NOTE: This work has been ABANDONED as too long-winded and
repetitive, but you are welcome to get whatever you can from it.
The essential ideas are best summarized in a single page.
Most of my new philosophical musings on relationships, etc. are now found in
Kilroy Cafe. —GC, 5/09
The Problem of Beauty
The Case Against Marriage - Chapter 15 - 7/29/07
If everything goes to plan, you will bond with your honey for life. By
the time you get there, "life" will probably be about 150 years. Your
brain will be stored in jar connected by wires to the internet. Your
honey will occupy the jar beside you. There will probably be a
wire directly between the two jars so you can nag and annoy each other
more efficiently.
At that point, your bodies will become irrelevant. All that will matter
will be your minds and the special language you have built with each
other.
That's pretty much the way things are today. Once you have lived with
someone for a while, you don't see their body anymore. They are
essentially a gender-less brain in the jar beside you who you are
communicating with through a special channel. Hopefully, your
communication gets more and more subtle with time, to the point where it
is almost telepathic. At the same time, you should be maintaining
your own independent relationship with the rest of the world, so
you actually have something to communicate about.
Even if sexual attraction brought you together, it is destined to fade
into the background, and it is not what keeps you together. All that
matters in the long run is the quality and usefulness of your
communication. Your relationship will succeed or fail based on it.
A logical question, then, is whether sexual attraction is really the
best criteria for choosing your mate to begin with.
It's an icky question. If the most important thing is talent, can that
talent be enclosed in a physical package you do not find attractive? If
the sexual attraction isn't there, but everything else is, should you
close your eyes and dive in anyway?
Is it acceptable to fall in love with someone for their perceived
physical beauty? Is this really a valid criteria? Does beauty count,
or is it only a distraction?
People have no choice about the bodies they were born into. This is
mainly determined by their genes. However, programmed into our nervous system
are certain innate standards of beauty. A beautiful man or woman,
as perceived by other humans, has
facial features and body parts in the right proportions.
These are our fashion models and movie stars.
If someone's eyes are
too far apart or too close together, it clashes with the image of
beauty that our brain is programmed with. A person has absolutely no
control over the spacing of their eyes, so is it fair to judge them by
it?
For that matter, is it fair to discriminate based on any physical
characteristic—age, height, weight, gender? If a woman will date
only men who are taller than her, isn't she eliminating a significant
portion of the talent pool? Can't a short man be just as good a
communicator?
For that matter, why do you have to limit yourself to a single gender.
If you are a man who is sexually attracted to women but another man comes along
who meets all your other criteria, is it fair to "discriminate" against
him solely because of his gender?
It's a touchy subject no one likes to think about. No one wants to
discriminate, but the fact remains that you are attracted to some
physical specimens and not others. Are you a sexist, heightist,
weightist, ageist pig? Knowing that physical characteristics are
going to fade into the background anyway, how do you reconcile
your sexual preferences with the illogic of it all?
First, let's emphasize again: Love is not charity. You should never,
ever fall in love with someone because you pity them, feel
sorry for them or want to help them. Remember that you are engaging in
love primarily to serve your own needs, not the other person's. (Of
course, you also expect to pay a price for this service, which is to
provide the same to them.) You also expect them to come up to speed on
your needs relatively fast. You don't want to have to invest months or
years in training; things should "click" from an early stage.
You also have to recognize that physical beauty can mask a lot of ugly
things. A beautiful woman or handsome guy, defined
by biological standards, can
still be an asshole once you start living with them. In fact, too
much objective beauty can be a warning sign. When someone is
beautiful, they are tempted to skate by on their looks and are less
likely to seek deeper kinds of accomplishment. Do you really want to be
dating the Homecoming Queen or the class stud? There's a word to
describe their probable personality: airhead!
The talent pool will always be limited, so you have to be open to a
broad range of physical specimens: young/old, tall/short, svelt/tubby.
But at what point does their weight tip the scales? Should a midget be
dating a basketball star? Should you be considering someone with a good
mind who you are only marginally attracted to? Remember that
you are both going to end up in jars anyway.
To answer the question, we have to step back a bit. Remember that sex
itself is pretty loony. Logically, our body shape shouldn't make any
difference at all in our relations with others, but it does in the
sexual arena. Over time, sex is going to be less and less
relevant to a relationship, but it is important for getting it started.
Sex can be thought of as a tool—like a can opener—to help us
get started at intimacy. It helps us overcome the substantial natural
barriers between individuals. Without sex, you probably aren't going to
achieve the level of intimacy necessary to start the special
communication going.
Romantic intimacy is like nuclear fusion. You need a lot of energy to get
the reaction started, but after a certain break-even point, the process
is self-sustaining. Sexual attraction can provide that initial energy
source.
If that's what you are using sex for, then your innate sexual
preferences must be respected. Whatever turns you on has to be listened
to (as long as it doesn't get too kinky). The fact that you are
attracted to one body type and not another may not make a lot of logical
sense, but if you ignore these feelings, then you'll be faking it, and
you won't get very far in the intimacy game.
