As a ginger who is utterly gorgeous but still bruised by society’s relentless mockery of the inability to tan, may I suggest turning to the words of Leonard Cohen:
“I always loved the misshapen things a little bit harder.” I love it!
Misshapen things tell a story, a unique story about a unique individual at a unique time and place. Misshapen things exist— despite conventional ideas about right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, good and bad. Misshapen things are about the human things, about what makes us happy,sad,love fear… Taking misshapen things and making them yours, owning them, loving them… it makes things whole.
I have always found the “imperfections” of my lovers to be proofs of beauty. It’s not because of anything I did— loving their misshapen hand or their scarred lips didn’t make them beautiful. A kiss doesn’t transform on its own. It’s that despite what others think, they are willing to throw themselves into Cupid’s arrow, to allow themselves to love and be loved, to forget about their own egos and allow Eros to take a hard and fast hold on their souls.
It’s not simple physical attributes or psychological affirmation that makes a woman erotically beautiful. It’s a woman’s confidence in her neediness, a confidence in the natural instincts in her heart and her feminine craft to makes thing beautiful that makes a woman hot. It is not apologizing for being profoundly misshaped. It is recognizing that it is through another misshapen body and soul that creates beauty— it is becoming clay that softens so two people make a bit of beauty in a world that is often too cruel and unforgiving.
"Even a fool knows he is supposed to lust after a model, but only a great artist can make a muse out of the girl next door." Perhaps your greatest line ever!
I absolutely relate with LY's comment and sentiment, albeit with a little twist. I'm an African domiciled in Africa with a somewhat different cultural standard of feminine beauty. When I first saw your picture, I didn't exactly go "wow, she's stunning!!!" Rather it was for me a lesson in cultural relativity of feminine beauty.
Ultimately, the arbiter of what is beautiful is not the individual but the collective. Beauty without sufficient consensus is useless. I know you've not always considered yourself beautiful until you left your country for the UK where the standard and taste in beauty is somewhat different. So, your assessment of how good looking you're is not entirely subjective. In fact, your position is the more secure one in that it's better to think you're beautiful because most people think so than to suppose yourself beautiful when no one thinks so.
Ahahahah you make me laugh charlatan!! I am not familiar with African beauty standards apart from the stereotype one would come across in western culture so I take your word for it. I am perhaps a Lagos 6.
But yes you are quite to remember that my confidence rose when I moved to London where my looks were rarer. But I still think that when it comes to beauty, over and above other human values, we can and should be more lenient with ourselves. Most people maybe would say I am average looking but I have met enough men who find me ”drop dead gorgeous”, so why not listen to them instead 😉
I moved to Vietnam 2 years ago, never have I ever been so aware of my color and face and body, and the way it moves through the world, than I am now... when I'm not surrounded by people that look like me, that stare at me.
Stella, you are a very attractive lady who has had the audacity to admit to being aware of same! I really pity this snarky wimp who took a potshot at you! I was also wondering when someone like him would crawl out of the carpet- believe me, I have taken plenty of shots from his kind also!
I love your writing, Stella. Keep it up! I feel like you’re able to speak to some of the more loaded issues that come with being a “pretty girl,” which is a thankless task given how much blowback such a topic is likely to incite (obviously, your issue is that you simply have nefarious intentions. No other explanation!!).
What’s remarkable about your writing is its sincerity and that you don’t let your intelligence get in the way of you being a dumb bitch (if that makes sense!). I look forward to more articles from you that stir the pot!
I am so pleased you recognise my fearlessness in being a dump bitch publically - it is in the pursuit of deeper understanding. Thanks for reading K :-)
I love how that commenter, the friendly little whack-a-mole of joy, had to act like he was trying to give you legitimate psychological insight and a healthy dose of realism. He just wanted to make you feel bad cause you feel good, and it was making him squirm.
I have been reading Mary Poppins with my daughter and am captivated by her open enjoyment of her own appearance. It is my intention that my daughter comes to subscribe to the MP school of unflappable self assurance. Plain?? To hell with you, Mrs Brill!
when I used to watch TV with my mom and a pretty girl would be told she was pretty, my mom would say, you can always tell them, you know you are, you don't need to act all embarrassed and ashamed! I have never read Mary Poppins but it sounds like a great example for young girl ;-)
Eh, there are very few men with as high a standard for beauty as the one women hold. (Those men are not worth dating. If you look at the women who are married, or who have serial relationships, or in general can claim they are "successful" at hooking men, they are generally not better looking than average. One needs only look at the standards of beauty applied around the world to realize that men like women. End story. The rest is commentary.
"Average looking" is a concept abused in the same way "middle class" is. In either case, if one is more than 1 STDV above the mean, you can hardly be called average or middle. If you are not overweight or obese, congratulations, you are already more than average looking considering what average is. If you are in the top 15% of income, stop calling yourself middle class. Average looking is the median person of you did a random sample.
