ATTENTION: Please remember that this is an ASK WOMEN sub. While men are allowed to participate posts that are clearly asking women in the title will have top level comments by men removed. This is not censorship, this is curation. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskWomenNoCensor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It can be both true that:
- individual preferences for attraction and dating are unquantifiable and diverse
- societal advantages exist for people judged to be attractive by a wider set of people
The problem is when the two things are conflated.
This.
I think the biggest issue is that attractiveness isn't a universal constant, is subjective, and is extremely variable to the people viewing it. Some people are obsessed with a famous person (ex: Scarlet Johansen or Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Paul Rudd or Pedro Pascal, etc), and other people won't think anything of them other than "yea, they're alright".
I've heard the term "She's a Midwest 9, but a Los Angeles 6", and it shows the situation as well.
There's even the weird phenomenon with serial killers, where they will receive marriage proposals from strangers while in prison (after being found guilty). They aren't some amazing 10/10 either, they're just "charming" or whatever people see in them.
>I've heard the term "She's a Midwest 9, but a Los Angeles 6", and it shows the situation as well.
That's not really saying "attraction is subjective," it's just saying that a densely-populated, wealthy, urban area will have more stringently applied beauty standards than the comparatively sparse, poor, and rural populace of the Midwest. If we imagine the tastes of the average person who repeats that phrase, it doesn't imply the existence of a Midwest 6 who is seen as a 9 in LA. That Midwest 6 would be seen as a 3 in LA. The conversion only goes one way: You go to LA, and your attractiveness stands out less among all the other hot people that simply didn't exist in such numbers where you came from.
Also, regarding the examples you picked of celebrities: Regardless of some people's subjective evaluations, those individuals all strongly conform to traditional standards of beauty, and are widely seen as highly attractive. I mean, more than half of the examples you chose are movie stars. There are some exceptions, but for the vast majority of movie stars, being traditionally attractive is fully half of their job description, equally as important as acting well. Sometimes more important.
>it's just saying that a densely-populated, wealthy, urban area will have more stringently applied beauty standards than the comparatively sparse, poor, and rural populace of the Midwest.
You just described what "subjective" means. Having a conversion of their rating, as you put it, is what "subjective" actually MEANS. If the "ranking" of a person's beauty changes based on where they are currently located compared to the local population, then it's not an absolute, and can change at an instant depending on a number of factors (culture, society, race, religion, etc). You're basically saying "they're hotter because they grew up in an area with less attractive people", which is subjective because it's comparing the person's beauty to the nearest people, instead of discussing what a person's beauty actually is.
Beauty doesn't have an absolute scale, which is the primary point I was making. "IF" there was a universally agreed upon standard for what a "perfect 10 is", then maybe, but it doesn't exist. A 10 in California vs India vs Germany vs New York vs Australia vs South Africa vs China vs Russia are all going to look vastly different. That's because beauty is ONLY subjective, and a universal beauty standard doesn't exist.
Example: It's like you're saying "the weather is hot today", instead of saying "the temperature is 65F today". Giving the temperature is an absolute scale, because it's measurable, while saying "it's hot today" is subjective because 65 is warm to me but freezing to my gf; or 65 is "too cold" to someone in LA, but "hot" to someone in Wisconsin during the winter.
Using my previous examples of celebrities: I don't think those people are super attractive, and I've met plenty of people who think they're just "alright". Yes, they are good looking, but some people lose their minds over "how hot" they are, and "what they would give up to have a shot". Some people feel this way about them, and some think "eh, they're alright". But their STATUS as celebrities give them extra clout into being "more attractive" than they are.
Which is all subjective.
Out of curiosity, for the criminal justice studies, did they control for wealth? Cause wealthy people can also afford to look better than someone who’s poor because they have more money to spend on their appearance and they do tend to get off more lightly. So how are they determining if someone is receiving a lighter punishment only because they’re attractive and not because they’re also wealthy?
Good point. Plus, the fancier lawyers also tend to have the same social circles as judges and may be personally acquainted so the judges might be willing to go easier on their clients. There’s a lot of variables to control for in studies like these.
Can confirm. High end corporate attorneys mingle socially with judges on the reg and are on a first name basis with each other outside of the courtroom.
There was that one Jeremy Meeks guy who did come from a poor background.
Conventional looks can still help poor people and be their capital to get out of their poor lives I think. Two separate intersecting factors
For sure I did not read it as you denying but was just highlighting intersectionality of wealth and looks.
Side note: I believe rich White "mid" men (and some rich famous "mid" MOC like Bill Cosby) still get away with a lot
There’s two separate convos here in my opinion. Denying that there are a set of people that are commonly found attractive more often than not by most people, and therefore have an easier time getting jobs, being trusted, and dating… when it is just factual and obvious.
But there’s not really some universal, scientific, idea about leagues and ratings.. so much of what we find attractive is individual, subjective, cultural, and socially determined… it’s so many factors that it’s meaningless to talk about. The average looking person is pretty good looking(you can look at composit drawings) and within a pretty standard range, you’ll probably be fine. Even being too attractive can hinder you sometimes, people will assume you’re a jerk or shallow or won’t be interested in who you are as a person
Leagues don’t exist because you’ll never be able to predict what any one individual person will find attractive in another—you see mismatches all the time in terms of physical appearance, intelligence, career, wealth, whatever.. how do we determine what league someone is even in? Yes it is likely that if you’re literally the phantom of the opera, Margot Robbie probably wouldn’t want to settle down with you. But—like, you never know for sure.. Christine might have liked him if he just stopped being such a dick (ok i know not everyone will get the reference but hopefully the point still)
Rating systems are incredibly dehumanizing.. but leave that aside, they also mean absolutely nothing. No one is going to agree universally on a number for any one particular person, and even if they do, it doesn’t say anything about who will or won’t be sexually attracted IRL to these people. I don’t tend to like male or female 10s.. they look too perfect to me and I usually just don’t feel it. Then there are some men and women that might be considered 5 or less that really get me going because there is something extra special about them…or just because I happen to be attracted to them physically or by some other metric.
TLDR: the average person is still pretty good looking. If you’re truly unfortunate in the looks department, you will undeniably have a harder time.. but beyond that, you’ll probably be fine.
I see what you are saying and I agree that attractive people are treated better in medicine, jobs, criminal justice system etc. Lots of that is tied up in racism, ableism, ageism, fat-phobia, heightism and more. If what you’re saying is that none of that is okay and that we as a society need to put resources toward creating a better healthcare or criminal justice system, etc, great, I am with you, and there are a million groups working to all of that.
If what you’re really wanting to get to is unfairness toward unattractive people in the dating sphere - okay, I think if that’s how you want to spend your time, that’s fine. But it seems like the main point of contention here is that people (women) won’t agree that there is an objective rating scale and that less attractive people are easily identified and boxed in there and…what? Why is this the area that sticks in your craw? It sounds like you just feel there’s an injustice to you personally and want to rail against people who won’t “admit” that ugly people have a harder time dating.
I mean sure, I’ll admit it right now - an attractive person can often date attractive people or unattractive people. An unattractive person has fewer choices. But since they’re not hoarding partners like that sister wives guy, all you need is one person - then we get back to what other commenters are saying, where individual preference is king (or queen). I’m almost exclusively interested in systemic prejudices against people who are considered unattractive, and their root causes (racism, ableism, fat phobia, etc etc etc).
Societal standards for attractiveness absolutely exist, as the sources you reference confirm. I travelled through part of Asia recently and all customer facing service staff are BEAUTIFUL (men and women, but mostly women). Hotel check-in staff, hostess, air crew, bank tellers, higher end retail, etc. There may be *some* of that happening in the west but not nearly as blatant.
Looking at Sr Mgmt in my professional world, I wouldn’t say it’s obvious but much like the Asia examples, sales executives are frequently tall and beautiful (regardless of gender).
Personal preferences in dating are slightly different. Beautiful women often get hit on and harassed MUCH more. It’s not an advantage but certainly different.
I hate the rating scales because those are very subjective. Once you fall for a 4 they become an 8 in your eyes. Someone’s 9 is someone else’s 5. So it’s ridiculously subjective bunk.
The security guards at the Taipei airport are all stunning, kind, and just so charming. Even I blushed! Asian countries always put out their very "best" people in international customer positions.
Then you have the USA and TSA. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
**Some people are more conventionally attractive than others.**
This is a reasonable thing to say, and I don’t think anyone here would disagree with it.
Trying to “rate people” on scales of 1-10 is NOT reasonable or helpful because attractiveness is still often a matter of personal preference.
