We’ve created make-believe conceptions of beauty for ourselves, and neither men nor women can ever live up to them.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is in response to the apparent paradox posed by “anonymous male” in A Paradox about Men, Sexual Attraction, Women, Beauty.
What’s happened, with men lusting only after the perfect babe, is that the spectrum of beauty through which men perceive women has been seriously skewed by the images of “perfect” women that bombard them. Once upon a time, men would travel by sea to see the great beauty of Helen of Troy.
Today, any weak, flatulent Joe Schmoe can have a sexual experience with multitudes of beautiful women, at any time of the day, without any effort, through porn. Men no longer need to be desirable to interact with a desirable woman. Porn lets men be the village tyrant, taking whatever woman he wants through force. On varying levels, men are sufficed by these “experiences” with beautiful women, leaving real-life women in the ugly pile.
Women, wired to seek approval from men and society, are reduced to competing against each other, while nature was designed to create a platform for male competition. This competitive energy sucks the feminine nature of woman; the parts of her that are so much more deeply sensual and beautiful than any media, sales-based and skewed hacked image could ever capture. Women are robbed of the very sexiness these images are said to champion.
Women’s obsession with beauty has everything to do with men’s obsession with beauty. If men were able to distinguish the truth from a fairy tale, then women wouldn’t kill themselves when they realize they aren’t the princess.
We’re all operating from nature: men—to have sexual experiences with as many attractive women as he can—and women—to play in the evolutionary scheme by wanting the choice of a partner because of our own desirability. Modern nurture and circumstance is messing with our ability to relate to one another in a natural way and skewing our ability to find beauty in real people.