Pulchritude Privilege

 

Have you ever noticed that when you’re making your way down the aisle on your way to your seat in coach, the passengers in first class seem to be more attractive than you are?  (On a recent trip to Paris, I took the photo below of the guy sitting next to me, fairly typical of the people in coach.)

What’s the deal?  What are all of these attractive people doing in first class?  Perhaps it’s a vanity thing.  Maybe attractive people like to watch, and be envied by, the plebes who wrestle with their bags on their way to the back of the plane.

Nah, that’s not it.  After doing a bit of research, here’s what I found:  Attractive people make more money than the rest of us, so they apparently spend some of their discretionary income to ride in first class.

Pulchritude privilege!

A researcher for Smithsonian Magazine found that handsome men earn 13% more than unattractive ones.  In fact, the income gap between attractive and unattractive people, according to Smithsonian, is comparable to the gap between genders or ethnicities.

Pulchritude privilege!

Even a cursory search on Google reveals a plethora of studies that show that attractive people have a distinct and unfair advantage over unattractive people.  They are happier, more self-confident, and have more friends.

Pulchritude privilege!

They’re even smarter. According to a study done in the United Kingdom, attractive people have IQ’s, on average, that are 12.4 points higher than unattractive people. (That’s kinda weird, isn’t it?)

Pulchritude, etc.

I’ve long thought that physical attractiveness is the most powerful advantage one can have.  White privilege?  That’s so last month.  This month, if you’re going to remain au courant, you need to accuse handsome people of flaunting their pulchritude privilege.  Tell them — now where have I heard this? — to check their privilege at the door.

So how does one decide who is attractive and who is not?  The easiest way is to show photos of random people to a wide range of viewers.  Let these viewers sort them out by asking them who is attractive.

Some aestheticians argue that attractive people project the appearance of health.  That is, they have symmetrical features, clear skin, lucid eyes, and straight teeth.

Finally, according to the golden ratio (1.62), an ancient measurement of beauty, the ideal face is roughly 1 1/2 times longer than it is wide.  And that ideal face also evidences equal distances from the forehead hairline to a spot between the eyes, from there to the bottom of the nose, and from there to the bottom of the chin.  These golden ratios apparently cross-racial categories. (If you’re dissatisfied with this paragraph on the golden ratio, you have every right to be.  I didn’t receive a math privilege like you uppity STEM majors out there who passed algebra in high school.)

Of course, there are other privileges that come with us when we are born.  There is, for instance, the fast-twitch-muscle-fibers privilege (think Usain Bolt), the perfect-musical-pitch privilege (think Mozart), the body-spatial-awareness privilege  (think Simone Biles), and so on.

I’ve always thought that the pleasant-face privilege would be very nice to have.  This is the privilege of people who have a face that isn’t particularly handsome but has a pleasant and inviting appearance, i.e., has bright open eyes, perhaps a perky nose, and a mouth that curls slightly upward at its ends.  People just naturally take a shine to those with the pleasant-face privilege.

In case you’re wondering, I was pretty much left out of everything except white privilege when they handed out privileges. I’m slow of foot, not particularly well-coordinated, one eyelid is lower than the other, and I have the flushed complexion of my Irish/Scottish forebears. (All of this when I was a younger man.  Now I’m just old.)

I only possess one privilege for certain. I can sing Yankee Doodle Dandy while patting my belly and rubbing a circle on the top of my head. Do you scoff? Try it yourself.

Postscript:  If you’re attractive, I’d rather not hear about it.  But if you’re as ugly as sin, come sit right here next to me and tell me about it.

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  1. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    All attractive people need to be surgically altered to make them way less attractive. It’s called appearance equity. For more detailed information, search: Critical Looks Theory. Here’s wishing the worst of luck to everyone…it’s only equitable.

    I kinda like this as a suggestion to make to people advocating “equity.” Or at least require movies and television shows to hire more ugly actors for leading roles. We could set up an appearance scale alongside our race category so we can divide people on both race and appearance, and require companies to hire a predetermined number of ugly people.

    Was Leslie Howard or Humphrey Bogart good-looking? Or Claude Rains? I think the homogenization of looks on screen is a detriment. I say hire for talent, as opposed to generic good looks.

    Bogart was definitely good looking.

    To you maybe. He was certainly as good looking to Lauren Bacall as Johnny Galecki was to Kaley Cuoco.

    I don’t know any of these names.

    Lauren Bacall as a teenager starred in her first major role with Bogie as his love interest in Key Largo. They dated and then married. Kaley Cuoco as a teenager starred in her first major role played Johnny Galecki’s hot love interest in Big Bang Theory, and during the first season or two of the show they dated and were a couple.

    Cuoco was also one of the leads in the John Ritter sitcom 8 Simple Rules.

    • #91
  2. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    I’ve never seen The Big Bang Theory, but I’ve heard of Kaley Cuoco.

    • #92
  3. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    All attractive people need to be surgically altered to make them way less attractive. It’s called appearance equity. For more detailed information, search: Critical Looks Theory. Here’s wishing the worst of luck to everyone…it’s only equitable.

    I kinda like this as a suggestion to make to people advocating “equity.” Or at least require movies and television shows to hire more ugly actors for leading roles. We could set up an appearance scale alongside our race category so we can divide people on both race and appearance, and require companies to hire a predetermined number of ugly people.

    Was Leslie Howard or Humphrey Bogart good-looking? Or Claude Rains? I think the homogenization of looks on screen is a detriment. I say hire for talent, as opposed to generic good looks.

