For my own benefit, there's a concept I want to bring up that has something to do with "how people look." Taking, for example, the times when I've heard pansexual folks point out that "they fall in love with the person -- not with the person's body" -- and as such (for example) aren't "hung up" on genitalia one way or another.
I propose we lay body type aside for a moment -- be it "ultra-thin" (skeletal), squishy, ripped, large, enormous, or whatever. In fact let's put nudity on hold for a moment and just consider people the way we usually see them every day, with their faces, arms, hands, legs, or what have you exposed/visible. What attracts one person to another person, anyway?
Well, at first it might be their "stunning face" or whatever tempting figure is apparent despite their apparel. Or, some other person might not look very interesting or might look a little oversized to some (not all; this is just an example). So, interest lost, moving on to the rest of the sea of faces and arms and clothing that characterizes so much of visible humanity.
Unless one gets to know another person. Take for example a person with a terribly disfigured face. It is often hard (or awkward at best) to look at such a person. But what if you get to know that person and find out they are a really cool person, and easy to get along with. Then suddenly their face doesn't scare you away like it did in the beginning. You take comfort in seeing them just as they are. It becomes symbolic of their personality.
On the other hand, you could fall in love with some hunk or gorgeous model, and then, upon getting to know them better, find out that they're not so attractive on the inside as they are on the outside. Yes, it's even possible they could turn out to be a hateful person? and if they do, then you no longer take comfort in seeing their beautiful/handsome face. You begin to rather dread seeing that face. That person's "apparent beauty" has been lost to you because of the terror you have experienced within that person.
In examining myself, I have to ask myself, why is it that this or that large person seemed attractive to me, but this or that other large person seemed repulsive to me, and made me want to run away? In fact, why do I have more of a problem with my own "largeness" than I do with most others' in my shoes? The concept I've been describing to you is the best explanation I've come up with so far. It tracks.
After all, I don't see myself as a great/desirable person, speaking of my personality. I usually "talk a good game" on the forum but in real life, I'm practically a non-functioning person. I live with deep stress and gloom most of the time. I have a history of terrible mood swings (finally lately controlled by meds -- I think). I've treated plenty of innocent people badly in my life -- frequently the very people that loved and supported me the most -- and I can't go back and fix that.
So I don't necessarily "like" myself as a person per se. I live with myself, having no choice about that, and make peace with the arrangement as best I can. But I feel like, that since I'm such an insecure and unworthy person, that I ought to have a "perfect body" to make up for it. Well, I don't have the perfect body, so score yet another point against me and what I'm worth. I have mixed feelings about the person I see in the mirror. I know he struggles to be of some help to some people, but I can also see that he's barely holding it together ... and that he doesn't like himself like he should. Why should he like his body if he doesn't like his personality?
Now, my out-of-line jokes are more complicated than I made them sound, because the people "sharing too much information about their bodies" were also people who were really hard to get along with. My parents were always very rigid and tempermental. My mother was extremely critical, of virtually everything I (and my siblings) did. She was physically abusive to all of her kids. So seeing her at all was always an unpleasant experience. It almost always meant we were in trouble. We were in for it. You see, when someone is so vindictive toward another someone, that other someone is going to hope to see less of that person, not more. A person who harbors a hostile ugliness within, teaches persons on the outside to not see that person's natural physical beauty anymore. The most beautiful face in the world can be frightening to see.
So yes, add to that "Mom in the nude" and as an already-traumatized kid, you just feel like, "Oh, I did not need to see that."
As for the person in the waterskiing incident, she had a personality that made my mom look like a saint in comparison. She wasn't just a "bad" or a "mad" person, she was an insane person, with sharply shifting personality traits and a jealousy over the man she had married that surely knows no equal. It was my oldest brother, the gentlest person I ever knew, who she married, and she constantly psychologically and verbally abused him, as well as deeply resented the good relationship he had with his brothers. He was essentially her prisoner. He was rarely or never allowed to see his family.
