The Curse of Beauty

Beautiful women are rarely alone, but they often feel lonely.

Henrik Jagodziński

Dutch syndrome

This can be called the paradox of plenty, where countries rich in natural resources are often considered to be less economically developed than those with few or no resources at all. Why does this happen? The main reason is that a resource-exporting country receives a significant influx of foreign currency. It might seem that everything is fine, but in practice, two simultaneous events occur:

Firstly, the exchange rate of the national currency is strengthening. On the global market, the national currency of the exporting country is experiencing increasing demand, leading to a rise in its value. At the same time, within the exporting country, there is an excess of foreign currency, causing its value relative to the local currency to decline.

Secondly, the increase in revenue from resource sales leads to inflation within the country. As a result, prices in the local currency rise, but the exchange rate of that currency also increases. This situation causes a loss of competitiveness for domestic producers in the international market. No one wants to buy their goods at inflated prices. The cost of labor also rises, making it advantageous for local companies to relocate production to other countries. Consequently, the country focuses solely on extracting its main export resource, while the rest of the economy stagnates. The decline of other sectors is further exacerbated by the investment climate. Investors find it more profitable to invest in the sector related to the extraction of important resources rather than in other industries. Overall, there is a lack of genuine motivation and necessity to develop a real manufacturing sector, as resource revenues allow for a relatively comfortable life even under the current circumstances. The country is experiencing stagnation and stagnation.

The same processes occur in the sexual market. If a person possesses some important resource given to them from birth, they exploit that resource and are unwilling to invest in developing other qualities. Why should a beautiful girl focus on self-improvement, get a good education, or learn to think critically if everything is already going well for her? Why should a handsome guy become knowledgeable about ancient philosophy or be able to solve differential equations in his head? Moreover, if we consider that the cultural level of a partner is extremely important, it turns out that the more cultured a woman is, the fewer potential suitors she is willing to consider. Conversely, a woman with a low cultural level can still be in demand and even protected in the sexual market, as customs and laws prevent her from being expelled from the family. It is more likely that a developed husband will leave, leaving his limited wife with children, than that he will expel a wife with a low cultural level from the family and keep the children to pass on his culture. Thus, it seems that “much knowledge leads to much sorrow.” The more cultured a woman is, the fewer chances she has of finding a suitable partner. Perhaps men from Arab countries are right when they offer fewer camels for an educated woman than for an uneducated one.

Similarly, a handsome man who has everything he needs from life as a biological entity—namely, access to female genitalia—will not develop other virtues. Operating on a transactional level, he lacks motivation for self-improvement. However, over time, this means he becomes less desirable in the sexual market as a potential spouse. The “macho” business strategy works excellently in the absence of contraceptives. Such individuals have historically reproduced well through a method of “carpet seeding.” In economically developed countries, these individuals are doomed to extinction, if not for one caveat. If we consider a man as a commodity in the sexual market, we can identify several important characteristics for women, the presence and balance of which determine a man’s “worthiness.” We have already touched on some of these characteristics: the ability to provide for a family, cultural level, and physical appearance.

It’s a mistake to think that “quality sex” is a characteristic that influences choice. For experienced women, it’s a default factor. No one is going to invest in a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t pick up dust. If a woman tolerates a man by her side, it means he satisfies her, primarily as a man, not as a generator of dirty socks and unpleasant bathroom odors. For the inexperienced, they simply aren’t aware of “how else it can be” and believe that “this is how it should be” in any situation. As long as women remain confined within imposed and outdated moral standards that are irrelevant in the age of contraception and DNA testing, they won’t be able to shift to a strategy of choosing from many options and will end up selecting “in turn,” wasting precious time on each “trial.” In such conditions, most women simply have no vision of what “quality sex” is or whether it even exists.

You can add other characteristics that are valuable to the “buyer,” but more than what has already been listed is unnecessary to understand why the “handsome ones” continue to reproduce.

