Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bleacheddecay on July 14, 2011 at 12:36am

It's not just women and beauty but also men and looks too. It can open doors but it can be a burden. In a personal relationship it can really mess things up. Beauty or looks is just what you are born with and it goes away in most cases. What a thing for people to fixate on.

 

In any relationship people decide who and what you are then treat you the way they do according to their own mind set but this is even more true when one has beauty or looks.

Permalink Reply by Åsa Dahlström Heuser on July 14, 2011 at 10:55am

I'm really lucky because I escaped all this. I met my husband-to-be at the age of 15 (he was 24) and he never gave a damn about makeup or clothes or weight. We've been married for 36 years now. :)

Permalink Reply by Stephanie on July 14, 2011 at 4:40pm

The funny thing is, most guys don't want those women. But the media convinces women that if they want a man, they have to conform to this ideal. I get guys who tell me they don't care if I wear make up or not, that they don't care if my hair isn't done up or if my clothes aren't fashionable, they like the conversations I have with them and how fun I am to be around. You know those girls who don't conform to the media's ideal that get all these guys? And you wonder, huh, she's not that pretty, why do so many guys like her? The guys who do want their girls to look like that, with big breasts and skinny bodies aren't even WORTH the time, because all they want is to be sexually gratified, and they want to use her as an accessory to get attention. You definitely have to teach your children early that the media is wrong about appearance, and as much as it sounds like "sheltering", I'll probably get rid of television for my kids. It's not tv shows I'm worried about, it's all the damn ads! Hopefully by the time I have kids there will already be alternatives to cable and satellite, considering how popular it is to download shows off of the internet these days.

Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on July 17, 2011 at 7:20pm

I think it's built into us, along with other bigotry and hyper-competitive social pressures. It served its purpose several thousands of years ago, but now it's exaggerated and promoted by media for profit, without most humans understanding the extent of the manipulation. This is one reason I feel we could be much better off if more people understood their origins wrt evolution and psycho-social (cultural) evolution. It's not going to be easy.

Permalink Reply by Bob L. Pitts on August 1, 2011 at 12:49pm

I am still attracted to beauty, but my conception of beauty has evolved over the years. When I was younger I considered beauty to be an ideal, and i was attracted to girls that had a certain look or body type or style (surface or superficial beauty). I was discouraged by the fact that the girls that fit this mold were often completely incompatible with me as a human. The beauty that i sought was essentially just a shell, packaging that may or may not reflect the true human underneath.

Now that i have lived more and experienced life as a father and an open-minded adult, I am much more in tune with who i am, as well as the type of human I find beautiful. Raising children is beautiful. Helping others is beautiful. Sharing insight and intuition and thus helping me find out who I am is beautiful. Personal courage and the conviction to achieve long term goals is beautiful. These are some of the qualities that define beauty for me now.

Permalink Reply by Georgia Campello on August 30, 2011 at 3:31pm

A man who is worth my time wants more than a pretty face/body...full stop.

But I work with teenage girls and I see how they're affected  on a daily basis...it's disgusting, really.

There are many things I disagree  regarding Islam and all the covering up etc, but the Muslim girls I work with are much happier  because they have no pressure to look like a celebrity. If only we could channel that thought outside the religious sense...

 

Permalink Reply by Laura Benedict on September 11, 2011 at 2:58pm

I remember when I saw commercials for the Dove Self-Esteem project on my TV on a regular basis.  What happened to that?  I liked those commercials.