Arguably the Sexual Revolution is a major catastrophe that has wiped out hundreds of thousands of eligible men and women by making them ineligible until they are well over thirty, but we'll leave that aside for now.
Unfortunately from early childhood women are taught to worry about how we look and if we are sexually attractive to boys and men our own age. But as a matter of fact, it is completely irrelevant if we are sexually attractive to men until we are old enough to get married. What is much more important is that we get along with people our own age and that they respect and like us for our characters. To grasp this is to be rooted in reality and--incidentally--adult life. As a married woman myself, it doesn't matter a darn if men-not-my-husband think I am sexually attractive. Indeed, it is probably better if they don't. But I would like the men around to respect me and like me for my character, so I dress and try to act accordingly.
The fault for this attraction obsession lies with advertising and the industrial-entertainment complex. If you read literature written before the First World War, you realize that once upon a time girls were discouraged from thinking about their looks, let alone wearing cosmetics. (In the eighteenth century powder and paint were for aristocrats. Are you an aristocrat? Probably not. So don't assume you would have been one in the eighteenth century. And you would have had as much chance of winning a "Mr Darcy" then as you have a shot at a billionaire today.) In the English-speaking world, girls were told to read their Bible, and girls' deportment was compared to the deportment mentioned in the Bible, and the only readily available public entertainment for girls was the Sunday sermon--and they could be very long. We become what we hear because most people unthinkingly accept what they hear over and over again as Gospel, which is why people who watch television for three hours a day start repeating what the television tells them. No "Will & Grace", no "g*y m*rriage."
And yet despite being discouraged in thinking about their looks, ordinary Christian women got married in droves for centuries. (If only the unusually pretty ones did, we'd all be supermodels, wouldn't we?) It helped, of course, that Christian men were told day in and day out that charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised (Proverbs thirty-one:thirty). Allowed to develop into mature, decent human beings, the vast majority of men in general are sexually attracted to women of child-bearing age in general, very much so to perhaps some dozens--which dozens depending on the psyche of the individual man--and also capable of falling deeply in love with one or a few. P*rn screws up men's natural attraction to natural women and natural female sexual behaviour, which is why we should all scream like banshees about how horrible it is and not let our friends go to 50 Shades of Grey the movie.
By the way, I once met a pretty and yet very overweight black woman who married a Hispanic guy she met on an island holiday and brought him to Canada. In his culture, and in her country-of-birth's culture, there was nothing wrong or unsexy about a woman being very overweight. He thought she was kind, fun, generous, sexy and (being Canadian with a job) rich. He thought he was a very lucky fellow until he got to Toronto and got a job in construction. He was a good-looking man and, alas, his co-workers wondered aloud he was doing with his wife, she being so fat and, in their minds, unattractive. They gave him a hard time about her, as that sort of man tends to do. And the Hispanic guy, being rather a simple guy, as most of the three billion men in the world are, actually, took what they said seriously and began nagging my co-worker to diet. It's a sad story, and it leads me to my next point.
Being male and being female (or, very rarely, being a hermaphrodite) are not social constructs but biological facts. But physical beauty is indeed a social construct, as are standards of modesty and dress. And when in Rome, do as Romans do, as long as it is not hideously immoral, unhealthy or stupid. If it is the norm in La Porte, Indiana to be twenty pounds overweight, you are probably going to attract men when you yourself are twenty pounds overweight (and the men are going to be at least twenty pounds overweight, too), but it is a bad idea to be twenty pounds overweight, just as it is a bad to starve yourself into anorexia just because it is the norm at your college to be super-slim and throw up after meals.
If I had a daughter, I would want her to have a healthy weight (which can usually be determined by a BMI calculator), clear skin (if possible), shiny hair and clothes that did not make her stand out as anything other than well-dressed. If she were under 21, I would come down on her like a ton of bricks for wearing any make-up other than Chapstick. "Why?" I would nag like mothers everywhere. "You don't need it. You have perfect skin. I would kill for skin like yours, and I have great skin for my age. You don't need to attract men yet."
"Mother!" wails this imaginary daughter. "I don't want to attract men. I just want to bring attention to my eyes."
"Whose attention?" I shriek. "At your age everyone notices you anyway; they just pretend they don't. It's oldies like me who have to draw black circles around our eyes not to feel invisible."