Just imagine a woman with a high level of culture and good financial stability. She is unlikely to find a partner who can add anything to her cultural upbringing for her children. She stands above most. It’s doubtful she will find someone wealthy enough to drastically change her standard of living. Besides, she doesn’t need a man’s money at all. She knows the value of her financial independence and has had her share of sponsors. Thanks to contraception, she hasn’t gotten pregnant by just anyone, has outgrown moral constraints, has become knowledgeable about sex, and has formed a quite reasonable view of the average man: “a barbarian and an idiot” or “a brute and a soldier.” So what does she need if the culture and wealth of a partner don’t interest her? Right! Beauty, sex, and youth. And what do we see in reality? Many accomplished women find exactly such men. Attractive, sexual, young, and that’s it. Are they smarter than her? With an age difference of 10 years or more, there are no smarter ones. There are gifted ones. What’s their level of culture? Not enough to compete with a woman. It’s sufficient for a nanny level, and we’ll see from there—given the right motivation, they can become cultured. But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that he’s good in bed and she’s not embarrassed to be seen with him in public. And the man is doomed. Young and transactional in his thinking, he won’t be able to counter wisdom and strategy. If she has her eye on him, everything will go as planned. Meanwhile, he will remain under the impression that he has won this woman over.

The lure effect

It was mentioned above that, in essence, a woman can afford not to shine with intelligence or culture as long as she is beautiful. She will find a mate for reproduction. Yes, it may be transactional, but nature only keeps the winners alive, and if transactional relationships are sufficient for the next generation to appear, then there’s no need to delve deeper. So why hasn’t natural selection eliminated all the smart and simply attractive women as failures? It all comes down to optimizing men’s search strategies. This is an unconscious behavior, but it is extremely rational. Men genuinely love “just attractive” women, while they tend to avoid “super beauties.”

In marketing, the decoy effect (or asymmetrical dominance effect) is a phenomenon where consumers tend to change their choice between two options when presented with a third option that is asymmetrically worse than the others. An option is considered asymmetrically worse when it is inferior to one of the options in all aspects, but compared to another initially inferior option, it is worse in some aspects and better in others. In other words, in terms of specific attributes that determine an advantage, it is completely worse than one option and partially worse than the second option. When an asymmetrically worse option is present, a larger percentage of consumers will choose the initially inferior option than when the asymmetrically worse option is absent. Thus, asymmetrically worse options are referred to as decoys, which are used to increase the selection of the initially inferior option. Marketers and sellers utilize the decoy effect, calling it “ the undertaker’s tactics “Politicians who use ‘technical’ candidates or ‘clowns’ to attract votes, candidates who should be unacceptable to the entire population. Women also use this strategy by bringing along less attractive friends to draw the attention of men, especially when a 100% beauty is nearby.”

Such seemingly irrational behavior is also characteristic of animals. For instance, female tungara frogs choose their mates based on their calls. The lower the pitch of the sounds produced by the male, the longer they last, and the more frequently the male emits mating calls, the greater his chances of success. All frogs have the same preferences, and if recordings of male tungara frog mating calls are played from two speakers, females will approach the one that produces what is generally considered the more appealing sounds: those with a lower pitch or those that last longer, for example. This means that any female can always rank a pair of males by attractiveness. However, it turns out that the frogs’ behavior can seem irrational: females are more likely to choose the less attractive male when a third, less appealing alternative is introduced.

First, the researchers ensured that the priorities of all 80 frogs participating in the experiment were aligned—that is, they chose the recording of calls that was lower in pitch, longer in duration, or more frequently heard. Ideally, they preferred all these qualities at once. After ranking all the mating call recordings by attractiveness, the scientists began conducting experiments with three voices. The addition of a less appealing option affected the frogs’ choices: they more often selected the one they had previously liked less in pairwise comparisons. Interestingly, the so-called “phantom lure effect” also worked for the frogs—this occurs when there is knowledge of a third alternative, but it is not accessible. To simulate this effect in the experiments, one of the three speakers broadcasting the least attractive call was suspended from the ceiling, making it impossible for the frog to approach it. Even in this case, the third alternative influenced the frogs’ preferences, leading them to choose the option that had previously seemed less appealing in pairwise comparisons.

But such behavior only seems irrational. In reality, by choosing “not the best,” a more optimal solution to the choice problem is achieved. It’s no coincidence that it’s said that men love one type of woman but marry another. Imagine a scenario similar to a man’s dilemma—reliably choosing one of the alternatives. You drive into an important tourist city on the day of a carnival. Parking on the street is impossible. The city has several parking lots, but there are also traffic jams and congestion—many people want to enter the city, and you need to park your car and make it to the carnival. Will you first try to get to the parking lot in the city center and then attempt other lots, wasting precious time in traffic and risking not finding a parking spot at all? Or will you ignore all the distant parking lots and try your luck at a lot that is closer to the center but not the most central? Your reasoning will be aided by the fact that there is only one central parking lot, while there are several more or less equally good options that are not central, which reduces the pressure of demand, assuming that the number of people with the same level of ambition as yours is the same for any parking lot.

