Hating the compliment "unconventionally attractive"

[QDRPHNC]

No, I wouldn't say it to anyone, that would be rude.

[itsfredtitmus]

blandly handsome is somehow worse than unconventionally attractive

[itsfredtitmus]

I'd call someone untraditionally traditionally ugly, if they deserved it, and the prospect arose

What an ugly cunt!   

[QDRPHNC]

I don't think blandly handsome is bad, it just means you're handsome without much to distinguish you from all the other people who are handsome in the same way.

I think unconventionally attractive is worse, personally, but I'd take either of them.

[bgmnts]

If the bar is so low that even someone like Bjork, a genuine goddess, is considered unconventionally attractive then god every single non-white British person must be! If the criteria for being attractive is Love Island stuff then... almost no one is attractive unless they be dolled up and in the right lighting

Well, I'd say almost everyone would consider Beyonce more attractive than Anne Widdicome beyond some very committed racists.

Also, none of this really applies to rich and famous people because how you look when you're rich and famous doesn't matter in terms of shagging.

The only thing to not be is fat. If you can refrain from being fat and you're not heavily deformed, you're basically fine.

I should write a children's book.

[flotemysost]

I have mega issues with this turn of phrase because as others have hinted, when you unpick it, it's incredibly hetero/cisnormative and Eurocentric and misogynistic and all kinds of other dodgy stuff.

As a freshly minted bisexual (I think???!!!) I've been doing a LOT of thinking recently about what attraction is/what it means. And essentially I still have no fucking clue, really, other than that a lot of it is probably dictated by deeply ingrained and inherently problematic systems which I'm still figuring out how they've shaped me personally. I've been given multiple variations of this compliment from other people over the years and I'm becoming increasingly conscious that it probably really boils down to "not white and/or uber-feminine"; and that bothers me a bit, if I'm honest, and I feel quite stupid for ever having felt flattered by it in the past.

Also, I can't imagine ever voicing the sentiment to another person who I was attracted to, it just seems really bizarrely specific and unnecessary. Why quantify the nature of your attraction, you're not writing a fucking sonnet, just tell them what you like about them, not whether it fits some sort of societal norm or not. Maybe that's where it all started. #cancelshakespeare

[itsfredtitmus]

it's funny but I've never heard this phrase used from a non-male

funny!

[bgmnts]

What we need is the absolute standard of beauty for a man, a woman and anything betwixt. Audrey Hepburn? Brad Pitt? Bradrey Pittburn?

In ancient Persia, Xerxes was the standard of beauty. For the greeks and romans it was I dunno aphrodite and those olympian athletes with their little knobs maybe?

[itsfredtitmus]

wish I had the smartiness of flotemysost

from a trans experience, even with other trans people I've been with, it's almost ALWAYS THAT
#cancelacademic

[Johnny Yesno]

I don't think blandly handsome is bad, it just means you're handsome without much to distinguish you from all the other people who are handsome in the same way.

I think unconventionally attractive is worse, personally, but I'd take either of them.

That's the wrong way round!

[Johnny Yesno]

I've been given multiple variations of this compliment from other people over the years and I'm becoming increasingly conscious that it probably really boils down to "not white and/or uber-feminine"

Inasmuch as the idea of conventional beauty is what you think everyone else finds attractive, I suppose that could be true. But not all unconventionally attractive people are white and/or uber-feminine, are they?

Also, I can't imagine ever voicing the sentiment to another person who I was attracted to, it just seems really bizarrely specific and unnecessary.

It's not one to deploy carelessly, for sure, but there could be instances. Maybe the person is viewing themselves negatively against what they see in the media and simply telling them they're beautiful sounds like bullshit.

_{This post has been brought to you by team I'llTakeAnyComplimentsICanGet.}

[ImmaculateClump]

I don't think blandly handsome is bad, it just means you're handsome without much to distinguish you from all the other people who are handsome in the same way.