People are so dumb about the reality of varying male taste in looks. There’s no such thing as a universal 10 because some people just aren’t attracted to blondes or brunettes or athletic figures or busty figures or various skin colors etc. etc. Usually when a guy is saying “you’re not actually hot” (if he isn’t just a troll or an idiot) what he really means is “I am specifically not attracted to women who look like you”. As a straight guy who has spent lots of time around straight guys it’s been amazing how often one guy will gush over a girl being amazingly hot that one of his friends will sincerely think “eh, she’s OK, I guess”. I’ve been on both ends of that exchange and had the maturity to appreciate that neither of us is wrong, we just have different tastes.
I had to look you up on YouTube out of curiosity to hear what your accent sounds like and was surprised that you’re actually better looking than in the photo you included with that post. I can say that because I’m a happily long married old guy who prefers blondes (and married one) but who isn’t blind or a troll. Though it’s still courageous to post that sort of thing given what people are like.
I have seen exactly the same with men and I am well aware that many won't be attracted to me, but enough have told me I am gorgeous (including my dad) to convince me I am good looking enough I can declare myself so without needing to run a global referendum on it first. Thank you for those kind words, 90% of the comments I have been getting so far have been positive, just a handful of weirdos have popped up that take issue.
Hmm, research shows pretty high inter-rater consistency in male judgements of attractiveness. Some of the earlier research was done looking at hot or not data. Far more male than female consensus - more male clustering. Interesting research showing women overestimate leanness vs hip:waist ratio as a component. I wouldn't take what a guy says to his bro as data. Not all communications is honest. Alterior motives to that.
That certainly rings true but I do think there is more variability when you dig beyond mere “this woman is attractive” to “this woman is attractive to me” where things like style and particular looks come into play that would not be picked up by research like the one you are citing. Like some men liking women to be very feminine and wear heels and lots of make up while other men finding that repulsive and preferring a girl next door cool vibe of sneakers and tshirt.
I put a pic on hot or not years ago and just as my wife predicted I had a multimodal distribution. I think that is more common in female judgements of men where women are more likely to have niche tastes. I got lots of 8-10s and lots of 5-6s. 6'4" 175 pound athlete, but red hair (yuck!) and shall we say "pronounced" facial features. Dovetailed with my pre-marriage dating life - some women (bafflingly) thought that I was extremely hot and others that I was completely unattractive. Not much middle opinion. I wonder if that many women draw multimodal distributions in attractiveness ratings from men. Maybe women with unusual niche physiques would see the same thing - my Sicilian 53 year old wife is a bodybuilder/world ranked powerlifter who is always about 15 pounds or so from being stage ready, so maybe that would get multimodal distributional ratings from men. But for the most part I doubt you'd see wide male disagreement on women, but just some decimal differences owing to niche "icing on the cake" preferences.
I came here for a sardonic look at the world, followed by sarcastic laughter at the expense of the human condition. I was not disappointed.
To my way of thinking, the commenter’s view seems more than a bit off plumb from reality, but then I prefer to date women with a wit sharper than mine, and an irresistible girl-next-door aesthetic. I'd say you likely possess both. My bias is showing. Forgive me.
If you would, please continue offering snippets of your take on things and I promise to read them. I love how you think, your clever words and your affinity for small, paunchy rodents.
I'm not going to buck your ego up by giving you validating compliments, and no, not everyone is a '10', even if everyone, cats and even humans, is a child of God.
Anyway, there are plenty of girls who are what you call an "LA 10" and who quickly get to be tireseome - because that's all they are. I guess this LY character doesn't have to worry about that, since he doubtless sleeps with a different supermodel every night. The world is running out of new supermodels for his bed, he's such a stud.
Long time feral reader knows better than to stroke my already enlarged ego. Also quite rightly points out that people naturally externally gifted don’t spend the necessary time developing other, more valuable, traits.
I’m sitting in the living room, reading and my granddaughter, who is five, is in the bathroom with her grandmother getting ready to go to the park… and I hear, “Nana, how are you so beautiful even when you’re old?” and I tell you, every bit of emotion and cultural subtext came swelling up into my chest and leaked out of my eyes in one huge rush. Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts, but I’ll leave it at this.
As a ginger who is utterly gorgeous but still bruised by society’s relentless mockery of the inability to tan, may I suggest turning to the words of Leonard Cohen:
“And clenching your fist for the ones like us
Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
You fixed yourself, you said, "well, never mind
We are ugly but we have the music"
For what is worth, I have always loved gingers.
That would make a worthy epitaph. ❤️
“I always loved the misshapen things a little bit harder.” I love it!