The male strategy for choosing a woman is just like the strategy of male tungara frogs selecting a mate. The “parking” rules are even stricter. Your car can be towed away if someone wealthier comes along and is willing to pay double the price for an hour of parking. A man has no incentive to pursue a woman, spending time and resources on her, if there’s a high chance of competing with a more capable suitor. In fact, a man might not even approach such a woman, as she is in high demand and rejects potential suitors with particular diligence. Moreover, if he then tries his luck with less attractive women, he will also face rejection, as no one wants to be seen as a second-rate option. The only mathematically sound strategy is to ignore the super-beauty. However, men have one significant advantage over drivers looking for parking. Imagine being able to park your car “anywhere” and then calmly search for a better spot or even quietly nudge that Bentley over to take its place in the elite parking area until the owner returns.

As a result, beautiful women with a good level of culture who do not wish to sell themselves openly find themselves sidelined. Vulgar nouveau riche do not interest them, and normal men avoid them, creating legends to rationalize their avoidance, claiming that all beauties are airheads and logs in bed, when in reality, they just lack the courage. The grapes are sour, right? Consequently, the next generation consists of simply pretty girls, the majority of whom dream of becoming beauties for some reason, thereby funding several sectors of the economy. However, to see the ineffectiveness of “absolute beauty,” one only needs to compare the number of views on porn videos featuring “standard” actresses with “lips, silicone, butt, legs, makeup” to those with just “kind of modest girls.”

In essence:

• Beautiful people are rarely smart. They simply don’t need to be. However, quoting Oscar Wilde, beauty is a gift for a few years. If you’re damn beautiful, you shouldn’t let your guard down.
• An important paradox is that starting from a certain level, the better you are, the less in demand you will be. If you want to attract more partners, lower your standards.
• In any market system, 100% utilization of production capacity is not expected by anyone. An excess of demand over supply is only possible in the short term. No airline plans its flights with 100% occupancy. No hotel is fully booked at 100%. In any parking lot, even one that appears to be full, it is more likely that there is at least one free space available than that there are no spaces at all.

In economics, this is referred to as the “Dutch disease.” This effect got its name after the Netherlands discovered natural gas fields in 1959. The increase in gas exports led to rising inflation and unemployment, a decline in the export of manufactured goods, and a slowdown in income growth during the 1970s. The rise in oil prices in the mid-1970s and early 1980s caused a similar effect in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Mexico.

In poorer communities, women tend to prefer macho men because life is tough, and traits like height, strength, and status in the animal hierarchy are valued. In wealthier communities, however, women are more inclined to choose men who show a greater inclination towards nurturing and caring for offspring. This happens because the poor are not burdened by valuable possessions, and the distribution of culture and wealth in such communities is more egalitarian. Therefore, all else being equal, physical attributes become the primary criterion for selection. Women in poverty still evaluate men as resource and cultural investors, but there simply aren’t many options to choose from—everyone is equally poor and primitive.

This is not about gigolos who consciously prey on high-status women. Although, that does happen too.

For this idea, which has been applied in various fields of economics and has formed the basis for many other theories, mathematician John Nash (the one portrayed in the film “A Beautiful Mind”) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1994.

A very similar analogy can be found in the job market. Employers are hesitant to hire personnel who have very high qualifications. There’s even a term for it: “overqualified.” Employers fear that a highly qualified individual will view the offered position as temporary and will quickly jump to another company if the opportunity arises. A similar analogy can be found in sales as well. A good salesperson will never approach a large corporate company unless they have strong connections there. Instead, they will target mid-sized companies—not too small, as those aren’t worth the time, but also not the huge ones that sales departments are vying for and that all known and unknown competitors dream of capturing.

[6] J. Huber et al. (June 1982). Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis.The Journal of Consumer Research9.(1).

[7] Amanda M. Lea, Michael J. Ryan. Irrationality in mate choice revealed by túngara frogs //Science. 2015. V. 349. P. 964–966.