"The other day, at a Fashion Week party, my friend Alan and I stood against a wall, scanning the room for hot people, as you do. “It’s weird,” he said contemplatively, staring into a sea of models. “Lately, in order to want to sleep with someone, I actually have to like them as a person.” He said this as if it were a mind-blowing revelation. I told him that, at 31, the realization was probably a bit overdue, but I knew what he meant: As one gets older, it becomes harder and harder to be attracted to someone simply because of the way they look. Is it because, with age, we care more about a relationship’s potential longevity, rather than just instant sexual gratification? Or perhaps we become more acutely aware of the impermanence of beauty after experiencing our own signs of aging? Or, more simply, have we just realized that dating freakishly beautiful people isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?
A female friend once told me, “It’s always best to date attractive men, but not so attractive that everyone’s constantly trying to jump on their dick, because that’s just stressful.” The sentiment actually made a lot of sense to me. While some people clearly feel proud to have a hottie on their arm, others are more comfortable having the upper hand in the beauty department. If you’ve ever had someone look at you during sex with this completely euphoric expression, like, “I can’t believe I get to do this with you,” you understand that “dating down” in terms of attractiveness can be a confidence boost in its own right. And while I’m drawn to extremely beautiful people, I more often want to just stare at them or hang an oil painting of them on my wall rather than lie on top of them nude. But I’ve also wondered if, deep down, I’m just intimidated by the idea of dating someone hotter than me.
My friend Millie Brown, a performance artist widely known as the "vomit artist," has a lot of experience with dating freakishly attractive men. Millie and I lived together during our early and mid-twenties, and at the time, it felt like every other week she had a new model boyfriend. "It wasn't that I was specifically attracted to models," Millie clarified recently. “It just so happened that, about five or six years ago, what was fashionable in terms of male models were thin, tattooed punk boys who looked like they’d just been plucked from a skate park, and that’s what I was into. Of course I’m attracted to beauty,” she concluded, “but so is everyone else.”
It’s true: It’s human nature to want to kiss and touch and penetrate beautiful people. Most of us, at some point in our lives, have hung posters of models and movie stars on our bedroom walls. And no matter how much I love my partner, I still occasionally masturbate to Tony Ward. But according to Millie, the reality of being romantically involved with the world’s most desired has its downsides.
“What’s annoying is that when you’re with a really hot guy, other girls have no qualms about coming up and hitting on him right in front of you,” she said. “Or girls will turn and blatantly stare at your boyfriend in the street. At certain times that can be a confidence boost, but it’s hard to deal with on a daily basis, especially when you don’t 100 percent trust the person you’re dating.” And this doesn’t just go for models, Millie says, but hot people in general. “When you have so many people throwing themselves at you, you’re spoiled for choice, so there’s less incentive to be faithful. Not to mention that people get away with so much more when they’re attractive.”
And that’s not just true of relationships; it’s true of life in general. It’s a widely documented psychological phenomenon that good-looking people are perceived by others as being better people overall—as being nicer, more intelligent, better at their jobs, and yes, better to date. And, according to economist Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, there are also many economic benefits to looking good, from higher wages at work to getting better deals on loans.
But according to Millie, all of this unearned praise and attention can present problems in relationships. “When you’re a model, or just extremely good-looking, people are constantly telling you that you’re beautiful, but those people usually want something from you,” she told me. “You’re surrounded by ingenuine people, and therefore lack the knowledge of how to form good, honest relationships.” Because of all the attention, she said, beautiful people often become obsessed with how other people perceive them, which can ultimately lead to a pronounced insecurity. “At one point I felt like I was dating a teenage girl,” she said. “The guy I was dating would endlessly post half-naked selfies, and then wait around to see how many people liked them. He just constantly needed validation.”
Personally, the people I’ve been most attracted to—not the superficial kind of attraction we feel to a pretty person on a page, but a deep, chemical attraction—have not been conventionally beautiful. The attraction felt almost indefinable, relying on everything from their looks and style to their mind and profession, to the smell of their skin and the sound of their voice. Deep attraction is, of course, a multisensory experience. But, as un-shallow as I have congratulated myself for being on many occasions, I will admit that there have been times when someone’s looks overwhelmed any need for a deeper compatibility.
