This is a bit of a weird example, but definitely honest. I refuse to wear uncomfortable undies and shoes, especially thongs and high heels/stilettos. They make me resentful. I don't understand why female sexiness requires me to be uncomfortable while male sexiness doesn't. I want to be beautiful, sexy, feminine, modest, and comfortable all at once. I don't compromise. Though I'll admit in my twenties, I thought I had to.
I agree with this. I tried some uncomfortable undergarments at the beginning of my marriage, mostly because they’d been gifted to me, I’m practical and at least wanted to try them, and hey, it was the honeymoon, which seemed enough of a good reason. But they slowly (or not) disappeared, partly because I didn’t like them and/or they were uncomfortable, and mostly because I realized that ultimately my husband desired me, not what I was wearing, and so it didn’t much matter what I was wearing. The privacy demanded of marital intimacy also precludes what I’ll call performative wear. Yes, special wear can be special for a husband and wife, but it’s not a requirement at all.
Now shoes? I might have a harder time letting go of those. :)
When I was dating my now-husband, we went to college dances together. I said high heels were so uncomfortable, but they "made the outfit." My now-husband said, "You don't have to wear them." I bought cute flats, and at every dance we'd point out the line of high heels against the wall that girls had taken off. We danced all the dances together and I didn't have to take off my shoes. We're both engineers, so once I realized I had "permission" to not do whatever the sexy cultural norm was, I just didn't. Now we're married and have kids and I haven't owned any high heels in fifteen years. Though I have had some really cute (and comfortable) flats over the years!
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be “sexy.” I have always hated the word and all it represents on a visceral level and always felt disconnected from other girls and then other women because I didn’t really understand wanting to be objectified like that. I don’t even really like it when my husband uses that word about me because the connotations have always made it an alien experience to me.
Which doesn’t mean I don’t want to be desired. But I’ve only ever wanted to be desired in the context of an intimate relationship. I’ve hated it when strangers hit on me or catcalled me. I was never really interested in a relationship that didn’t start with friendship and trust first before romance. And my few experiences of experimenting with dating that didn’t start with friendship instead of desire were all disasters.
I like to look put together, neat, tidy, even attractive. But not sexy. And I tend to prioritize comfort over fashion or style. Though I don’t want to look like a slob, I also don’t want my clothing to be a torture.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be ‘sexy.’ I have always hated the word and all it represents on a visceral level”
Same here. The song SexyBack was unavoidable during my youth, and I remember my irritation: “Who needs you to bring ‘sexy’ back when it never left the building, and that’s part of our problem?”
When I am seen primarily as attractive, it can feel nice in the moment but is fundamentally an awkward feeling of being 'misread'- like at the end of the day, I have to go, "ignore all that, here's who I actually am". Definitely yes to the second question: as someone who is generally hopeless at whatever kind of attractiveness young women are supposed to embody publicly, I have often felt similarly hopeless about relationship- I will say though this feeling is not completely to blame on the secular culture- having (somehow) close to zero practical knowledge on healthy relationships and sexuality coming from a Catholic homeschool upbringing did not help *at all* - so a lack of tools on all sides. I would love to hear how you would approach teaching girls to prepare for relationship in a way that is age-appropriate but also direct and accurate.
> 'like at the end of the day, I have to go, "ignore all that, here's who I actually am." '
Yes. I would find that intensely frustrating.
> 'as someone who is generally hopeless at whatever kind of attractiveness young women are supposed to embody publicly, I have often felt similarly hopeless about relationship'
This makes me wish for some sort of opportunity for women to hear sincere perspectives on how guys see women. (A lot of things said--both in public or among friends--are insincere or are jokes that you only get if you already understand the thing being joked about! Because incentives!)
After having been involved with community that's either family or that's other women for most of my life, I'm now in the same online community as my husband, which is mostly guys, and I'm sorta... hearing what they say.*
Just sort of like... if women could see some of the reality of how guys REALLY tend to see us... the idea that at baseline, a random young woman, even without trying to be specifically sexy/attractive, is really really pretty in their eyes and probably makes lots of young guys get over-awed and tongue-tied in her presence. There's vulnerability in that, and I think if you were drawn to a specific guy, you felt like "Quite possibly, all I need to do here is be kind, provide evidence I want to continue this conversation, and let this nervous guy feel like he has a chance," it might help?
And... I think there's more truth in that version of the world than the "women have to sell themselves" image. Funny wholesome takes from my community have included things like: "Skimpy clothes to get you noticed by a guy? Nah, just wear a dress." (Along with the idea from some that "Sundresses are too OP." And smiling at a guy is also OP. "Woman smiling: guy takes a large number of points of psychic damage. He cannot speak coherently.") Talking about how when a woman has just exercised and worked up a sweat, she might report that she feels "icky" (where "not-sexy" is part of this descriptor) and assumes her husband obviously would also feel that she's "gross"/un-sexy but it would actually affect him in rather the opposite direction, to the extent that guys are like "Wow. she has no idea, huh?" And lastly, no joke, I think someone once shared a thing about someone whose wife had just stacked a dish in the dishwasher, and he was like "Could... could.. you do that again.. in like the EXACT same way you did that before?" because he found it so appealing. XD I hope these silly anecdotes give you some encouragement; of course, these guys' takes are -not- going to match EVERY guy's perceptions, but they're pretty real.
* Author's note: I LITERALLY stopped typing this comment here because one of the fellows in the community pinged 4 of us women, to talk about where he imagines us in a sort of modified D&D alignment quadrants. And a lively silly conversation ensued. (No, that does not happen every day!)
Haha thanks for the reply! There is a big disconnect for sure btw how women feel they are supposed to be and what men actually find attractive. I think, for me, between a very 'purity culture'-adjacent background (where no one talked about sex or desire or basically any kind of grown up sexuality outside of a theological or moral context- like, how does any of this actually *work in the real world* outside of theory in a way that is neither gross nor totally spiritualized) and a very sexualized culture - I have struggled as a young woman myself with the feeling of desire or being desired at all. I find it disconcerting and don't know how to receive it - because I tend to feel it's either shameful and kind of intense and too much on the guy's end (the religious side of me) or objectifying and shallow and stupid (the secular side).
I know this is intensely negative, and I do desire intimacy and a relationship in my life, but that has been my messy but authentic experience. I always feel like I'm being misunderstood somehow- it's like the normal gears of friendship switch off and this way more consuming (kind of threatening, honestly) energy takes its place (I guess that's eros! I was really shocked by how intense male desire is when I first started dating)- and honestly, I don't find it attractive; it just kind of stresses me out! I shut down or feel really nervous in the (rare) moments where a guy is expressing attraction for me- I don't really know why it's supposed to be enjoyable or how to find it fun - and it also feels mean to the guy, who isn't doing anything wrong in expressing attraction in an appropriate way. I always feel like I wish I could just skip this whole dating/attraction/lust thing and just get to the part where I'm in an old married couple and my husband just treats me like a normal person and a real friend lol.
