I've come to accept that the majority of women I know don't consider themselves attractive. This is an understandable position for them, I think, because they're constantly barraged by things in the media around them that show them an idea of attractiveness that they simply don't match. That effect wouldn't bother me if it weren't for the fact that the popular vision of beauty has warped over the past two decades or so into something so far from what I personally find attractive that I'm forced to wonder whether anyone outside the fashion industry actually believes that the models they use to sell their products represent what people should actually want to emulate. (As opposed to immolate, which is often my knee-jerk response.)
I think I'd feel better if I could lay blame on some group in particular. Unfortunately, I think the fault lies in everyone, so it's really hard to point fingers. The media dishes stuff out, and people pay to see it. The interviews get done, the pictures go up everywhere, and people think their lives would be better if they could be more like that person on the cover of Glamour.
But I'm just not buying what they're selling. I may be on my own, but 90% (or so) of Hollywood actresses are terribly unattractive to me. About 99% of the models I've ever seen are as bad or worse, in my view. It's only made worse by the asinine nature of so many of the things people do. Part of it is that I respect unique features on people, and that fashion and beauty in society are all about conformity.
Take tweezing eyebrows. Who's bright idea *was* this? Personally, I think eyebrows are wonderfully expressive, and function much better full than they do when cut down to a slim line, or a thin arch, or, worst of all, drawn in as necessary. Okay, if your eyebrows grow together in the middle, I can understand wanting to at least cut them in the middle to avoid the unibrow. I have to admit, I lost a lot of respect for Natalie Portman when I saw an interview she did with Rosie O'Donnell wherein she admitted that she was a rabid eyebrow-tweezer. As a test, go to your favorite online movie web page and take a gander at the leading women of the top ten movies of the past week. Actually look at their eyebrows. Note how many of them are cut to a razor thin line. Note how many feel the need to cut in a shape, either an arch or an angle. Doesn't this look *unnatural* to you?
I suppose that's my other major issue: I'm a huge fan of "natural." Most beauty products I hate with a fiery passion. I don't like hair dye. Heck, I don't even like hair with highlights. It's the rare make-up that I see that doesn't detract from someone's face. Perfume generally smells bad and tastes worse. Nail polish comes in more tacky colors than I ever wanted to see in life. Fake nails would be more hilarious if people didn't spend good money on them.
Maybe things would work out better if we all had to take an art class with nude models as children. And not models, really... pick a handful of parents of the students and let them come in for an hour or so and pose. It'd probably do all parties involved some good. (I bet a good portion of you reading this are currently twitching at the thought of having to see one of your parents naked. Get over it. Really. It's a body. It's only sexual if you want it to be. There have been plenty of societies that have managed to deal with naked people, and perhaps we ought to consider following their lead) I mean, how many naked bodies do you get to see of people of your sex? I don't know about the rest of you, but I figured it'd be bad form to eye the people in the locker room after gym class. As a result, I'm willing to bet that most people haven't the foggiest idea which of their features are and aren't normal... so, in the end, the only thing they've got to go on is what they get shown in the media. How many people really end up with hairy backs? How many people really have belly buttons that poke out? How any people have hairy nipples?
It saddens me on some aesthetic level that many people seem to have never learned how to appreciate the human body for itself in forms other than what Hollywood dictates. I always smile when somebody names an interesting feature on people that they like; it means they're actually looking, and they're looking for something different. People often look at me like I'm out of my mind when I try to explain the simple beauties of the body: the arch of someone's back, and how the muscles move as they stretch; the lines of a woman's breast, and how it changes as they grow older; the pre-wrinkle lines around people's mouths that are memories of the expressions they have on the most; how someone's hair moves and falls when they don't have it tied back or tied down or chemically held. Often, people will assume that I mean these are things that excite me sexually. this is something between a mischaracterization and a half-truth: they are simply the little things that I notice on people, and appreciate when I see how different their variations are from anyone else's.
But some just don't get it. I prefer to think they're just missing out.