My daughter (a retired ice skater) has never gotten a ticket from a male cop. Stopped lots of times, but never a ticket. they do definitely have an advantage.
They know how gorgeous they are, they just don’t understand how different and much more difficult their lives would be if they weren’t because they have no frame of reference.
Though I would never classify myself as beautiful, there was a time when I was pretty and had a knock-out body. I modeled designer stuff (back when designer clothes were a size 6 or 8 for the tours) and did hair shows and such like.
It wasn’t so much beauty, but the moment some guys found out I was a model, there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do for me. Except go away. These guys were like leeches and many of them just wouldn’t get the hint that I wasn’t interested. They certainly were not interested in me for me; they wanted to brag that they dated a model.
I was raised with an overlarge helping of guilt so I had serious trouble taking their invitations to do fantastic things with them if I wasn’t interested in them. Nor, in several cases, did I want to pay the implied price of going to a fantastic event at their expense because I knew it would be at my expense later.
I quit modeling because it was dead-end work in my eyes and set my sights on finishing my degree. Shortly after, I had an injury and gained weight. All those guys just melted away. “Aha” sez I “Now I know who my friends really are.” I have rarely turned on the glamour since.
My sister, at 44 and 30+ pounds over “ideal” weight, has a frame of reference now.
I asked her once a while back what it felt like to be beautiful. She said that she a always worried if people liked what they saw, or who she really is. She also said that she knew it wouldn’t be a permanent part of her life. I don’t think she misses it. She’s still gorgeous anyway, just in a mature way that doesn’t command instant attention.
I would have loved to enjoy some of her advantages: never paying for a drink, having a huge dating pool, getting out of trouble with a bat of the eyelashes. But I didn’t know when we were young that she was riddled with her own insecurities, and hated people fawning over my grades and (quite average) intellect just as much as I resented the remarks about how beautiful she was.
I don’t think that I’m drop dead beautiful, my face is probably average. I do have an excellent body. Part of it is genetics, big boobs and generous hips, but a lot is because I work for it.
I am very aware of how men react to how I look. I do expect doors to be opened for me and I’ve never gotten a traffic ticket. When I was in my 20’s, dressed for attention and strutted into a room, every straight male watched me. Now that I’m mumbles 36, I’ve noticed that the under 25 males check me out, but when they see the lines by my eyes, they don’t make plays at me anymore. That’s OK, because the older guys…who didn’t make plays at me then, do now. That works out much better for me anyhow.
I’ve never consciously used my looks to use people, but I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew that I had an advantage.
Oh, and the reason I’m posting is because I thought the “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” was from Fabio? And to mention that Lucky the cat says that to us all the time, so we worship him instead.
Had a Rough Collie, the most beautiful breed, and my wife would leave on the Home Shopping Network just for her. As the hostesses gushed over some scarf or cocktail ring, saying things like, “That is so beautiful,” she would lie there with her head proudly up and he tail giving little wags of pure pleasure, as if to say, “I know I am, but don’t stop saying it.”
I suspect people may see the attractive persons as nicer.
For instance, if you want to be more attractive, smile more. It’s a quick way to bump the charisma up a point or two.
The flip side is I don’t think attractive people are taken as seriously or believe they are as intelligent.
For instance, smiling all the time may make people think you are a bit dopey.
This is why models so often look board and pouty. They are already attractive. Smiling would just be over selling it and the odd expression makes them look like they’re deep. :dubious:
That may be part of it, but I also think that a model’s job is to draw attention to what she is wearing, not to herself. They are chosen to be attractive clothes hangers; showing any personality would detract from that.
“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” was a line used by Kelly LeBrock in a Pantene shampoo commercial years ago. (And MY cat jumps up on the kitchen table whenever someone comes to visit. Some people freak out, but I explain it’s because he is so beautiful that he wants to make it easy for them to pet and admire him. It’s true. He sits there purring, his head slightly raised, eyes squinting - for the guest’s enjoyment.)
How about attractive MEN? There are a few beautiful men who turn heads, too. Do they garner special attention?
I was hoping the thread would go that way, too, which is why I included John Hamm in the OP and tried to use some inclusive terms.
Had a roommate who had some of that Tom Selleck stuff going on; homecoming king, high school quarterback, moustache. A girl sent him an anonymous “I’d like to get to know you” note. He thought that it was hilarious that someone would deign to approach him like that, saying she was probably a real dog, so he asked her up one afternoon so we could all see what a loser she was. What she was was pretty and nerdy and terribly shy; it probably took a lot of courage to write that letter, much less spend a few minutes in the presence of a jerk who didn’t wipe the smirk off his face the whole time. I wanted to take her aside, tell her she was too good for that asshole, and maybe ask her out, but she fled in embarrassment before I could work up the courage, and I didn’t see her around much after that.
That particular example knew he was handsome and felt it entitled him to act like a twat.