I know this is self-centered, but I feel like people sometimes don't talk about how confusing it can be to be expected to understand and enjoy intimacy (rather than feeling jump-scared by it lol) if you just never learn how to as an adolescent. Instead, it's like if you learned Theology of the Body (from a Catholic perspective here, but I am sure there are analogs across the Christian world) you're supposed to have the keys to the kingdom, attraction, sex and relationship-wise....and yeah, that's just not my experience. Definitely won't repeat the primarily theological approach to this topic if I get to have my own kids.
> "it's like the normal gears of friendship switch off and this way more consuming (kind of threatening, honestly) energy takes its place (I guess that's eros! I was really shocked by how intense male desire is when I first started dating)- and honestly, I don't find it attractive; it just kind of stresses me out!"
I am hearing a question(s) in here, along the lines of "Well, is THAT Eros that I'm seeing there? Is the thing I'm uncomfortable with.. just... exactly Eros always looks like, or am I seeing an example of really unsubtle, poorly-regulated Eros? (i.e. "Are these guys just 'bad at' this because they are young and inexperienced and lack self-control--which includes this way they seem to lose the connection to me that I'm comfortable with when the focus shifts to attraction?") Am I doomed to keep finding it off-putting and generally unpleasant? Like you're not sure "the thing itself which is Eros" is something you can even "get used to," much less ever actually enjoy.
But it sounds like you suspect an answer to those questions in what you said in your first post--"a lack of tools on all sides." (And I think that reasoning is solid.)
Umm, I went and searched up a quote for you from a book I discovered just within the past year: "Sometimes we are aware of sending and receiving sexual vibes, sometimes not. Men and women can often sense others of their gender whose sexuality is well developed and well harnessed. Their vibes feel different from those of the hysteric*... ...or of the 'macho man,' whose posturing flaunts a totally narcissistic lust."--from "Passionate Marriage," by David Schnarch
I think that excerpt hints that... yeah, there is probably a wide range of what the signal may "feel" like when you sense interest from someone of the opposite sex, and maybe (?) much of what you've seen so far is sorta on one end of that range.
RE: your wry commentary of how a very intellectualized, theory-based approach -MIGHT- not actually help as much as one could wish "in the moment" when you're feeling just plain jump-scared (boo. but also funny description.) by the actual practice of sensing someone's desire for intimacy with you.. I find that commentary amusing.
* Here one typical feminine way of bein' kinda dysfunctional was described in parallel to with the "macho man" description.
"Overpowered"!! From the world of computer games... like if a skill/weapon/item in a game is just WILDLY-effective. (much more than the game designers maybe intended!)
This is not an answer to one of your specific questions... but what has always puzzled me is the burden I feel to appear physically attractive- but not sexy/desirable!- to audiences I have no interest in attracting, like coworkers or family. It seems to me that people are constantly assessing and judging each other’s appearance, and attractive people are considered to be more worthy of success and admiration. This has stuck with me since I watched Jordan Peterson’s interview on Vice, where he asserted that women who wear lipstick to work are basically inviting sexual harassment, IIRC? It was clear that he either had no conception of why a woman might, say, wear lipstick to meet her mother for lunch, or was deliberately playing dumb.
His point was in regards to the fundamental evolutionary psychology reason that red lipstick is sexy to men. The fundamental reason usually isn't apparent to those who do it. It's not a conscious choice...but it's certainly a big reason it has become fashionable.
Think of it this way: for younger women, and in certain fashion circles, wearing high heels is merely a fashionable thing to do. As innocent as wearing lipstick 💄. Maybe a professional women wears em to a talk she's giving...not wanting to cause sexual arousal. But the underlying effect this has on men, and given it's evolutionary roots are real and do drive the reason why it's encouraged culturally.
Ugh I hate this way of looking at female adornment- it takes all the innocent joy and play out of dressing up and putting together a look and makes it feel like you're being tricked by society into doing something you enjoy because it turns men on...blech. Even if that's the underlying effect on men, I just want to say that the underlying reason a young girl or woman is dressing up can really just be that it's fun and beautiful, no more and no less. And that's equally important. And she should be protected in feeling that way and encouraged in that fundamentally simple and joyful approach to her own appearance! Her effect on men (or lack thereof) does not really need to be focused on.
It's an important guide for all of us but the world and it's facts don't care about your feelings.
These things either have truth to them or not. If they do, it's worth acknowledging them and integrating them. In fact, if they're true, they should help you understand things better in your daily life.
Feminism has ignored evolution largely but it's helpful to remember that before you, was evolution. You can't separate you and your cognition from the history of humans.
As it happens quite a lot of understanding about men and women can be got from studying evolution and sexual selection.
Now no particular explanation can definitively be proven to be true and culture is always there alongside, as well as innocent joy -but you miss a lot by ignoring evolutionary principles.
See my comments below in the rest of the thread- I'm not interested in ignoring evolutionary principles. My issue is when that becomes the only lens we use to understand each other, we miss other reasons that people make the aesthetic choices they make that are legitimately not about sexual selection. Thanks for the reply!
Yes sure, I'd think about it as ontological layers. I only commented because I think we've swung too far to cultural, personal explanations and biology and evolution are neglected.
From an evolutionary psychology framework, men are the ones who should and do "peacock" for women. All you have to do is look at the history of fashion to make obvious. It's why men wore high heels first. This stuff is pretty well documented. Red lipstick isn't a sexual signal.
If this is the argument, then it nullifies not just lipstick, but most make up, high heels, long hair, hip to waist ratios, pretty much everything that women do that also has clear inter and intra-sexual competition elements. It just proves too much. Obviously, the better way to look at this is to say that humans are more complicated primates such that with humans the signaling is shared across the sexes: it's the male that shows off status/strength signals...its why male height is such a fad right now, for example...and females show off beauty signals (its why beauty and youth enhancing surgery is primarily women - unless you think women suffer through this because "it's fun and beautiful, no more and no less").
Humans, unlike most primates, have a child rearing model where both sexes contribute significantly to the child-rearing. So it actually makes sense that both sexes will be involved in some signaling, dependent on their respective strengths and primary contributions.
