[QUOTE=Cat Fight]
Uh, this?
Should I be worried about not being pretty enough to get hired as office dressing or do I have to work not to come across as ‘too pretty’ and therefore needy?
[/QUOTE]
I’d say don’t worry about it, period. It’s the trying-way-too-hard, overly made-up/dressed-up artificiality that screams some sort of mental pathology (to me, anyway), not what you look like as a matter of course or personal taste.
I don’t know who said it… “No matter how good looking a worman is, somewhere, someone is sick of her shit.”
[QUOTE=Enright3]
I don’t know who said it… “No matter how good looking a worman is, somewhere, someone is sick of her shit.”
[/QUOTE]
Apart from anyone else, astro did in post #7. 
Mutatis mutandis, I like looking at cute guys even when I know that there’s no chance of my getting with them and even when I would have no interest in even trying. Even if I’m completely having a “no sex drive” day, a cute guy can walk past and I’m like, “Wow, cute guy.”
[QUOTE=DianaG]
I know you’ll catch some shit for this, Sage Rat, but for what it’s worth, I agree. Of course, I’m a woman, and as nice pretty things to cheer me up go, I prefer interns to flowers. 
Seriously though… why the outrage at the idea that men enjoy looking at us? I enjoy looking at men. Some men purely because they’re aesthetically pleasing, and others that are definitely going in the “spank bank”. So what? How does that hurt them?
[/QUOTE]
The analogy is not a good one–flowers are around only for their aesthetic value, and presumably professional women are supposed to be there for their actual value and contribution to the company. To say men allow them to be around the same way women bring in flowers is faulty (I hope).
I’m not a pretty girl so I don’t have this problem, and can probably assume that my contribution is real and not aesthetic. But when it leads to women being fired for not wearing make-up or fulfilling some aesthetic ideal a company has for its image (the attractive receptionist stereotype), it’s creepy.
[QUOTE=astro]
There is some old joke referencing the relative value of beauty stating that even if you were able to identify the most gorgeous woman in the world it is virtually guaranteed that nearby is a man who is fed up with her shit.
[/QUOTE]
Illustrated:
http://www.friedmansconsulting.com/JPG%20-%20No%20Matter%20How%20Good%20She%20Looks.jpg
Kind of like, “Behind every great man stands a woman who is rolling her eyes.”
Illustrated:
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=gigi]
The analogy is not a good one–flowers are around only for their aesthetic value, and presumably professional women are supposed to be there for their actual value and contribution to the company. To say men allow them to be around the same way women bring in flowers is faulty (I hope)..
[/QUOTE]
Flowers also smell good- they’re multitalented.
I work at a University. I considered seeing pretty women as part of the benefits package.
[QUOTE=gigi]
The analogy is not a good one–flowers are around only for their aesthetic value
[/QUOTE]
The OP is about whether looking at women can get tiresome. For talking about looking, aesthetics is all we need be concerned with.
I will say that men are significantly happier when it isn’t a 100% male office. In the software industry you get a lot of all-male offices because there’s not a lot of female programmers. But if men hired just for the sake of eye candy, I can say for certain that several of the companies I worked for wouldn’t have been 100% male because it really does become rather depressing to work like that. My boss wouldn’t have made the above comment if it wasn’t for the known quantity factor of working in the computer industry. It’s commented on openly (and rather sadly.)
[QUOTE=DianaG]
I wish that someday someone would help me to understand what is inherently demeaning about being found sexually attractive.
[/QUOTE]
[tangent that may be ignored] I think it’s because a lot of people on this board are borderline Gnostics. There is a tendency for posters to value mental and emotional aspects while debasing the value of physicality. Whether this is done for self-esteem reasons or out of a legitimate belief system is hard to tell. It’s just one of the many inconsistencies with modern sexuality, like the woman who spends hours dolling herself up everyday and then complains that men only love her for her looks. Not that men aren’t just as guilty (disclaimer to cover my ass). [/ttmbi]
Bah.
I’d give my left testicle to be viewed as a sex object.
In my mind, I’m a sexy beast. In reality I’m more of just a beast.
[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Well put.
Male sexuality, especially the part wired to the eyeballs, is useless, stupid, and annoying.
Yeah, how useful to be inspired to lust that strongly for someone I don’t know, just because she looks nice. For dozens of such someones per day, in fact. Who the hell designed this?
[/QUOTE]
Mother Nature.
We be the bees, they be the flowers. We try to pollinate the hell out of as many of them as we can.
Or something like that.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Apart from anyone else, astro did in post #7.
[/QUOTE]
aww crap! I hate it when that happens.
[QUOTE=Madd Maxx]
If later you could rub your tongue and make it feel kinda like eating a chocolate cake this analogy would be closer.
[/QUOTE]
And the original Diogenes The Cynic is credited with just such an analogy.
[mode=grumpy cynic]You noticed that bit about “sick and tired of putting up with her shit?”. This is Nature’s way of ensuring that, despite all that, we don’t just tune 'em out. Those of us who do have been less successful in passing on our genes.[/mode]
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Bah.
I’d give my left testicle to be viewed as a sex object.
[/QUOTE]
I have one vivid memory from my early 20s, when I was lifting weights and was basically one ferocious, studly warrior. A woman in a Porsche drove by (maybe about 20 yards away) and she actually did a double take! Given that there was nothing behind me (other than trees and a parking lot), I know it was because of my studly visage. Just the one time.
(Please don’t tell me that women do double takes when they see trees).
Strawman with chocolate frosting: We’re hard-wired to pay a lot of attention to women who can bear children, and various aspects of pretty women give us these clues. It would be difficult for us to have a hard-wired response to chocolate cake, since it doesn’t occur naturally. However, now that we’ve evolved so much, we may encourage the evolution of chocolate cake trees, basically by repeatedly ripping out the rhubarb pie trees to make room for the chocolate cake seedlings, but this may take a few thousand years.
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
[tangent that may be ignored] There is a tendency for posters to value mental and emotional aspects while debasing the value of physicality. Whether this is done for self-esteem reasons or out of a legitimate belief system is hard to tell. [/ttmbi]
[/QUOTE]
For me it’s both. Being unattractive I learned young that the value placed on the beauty of others is often taken advantage of, and spending ones time chasing beauty is a fools errand. Only time taught me to see the beauty of ones heart, and how much more important it is to seek that, than that which is fleeting at best.
As we are communicating without the distraction of looks it is easy to see there are some of the most beautiful people I have ever spoken to right here.
You know who you are.
Mostly to my bud Omegaman. I can call you that right? 
Yeah, it’s important to set your priorities straight, but my point was that sometimes I think posters here desire to be disembodied, floating brains. Like on Futurama. To me that sounds like a ‘very bad thing.’ ([religion]God wanted us to have bodies ya know?[/religion]
A couple more thoughts about this general topic: