Originally published November 3, 2019
When is it that we decide what we are attracted to? Early on most of us realize that we get that strange, nervous excitement around boys or girls. That inner magnet gets really activated around puberty. As time goes on, we develop more specific preferences. What about a preference for blonds? Brunettes? Redheads? Bold, shy, brainy, sporty, artsy… a multitude of types. They all have their fan base. Somewhere along the way we decide who we are, then we decide who we want. But also, as we are developing our tastes, society around us is making it clear what is generally accepted as “hot”. Media shows us what that looks like. Magazine covers, movies, TV… porn.
Then we look at ourselves in the mirror.
Not many of us look like that Hollywood image of hotness. Many of us are so far from it… are we even the same species? I once rode in an elevator full of Hooter Girls. Not the ones who work at the restaurants, even. These were models that worked special media events for Hooter’s. The elevator was full of mirrors. So there we were, standing in a line-up looking at ourselves. Damn. These were tall, giraffe-like creatures with sharp cheekbones, widely spaced eyes and plump lips that looked ready to burst. I was shorter and plump in places too. More places, a lot more places. I wonder if we were all thinking the same thing: “What’s it like to look like… that??”
In the real world, the truth is, despite what you see on TV, there are more of “us” than there are of “them”. The images in media may have conditioned us to see a certain gold standard of beauty, but we actually find ourselves attracted to “regular” people all the time who somehow spark something in us. In fact, we fall madly in love. They turn us on. They are beautiful, amazingly beautiful to us, and often they look NOTHING like supermodels or pop stars. It turns out that there are countless kinds of “sexy”.
People like different things.
So what about big bodies?
No! Of course not. Let’s not get carried away. We must draw the line somewhere. Certain things are universally unattractive, right? I’m a fat chick. So, if I am being honest with myself, I can’t look in the mirror and see “sexy”. Not really. I can say some “body positive” affirmations, but at the end of the day, I should accept that the world has a standard I don’t meet. I can’t be sexy until I lose the weight. Must absolutely lose the weight before I can possibly see a pretty woman in the mirror. My body is something unacceptable that I need to starve and exercise my way out of before I should even be seen or touched. Hell, I should apologize to the mirror for making it reflect that grotesque image. Apologize to the sheets on my bed for having to cling to my bulky shape. Well, that’s how I always felt. Down deep, nothing any lover ever said could change it. I believed that they must have decided that it was okay, that they could tolerate it. Maybe… if I kept the lights off. I was married to two skinny husbands and I thought, maybe they loved other things about me enough, that they could overlook this body. (By the way, each of them at some point confirmed my worst fears regarding that. This partially explains why they are both EX husbands.)
Then I fell in love with a big guy.
I was immediately smitten with his personality. It felt like we were meant to be friends. We connected and had a powerful chemistry. And… I was 100% attracted to him physically as well. Back to that question that I posed at the beginning. When do we decide what we find attractive? Some science tells us that we are attracted, by instinct, to signs of good health. But clearly there is so much more going on there. Blonde vs. brunette – that has nothing to do with good health. The science of sexual attraction is complicated. So many factors are different from individual to individual. We each, over our lifetimes, develop our own individual aesthetic.
As it turned out, as great as our friendly chemistry was from the beginning, the sexual chemistry was off the charts! I found him endlessly attractive. Could not take my eyes off of him. He was the hottest man on the planet and I would have pushed Brad Pitt off of a bridge to get to this big handsome man. This was all the sexy I would ever need. And I did NOT want the lights off, hell no.
But… that would mean he would see ME. Oh no.
As this relationship progressed, I had to reconsider so many of my own insecurities. I saw him and my knees got weak. I wanted his body. Just like it was. It turned me on. No reservations. So I had to wonder, if I can be this attracted to him, is it maybe possible, just maybe, that he is experiencing the same level of attraction to me? If I feel this way about him, could it actually be mutual? This was a new part of my journey to self love.
I wish I could stand before the world in a heroic pose and proclaim that I know my own beauty and never needed to seek validation in the eyes of some man, but that would be a lie. Oh, I sought it. I wanted to be wanted. Not particularly “feminist” of me, I know, but I’m being honest here. I lived much of my adult life struggling with my insecurities using any tools I could use, healthy and unhealthy as well. It was a learning process, learning to love the skin I’m in.
Funny how the lesson that really made a difference, though, was about loving someone else’s body. Here’s a little secret, by the way… men are insecure, too. One study published in the Journal of Psychology of Men and Masculinity (2013) showed that 95% of college age men in the study were dissatisfied with their bodies on some level. Dissatisfied with their bodies in college? The college years could be argued to be our best-looking years! If you don’t dig yourself then, when will you?
So the validation, the acceptance in this relationship, has gone both ways and has done both of us a world of good.
It would have been nice to have come to this level self acceptance completely on my own. I did get close. I already had regular “bouts” of self confidence. I bought the two piece swim suit and went to the pool, strutting with an abundance of “yeah, you lookin’ at this PHAT (pretty hot & tempting) ass”. But it always felt like I had an ongoing, exhausting argument with the world, me proclaiming that I was indeed sexy, while the world around me, for the most part, disagreed. I’ll confess, I often gave in and accepted that point of view. Not only did I doubt myself, but I also doubted anybody else who dared to act like they were into me.
I no longer do that. The fact is, I would be so frustrated if my guy doubted what I say when I tell him how good looking I think he is. So I return the favor and believe him when he says I’m beautiful. Hey, the man likes what he likes, the same way I know what I like.
The point is to accept yourself. See yourself the way someone who loves you would see you.