Case in point: A couple years ago, I dated a writer whose work I really admired—he was kind and intelligent, we got along wonderfully, and the sex was good, too. However, he was bald and a little shorter than me, and ultimately just not that hot. It never bothered me when we were alone, but as things got more serious, I began to feel nervous about introducing him to my friends. I hated myself for having such superficial impulses, but I couldn’t help it: I want to be able to show my partners off to the world for both what they do and how they look. And I expect the same from my friends. In the past, when a friend has introduced me to a new partner who’s superhot, but clearly an idiot, I’ve judged them for it. On the other hand, whenever a girlfriend of mine starts dating a middling, out-of-shape guy, all I can think is: This isn’t feminism.
Popular culture tells us that it’s normal for average-looking or even unattractive men to date beautiful women, as long as the men are successful—the trollish tycoon with the supermodel wife is a classic archetype—but that the reverse is somehow remarkable. In sociology, this is called the “beauty-status exchange”—an attractive person pairs with a wealthy or powerful person, and both win. And usually, this exchange is heavily gendered.
But according to new research by University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock, despite outliers like Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall, in the practical world, this very rarely happens. The study, “Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?,” finds that people are ultimately looking for compatibility and companionship; that men and women are actually equally shallow in terms of beauty and status. Well-educated people want to date other well-educated people, and the beautiful are drawn to their beautiful counterparts. In other words, before we make claims that women use their beauty to “marry up” in terms of economic status, we have to take into account our country’s 70-percent wage gap, according to McClintock. Women tend to marry men who make more money than them, whether they’re beautiful or not.
As for Millie, after years of dating models, she eventually had to cut herself off. “When I was younger, I could see a photograph of a guy and fall in love with him,” she said. “But now, even when I find someone extremely attractive, I’m indifferent to act on it unless I’m also attracted to them intellectually and emotionally—they have to still be hot when they open their mouth, basically. As I get older, I naturally want to be with someone who can do more than look pretty in a picture.”
It makes sense. As we grow up and become more dynamic, intelligent people, we expect the same from our partners. That’s not to say that beauty doesn’t matter—sexual attraction in a romantic relationship is clearly vital. But if a superficial quality is the focal point of your relationship, or the source of what binds, that’s a bad sign. If I’m ever feeling particularly superficial, I just think of this quote from Andy Warhol, which pretty perfectly sums up my idea of beauty: “I really don’t care that much about ‘Beauties.’ What I really like are Talkers. To me, good talkers are beautiful because good talk is what I love. . . . Talkers are doing something. Beauties are being something. Which isn't necessarily bad, it’s just that I don’t know what it is they’re being. It’s more fun to be with people who are doing things.”
--As copied from this article from Vogue
A female friend once told me, “It’s always best to date attractive men, but not so attractive that everyone’s constantly trying to jump on their dick, because that’s just stressful.” The sentiment actually made a lot of sense to me. While some people clearly feel proud to have a hottie on their arm, others are more comfortable having the upper hand in the beauty department. If you’ve ever had someone look at you during sex with this completely euphoric expression, like, “I can’t believe I get to do this with you,” you understand that “dating down” in terms of attractiveness can be a confidence boost in its own right. And while I’m drawn to extremely beautiful people, I more often want to just stare at them or hang an oil painting of them on my wall rather than lie on top of them nude. But I’ve also wondered if, deep down, I’m just intimidated by the idea of dating someone hotter than me.
My friend Millie Brown, a performance artist widely known as the "vomit artist," has a lot of experience with dating freakishly attractive men. Millie and I lived together during our early and mid-twenties, and at the time, it felt like every other week she had a new model boyfriend. "It wasn't that I was specifically attracted to models," Millie clarified recently. “It just so happened that, about five or six years ago, what was fashionable in terms of male models were thin, tattooed punk boys who looked like they’d just been plucked from a skate park, and that’s what I was into. Of course I’m attracted to beauty,” she concluded, “but so is everyone else.”
It’s true: It’s human nature to want to kiss and touch and penetrate beautiful people. Most of us, at some point in our lives, have hung posters of models and movie stars on our bedroom walls. And no matter how much I love my partner, I still occasionally masturbate to Tony Ward. But according to Millie, the reality of being romantically involved with the world’s most desired has its downsides.