    Bogart was definitely good looking.

    To you maybe. He was certainly as good looking to Lauren Bacall as Johnny Galecki was to Kaley Cuoco.

    I don’t know any of these names.

    Lauren Bacall as a teenager starred in her first major role with Bogie as his love interest in Key Largo. They dated and then married. Kaley Cuoco as a teenager starred in her first major role played Johnny Galecki’s hot love interest in Big Bang Theory, and during the first season or two of the show they dated and were a couple.

    Cuoco was also one of the leads in the John Ritter sitcom 8 Simple Rules.

    Oh, I didn’t know that.

    • #93
  4. Graham Witt Coolidge
    Graham Witt
    @hoowitts

    Absolutely fascinating – certainly leads into the nature vs. nurture discussion…or more so in this case, culture vs. genetics/biology influences. As I was concluding with my not-so-quick wit, the reconstructive surgery application popped into mind. I’m guessing the overwhelming number of patients are cosmetic/elective? If so, it causes me pause to consider the sociological impact on self-perception and life satisfaction as it relates to beauty, especially in the social media age we currently reside. 

    I’ve worked with teens/youth in the pastoral setting for the previous 15 years and one of the greatest challenges is the pressure from social media and what I see as “comparison culture”. It is not isolated to teens and also seems destructive to adults. Just a few days ago, @drbastiat post employed the idiom “gospel of envy”, specifically to political ideology, but clearly extends to this innate recognition of beauty elements. Your comments and observations are illuminating as we battle against vanity and narcissism on one side, and on the other mental health and depression when beauty is glorified or culturally valued above content of character. 

    Jim Beck (View Comment):
     For example, plastic surgeons with symmetrical faces make more than surgeons with asymmetrical faces, unfortunately there is not correlation between symmetrical faces and surgical skill or the ability to visualize three dimensionally.

    This is so deflating. So your saying I should seek out the ‘ugly’ surgeons since they had to work harder than those attractive ones ;-)

    • #94
  5. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Evening Graham,

    This is a challenging topic.  At the Univ of Cincinnati, dept of med ill we documented the work of a plastic surgeon who specialized in cleft palates and clefts which extended further into the forehead.  Clearly repairing deformities to restore faces to normal is something we all support, but we all get a little uneasy with folks who want adjustments to faces most of us would view as normal. Now here is the part which puts me on the spot.  There are folks who have a characteristic that is noticeable, ears which stick out, a turkey neck and one can imagine that looking in the mirror would be much more pleasant when one has had these flaws removed.  So, thinking about the type of choices that folks make, I conclude that these choices are relatively harmless.  More harmless than getting a tattoo.  Also plastic surgeons give their pts and psych profile to weed out those folks who are body obsessed.  This is done to avoid lots of malpractice lawsuits, because the obsessed folks are never satisfied.

    • #95
  6. Graham Witt Coolidge
    Graham Witt
    @hoowitts

    Jim Beck (View Comment):

    Evening Graham,

    This is a challenging topic. At the Univ of Cincinnati, dept of med ill we documented the work of a plastic surgeon who specialized in cleft palates and clefts which extended further into the forehead. Clearly repairing deformities to restore faces to normal is something we all support, but we all get a little uneasy with folks who want adjustments to faces most of us would view as normal. Now here is the part which puts me on the spot. There are folks who have a characteristic that is noticeable, ears which stick out, a turkey neck and one can imagine that looking in the mirror would be much more pleasant when one has had these flaws removed. So, thinking about the type of choices that folks make, I conclude that these choices are relatively harmless. More harmless than getting a tattoo. Also plastic surgeons give their pts and psych profile to weed out those folks who are body obsessed. This is done to avoid lots of malpractice lawsuits, because the obsessed folks are never satisfied.

    Thanks for sharing Jim – it is challenging. I had my own, anecdotal realization as I required orthodontic braces later in life (40’s) to correct a destructive bite issue, not so much a smile or teeth alignment. I was shocked at how self-conscious I was for the 2 years wearing them, especially around youth who might also be going through a similar phase. Talk about humbling and perspective changing! What also surprised me – I had to admit the cosmetic improvement as well after the correction.

    • #96
  7. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Evening Graham,

    I think this area is fascinating as well.  We are marvelously and mysteriously made.  At the macro level in societies plagued by parasites beauty is of the highest importance, much higher than in the Western world.  Among all elective plastic surgeries, breast aug has the highest pt satisfaction.  The factor that is odd to me is that surveys of men where men pick the top five physical features that are important, In more than half of the lists, breasts are not included, and in a large fraction, when men are asked about breast size, about 30% prefer smaller breasts.  So following the “ good genes” model one would predict a preference for the female form suggesting youth.  An argument has been made that women with greater fat deposits would be preferred because they would survive times of scarcity.  There is merit to this thought, males would choose females who appear healthy enough to feed their infants even in difficult times.

     

    • #97
  8. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Graham Witt (View Comment):

    For example, plastic surgeons with symmetrical faces make more than surgeons with asymmetrical faces, unfortunately there is not correlation between symmetrical faces and surgical skill or the ability to visualize three dimensionally.

    This is so deflating. So your saying I should seek out the ‘ugly’ surgeons since they had to work harder than those attractive ones ;-)

    Nope.  “No correlation”, not “Negative correlation”.  He didn’t say the uglier ones did better.  Although apparently they’re cheaper.

    • #98
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