I fucked ugly people to unlearn my conception of attraction, and I think you should too

Acquired tastes, sexually

I’m embarrassed for anyone who ever publicly listened to, or, bless them, unironically shared a video of themselves streaming the satirical song, “Man in Finance,” as some sort of statement of their value, or, dear god, manifestation. This song is years old, but the crisis of smart heterosexual women seeking tall men with the sort of high salary that isn’t earned through intellect, but as an exchange for the compromise of their soul, is peaking. Just this week, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed a man in finance is the summer’s hottest accessory, and The Cut wrote about how successful women are paying over 100k for someone to find them a man who checks their superficial boxes in a piece titled, “The Good Man Shortage Has Gotten Exponentially Worse.”

“Sleeping Muse II,” Constantin Brancusi (1917)

As a fellow woman with standards, who prefers her man ‘good,’ yet once had a seriously specific romantic type which proved to be detrimental to my love life, I feel called to call these women longing for a “Man in Finance” out (from this moment further, these women will be called MiFLs — Man in Finance Longers — not to be confused with MILFs, my piece on MILFs published last week).

See, I feel it is necessary for the exact reason I find it so excruciatingly embarrassing to witness. I empathize! But I managed to find my way past my love-life-limiting ‘good man’ container, which isn’t actually a ‘type’ but a cultural conditioning, and find genuine love. So to call you MiFLs out, I will confess something I’ve previously only considered writing about under a pseudonym. I underwent a self-imposed reverse-brainwashing to unlearn cultural influences of attractiveness. Or, in clickbaity, incendiary language, I pursued, dated, and fucked people I found ugly in some way, shape, or form, in order to challenge my understanding of ugliness. I believe you MiFLs should learn this lesson too, even if secondhand, so I will share. The long story.

It all started with my fear of dying. A mom’s death will do that to you — make you think you’re avoiding death by living ‘right.’ If she could die at 32, I could, too. So I would do no wrong. Be a good girl. Excel while I had the opportunity. But around the time I realized that ‘right’ — which to a suburban Midwesterner with a high GPA, meant attending the pre-med program I’d gotten a scholarship to, but wouldn’t spit me out into the ‘real world,’ where inevitably all living would occur — would mean I wasted 32 years stuck in academic training grounds, I wondered; Why would I follow someone else’s idea of right, when that would mean wasting my life living someone else’s ideal? Besides, I couldn’t even get an immunization with my eyes open.

“Woman Looking into a Mirror,” Constantin Brancusi (1909)

So I started asking myself what I really, in my gut of guts, wanted. The answers — as little school as possible, a life where I could earn enough to live with as little stress as possible, and if I was even luckier, a job where I could help spread fun or love — undoubtedly made life feel good. GOOD — key word — meaning, right for me.

I found the inquisition into my true desires useful. So I kept at it. The small questions: Did I actually dislike tomatoes? No, it turns out. I’d just been having shitty ones. The hard ones: Did I actually want to live in Minnesota forever like my family had for a century? No, I just wasn’t brave enough to leave. And the bigger ones: Did I actually want a traditional relationship at all?

Which brings me to the decisions bolder than abandoning a doctorate’s student loans…

My first technical relationship started in college. I did what I thought I was supposed to do: commit to the elusive President of the service fraternity after discovering he was interested in me. I was a freshman who wanted to kiss everyone and yet, as if Newton’s law applied to a good girl’s commitment to the college sweetheart who took their virginity, I persisted. My college boyfriend and I dated for three monogamous years. Once the right circumstances arose for a clean, amicable separation, I formed a cozy friendship with a married couple within the week. I was 21, and felt infinitely more like myself. Exiting a box I knew I didn’t fit within was expansive and, perhaps, addicting. Certainly, it was good.

Then, the self-inquisitions became a reflex. Whenever I defiantly proclaimed, Oh, I’d never, I found myself forcing myself to experience whatever it was I believed was unsuited to me. Almost like how a naughty kid wants what they cannot have, but I was doing it to myself, to confront self-limiting biases because I knew that life was often better beyond the presumptions.