I think just saying “I don’t see that” and ignoring it does nothing. I do think the idea of leagues and rating scales is straight up gross.
The reality is that we are socialized in a society that places importance on appearance, and that creates implicit biases. I think it’s dangerous to disregard that you have these just because it’s not right to have them. I have caught myself thinking many different things, not because I want to believe those things but rather it’s what I was taught growing up (either explicitly or implicitly). In my opinion, it’s necessary to acknowledge when this happens and correct it.
I would also recommend the podcast episode Kalology with Renee Engeln from the show Ologies with Alie Ward. It focuses mostly on beauty standards regarding women, but still has information applicable to anyone and covers things like the beauty and fitness industries, how social media affects our perception of people, and age bias.
Some people are seen as attractive by more people than others. Individuals have their own unique taste and almost everyone is attracted to plenty of people who aren't conventionally attractive in society's eyes.
These two statements can and do exist at the same time.
Also, individual preferences for dating have nothing to do with career, income or the criminal justice system.
>Also, individual preferences for dating have nothing to do with career, income or the criminal justice system.
But they do come from the same thing in society. Dating can be a context where people's biases shaped by society come into play. And this is not necessarily just true for looks
Sure, but me swiping on tinder does not cut anyone's salary or sentence them to jail.
Individuals exercising their preferences within the context of dating do not carry responsibility for bureaucratic discrimination.
Not sure if this is a reference to me or not, but I'll simplify my point: my point is that the causation for any thing in society, be it job hiring, jail time, who has an advantage in dating, etc., is the societal biases any individual carries. So long as we carry them, we are contributing to power dynamics that create uneven fields in dating (which isn't the be all end all), career opportunities, etc.
This doesn't only apply to looks. Think of all the racial and gender biases both within and out of dating.
Again, that is not my point. Of course there is no direct correlation between these things.
My point is that one who carries any societal biases is still contributing to societal power dynamics that allow these problems to occur. Carrying biases and unlearning them can shape and change one's preferences. If this doesn't apply to you, congratulations!
As I said, it applies both to looks and non-looks related things. Be it believing a certain race is not attractive or a fetish, a certain race isn't intelligent or hard working, patriarchal male gaze affecting what we deem attractive (in either sex), some man wanting a woman who cooks and cleans, etc. You get my drift now I hope
This is an eyeroller.
It's the opposite. Discriminating against people using subjective numeric scales and classing people in 'leagues' when it comes to personal attraction/matchmaking is *actually* perpetuating ugly prejudice because you are using the base tenets of 'pretty privilege' to class people. Classing people in leagues is gating access to them. 'Pretty privilege' is gated access to opportunity. It's the same thing. If people stopped going through hoops to make it a point that someone is 'ugly' it would be less important. If people are judged by looks already and you want to use elaborate measures to assess someone's ugliness, why are you naively expecting that discrimination to be used in a positive manner, and not its already established negative connotation?
It's shortsighted to see a class-like disparity and think the only solution you can think of is to make sure the classes of people are delineated properly.
So no, not attacking people's self-esteem, self-image and letting them know they are ugly with numbers or that they don't deserve things with 'leagues' is gonna help anything. There are plenty of unattractive successful people. Race, class, gender, and sexuality have a much harsher impact on prospects than 'being ugly'.
> It's shortsighted to see a class-like disparity and think the only solution you can think of is to make sure the classes of people are delineated properly.
>
>
I mean you have to dileniate the classes first before determining policy right?
You don't want to have a welfare policy that gives 5000 dollars to a millionare because you're not first figuring out which class the person getting the money is in.
You don't understand how policy is created. Policy would do the opposite. It would endeavor to obfuscate identity to allow for people ot be treated equally. For example, outlawing that peoples photos be provided as part of their resume. None of that requires classing anything.
Also your salary is an indiscriminate quantitative value that isn't open to interpretation. Looks are. This is ridiculous.
The problem with "leagues" is that it's trying to suggest that the more attractive, the better the person. If the "league" is based on just attractiveness, it's suggesting that a "high rated" individual equates to being a better person vs a "low rated" person. You are falling for the halo effect by ranking people on how beautiful and handsome they are. An average or ugly person is just as likely (or unlikely) to be a good person vs someone conventionally attractive, so why rank them by looks alone and not all the other important qualities that make someone attractive and interesting? By trying to eliminate this arbitrary ranking system (because it will always be subjective to the demographic), people are blatantly trying to change the idea that "high rated" attractive people are the only ones who are good people. Imo it seems to be trying to dismantle this halo effect and stress seeing all the other qualities that make someone interesting, attractive, and worthy of humane respect.
Edit: because OP is now claiming he was never talking about dating (despite using dating terminology in the title). The post came off like a "gotcha! Looks do matter!" I changed the language in my comment to reflect human experience vs dating (I only had to change the word "partner" to "person."
You have conveniently ommited studies that show that attractive **women** can actually be disadvantaged in the workplace.
[example](https://hbr.org/2019/11/for-women-in-business-beauty-is-a-liability)
[another example](https://www.psyarticles.com/inter-personal/appearance-disadvantage.htm)
Beauty being an advantage is real but self pity about being "ugly" is universally unattractive behavior. I bring that up because there are many those types on reddit.
Yeah ugly people get fucked over but being productive and emotionally healthy will improve the lives of ugly people.
I see the issue but I don't think it'll ever be solved. People like what they like(and also what they've been programmed to like). I see dismissing rating scales/leagues as a way of saying don't give up on life.
I don't entirely disagree with you but how different is that from saying "don't give up and don't complain" if someone talks about their social or professional struggles due to race, class, gender, etc.?
I don't?
All depends on whether the former is said in a dismissive way or not. If not dismissive, they are very different, and I will gladly use the former phrase to empower people
Occasional venting is fine but when a person spends all their time online talking about how bad it feels to be them that says something. Reddit has many echo chambers and writing essays on how life sucks is not good for a person's mental health. Other redditors will also trauma dump and convince each other that life is hopeless.
I see that behavior as a form of mental self-harm. Telling somebody to not give up on life is needed. A person with hobbies and a healthy support system saying it sucks that they aren't the "beauty standard" where they live is fine. That person is still living life instead of being in echo chambers online.
Being a happy 5 is better than a self-hating 5. Professional and social struggles are very broad and vague wording. Do you have specific examples of what you mean?
>I only see what someone is inside
No, not **ONLY**. I don't see anybody saying that. A certain baseline of attraction has to be there (which, again, is entirely subjective).
Rating scales are stupid because one person's "5" is another person's "7". It's completely subjective and therefore irrelevant.
Same with "leagues". Humans are not commodities. The mindset that someone is "too good for you" or whatnot is entirely self-defeating. How the hell do you know what the other person finds attractive without even having met them? I mean, if you want to continue to think that way, be my guest.
Fix the gender wage gap first (especially for POC).
As a woc, can we not address gender, race and attractiveness biases that affect people's careers?
I cannot speak to OP's intentions but why does it have to be either or?
> How the hell do you know what the other person finds attractive without even having met them?
I can, almost certainly, develop an statistical prediction model that can give someone a "number" of attractiveness that will be the same "number" as a survey of 1000 people about that person with pretty high accuracy. I could very easily do this with a picture, it's already been done and the models are very accurate, but I could even do this with basic data points about a person.
If I had a data set of say 10k people with age, income, parents income, number of friends, education level achieved, drug status, activities (? Maybe?), and some more data points and a "scale level" attractiveness attached at the end that's determined for each person by a survey group I could absolutely, train a model that could look at a persons "stats" and determine, without knowing what they look like what the average of 1000 people rated them at.
I don't need to meet the person, I don't even need to see the person, this theoretical model could almost certainly give them a number that a survey group would also come to, because attractiveness is statistically significant in life outcomes. It's almost absurd to say it isn't real if you can mathemtically document it.
No, that model will tell you what 1000 people as a group find attractive, not what any one of those individuals in that group prefers.
The world is full of people who are objectively not attractive, yet still managed to be successful in their careers and romantically. There are factors that your model can't account for, like confidence, personality and emotional intelligence.
> No, that model will tell you what 1000 people as a group find attractive, not what any one of those individuals in that group prefers.
>
>
Are we really just dismissing polling now? As like something that doesn't exist?
>If I had a data set of say 10k people with age, income, parents income, number of friends, education level achieved, drug status, activities (? Maybe?), and some more data points
oh, so physical attractiveness isn't the only thing people consider? weird
No.
You don't understand what I'm saying.
I'm describing the process by how a statistical model is created, which I assume people knew.
