Is Being Gay Easier When You’re Hot?

It’s no secret that humans as a species are superficial, beauty-obsessed creatures. Our culture celebrates aesthetic beauty over almost nearly any other quality. And with social media platforms constantly feeding us images of unattainable beauty, I think these days sometimes we all feel like the sole ugly duckling in a world of perfect 10s, who are also seemingly constantly on vacation. Sometimes it seems like the worst is just easier for the beautiful people. And furthermore, sometimes it REALLY seems like it’s easier being gay for the beautiful people. Is there any truth to these feelings, or is this just another case of the grass always being greener on the other side? Do the Adonises of our age just float through life on a cloud of splendor and sponsored Instagram posts? Does the universe lay down at their feet and bestow all life’s worldly pleasures in droves? Ask the hottest guy you know, and he can confirm that this is NOT in fact the case. Sure, being really hot has some perks: your options for sexual partners is potentially greater, people are more likely to hold the door for you and smile at the grocery stuff--stuff like that. But these slight differences in treatment… are they magnified when we start talking specifically about the gay community? Let’s face it, gay guys can get real catty when it comes to physical appearance. There is a lot of pressure placed on us to be fit, trim, clean, and well-dressed. Naturally though, this is not a problem unique to the gay community and is something our whole society needs to focus on fixing. But the issue of preferential treatment of the hottest people takes on a different context with the gays. Homophobia is very much still a problem all over the world. And sometimes it seems like the guys who we all consider to be the hottest would also be the least likely to victims of homophobia. In other words, we're talking about men who embody the stereotypical hyper-masculine traits. Therefore we can ask ourselves, is this preferential treatment of attractive people linked not only to our society's shallowness but also its pervading homophobia? However you cut it, beautiful people are always going to be beautiful. Standards of beauty will change over time, and then we’ll just pick different people to be the beautiful people. This seems to be a universal part of society, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take little steps each to continue moving toward true equality.