Looking at Lookism

SOULFULLY GAY

By Joe Perez

You walk into a crowded bar and a dozen heads turn your way. In an instant, most of the men’s eyes avert. But some eyes continue to watch. They check out your clothes, face, body, and crotch. Looks are everything.

A while later, you are cruising through the bar. You are enchanted by one man’s delicious bedroom eyes and another’s hairy, rippling chest. You make a note of the cuties and hotties that you want to get to know better. Ah, you say, thank heaven for beauty!

Although this experience is a common one for gay men, the desire for beauty is suspect. Some say that admiring beauty is unjust or demeaning, and others say that it’s anti-spiritual. What is the truth about beauty?

The American Heritage dictionary defines lookism as “discrimination or prejudice against people based on their appearance.” Lookism includes thinking less of a person whose appearance is less than ideal, or thinking more of a person because of how he looks.

Or as bianca’s Lesbian Lexicon (bianca.com/shack/bedroom/lesbian.html) puts it: “Lookism: dykes are not supposed to judge potential partners on looks because it is unfair and in poor taste.”

In The Beauty Myth, feminist Naomi Wolf went so far as to claim that the hunger for beauty is a pathological product of mass media and advertising. The pursuit of beauty is a distraction from more worthwhile causes. Nothing is to be considered beautiful unless everything is to be seen as equally beautiful in its own way.

Although the egalitarian impulse of these critics is a fine one, their admonitions against admiring beauty fly in the face of reality. The impulse to treat people differently because of their looks is an essential part of our sexuality and the way of the world.

Because the battle against lookism is as hopelessly absurd as a battle against human nature itself, lookism has never joined other -isms such as racism and sexism to be taken seriously in the cultural mindset.

It isn’t mean, nasty, or unjust to admire the beauty in some people more than others. However, it can definitely be wrong to act on that admiration inappropriately.

According to researchers in Texas and Michigan, attractive employees are paid 10 percent more than unattractive counterparts for the same work and experience. Pulchritude has also been documented as impacting experiences in schools, homes, courtrooms, and encounters with police.

If lookism is seen as an injustice in society and not as a problem with how people judge potential sexual or romantic partners, then it gains in credibility. Still, battling lookism poses difficult problems. Do we sue Abercrombie and Fitch for discriminating against unattractive fashion models? How do we deal effectively with a prejudice that most agree is a largely unconscious phenomenon?

Admiring beauty is not only attacked as politically correct, but philosophically or spiritually incorrect. Some critics say that it’s wrong to look at a beautiful thing because it turns it into an object that we feel superior to. Other critics say that it’s wrong to lust after a hot guy because this is a “clinging” or “attachment” that turns us away from the pursuit of enlightenment.

I think there’s some truth to these concerns about beauty, but the truth needs to be carefully separated from the falsehood.

I agree with the general idea that there are higher and lower ways of admiring a beautiful thing and that some ways are more superficial than others. It is possible to admire a hot guy based only on his body. It is also possible to admire a hot guy based on his body, heart, mind, and soul. It’s much more satisfying to see beauty that’s beyond skin deep.

Many human interactions start with the superficial and get more complex from there. The gay community offers many opportunities for admiring superficial levels of beauty: underwear night at bars, nude beaches, sexually explicit Web sites, etc. These sorts of interactions frequently involve objectifying other persons … and turning ourselves into sex objects.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a tanned, gorgeous man in a snug pair of white boxer briefs. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that we are feeding our soul anything more than eye candy. To truly satisfy our soul’s hunger for beauty, we have to go deeper.

The Christian mystic Simone Weil claimed that in this life the only way finite human beings can perceive the infinite Spirit is through beauty. Every time we respond to beauty in another human being or in the world around us, we are opening ourselves to God.

This is why the quest for beauty is so paradoxical. The beauty our soul seeks in a beautiful object cannot be possessed, because it’s the infinitely beautiful Source that is the true object of our desire.

That’s why I mostly disagree with those critics who say that beauty is an “attachment” that turns us away from the true goal of spirituality. Longing for beauty doesn’t take us away from the mystical, but towards greater and higher states of being.

The desire for beautiful objects can become a distraction to spiritual growth if the lustful appetites are fixated merely on superficial levels of beauty instead of wanting to admire beauty in all its many dimensions. In other words, the problem arises when we are invited to life’s banquet and we starve to death because we only ate the “eye candy” and not the delicious banquet.

That’s the error and truth in lookism, as I see it. I don’t think that beauty is merely in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is in the eye, heart, mind, and soul of the beholder. As we grow in spirituality, we begin to see beauty where before we saw none.