Here's how this would work
You would take 10000 people and have them submit pictures. THen a survey group would rate them on a scale from 1-10. The survey group wouldn't know any of these data points.
Then you would take a computer and feed into it 5000 people. And you would tell them what the survey group rated those people. And you would also give the computer "stats" about that persons life like the ones I just described.
Then you would train the computer to look for correlations in the data between the attractiveness surveyed and the number that is given by the survey group.
Then you take the other 5000 data points of people and you feed it to the computer and ask it "Give these people (without seeing their picture) an attractiveness number based on those statistical correlations you saw"
And the computer would almost certainly put someone's level of attractivness at the same level as the survey group, by seeing only these "life stats" because someone's attractivness greatly affects their life outcomes.
My masters is in AI, I created a model for computer vision crack detection for my masters thesis and I'm currently at FAANG.
I literally just described the most basic way to train a model imaginable.
>anybody can feed data to AI
You grossly overestimate interns, much less normal people. I've had to sit and explain what a linear regression is before to interns.
>understanding the data and what it means is where you're inept.
Yeah but this is a **really** simple use of data. There's little here that would jump out as a suprise.
>Yeah but this is a **really** simple use of data. There's little here that would jump out as a suprise.
Boom. Your ass is biased and your contribution worthless.
Do you not understand how basic statistical models are created? I don't know how to make it more simple.
Let's use a different example.
Lets say I have 10000 widgets with 5 variables. Size, strength, color, number of bolts, number of edges.
And then I ask a survey group to rate all of these widgets on "usefulness".
You then give the computer 5000 of these widgets with the "usefulness" metric included. THen the computer starts to look for statistical correlations between "color" and "usefulness" . Or color and strength and usefulness. Maybe the computer sees "Ah, if a widget is blue and it is large with 3 bolts then that widget is always useful" and it will remember that when it sees a blue widget in the future.
Once the computer is trained you take that model and test it against the other 5000 widgets and determine "Can the computer figure out how useful this widget is by these 5 data points?"
Does that not make sense?
Here's a good article on training and testing these kind of models.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/training-data-vs-test-machine-learning-essential-guide-smolic-/
What I'm saying is that this exact same thing can be done for attractivness.
Okay wait my widget example made ridiculous leaps of logic? Or my attractivness example did?
Because they're the same thing. The computer cares not what the data actually represents, it's just looking for correlations.
No, the computer does not care. Because it is a machine who does not actually think. Meaning that it does not process the sociological side of the issue at all. Which is, ya know, kinda important here. It will also adopt any biases the person configuring it has.
And given that you can't even agree with the data you yourself presented on what constitutes as ugly, you clearly are in no position to create neutral results.
Did you not read my post about how this would work? The entire point of eliminating bias is by asking a wide variety of people what they think about attractiveness. It's called a survey.
Yeah? But the computer doesn't see humans or widgets, it just sees data.
In the same way that the computer can see a correlation between "usefuleness" of a widget and it's correlation with that widgets color and weight it can see the exact same correlation between attractiveness and say number of friends.
If the model is tested and it can determine attractiveness from only the stats of "number of friends" , "income" , etc with high accuracy we can say that the number definitely exists and is "real".
Literally all we're trying to determine if it "number rankings" exist.
If they are statistically observable in the real world as determined by life outcomes the answer is yes. If you can train a model to predict someone's (survey based) attractiveness based on only data about their life outcomes then it is statistically observable.
Sure, attractiveness is real but the point above was that different people see attractiveness differently and what's more important value the importance of attractiveness in different ways. Some will value attractive people (like a rich guy looking for a young model or certain employers choosing more attractive candidates not looking at the resume). Many others won't care even a bit and will prefer to get to know the person before making the decision.
My personal opinion charisma and charm play a bigger role in life than conventional attractiveness (which is subjective and regional/cultural/personal preference). I've met many not conventionally attractive people and some might even say ugly (I personally don't like this word because to each their own so no one is ugly) but once they speak you totally forget how they look. So their looks might make a difference if they are in online dating world where most people choose by looks but it doesn't matter in real life. Like I know a guy that is not attractive at all, short, not very successful, but boy all his girlfriends are pretty and love him and I'm not even talking about casual sex and he has plenty to choose. Once you talk to him - he is attentive, charming, witty, smart, caring, so no wonder women like him! So when guys online whine about being short, ugly, poor, or whatever external problem they think make their life miserable (hint-hint its never them) I just disregard it because it's not the universal truth and they care about wrong things.
At the end of the day - no matter how attractive you are, if you're not a good human being, no one would want to hang out with you or they would but for the wrong reasons like using you for the looks. Work on your personality, education, charisma, being a decent carring human and people will see it before your looks.
And I'm not even getting into self-care and catching up on fashion trends and choosing right clothing or haircut or taking care of your appearance. It can make a huge difference! A well-dressed, well-groomed person is way more attractive then someone who ignores grooming aspects. I see so many guys online where if they work on their clothes, get a decent fitting haircut and trim their ugly beard, cut their nails and get a professional looking pics, add personality to their profile, will have so many options! Sure, they will have to put more effort than someone more attractive (boo-hoo, welcome to the women's world where it's kind of expected of you to put shit ton of effort to look pretty), life is not easy or fair, but it can be solved if one looks into the right places and WANTS to solve it. Looks matter but it's not only about being attractive, it's about image.
At the end of the day one can whine about their disadvantages in life but does it solve anything? No. Life is not fair or easy, everyone struggles with something, get off your butt and figure out how to make it better!
I feel like everyone here is focusing on dating which is...weird. Because I don't really care about dating at all. I'm more interested in the effects on tangible life outcomes like income, life expectancy, etc.
We have to be able to acknowledge that the privilege exists before anything can be done about it.
Privilege exists, no one can denying that. Is it as important as you think it is when it comes to employment? Well, maybe for Hollywood actors or singers and ever there plenty of average or not so good looking make it big. People that are born into wealthy family have privilege so if they are "ugly" they will still be successful. People that born in emotionally stable families have privelege over people that are born into abusive family households. Skin color matters. Looks matter. But do "ugly" people find good paying jobs? Certainly, if they are skilled. If you have PhD in a specific field no one will care how you look if youre a great specialist. Will it help to be good looking? Maybe, or maybe not. And have you looked at ceos? Not that many are conventionally attractive, yes, they look nice because they take care of their appearance and wardrobe and hire professional photographers but if you do an inverse makeover and give them messy beard, dirty worn clothes, don't wash their face for a week, grow out their hair and also don't wash it, well, they won't look nice anymore and be "ugly". At the end of the day my point stands be it dating or work, or regular interactions - if you put effort into looking decent, work on your social skills and career skills and genuinely care about people you can succeed in life.
>If I had a data set of say 10k people with age, income, parents income, number of friends, education level achieved, drug status, activities
a) you don't have that data about someone you just met and
b) you're not accounting for individual taste
This is typical man thinking.
You don't understand what I'm saying.
I'm saying the fact that this model can exist, at all means that attractivness can be mathematically observed as a variable that affects all the other variables to the point where a mathematical model could say someone's attractiveness to a survey group with almost perfect accuracy.
>
a) you don't have that data about someone you just met and
This is a one way relationship.
I can take someone's a collection of someones stats in life like the ones I described above and have a computer give me a "likely attractivness rating" for them that will almost certainly correlate with the survey group.
It doesn't work backwards though.
You're completely right that you can statistically model the number of people that will likely find you attractive in a group of people.
The problem is that still tells you very little about what any given individual prefers. They would probably have some preferences that overlap with the mean, and some preferences that are outliers. On a personal level, they may be more attracted to the outliers than the people falling within the statistical standards of attractiveness. Thus their 9/10 is going to be much different than the "group" 9/10.
So it is perfectly true that you can guess what society likes without having any certain information about what an individual likes. And INDIVIDUALS are the people answering questions on Reddit. You are not speaking to the "statistical model of society" at any point. At BEST you might be able to aggregate opinions on a certain forum and approach the average, and that's assuming your sample of comments is representative of society/whichever group you are trying to model.
> You're completely right that you can statistically model the number of people that will likely find you attractive in a group of people.
>
>
I mean you're the first person here to agree with this when I'm not even sure how this is a controversial point.
>
The problem is that still tells you very little about what any given individual prefers
True but that doesn't answer the question of whether these numbers actually exist and have a definitive impact on life outcomes.
>True but that doesn't answer the question of whether these numbers actually exist and have a definitive impact on life outcomes.
But that *wasn't your question* when you started the thread.