After I laughed a, Oh never, in response to considering a pixie cut, chopping my shoulder-length hair became compulsory. I’d always thought a tall woman like myself required lengthy, voluminous hair to complement her frame, but was that really something I thought? Proving I wasn’t constraining myself within a culturally imposed container usually led me to realize I was, indeed, sitting tight in a box. Pixie cuts are hot on tall women.

Then there were the acquired tastes. (I told you this was the long story!) Those tomatoes. Even Brussels sprouts. Coffee. Beer. All things I once thought I wouldn’t like, but with enough exposure, they’ve undoubtedly improved my years with simple pleasures. But the heirloom tomato lobby and beer distribution mafia wanted me to like their products. Someone was spending significant sums to sell me on a coffee drinker’s lifestyle. Society, too, sold me on the concept of a stable, monogamous heterosexual relationship. Society functioned more effectively with families as a backbone, so naturally we’d be indoctrinated to prioritize settling down. All these realizations made me wonder which lifestyles I wasn’t considering as restrictive, which nobody would benefit from pointing out to me…

At 25, I noticed one such box. One bigger and more opaque than the indoctrination of monogamous love.

Before the names of my past lovers completed the 17 syllables of a haiku, I saw similarities between them. Despite crossing genders, they could all have been in a lineup for a crime committed by an ethnically ambiguous Mick Jagger. We’re told it’s common to have a ‘type’, that perhaps I just liked lanky leaders with asymmetrical smiles and a recreational drug habit. But after a number of unsatisfactory affairs, something in me wagered that perhaps I’d learned this Mick type. That what attracted me to these lovers was not some innate undeniable truth. That the ‘rockstar’ was just as ridiculous to fancy on as the ‘finance bro.’

So I set out to test my hypothesis. I began a quest to understand why I was attracted to whom I was attracted to, and more importantly, why I wasn’t attracted to whom I wasn’t attracted to.

“Mlle Pogany, Version 1,” Constantin Brancusi (1913)

But first, more importantly, who was I? And what did I think of myself? I thought I was good. I was tall. My hair was thick and dark. My body hair was sparse and fair. I was not necessarily large, but I often wore that size. I liked going out and having fun, but really, in my heart, I was fairly straitlaced. A recovering good girl, afraid to break the rules, and compelled to do so for the same reason. I was looking for a rockstar to make breaking convention a give-in. And physically, I held the idea that someone shaped like me needed someone with a full head of hair and the height and build that made me look at least balanced, if not small. Deep down, it seemed, I was looking for a partner all because I wanted to feel small, and not have to choose to defy convention of my own volition.

I know. It’s embarrassing to admit. It makes me wonder why these MiFLs are looking for MiFs? And I wonder what they would learn about themselves if they did what I had:

Since I wanted someone with sexy, disheveled, full hair, I forced myself to appreciate bald men, and worse, men who weren’t confident enough to be bald, and hid their bald spots under hats and behind ponytails. After exposure therapy, I found this judgment to be utterly ridiculous.

Since I had age biases and body-shape biases, I humored men without heroine chic bodies.

Since I wanted someone who was tall, and righteously felt it was justified given my height, I forced myself not to ignore shorter guys. And fucking hell, this was the definition of self-limiting beliefs and cultural indoctrination. Shorter guys made me feel more pleasure and aliveness than fulfilling the longing to be fucked standing from behind while on relevé.

It’s not like it’s revolutionary! It’s intentionally breaking down my idea of ‘good’ from the bullshit culture teaches us. The revolutionary part was what I learned from it all.

What does ‘a good man’ even mean? The way it’s used, you’d think it was prescriptive. That we all know exactly what good means. That a good man makes large sums of money, is inches taller than their female counterpart, and has a BMI between dad bod and athletic. But when I hear a list of superficial characteristics describing ‘good’ I think, what do you really care about? Keeping up appearances, or that real, true, feeling of unique goodness?

Isn’t the whole idea of a one-size-fits-all definition of good, not GOOD?