Misshapen things tell a story, a unique story about a unique individual at a unique time and place. Misshapen things exist— despite conventional ideas about right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, good and bad. Misshapen things are about the human things, about what makes us happy,sad,love fear… Taking misshapen things and making them yours, owning them, loving them… it makes things whole.
I have always found the “imperfections” of my lovers to be proofs of beauty. It’s not because of anything I did— loving their misshapen hand or their scarred lips didn’t make them beautiful. A kiss doesn’t transform on its own. It’s that despite what others think, they are willing to throw themselves into Cupid’s arrow, to allow themselves to love and be loved, to forget about their own egos and allow Eros to take a hard and fast hold on their souls.
It’s not simple physical attributes or psychological affirmation that makes a woman erotically beautiful. It’s a woman’s confidence in her neediness, a confidence in the natural instincts in her heart and her feminine craft to makes thing beautiful that makes a woman hot. It is not apologizing for being profoundly misshaped. It is recognizing that it is through another misshapen body and soul that creates beauty— it is becoming clay that softens so two people make a bit of beauty in a world that is often too cruel and unforgiving.
So yes— a 10.
Quite right 😌
"Even a fool knows he is supposed to lust after a model, but only a great artist can make a muse out of the girl next door." Perhaps your greatest line ever!
I absolutely relate with LY's comment and sentiment, albeit with a little twist. I'm an African domiciled in Africa with a somewhat different cultural standard of feminine beauty. When I first saw your picture, I didn't exactly go "wow, she's stunning!!!" Rather it was for me a lesson in cultural relativity of feminine beauty.
Ultimately, the arbiter of what is beautiful is not the individual but the collective. Beauty without sufficient consensus is useless. I know you've not always considered yourself beautiful until you left your country for the UK where the standard and taste in beauty is somewhat different. So, your assessment of how good looking you're is not entirely subjective. In fact, your position is the more secure one in that it's better to think you're beautiful because most people think so than to suppose yourself beautiful when no one thinks so.
Ahahahah you make me laugh charlatan!! I am not familiar with African beauty standards apart from the stereotype one would come across in western culture so I take your word for it. I am perhaps a Lagos 6.
But yes you are quite to remember that my confidence rose when I moved to London where my looks were rarer. But I still think that when it comes to beauty, over and above other human values, we can and should be more lenient with ourselves. Most people maybe would say I am average looking but I have met enough men who find me ”drop dead gorgeous”, so why not listen to them instead 😉
I moved to Vietnam 2 years ago, never have I ever been so aware of my color and face and body, and the way it moves through the world, than I am now... when I'm not surrounded by people that look like me, that stare at me.
Stella, you are a very attractive lady who has had the audacity to admit to being aware of same! I really pity this snarky wimp who took a potshot at you! I was also wondering when someone like him would crawl out of the carpet- believe me, I have taken plenty of shots from his kind also!
Thank you Dan :-) vast majority of commenters were positive, so I can take the hit from a couple of fools!
I love your writing, Stella. Keep it up! I feel like you’re able to speak to some of the more loaded issues that come with being a “pretty girl,” which is a thankless task given how much blowback such a topic is likely to incite (obviously, your issue is that you simply have nefarious intentions. No other explanation!!).
What’s remarkable about your writing is its sincerity and that you don’t let your intelligence get in the way of you being a dumb bitch (if that makes sense!). I look forward to more articles from you that stir the pot!
I am so pleased you recognise my fearlessness in being a dump bitch publically - it is in the pursuit of deeper understanding. Thanks for reading K :-)
I love how that commenter, the friendly little whack-a-mole of joy, had to act like he was trying to give you legitimate psychological insight and a healthy dose of realism. He just wanted to make you feel bad cause you feel good, and it was making him squirm.
I think so, they couldn't take my cringe, but I am not bothered by being cringe so I continue being happy while they feel miserable
I have been reading Mary Poppins with my daughter and am captivated by her open enjoyment of her own appearance. It is my intention that my daughter comes to subscribe to the MP school of unflappable self assurance. Plain?? To hell with you, Mrs Brill!
when I used to watch TV with my mom and a pretty girl would be told she was pretty, my mom would say, you can always tell them, you know you are, you don't need to act all embarrassed and ashamed! I have never read Mary Poppins but it sounds like a great example for young girl ;-)
Eh, there are very few men with as high a standard for beauty as the one women hold. (Those men are not worth dating. If you look at the women who are married, or who have serial relationships, or in general can claim they are "successful" at hooking men, they are generally not better looking than average. One needs only look at the standards of beauty applied around the world to realize that men like women. End story. The rest is commentary.
the hamster bit genuinely made me cry <3
hehe :-)
"Average looking" is a concept abused in the same way "middle class" is. In either case, if one is more than 1 STDV above the mean, you can hardly be called average or middle. If you are not overweight or obese, congratulations, you are already more than average looking considering what average is. If you are in the top 15% of income, stop calling yourself middle class. Average looking is the median person of you did a random sample.
yeap, people get caught up with semantics, smacks of insecurity
What a breath of fresh air. I need to read this at least once a day!
thanks Laura - glad to be of service!!