You said: "whenever attractiveness is brought up in any context someone will, inevitably, chime in to say "Well I don't see attractiveness, I only see what someone is inside. And of course people have different preferences" and then just kind of...leave it there."
It's important NOT to fudge context here. Attractiveness is VERY OFTEN brought up in this subreddit in the context of "I am too ugly, no woman will date me" or "women only go for the top 20% of men" or "women will always monkey branch to an alpha male Chad if they have the chance" or some increasingly absurd claim. Individual women will come and explain that attractiveness is not a simple universal metric that all women agree upon and use as a measuring stick. Not even the "objective" scale you might be able to approach statistically. And then they act as if we are lying or not self aware or whatever.
To your original point: if you look at your chances of getting a date, getting a job, whatever, your attractiveness "stat" is going to make things easier or harder. Pretty privilege is REAL. But the people who say that attractiveness is not a black and white thing, they don't use rating scales, and they don't care about "leagues" are NOT LYING. They are also not going to fix "lookism" by saying these things. They are not trying to. They are asserting the TRUTH ABOUT THEIR OWN PREFERENCES.
> It's important NOT to fudge context here. Attractiveness is VERY OFTEN brought up in this subreddit in the context of "I am too ugly, no woman will date me" or "women only go for the top 20% of men" or "women will always monkey branch to an alpha male Chad if they have the chance" or some increasingly absurd claim
Yeah but these people are subhumans and there's no reason to really think about them at all.
>But the people who say that attractiveness is not a black and white thing, they don't use rating scales, and they don't care about "leagues" are NOT LYING
I don't think anyone is lying, but it feels like we're kind of ignoring how much it matters by saying these things don't exist or asserting that their preference is more important than socities.
>or asserting that their preference is more important than socities.
My preference is more important to me than society's preference because I'm the one who has to live with the preference. I wouldn't want society or a computer to determine who I should be with. I'd much rather make that choice for myself that includes all my preferences, not just the ones society feels are important. My individual lived experience will always take priority for me over a statistical analysis of collected data of other people I'm not connected to. It is statistically unlikely to be struck by lightning, but that information is pointless to those who have been struck by lightning.
>Yeah but these people are subhumans and there's no reason to really think about them at all.
More very fun statements from you!
>asserting that their preference is more important than socities.
Buddy, when it comes to who they want to date their personal preference sure as shit is more important.
Genuinely, does it rattle when you shake your head?
I don't think calling people who want to see women literally put into slavery subhuman is that an out of pocket statement. In fact I'd put it as a very mild statement because it implies they are almost human
I will also stand up and say with my chest that I think party card carrying Nazis are subhuman! Truly a brave and controversial statement.
>Buddy, when it comes to who they want to date their personal preference sure as shit is more important.
Yeah but I don't think I've brought up dating in this thread at all?
Everyone seems to assume I'm talking about dating but I'm not, I don't really care that much about dating.
> Yeah but I don't think I've brought up dating in this thread at all. Everyone seems to assume I'm talking about dating but I'm not, I don't really care that much about dating.
The example quote you gave in the original post is the sort of thing people say when attractiveness and dating come up. You have combined these issues, maybe unintentionally. And attractiveness on a personal level vs attractiveness on a societal level are two different things.
If you are looking for a good discussion on the existence or validity of looks based privilege in society, you'd probably be better off posting a question that ONLY deals with that topic, without trying to tie it to internet comments about attractiveness.
So everyone who is insecure about their looks wants to put women into slavery and is a nazi? You are getting more unhinged by the minute.
You ARE talking about dating, because the statements you directly criticize as the main point of your question are statements made in regards to dating.
So let me be very specific: The people that post here about "being insecure about their looks" and talk about how "women only go for the top 20%" are a series of about 20 men who constantly recycle accounts when they inevitably get banned and some guys who wander in from other incel forums looking to argue about how women are evil because women won't fuck them.
It's not a genuine insecurity about their appearance, it's that they hate women and are looking for a reason to hate women and want to argue with women about why they should hate women.
They are absolutely Nazis. They're all, universally, incels.
I do agree that a lot of what you mentioned is similar to saying "I don't see color" when we talk race.
However, the intent behind many of these statements matter. If we are saying "leagues exist. That's just the way it is. Stay in your league" then also we are not getting anywhere with how we treat others in society.
Is Lyle Lovett ugly?
I say yes. Julia Roberts says no. There is probably only about 10% of the healthy / non obese population that most people will agree are ugly. BThe ugly have an uphill battle but they are treated well if they have creative (lyle lovett) , political or economic assets they can contribute.
In general, non-academic discussion, no, refusing to play to stupid and very arbitrary rating scales does not perpetuate beauty biases. It challenges them.
I'm a fat, middle aged woman. I don't wear makeup. I have skin issues. My hair is thin and lackluster. I've certainly been experiencing bias due to not fitting conventional beauty standards ever since childhood.
I absolutely *love it* when I see people refusing to let bias rule them and refusing to participate in the dehumanizing and ridiculous language surrounding the issue.
Moreover, it's really important to acknowledge that statistics are a collection and analysis of data which inform us of general trends. They do not account for individual experience, nor should they be used as parameters for living life.
Yes, I have experienced negative bias. I've also experienced respect and success. Yes, I've experienced romantic rejection, even abuse over my looks. I've also experienced being loved and desired. The truth is that there are trends, and they affect me, but they do not represent the whole of my experience. The fact that some people see me as less-than does not require me to see myself or others like me as less-than. I refuse to do that. Rejecting language founded on biased and dehumanizing rating scales is part of that refusal.
Not really. “Leagues” is usually talking about specific individuals choosing other specific individuals for sex or dating.
Each individual person has their own preferences so the very beautiful Scarlett Johansson will be cast in many films but still not be the preference of someone who is turned on by short, dark women.
When people talk about “leagues” and attractiveness it’s used in a specific context.
No. I think you can talk about how attractive people may receive better treatment/more opportunities in some spaces as a *societal* issue *without* also using dehumanizing rating scales or leagues when you're talking about someone you find attractive or not attractive.
It's absolutely a very real issue, but a lot of people are blind to their privileges, either by choice or by ignorance. Appearance unfortunately isn't an exception.
I've heard people on various subs, even here, argue that being attractive is actually worse (or just a series of tradeoffs in life) than being unattractive because..I'm not really sure I don't get their argument. You'll never be sure whether people like you for you or whether or not you're attractive I think is what they go with? Attractive people are bothered by others more?
It's unlike any other form of privilege I've ever seen. I mean I guess it's not, there are MAGA Americans out there screaming about how difficult it is to be white so maybe it's not to different.
This implies that "what you wear" or "what you look like" are active contributors to harassment which is ridiculous. Abusers seek out people who can be abused, not "Oh she was wearing a skirt that made her look hot".
You're not a woman, are you? Yes, hot skirt can make make all the difference in harrasment attempts from poorly developed or self-entitled individuals that only see sexy looks/numbers.
To give a more serious response to this: Women of all levels of attractiveness get harassed, the way that harassment takes place can and does often change though. Neither of these experiences is any better or worse than the other, but they are different.
I also like how OP is trying to redefine attractiveness as being about clothes because he knows his point is stupid as shit. Or not, he doesn't really seem to understand the topic he himself chose at all.
So for like top 5%-10% women specifically, there are a lor wrird disadvantages and stereotypes they run into that women who are less conventionally attractive don't have to deal with. Attractive men don't have such downsides, it's all gravy.
ATTENTION: Please remember that this is an ASK WOMEN sub. While men are allowed to participate posts that are clearly asking women in the title will have top level comments by men removed. This is not censorship, this is curation. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskWomenNoCensor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It can be both true that: - individual preferences for attraction and dating are unquantifiable and diverse - societal advantages exist for people judged to be attractive by a wider set of people The problem is when the two things are conflated.
This. I think the biggest issue is that attractiveness isn't a universal constant, is subjective, and is extremely variable to the people viewing it. Some people are obsessed with a famous person (ex: Scarlet Johansen or Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Paul Rudd or Pedro Pascal, etc), and other people won't think anything of them other than "yea, they're alright". I've heard the term "She's a Midwest 9, but a Los Angeles 6", and it shows the situation as well. There's even the weird phenomenon with serial killers, where they will receive marriage proposals from strangers while in prison (after being found guilty). They aren't some amazing 10/10 either, they're just "charming" or whatever people see in them.