"But I want to EXPRESS myself," shouts Seraphic Junior, fatally.
"Then draw on a piece of paper, not yourself!" I cry triumphantly. "I spent umpteen hundred quid on your sketching classes, you know!" But then Seraphic Junior brings out the big guns.
"But everyone else my age wears make-up," she says, and I freeze because I suffered the tortures of the damned in elementary school for "being different." "Being different" turns some people into saints, but others into self-absorbed eccentrics. Making your child stand out like a dowdy thumb is a big risk. Fortunately, I would have kept tabs on everyone my beloved child came into contact with at school, a school I had picked for its large population of devout Poles and hijab-wearing Pakistanis, and could therefore name some girls whose parents were just as strict as I.
"But you wore make-up at my age," sulks Seraphic Junior.
"Yes, but there was no internet porn featuring teenage girls back then", I say and Seraphic Junior is so horrified her own mother has said "internet porn" out loud that she rushes away to recount the whole conversation to her best pal by text.
This post is going on forever. To recap:
1. All but a few of you will get married, no matter what you think now.
2. Men are attracted to women, and the religious ones in particular want to marry. The others will want to marry when they grow up. If they grow up.
Three. There's a whole industry making you think you will marry only if you buy their stuff.
4. Beauty, like "normal", is a social construct but young and healthy are always attractive. If you are of marriageable age, looking to attract marriageable men, work on becoming as healthy as you can be. Healthy weight. Healthy complexion. Healthy teeth. Healthy hair. Healthy brain. (She suddenly remembers to get up and take her healthy brain pill.) Eat properly. Get enough sleep. Brush your teeth. Get some sun. Take up Pilates.
There is something so sad about young girls covered in slap (British for make-up), tiny and/or tight outfits, tattoos and piercings. I don't ask why they do it because I know: they think it makes them look good. They think it makes them look "cool", i.e. admirable, in the eyes of their peers. And I suppose it does, quite a lot of the time. But I am not sure it makes them look attractive to old-fashioned guys who just want to get married and have children. And I am pretty sure those guys want to marry girls who dress like the Duchess of Cambridge while being as approachable as their mothers.
One of the first rules of the writing trade is to think about your audience. Until you are old enough to get married, your principal concern should be that people like and respect you as a friend, classmate or neighbour. When you are old enough to get married, then you can put your books, sports and work aside for a moment to consider how you can attract male attention without demeaning yourself or men, if you have not been attracting male attention already, just by being a young woman. (If you have been attracting the "wrong kind" of men, you may ponder why that might be, or how you might handle them in future.) It may depend largely on the community in which you live and what "women who marry" are popularly supposed to look like. When I showed up in Edinburgh to meet B.A. I was wearing a pretty dress. Just in case. And when he fell in love with me, I was dressed as Jackie Kennedy c. 1962, pearls and all. Just saying.
I beat up on myself all through elementary school and high school for not attracting boys. But in Grade 8 I looked on at a game of "Spin the Bottle" in holy horror. And in high school I listened to tales of "he pressured her" in utter horror and was pretty horrified when at 18 I faced "pressure" myself. Strangely, I could not see that "attracting boys" could be a BAD, UNCOMFORTABLE THING. What was cool, what has been a joy in life, was and is having good male friends. And an important part of being friends with men is that they NOT be that attracted to you. Maybe a little bit is okay, but not enough to make them or you miserable. Of course, it is awesome if you and one of your good male friends fall head over heels in love with each other and get married, but this is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and who knows when it will happen? Love and attraction are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily lead to the other.
Meanwhile, I can never say it enough: your value as a human being does not rest in being found sexually attractive. Thinking that the more attractive you are the more value you have as a human being is a stop along the road to aborting Down Syndrome babies and smothering childless old ladies. Your value as a human being rests in being in the image and likeness of God and, like God Incarnate, being willing to give up your life for someone weaker. No man is more valuable than the man who gives up his seat to a child, woman or elderly man, whether that is on the bus or in a lifeboat. No woman is more valuable than the woman who denies herself a treat so a child can have one. One of the most pernicious things about euthanasia is that kindly elderly folk will think it their duty to give up their lives for the good of their children or the state because "my medical care costs so much." This is why we adults under retirement age must fight on their behalf.
