Prismattic comments on Polyhacking - Less Wrong

75 Post author: Alicorn 28 August 2011 08:35AM

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Comment author: katydee 27 August 2011 11:26:39PM 14 points [-]

Weirdly enough, I know someone who had their face seriously damaged (albeit not to the ludicrous extent shown by Two-Face) and he reported that it actually made him much more sexually successful, since it gave him an instant conversation starter with just about anyone and the story of how he got it painted him in a very good light.

Comment author: Prismattic 28 August 2011 02:23:02AM 14 points [-]

I think that even in the current cultural context one should still expect the impact of "battle scars" on physical attractiveness to depend strongly on the gender of the person displaying them.

Comment author: katydee 28 August 2011 03:03:29AM 16 points [-]

A good point; that said, a surprisingly large number of heterosexual or bisexual males I know are very much attracted to signs of "toughness" in females, including scars, fighting ability, etc.

Comment author: mdcaton 28 August 2011 07:34:31PM 9 points [-]

I always counsel young males with still-healing injuries that will leave scars to think of good stories. As for females, most straight men I know are attracted to signs of toughness that don't otherwise confound the usual health-and-fertility signs (skin and hair), so scars might not always work. But anecdotes from LW commenters are not likely to be representative of the general conversation. Many women I know in SoCal that have impressive degrees from awesome schools hide their credentials for fear of scaring off men, and are surprise than I am surprised. That's still the world we live in.

Comment author: Nisan 29 August 2011 02:09:10AM 2 points [-]

That's still the world we live in.

If I were feeling super snarky I'd say "That's SoCal". But your point is well-taken.