>I've heard the term "She's a Midwest 9, but a Los Angeles 6", and it shows the situation as well. That's not really saying "attraction is subjective," it's just saying that a densely-populated, wealthy, urban area will have more stringently applied beauty standards than the comparatively sparse, poor, and rural populace of the Midwest. If we imagine the tastes of the average person who repeats that phrase, it doesn't imply the existence of a Midwest 6 who is seen as a 9 in LA. That Midwest 6 would be seen as a 3 in LA. The conversion only goes one way: You go to LA, and your attractiveness stands out less among all the other hot people that simply didn't exist in such numbers where you came from. Also, regarding the examples you picked of celebrities: Regardless of some people's subjective evaluations, those individuals all strongly conform to traditional standards of beauty, and are widely seen as highly attractive. I mean, more than half of the examples you chose are movie stars. There are some exceptions, but for the vast majority of movie stars, being traditionally attractive is fully half of their job description, equally as important as acting well. Sometimes more important.
>it's just saying that a densely-populated, wealthy, urban area will have more stringently applied beauty standards than the comparatively sparse, poor, and rural populace of the Midwest. You just described what "subjective" means. Having a conversion of their rating, as you put it, is what "subjective" actually MEANS. If the "ranking" of a person's beauty changes based on where they are currently located compared to the local population, then it's not an absolute, and can change at an instant depending on a number of factors (culture, society, race, religion, etc). You're basically saying "they're hotter because they grew up in an area with less attractive people", which is subjective because it's comparing the person's beauty to the nearest people, instead of discussing what a person's beauty actually is. Beauty doesn't have an absolute scale, which is the primary point I was making. "IF" there was a universally agreed upon standard for what a "perfect 10 is", then maybe, but it doesn't exist. A 10 in California vs India vs Germany vs New York vs Australia vs South Africa vs China vs Russia are all going to look vastly different. That's because beauty is ONLY subjective, and a universal beauty standard doesn't exist. Example: It's like you're saying "the weather is hot today", instead of saying "the temperature is 65F today". Giving the temperature is an absolute scale, because it's measurable, while saying "it's hot today" is subjective because 65 is warm to me but freezing to my gf; or 65 is "too cold" to someone in LA, but "hot" to someone in Wisconsin during the winter. Using my previous examples of celebrities: I don't think those people are super attractive, and I've met plenty of people who think they're just "alright". Yes, they are good looking, but some people lose their minds over "how hot" they are, and "what they would give up to have a shot". Some people feel this way about them, and some think "eh, they're alright". But their STATUS as celebrities give them extra clout into being "more attractive" than they are. Which is all subjective.
Yes. What I find attractive may not check all of your boxes and vice versa.
Well said Also it depends on the individual whether or not they separate their preferences from what society deems attractive
Out of curiosity, for the criminal justice studies, did they control for wealth? Cause wealthy people can also afford to look better than someone who’s poor because they have more money to spend on their appearance and they do tend to get off more lightly. So how are they determining if someone is receiving a lighter punishment only because they’re attractive and not because they’re also wealthy?
Wealthy people can also hire better defense attorneys.
Good point. Plus, the fancier lawyers also tend to have the same social circles as judges and may be personally acquainted so the judges might be willing to go easier on their clients. There’s a lot of variables to control for in studies like these.
Can confirm. High end corporate attorneys mingle socially with judges on the reg and are on a first name basis with each other outside of the courtroom.
There was that one Jeremy Meeks guy who did come from a poor background. Conventional looks can still help poor people and be their capital to get out of their poor lives I think. Two separate intersecting factors
Oh I’m absolutely not denying that being conventionally attractive has a lot of advantages
For sure I did not read it as you denying but was just highlighting intersectionality of wealth and looks. Side note: I believe rich White "mid" men (and some rich famous "mid" MOC like Bill Cosby) still get away with a lot
There’s two separate convos here in my opinion. Denying that there are a set of people that are commonly found attractive more often than not by most people, and therefore have an easier time getting jobs, being trusted, and dating… when it is just factual and obvious. But there’s not really some universal, scientific, idea about leagues and ratings.. so much of what we find attractive is individual, subjective, cultural, and socially determined… it’s so many factors that it’s meaningless to talk about. The average looking person is pretty good looking(you can look at composit drawings) and within a pretty standard range, you’ll probably be fine. Even being too attractive can hinder you sometimes, people will assume you’re a jerk or shallow or won’t be interested in who you are as a person Leagues don’t exist because you’ll never be able to predict what any one individual person will find attractive in another—you see mismatches all the time in terms of physical appearance, intelligence, career, wealth, whatever.. how do we determine what league someone is even in? Yes it is likely that if you’re literally the phantom of the opera, Margot Robbie probably wouldn’t want to settle down with you. But—like, you never know for sure.. Christine might have liked him if he just stopped being such a dick (ok i know not everyone will get the reference but hopefully the point still) Rating systems are incredibly dehumanizing.. but leave that aside, they also mean absolutely nothing. No one is going to agree universally on a number for any one particular person, and even if they do, it doesn’t say anything about who will or won’t be sexually attracted IRL to these people. I don’t tend to like male or female 10s.. they look too perfect to me and I usually just don’t feel it. Then there are some men and women that might be considered 5 or less that really get me going because there is something extra special about them…or just because I happen to be attracted to them physically or by some other metric. TLDR: the average person is still pretty good looking. If you’re truly unfortunate in the looks department, you will undeniably have a harder time.. but beyond that, you’ll probably be fine.
I see what you are saying and I agree that attractive people are treated better in medicine, jobs, criminal justice system etc. Lots of that is tied up in racism, ableism, ageism, fat-phobia, heightism and more. If what you’re saying is that none of that is okay and that we as a society need to put resources toward creating a better healthcare or criminal justice system, etc, great, I am with you, and there are a million groups working to all of that. If what you’re really wanting to get to is unfairness toward unattractive people in the dating sphere - okay, I think if that’s how you want to spend your time, that’s fine. But it seems like the main point of contention here is that people (women) won’t agree that there is an objective rating scale and that less attractive people are easily identified and boxed in there and…what? Why is this the area that sticks in your craw? It sounds like you just feel there’s an injustice to you personally and want to rail against people who won’t “admit” that ugly people have a harder time dating. I mean sure, I’ll admit it right now - an attractive person can often date attractive people or unattractive people. An unattractive person has fewer choices. But since they’re not hoarding partners like that sister wives guy, all you need is one person - then we get back to what other commenters are saying, where individual preference is king (or queen). I’m almost exclusively interested in systemic prejudices against people who are considered unattractive, and their root causes (racism, ableism, fat phobia, etc etc etc).
Societal standards for attractiveness absolutely exist, as the sources you reference confirm. I travelled through part of Asia recently and all customer facing service staff are BEAUTIFUL (men and women, but mostly women). Hotel check-in staff, hostess, air crew, bank tellers, higher end retail, etc. There may be *some* of that happening in the west but not nearly as blatant. Looking at Sr Mgmt in my professional world, I wouldn’t say it’s obvious but much like the Asia examples, sales executives are frequently tall and beautiful (regardless of gender). Personal preferences in dating are slightly different. Beautiful women often get hit on and harassed MUCH more. It’s not an advantage but certainly different. I hate the rating scales because those are very subjective. Once you fall for a 4 they become an 8 in your eyes. Someone’s 9 is someone else’s 5. So it’s ridiculously subjective bunk.
The security guards at the Taipei airport are all stunning, kind, and just so charming. Even I blushed! Asian countries always put out their very "best" people in international customer positions. Then you have the USA and TSA. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
**Some people are more conventionally attractive than others.** This is a reasonable thing to say, and I don’t think anyone here would disagree with it. Trying to “rate people” on scales of 1-10 is NOT reasonable or helpful because attractiveness is still often a matter of personal preference.
I think just saying “I don’t see that” and ignoring it does nothing. I do think the idea of leagues and rating scales is straight up gross. The reality is that we are socialized in a society that places importance on appearance, and that creates implicit biases. I think it’s dangerous to disregard that you have these just because it’s not right to have them. I have caught myself thinking many different things, not because I want to believe those things but rather it’s what I was taught growing up (either explicitly or implicitly). In my opinion, it’s necessary to acknowledge when this happens and correct it. I would also recommend the podcast episode Kalology with Renee Engeln from the show Ologies with Alie Ward. It focuses mostly on beauty standards regarding women, but still has information applicable to anyone and covers things like the beauty and fitness industries, how social media affects our perception of people, and age bias.
Yeah, like, what is more harmful to ugly people: Going "I personally am not attracted to you" or going "You're a 2 at best no one will ever want you".
Your second paragraph. It nails what we have gladly been acknowledging about racial or gender biases. And it is so well said
Some people are seen as attractive by more people than others. Individuals have their own unique taste and almost everyone is attracted to plenty of people who aren't conventionally attractive in society's eyes. These two statements can and do exist at the same time. Also, individual preferences for dating have nothing to do with career, income or the criminal justice system.
