The Deception of Beauty

I have seen several discussion boards on the topic of beauty. And the general theme of these boards is that, if you think you are beautiful then you are beautiful. If you are confident and act beautiful then you become beautiful. You hear this mantra expressed by people repeatedly over and over again.

But is this really true? No. It feels nice to believe that you are beautiful if you treat yourself as a beautiful person. But in actuality it is a lie. There is no consciously created beauty as many people believe. Beauty is what other people perceive of you, not what you perceive of yourself.

I have a tiny penis. My penis is 5 inches long when erect, pretty small, quite asian. If I think of myself as having a giant penis it is not going to happen. Because "giant" is what other people consider giant, not what I consider giant. "Giant", from my internet experience, is usually 8 inches. Guys like to brag online how giant their cocks are. I wonder how true it is, I doubt it, but an 8 inch cock sounds pretty large. If people think of a "giant" cock as 8 inches then that is the defining property of a giant cock. Under this definition my penis is extraordinary small. If I look into a mirror and tell myself "I have a giant penis" that would not make it giant under the consensus of the masses. My attitude towards my penis would not change the public's perception of my penis.

Beauty is the same thing. What is beautiful is to a large degree based on social consensus (and partly evolutionary). During the Victorian age it was considered to be beautiful to have very pale skin. Today it is considered ugly, to look beautiful today people need to have tanned skin. There were civilizations that respected fat people, because being fat was the sign of wealth and success. In the US and in European countries being fat is considered to be repulsive, especially in the US. The US today glorifies nearly anorexic women on TV, because the message is that thin is beautiful. To be "beautiful" therefore means to be in the norm of what the public consensus is. If in the US to be beautiful means to be well-built, shaved, tanned, and tall then that is what qualifies as beautiful. It does not matter what you think of yourself. All of that is irrelevant. If you are a disgusting piece of meat then that is what other people would think of you.

What I really hate about the topic of beauty is this deception that the beautiful give to the ugly. It is deception, and nothing more. Its goal is to make the ugly people feel good about themselves but in all actuality it is deception. When the beautiful tell the ugly, "you are beautiful on the inside", that is just a statement to make them feel happier about themselves. I agree that internal beauty is more important than external beauty. However, it is deception nonetheless, because the message of such a statement is to say that they are beautiful, which they are not.

It is also very strange when beautiful people tell ugly people, "you just need to be positive about how you look". Easy for you to say, because, ... you are beautiful! You see this on the Tyra Banks show. Tyra is gorgeous and the girls she sometimes has on her program are ugly or fat or just not happy about their looks. And her general message, to summarize, is to be positive about how you look. Beautiful people are not supposed to be lecturing ugly people on how to feel good about themselves. It makes no sense. It is like having a super fat trainer teach you about how to lose weight.

Here is the true. It is the sad truth but it needs to be said. There is no such thing as "internal beauty" (well there is, it just does not express itself to your physical beauty). All of that is just an excuse for you to feel good about yourself. The way the world works is very simple. The hot looking people date hot looking people. And the ugly looking people date the ugly looking people because they have no one else to date (unless they happen to be rich and buy themselves a hot date). If you are fat and repulsive there is not much you can do. You are destined to basically date ugly people. You cannot aspire to "higher levels" (I put it into quotations because for me beauty is so superficial that it is not really a higher level on any rational level) in your repulsive body.

There are three things you can do about your repulsion. First, you can continue to deceive yourself that beauty is what you make it and continue living a lie. Second, you can accept the truth and then work to become beautiful or if you cannot then you can cry about how ugly you are.

Third, and this is what I do, you can raise your middle finger, point it to the beautiful people and tell them, "I do not care how I look. I may be ugly, but I am free". You can recognize that most of beauty is just a social fabrication that changes from time to time, a deception over the eyes of the people. It is unphilosophical and against reason to care for how someone looks rather than who someone actually is. And with that you can recognize the advantages of being ugly (here). You will be happy in this way, you will finally be at ease.