It's one goal, but not the only goal, and I don't think it's important or possible to prove it's the "end" goal. When we look at all people (but especially women's) aesthetic choices *only* through the lens of sexuality and desire, we miss the whole picture, because we exclude the possibility of legitimate, non-sexual reasons that people dress up. Those reasons (personal aesthetic preference, appreciation for fashion, needing to wear a work uniform, wanting to wear a dress or accessory that you made, artistic expression using makeup, heck, liking a certain color!) regularly eclipse any kind of sexual motivation in the day to day. Basically, clothing and makeup preferences really, truly can be non-sexual.
The "It's really all cocks in the end" clip you posted is obviously a joke and I take it as such, but consider for a moment what it means to really look at women like that, and the world in general like that. That perspective implies that no matter what a woman says about why she does anything, you can interpret a sexual subtext about male desire as the 'real' primary motivator- this perspective will not help anyone understand the opposite sex and will foreclose hearing actual female perspectives. Women can really be motivated by non-sexual reasons to look beautiful - insisting that all of that experience be understood primarily in terms of (male) sexual desire is just unnecessary and inaccurate and leads to missing out on a large part of the other sex's experience. Sure, many men may view sexuality as a primary reason they appreciate female beauty- but that simply doesn't have to be true (or the *only* or *primary* truth) for all men or for all women. It's a both/and not an either/or.
This is a good counterpoint but clearly its been helpful to women to be strategic in accentuating their attractiveness. Don't you miss a lot of female-female understanding if you ignore the strategising of women for mates ?
I just finished reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen and the Art of Saving the World, which includes an overview of his five mindfulness trainings. I was surprised that the third one was all about sex!
An excerpt:
"Knowing that sexual desire is not love, and that sexual activity motivated by craving always harms myself as well as others, I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without mutual consent, true love, and a deep, long-term commitment...Seeing that body and mind are interrelated, I am committed to learn appropriate ways to take care of my sexual energy and to cultivate the four basic elements of true love – loving kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness – for the greater happiness of myself and others."
I've always been uncomfortable with the performance of sexuality - not only because the performance is physically uncomfortable. There's an aspect of the performance that seems to me to say, "look at me! I'm *special*, I'm *desirable*" that felt insecure and inauthentic. That actively served to separate me from community and connection and a grounded authentic selfhood.
I'm still working on figuring out what my 'style' is - what it means to dress well but authentically. I really like the way my sister (who works in fashion) dresses - it's always *her*. She dresses as her authentic self, and there's an awesome and beautiful confidence to every outfit she puts together.
On the first question, I think the most obvious example in my own life is that now that I’m married, my conception of attractiveness is primarily shaped by what my husband likes. If we’re dressing up to go out for a date night, my choices about what to wear are shaped by the desire to appeal to one specific person - my spouse - not men generally. I think it’s normal and natural in a committed relationship.
This right here!! I've always felt a little embarrassed for women I've seen out with a man who is obviously their husband, but they're dressed in the sexy way *men in general* are going to notice. How is that not awkward for the husband?
1. There are plenty of men who take a certain pride in accompanying a noticeably hot woman out on the town (not endorsing this attitude, just saying husband may dig it), and,
2. Maybe she is specifically dressing for her husband, but it strikes you as being overly sexy? Not saying your observation about appropriate dress is necessarily wrong, but there can be some subjectivity about how “sexy” an outfit reads to various people.
Becoming a mother radically changed my perspective on sexiness as a primary path to intimacy. While the transition from maiden to mother is a cultural shock in many ways, the most glaring example to me was breastfeeding. Having my breasts go from primarily form to primarily function. Pre-motherhood the primary function of my breasts seemed to be to sit proportionally to my body to increase attractiveness and used to dial my sexiness up and down while revealing more and less of them, respectively. I enjoyed dressing my body well for my husband, as a way of being outwardly desirable and continuing sexual intimacy. I now find much greater intimacy in using my body to nourish our son. As I’m laid out on the recliner in hour two of cluster feeding, breasts free for easy access, smearing lanolin on chapped nipples, I find in my husband’s gaze an intimacy I’ve never achieved with display alone. Sustained breastfeeding is anything but easy in modern culture, and it is in the sacrifice of my body, not the display, that I find the greatest intimacy with my partner.
Sort of in answer to 1 and 3, I think the healthiest thing I have done is to embrace my appearance and embodiment more broadly as it pertains to sex and romance.
I grew up in a conservative Protestant tradition, and in young adulthood felt like the options for a young woman in the 2000’s/early 2010’s were Scylla and Charybdis: the disembodied, oddly sexless, performatively virginal and young-marrying femininity of church world, or the performative sexuality of either raunch culture or *~sex-positivity~*. Neither was a fit, and I think I buried real engagement with questions of sexuality and coming into womanhood by, in part, refusing makeup, or not spending the money for a good haircut, or dressing in funky vintage clothes but always keeping my body hidden in some fundamental way. You can’t make me wrestle with questions of the flesh if I deny that I HAVE flesh, ahahahaha!! (I was very dumb, lol, and way too cute to style myself so shabbily.)
At a certain point in my early 20’s that facade cracked, I was out of church for a decade, and had what was essentially a delayed coming of age where I had to wrestle with these matters and learn through (at times awkward, heartbreaking, and sweet) experience.
Having landed on the other side in my 30’s and in a less conservative branch of Christianity, I’ve learned to embrace that I’m an embodied, adult woman with an adult sexuality. Taking ownership of that has made me better able to be a steward of myself — I don’t dress to hide my body or the ways in which it may be attractive, nor do I dress to draw undue attention. I wear makeup that takes 7 minutes to apply that highlights my features, and I pay for a haircut that suits me. I enjoy clothing, and enjoy that ways that it can be used to convey a message to the outside world. I find myself genuinely delighted to dress for a date these days, not because I’m trying to self-objectify, but because I’m happy to send a message of: here I am, doing my best to be lovely, in part to convey how much I like you.
This one is a work in progress for me. I often experience the tension of wanting to feel *desirable* (good), doing something I think will make me feel that way, then ending up feeling *objectified* (bad) as a result of maybe insecurity or evangelical purity culture baggage or something. Thinking about it now, I probably need to do some internal work around this, as well as work in my marriage. (I’m open to book/? recommendations if this sounds familiar to anyone...)
I remember an overnight trip where my roommate ran out of time to put on makeup, and she was distraught because her boyfriend (also on the trip) had never seen her without makeup. There were definitely some differences of cultural and personal priorities between us (I don’t normally wear makeup but of course she was free to!) but I remember reflecting that, if anything, at a certain point in the relationship, the person you’re dating should get *more* opportunities than most people to see your literal or metaphorical warts. Otherwise you’re both in for a rude awakening someday.