Bottom line: the whole point to being sexually attractive is to get and keep a spouse and have babies. You shouldn't worry about this until you are over twenty (unless the normal age to marry in your community is younger), and you should understand that neither frumpy (aka "modest" in Pius V circles) nor trashy (aka "cool" on the Rough Bus) suggest "I could be the future mother of your children" to truly eligible men. But that said, your value doesn't lie at all in sexually attracting ANY man whatsoever, but in being a human being capable of self-denial for the sake of someone less powerful than you.
By the way, the young lady in the photo never married. That's Mother Teresa.
19 comments:
I like this post. Thank you.
But surely - SURELY - it's possible for someone to never get married even if she spends a lot of time with people of her religion and doesn't enter a convent. Even if there are eligible men around. I mean, who says any of them will fall in love with her?
And no make up for under-21s? Really? I mean, I hate the cakeface look as much as you do, and I barely wear make up myself, but is there a massive problem with mascara and no falsies?
Hmmm. Attracting men. I have to admit that I'm not totally convinced that young women attract men just because we're young and healthy. I am both young and healthy, and I always have been, but I was a terribly awkward teenager with cystic acne (thankfully now totally clear after MANY years, a lot of effort and A LOT of money.) And now? Well, most young guys are so transfixed by their phones that I'm starting to doubt the old argument that men are so visual and get so distracted by women blah blah blah. I swear I could get on the train nude and no man would look up from his phone. It's not that I want to be looked at. It's just that I keep hearing that that's what guys do, but I never really see evidence of that.
Old guys do seem to notice me. Rest assured that this is not because I am an outstanding beauty - I'm just under 30, and I think that to men over 40, every woman under 30 is automatically appealing because she's young.
Anyway, I'm glad that I'm not a great beauty. I think that very beautiful women find the ageing process very hard. They complain about being invisible now, and I have to supress an eye-roll. I often think that most women are invisible to most men. After all, few of us are really very beautiful. I almost can't wait to get older. Far out. Maybe when I'm 45 I'll be able to relax a bit.
I know it seems like I've just bashed your entire post, but that wasn't my intention. I'm not seriously worried about any of this stuff, and I'm not angry at men, I'm just...I don't know. Can I blame postgrad stress?
Fear not! Everyone is free to disagree with me.
It's funny about the phones, but if and when they put down the phones, they notice. The older guys are just more obvious about it. And have more confidence.
I would agree that every woman under thirty is automatically appealing to men over thirty because they are young. Men are hard-wired to find young women attractive. And young people ARE attractive. You're more easily impressed by things, and more excited about life, and better-looking, and more optimistic... I could go on and on.
It's too bad women under thirty aren't more attracted to men over thirty, if they're the only ones with the gumption to say "Hi." I must say, though, that a guy who is more interested in live people than whatever is happening on his phone sounds more attractive to ME.
Oh, it's quite true that there is no law that any man has to fall in love with a particular woman, but the amazing thing is that they so often do. I used to talk a lot more about how many lifelong singles there were before I found out that most people do end up married or shacked up. The older you get, the more likely you are to get married because the more people you meet. IF you don't find Mr Right in your hometown, when you are old enough and rich enough to travel, you increase your chances. Also, some of us paradoxially perhaps become more eligible as we age. We laugh more, have more confidence, handle sexual pressure more gracefully.... Let's just say that if you're surrounded by marriage-positive people, the odds are good. What is more important is that you not panic and marry the wrong guy because you think you HAVE to marry him or be forever alone, etc, etc.
This is all gold. Please, please keep the blog here after you stop writing so that I can refer people to articles. Please. If you're not going to, please tell us so that I can set about saving everything you've written to my computer.
Fear not. I will figure something out.
I was just yesterday discussing something like this with a friend, who assured me that even though she couldn't confidently assert I would someday marry, it would not be because I myself was unattractive. I have generally no fears about my own attractiveness for men - I know they like me just fine. What makes me think I will probably not marry is that most of the men I meet seem to be so...substandard. But there is nothing I can do about the fact that the men I meet are not practicing Catholics, or immature, or completely lacking in interesting conversation and sex appeal.
