Can We Stop Trying to Define What Beauty is For Women?

As you may recall, back in February I wrote a rather incendiary response to the idiotic article everyone was passing around on Facebook titled "The Actual Difference Between Women Who Are Hot And Who Are Beautiful." Mistakenly, I assumed this would make a difference in the world of vague and badly written articles. I never thought the author would ever actually read my blog post, but I had thought that my ounce of reason might permeate the cosmic stupidity and perhaps dissuade the collective unconscious from writing these fucking things. But either life doesn't work this way, or the amount of stupidity being poured into the air was enough to overpower my attempts at reason because another one of these trite and useless ramblings has been vomited on to the internet.

Unsurprisingly, "10 Things That Make A Girl Beautiful Instead Of Hot" is a product of the same stupid website (Elite Daily) and the same clueless writer (Lauren Martin). Ms. Martin, having not been satisfied with her per view paycheck from the last foray into frivolity, has decided to reinvigorate the argument between hot and beautiful by taking advantage of my generation's short attention span. Admittedly, she does acknowledge her earlier article, but she clearly didn't go back and reread it considering she wrote this fucking thing. Further buying into the Buzzfeed model (one that I, painfully, have tried out in the past), she has gone ahead and reduced this really "powerful" topic into a damn list.

But before we get to her inane checklist of beauty, let's start from the top. Because honestly, the first two sentences are, by far, the most hilarious part of the whole damn article.

Beautiful. It’s a powerful word, one not thrown around as frivolously as hot, pretty or any of the hundreds of words we’ve come to describe women,

Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me. In your last article, literally half of the damn page was you throwing around the word "beautiful." If, for some reason, anthropologists were trying to decipher your writing a thousand years from now, the only word they'd be able to use to describe it would be "frivolous." Frivolity is the foundation of your very career. But speaking of frivolous use of the word beautiful....

It’s a word that holds power and prestige far beyond that of any other adjective. It’s a sacred word, one kept for those who truly can’t be described any other way. 

I agree wholeheartedly. Had you written nothing else in your entire life besides these two sentences, I might even consider you to be a level headed human. But you've already shat all over the sanctity of the word beautiful by spewing it all over the last article you wrote. Speaking of which....

We’ve already debated the differences between hot and beautiful, but we never really answered what exactly makes a woman beautiful...

YES YOU HAVE! THAT'S LITERALLY ALL YOU FUCKING DID IN YOUR LAST ARTICLE! DO YOU HAVE THE MEMORY OF A GOLDFISH?

From your Feb. 13 article:

 
Hot is admired from afar; beauty is to be held.
Hot is perception; beauty is appreciation.
Hot is smokey-eyed; beautiful is bare-faced.
Hot is an appearance; beautiful is more than skin deep.
Hot is the way she moans; beautiful is the way she speaks.
Hot is a strong appeal; beautiful is strong mind.
Hot is youthful; beautiful is ageless.
Hot is conventional; beauty is unique.
Hot is a one-night stand; beautiful is sleepless nights.
Hot is a state of being; beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Hot is devious; beautiful is innocent.
Hot is bending her over; beautiful is baking her blueberry pancakes.
Hot is sultry; beautiful is wholesome.
Hot is her curves; beauty is her nerves.
Hot is a text message; beautiful is a love letter.
Hot is a facade; beautiful is a woman.

I mean, for God's sake, you defined the SHIT out of beauty and what it means to be beautiful. You defined it so much it became absolute gibberish by the end. But, I digress. This post isn't about your last article; it's about your most recent infraction upon the human race. Because as much as you would like to claim that you are imparting some helpful advice upon the ladies and that you're doing some service to womankind by making them feel better about themselves, you're actually doing more harm than good.

Lauren, you can't make a list of criteria for what defines a woman as beautiful because, as I mentioned in my last response to you, you can't define beauty. It's purely subjective. Both looks and the ethereal beauty of a woman are in the eye of the beholder because the "soul" (as you define it) is not some across the board thing that deserves everyone's respect. Every "soul" is different and varies woman to woman. News flash: Just because you are an honest and independent woman does not mean you are beautiful. In fact, you may be an utter shithead. And that's fine! But don't expect me to sit here and bat my eyelashes over how fucking great and spiritually inspiring your soul is.

But the harm resulting from your attempts to define beauty extend far beyond merely insulting my intelligence. You are, effectively, doing the same thing that sex-starved men do when they define what a "hot piece of ass" is. Because, you see, when you make a list of what "defines" a beautiful woman, you are pretty much saying that women who want to be beautiful should live up to these qualities. You are implying that women who aren't "tight lipped" or those who DO "chase the limelight" aren't beautiful. In breaking beauty down into a list of ten stupid, arbitrary things, you have missed the entire point of your attempt. Now, do I think you are attempting to shame women into acting a particular way? Of course not. I think you're bad at forming thoughts, but I don't think you're intentionally cruel.

Your initial goal was to unburden women from the expectations of society. It was to tell women that they don't need to look or be a certain way to appease men. And that's good; I agree with this assertion. What I don't agree with is creating an alternate list of criterion that a woman of beauty must now live up to. You have now burdened women with expectations of inner beauty. In some ways, this is even worse than telling women how to look sexy. Because in doing this, you've given a guidebook that no woman could ever truly live up to. Because beauty, as I have already mentioned, is not something that can be defined or universally applied. It is unique to every woman and man (or woman) who sees it in her. That's what we should be telling women.

Ladies reading this article: Don't buy into this bullshit about "true beauty" and yada fuckin' ya. Don't listen to Lauren Martin, don't listen to Elite Daily, and certainly don't listen to me. I'm as flawed as anyone when it comes to giving advice. Instead, listen to your heart (or your fucking soul if that's your thing) and do your thing. Don't waste hours on the internet attempting to define your true self. Find it by doing shit you enjoy and being with people who make you happy. I'm not going to tell you to give up technology and to eschew materialism because those aren't the real problems. They are merely byproducts of a society so intent on defining itself that it ends up depressing itself in the process. The sooner you accept that you cannot be defined and that there is nobody on the planet that ever will, the sooner you'll find peace and happiness.

I don't know if you're beautiful. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. But I won't lie to you and tell you that you are so that you can have three hours of affirmation from some internet asshole. Instead, I'll tell you this: You are an individual and you're probably beautiful to someone. No, not everyone will find you beautiful and some days you'll be more beautiful than others. But that's what makes beauty so amazing and so undefinable. It's fleeting. It's not something to aspire to, but something to appreciate. It's not always there, but when it is, it's.....well, it's beautiful.