Something I noticed a long time ago is that love (in every form) is just so specific that I don't actually understand what a conventional approach to "attractive" is. My husband has insisted again and again (and after five years I do, finally, believe him!) that what he finds most attractive in me is when I'm being my *whole* self. So I keep my hair short, dye it red, sometimes turn it outrageous colours, wear only skirts because I don't actually like pants, go off on long passionate tangents, and all those things are really authentically me! And he likes that best! I've found myself more and more comfortable indulging in the oversharing-of-opinions that so many people elsewhere have told me makes me "A Lot" because my husband genuinely wants to hear what I have to say. (... this is commonly adjusted for time constraints, whether or not there's other people around who may not care, and age-appropriateness if any kiddos are around. But I don't hold myself back for fear of his contempt; instead, any holding back is out of consideration of external relevant factors. It's a nice feeling.) But the same strategy that I used previously to weed out and scare off men who were looking at me funny -- Be Big, Be Bold, Be Loud, Turn It Up to Eleven* -- is the one that made the man who became my husband convinced he wanted to be my friend.
* Many a man I've encountered has been intimidated by or afraid of a larger-than-life young lady with strong opinions and an argumentative streak. I considered this an excellent weeding method at the time and have no regrets.
Are there approaches to “being attractive” you ultimately discarded because they were alienating in the actual experience of a relationship?”
As a man (and an ‘older man’ at that), I am very interested in this and the other 2 questions asked. This aspect of female self perception is for me certainly an unknown aspect of human experience. And it is interesting to me as one who has in my life been a target of the ‘being attractive’ effort.
My male experience of the female attractiveness efforts is often a wish to be free of the too frequent presence of ‘eye candy’. Lust is a difficult emotion to manage when one is constantly exposed to ‘things’ that look so sweet. I do not want to perceive women as objects but eye candy makes that difficult...!
Perhaps someone can let me know more about how things could be different?
Pretty much any approach to attractiveness based on just physical appearance ends up feeling alienating for me (as a young woman with admittedly little relationship experience). So basically, I can't go on a date or something super concerned about how I look beyond feeling comfortable and being presentable. If the focus is on being 'attractive', I just end up being self-conscious when I want the focus to be on getting to know a real other person, not just on being desired (which I find uncomfortable).
I remember the first time I went to Europe with my parents, and we were being served at an ice cream shop or some such. My mother made a negative comment about the server - an attractive young woman who had untouched underarm hair - something about being “disgusting.” My dad said something about it not being a big deal and I realized that he still found the woman attractive (as did I). It occurred to me that the act of shaving hair was performative - by women and partly FOR women, in ways that ultimately shape what men find attractive as well. My mom wasn’t shaving under her arms for my dad but for herself…
Nowhere does this get weirder than shaving one’s pubic hair. I have been banned from one online groups for suggesting that if a man is unattracted to a woman with pubic hair, that implies something is wrong with him and his desires rather than with a woman who is in her natural state. Specifically, to find hairlessness there attractive implies an attraction to prepubescent children - yet it’s normalized online in pornography in ways that are incredibly demanding (not to mention painful!) for actual adult women.
My husband has described lingerie as being a frame for a great work of art, which I think captures the essence of a performative action that captures or enhances the original vs that attacks and offends the original. In other word, one suggests the original body is beautiful regardless of whether the action is taken and the other suggests the body is disgusting unless the action is taken.
I had to drop the whole sexy “coy and mysterious” facade (where they can’t tell what you’re thinking because you’re purposefully withholding communication to make them wonder) in the context of a relationship because it made things too confusing. Not to mention that when you have kids nobody has time for that! Since then, clear and direct communication has become much sexier.
Like Melanie Bettinelli, “l don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be ‘sexy.’ I have always hated the word and all it represents on a visceral level”.
That said, I’ve wanted fewer hassles in life, and, while passing for conventionally attractive can be a hassle in itself, it may result in less social hassle overall.
I started discovering this the summer I turned 14, when I began dieting in earnest to fit in better socially — while I was thinner than many teens with great social lives, I was also awkward and sickly enough that my exceeding conventional weight standards of the time seemed to cost me more. This discovery was confirmed after a sleepover in high school when I had to borrow a friend’s more fashionable clothes and noticed a dramatic difference in how I was treated in them (the clothes weren’t “sexy”, just well-fitting and trendy).
“What ways (if any) did you consciously make an effort to change and become ‘desireable’ that felt like they were good for the long haul?”
In retrospect, my efforts to stay slim in my teens probably involved brief excursions into atypical anorexia (for which I was complimented, including by teachers, as getting “healthier”). But now that I’m a mom too overwhelmed to stick to rigid diets and who now stress-eats (instead of, say, achieving the alcoholism which tends to run in my family), my weight is now a health problem. My EDS connective tissue is more susceptible to the strain of excess weight than average, the pro-inflammatory aspects of adiposity combine poorly with my underlying inflammation, and my BMI is now high enough I can expect to get that spiel from medicos where any medical problem I might be having could be blamed on my overweight. Whatever was disordered about my previous relative thinness, my current state may be worse, and it seems likely that my health benefited, physically and perhaps even more socially, for quite some time from the lower weight.
Additionally, seeing a dermatologist in my 20s and getting acne properly treated rather than just concealed seems to have been beneficial. The skin is an organ, too, and inflammation in it is bodily inflammation. Skin isn’t just skin-deep, as I had once assumed.
There are plenty of problems with using attractiveness as a proxy for health and health as a proxy for human well-being and hence the worth of life. Untruth just isn’t true, and truth is just the truth. Half-truths about human well-being create so much mischief because they are partly true.
There’s a small plot line in The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel about the main character and her mother, and how they do their hair and makeup while their husbands are still asleep. The unraveling of that plot is quite beautiful.
This is related to other commenters' point about wanting to be attractive to one's spouse, but more specifically I value that my husband is attracted to me, personally and individually, not just to a type of woman I happen to belong to, so I generally want to avoid fashions or modes of desirability that don't feel authentic to me. To be honest I don't have any good definition of what it means for an outfit or whatever to be "authentic" to a person so I really do go by feel. It's partly a question of personal style but also of, I guess, values. Like, I know that high heels are generally considered sexy and my husband would think I look good in them, but for a variety of reasons it's really important to me not to wear them, so doing it to look sexy feels fake to me. It would be hot but it would also be a barrier to real intimacy.
This is a bit of a weird example, but definitely honest. I refuse to wear uncomfortable undies and shoes, especially thongs and high heels/stilettos. They make me resentful. I don't understand why female sexiness requires me to be uncomfortable while male sexiness doesn't. I want to be beautiful, sexy, feminine, modest, and comfortable all at once. I don't compromise. Though I'll admit in my twenties, I thought I had to.
