Fairest Creatures We Desire

Let me help you. This is a painting of a turtle. Without its shell, my turtle has been mistaken for a snake or a lizard, which fits well with the mind state I was seeking to portray. Turtles, with their shells on, are the walking definition of protection, shelter, and grounding. Without it they are barely recognizable, vulnerable, and seem deformed. (Real turtles would be dead, actually.) With the body and garb of a fashion model, my strange turtle represents how misshapen I can become when I let stereotypes imposed by others decide how I present myself.   

With her skinny body and awkwardly stylish pose, my turtle is trying to look like an haute couture model. The stripes circling her dress bear the patterns of a turtle shell, a remnant of the turtle’s real attributes, but used here for decoration and display. In keeping with many fashion ads, the stark background leaves the woman with an empty stage, her shadow her only company. But the shadow defies its maker and reverts back to the shape of a natural turtle, albeit an angry one. I can’t deny this piece brought up some unsettling perspectives. 

Like many young people I was attractive to others. I was tall, thin, and good-looking enough to have been a model. That’s all I will say about my former looks. The rest of this essay will explain why it takes nerve to admit I was pretty. 

I don’t have to explain to anyone that being beautiful is a sought-after quality. To be admired and paid attention strokes our human need for belonging and connection. The millions of duck-face selfies splattered across the internet establish plenty of evidence that people are longing for the recognition that beauty brings. 

It’s the downside of being attractive that rarely gets talked about. It didn’t even cross my mind until I reached an age where it was no longer an issue. When I stopped being singled out for my looks I noticed a big change in how people treated me. Yes, I shrunk into the invisible world of most middle-age women, but what struck me was how nice people were. How people listened to me, undistracted, without agenda. I absolutely loved it.

No one faults me for saying these things now, but back in the day no one wanted to hear a pretty girl complaining about her lot. It was as popular as a rich person complaining about the downfalls of managing money or a famous person complaining about being recognized everywhere. It brings up anger in people. But the reality was, there were things I’d come to expect that I now see were downright intolerable. 

Before I launch into an explanation of the drawbacks of beauty, I have to confess I’ve been a perpetrator of shaming people for their advantages. Even if it’s in jest, I’ve gossiped about people’s wealth, fame, position, and family prestige. And I’ve not gotten much pushback from it. It’s as if there’s an unsaid societal agreement that it’s always open season on fortunate people. 

I’m using my example of physical appearance to illustrate my point, but its denigrations can be translated to apply to anyone who inspires jealousy. Here’s what you can expect from being pretty. 

Women often treat you mean. Apparently they are jealous, but if you don’t assume that, you’ll feel bewildered and hurt. You’ll be subjected to backstabbing, gossip, and bullying. Some women will look for reasons to hate you.

People may assume you’re spoiled, stuck-up, arrogant, and bitchy.  They will give you no chance to prove yourself, and any action you make can be read as proof of their assumptions. People you don’t even know may glare at you or blatantly ignore you. 

People may assume you are stupid. I seen people rolled their eyes and comment things like, “looks only get you so far, I guess” in response to me making an honest mistake. If you accomplish things, some people presume you got ahead because of your looks. 

Women often assume you are a boyfriend or husband-stealer. They have a suspicious look they give their partner and you, and they’ll keep tabs while you’re anywhere near their beau.

Exceptionally insecure people will get their jollies from insulting you in front of other people so they can look important. Any response from you other than kindness and good-humor will validate their attacks.

You will have to turn down come-ons all the time. Imagine having to fire someone everyday. That would be a bad job. When you’re hit on, you have to personally tell someone (without saying it exactly, and with the nicest demeanor) that you’re not into them. This can happen when you’re in a hurry or are having a bad day. No matter how well you perfect the nicest response, you’ll often see pitiful rejection and sometimes anger toward you. 

You will probably catch the eye of perverts, and be followed, touched in public, given rude gestures, and much worse. At jobs and in public in general if you show the proper indignation for being sexually harassed or molested you will consequently be treated even more poorly. Of course looks aren’t the only thing that prompts predators. All women are a target for this behavior, but I’d venture to say that beauty carries a bigger bull’s eye. 

You may try to dress way down to detract attention. From here, you may be accused of trying to look like a schoolmarm or of hiding your body, implying that you are self-abasing.

All of this is likely to make you self-conscious, and then you’ll get accused of that. I read an observation online, someone mocking pretty women by observing that they were less relaxed, less comfortable in their skin, more affected looking, like they were on display. Of course they were! It would be almost impossible not to be.

If you are (subjectively) attractive you are rarely sure why people like you. You end up finding out that a at least 50 percent of people would never have given you the time of day if it weren’t for your looks.

You can just as easily be turned down for a job because you’re pretty as if you’re not. It wasn’t hard to see the look in the eye of an interviewer who didn’t want the competition or the distraction for the men. Sometimes they’d flat out tell you so. Women from various industries have other stories more dramatic than I could tell. 

If any of these things happen and you show that it hurt you, whether through your silence, anger, shutting down, needing to exit, or even tears, you can be deemed as crazy, over-sensitive, conceited, or a bitch. God forbid you should complain about it. People usually act offended when a good-looking person doesn’t accept pretty-shaming with good humor. 

The very worst part is that no one sympathizes. If you hint that you think you’re attractive people clam up with discomfort. Articles online that address pretty-shaming are met with derision, sarcasm, and cruelty. (And I quote, “Give me an effing break” and “Boo f**king-hoo.”)

Because reassurance is unavailable, you’ll focus on the good parts of being pretty. And there are good parts. You can read gobs of backed-up claims that pretty people have a better life. It doesn’t validate or assuage the difficult parts. It only hides them for a while. 

All of this maltreatment happens without you doing anything except trying to navigate your day. This kind of persecution would be totally unacceptable if directed at the poor, other races, or someone with deformities.

It messes with your head to receive the perks of good looks along with the scorn that accompanies it. You want to like it, and you know you should like it, and you can use it to your advantage. But the free drinks, easy dates, extra opportunities, and a reassuring look in the mirror are sometimes little comfort for the nastiness some people dish out. 

The option of complaining about this issue was so forbidden I figured I better get used to it and learn to work around it. In going along with the assumptions that others thrust on me, I lost myself in the illusions they/we created. Tired of battling people’s perceptions of me, I gave away bits of my real self in exchange for a poor substitute—a person who relies on their surface appearance. For a while I took in the compliments and the cruelty together and became a caricature of a beautiful woman. I played the part. I gave away my power.

For a while I became dependent on external validation. The steady diet of attention became comfortable and expected. I could get men’s attention easily, and learned to demand it. This I can’t complain about. This was my doing, my actions after giving in. I became what others saw in me. It went on long enough for me to feel degraded and fed up. 

To move out of my demeaned state, I was able to use the skills I’d learned from the rude treatment. The above list of unfortunate situations made for a rigorous boot camp that developed deftness in managing many of life’s circumstances. I’d learned to be tactful and diplomatic. I’d learned to keep complaints to myself. I’d learned to exhibit intelligence and competence. I could withstand criticism. Whether I was happy that these skills were forged in the fires of cruelty became less relevant as I became more confident that my looks were not me. 

Physical appearance aside, my turtle represents all the ways I can become a distorted version of myself based on the treatment of others. From our early childhood on, our gender, our race, our handicaps, our idiosyncrasies are all possible targets for others derision or judgment. I may fall for the labels others inflict upon me, but the shadow I cast will always be me. Perhaps I need to try on a different, less authentic outfit for a while, but if I’m really paying attention to how I feel, what I value, and who I want to be, I’ll come around to owning the beautiful person I am inside.