My Complex Relationship with Beauty

Binder
8 min readJun 30, 2019

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Photo by me: Lillies are so Beautiful!

I believe I was twelve when a new boy at my school called me beautiful for the first time. The first of many internal explorations into what beauty meant to me. I’ve been called that many times since, with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. I won’t lie. I feel comfortable in my skin and have for quite some time. Commodification of beauty was never an appealing concept for me. I never sought attention or leveraged my looks to gain favor. If I were to hazard a guess I suspect that being attractive might even fall into the net negative category. Being a private person you tend to want to fly under the radar. For me beauty is simply the lottery of genetics. It’s not something you earn. Beauty is not an accolade to be lauded.

As I get older, there is a passing into crone-hood, I can reflect and hopefully pass on my knowledge to younger women who are struggling with their own perceptions of beauty. Particularly women of color who might have had similar experiences. There are a multitude of ways women can relate to men, other women, sexuality and desire. I write this as much for my kids as for myself. While I can happily joke about my age, I’m cognizant of all the present moment has to offer me. Aging brings experience, self acceptance and a sense of freedom that only comes with time.

I realize just as with art, there is a desire to be around objects of beauty. Sometimes, that object or piece of art is a person. Dehumanizing or objectifying someone based on visual cues is very easy to do. We all have at some point coveted, or deeply desired something or someone not understanding the underpinnings of our motivations. I will admit to being an admirer of both men and women. Beautiful people are fun to watch, beautiful and kind people even more so. While I’m very careful not to form judgements until I hear the contents of someone’s mind, it can be fine line. It is well documented that society attributes positive traits to good looking people long before we know what they truly are about. I could be a beautiful criminal mastermind and people would let me get away with murder.

The male gaze can be infinitely flattering when the feelings are mutually reciprocated. It can also be extremely disturbing when a clueless man just can’t take a hint or read body language well. All women have these stories. Boundaries are violated, eyes linger a little too long where they shouldn’t. Sometimes it happens in professional environments, sometimes with other people’s wives or husbands. This is where I need to explore my own bias. I’ve been guilty of admiring a woman with a great figure, sense of style, or picturesque features. (I promise I’m not trying to titillate, I’m really striving for honesty.) Beauty is pleasing to my eye. I’ve admired a woman with a great ass and fantastic cleavage as well. Subtly, oh so subtly. Not salivating like an animal, but with the respect we all deserve. Many women instinctively know when men (and women) find them attractive. Some people are absolutely magnetic, full of charisma, having their own gravitational pull. They often fall into a exclusive category of magical creatures. It’s so easy to be enamored with someone like this.

This is where things get difficult. My husband of twenty years is an attractive man and certainly not asexual by any stretch of the imagination. When he surveys a woman (I know him like the back of my hand), I believe he does it in the same way I do, respectfully and with admiration. I know his weakness is a killer smile. When people smile with their eyes, there is a glow of kindness to them. The situation becomes truly perplexing when a woman is not threatened or made uncomfortable by my attention but is by his. Our admiration of a person’s beauty is the same. Our intentions both utterly honorable. The person receiving those attentions gets to decide his/her level of comfort. This situation is purely hypothetical but I have been on the receiving end of it.

Here is the grey area I’ve navigated all my life. Margaret Atwood has a great quote about this very dynamic:

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

There are several layers to the complexities of being objectified by a man. What makes one man smell safe while another man screams serial killer? I’m deliberately using the vast spectrum of ‘harmless’ to full on ‘creepy’. It’s still surprising to me that even with all the milestones women reach daily this one is hard to navigate. Being moderately attractive, intelligent and opinionated seems to either warrant the attention of trophy hunters, or type ‘A’ over achievers. Oh yes, and don’t forget the “you should know your place and should be flattered by my attention.” Because even after all these years of dealing with men like this I should fade into obscurity and wither while being burnt at the stake for expressing myself. Gen ‘x’ might be the first generation where middle aged women are acceptably ‘hot as fuck’. I think that as a result there are a lot of bizarre interactions and inter generational bullshit where the code of conduct has become blurred. Young men are obviously attracted to women my age but with a combination of confusion, trepidation and fear.

