(August 22, 2023 at 12:24 pm)FrustratedFool Wrote: The Overton window idea is interesting, and certainly seems to match observation and common sense. Within BP circles the idea that people form relationships with people roughly of the same level of physical attractiveness is, I think, called a looksmatch.
But it doesn't really affect the truth or simplicity of the main BP idea. It doesn't refute the simple idea that looks are a primary, perhaps the primary, factor in dating. Indeed, it seems to support that idea by noting that an 8 will date another 8, whereas a 4 never will. Looks being the key determine there.
Also, it says nothing about how comparatively easy finding a partner was for the 8 than the 4. An 8 may end up dating 8s (or 7-9s) but they may do so easily, where the 4 who ends up with other 4s may find dates frw and far between and requiring more effort. Dating apps seem to indicate this: an 8 gets a 100 matches, a 4 gets 1. It might very well still be true to say then, that looks massively impact how much one struggles with dating.
And it doesn't address the idea of casual ssxual encounters or hook-ups. Surely the wi Dow for that activity is much wider. An 8 will have a one night stand with any 5+, a huge pool, whereas maybe hardly anyone will hook-up with a 2, even other 2s, a tiny pool.
Gender, age and sexuality become other complicating factors: a young bisexual woman has massively more dating options than an old heterosexual man. Maybe another interesting side issue to dicuss?
So, in short, I think the BP stripped of rhetoric and emotion, is still pretty simple: looks affect dating more than anything else; if you're good looking you'll find it easy to date attractive people, if you're average it'll be harder and you'll likely settle for a looksmatch, and if you're truly ugly then you may never date at all.
The so? Question is, at its most basic, that the BP position is broadly true when stripped of its hyperbole.
In a more complex way, it's the question of what should society fo knowing about lookism and the halo effect, and knowing that there's many young people who are suffering, lonely, embittered and angry, whipping each other up with inflammatory rhetoric, because they're ugly because of bad genetic luck.
Actually, the opposite likely holds true. People who are highly attractive / unattractive are at the extremes and assuming looks are distributed on a bell curve, there will be fewer people to looksmatch at the extremes than at the middle.