Yeah, I think that's what people mean by conventionally attractive.
Like Rachel Stephenson. A smudge of a face, nothing to catch your eye on.
Everything where you'd expect. Unremarkable to the nth degree. A tasteful, pastel shade bathroom.
I think that's normally the case with mainstream style and even the films and music that are the most popular. Very safe and bland.

Unconventionally attractive. I would be really happy with that.
Though I think it does say more about the person saying it than you.
I don't doubt your intuition, you'll be picking up on so much more than we could from cold text.

[TrenterPercenter]

I have mega issues with this turn of phrase because as others have hinted, when you unpick it, it's incredibly hetero/cisnormative and Eurocentric and misogynistic and all kinds of other dodgy stuff.

it's funny but I've never heard this phrase used from a non-male

Sorry, not in my experience the term is much more commonly used by heterocis women to describe other heterocis women and men, and gay men, in fact from the beginning of this conversation my main thoughts have been about women discussing other peoples looks....which sorry to break it to everyone but they do, and often in a quite a workaday clinically removed sense (again I'm going from experience and the masses AND MASSES of evidence present from society, culture and media - all of those magazines, TV shows and adverts are not aimed at heteronormative men here is a short selection of threads from everyones favourite female dominated forum (please let's not go down the dismissive and sexist path here of saying "wrong type of women").



Of course your mileage may vary in experiences here but of course "convention" is based in hetero/cisnormative because that is the majority of society non-heterocisnormative people are in a minority so social norms are less impacted by them.  This isn't a question of what is right or not, it is question of what is "convention".  So absolutely I can agree here but this is a) just evidence of biased convention and b) is a different issue, there are for example conventions in non-hetereocisnormative cultures, and I've even heard people like Contrapoints talk about this (did a whole vid on the aesthetic....which you know also has her discussing peoples looks in comparison to conventions....yipes <said in Contrpoints style>.

You live in a society with a healthy amount of misogyny but you can't seriously explain or solve that by simply removing women and their views on attractiveness (of which there are billion pound businesses constructed around) from the equation, indeed without care it can get very dodgy i.e. all women are only concerned with aesthetics to please men (something said by male sexists), men will simultaneously have laughably low standards for attractiveness and will fuck anything but are upholding the highest standards of attractiveness  (something said by female sexists). 

Society is created by all of us, attractiveness is power and yes this comes from a male dominated system that hierachied women into conventions of attractiveness (this literally occurs in lots of other non-europeans cultures based around different conventions also), this does not however adequately explain where we are now, it's changed and women don't wear mini-skirts or get breast implants because the patriarchy has forced them too, we should be very careful to remove female volition in all of this, society and a convention was created and women have moved into it, engaged and taken large swathes of control in it, Marie Claire once a organisation run by men for women is now run by women for women.

The point is conventions yes are social norms, recognising them isn't the same as supporting them, in fact the whole point I was making was that without being able to describe attractiveness in revolt to these conventions problems arise, but you have to stop seeing unconventional (something that is being argued here as important to fight for) as negative when it isn't being used that way, it is being used in the opposite manner. There is an argument here well why draw attention to it just say you are attractive, sure, but there are consequences of distilling attractiveness down to a single unified thing, that is the convention.

PS - I have more to say here about severely disabled and disfigured populations who are nearly always forgotten in these discussions in favour of sexuality but I've written too much already in that post.

[gilbertharding]

All kinds of compliments come with their own baggage.

EG: I am not unattractive, and I'm not stupid. And yet 80% of the times I've been told I'm handsome, or clever, or whatever - it's always felt (and certainly been meant) as double-edged at best.

I was told by a boss once that I was probably the most intelligent person in the company, in the middle of receiving a formal warning.

Is 'not conventionally attractive' what they call 'negging'?

[Sebastian Cobb]

All kinds of compliments come with their own baggage.

Which is why I never use them.

[Dr Rock]

Is 'not conventionally attractive' what they call 'negging'?

