Sexy but not Beautiful

I'm planning a trip to New Orleans this weekend and during the planning process, I was on one of my favourite band's websites to see if they were playing while I was there. I clicked on their message board and scanned the listings. To my surpise (and initial dismay) there was a thread entitled "Hot Black Girls"

For a second, I was like, oh no. I expected to see a litany of racist and sexist messages from asshole ignorant metalheads. But before I thought about just clicking to another page, my fingers pressed the button and zoom! I was perusing the messages.

Surprisingly at first, they weren't that bad - not overtly offensive. Sure, full of fratboy humor, but nothing that made my blood rise. Some had posted pictures of Beyonce ("She is the most beautiful woman in the world!"), Allyiah (R.I.P), Stacy Dash ( a pic from Playboy - god I want to look that good when I'm 40+), and various other actresses and models.

One thing that I noticed was that all of the pics were of light-skinned women who had European features, long hair ( natural but mostly weaves) and slim builds. Hmm.

And then someone posted this. "Black women are not beautiful"

And then someone chimed in "Sexy, but not beautiful."

For some reason, that has stayed with me all week. I don't know exactly why, but it has bothered me. Not that the opinions of random strangers has much affect on my self-esteem, but it has got me wondering. Is that was the regular, average dude thinks?

Thoughts? 

Comments

[Alpha Betts]

It deeply saddens me to realize that in this day and age Black Females are still so devalued. It was the bane of my existence as a youth and deeply disturbing now that I have 2 daughters to whom I have to try and make sense of the completely nonsensical.

All I can think in the short run is this... I consider myself somewhat of a connosieur of women in general and there are so many women I see out here on the videos and magazine covers that while I admit they are "beautiful" to me they aren't even remotely sexy. To me sexy is something that comes from a natural confidence and not a synthetic air-brushed world.

Of course I believe I'm in the minority here and that most folks have a different perception of sexy. I shy away from naming names here because this is just one person's opinion but does this make sense.

OK beautiful is like pretty to me which is like a woman saying a man is cute. It's like Hello Kitty or a puppy or some such.

Sexy encompasses so much more and no faint of heart man can handle a truly sexy woman...

[sdg1844]

It's their loss! I am unanimous in that. Wink..

[Zenzele Bell]

I've heard that one before, and I really don't care what others think about my beauty, or my sexiness.

[The First Domino]

I can't say that I'm a "regular, average dude," but I would like to weigh in.

Black women are as sexy as any women--perhaps more so. Sexy is usually in the eye of the beholder, but not always. True sexiness is an attribute that few women are born with, and I have only seen perhaps four "sexy" women in my life, none of which would be classified as beautiful.

If you have eyes to see, it's a discernible aura that hovers around them.

I had practically given up on seeing another sexy woman in my lifetime, that is, until about five years ago. She was in a Costco with five kids in tow. I thought, at the time: 'Your husband doesn't know what hit him'.

Black beauty, on the other hand, has no equal. The black woman's beauty is often imitated (collagen lips, anyone? How about an afternoon in a tanning salon?), and rarely matched.

Black women have voluptuous bodies, along with curvaceous hips, and bottoms, without the add-ons.

Most men (white or black) would prefer a shapely woman with "some meat on her bones," rather than the emaciated models passed off as the paragon of female pulchritude.

But since black women usually don't possess those beauty traits that represent white standards of beauty--hazel to blue eyes, blond hair, the sharper, angular noses and faces, and the peach-pink skin, they are not perceived as beautiful, so much as sexy.

The good news, if that is the phrase, "sexy" outweighs "beauty" any day in the male psyche, and is preferred, if he can't have both. And, most of the time, it's a combination that rarely shows up in one person.

From the lightest skin to the darkest, a black woman's alluring beauty both enchants, and mesmerizes, and only the dullest of minds, and those with racial, or cultural preconceptions, would think otherwise.