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“Soulfully Gay” is a bi-weekly column that explores spirituality and culture from a gay man’s perspective. Joe has studied philosophy and comparative religion at Harvard University. For more writings, visit Joe’s Web site at joe-perez.com.

Comments

[Darryl]

I wonder whether beauty is in the eye of the beholder or on the other hand whether beauty is the eye of the beholder? To me the perception, appreciation and seeking of beauty is the essence of Spirit, no matter whether we understand that beauty in terms of physical, intellectual, spiritual or any other attributes.

Boundary setting, boundary riding and comparison of people on measures that relate to those boundaries, on the other hand, are by definition objectifying and discriminatory and are more typical of religiosity than spirituality. If we seek to objectify beauty and use it as a boundary or any kind, we will experience this as discriminatory, no matter from which direction we look. To me this is akin to idolatry and the objectifying of Spirit or God.

What is the issue? Lustful glances in a bar. Spending life looking at “eye candy”? The bigger ethical and spiritual question for me is why we should allow our religious, business, political and social leadership, gay brindle or indifferent, to escape our condemnation for their promulgation of predetermined boundaries around beauty of all sorts and their prescriptions on how we should value it and enjoy it.

[Joe Perez]

Darryl,

I really like what you say about beauty being the eye of the beholder. Great formulation.

You lose me on the comparison of objectifying a beautiful object to (a) boundary setting/religiosity, and (b) idolatry, though. As a panentheist, I have a problem with a notion of idolatry that problemitizes the appreciation of a beautiful object as such. I don't think it's wrong or idolatrous to objectify a thing (that is, admire the beauty of something in itself)... however, as I make clear in the column, nor do I see objectification as one of the higher forms of appreciating beauty that is possible and desirable to achieve. And as for the comparison of objectification to religiosity, I try to avoid the widespread generalization that religiosity is bad and spirituality is good; spirituality can be bad at least as often as religion and vice versa, as I see it.

Lustful glances in a bar *is* an issue for those who hold such glances as sinful, idolatrous, and so forth. Specifically, the issue of picking out some people as more physically beautiful than others (lookism). It's also an issue in the feminist critique of beauty, as the quote from bianca's Lesbian Lexicon makes clear. I think a spiritual approach to beauty that acknowledges different qualitative levels of appreciation of beauty is the best way to acknowledge the truth in lookism while rejecting its baggage.

I'd like to hear more about your concerns with the "promulgation of predetermined boundaries around beauty of all sorts" ... the issue is very tricky for just as soon as we start attacking say Abercrombie and Fitch for their idealizing images of male beauty we run into the problem that their packaging of beauty sells, and a lawsuit to force A&F to hire average looking fashion models would be ridiculous. It's a tough issue and I'd love to hear ideas on how it can be tackled.

[William]

Great article, I'm realy interested now in exploring this website in more depth. Im 18 and an out gay college student in SF. I have been one to criticize the superficiality in the community, and somehow, it became contagious and I in a way became like that. But i am trying to make the effort to see more than waht meets the eye. I agree that it is a distraction to oneself, either concern in the way U look, or OTHERS, a distraction to growing intellectualy and spiritually as a person. Its terrible how poeple are treated differently based on their looks. WOuldnt it be great if the lights could be turned out? The gay community seems soo fixated on appearance, from CLUBS, to bars, to walking down the street and being stared at by guys. So why is it more superficial than the heterosexual community? Or is it? I think the gay community is much more competitive. Rather than a man looking for a woman, he cannot compare his body, his looks, to that of a woman. But in the gay community were all men, meaning, we all are in the same race to look better than the guy to our left and right. ITs a lot of pressure to be under.

[lookism]

there are some texts and informations about lookism.

[John]

this is a great topic, so I'm coming back from a summer concert here in town tonight, and seems this very issue is eating me up, seems the want, hunger, thirst dries up my soul, but you can't shake it, can only re-direct it, it's not enough to just look at, when I ache to touch, feel, smell, taste and be that, him. It's bad enough to be so envious in a straight crowd, it's not just his body, but his girlfriend can lay her head on his shoulder or caress his back or smile sweetley at him, ok, so it hurts enough that I can't enjoy those moments, seems some good looking enough boys could make a stab at it, if not for me then send in the hot boys, maybe they can lay down the foundation for the rest, the public at large would probably rather see? well, I can't think of two hot famous gay guys, how about Johnny Depp and Keanu, instead of Bruce Valanch and Jack McFarland? Why don't you hot boys make yourself usefull and for the rest of us...what's the difference between hot and fit? In rugby fit is a plainly used term, he or she is in good physical condition, able bodied, fit, isn't healthism, ok not a real word, tied into lookism, whether unconscious or conscious, isn't our eye trying to find the most ripe one?