Hot v Beautiful

If you are a female, there is no way you have never received some awful comment from a male. The words are usually offensive and have a sexual context. They make us cringe. A female friend told me sometime back, that it is sometimes a blessing to not be a beauty. There was some truth to her words, although men no longer look for beauty alone and beauty has now been brought down to sizes and body parts.

My friend’s words also made me think of what beauty is. In Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie says Sam is unconventionally beautiful. What is conventional beauty then? What do we define as beauty?

When describing a person’s appearance, we tend to use various words; beautiful, pretty, cute, hot, etc. This isn’t only because we are always looking for new words to use; we also have various types, and not only levels, of attractiveness.

Of these words, the line between beauty and hotness is generally crossed. Looks that can easily seduce can be considered hot. Someone who wants to seduce and not impress would wear figure hugging clothes, lots of red and quite a bit of makeup. A beautiful person does not always need clothes, makeup or styles to show the world their beauty.

Females are often told that everyone is beautiful; if the way they look doesn’t make them beautiful, their hearts will. While we are told that those pimples, acne and uncontrollable hair makes you beautiful, as we grow up society starts telling us that those body ‘imperfections’ are in fact flaws. They make us less desirable, and so we spend our days and our money on various treatments, lotions and every beauty product under the sun.

However, in our journey to look beautiful, we take a small detour and also do what we can to look hot. The movies and books say men fall for the hot girls who can make heads turn and who wear less clothes as each day passes. We strive to be like those models that walk up and down a platform hiding behind layers of makeup. We don’t see their pimples and acne, we don’t see how dry their skin or lips could get because no one wants to see an ‘ugly’ model.

Curly hair, dark skin, thick eyebrows are seen as features that would make you less beautiful or hot. If you wear loose fitting long clothes or don’t even own all those powders one applies on her face, then, you aren’t beautiful. But thanks to society and women using men as an excuse to look hot and men acting like they have never seen women before, being beautiful isn’t all that matters anymore. In fact, slowly, the word beautiful is being used to describe cars or phones and not humans.

Forget unconventional or even conventional beauty. Forget those posters and encouragements and protests. Forget the people who say beauty doesn’t matter. Looking hot doesn’t matter. ‘Be comfortable in your skin’ or ‘don’t change for another’ are words that don’t stay in our minds because of society who looks at not-that-beautiful females and worry about their future, worry about finding a suitable match for them.

There are also all those advertisements that promise women fairer, smoother or softer skin. The facebook page of Bettans Bridals posts many pictures of makeovers. Women who look plain or ordinary are turned into makeup monsters who are supposed to be beautiful. Seeing these on your timeline morning, noon and night makes girls feel insecure.

They look in the mirror and the girl staring back at them is flawed, hideous and ugly. They think layers of makeup will make them beautiful, the kind who would make heads turn. Sadly, just too many unconventionally beautiful women loose themselves in the never ending battles to look hot. And when they get lost, it’s difficult to find them.

However, what could you tell these girls; that looks don’t matter? It shouldn’t but the bitter truth is that, until society changes its definition of beauty, looks do matter.

Thilina Perera shares the male's PoV on this matter. Read his story here