(Originally Posted on FetLife 4/2015)
Been seeing the word Beautiful come up a lot lately. There was that video with the doors and the women going through the average doors and not the beautiful ones. All the women interviewed looked beautiful to me.
Is it bad that I know I would have gone through the beautiful door?
I know I’m not perfect, but I don’t think perfect is necessarily beautiful.
I like who I am.
“They” say “Beauty is only skin deep.” I disagree. Beauty goes deeper.
There are attractive people. Hot people. People who you can look at and subjectively say “that person is physically attractive.”
But are they beautiful?
My friend and I talk about being part of the “former wallflowers club,” because neither one of us grew up thinking we were particularly attractive. Now, …well, both of us have had enough people tell us otherwise that we’re willing to accept that we’re not unattractive.
Was growing up a chubby, acne-ridden, braces-having, bad-perm-sporting, outsider part of what has formed my opinion on the meaning of beauty? Or was it that pantene commercial from the 80s that actually made me wonder if hating somebody because they were beautiful was A) actually a thing people do and B) at all fair?
Isn’t beauty a positive thing? Why would we hate someone for being beautiful. And, in fact, the commercial cements this by proving that before she used Pantene pro V her hair was gross – therefore she wasn’t beautiful, so we don’t have to hate her anymore.
Yesterday at the nail salon there were two women getting their nails done. They were … a type. The hot type. Thin, shapely, perky tits. One was a redhead. One was a blonde. On the blonde, everything was fake. I could see her extensions. She’d clearly spent time in tanning beds. Her lips were augmented. Her clothes were flashy. The redhead was a little more …original parts, but still clearly in the “I know i have a bangin’ body” camp.
Look, it’s not that I want to judge people by the way they look but let’s just say I’m pretty sure they were both strippers or escorts or worked in the adult industry. And that’s okay.
I overheard their conversation.
Redhead: Oh My God. Guess who just texted me?
Blonde: Who?
Redhead: Guess. Just guess.
Blonde: Matthew.
Redhead: I can’t believe it.
Blonde: What did he say?
Redhead: That he tried to call me over the weekend but his number was blocked.
Blonde: Asshole.
The point of this conversation is that I could have had it. I mean, i don’t know Matthew, but I have my girlfriends that I complain about men with. They are human (these two women, not the men we complain about).
And I bet that blonde was quite lovely with her original skin tone and hair and lips. Even though everything about her was fake, the fact is – she’s a real person. I would’t begrudge her going through the beautiful door, because all these things that she does to herself are to match up with what makes her feel beautiful.
Good for her.
I mean, I don’t agree with it but I’m not the boss of her.
I realized that before, I’d have automatically disliked them for nothing more than being the type of woman I’d never be.
And I came to the conclusion sitting in the chair across from them that it wasn’t a good enough reason not to like them.
When they got up to leave, I flashed them both a big smile. Their conversation had entertained me, their banter with each other was amusing. I just feel like they don’t get that from other women very often.
I’ve felt at times recently that there are people in the community who make assumptions about me based on the way I look. I see them scowl at me when I walk into the room or disregard my presence or just… I don’t know. Pretend they don’t know me even though we’ve met several times.
It makes me feel small in a bad way. I don’t know why they don’t like me. I’m a nice person.
I dunno, maybe it’s just me – but it’s that attitude that makes people ugly more than any physical attributes they may or may not possess.
polyammering 