I agree with this. I tried some uncomfortable undergarments at the beginning of my marriage, mostly because they’d been gifted to me, I’m practical and at least wanted to try them, and hey, it was the honeymoon, which seemed enough of a good reason. But they slowly (or not) disappeared, partly because I didn’t like them and/or they were uncomfortable, and mostly because I realized that ultimately my husband desired me, not what I was wearing, and so it didn’t much matter what I was wearing. The privacy demanded of marital intimacy also precludes what I’ll call performative wear. Yes, special wear can be special for a husband and wife, but it’s not a requirement at all.
Now shoes? I might have a harder time letting go of those. :)
When I was dating my now-husband, we went to college dances together. I said high heels were so uncomfortable, but they "made the outfit." My now-husband said, "You don't have to wear them." I bought cute flats, and at every dance we'd point out the line of high heels against the wall that girls had taken off. We danced all the dances together and I didn't have to take off my shoes. We're both engineers, so once I realized I had "permission" to not do whatever the sexy cultural norm was, I just didn't. Now we're married and have kids and I haven't owned any high heels in fifteen years. Though I have had some really cute (and comfortable) flats over the years!
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be “sexy.” I have always hated the word and all it represents on a visceral level and always felt disconnected from other girls and then other women because I didn’t really understand wanting to be objectified like that. I don’t even really like it when my husband uses that word about me because the connotations have always made it an alien experience to me.
Which doesn’t mean I don’t want to be desired. But I’ve only ever wanted to be desired in the context of an intimate relationship. I’ve hated it when strangers hit on me or catcalled me. I was never really interested in a relationship that didn’t start with friendship and trust first before romance. And my few experiences of experimenting with dating that didn’t start with friendship instead of desire were all disasters.
I like to look put together, neat, tidy, even attractive. But not sexy. And I tend to prioritize comfort over fashion or style. Though I don’t want to look like a slob, I also don’t want my clothing to be a torture.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be ‘sexy.’ I have always hated the word and all it represents on a visceral level”
Same here. The song SexyBack was unavoidable during my youth, and I remember my irritation: “Who needs you to bring ‘sexy’ back when it never left the building, and that’s part of our problem?”
When I am seen primarily as attractive, it can feel nice in the moment but is fundamentally an awkward feeling of being 'misread'- like at the end of the day, I have to go, "ignore all that, here's who I actually am". Definitely yes to the second question: as someone who is generally hopeless at whatever kind of attractiveness young women are supposed to embody publicly, I have often felt similarly hopeless about relationship- I will say though this feeling is not completely to blame on the secular culture- having (somehow) close to zero practical knowledge on healthy relationships and sexuality coming from a Catholic homeschool upbringing did not help *at all* - so a lack of tools on all sides. I would love to hear how you would approach teaching girls to prepare for relationship in a way that is age-appropriate but also direct and accurate.
> 'like at the end of the day, I have to go, "ignore all that, here's who I actually am." '
Yes. I would find that intensely frustrating.
> 'as someone who is generally hopeless at whatever kind of attractiveness young women are supposed to embody publicly, I have often felt similarly hopeless about relationship'
This makes me wish for some sort of opportunity for women to hear sincere perspectives on how guys see women. (A lot of things said--both in public or among friends--are insincere or are jokes that you only get if you already understand the thing being joked about! Because incentives!)
After having been involved with community that's either family or that's other women for most of my life, I'm now in the same online community as my husband, which is mostly guys, and I'm sorta... hearing what they say.*
Just sort of like... if women could see some of the reality of how guys REALLY tend to see us... the idea that at baseline, a random young woman, even without trying to be specifically sexy/attractive, is really really pretty in their eyes and probably makes lots of young guys get over-awed and tongue-tied in her presence. There's vulnerability in that, and I think if you were drawn to a specific guy, you felt like "Quite possibly, all I need to do here is be kind, provide evidence I want to continue this conversation, and let this nervous guy feel like he has a chance," it might help?
And... I think there's more truth in that version of the world than the "women have to sell themselves" image. Funny wholesome takes from my community have included things like: "Skimpy clothes to get you noticed by a guy? Nah, just wear a dress." (Along with the idea from some that "Sundresses are too OP." And smiling at a guy is also OP. "Woman smiling: guy takes a large number of points of psychic damage. He cannot speak coherently.") Talking about how when a woman has just exercised and worked up a sweat, she might report that she feels "icky" (where "not-sexy" is part of this descriptor) and assumes her husband obviously would also feel that she's "gross"/un-sexy but it would actually affect him in rather the opposite direction, to the extent that guys are like "Wow. she has no idea, huh?" And lastly, no joke, I think someone once shared a thing about someone whose wife had just stacked a dish in the dishwasher, and he was like "Could... could.. you do that again.. in like the EXACT same way you did that before?" because he found it so appealing. XD I hope these silly anecdotes give you some encouragement; of course, these guys' takes are -not- going to match EVERY guy's perceptions, but they're pretty real.
* Author's note: I LITERALLY stopped typing this comment here because one of the fellows in the community pinged 4 of us women, to talk about where he imagines us in a sort of modified D&D alignment quadrants. And a lively silly conversation ensued. (No, that does not happen every day!)
Haha thanks for the reply! There is a big disconnect for sure btw how women feel they are supposed to be and what men actually find attractive. I think, for me, between a very 'purity culture'-adjacent background (where no one talked about sex or desire or basically any kind of grown up sexuality outside of a theological or moral context- like, how does any of this actually *work in the real world* outside of theory in a way that is neither gross nor totally spiritualized) and a very sexualized culture - I have struggled as a young woman myself with the feeling of desire or being desired at all. I find it disconcerting and don't know how to receive it - because I tend to feel it's either shameful and kind of intense and too much on the guy's end (the religious side of me) or objectifying and shallow and stupid (the secular side).
I know this is intensely negative, and I do desire intimacy and a relationship in my life, but that has been my messy but authentic experience. I always feel like I'm being misunderstood somehow- it's like the normal gears of friendship switch off and this way more consuming (kind of threatening, honestly) energy takes its place (I guess that's eros! I was really shocked by how intense male desire is when I first started dating)- and honestly, I don't find it attractive; it just kind of stresses me out! I shut down or feel really nervous in the (rare) moments where a guy is expressing attraction for me- I don't really know why it's supposed to be enjoyable or how to find it fun - and it also feels mean to the guy, who isn't doing anything wrong in expressing attraction in an appropriate way. I always feel like I wish I could just skip this whole dating/attraction/lust thing and just get to the part where I'm in an old married couple and my husband just treats me like a normal person and a real friend lol.
