childhood primary caretakers (ie, mom). Women aren’t “selectively bred” for anything. They reproduce a cohort of young men who adopt the beauty standards established by their elders.
It is not women who change to reflect male tastes but men who change to reflect female appearance.
Where you see this pattern go off the rails is among latchkey kids who are exposed to mass media and denied access to a large cohort of IRL caregivers. When TV raises your kids, they’re going to grow up to believe Women On TV are what women should look like. But then beauty standards are established by TV production companies, not natural selection.