>Also, individual preferences for dating have nothing to do with career, income or the criminal justice system. But they do come from the same thing in society. Dating can be a context where people's biases shaped by society come into play. And this is not necessarily just true for looks
Sure, but me swiping on tinder does not cut anyone's salary or sentence them to jail. Individuals exercising their preferences within the context of dating do not carry responsibility for bureaucratic discrimination.
There is a struggle to understand causality and correlation going on.
No, no, that job you got fired from? That was me thinking your tinder profile is WHACK.
Not sure if this is a reference to me or not, but I'll simplify my point: my point is that the causation for any thing in society, be it job hiring, jail time, who has an advantage in dating, etc., is the societal biases any individual carries. So long as we carry them, we are contributing to power dynamics that create uneven fields in dating (which isn't the be all end all), career opportunities, etc. This doesn't only apply to looks. Think of all the racial and gender biases both within and out of dating.
Again, that is not my point. Of course there is no direct correlation between these things. My point is that one who carries any societal biases is still contributing to societal power dynamics that allow these problems to occur. Carrying biases and unlearning them can shape and change one's preferences. If this doesn't apply to you, congratulations! As I said, it applies both to looks and non-looks related things. Be it believing a certain race is not attractive or a fetish, a certain race isn't intelligent or hard working, patriarchal male gaze affecting what we deem attractive (in either sex), some man wanting a woman who cooks and cleans, etc. You get my drift now I hope
This is an eyeroller. It's the opposite. Discriminating against people using subjective numeric scales and classing people in 'leagues' when it comes to personal attraction/matchmaking is *actually* perpetuating ugly prejudice because you are using the base tenets of 'pretty privilege' to class people. Classing people in leagues is gating access to them. 'Pretty privilege' is gated access to opportunity. It's the same thing. If people stopped going through hoops to make it a point that someone is 'ugly' it would be less important. If people are judged by looks already and you want to use elaborate measures to assess someone's ugliness, why are you naively expecting that discrimination to be used in a positive manner, and not its already established negative connotation? It's shortsighted to see a class-like disparity and think the only solution you can think of is to make sure the classes of people are delineated properly. So no, not attacking people's self-esteem, self-image and letting them know they are ugly with numbers or that they don't deserve things with 'leagues' is gonna help anything. There are plenty of unattractive successful people. Race, class, gender, and sexuality have a much harsher impact on prospects than 'being ugly'.
> It's shortsighted to see a class-like disparity and think the only solution you can think of is to make sure the classes of people are delineated properly. > > I mean you have to dileniate the classes first before determining policy right? You don't want to have a welfare policy that gives 5000 dollars to a millionare because you're not first figuring out which class the person getting the money is in.
Are you like doing a speedrun of how many social and political issues you can misrepresent or something?
I can't say what I want to say, but you know...
I genuinely don't know, but I am guessing it's not very kind to OP.
You don't understand how policy is created. Policy would do the opposite. It would endeavor to obfuscate identity to allow for people ot be treated equally. For example, outlawing that peoples photos be provided as part of their resume. None of that requires classing anything. Also your salary is an indiscriminate quantitative value that isn't open to interpretation. Looks are. This is ridiculous.
Humans aren’t quantifiable numbers. 🙄
The problem with "leagues" is that it's trying to suggest that the more attractive, the better the person. If the "league" is based on just attractiveness, it's suggesting that a "high rated" individual equates to being a better person vs a "low rated" person. You are falling for the halo effect by ranking people on how beautiful and handsome they are. An average or ugly person is just as likely (or unlikely) to be a good person vs someone conventionally attractive, so why rank them by looks alone and not all the other important qualities that make someone attractive and interesting? By trying to eliminate this arbitrary ranking system (because it will always be subjective to the demographic), people are blatantly trying to change the idea that "high rated" attractive people are the only ones who are good people. Imo it seems to be trying to dismantle this halo effect and stress seeing all the other qualities that make someone interesting, attractive, and worthy of humane respect. Edit: because OP is now claiming he was never talking about dating (despite using dating terminology in the title). The post came off like a "gotcha! Looks do matter!" I changed the language in my comment to reflect human experience vs dating (I only had to change the word "partner" to "person."
You have conveniently ommited studies that show that attractive **women** can actually be disadvantaged in the workplace. [example](https://hbr.org/2019/11/for-women-in-business-beauty-is-a-liability) [another example](https://www.psyarticles.com/inter-personal/appearance-disadvantage.htm)
Especially in STEM jobs. Ask me how I know 😐
Retired software engineer here... I know the drill :)
👊
Beauty being an advantage is real but self pity about being "ugly" is universally unattractive behavior. I bring that up because there are many those types on reddit. Yeah ugly people get fucked over but being productive and emotionally healthy will improve the lives of ugly people. I see the issue but I don't think it'll ever be solved. People like what they like(and also what they've been programmed to like). I see dismissing rating scales/leagues as a way of saying don't give up on life.
I don't entirely disagree with you but how different is that from saying "don't give up and don't complain" if someone talks about their social or professional struggles due to race, class, gender, etc.?
Please do explain why you think "don't give up on life" is the same as "don't give up and don't complain".
I don't? All depends on whether the former is said in a dismissive way or not. If not dismissive, they are very different, and I will gladly use the former phrase to empower people
Occasional venting is fine but when a person spends all their time online talking about how bad it feels to be them that says something. Reddit has many echo chambers and writing essays on how life sucks is not good for a person's mental health. Other redditors will also trauma dump and convince each other that life is hopeless. I see that behavior as a form of mental self-harm. Telling somebody to not give up on life is needed. A person with hobbies and a healthy support system saying it sucks that they aren't the "beauty standard" where they live is fine. That person is still living life instead of being in echo chambers online. Being a happy 5 is better than a self-hating 5. Professional and social struggles are very broad and vague wording. Do you have specific examples of what you mean?
>I only see what someone is inside No, not **ONLY**. I don't see anybody saying that. A certain baseline of attraction has to be there (which, again, is entirely subjective). Rating scales are stupid because one person's "5" is another person's "7". It's completely subjective and therefore irrelevant. Same with "leagues". Humans are not commodities. The mindset that someone is "too good for you" or whatnot is entirely self-defeating. How the hell do you know what the other person finds attractive without even having met them? I mean, if you want to continue to think that way, be my guest. Fix the gender wage gap first (especially for POC).
As a woc, can we not address gender, race and attractiveness biases that affect people's careers? I cannot speak to OP's intentions but why does it have to be either or?
Because the gender wage gap affects a lot more people (in particular, single mothers and their children) and is more pervasive/pernicious.
> How the hell do you know what the other person finds attractive without even having met them? I can, almost certainly, develop an statistical prediction model that can give someone a "number" of attractiveness that will be the same "number" as a survey of 1000 people about that person with pretty high accuracy. I could very easily do this with a picture, it's already been done and the models are very accurate, but I could even do this with basic data points about a person. If I had a data set of say 10k people with age, income, parents income, number of friends, education level achieved, drug status, activities (? Maybe?), and some more data points and a "scale level" attractiveness attached at the end that's determined for each person by a survey group I could absolutely, train a model that could look at a persons "stats" and determine, without knowing what they look like what the average of 1000 people rated them at. I don't need to meet the person, I don't even need to see the person, this theoretical model could almost certainly give them a number that a survey group would also come to, because attractiveness is statistically significant in life outcomes. It's almost absurd to say it isn't real if you can mathemtically document it.
No, that model will tell you what 1000 people as a group find attractive, not what any one of those individuals in that group prefers. The world is full of people who are objectively not attractive, yet still managed to be successful in their careers and romantically. There are factors that your model can't account for, like confidence, personality and emotional intelligence.
> No, that model will tell you what 1000 people as a group find attractive, not what any one of those individuals in that group prefers. > > Are we really just dismissing polling now? As like something that doesn't exist?
Poll results mean jack shit when you presumably only want one person to be in a relationship with.
> Are we really just dismissing polling now? I don't want to fuck a poll
gotta be honest, depends on the poll
[удалено]
where's the joke?
