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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 27, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why do women seem to be pursuing the Botox/lip filler/cheek filler look at younger and younger ages? It could just be my perception but I see women doing this in their early and mid 20s, which is bonkers to me. It’s understandable once you hit 35-40, but why do it when you’re young and still in your sexual marketplace prime?

At that age it tends to give your face a very eerie quality and actually make you look older and less attractive. This seems to be the consensus view among men, so presumably high-status men would also overwhelmingly feel this way. Are women doing it for instagram and to compete against other women? If that’s the case it’s counterproductive and actively harming their sexual marketplace value in the large majority of cases.

The other argument that I can buy: maybe I’m just not noticing all the instances of those touch-ups being applied with a milder hand. If done properly, it can increase a woman’s SMV? I don’t necessarily agree with this, I think straight men are extremely fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution to detect unnatural things like this, but I could be wrong. I certainly seem to be able to distinguish the odd and uncanny-valley quality it lends to a woman’s face.

Because it makes them look slutty. Sluts get attention. Attention is what they want. It's the currency of desire. These women assume that attention will translate into commitment.

While physical beauty in women is pretty objective in terms of physical traits, sexual attractiveness is best modeled as a mix between physical beauty and her signals of availability. Men find women attractive who signal their availability to those men, that they are open to sexual advances. Signals of availability can be cultural, they can be signals of virginity and youth, or of shared interests or cultural compatibility to particular men.

A woman with significant visible work done is signaling that she's available for casual sex to men in the same cultural grouping. Compared to a more natural face, I'd assume the girl with filler is more likely to put out.

It is also signaling. And countersignaling.

  • I care about being fashionable

  • I am willing to spend significant quantities of money on being fashionable

  • I can afford to look somewhat ugly/fake/distasteful and still do well.

It's like a peacock's tail.

While the stereotypical Russian escort type or bottle girl has a botox/filler heavy look, the most ‘ready to put out’ chicks who exist in highly promiscuous subcultures mostly care little about their appearance, girls at anarchist or punk events or your average late-20s or early 30s promiscuous barfly has neither the money for nor the inclination to cosmetic intervention on that level. Promiscuous women don’t need to get filler to signal sexual availability, they can do so on Tinder directly or in real life at a bar or club by their clothing and body language.

The average botox and filler user remains in her late 30s or 40s, probably married with children and - regardless of your own circumstances - is probably monogamous. She isn’t signalling sexual availability to other men, she’s competing with younger women and other women her age for attention and status, from men and from each other.

A woman with significant visible work done is signaling that she's available for casual sex to men

I suppose ‘compared to the average woman with no work done in her social grouping’ might be true, but that’s doing a lot of work. For the most part, she still isn’t signalling that (if say 10% of 40 year old PMC women are ‘signalling’ that they’re ‘available for casual sex’, the proportion with significant visible work done might be 15%).

I believe the thread question is specifically about women in their early 20s. Nor did I say they were the most promiscuous, merely that it was a signal of sexual availability.