Given the way she treated virtually everyone around her, especially my brother's siblings, she didn't make many friends. People tolerated her company. They didn't see her as beautiful. They saw some nasty, raging stuff lurking under the giggly surface. So seeing even more of her physical appearance wasn't exactly what people were hoping for. Had she been a likeable person, I think she would have been seen in a very different light during that waterskiing trip.
As it is my family's dubious habit to make fun of everyone including themselves, dealing out nicknames has been like their sign of affection. One of my younger brothers originally nicknamed this sister-in-law I speak of "the gentle giant" when he first met her. That was the vibe she gave off in the beginning. Then the darker side of her psyche emerged, and my younger brother adjusted her nickname to "the not-so-gentle giant." As good as her self-image was, she didn't look very good to other people at that point.
My siblings and I tended to crouch in the basement when my mom was rampaging about the house. She instilled a sense of terror in us, and we coped dysfunctionally by making fun of all the crazy things she did. This, I believe, was the genesis was of our tendency to carelessly disrespect various select individuals, and come off as if we are insulting a whole group. I guess you could say I'm still in the process of learning that you can't talk that way to people in the adult world.
The principle, though, remains. Personality has much to do with the beauty in the eye of the beholder, once that beholder has gotten to know the person in question. So it really depends who we're talking about who I would have been likely to "joke" about. If someone had hurt/tormented me at some point in my life, my learned tendency might be to find any little petty thing I could pick at them for. If they didn't have any extra pounds I could make fun of, I'm sure I'd find something else.
Or I could just put aside the dysfunctional coping mechanisms of childhood, and adopt a respectful attitude towards people of all shapes and sizes, no matter how I personally experienced their appearance. That doesn't mean that unpleasant people would start looking pleasant to me. It just means I'd stop picking on them (as a warped way to try to distract my own mind). And maybe it would mean that I'd stop assuming all those beautiful movie stars must be great people through-and-through.
The best, most lasting romances I ever heard of, were always ones where the persons involved began to look better and better (more and more attractive) to each other over time. I think that's what happens when you learn to love someone as a person. You learn to love their looks more than you ever expected to.
I propose we lay body type aside for a moment -- be it "ultra-thin" (skeletal), squishy, ripped, large, enormous, or whatever. In fact let's put nudity on hold for a moment and just consider people the way we usually see them every day, with their faces, arms, hands, legs, or what have you exposed/visible. What attracts one person to another person, anyway?
Well, at first it might be their "stunning face" or whatever tempting figure is apparent despite their apparel. Or, some other person might not look very interesting or might look a little oversized to some (not all; this is just an example). So, interest lost, moving on to the rest of the sea of faces and arms and clothing that characterizes so much of visible humanity.
Unless one gets to know another person. Take for example a person with a terribly disfigured face. It is often hard (or awkward at best) to look at such a person. But what if you get to know that person and find out they are a really cool person, and easy to get along with. Then suddenly their face doesn't scare you away like it did in the beginning. You take comfort in seeing them just as they are. It becomes symbolic of their personality.
On the other hand, you could fall in love with some hunk or gorgeous model, and then, upon getting to know them better, find out that they're not so attractive on the inside as they are on the outside. Yes, it's even possible they could turn out to be a hateful person? and if they do, then you no longer take comfort in seeing their beautiful/handsome face. You begin to rather dread seeing that face. That person's "apparent beauty" has been lost to you because of the terror you have experienced within that person.
In examining myself, I have to ask myself, why is it that this or that large person seemed attractive to me, but this or that other large person seemed repulsive to me, and made me want to run away? In fact, why do I have more of a problem with my own "largeness" than I do with most others' in my shoes? The concept I've been describing to you is the best explanation I've come up with so far. It tracks.
After all, I don't see myself as a great/desirable person, speaking of my personality. I usually "talk a good game" on the forum but in real life, I'm practically a non-functioning person. I live with deep stress and gloom most of the time. I have a history of terrible mood swings (finally lately controlled by meds -- I think). I've treated plenty of innocent people badly in my life -- frequently the very people that loved and supported me the most -- and I can't go back and fix that.
