Beauty is in the eye of the social
Most of the material you will find on this website is satirical. However this discussion of beauty is a serious analysis.
Beauty is a concept that is significant to how we view and judge ourselves and other people. Beauty is looked at here in terms of the importance that both men and women place on sexual aesthetics and what we consider to be attributes of beauty.
When you meet someone that you really like and they in turn like spending time with you, the question of how attractive you are might not immediately come up. You are attractive to each other to some extent. But we know of course that some people are either mainly interested in the sexual experience in the short term, or that as people get to know each other they find the other person annoying or incompatible. That's two obvious reasons why the relationship deteriorates, ends or undergoes crisis. However the issue goes to another level of implications.
People are attracted to each other to a large extent at an aesthetic level. I want to identify this as having two components which are archetypal beauty and inner beauty.
The notion of archetypal beauty relates to how much you look like the typical beautiful female or male.
Archetypal beauty combines a series of features, shapes tones and poses. These are the trigger elements that makes another person recognise you as beautiful according to the standards of that society. It could have the overt features of smooth skin and hour glass figure, but the ideal varies across cultures and time. Archetypal beauty references lots of meanings. It does not exist objectively in space. The fact that you are young is a beautiful attribute. It references your age and potential fecundity. A suntan is today considered beautiful by many people, perhaps because it is exotic and it references leisure activity and outdoor health. Yet suntan beauty is losing its appeal because of the cancer health risks. At the turn of the century a white skin was also very important for women because, I think, it signified not having to work outdoors, being of delicate society. It had high status.
Inner beauty is the second element worth considering. Some people have something coming from inside them that is captivating and makes them especially attractive. Some of this attractiveness appeals universally while other aspects only appeal to specific other individuals. A person who radiates friendliness or confidence seems to have an inner beauty that appeals universally. Often this type of beauty is not internally generated but rather interactive. This is why I think so many pictures of women show them smiling with teeth exposed. It is a big warm captivating image that makes the viewer think they have inspired an awesome transition in mood. Culturally we fake this image and replicate it in magazines but it also exists in its real form.
People want desperately to exude confidence and inner strength because it gets other people excited and has an inspiring effect. Younger people often have more inner beauty by virtue of their optimism, though many are equally pessimistic. Beauty in this instance is meant more as attractiveness. Inner beauty can of course also be more personal. You see something in someone else that reflects some quality of their soul. The eyes are usually the main channel by which we recognise this. The eyes reveal passion, sadness, melancholy, contemplativeness, coyness, intelligence, dedication, nurturing, etc. As people become older they are generally worn down by life and they learn to hide their emotions too. Many people have dead eyes.
Some elements of our attractiveness as men and women fades over time but some of it increases. Women's attractiveness is heavily associated with beauty but it is not the only feature of their attractiveness and components of beauty are not fixed by a singly degenerative clock. If beauty is youth, and all the features of a youthful body, then beauty certainly does fade. However it isn't just composed of this.
Some women have heavily invested in beauty and not other features because they have come to believe that this is the best form of beauty by which they can look attractive (to men). Many women are afraid that their beauty will fade in totality as they age and with aging comes a loss of social status or the ability to be noticed. In this respect you sometimes see old women who have covered themselves grotesquely in make-up, in a sad mimicry of a former youthful appearance.
Some women may believe that men are solely interested in beauty. If a woman thinks that men are mainly impressed by physical beauty then it becomes a main way to catch men's interest. I would say that any really developed and rounded man is bound to take some interest in a woman based on her physical beauty. But it should not dominate all other considerations.
If a man is heavily interested in physical beauty of women, or even of himself, then you have to ask what importance he places on other characteristics. There is somewhat of a gradation operating in this area. Some men get excited simply seeing a woman. Her sex alone gets them aroused. Others find physical appearance a central interest. Obviously the ideal is to allow a balance to develop. But even in the realm of inner beauty there is some potentially controversial variation. What you find beautiful in someone else can relate to symbiotic needs, compatibility, sameness, cultural norms, etc.
Men are definitely subject to the same measures of beauty and attractiveness as women but it is translated differently within each society and the level of emphasis that socially we expect of this is different. Crudely, most people would accept that beauty in men appears to be given a low rating but this is deceptive. At one level the very idea of beauty among many men is considered repulsive. The idea of making yourself attractive appears to be a female domain and therefore men should avoid this. Such a rule can become oppressive. In recent years this sentiment has been worn down in some countries. More magazines are coming out which encourage men to buy nice clothes and to look carefully at their muscle tone, to wear perfume, etc.
