Why You Can’t Find an Awesome, Sexy Woman to Love—Advice for Men

Kathryn Hogan shares a secret: pursuing a limited ‘type’ of woman is sabotaging your chance at real love.

___

Let’s be honest. When we look for a mate, we look for someone hot. Sexy. Irresistible. If you’re having trouble finding a woman with whom to experience romance, you’ve maybe felt pressure to ‘lower your standards,’ ‘just fake it,’ or otherwise try going after women you aren’t really attracted to. It’s logical right? Terrible, soul crushing, ball destroying … but logical.

I’m here to say: No! No, dangit! Don’t do it! That wouldn’t be fair to you, or to any women you ended up with.

There is another way. A way to find a woman you can’t get enough of and experience a real connection.

Attack of the Super Babe

We’ve all been brainwashed from infancy to believe that there is one certain type of body that is attractive, that deserves our love and care—the Super Babe. An incredibly muscly, tall man with square jaw, ‘Super Babe Guy’, and his counterpart, the somehow nubile despite having enough boob capacity to feed a small village, fit and muscular but skinny and somehow soft and round but firm, ‘Super Babe Girl.’ This conditioning teaches us that we probably aren’t attractive ourselves, at least not that attractive. It also teaches us that most of the people around us aren’t viable mates. A deeper, darker interpretation of this message is that the people we don’t find attractive are somehow flawed and don’t deserve love at all. Certainly not a great sex life.

Maybe we don’t, either.

Men in particular have been bombarded their entire lives with images of (often artificial, surgically enhanced, physically impossible) female bodies. These images aren’t just shown, passively presented … they’re part of an incredibly sophisticated system of advertising that is aimed at molding the subconscious—where desires like attraction arise.

We’re all trained to associate this ‘super babe’ body with sexuality, with arousal, and thus, with attraction. But this ‘super babe’ body almost never occurs in real life. Even the women who pose in Playboy don’t actually look the way they do in the pictures, in person.

The Sexiest Person Alive

The thing is, certain qualities of the ‘super babe’ may actually go contrary to our natural, individual inclinations. Training us to desire things that we don’t actually desire, overrunning our natural, healthful attractions, is a form of epistemological violence. Like any violence, it comes with feelings of invasion, shame, guilt, hurt.

If thinking about the type of super sexy lady that you are most attracted to—and your chances of ever finding love with that type of woman—causes you to feel ashamed, less than, or just plain sad … guess what? You’ve been conditioned to thinking that is what you’re attracted to. It isn’t the full picture.

It happened to me, too! When I was younger I thought I was only attracted to the muscly guys. I felt there must be something wrong with me when, again and again, my attraction for these men fizzled out to nothing after only a few months. As it turns out, attraction is about energy. There’s just energy that every person has, that is either attractive to us or not.

That energy manifests in the physical in different ways for different people. The same sexy man energy that I find irresistible could manifest in a muscly guy… or in a completely different type of person.

What is Attraction, Really?

‘Type’ isn’t what attraction really is. Attraction is really about energy, a magnetic force between two strange, imperfect humans who may see a glimpse of perfection in our crazy universe if they are lucky enough to see themselves through each others’ eyes. Attraction is not something that happens in the mind.

That’s called thinking.

Attraction happens in the fingers, which almost hurt from wanting, needing to touch; in the eyes and mouth which soften and smile; in the hips, in the heart, in the stomach, and deep in the bones. And of course in the ‘sexy places’; the ‘man parts’ or ‘lady regions.’ Attraction is as unique to you as … you are.

There are definitely men who are naturally attracted to women who resemble our culture’s ‘super babe.’ Of course there are! But there are many more who just aren’t. There is nothing objectively beautiful about big boobs, skinny waist, flat stomach, tight ass, whatever. Some Questionable Theorists will Questionably Theorize that Evolutionary Psychology, therefore Big Boobs are Beautiful or some such ridiculous appeal to Rational Thought and Scientific Inquiry. Last time I checked, I didn’t feel arousal in my frontal cortex; even really smart guys get me square in the panty-region. I mean,hello! Arthur C Clark wrote a whole book about how scientism which ignores the subjective personal and the esoteric will be the destruction of us all! The destruction of us all!!! Like decades ago! Get with the times people!

Ahem.

I think you can tell from my ironic use of capitalization … and by my short rant… what I really think about these Worthwhile Theories. The truth is that different cultures find different things beautiful at different times, and for the most part, it’s just individuals who like different individual things. It’s energy, which interacts and produces attraction on an individual basis.

And that’s beautiful.

Finding Women Who are Attractive to You

If you feel there’s a dearth of beautiful women in your life, perhaps you’re not really looking. Maybe your conditioning is. You may be pursuing an ideal (ideas happen in the mind!) that doesn’t reflect the type of woman you want, you need, you’re made for; the type of woman who will compel your soul and spirit and heart And Underpants Region and thus help you feel whole, simply by the fact of her existence. There is a dearth of women who look like supermodels. Very few women actually look like that. Even supermodels don’t look like that in real life. You may be consciously looking for a type of person that doesn’t exist, all the while suppressing real, soul level, subconscious attraction for just the people that could satisfy your spirit.

How do you find a woman who can touch your heart and who you want to touch your Man Parts? If you’ve been conditioned to desire the unattainable, to override your natural attraction, how do you reconnect with what is really attractive to you? How do you let yourself be attracted to a person, and not a list of characteristics?

Celebrate the Women Around You

There is something beautiful, lovely and worthwhile about every single person. If you’re looking for a woman to love and can’t find one, a great place to start is to simply try to find things to admire, adore, and compliment in the women around you. You’ll be surprised at the beauties, sweethearts and comediennes hiding all around you! If you don’t find any of them attractive, that’s OK. You’re allowed to be attracted to whomever and whatever you want! Don’t lose hope. Just keep looking.

Try not to discount a woman by appearance alone. I’m not saying to ignore your instincts or to ‘lower your standards,’ not at all. There is a lot more to attraction than the way someone looks on paper.

And there are a multitude of beautiful human women all around you, many of whom will have some certain something that, if you let your real true self look, you will see as attractive and irresistible. Among those, there are likely to be some truly lovely people, and you may find someone special that you connect with in a profound and meaningful way.

Be Kind With Yourself

We all have an internal judge who decides which of our thoughts and feelings are acceptable, and which to suppress, ignore … or even lambast ourselves about.

A big part of this process is to be kind and gentle with yourself. Try to notice whenever this judge says something mean about you, your thoughts, your feelings, and especially your desires. Simply notice. See if you can notice when new feelings arise within you—don’t judge them as good or bad, just notice them. And if you do judge them as good or bad, that’s OK, try and notice that judgement too.

Only through self-awareness will you truly discover the depths and breadths of your desires and attractions. Meditation, especially a daily mindfulness practice, will give you valuable tools for developing meaningful self-awareness. This is a process, it will take time and practice.

Part of self-awareness, especially when it comes to romance, is discovering and eventually integrating the shadow. The shadow is the part of you that you’ve suppressed or repressed or hidden from the world and yourself. Bringing light to it will feel scary, and may bring up feelings of shame, humiliation, fear, even self-loathing. Notice those emotions, and remember that they aren’t you. Give yourself the benefit of your own love and care, and accept yourself as fully as you are able.

Only when you are able to provide that for yourself will you be able to provide it for a special, sexy, awesome lady. Now get out there and find her!

Originally published on KathrynHogan.ca.

Photo—Shutterstock