We all want to be attractive to our partners. Heck, it’s still nice to respectfully be checked out by men half my age. Being desired can be the start of a flirtation, awesome conversation, can even just be a mutual acknowledgement of chemistry that can be enjoyed in the moment without any expectation. Moments that lead nowhere romantically but stick in your memories for years. That women with the fantastic smile you met fleetingly one magical evening or the guy with the kindest blue eyes you’d ever seen. After twenty years of marriage I cherish these things. Beautiful for me often comes from more than aesthetics. Kindness, intelligence, quiet strength and humility make people incredibly attractive and unconventionally beautiful.

It’s interesting to experience attraction and how people receive my looks over time. Growing up, my parents and several well intentioned relatives often told me my height and light skin were desirable and to be found beautiful by Indian standards. I could do well in my choice of mates as a result. Lucky me! Not that I bought into that because growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood ‘Italian’ or blond haired and blue eyed were desirable.

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada. There was a mild tension in the city growing up that didn’t really translate well into dating. First wave immigrants weren’t wholly welcomed and I remember being six and on a bus with my parents when I first understood what racism was. All I knew was that there was a family that didn’t want to be near us. I just didn’t understand why until much later. Having been taught to be open by my parents, I was attracted to whoever I pleased. Mixed filipino, Caucasian, Indian, you name it. I like men. The reciprocal hasn’t been the case. There was a weird dynamic amongst white men (and several other ethnicities) that seems to be dwindling with time as interracial dating and marriages become ever so common. Admiration with a mixture of fear and perhaps some latent hunger to check off a list of exploits. A curiosity that kind of says “look but don’t date”. Sexualize, fantasize about but do not treat like an actually functioning human being complete with her own desires, intellect and world views. Dignity and respect are not mutually exclusive from sexual attraction.

I’ve been in several countries where people ask to play the guessing game of my heritage. Hispanic, Lebanese, Egyptian, Italian…I’m sure I’m leaving a few out. Over the years I’ve discovered that for a certain kind of man there is an allure to women deemed ‘exotic’. I’m laughing out loud as I type this because fetishizing women of color, especially women that don’t quite fit an obvious category is truly ‘a thing’.

The heart wants what the heart wants. I met a man that fits me very well. He happens to be white. Being in an interracial marriage has been an eye opener on its own terms. Bringing with it lessons, bones of contention and compromises that I could not have anticipated. I was the second member of my extended family to enter into a mixed marriage. There is an obvious double standard with respect to men and women. (Bet you didn’t see that coming!) It was much more acceptable for my male cousins to marry a white woman than for me to marry a white man. For twenty years I’ve gotten odd comments, stares and more than casual curiosity as to how we became a couple. Thank goodness we are much less a public oddity than we once were. It took a lot of time for the world to start catching up.

I struggle sometimes in my desire to be fair. My past is colored with marks of racism and a mixture of desire/belittlement for my physical appearance from men. A body that has served me beautifully over the years that I cherish because of what it can do not how it looks. My partner and I have discussions ad nauseum about how people react to him as a white male and how people react to me as Indian female. While I love his beautiful brain, sensitivity and compassion, it can be a mind fuck to get through to a person that hasn’t experienced the kind of bewildering slow-wittedness of catcalling, ogling, racial gender politics, entrenched privilege and just generalized ignorant assholic behavior. These are the moments when I want an invisibility cloak to be free to roam the world without intrusion.

Over the years I’ve learned that other people sometimes see me as an appendage to my husband. When I’m well spoken, funny and a joy to be around, I’m his greatest asset. When a subject I’m passionate about rears it’s head in conversation I’m called aggressive, intimidating, tough or crazy. Navigating smart and attractive while getting a point across tactfully has been a painful endeavor. I’m perceived ‘white’ enough to blend in with exception of my name of course but not quite ‘white’ enough to be accepted as an equal. Invite her for book clubs and to enhance your repertoire of friends but don't dig much deeper than that.

To have the pleasure of being desirable company makes me feel much more beautiful when it’s for my wit, brain, character and sense of humor. I’m me. A foot in two cultures by birth, forever growing after marriage, children and living in several cities. The world seems to becoming smaller daily. Communication of ideas, the growth of my mind at all ages and meeting each other as whole humans is what helps me thrive. The raw power of person to person connection. That is what I truly find beautiful.

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Binder
Binder

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