So I don't necessarily "like" myself as a person per se. I live with myself, having no choice about that, and make peace with the arrangement as best I can. But I feel like, that since I'm such an insecure and unworthy person, that I ought to have a "perfect body" to make up for it. Well, I don't have the perfect body, so score yet another point against me and what I'm worth. I have mixed feelings about the person I see in the mirror. I know he struggles to be of some help to some people, but I can also see that he's barely holding it together ... and that he doesn't like himself like he should. Why should he like his body if he doesn't like his personality?
Now, my out-of-line jokes are more complicated than I made them sound, because the people "sharing too much information about their bodies" were also people who were really hard to get along with. My parents were always very rigid and tempermental. My mother was extremely critical, of virtually everything I (and my siblings) did. She was physically abusive to all of her kids. So seeing her at all was always an unpleasant experience. It almost always meant we were in trouble. We were in for it. You see, when someone is so vindictive toward another someone, that other someone is going to hope to see less of that person, not more. A person who harbors a hostile ugliness within, teaches persons on the outside to not see that person's natural physical beauty anymore. The most beautiful face in the world can be frightening to see.
So yes, add to that "Mom in the nude" and as an already-traumatized kid, you just feel like, "Oh, I did not need to see that."
As for the person in the waterskiing incident, she had a personality that made my mom look like a saint in comparison. She wasn't just a "bad" or a "mad" person, she was an insane person, with sharply shifting personality traits and a jealousy over the man she had married that surely knows no equal. It was my oldest brother, the gentlest person I ever knew, who she married, and she constantly psychologically and verbally abused him, as well as deeply resented the good relationship he had with his brothers. He was essentially her prisoner. He was rarely or never allowed to see his family.
Given the way she treated virtually everyone around her, especially my brother's siblings, she didn't make many friends. People tolerated her company. They didn't see her as beautiful. They saw some nasty, raging stuff lurking under the giggly surface. So seeing even more of her physical appearance wasn't exactly what people were hoping for. Had she been a likeable person, I think she would have been seen in a very different light during that waterskiing trip.
As it is my family's dubious habit to make fun of everyone including themselves, dealing out nicknames has been like their sign of affection. One of my younger brothers originally nicknamed this sister-in-law I speak of "the gentle giant" when he first met her. That was the vibe she gave off in the beginning. Then the darker side of her psyche emerged, and my younger brother adjusted her nickname to "the not-so-gentle giant." As good as her self-image was, she didn't look very good to other people at that point.
My siblings and I tended to crouch in the basement when my mom was rampaging about the house. She instilled a sense of terror in us, and we coped dysfunctionally by making fun of all the crazy things she did. This, I believe, was the genesis was of our tendency to carelessly disrespect various select individuals, and come off as if we are insulting a whole group. I guess you could say I'm still in the process of learning that you can't talk that way to people in the adult world.
The principle, though, remains. Personality has much to do with the beauty in the eye of the beholder, once that beholder has gotten to know the person in question. So it really depends who we're talking about who I would have been likely to "joke" about. If someone had hurt/tormented me at some point in my life, my learned tendency might be to find any little petty thing I could pick at them for. If they didn't have any extra pounds I could make fun of, I'm sure I'd find something else.
Or I could just put aside the dysfunctional coping mechanisms of childhood, and adopt a respectful attitude towards people of all shapes and sizes, no matter how I personally experienced their appearance. That doesn't mean that unpleasant people would start looking pleasant to me. It just means I'd stop picking on them (as a warped way to try to distract my own mind). And maybe it would mean that I'd stop assuming all those beautiful movie stars must be great people through-and-through.
The best, most lasting romances I ever heard of, were always ones where the persons involved began to look better and better (more and more attractive) to each other over time. I think that's what happens when you learn to love someone as a person. You learn to love their looks more than you ever expected to.