Your "Type" Isn't Real {#TransparentTuesday}

Why your aesthetic preferences aren't nearly as fixed (or accurate) as you think.

Hi friend,

Today I want to share a hot take: that your “aesthetic preferences” aren’t nearly as important (or accurate) as you think they are.

I feel like people are constantly talking about—and often even defensive about— their personal preferences for both how they themselves like to look, and for what they find attractive in others. 

And while it’s absolutely normal and ok to have preferences, it drives me crazy the way people talk about them as if they were these fixed, immutable, objective truths that exist without social context:

• “I just prefer my body thinner.”

• “I just find tall men more attractive.”

• “I’m just not attracted to xyz race/ethnicity.”

• “I just look way prettier when I’m tan and wearing mascara.”

• “All women look better with long hair.”

Do you see the pattern? 

People tend to talk about their aesthetic preferences in a way that actively downplays the role of social conditioning, and defends their “right” to like whatever it is that they like. It’s why you’ll so often hear people use the word “just” when describing their preference—it’s designed to minimize pushback and stymie critique by allowing the preference to stand alone as something that just is, without context. 

Which, of course… it’s not. 

The vast majority of our aesthetic preferences—-both in terms of how we ourselves prefer to look, and what we’re attracted to in others—is heavily influenced by our social conditioning. 

Like sure you might genuinely prefer your face with a little concealer and mascara on it, but did you invent that preference all by yourself? Of course not, that preference is the direct result of all your social conditioning about what kind of face is good and normal and attractive for someone like you.

Plus plenty of people hold preferences for unconventional aesthetic details, but you’ll almost never hear people say they “just prefer” something that goes completely against conventional ideals of beauty and attractiveness. I’ve never heard someone say they “just prefer” to look puffy and bloated for example, or that they’re “just more attracted” to people with a lot of acne. 

Preferences are unique to the individual to some extent, but they only tend to go so far outside our social conditioning. 

And when someone does happen to hold a socially unconventional preference, they tend to suddenly shift their phrasing about it from the minimizing “I just like…” to a phrasing that acknowledges the strangeness, such as “I actually like…” 

Some examples I’ve heard in this category are:

• “After detoxing from self-tanner, I’ve discovered that I actually prefer my natural skin color now!”

• “I actually love a short king.”

• “I don’t put concealer under my eyes because I actually kind of like the look of my undereye bags.”

• “My girlfriend is self conscious about her post-partum body, but I’m actually more attracted to her now than when we met!”

• “My partner’s on a health and fitness kick lately but I actually prefer it when his body is softer.”

See how we naturally feel a need to acknowledge it when we hold an aesthetic preference that goes against our social conditioning? 

That’s because—no matter what we want to believe—the vast majority of our aesthetic preferences are aligned with what society told us we should prefer. 

So no, I don’t think your aesthetic preferences are “just your preference.” 

I think they’re actually your internalized biases and beliefs about what is good and attractive and ideal, handed to you by society, and absorbed both intrinsically and extrinsically, from the time you were born. 

And yes that means a lot of our aesthetic preferences can be unlearned and changed through re-education, exposure, and intentional anti-oppression work! Not all of them, and not quickly or easily. But a lot of what you think you “just prefer” tends to naturally change as you unlearn the positive and negative moral associations attached to them, curate the media you take in, learn to humanize all people, and shift what your brain views as “normal,” “good,” and “relatable.”

But also, I don’t think your preferences are even particularly accurate. 

The problem is that we tend to talk about preferences as if we’ve discovered something fundamental or objective about ourselves, when most of the time we’re just describing something we’ve enjoyed or felt in the past. And those are not the same thing!

Somewhere along the way, we started treating preferences like important markers of our  personal identity. Like little facts that reveal who we are. Like once we name them, they suddenly carry a whole bunch of weight and significance about who we are as people.

With all that pressure, people naturally develop the feeling that they need to defend their preferences, and to maintain consistency around them. 

Because anytime we turn a random historical detail into a load-bearing fact about our identities, it becomes incredibly important that we never change it—otherwise, we might end up in a complete identity crisis!

So instead of actually asking ourselves “how do I feel about this person?” we instead subconsciously hold this person up against the idea of what we’ve decided is “our type,” according to “our preferences,” and see if they fit. 

This means that we are constantly missing out on opportunities to grow, change, evolve, learn, or even just appreciate beauty and experience pleasure in places we didn’t expect. 

The thing is, our preferences should never be considered fixed, permanent, rigid, or even particularly important. 

They may be useful in talking about your history and the statistical likelihood for what you might find attractive in the future, but attraction is way more complex and interesting than people want to think. 

There are exceptions to every rule, after all, hence why people tend to explain in bewildered delight that their crush or partner isn’t their usual “type.” Plus odds are pretty good that your “type” will change and evolve as you change and evolve, so it seems unwise to put much stock in your past experiences of type!

Personally—and this is actually the case for a lot of women and AFAB folks—I have had the experience many times of thinking that a certain aesthetic wasn’t something I found attractive until I saw just one person with that aesthetic who I was attracted to… and then suddenly it was like that whole aesthetic became eroticized and got folded in to my understanding of what I find attractive!

For example, when I was younger I knew I was bisexual but I thought I was only attracted to very boyish-looking or androgynous kind of women. 

Looking back I imagine this was for two reasons. The first is that my limited exposure to queer women meant I subconsciously associated queerness with not looking feminine. And the second is because thanks to compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity, I had always inadvertently centered men and masculinity in my understanding of my own attraction and desire, so my attraction to and desire for women were more legible to me when the woman looked more like a cute boy.

But then one magical day in Portugal, I had an extraordinarily romantic and erotic experience with a woman who was so soft and feminine looking that it hadn’t even occurred to me that she might be gay or we might be flirting until she very deliberately mentioned her ex wife, and I suddenly put the pieces together. 

But ever since that day, my “type” for women has shifted to include, and even center, femme women like her. And I have so many more stories like this—about aesthetic preferences and attractions changing and evolving—from both my own life, and from the lives of friends and clients!

So no, I don’t think your aesthetic preferences represent any kind of objective or permanent truth. 

And no I don’t think you should ever use them to define yourself. 

At best these describe your history and statistical likelihoods, but given that they absolutely can (and should) grow, change, and evolve, it would be incredibly unwise to place too much importance onto them, or turn them into predictors of your future, let alone into pillars of your identity.

Big hug,

Jessi

PS. Now that my show is over I’m opening up a few more coaching spots, and I’d love to work with you! Hit reply for more details about the options, or apply for a 1:1 coaching package here.