I know this is self-centered, but I feel like people sometimes don't talk about how confusing it can be to be expected to understand and enjoy intimacy (rather than feeling jump-scared by it lol) if you just never learn how to as an adolescent. Instead, it's like if you learned Theology of the Body (from a Catholic perspective here, but I am sure there are analogs across the Christian world) you're supposed to have the keys to the kingdom, attraction, sex and relationship-wise....and yeah, that's just not my experience. Definitely won't repeat the primarily theological approach to this topic if I get to have my own kids.
> "it's like the normal gears of friendship switch off and this way more consuming (kind of threatening, honestly) energy takes its place (I guess that's eros! I was really shocked by how intense male desire is when I first started dating)- and honestly, I don't find it attractive; it just kind of stresses me out!"
I am hearing a question(s) in here, along the lines of "Well, is THAT Eros that I'm seeing there? Is the thing I'm uncomfortable with.. just... exactly Eros always looks like, or am I seeing an example of really unsubtle, poorly-regulated Eros? (i.e. "Are these guys just 'bad at' this because they are young and inexperienced and lack self-control--which includes this way they seem to lose the connection to me that I'm comfortable with when the focus shifts to attraction?") Am I doomed to keep finding it off-putting and generally unpleasant? Like you're not sure "the thing itself which is Eros" is something you can even "get used to," much less ever actually enjoy.
But it sounds like you suspect an answer to those questions in what you said in your first post--"a lack of tools on all sides." (And I think that reasoning is solid.)
Umm, I went and searched up a quote for you from a book I discovered just within the past year: "Sometimes we are aware of sending and receiving sexual vibes, sometimes not. Men and women can often sense others of their gender whose sexuality is well developed and well harnessed. Their vibes feel different from those of the hysteric*... ...or of the 'macho man,' whose posturing flaunts a totally narcissistic lust."--from "Passionate Marriage," by David Schnarch
I think that excerpt hints that... yeah, there is probably a wide range of what the signal may "feel" like when you sense interest from someone of the opposite sex, and maybe (?) much of what you've seen so far is sorta on one end of that range.
RE: your wry commentary of how a very intellectualized, theory-based approach -MIGHT- not actually help as much as one could wish "in the moment" when you're feeling just plain jump-scared (boo. but also funny description.) by the actual practice of sensing someone's desire for intimacy with you.. I find that commentary amusing.
* Here one typical feminine way of bein' kinda dysfunctional was described in parallel to with the "macho man" description.
also lol I don't know what OP means
"Overpowered"!! From the world of computer games... like if a skill/weapon/item in a game is just WILDLY-effective. (much more than the game designers maybe intended!)
This is not an answer to one of your specific questions... but what has always puzzled me is the burden I feel to appear physically attractive- but not sexy/desirable!- to audiences I have no interest in attracting, like coworkers or family. It seems to me that people are constantly assessing and judging each other’s appearance, and attractive people are considered to be more worthy of success and admiration. This has stuck with me since I watched Jordan Peterson’s interview on Vice, where he asserted that women who wear lipstick to work are basically inviting sexual harassment, IIRC? It was clear that he either had no conception of why a woman might, say, wear lipstick to meet her mother for lunch, or was deliberately playing dumb.
His point was in regards to the fundamental evolutionary psychology reason that red lipstick is sexy to men. The fundamental reason usually isn't apparent to those who do it. It's not a conscious choice...but it's certainly a big reason it has become fashionable.
Think of it this way: for younger women, and in certain fashion circles, wearing high heels is merely a fashionable thing to do. As innocent as wearing lipstick 💄. Maybe a professional women wears em to a talk she's giving...not wanting to cause sexual arousal. But the underlying effect this has on men, and given it's evolutionary roots are real and do drive the reason why it's encouraged culturally.
Ugh I hate this way of looking at female adornment- it takes all the innocent joy and play out of dressing up and putting together a look and makes it feel like you're being tricked by society into doing something you enjoy because it turns men on...blech. Even if that's the underlying effect on men, I just want to say that the underlying reason a young girl or woman is dressing up can really just be that it's fun and beautiful, no more and no less. And that's equally important. And she should be protected in feeling that way and encouraged in that fundamentally simple and joyful approach to her own appearance! Her effect on men (or lack thereof) does not really need to be focused on.
It's an important guide for all of us but the world and it's facts don't care about your feelings.
These things either have truth to them or not. If they do, it's worth acknowledging them and integrating them. In fact, if they're true, they should help you understand things better in your daily life.
Feminism has ignored evolution largely but it's helpful to remember that before you, was evolution. You can't separate you and your cognition from the history of humans.
As it happens quite a lot of understanding about men and women can be got from studying evolution and sexual selection.
Now no particular explanation can definitively be proven to be true and culture is always there alongside, as well as innocent joy -but you miss a lot by ignoring evolutionary principles.
See my comments below in the rest of the thread- I'm not interested in ignoring evolutionary principles. My issue is when that becomes the only lens we use to understand each other, we miss other reasons that people make the aesthetic choices they make that are legitimately not about sexual selection. Thanks for the reply!
Yes sure, I'd think about it as ontological layers. I only commented because I think we've swung too far to cultural, personal explanations and biology and evolution are neglected.
sure- what is emphasized probably depends on who you're talking to
From an evolutionary psychology framework, men are the ones who should and do "peacock" for women. All you have to do is look at the history of fashion to make obvious. It's why men wore high heels first. This stuff is pretty well documented. Red lipstick isn't a sexual signal.
If this is the argument, then it nullifies not just lipstick, but most make up, high heels, long hair, hip to waist ratios, pretty much everything that women do that also has clear inter and intra-sexual competition elements. It just proves too much. Obviously, the better way to look at this is to say that humans are more complicated primates such that with humans the signaling is shared across the sexes: it's the male that shows off status/strength signals...its why male height is such a fad right now, for example...and females show off beauty signals (its why beauty and youth enhancing surgery is primarily women - unless you think women suffer through this because "it's fun and beautiful, no more and no less").
Humans, unlike most primates, have a child rearing model where both sexes contribute significantly to the child-rearing. So it actually makes sense that both sexes will be involved in some signaling, dependent on their respective strengths and primary contributions.
Women signal to each other primarily. Why do gay women wear lipstick and heels?