I think in past generations there may have been a lot of "making do", since you basically had to marry or join a convent before you were twenty-five. It's possible that those women were much holier than I was and demanded much less of their husbands - basically, that he be a good provider and not beat them (maybe). But I can afford to have much higher expectations and I'm afraid I do.
This all sounds very negative for men. But my theory is that this is a normal trend of human progress, like inventing the steam engine and then nuclear power, then walking on the moon, etc. Women can now say to guys, "Congratulations! Most of you now understand your responsibility to look after your wife and children's physical welfare. Now you can move on the next level of difficulty: will you meet the emotional and intellectual needs of your family as a husband and father?"
I think I could build a decent case that women are the primary drivers of civilisation :P. Unfortunately, the sexual revolution has set our training programme back a bit.
Stellamaris, I think that nowadays the chief problem is the huge disparity in backgrounds, culture, and common understanding brought about, I think, partly by globalization (our societies are more diverse than they ever were) and partly by the general secularization of society (no common understanding of the purpose of existence). I believe that in times where societies were more tightly-knit and isolated, as well as more religious, there was a much higher likelihood of agreeing on "core values" and expectations of life with the young men in one's social circles. I think our difficulties nowadays are unique to our times in this sense.
You are quite right that the pressure for women to marry was enormous in the past, as so many women just made the best of it and married a guy who seemed okay and made the best of it.
But modern women are at a disadvantage in that men don't care THAT much what women do for a living or how smart we are. They certainly don't expect us to make more or to be better educated than they. However, women do care a lot about what men do for a living and how smart they are. So the male doctor will have no problem asking the pretty waitress out on a date, whereas the female doctor might not even notice her super-friendly waiter is a real live male. Meanwhile, men really dislike feeling belittled, and thus are sometimes extra-sensitive if they make less money than their wives. Thus, the super-friendly waiter may think twice before asking out the female doctor.
What all this means is that women who want to marry will have to let go of the idea that the Perfect Man for Them has to make more money than them or be more educated or more anything. If a woman with a PhD who makes 100 K a year automatically disqualifies from her notice all B.A.s or B.Sc.s or B.Engs who make 75 K a year (or less), then she has disqualified many very good men. I have a very bright friend, a professor whose PhD thesis won her a gold medal. She married a plumber, and they are very happy together.
I am not sure how much intellectual chatter makes up the average happy marriage, to be frank. It's mostly about a shared sense of humour and not boring the other person senseless with your own obsessions. For example, B.A. is not at all interested in learning languages and sighs heavily if I mention anything having to do with Polish. So I try not to talk about it too much.
It is unfair for one spouse to expect the other spouse to be the one-stop-shopping department store of the heart. A spouse is a spouse, not also a parent, a mentor, a muse, a best same-sex friend, a wise older pal, a priest, a bartender, a professor, an employer, a child and a pet.
I guess what I am getting at is that we are not in a position in which we can make grand demands about what the Sensitive 21st Century Husband is supposed to be like. The best we can do is marry the man we fall in love with and let him be himself while finding ways that are not disloyal to make up for any needs we have that he just can't meet.
Seraphic, I apologise for making this request so late in the life of this blog, but might I ask for your thoughts on something?
My 18-sister-old sister has been seeing a 20-year-old man who she met at work. They're both uni students, but at different unis.
What I've noticed is that when he comes to collect her for one of their dates, he doesn't come to the door. He summons her by text message. What the what? When did this become a thing? Seriously? Is this what we've come to?
He's not a jerk or a bad guy, which makes me think that this must be The Done Thing now. If a guy ever summoned me by text, I'd be really P.O.'d. I don't care if he doesn't open doors or pull out chairs, but texting while he sits in the car is just too much. Even when I go out with a girlfriend, she'll COME TO THE DOOR.
Yeah, I just don't get what you're saying here: that I have to have the looks for the culture I'm in? Soooo, since I weigh more than I should I either have to shape up and either eat lettuce every day and be depressed or get lipsuction OR I have to move to a place where overweight people are liked? I've lived 30+ years being single (and I'm not morbidly obese) so I guess I'm just completely unattractive and not worth anyone's time unless I do something drastic. This makes me really sad.