The very fact that there is such a barrier between accepted male behaviour and female culture is instructive. The rule that men should not beautify is related to the idea that men are not aesthetic creatures but functional. We have accepted throughout this century that men are creatures whose attractiveness is primarily measured by their work: their specific job and their ability to earn and provide for women and children. The symbolic physical and facial ideals of masculinity mirror this so that an ideal of males is muscular and rugged, as well as stoic and determined. This can become an oppressive norm, so that men are only allowed to identify this way. Thus there is an overt rule against making yourself beautiful and in fact allowing yourself to have any relationship to what are considered female attributes. To beautify yourself is considered in some ways a betrayal of masculinity. But the fact remains that beauty is there in men and we recognise it. There are lots of ideal men created by Hollywood who represent an ideal form of beauty, within certain limitations. Again this beauty is also both archetypal and inner beauty.
Some women deny that they look at the physical attractiveness of men. They emphasise personality, steadfastness, reliability, kindness as their main measurements, but this can't be absolutely true. I suspect women are more likely to have to settle for inner beauty in men, or even more practical things, because male attractiveness is a socially low criterion. Women are more likely to think that because male external beauty is harder to find that it is not worth looking for. In contrast many men think the opposite, that women's beauty is such an emphatic issue that it is a sufficient criterion in selecting a woman. We my think that this is related purely to her look of fecundity. For example big breasts might suggest the ability to breastfeed children, but in fact there are a variety of complex and subtle additional features that relate to ideals of race, class, occupation, health and personal taste.
Having spoken about beauty as an issue of choice we come to the issue of aging, which we associate with the loss of beauty. This is an issue that women seem to focus on. The question in a way is, what happens when the mystique of beauty is gone and you stand only as yourself, while other women enter the field wielding an aura that captivates many men.
How a woman experiences the reduction of her beauty depends on who she is relating to. Sometimes people are attracted to someone and they are so enraptured of the other person that they only have eyes for them. If a male is absolutely smitten with you then for many years he will find you the most attractive woman in the world. He is of course hopefully attracted to the combination of your physical appearance and inner beauty. Marriage has always tried to solidify this phenomenon by resort to the law and the church by which this level of 'commitment' is cemented by social rule. But firstly it does not work like that in practice and in this age the possibilities of moving on to a new relationship have increased enormously. This tends to create a whole new attitude to commitment and choice. Some men who have a very high status can at 60 leave their wife and move onto a woman who is half her age. The media baron Rupert Murdoch is a recent example. While many men might fantasise about this possibility they are mostly not in a position to do it. Most men would never have such a credibility or power. Furthermore the fantasy is in many respects quite illusory. The fact is that there would be very little compatibility between a much older man and younger woman. After spending a lifetime of (good) experiences with one woman there must be a very strong bond for both, that transcends the superficial appeal of a much younger female. This is to say nothing about the poor guy who is left by his young female executive girlfriend for the older high status male?
When you are with a man the question that comes up for both of you is how powerful he is socially and how faithful. If he is potentially very powerful or he perceives himself to have a high social status that goes beyond you, then he is much more likely to seek out other women. But the same can be true in reverse. Men are definitely at some stage faced by the fear that their lover is going to leave them for a 'better' man. Men who lose their job often feel this way and also those who suffer from impotence.
A balanced choice for both men and women is to select a partner who does appreciate both external appearance and the soul. You want to meet a man who appreciates your beauty because that is a genuine asset that cannot be denied. At the same time you fear that as its lustre fades that this feature stands too heavily in his mind. Other women outcompete. However in a very solid relationship where both individuals are attracted to inner beauty, this issue is less likely to be central. Secondly, it is important that both individuals grow and develop so that they do not begin to think they are inadequate or superior to their partner.
There are certain facts that cannot be changed for women as they grow older. Other beautiful women will make an appearance. This is nature itself in operation. As a man I often see young bunnies and they do have a superficial attractiveness but it is lightweight compared to the women who match me in social development. Below a certain age females are no longer intellectually credible to a man. They lack complexity and sexual potency.
I have been involved with women whose main attribute was beauty and while the relationship was exciting at the time, I knew that as she aged her main attraction to me would fade. It would be a bizarre alienation, and I therefore stepped out of it. Then again most relationships undergo alienation, even at the personality level. Also, as women and men get older some of them become lazy about their grooming and this is not to be ignored in how attraction fades.
I think that women seem to be slightly too obsessed in general with beauty. Partly its an issue of changing their focus on what they want to develop as qualities in themselves. I trust that many men do value virtue and talent, and kindness and every other human quality. Men may focus overtly on physical attributes, at least because that is the first thing we witness, but deep down we do look for other important characteristics in a woman.
There is a culture among men to be sexually superficial. "Cop a load of the fun bags on her. Oh boy wouldn't you love to fuck that?!" But in reality these men are likely to be less objectifying, and far more intimidated by women than they let on.
There are still many aspects of beauty that can be explored. Some of these go far deeper into the transience or persistence of attraction at the level of the soul.
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