People are so dumb about the reality of varying male taste in looks. There’s no such thing as a universal 10 because some people just aren’t attracted to blondes or brunettes or athletic figures or busty figures or various skin colors etc. etc. Usually when a guy is saying “you’re not actually hot” (if he isn’t just a troll or an idiot) what he really means is “I am specifically not attracted to women who look like you”. As a straight guy who has spent lots of time around straight guys it’s been amazing how often one guy will gush over a girl being amazingly hot that one of his friends will sincerely think “eh, she’s OK, I guess”. I’ve been on both ends of that exchange and had the maturity to appreciate that neither of us is wrong, we just have different tastes.
I had to look you up on YouTube out of curiosity to hear what your accent sounds like and was surprised that you’re actually better looking than in the photo you included with that post. I can say that because I’m a happily long married old guy who prefers blondes (and married one) but who isn’t blind or a troll. Though it’s still courageous to post that sort of thing given what people are like.
I have seen exactly the same with men and I am well aware that many won't be attracted to me, but enough have told me I am gorgeous (including my dad) to convince me I am good looking enough I can declare myself so without needing to run a global referendum on it first. Thank you for those kind words, 90% of the comments I have been getting so far have been positive, just a handful of weirdos have popped up that take issue.
Hmm, research shows pretty high inter-rater consistency in male judgements of attractiveness. Some of the earlier research was done looking at hot or not data. Far more male than female consensus - more male clustering. Interesting research showing women overestimate leanness vs hip:waist ratio as a component. I wouldn't take what a guy says to his bro as data. Not all communications is honest. Alterior motives to that.
That certainly rings true but I do think there is more variability when you dig beyond mere “this woman is attractive” to “this woman is attractive to me” where things like style and particular looks come into play that would not be picked up by research like the one you are citing. Like some men liking women to be very feminine and wear heels and lots of make up while other men finding that repulsive and preferring a girl next door cool vibe of sneakers and tshirt.
I put a pic on hot or not years ago and just as my wife predicted I had a multimodal distribution. I think that is more common in female judgements of men where women are more likely to have niche tastes. I got lots of 8-10s and lots of 5-6s. 6'4" 175 pound athlete, but red hair (yuck!) and shall we say "pronounced" facial features. Dovetailed with my pre-marriage dating life - some women (bafflingly) thought that I was extremely hot and others that I was completely unattractive. Not much middle opinion. I wonder if that many women draw multimodal distributions in attractiveness ratings from men. Maybe women with unusual niche physiques would see the same thing - my Sicilian 53 year old wife is a bodybuilder/world ranked powerlifter who is always about 15 pounds or so from being stage ready, so maybe that would get multimodal distributional ratings from men. But for the most part I doubt you'd see wide male disagreement on women, but just some decimal differences owing to niche "icing on the cake" preferences.
It's always a good laugh to ask such a person for a short list of their example "10s".
and then ask a few of their mates the same question so that they can see how vastly different human tastes are !
I came here for a sardonic look at the world, followed by sarcastic laughter at the expense of the human condition. I was not disappointed.
To my way of thinking, the commenter’s view seems more than a bit off plumb from reality, but then I prefer to date women with a wit sharper than mine, and an irresistible girl-next-door aesthetic. I'd say you likely possess both. My bias is showing. Forgive me.
If you would, please continue offering snippets of your take on things and I promise to read them. I love how you think, your clever words and your affinity for small, paunchy rodents.
What can I say, I do love a fat little rat
Me too!
I'm not going to buck your ego up by giving you validating compliments, and no, not everyone is a '10', even if everyone, cats and even humans, is a child of God.
Anyway, there are plenty of girls who are what you call an "LA 10" and who quickly get to be tireseome - because that's all they are. I guess this LY character doesn't have to worry about that, since he doubtless sleeps with a different supermodel every night. The world is running out of new supermodels for his bed, he's such a stud.
Long time feral reader knows better than to stroke my already enlarged ego. Also quite rightly points out that people naturally externally gifted don’t spend the necessary time developing other, more valuable, traits.
I’m sitting in the living room, reading and my granddaughter, who is five, is in the bathroom with her grandmother getting ready to go to the park… and I hear, “Nana, how are you so beautiful even when you’re old?” and I tell you, every bit of emotion and cultural subtext came swelling up into my chest and leaked out of my eyes in one huge rush. Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts, but I’ll leave it at this.