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What is Ugly and Pretty, Anyway?
Well, I think Dorothea and I are speaking different languages, as I read her post today. She seems to think that I assume she has no self-esteem. Well, I don't assume anything. Again, I defend her right to choose her interactions and her self-perceptions. I don't pretend to know what it's like to be Dorothea. And I really don't want to stoop to pop-psychology to analyze what all her statements mean so that I'm telling her she's got some kind of sad inferiority complex because she doesn't think she's pretty.
What I do think, though, is that at the core we are aiming for the same target, just from completely different directions with completely different weapons. We both want there to be no standard for "acceptable" appearance; no expectation that anyone should look a certain way to be approved of, no change in the way that we are treated whether we are 800 pounds and have spots all over our faces or we look like Barbie. Dorothea furthers this by saying she wants the right to consider herself plain without being condescended to or pitied.
This is where I get confused in her response. If she doesn't wish to be assessed, then why is she assessing herself as "ugly"? Why does she assess herself at all? I don't think that people should always consider themselves "pretty" to feel good-- actually, I never even used the word "pretty" in my last post [ammendment: I never used the word in that context. I did use phrases like "pretty obvious"]. I don't ultimately care about pretty, either. I don't care about changing the standards for physical attractiveness. I want there to not be a question of standards at all. For me, there's a difference between "pretty" and "beautiful," just as there's a difference between "happy" and "joy." Happy is transient, conditional-- joy is deep and abiding, and can appear even in the worst of circumstances. "Pretty" is Britney Spears. "Beautiful" is cumming's Delectable Mountains in The Enormous Room. When I see a friend that I have loved and known well, they are unconditionally beautiful in my eyes, because as cliché as it might be, I do believe that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"-- that is, I believe that beauty is subjective (not just prettiness or attractiveness, but beauty)-- so why define it in a destructive way? In sum, what I was falteringly attempting to say in my last post, is not that Dorothea should buck up and consider herself pretty; rather, it is human and unavoidable for one's perceptions of a person to be changed when we admire (or distinctly don't admire) them.
I have never seen a picture of Dorothea. I haven't even really looked. It doesn't matter. If she claims she is plain, I trust that assessment. If she claims to be content with that, I believe her. There are days when I can get past the fact that I have many small pus-filled sores all over my face, back, shoulders, breasts, and just be content in my own skin, not fuss and fret and worry that people won't like me because of it, not try to rub skin cleansers and pore purifiers all over me to make myself feel better (then again, there are those other days...). However, when Dorothea's writing is beautiful, then she is beautiful to me, and I hope she doesn't object to that word, because I'm not talking about being beautiful because of physical appearance. I'm talking about the fact that the whole package is beautiful when we show beauty to the world, even if what we show is mental attractiveness or spiritual attractiveness or some expression other than physical. By narrowly limiting considerations of attractiveness to physical appearance, we encourage and strengthen the cage that is that judgment of physical appearance. In my mind, the way to open up the cage, or tear it down, is to open up notions of what is attractive (or sexy) to things other than just physical appearance.
With that reasoning in mind, what we have is perhaps a philosophical disagreement, which I'm willing to agree to disagree on. If Dorothea is expecting me to eliminate physical attractiveness altogether, despite what that attractiveness is actually based on (e.g. it doesn't count if I think someone's attractive simply because I find they have a brilliant mind, but as a result, I find them more physically attractive), then I'll have to politely disagree. Physicality is part of human existence, and I don't think it has to be a negative part of it. I have had times when I've wanted to escape it, and I've had times when I've felt utterly comfortable in my own skin. I have to say I prefer the latter and work toward it-- and that positive feeling ultimately doesn't depend on others' attitudes toward my appearance unless I allow it. Notice here that I don't qualify that positivity by saying I make myself feel "pretty." The times that I often feel most comfortable are when I'm lounging around in my jammies and haven't even bothered to brush my hair.
So I hope that clarifies things. Because above all, no matter what people think of me, I don't wish to be misunderstood. :)
And a P.S. to Dorothea specifically: Apologies if I sounded as if I was trivializing your experience of feeling disturbingly threatened when you were wearing the aforementioned outfit. Not my intent at all. And I do know what it's like to feel physically in danger that way. But in my experience, it wasn't the outfit's fault, I could have been wearing a gunny sack for all it mattered, because the people who were behaving threateningly were just looking for someone to victimize and women tend to be considered easy targets. Maybe the outfit is what triggered it, but it still wasn't the outfit's fault. Not choosing to wear an outfit that might trigger such a crime (and it is a crime to be treated that way) is not a decision I condemn or scorn. For myself, though, that feels like someone controlling my decisions, and that feeling drives me crazy, so I defy it by continuing to wear any outfit I want.
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