If a woman's doing it to another woman I believe it's called 'throwing shade'

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

"Weird crush". That's another one.

Remember at the end of Shrek, when he and Fiona have their true love kiss and she becomes an ogre permanently?

"I'm supposed to be beautiful."
"But you are beautiful - unconventionally."

Not quite as heartwarming, is it?

[TrenterPercenter]

In all the time I spent studying the PUA bullshit I've never heard them once say "unconventionally attractive".  They are miles more specific about the individuals looks targeting things that the individual might be self conscious/proud of.

It is most commonly used not directly to peoples faces but to let other people know in a groups that they find people attractive that a different from that groups norm of attractiveness.

[bgmnts]

In all the time I spent studying the PUA bullshit

Why??

[TrenterPercenter]

Why??

Because I'm fascinated by people, and why and how they behave the way they do (you might have realised this by now). 

Also PUAs were  at one point a very typical point of discussion, it's where the term "negging" comes from.  The internet has moved on from them now (thankfully).

[JaDanketies]

When I was 15-17, people (in retrospect, girls who fancied me) used to say I looked like Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, and I used to take offence. I used to see all the unattractive things about Justin Hawkins in that comparison. Nowadays I see that he was a handsome man and it was my own self esteem what did it, and I actually did look a lot like him.

And in 20 years' time I might be looking at pictures of Danny Trejo and saying the same thing :(



I don't hate the phrase but I would never say it to someone's face. If someone used it to describe Grace Jones I would think she'd know what they were going for.

[touchingcloth]

Is my mumsnet and fear of compliments showing or does this phrase give anyone the massive willies?

My willy is unconventionally massive.

[robhug]

this phrase clearly means the recipient is ugly

dont let it get you down, theres loads of examples of ugly people that have managed to get their nuts up, for example Gerard Depardieu or Bob Cryer.

[gilbertharding]

When they used to use the phrase about someone like Marilyn Monroe, or Brigitte Bardot, or Sophia Loren, they'd insist 'her mouth is too big' or something, and it's like mate.

[Sebastian Cobb]

My willy is unconventionally massive.

Quite short but impractically girthy?

[Dr Rock]

Tiny but impossibly dense?

[JaDanketies]

I remember once reading the phrase "blandly handsome", and I thought you could apply that to quite a few actors.

I saw some expose of Instagram where it showed all these attractive people getting filterised until they looked identical, and that was the takeaway message from it. That there's a wide variety of attractive people out there but conventional beauty standards are channelling the exact same image to us every time.

[TrenterPercenter]

I don't hate the phrase but I would never say it to someone's face. If someone used it to describe Grace Jones I would think she'd know what they were going for.

I know the point you are making here, it's valid but very context specific isn't it. 

There are some incredible examples being used here though,  Grace Jones, the internationally famous superstar supermodel that was the face of Yves St Laurent.  She is a really interesting person to focus on because despite being a supermodel, she created her own aesthetic (Neo-cubism) in revolt of conventional attractiveness and became an icon for the cross-dressing community in the process (also had a very interesting relationship and a child with the photographer Jean-Paul-Goude who has been accused of exploiting the characteristics of Jones, yet his work with Jones remains highly influential in lots of noncisheteronormative culture i.e. Lady Gaga etc..)

Another interesting point here is regarding the heterocisnormative convention when a lot of supermodels androgynous looks are argued to be a due to the fashion industry being run by gay men, something several female feminist friends have pointed out to me as a problem with it all (whether the reason for this aesthetic is true or not the fashion and beauty industry is hardly run by heteronormative men is it).

[gilbertharding]

Grace Jones is also an interesting example to me - since I saw the original photo of Island Life at an exhibition at the V&A. Talk about photoshop.

[touchingcloth]

Quite short but impractically girthy?

Composed of dark matter. It doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation so it's not "visible", but it is massive. I have intercourse/congress with the wife on the reg, so I call it my weekly-interacting massive part.