“What’s annoying is that when you’re with a really hot guy, other girls have no qualms about coming up and hitting on him right in front of you,” she said. “Or girls will turn and blatantly stare at your boyfriend in the street. At certain times that can be a confidence boost, but it’s hard to deal with on a daily basis, especially when you don’t 100 percent trust the person you’re dating.” And this doesn’t just go for models, Millie says, but hot people in general. “When you have so many people throwing themselves at you, you’re spoiled for choice, so there’s less incentive to be faithful. Not to mention that people get away with so much more when they’re attractive.”
And that’s not just true of relationships; it’s true of life in general. It’s a widely documented psychological phenomenon that good-looking people are perceived by others as being better people overall—as being nicer, more intelligent, better at their jobs, and yes, better to date. And, according to economist Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, there are also many economic benefits to looking good, from higher wages at work to getting better deals on loans.
But according to Millie, all of this unearned praise and attention can present problems in relationships. “When you’re a model, or just extremely good-looking, people are constantly telling you that you’re beautiful, but those people usually want something from you,” she told me. “You’re surrounded by ingenuine people, and therefore lack the knowledge of how to form good, honest relationships.” Because of all the attention, she said, beautiful people often become obsessed with how other people perceive them, which can ultimately lead to a pronounced insecurity. “At one point I felt like I was dating a teenage girl,” she said. “The guy I was dating would endlessly post half-naked selfies, and then wait around to see how many people liked them. He just constantly needed validation.”
Personally, the people I’ve been most attracted to—not the superficial kind of attraction we feel to a pretty person on a page, but a deep, chemical attraction—have not been conventionally beautiful. The attraction felt almost indefinable, relying on everything from their looks and style to their mind and profession, to the smell of their skin and the sound of their voice. Deep attraction is, of course, a multisensory experience. But, as un-shallow as I have congratulated myself for being on many occasions, I will admit that there have been times when someone’s looks overwhelmed any need for a deeper compatibility.
Case in point: A couple years ago, I dated a writer whose work I really admired—he was kind and intelligent, we got along wonderfully, and the sex was good, too. However, he was bald and a little shorter than me, and ultimately just not that hot. It never bothered me when we were alone, but as things got more serious, I began to feel nervous about introducing him to my friends. I hated myself for having such superficial impulses, but I couldn’t help it: I want to be able to show my partners off to the world for both what they do and how they look. And I expect the same from my friends. In the past, when a friend has introduced me to a new partner who’s superhot, but clearly an idiot, I’ve judged them for it. On the other hand, whenever a girlfriend of mine starts dating a middling, out-of-shape guy, all I can think is: This isn’t feminism.
Popular culture tells us that it’s normal for average-looking or even unattractive men to date beautiful women, as long as the men are successful—the trollish tycoon with the supermodel wife is a classic archetype—but that the reverse is somehow remarkable. In sociology, this is called the “beauty-status exchange”—an attractive person pairs with a wealthy or powerful person, and both win. And usually, this exchange is heavily gendered.
But according to new research by University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock, despite outliers like Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall, in the practical world, this very rarely happens. The study, “Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?,” finds that people are ultimately looking for compatibility and companionship; that men and women are actually equally shallow in terms of beauty and status. Well-educated people want to date other well-educated people, and the beautiful are drawn to their beautiful counterparts. In other words, before we make claims that women use their beauty to “marry up” in terms of economic status, we have to take into account our country’s 70-percent wage gap, according to McClintock. Women tend to marry men who make more money than them, whether they’re beautiful or not.
As for Millie, after years of dating models, she eventually had to cut herself off. “When I was younger, I could see a photograph of a guy and fall in love with him,” she said. “But now, even when I find someone extremely attractive, I’m indifferent to act on it unless I’m also attracted to them intellectually and emotionally—they have to still be hot when they open their mouth, basically. As I get older, I naturally want to be with someone who can do more than look pretty in a picture.”
It makes sense. As we grow up and become more dynamic, intelligent people, we expect the same from our partners. That’s not to say that beauty doesn’t matter—sexual attraction in a romantic relationship is clearly vital. But if a superficial quality is the focal point of your relationship, or the source of what binds, that’s a bad sign. If I’m ever feeling particularly superficial, I just think of this quote from Andy Warhol, which pretty perfectly sums up my idea of beauty: “I really don’t care that much about ‘Beauties.’ What I really like are Talkers. To me, good talkers are beautiful because good talk is what I love. . . . Talkers are doing something. Beauties are being something. Which isn't necessarily bad, it’s just that I don’t know what it is they’re being. It’s more fun to be with people who are doing things.”
--As copied from this article from Vogue