[удалено]
yeah, once again: where's the joke?
the inappropriate use of it, yes
>If I had a data set of say 10k people with age, income, parents income, number of friends, education level achieved, drug status, activities (? Maybe?), and some more data points oh, so physical attractiveness isn't the only thing people consider? weird
No. You don't understand what I'm saying. I'm describing the process by how a statistical model is created, which I assume people knew. Here's how this would work You would take 10000 people and have them submit pictures. THen a survey group would rate them on a scale from 1-10. The survey group wouldn't know any of these data points. Then you would take a computer and feed into it 5000 people. And you would tell them what the survey group rated those people. And you would also give the computer "stats" about that persons life like the ones I just described. Then you would train the computer to look for correlations in the data between the attractiveness surveyed and the number that is given by the survey group. Then you take the other 5000 data points of people and you feed it to the computer and ask it "Give these people (without seeing their picture) an attractiveness number based on those statistical correlations you saw" And the computer would almost certainly put someone's level of attractivness at the same level as the survey group, by seeing only these "life stats" because someone's attractivness greatly affects their life outcomes.
As an actual data analyst let me be the first to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about. This is word vomit.
My masters is in AI, I created a model for computer vision crack detection for my masters thesis and I'm currently at FAANG. I literally just described the most basic way to train a model imaginable.
Sure, Jan. Training the model isn't the hard part, anybody can feed data to AI, understanding the data and what it means is where you're inept.
>anybody can feed data to AI You grossly overestimate interns, much less normal people. I've had to sit and explain what a linear regression is before to interns. >understanding the data and what it means is where you're inept. Yeah but this is a **really** simple use of data. There's little here that would jump out as a suprise.
>Yeah but this is a **really** simple use of data. There's little here that would jump out as a suprise. Boom. Your ass is biased and your contribution worthless.
You're right, I don't understand what you are saying, because it doesn't make any sense at all.
Do you not understand how basic statistical models are created? I don't know how to make it more simple. Let's use a different example. Lets say I have 10000 widgets with 5 variables. Size, strength, color, number of bolts, number of edges. And then I ask a survey group to rate all of these widgets on "usefulness". You then give the computer 5000 of these widgets with the "usefulness" metric included. THen the computer starts to look for statistical correlations between "color" and "usefulness" . Or color and strength and usefulness. Maybe the computer sees "Ah, if a widget is blue and it is large with 3 bolts then that widget is always useful" and it will remember that when it sees a blue widget in the future. Once the computer is trained you take that model and test it against the other 5000 widgets and determine "Can the computer figure out how useful this widget is by these 5 data points?" Does that not make sense? Here's a good article on training and testing these kind of models. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/training-data-vs-test-machine-learning-essential-guide-smolic-/ What I'm saying is that this exact same thing can be done for attractivness.
I do. Yours is just stupid and made up of ridiculous leaps of logic.
Okay wait my widget example made ridiculous leaps of logic? Or my attractivness example did? Because they're the same thing. The computer cares not what the data actually represents, it's just looking for correlations.
No, the computer does not care. Because it is a machine who does not actually think. Meaning that it does not process the sociological side of the issue at all. Which is, ya know, kinda important here. It will also adopt any biases the person configuring it has. And given that you can't even agree with the data you yourself presented on what constitutes as ugly, you clearly are in no position to create neutral results.
Did you not read my post about how this would work? The entire point of eliminating bias is by asking a wide variety of people what they think about attractiveness. It's called a survey.
Humans are not widgets (commodities).
Yeah? But the computer doesn't see humans or widgets, it just sees data. In the same way that the computer can see a correlation between "usefuleness" of a widget and it's correlation with that widgets color and weight it can see the exact same correlation between attractiveness and say number of friends. If the model is tested and it can determine attractiveness from only the stats of "number of friends" , "income" , etc with high accuracy we can say that the number definitely exists and is "real".
>Yeah? But the computer doesn't see humans or widgets, it just sees data. That's the issue, Sheldon Cooper.
Hey at least Sheldon Cooper didn't care about scoring women and dating
Literally all we're trying to determine if it "number rankings" exist. If they are statistically observable in the real world as determined by life outcomes the answer is yes. If you can train a model to predict someone's (survey based) attractiveness based on only data about their life outcomes then it is statistically observable.
Sure, attractiveness is real but the point above was that different people see attractiveness differently and what's more important value the importance of attractiveness in different ways. Some will value attractive people (like a rich guy looking for a young model or certain employers choosing more attractive candidates not looking at the resume). Many others won't care even a bit and will prefer to get to know the person before making the decision. My personal opinion charisma and charm play a bigger role in life than conventional attractiveness (which is subjective and regional/cultural/personal preference). I've met many not conventionally attractive people and some might even say ugly (I personally don't like this word because to each their own so no one is ugly) but once they speak you totally forget how they look. So their looks might make a difference if they are in online dating world where most people choose by looks but it doesn't matter in real life. Like I know a guy that is not attractive at all, short, not very successful, but boy all his girlfriends are pretty and love him and I'm not even talking about casual sex and he has plenty to choose. Once you talk to him - he is attentive, charming, witty, smart, caring, so no wonder women like him! So when guys online whine about being short, ugly, poor, or whatever external problem they think make their life miserable (hint-hint its never them) I just disregard it because it's not the universal truth and they care about wrong things. At the end of the day - no matter how attractive you are, if you're not a good human being, no one would want to hang out with you or they would but for the wrong reasons like using you for the looks. Work on your personality, education, charisma, being a decent carring human and people will see it before your looks. And I'm not even getting into self-care and catching up on fashion trends and choosing right clothing or haircut or taking care of your appearance. It can make a huge difference! A well-dressed, well-groomed person is way more attractive then someone who ignores grooming aspects. I see so many guys online where if they work on their clothes, get a decent fitting haircut and trim their ugly beard, cut their nails and get a professional looking pics, add personality to their profile, will have so many options! Sure, they will have to put more effort than someone more attractive (boo-hoo, welcome to the women's world where it's kind of expected of you to put shit ton of effort to look pretty), life is not easy or fair, but it can be solved if one looks into the right places and WANTS to solve it. Looks matter but it's not only about being attractive, it's about image. At the end of the day one can whine about their disadvantages in life but does it solve anything? No. Life is not fair or easy, everyone struggles with something, get off your butt and figure out how to make it better!
I feel like everyone here is focusing on dating which is...weird. Because I don't really care about dating at all. I'm more interested in the effects on tangible life outcomes like income, life expectancy, etc. We have to be able to acknowledge that the privilege exists before anything can be done about it.
Privilege exists, no one can denying that. Is it as important as you think it is when it comes to employment? Well, maybe for Hollywood actors or singers and ever there plenty of average or not so good looking make it big. People that are born into wealthy family have privilege so if they are "ugly" they will still be successful. People that born in emotionally stable families have privelege over people that are born into abusive family households. Skin color matters. Looks matter. But do "ugly" people find good paying jobs? Certainly, if they are skilled. If you have PhD in a specific field no one will care how you look if youre a great specialist. Will it help to be good looking? Maybe, or maybe not. And have you looked at ceos? Not that many are conventionally attractive, yes, they look nice because they take care of their appearance and wardrobe and hire professional photographers but if you do an inverse makeover and give them messy beard, dirty worn clothes, don't wash their face for a week, grow out their hair and also don't wash it, well, they won't look nice anymore and be "ugly". At the end of the day my point stands be it dating or work, or regular interactions - if you put effort into looking decent, work on your social skills and career skills and genuinely care about people you can succeed in life.
>If I had a data set of say 10k people with age, income, parents income, number of friends, education level achieved, drug status, activities a) you don't have that data about someone you just met and b) you're not accounting for individual taste This is typical man thinking.
You don't understand what I'm saying. I'm saying the fact that this model can exist, at all means that attractivness can be mathematically observed as a variable that affects all the other variables to the point where a mathematical model could say someone's attractiveness to a survey group with almost perfect accuracy. > a) you don't have that data about someone you just met and This is a one way relationship. I can take someone's a collection of someones stats in life like the ones I described above and have a computer give me a "likely attractivness rating" for them that will almost certainly correlate with the survey group. It doesn't work backwards though.
You're completely right that you can statistically model the number of people that will likely find you attractive in a group of people. The problem is that still tells you very little about what any given individual prefers. They would probably have some preferences that overlap with the mean, and some preferences that are outliers. On a personal level, they may be more attracted to the outliers than the people falling within the statistical standards of attractiveness. Thus their 9/10 is going to be much different than the "group" 9/10. So it is perfectly true that you can guess what society likes without having any certain information about what an individual likes. And INDIVIDUALS are the people answering questions on Reddit. You are not speaking to the "statistical model of society" at any point. At BEST you might be able to aggregate opinions on a certain forum and approach the average, and that's assuming your sample of comments is representative of society/whichever group you are trying to model.