Sure, and men also signal to each other as well...but the end goal is the same: maximize sexual options.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al5CItJZWc8
It's one goal, but not the only goal, and I don't think it's important or possible to prove it's the "end" goal. When we look at all people (but especially women's) aesthetic choices *only* through the lens of sexuality and desire, we miss the whole picture, because we exclude the possibility of legitimate, non-sexual reasons that people dress up. Those reasons (personal aesthetic preference, appreciation for fashion, needing to wear a work uniform, wanting to wear a dress or accessory that you made, artistic expression using makeup, heck, liking a certain color!) regularly eclipse any kind of sexual motivation in the day to day. Basically, clothing and makeup preferences really, truly can be non-sexual.
The "It's really all cocks in the end" clip you posted is obviously a joke and I take it as such, but consider for a moment what it means to really look at women like that, and the world in general like that. That perspective implies that no matter what a woman says about why she does anything, you can interpret a sexual subtext about male desire as the 'real' primary motivator- this perspective will not help anyone understand the opposite sex and will foreclose hearing actual female perspectives. Women can really be motivated by non-sexual reasons to look beautiful - insisting that all of that experience be understood primarily in terms of (male) sexual desire is just unnecessary and inaccurate and leads to missing out on a large part of the other sex's experience. Sure, many men may view sexuality as a primary reason they appreciate female beauty- but that simply doesn't have to be true (or the *only* or *primary* truth) for all men or for all women. It's a both/and not an either/or.
Nope, the point is women signal.differently and for each other's benefit.
This is a good counterpoint but clearly its been helpful to women to be strategic in accentuating their attractiveness. Don't you miss a lot of female-female understanding if you ignore the strategising of women for mates ?
Jordan Peterson is a nutcase.
I just finished reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen and the Art of Saving the World, which includes an overview of his five mindfulness trainings. I was surprised that the third one was all about sex!
An excerpt:
"Knowing that sexual desire is not love, and that sexual activity motivated by craving always harms myself as well as others, I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without mutual consent, true love, and a deep, long-term commitment...Seeing that body and mind are interrelated, I am committed to learn appropriate ways to take care of my sexual energy and to cultivate the four basic elements of true love – loving kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness – for the greater happiness of myself and others."
I've always been uncomfortable with the performance of sexuality - not only because the performance is physically uncomfortable. There's an aspect of the performance that seems to me to say, "look at me! I'm *special*, I'm *desirable*" that felt insecure and inauthentic. That actively served to separate me from community and connection and a grounded authentic selfhood.
I'm still working on figuring out what my 'style' is - what it means to dress well but authentically. I really like the way my sister (who works in fashion) dresses - it's always *her*. She dresses as her authentic self, and there's an awesome and beautiful confidence to every outfit she puts together.
On the first question, I think the most obvious example in my own life is that now that I’m married, my conception of attractiveness is primarily shaped by what my husband likes. If we’re dressing up to go out for a date night, my choices about what to wear are shaped by the desire to appeal to one specific person - my spouse - not men generally. I think it’s normal and natural in a committed relationship.
This right here!! I've always felt a little embarrassed for women I've seen out with a man who is obviously their husband, but they're dressed in the sexy way *men in general* are going to notice. How is that not awkward for the husband?
1. There are plenty of men who take a certain pride in accompanying a noticeably hot woman out on the town (not endorsing this attitude, just saying husband may dig it), and,
2. Maybe she is specifically dressing for her husband, but it strikes you as being overly sexy? Not saying your observation about appropriate dress is necessarily wrong, but there can be some subjectivity about how “sexy” an outfit reads to various people.
Becoming a mother radically changed my perspective on sexiness as a primary path to intimacy. While the transition from maiden to mother is a cultural shock in many ways, the most glaring example to me was breastfeeding. Having my breasts go from primarily form to primarily function. Pre-motherhood the primary function of my breasts seemed to be to sit proportionally to my body to increase attractiveness and used to dial my sexiness up and down while revealing more and less of them, respectively. I enjoyed dressing my body well for my husband, as a way of being outwardly desirable and continuing sexual intimacy. I now find much greater intimacy in using my body to nourish our son. As I’m laid out on the recliner in hour two of cluster feeding, breasts free for easy access, smearing lanolin on chapped nipples, I find in my husband’s gaze an intimacy I’ve never achieved with display alone. Sustained breastfeeding is anything but easy in modern culture, and it is in the sacrifice of my body, not the display, that I find the greatest intimacy with my partner.
Sort of in answer to 1 and 3, I think the healthiest thing I have done is to embrace my appearance and embodiment more broadly as it pertains to sex and romance.
I grew up in a conservative Protestant tradition, and in young adulthood felt like the options for a young woman in the 2000’s/early 2010’s were Scylla and Charybdis: the disembodied, oddly sexless, performatively virginal and young-marrying femininity of church world, or the performative sexuality of either raunch culture or *~sex-positivity~*. Neither was a fit, and I think I buried real engagement with questions of sexuality and coming into womanhood by, in part, refusing makeup, or not spending the money for a good haircut, or dressing in funky vintage clothes but always keeping my body hidden in some fundamental way. You can’t make me wrestle with questions of the flesh if I deny that I HAVE flesh, ahahahaha!! (I was very dumb, lol, and way too cute to style myself so shabbily.)
At a certain point in my early 20’s that facade cracked, I was out of church for a decade, and had what was essentially a delayed coming of age where I had to wrestle with these matters and learn through (at times awkward, heartbreaking, and sweet) experience.
Having landed on the other side in my 30’s and in a less conservative branch of Christianity, I’ve learned to embrace that I’m an embodied, adult woman with an adult sexuality. Taking ownership of that has made me better able to be a steward of myself — I don’t dress to hide my body or the ways in which it may be attractive, nor do I dress to draw undue attention. I wear makeup that takes 7 minutes to apply that highlights my features, and I pay for a haircut that suits me. I enjoy clothing, and enjoy that ways that it can be used to convey a message to the outside world. I find myself genuinely delighted to dress for a date these days, not because I’m trying to self-objectify, but because I’m happy to send a message of: here I am, doing my best to be lovely, in part to convey how much I like you.
Anyway: all things in moderation, I guess?
This one is a work in progress for me. I often experience the tension of wanting to feel *desirable* (good), doing something I think will make me feel that way, then ending up feeling *objectified* (bad) as a result of maybe insecurity or evangelical purity culture baggage or something. Thinking about it now, I probably need to do some internal work around this, as well as work in my marriage. (I’m open to book/? recommendations if this sounds familiar to anyone...)
I remember an overnight trip where my roommate ran out of time to put on makeup, and she was distraught because her boyfriend (also on the trip) had never seen her without makeup. There were definitely some differences of cultural and personal priorities between us (I don’t normally wear makeup but of course she was free to!) but I remember reflecting that, if anything, at a certain point in the relationship, the person you’re dating should get *more* opportunities than most people to see your literal or metaphorical warts. Otherwise you’re both in for a rude awakening someday.