See, we follow clothing trends we see other people wear. We dream of traveling to places we saw other people enjoy. We post carousels with the right spread of attractive selfies, scenescapes, and object-life-context to maximize likes. And we also let others’ approval guide who we sleep with and date. No wonder so many find the whole charade embarrassing. We’re too focused on what people think rather than how we ourselves feel.

It is human nature to seek belonging, of course. But I’m worried about us Longers. Because by focusing on our partners' approval ratings, we’re being good girls instead of trying to feel GOOD. Our bodies and spirits won’t suit the same apparel. And they also won’t suit the same prescriptive suitor. We’re wasting our love lives, living someone else’s ideal. We’re offloading the uncomfortable act of self-inquiry and, in the process, avoiding fulfilling our dream life by looking to love someone who embodies it.

What I was really wanting wasn’t to be chosen, romantically, by someone with rockstar energy. It was, as corny as it is to admit, to have rockstar energy myself. Once I acknowledged that this dream rockstar partner was a figment of my externalized desires, I realized that nobody who’s looking for a partner who makes them feel small will ever be the best version of themselves. I stopped looking for tall, lanky Micks. And I found what was right for me.

“The Kiss,” Constantin Brancusi (1907)

At 27, I met a man who I married at 28. He does have a bit of Mick about him. His teeth arouse the fuck out of me. But his wide shoulders are far from waifish. His energy is punk. In public, he’s a creative who garners fame. In private, he’s my sexual entertainment director. He even gives me butterflies when I’m tired and moody. He cooks. He’s a good dad. I’m lucky as fuck. But if I hadn’t undergone my exposure therapy, I might’ve missed the chance. Mostly because he’s nearly two inches shorter than me, and (when we met) had a ponytail covering his bald spot. Gasp.

That shorter guy with a bald spot gives me the best orgasms of my life, and we’re monogamous despite me being a relationship anarchist when we met. Which is, in a way, the moral of this story. It is ok to have a type. You might indeed get what you want, but it won’t be just like what you thought you wanted. Which sounds an awful lot like a quote from my guy Mick.

Some MiFLs might already have actualized their genuine, uninfluenced self-image and argue, I’m already the catch; I don’t want to compromise. And I hear you; more power to you. But then I say, maybe a relationship isn’t good for you. It’s cliché, but true — it takes compromise to make the good ones work.

Some MiFLs might say, Sure, but why? And I don’t blame you. It’s easiest to not question. To assume your interests are like everyone else’s. This comes naturally to us good girls. Even the progressive ones, and the ambitious ones. Even those who challenge norms in their art, their taste, their politics, still might not question their sexuality and their erotic preferences. And that’s the dangerous part…

Some women are done dating, period, because they think they can’t find what they want, so why try? I, too, assumed that my lack of excitement for my college boyfriend meant that perhaps a heteromonogamous relationship was just not something I could be passionate about. That if this guy that so many others crushed on didn’t satisfy me, perhaps I wasn’t supposed to do the whole relationship thing at all. You see? Our limiting beliefs create new beliefs, and the system will go on until you notice.

And plus, as Jessica DeFino reminds us, our media monopolies and the multi-billion-dollar beauty industry aren’t going to make more money if we all stop upholding the supposed attractive prerequisites they preach.

So, I say, try questioning your type. Expand your erotic palate. I had to gag on a few Brussels to appreciate the cruciferous delicacy. The discomfort of choking on sprouts brings numerous bodily benefits, including a taste for something good for you.

If you don’t try new varieties of tomatoes, how can you even know what attraction, what lust, what satiated hunger really feels like?

Plus, shorter men live longer.¹

I love that you tuned in to my weekly provocation on contemporary love. I hope it’s given you more love to reflect on. Thank you for being here.

Remember, every Monday I share a post like this — discussing love and sex in culture and my marriage — which is almost always free, except for once per month when I share an extra-sexy true story from my marriage (like this one on getting massaged while I suck him). And every other Thursday I share a Praxxxis post — a how-to style guide from my experience working in sextech and being a general relationship-having love-lover (like this one on 8 ways to ride a face).

1. This wasn’t written with any sponsorship from the short bald men lobby, I swear on my life, which I treasure!