being pretty--blessing or curse?

Is being pretty the greatest blessing or the biggest curse?

Perhaps I should rephrase--being perceived as pretty in accordance with dominant cultural norms and ideologies.

The topic is fairly taboo, but the truth is, at some point, a pretty person comes to correlate affection with appearance. Either consciously or subconsciously, one feels immense pressure to keep being pretty--in fact, somehow get prettier--to maintain that love and affection (which, by the way, comes from family and friends, too--not just heterosexual males and other outsiders if we're talking women).

What does this do? Often women (I will qualify this discussion) do not know how to accept affection for who they are, but only for what they look like...or they cannot separate the two...or they wonder what people see: their outside or their inside. Perhaps the viewer cannot distinguish, either.

It seems paradoxical, but being pretty drives insecurity--because once you are used to it, you can't imagine life not being pretty. You would let every one down. You would let yourself down. You would not be loved in the same ways. You would have to figure out how much people loved you for who you are. What if you became un-pretty? What if there were others are far prettier? You have to keep it up.

Then of course, when you are constantly told you are pretty, you begin to look at yourself in ways that are narcissistic, unhealthy--and ultimately tragic. Although you admire yourself, take pride in your looks, you also begin to regulate yourself and examine every detail for perfection. You can't stop being pretty, remember? If you receive attention for your looks, well then you have to look the best, remember? Suddenly you become obsessed with yourself in ways that are both pompous and cruel; policing your own body in every way is self-destructive.

By this time, all the attention you receive for what you look like completely undermines anything else you do, in a way that severely confuses the pretty person. You can never escape it. Sometimes, you can even try and make yourself ugly, or to just stop being pretty--and it won't work. You can even wish that you were ugly so that you would know people actually love you and see you.

But then again, you recognize that if you were ugly, you would very likely live your life constantly wanting to be pretty and access all of the social privilege that comes along with it. Or maybe you would feel invisible. Or maybe you would feel like you are never truly loved. Or maybe you would have never conflated physical attention with self-worth, and so you would have come to know yourself in much more fulfilling ways.

There really is no answer, but to somehow transcend appearance all together--which, no matter what you look like, can be difficult. If possible, it does force one to focus and search for internal and more meaningful outlets and interests.

I hope my readers can consider this post when, in line with cultural norms, they might feel the inclination to call a little girl "pretty." Why not clever, or witty, or funny, or interesting, or energetic--something internal? Why would a person ever want to deliver a message of external emphasis to a developing mind? Conflating ideas of worth, appearance, and love in small children is just as destructive as conflating ideas of worth, sin, and god.