Something I noticed a long time ago is that love (in every form) is just so specific that I don't actually understand what a conventional approach to "attractive" is. My husband has insisted again and again (and after five years I do, finally, believe him!) that what he finds most attractive in me is when I'm being my *whole* self. So I keep my hair short, dye it red, sometimes turn it outrageous colours, wear only skirts because I don't actually like pants, go off on long passionate tangents, and all those things are really authentically me! And he likes that best! I've found myself more and more comfortable indulging in the oversharing-of-opinions that so many people elsewhere have told me makes me "A Lot" because my husband genuinely wants to hear what I have to say. (... this is commonly adjusted for time constraints, whether or not there's other people around who may not care, and age-appropriateness if any kiddos are around. But I don't hold myself back for fear of his contempt; instead, any holding back is out of consideration of external relevant factors. It's a nice feeling.) But the same strategy that I used previously to weed out and scare off men who were looking at me funny -- Be Big, Be Bold, Be Loud, Turn It Up to Eleven* -- is the one that made the man who became my husband convinced he wanted to be my friend.
* Many a man I've encountered has been intimidated by or afraid of a larger-than-life young lady with strong opinions and an argumentative streak. I considered this an excellent weeding method at the time and have no regrets.
“So, I’m curious:
Are there approaches to “being attractive” you ultimately discarded because they were alienating in the actual experience of a relationship?”
As a man (and an ‘older man’ at that), I am very interested in this and the other 2 questions asked. This aspect of female self perception is for me certainly an unknown aspect of human experience. And it is interesting to me as one who has in my life been a target of the ‘being attractive’ effort.
My male experience of the female attractiveness efforts is often a wish to be free of the too frequent presence of ‘eye candy’. Lust is a difficult emotion to manage when one is constantly exposed to ‘things’ that look so sweet. I do not want to perceive women as objects but eye candy makes that difficult...!
Perhaps someone can let me know more about how things could be different?
Pretty much any approach to attractiveness based on just physical appearance ends up feeling alienating for me (as a young woman with admittedly little relationship experience). So basically, I can't go on a date or something super concerned about how I look beyond feeling comfortable and being presentable. If the focus is on being 'attractive', I just end up being self-conscious when I want the focus to be on getting to know a real other person, not just on being desired (which I find uncomfortable).
I remember the first time I went to Europe with my parents, and we were being served at an ice cream shop or some such. My mother made a negative comment about the server - an attractive young woman who had untouched underarm hair - something about being “disgusting.” My dad said something about it not being a big deal and I realized that he still found the woman attractive (as did I). It occurred to me that the act of shaving hair was performative - by women and partly FOR women, in ways that ultimately shape what men find attractive as well. My mom wasn’t shaving under her arms for my dad but for herself…
Nowhere does this get weirder than shaving one’s pubic hair. I have been banned from one online groups for suggesting that if a man is unattracted to a woman with pubic hair, that implies something is wrong with him and his desires rather than with a woman who is in her natural state. Specifically, to find hairlessness there attractive implies an attraction to prepubescent children - yet it’s normalized online in pornography in ways that are incredibly demanding (not to mention painful!) for actual adult women.
My husband has described lingerie as being a frame for a great work of art, which I think captures the essence of a performative action that captures or enhances the original vs that attacks and offends the original. In other word, one suggests the original body is beautiful regardless of whether the action is taken and the other suggests the body is disgusting unless the action is taken.
I had to drop the whole sexy “coy and mysterious” facade (where they can’t tell what you’re thinking because you’re purposefully withholding communication to make them wonder) in the context of a relationship because it made things too confusing. Not to mention that when you have kids nobody has time for that! Since then, clear and direct communication has become much sexier.
hahaha I love this, and it's very true.
What was fun in moderation during the flirting stage is not really appreciated when you have 3 kids 4 and under.
Like Melanie Bettinelli, “l don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be ‘sexy.’ I have always hated the word and all it represents on a visceral level”.
That said, I’ve wanted fewer hassles in life, and, while passing for conventionally attractive can be a hassle in itself, it may result in less social hassle overall.
I started discovering this the summer I turned 14, when I began dieting in earnest to fit in better socially — while I was thinner than many teens with great social lives, I was also awkward and sickly enough that my exceeding conventional weight standards of the time seemed to cost me more. This discovery was confirmed after a sleepover in high school when I had to borrow a friend’s more fashionable clothes and noticed a dramatic difference in how I was treated in them (the clothes weren’t “sexy”, just well-fitting and trendy).
“What ways (if any) did you consciously make an effort to change and become ‘desireable’ that felt like they were good for the long haul?”
In retrospect, my efforts to stay slim in my teens probably involved brief excursions into atypical anorexia (for which I was complimented, including by teachers, as getting “healthier”). But now that I’m a mom too overwhelmed to stick to rigid diets and who now stress-eats (instead of, say, achieving the alcoholism which tends to run in my family), my weight is now a health problem. My EDS connective tissue is more susceptible to the strain of excess weight than average, the pro-inflammatory aspects of adiposity combine poorly with my underlying inflammation, and my BMI is now high enough I can expect to get that spiel from medicos where any medical problem I might be having could be blamed on my overweight. Whatever was disordered about my previous relative thinness, my current state may be worse, and it seems likely that my health benefited, physically and perhaps even more socially, for quite some time from the lower weight.
Additionally, seeing a dermatologist in my 20s and getting acne properly treated rather than just concealed seems to have been beneficial. The skin is an organ, too, and inflammation in it is bodily inflammation. Skin isn’t just skin-deep, as I had once assumed.
There are plenty of problems with using attractiveness as a proxy for health and health as a proxy for human well-being and hence the worth of life. Untruth just isn’t true, and truth is just the truth. Half-truths about human well-being create so much mischief because they are partly true.
There’s a small plot line in The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel about the main character and her mother, and how they do their hair and makeup while their husbands are still asleep. The unraveling of that plot is quite beautiful.
This is related to other commenters' point about wanting to be attractive to one's spouse, but more specifically I value that my husband is attracted to me, personally and individually, not just to a type of woman I happen to belong to, so I generally want to avoid fashions or modes of desirability that don't feel authentic to me. To be honest I don't have any good definition of what it means for an outfit or whatever to be "authentic" to a person so I really do go by feel. It's partly a question of personal style but also of, I guess, values. Like, I know that high heels are generally considered sexy and my husband would think I look good in them, but for a variety of reasons it's really important to me not to wear them, so doing it to look sexy feels fake to me. It would be hot but it would also be a barrier to real intimacy.