When I was in my teens and early 20’s I had a smoking hot body too – very large breasts, tiny waist, generous hips. I got attention, but not the kind that my sister did. Not usually respectful and definitely not deferential. Much of it came from men a lot older than me, which creeped me out. Guys my own age mostly didn’t even bother to hide the sexual interest, which in itself is no crime, but when you’ve been hit on to the exclusion of any dating possibility - far less even bothering to buy a drink or make small talk first - it’s insulting and demeaning. More times than I care to remember, after rejecting said advances, I was rudely informed that I wasn’t in a position to be so choosy (less articulate, sometimes far more colorful, but always the same meaning).
My guess is that you are far more attractive than just average. If you’re accustomed to doors being held open, cops issuing smiles and warnings, and being treated as a person WITH a desirable body, then yeah. Conventionally pretty, at minimum.
I don’t mean to imply that this kind of thing always happened. There are jerks of both genders, and mostly decent people who are respectful of others in both. But young men with boners should probably just be classified as a different species for a while 
I would think a problem with being drop-dead beautiful is when you cross a particular age line and don’t get all the attention you used to. Of course, us ordinary mortals just turn invisible…
I don’t know if they get out of parking tickets or anything, but I’ve seen handsome men attract a lot of notice.
I’m a librarian (a profession that’s maybe 90% female), I attended a women’s college, and was actually a librarian at a women’s college for a while, so I’ve spent quite a few years in environments where there weren’t many men around and definitely not many young and/or handsome men. In these situations I’ve seen other women react to the sight of a good looking man with about as much subtly as a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. I remember in college a young professor with a passing resemblance to Ricky Martin was hired as a part-time instructor in the department that I majored in. I never had any classes with him, but I heard from the head of the department that there was an elective course they’d considered dropping due to low enrollment over several years but as soon as Prof. Hottie took it over they had no problem packing the class. “We had to add a waiting list.”
At my old job I privately nicknamed the one reasonably attractive IT guy “Diet Coke Break” because whenever he came around the reaction he got from not only students but the other library employees reminded me of this famous commercial. And IMHO this guy wasn’t even all that good looking, more a young David Spade than a young Brad Pitt. But it seemed like everyone knew his name, and whenever he came into the library there’d be this chorus of “Hiiiiiiiiiii David!”
Ditto with my sister. She was never drop dead gorgeous, but she was attractive, had a great smile and made an effort to connect with people.
Once she complained about having trouble learning some piece of software at her job and I asked “Isn’t that the kind of problem you get help with by batting your eyes, sighing and asking all the men for help in your best Southern accent?”
And she said, “Oh honey, that was 50 pounds ago.”
In an odd sort of defense of men, if she tries her sexy ways those 50 pounds will just melt away and she will find the men sniffing around her like it was 1999. However, she should be prepared for the men to be older, just like she is.
Honestly, I think its more attitude and confidence. I know that I look good because I work at it. While I don’t want to disagree with such a smart person as Lamia, I have to disagree about my face. I look TERRIBLE in pictures. Seriously, I’m dog ass ugly if you look at my face when I’m not moving.
The default mode for me is to smile. My body language says that I’m happy as well. Happy, friendly people are more attractive than frowning unfriendly people.
I once saw the most drop-dead man ever and he was pouting. No attraction there. I did hit on his not so good looking, but happy and confident friend. That was a good weekend.
I think we can agree that a smile and the right attitude can turn a frog into a prince. I think we can also agree that it can be mighty hard to get some of our frog friends, or selves, to believe it and act on it.
Knew a woman–no great beauty and not as svelte as is fashionable, but loads of fun–who never lacked gentlemen callers. Her girlfriend was prettier, but not confident, and was jealous. She asked her secret.
“When I’m about to enter a party I unbutton another button on my blouse.”
“That’s easy for you. You have cleavage. I’m pretty flatchested.”
“Honey, it’s not what you have; it’s how you use it. Guys like to see a bit of skin, no matter how much is there. And smile and act like you own the place.”
Her father was the biggest tire distributor in some banana republic, so it was possible she did own the place, but “Money Can’t Buy Love, But It Can Buy Attention” is another thread.
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”
In the case of a woman I worked with, it was pathetic. Her innumerable stories would always include a line like “Well, there I was, cute as a bug’s ear, and this CEO of a Fortune 500 company just can’t stop drooling over my figure…”
That was an exact quote, and I hope you can hear the put-on Southern accent and the “sweet little debutante” voice.
One look at the weight and wrinkles and other detritus of too much Scotch and cigarettes, and you understood why she was living in the past.
Snipped. Way back then, I was shy and hated my face. Ugly and scared. I started pretending that I was beautiful and hawt and confident. After a while, the act wasn’t an act anymore. I AM beautiful and hawt and confident.
That scar from when I was tossed face first against a wall? It just adds character to my face now. The scars on my hands from doing rescue? I enjoy sharing the stories about how I got mangled by a declawed cat.
I’m beautiful in my mind and people react to that. My advice to anyone who thinks they are a frog is to fake it until its real. That’s what I did, and it works very well for me.