Hey! I've got mail!

Wow, who'd have thunk that this blog actually has a responsive readership! Actually, we all know what brought your wandering eyes to this page (my referral logs can prove it). So, lets all consider the implications of lookism... aside from increasing the numbers of people who have visited this blog.

A reader writes: "I got to your blog from xy.com, and was intrigued by your post on lookism... I wanted to comment on the serious spin that you put on it when you stated that it's an active preference for most.  I don't necessarily think that it's an active preference only.  I definitely think that society and mass media reinforce that tendency to lean towards that unconscious preference, and it becomes a conditioned response.  Obviously, this isn't a "good" thing, but I wonder how much of a difference people that realize that this situation exists can actually make.  Take a look at gay culture.  Nowhere else is the ultra-masculine male ideal portrayed as the icon of perfectionism reflected the most.  An African-American or Korean person can fight these ideals and try to work outside of the pre-existing hierarchy, but people are still going to suscribe to lookism.  It's a sad truth." (my emphasis in bold)

Gentle reader, you've caught me out, I was trying to be a bit more serious when I referenced "active preference" towards the end of my post. First off, racism and lookism are not the same thing. One has a long history of structured and sanctioned violence in its support, while the other is a relatively recent term arising from the observed consequences experienced by people based on their appearance. Obviously, there is some overlap, especially in the types of relative negative consequences faced by those less-favored. The African-American or Korean victims of racial profiling who I would have sent undercover to investigate realtors, rental offices and landlords experience negative consequence based on their appearance. The perception of race, and the active decision by the realtor, rental offices, and landlords would have actively curtialed the places that the Korean or African-Americans would have been able to live - ghettoized housing. Thus, the plain jane woman who didn't sell as many teddy bears as the beautiful woman was not actively discriminated against. Yet relative to the beautiful woman she experienced less positive outcomes. The conditioned response, and decision based on that (irrational) response was what I was trying to point in my comment about "active preference." So, people are more likely to gravitate to the beautiful woman (or man) is present, what can we do about it? More than just throw our hands up in frustration we can - be open to responding to all people - educate one's own desire so it is not narrowly confined to idealized forms of beauty - be concerned with how you respond to the beautiful person who emails you out of the blue. Just because it is a sad truth, doesn't mean one can't do anything about it. I realize that this might be interpreted as "suck it up and deal with it," but that in not what I mean to be saying.

I think humans are very visual - people process a great deal of visual information on a daily basis. I would have to beg to differ with, "anthropologist Helen Fisher, [who in the ABC article] suggests that primitive man might have unconsciously thought that a pretty woman had a better chance of bearing healthy children." Bullshit! I think she, along with most socio-biologists, or those who wish to reduce the cause of social phenonmena to a base genetic reductionism are wrong. My man Richard Lewontin, a socio-biologist who studies evolutionary biology would back me up. Because there are so many environmental variables that affect heredity and the phenotye of an organism, that to claim that somehow a socially contingent feature (beauty) is the result of biology is bunk.

"In any case, I wanted to know if you had any other thoughts on the subject.  Thanks."
Uhhh, I've spent way too much time blogging this post. But for an interesting read about ways that people sought to define and attain beauty, check out Sander Gilman's Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. On the note of racism and lookism in the gay community - I think it is there - I think it is a problem - see my earlier posts and links to the topic. Whenever I see "I have a preference for _____" or "Sorry, I just don't find ______ attractive" I get really uncomfortable - because it highlights the ways that race and its perception is a potent force in our society.

"P.S.  That bunch of shit eating pictures was gross beyond belief." 
I think people's desires are educable. While I don't plan to be educated to desire of certain activities, I do think that the digust that you and I feel about what my earlier link portrayed is inked to the processes of internalized prohibitions. Check out this link (no scat, safe for work) about shit and civilization: our ambivalent relationship to ordure in the city, culture and the psyche.

Have I scared everyone off yet, with this rough, rambly, and not quite fully through post?