If you're overweight--according to medical science--then there are healthy ways to get in shape. Your doctor can tell you what they are, or you can do the research yourself. Ditto for being underweight. Just as women prefer men who look young, healthy and strong, so men prefer women who look young, healthy and fertile.
As I mentioned above, in places where a lot of people are overweight, overweight men seek out overweight women. Certainly lots of robust women date and marry. IF you're from the American Midwest, being overweight is not that unusual. But if you're 20 in Bratislava but overweight, well, all the old ladies around are saying some cutting things behind your back, that's for sure. Ignore Vogue magazine and look around. If a third of the people in your community are overweight, overweight has become normal. Not healthy, but normal. And you probably know overweight couples, too.
It's about looking healthy, not about looking like a super model.
The most attractive aspects of any adult human woman are happiness and confidence.
If you're overweight--according to medical science--then there are healthy ways to get in shape. Your doctor can tell you what they are, or you can do the research yourself. Ditto for being underweight. Just as women prefer men who look young, healthy and strong, so men prefer women who look young, healthy and fertile.
As I mentioned above, in places where a lot of people are overweight, overweight men seek out overweight women. Certainly lots of robust women date and marry. IF you're from the American Midwest, being overweight is not that unusual. But if you're 20 in Bratislava but overweight, well, all the old ladies around are saying some cutting things behind your back, that's for sure. Ignore Vogue magazine and look around. If a third of the people in your community are overweight, overweight has become normal. Not healthy, but normal. And you probably know overweight couples, too.
It's about looking healthy, not about looking like a super model.
The most attractive aspects of any adult human woman are happiness and confidence.
Julia, in my day, some guys would stop outside their girlfriends' house and just beep the horn. The way to get them to stop is to say, "My mom doesn't like it when you do that. She says it's disrespectful and she wants to say Hi before we go out." Of course, in this case, saying that is up to your sister (or your mother), not you.
I really don't like the image of a guy who can bother to get out of his car but makes the woman come running. After people are married, that's a whole different ballgame. But before...? Come on.
Julia, in my day, some guys would stop outside their girlfriends' house and just beep the horn. The way to get them to stop is to say, "My mom doesn't like it when you do that. She says it's disrespectful and she wants to say Hi before we go out." Of course, in this case, saying that is up to your sister (or your mother), not you.
I really don't like the image of a guy who can bother to get out of his car but makes the woman come running. After people are married, that's a whole different ballgame. But before...? Come on.
I think that we ladies want so much to be seen as attractive to men is because we want to feel validated. We desire to be wanted, treasured, and loved.
Maybe you could write about alternative ways that we can look for validation.
1. From your families and friends, if they are good to us. I have a good family, so I think I took it for granted.
2. From our teachers, who praise our accomplishments. We take them for granted, too. I have these women I have cherished mentally for years but have never tracked them down to say so. What's with that?
Three. From our bosses and mentors, who also (I hope) praise our accomplishments.
4. From our accomplishments. You know, the things we can actually work at and control. I had a very bad ten minutes after the lady at the Czestochowa bus station told me there was no bus back to Krakow. But I actually understood that the lady at the Czestochowa bus station was telling me there was no bus back to Krakow. I can understand bad news in Polish! Whoo hoo!
Apart from taking good care of our health, "good looks" are an accident and a certain kind of beauty really is only skin deep. After forty, if you're not a pleasant, interesting person--in short, if you are not an interesting, accomplished woman, you're toast in the validation sweepstakes. (Except in countries where young men go gaga for older women. Yay, the English!) So make some goals you can achieve through endeavour and work to reach them.
5.From prayer, Scripture and theological reading, which should hammer home that charm is deceitful and beauty fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Seraphic, I didn't say anything to Mr Text Message. My dad did. A ha ha ha. Mr Text Message looked nervous when my dad was talking to him, which filled me with glee.
I love that picture of Mother Teresa. What a determined woman!
Anon, I know plenty of overweight women who have gotten married! I think culture does affect men's taste more than it should, but men do have their own taste as well, and lots of them aren't into rail-thin, no matter what the fashion magazines say. It was very eye-opening one time hearing a group of guys complain that all the women they knew were obsessed with losing weight, and meanwhile the guys thought they were already too thin! "We want a woman who looks like she isn't about to blow away!" And each had a different "ideal." Thank goodness, since there are so many different types of women!
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