Human Beauty:

The Guilty Pleasure

Dylan Michael Douglas

I love to look at a beautiful face. Of any age, of any sex. There, I’ve said it.  Rather, I’ve confessed.

For I feel considerable guilt about this. Unlike the beauty of a painting or building, the beauty of a human face is mainly a genetic fluke. It’s the ultimate unfair advantage, conferred at random.

Or, mainly at random. You will not be surprised to learn that Dylan Michael Douglas, the son of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, is insanely goodlooking (his image inspired these musings).

I don’t even like to watch a movie where none of the leads is attractive.

In the genetic lottery, lifelong good health is surely a more important win, especially in the later years. Earlier, though, beauty confers so many advantages . . . it just isn’t fair! It announces itself to friends and strangers alike, and makes The Beauty (male or female) the center of attention just by walking into a room or boarding a bus.

Yes, being chic, even without beauty, also draws attention. But you are looking at the clothes, not the person. With a beautiful person, you might like to see them with fewer clothes on. One man tells me that whenever he sees a goodlooking woman, he imagines her naked. I’m not sure how common this is, but no woman has told me she looks at a dude and imagines him nude!

The Beauty is likelier to get hired and will make more money over a lifetime. The Beauty will have more romantic opportunities, to put it blandly. (To put it crudely, everybody wants to fuck them.) The Beauty just compels the eye: you cannot look away. Only beauty has that power.

Think of all the people who’ve fallen in love at first sight! What are they drawn to? Beauty, or how they perceive it. Luckily, within every culture there are people who are drawn to different types.

I was recently at Sagaponack Beach with my husband. We were looking for a place to lay down our blanket, and the best site, overlooking the surf, happened to be near two exquisite young women in bikinis. Perfectly tanned, in tiny suits, they lay on their backs, catching the sun “Is this place all right?” I asked my husband, expecting some reaction to this display. “Yeah, fine,” he said. He set up his chair and began to read.

Now these women were so beautiful I wanted to jump them, and I’m not gay, so I couldn’t help asking him, “What do you think about them?” He gave a glance. “Young,” he said, and returned to his reading. Because they were only about eighteen, he was utterly indifferent to their charms!

Thank goodness people have widely different conceptions of beauty! And fortunately, there are different cultural standards. Preferred breast and bottom size, for instance, varies considerably from one country to another. And beauty standards also vary from one era to another, with straight hair widely preferred for the past fifty years, and wavy hair popular now.

Naturally, many of us try to conform to the latest beauty style, while others retain their own classic look. Both strategies take effort. Perhaps I could assuage my guilt at liking to look at beautiful faces by considering the discipline and art that went into them. But this is hard to do, because often (though not always) the effort is intended to be unnoticeable.

No one meets a stranger and thinks, admiringly, “That’s a great face job!” No, it’s more likely you just want to talk to that handsome man, to see if he’s interesting, too.

Oddly enough, we are usually happier being praised for what comes naturally, say, the color of our eyes, than what we worked hard to achieve, say, the color of our hair. Our natural self seems more authentic; we value it more, and we like it to be complimented.

I’m not a “lookist”: I don’t think naturally goodlooking people are more intelligent, nor of better character. They certainly aren’t happier. Just consider Marilyn Monroe or Margaux Hemingway, Heath Ledger or River Phoenix. It’s probably best to be attractive, but not professionally so. Really gorgeous women, like Demi Moore, are harassed to keep thin and keep taut, well into their sixties.

I do see a nugget of hope for me, a way to stop beating myself up about being drawn to pretty faces, even now, as an elder. Lately, as I get to know someone, I often find them becoming more attractive. How come I never noticed how the light falls on their hair, or how their waist is slim?

As we become better friends, I hope they find me more beautiful, too.