Face It

I believe it was Joan Collins who said that the problem with beauty is that it is like being born rich, and getting poorer.

When attractive people put the pleasure they derive from their good looks in the bank, they can draw on it for the rest of her life. The problem lies in people believing youthful beauty lasts forever. Then, "the problem with beauty is that it is like being born rich, and getting poorer."

You're all just jealous because you were born ugly!

I'm finding that as I age and become more comfortable in my skin, I'm becoming more swanlike. I was never an ugly duckling, but I believed I was. So, my beauty is more inner driven and it is becoming more comely as I mature.

As a female, I have always admired the physical beauty of both sexes. Strange that I never got into the cattiness that other females exhibit when they see an attractive woman. If I see beauty in any form, I am completely struck by its miraculousness, its artistic value. And when I witness a beautiful act that illustrates a person's kindness, that just about knocks me over. I guess I am just sensitive....

yes being unattractive is hard, not only do other people not like you but you cant like yourself. but i cant complain because i am just as superficial as the next person or worse when it comes to judging other people . it is frustrating that it is something that cant be changed adn everyday i have to wake up to something is dislike. however i starting to no longer feel sorry for myself and starting to deal with what is was dealt

I am a female beauty admirer.

Female beauty is power.

A power so strong to conquer empires and ruin the wealthy.

But I have some reflections upon this topic and I would love if Dr Vivian writes a word or two to help clarify:

a) If beauty is necessary for human evolution, why are there so many ugly ones (men and women) around and just very few beautiful and handsome ones?

If for centuries beautiful and handsome men and women had had the highest probability to breed so it means that we are the descendants of beautiful and handsome men and women. Thus we should expect we are more attractive than 500 or 5000 years ago. How can we say?

Based on just eye calculation, I guess beautiful people represent around 10% to 15% of world population. This is a low percentage for so many centuries of human evolution. If beauty were so important for choosing a mate and reproduce, I would expect two things: 1) A higher percentage of beautiful people around 2) A significantly lower world population.
If beauty is so important for human evolution, what can we say about ugly people? Why are they here? A nature’s mistake? Shouldn’t they have had disappeared long time ago as a result of natural selection? Far from extincted, they are majority.
Let’s say men give more importance to female beauty than women give to male beauty as many people would agree… If so, then it happens that a beautiful woman would be willing to marry an ugly man because she finds other things in that man (he is rich, powerful, protective, etc, etc). If so, their kids may not be beautiful but probably ugly and rich and powerful which might attract beautiful mates. Is this the way it works and is this the reason why there are still ugly people around? If so, we would expect those ugly people to be rich and powerful. But experience shows that most ugly people are also poor. And experience shows those ugly and poor people are the ones who breed the most!!! They have the highest rate of kids per woman!! So neither poverty nor ugliness stopped them from breeding, far from it!!!

b) Lets say there are real virtues beyond beauty. Lets say a woman is kind, caring, compassionate, smart, lovely, tender and sweet but… she is ugly (not a monster, but just ugly). If beauty is so important, most men will dismiss that woman and she might not breed at the end of her fertile life. And those men probably married beautiful women (not supermodels but beautiful girls) but those beautiful women are not that much tender nor compassionate nor caring nor sensitive nor lovely nor smart.

If this happens, thus beauty is playing against human evolution because it is well known that mothers who are tender, sensitive, compassionate, smart, etc are moms that help better develop an infant.

If we are to promote virtues such as generosity, kindness and compassion, then beauty might be a hindrance because it makes us overlook those valuable virtues and focus mainly on looks. And this attitude leads us to dismiss wonderful persons just because they are not beautiful. And this does not help a happy human evolution.

So it seems that a highest stage on evolution would be reached when men and women chose their mates on the grounds of internal virtues (kindness, compassion, etc). In that view, we are still living in a very primitive age of human evolution, where beauty plays a significant role. In this era, a truly kind and caring girl might be dismissed for a supermodel girl.

I think, at the end, beauty is far from a top priority for anyone to find a mate and breed.

"People born with a particular set of genes, who maintain their health, good grooming habits and develop strong social skills are likely to grow into adults that have the "it" quality... the fortunate combination of them all leads to measurable advantages in life that are gained without merit."

While a large part is genetics, I think it's unfair to say that advantages are gained without any merit or effort. Maintaining health and developing social skills take work for anyone. Comments like this can make others feel that attractive people have gotten by solely on their looks, which is usually not the case, even though looks do help. Beauty does not blind everyone to an individuals flaws or strengths, but enhances them for better or worse, according to this study: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101221101830.htm
A beautiful person who is unintelligent will still be seen as unintelligent, their lack of intelligence will just be exaggerated in the eyes of onlookers, more than an individual that is not attractive and also not intelligent. Looks help, but they are not the be all, end all and do not relieve attractive people of all responsibility or effort.