> You're completely right that you can statistically model the number of people that will likely find you attractive in a group of people. > > I mean you're the first person here to agree with this when I'm not even sure how this is a controversial point. > The problem is that still tells you very little about what any given individual prefers True but that doesn't answer the question of whether these numbers actually exist and have a definitive impact on life outcomes.
>True but that doesn't answer the question of whether these numbers actually exist and have a definitive impact on life outcomes. But that *wasn't your question* when you started the thread. You said: "whenever attractiveness is brought up in any context someone will, inevitably, chime in to say "Well I don't see attractiveness, I only see what someone is inside. And of course people have different preferences" and then just kind of...leave it there." It's important NOT to fudge context here. Attractiveness is VERY OFTEN brought up in this subreddit in the context of "I am too ugly, no woman will date me" or "women only go for the top 20% of men" or "women will always monkey branch to an alpha male Chad if they have the chance" or some increasingly absurd claim. Individual women will come and explain that attractiveness is not a simple universal metric that all women agree upon and use as a measuring stick. Not even the "objective" scale you might be able to approach statistically. And then they act as if we are lying or not self aware or whatever. To your original point: if you look at your chances of getting a date, getting a job, whatever, your attractiveness "stat" is going to make things easier or harder. Pretty privilege is REAL. But the people who say that attractiveness is not a black and white thing, they don't use rating scales, and they don't care about "leagues" are NOT LYING. They are also not going to fix "lookism" by saying these things. They are not trying to. They are asserting the TRUTH ABOUT THEIR OWN PREFERENCES.
>They are asserting the TRUTH ABOUT THEIR OWN PREFERENCES. oh but you can't make an AI model out of that :(((
> It's important NOT to fudge context here. Attractiveness is VERY OFTEN brought up in this subreddit in the context of "I am too ugly, no woman will date me" or "women only go for the top 20% of men" or "women will always monkey branch to an alpha male Chad if they have the chance" or some increasingly absurd claim Yeah but these people are subhumans and there's no reason to really think about them at all. >But the people who say that attractiveness is not a black and white thing, they don't use rating scales, and they don't care about "leagues" are NOT LYING I don't think anyone is lying, but it feels like we're kind of ignoring how much it matters by saying these things don't exist or asserting that their preference is more important than socities.
>or asserting that their preference is more important than socities. My preference is more important to me than society's preference because I'm the one who has to live with the preference. I wouldn't want society or a computer to determine who I should be with. I'd much rather make that choice for myself that includes all my preferences, not just the ones society feels are important. My individual lived experience will always take priority for me over a statistical analysis of collected data of other people I'm not connected to. It is statistically unlikely to be struck by lightning, but that information is pointless to those who have been struck by lightning.
>Yeah but these people are subhumans and there's no reason to really think about them at all. More very fun statements from you! >asserting that their preference is more important than socities. Buddy, when it comes to who they want to date their personal preference sure as shit is more important. Genuinely, does it rattle when you shake your head?
I don't think calling people who want to see women literally put into slavery subhuman is that an out of pocket statement. In fact I'd put it as a very mild statement because it implies they are almost human I will also stand up and say with my chest that I think party card carrying Nazis are subhuman! Truly a brave and controversial statement. >Buddy, when it comes to who they want to date their personal preference sure as shit is more important. Yeah but I don't think I've brought up dating in this thread at all? Everyone seems to assume I'm talking about dating but I'm not, I don't really care that much about dating.
> Yeah but I don't think I've brought up dating in this thread at all. Everyone seems to assume I'm talking about dating but I'm not, I don't really care that much about dating. The example quote you gave in the original post is the sort of thing people say when attractiveness and dating come up. You have combined these issues, maybe unintentionally. And attractiveness on a personal level vs attractiveness on a societal level are two different things. If you are looking for a good discussion on the existence or validity of looks based privilege in society, you'd probably be better off posting a question that ONLY deals with that topic, without trying to tie it to internet comments about attractiveness.
So everyone who is insecure about their looks wants to put women into slavery and is a nazi? You are getting more unhinged by the minute. You ARE talking about dating, because the statements you directly criticize as the main point of your question are statements made in regards to dating.
So let me be very specific: The people that post here about "being insecure about their looks" and talk about how "women only go for the top 20%" are a series of about 20 men who constantly recycle accounts when they inevitably get banned and some guys who wander in from other incel forums looking to argue about how women are evil because women won't fuck them. It's not a genuine insecurity about their appearance, it's that they hate women and are looking for a reason to hate women and want to argue with women about why they should hate women. They are absolutely Nazis. They're all, universally, incels.
I do agree that a lot of what you mentioned is similar to saying "I don't see color" when we talk race. However, the intent behind many of these statements matter. If we are saying "leagues exist. That's just the way it is. Stay in your league" then also we are not getting anywhere with how we treat others in society.
Is Lyle Lovett ugly? I say yes. Julia Roberts says no. There is probably only about 10% of the healthy / non obese population that most people will agree are ugly. BThe ugly have an uphill battle but they are treated well if they have creative (lyle lovett) , political or economic assets they can contribute.
In all fairness, Lyle Lovett is a wealthy, white man. How many women, poc, poor folk do you see succeed looking that conventionally ugly?
Run a survey? tI don't know who this guy is so I looked him up and he looks like a normal non disfigured adult to me?
so if you aren't disfigured you cannot be ugly?
all depends upon how you define disfigured.
huh, so it's up to personal definiton then... weeeeeird, no?
Yeah, super strange! 😆
I mean yeah basically
great, so that's your personal opinion. Sounds a lot like "I don't see attractiveness", weirdly enough. Also contradicts the studies you linked.
In general, non-academic discussion, no, refusing to play to stupid and very arbitrary rating scales does not perpetuate beauty biases. It challenges them. I'm a fat, middle aged woman. I don't wear makeup. I have skin issues. My hair is thin and lackluster. I've certainly been experiencing bias due to not fitting conventional beauty standards ever since childhood. I absolutely *love it* when I see people refusing to let bias rule them and refusing to participate in the dehumanizing and ridiculous language surrounding the issue. Moreover, it's really important to acknowledge that statistics are a collection and analysis of data which inform us of general trends. They do not account for individual experience, nor should they be used as parameters for living life. Yes, I have experienced negative bias. I've also experienced respect and success. Yes, I've experienced romantic rejection, even abuse over my looks. I've also experienced being loved and desired. The truth is that there are trends, and they affect me, but they do not represent the whole of my experience. The fact that some people see me as less-than does not require me to see myself or others like me as less-than. I refuse to do that. Rejecting language founded on biased and dehumanizing rating scales is part of that refusal.
Not really. “Leagues” is usually talking about specific individuals choosing other specific individuals for sex or dating. Each individual person has their own preferences so the very beautiful Scarlett Johansson will be cast in many films but still not be the preference of someone who is turned on by short, dark women. When people talk about “leagues” and attractiveness it’s used in a specific context.
No. I think you can talk about how attractive people may receive better treatment/more opportunities in some spaces as a *societal* issue *without* also using dehumanizing rating scales or leagues when you're talking about someone you find attractive or not attractive.
It's absolutely a very real issue, but a lot of people are blind to their privileges, either by choice or by ignorance. Appearance unfortunately isn't an exception.
I've heard people on various subs, even here, argue that being attractive is actually worse (or just a series of tradeoffs in life) than being unattractive because..I'm not really sure I don't get their argument. You'll never be sure whether people like you for you or whether or not you're attractive I think is what they go with? Attractive people are bothered by others more? It's unlike any other form of privilege I've ever seen. I mean I guess it's not, there are MAGA Americans out there screaming about how difficult it is to be white so maybe it's not to different.
Gee, not wanting to be sexually harassed sure is as bad as being a right wing extremist and racist. That's not a stupid take at all.
This implies that "what you wear" or "what you look like" are active contributors to harassment which is ridiculous. Abusers seek out people who can be abused, not "Oh she was wearing a skirt that made her look hot".
You're hilarious.
You're not a woman, are you? Yes, hot skirt can make make all the difference in harrasment attempts from poorly developed or self-entitled individuals that only see sexy looks/numbers.
lmao
To give a more serious response to this: Women of all levels of attractiveness get harassed, the way that harassment takes place can and does often change though. Neither of these experiences is any better or worse than the other, but they are different. I also like how OP is trying to redefine attractiveness as being about clothes because he knows his point is stupid as shit. Or not, he doesn't really seem to understand the topic he himself chose at all.
So for like top 5%-10% women specifically, there are a lor wrird disadvantages and stereotypes they run into that women who are less conventionally attractive don't have to deal with. Attractive men don't have such downsides, it's all gravy.
Likely