THIS COULD BE IT
Objectification of Our Mortal Bodies: Part 1
This one's juicy.
THIS COULD BE IT
Objectification of Our Mortal Bodies: Part 1
This one's juicy.
13
Objectification of Our Mortal Bodies: Part 1
This episode explores the complex relationship between physical appearance, attraction, societal norms, and inner qualities. Hosts Mike and Jodi delve into historical, cultural, and psychological perspectives on beauty, objectification, and self-perception.
« What percent of people do you think would admit that attractiveness, for example, is in their top three things about finding a partner, a mate? »
Jodi Wellman
Co-host
Episode Stuff
Key Topics
00:00
The Body and Its Perception
04:00
Attraction and Meaning
08:55
Historical Perspectives on Beauty
23:50
The Duality of Body and Mind
24:00
The Historical Context of Beauty Standards
26:43
Cultural Perceptions of Attractiveness
29:52
The Impact of Beauty on Self-Worth
32:46
Reality Shows and Attraction
35:16
The Duality of Attraction and Relationship Satisfaction
38:13
Self-Monitoring vs. Living Authentically
41:01
Celebrity Comparisons and Self-Perception
43:19
- Historical origins of beauty standards
- The dualism of body and mind in philosophy and religion
- Objectification and societal perceptions of attractiveness
- Cultural influences on beauty ideals and racial features
- The impact of social comparison and self-monitoring
- "The body is always an issue, from the outside in."
- "Objectification reduces humans to surface features."
- "Self-worth often depends on societal beauty norms."
00:00
The Body and Its Perception
04:00
Attraction and Meaning
08:55
Historical Perspectives on Beauty
23:50
The Duality of Body and Mind
24:00
The Historical Context of Beauty Standards
26:43
Cultural Perceptions of Attractiveness
29:52
The Impact of Beauty on Self-Worth
32:46
Reality Shows and Attraction
35:16
The Duality of Attraction and Relationship Satisfaction
38:13
Self-Monitoring vs. Living Authentically
41:01
Celebrity Comparisons and Self-Perception
43:19
TRANSCRIPT
Mike Steger 00:00
You're listening to This Could Be It, the podcast which gives you conversation, research, and big ideas for living a life that truly matters, and for helping you start today. Because, well, you know, this could be it. So, we're talking about bodies, and I there's there's a couple things I definitely want to get back to, you know, the close-up video of you showing your kissing technique, which we'll definitely have to feature because that was gripping. But then I also had this thought that will come up. Don't worry. I had this thought: like the body is always an issue, right? We know this is a problem, and I thought, what if we work our way from the outside in, right? There's all right. We we're not allowed to even say the phrase inside out because that's trademarked, right? So what outside in though? I think that can be our space. So eventually, we'll we'll start with what do you see when you look at a person, and then we'll move in to fitness, maybe health-related issues like organs. What's that?
Jodi Wellman 01:06
Like organs, like inside organs. Then
Mike Steger 01:08
we get to the organs.
Jodi Wellman 01:09
Oh, I see. There's still a layer. Yeah.
Mike Steger 01:11
Yeah. Disgusting, embarrassing body stuff. Right. Start with the surface.
Speaker 1 01:17
Yeah.
Mike Steger 01:18
But not dermatology because I don't really know how to be dewy, but then then we go to Strinds Day Alive, right? Which is a topic I think you like, and then we go to farts and stomach grumbles, right? Drool, snoring. There's a whole there's a whole list of things that our bodies do that we don't tend to enjoy very much. So, anything but that a whole series of episodes.
Jodi Wellman 01:48
Oh, oh, you're saying episodes. I was thinking this was like a this was today.
Mike Steger 01:52
No, because we really need about a half hour for your your kissing masterclass. The elaborate,
Jodi Wellman 01:57
yeah, it's like a multi phased.
Mike Steger 02:00
Yeah, to have grace? Grace, right? I'm saying it like Elaine from Seinfeld. Grace. There was a whole right because I can't help but say it like Elaine from Seinfeld with my Invisalign. I guess Invisalign would go towards today's topic for some
Speaker 1 02:18
people.
Mike Steger 02:19
Next body topic for others. I like think of myself in the second category, right? So the first category, some people want straight, beautiful teeth because it makes them boxier, foxy teeth. For me, I like to imagine that I'm above all that sort of shit, so I don't like the fact that my teeth are like literally chiseling on each other, and I was doing all sorts of jaw stuff to avoid my teeth ever touching, and I'd wake up with headaches and jaw aches all day long. So I like to think I'm pure still. I doubt we'll be able to maintain that illusion by the end of.
Jodi Wellman 02:53
Yeah, I also think you have just technically busted yourself anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 1 03:00
Nope.
Jodi Wellman 03:00
No. Okay, he's he's he's stubborn.
Mike Steger 03:03
I did not say. Boys and girls.
Jodi Wellman 03:05
Right now, he's maintaining that this is purely for technical reasons.
Mike Steger 03:10
Yeah. No. Yeah. It's like an emergency. I never got braces when I was a kid.
Jodi Wellman 03:14
Yeah, but that doesn't mean you didn't live in horror and shame ever since that moment. Just since you're, you know, not that we're saying that you should have felt.
Mike Steger 03:22
I've lived in horror and shame. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever stop. That's that's where I. It's like my space to shine.
Jodi Wellman 03:28
You own it. So, well, I like this. So, really, we're talking about the hot and bothered bodies starting from the outside in.
Mike Steger 03:38
Yeah, hot or not, existential edition. Let's get right to it, right? Let's let's confront the biggest conundrum facing meaning focused people,
Jodi Wellman 03:50
which is what Mike
Mike Steger 03:52
or not.
Jodi Wellman 03:53
Okay, just in general as a topic, one comes up with
Mike Steger 04:01
Attraction, all this sort of stuff, and we've got good. We've got good precedents. We've got good precedents. I was looking this up a little bit. I had some little threads in my mind of where all this stuff came from. Right, like meaning is very pure. Right, like we're supposed to be like, if we care about meaning, then and the research suggests we're pretty good at this, but like if we care about meaning, then we're supposed to kind of not care about someone's hot. If we're hot, we see deeper stuff. We don't care about if the food is blemished. We'll eat ugly fruit, right? Like all this sort of things, right? We're supposed to be about the depth, the seriousness. We're not supposed to be about the frivolity, the pleasure. Whether people are looking at us when we walk into a room with a little bit of lust or twinkle in their eyes. Instead, we're just supposed to wait until we talk to them, and then they're really impressed with the depth of our soul, and we're impressed with theirs because we don't see the. Their face or their body, either right. So, like, I feel like this is an unspoken conundrum toward this whole topic. What do you think? Is it an unspoken conundrum, or am I is am I self owning again?
Jodi Wellman 05:13
Nobody knows what you're talking about right now. I totally agree. It is a it's a I think a pretty generous issue because it's the differentiator about am I shallow versus not, you know? And even though it's like self worth on self worth, like I don't want to think I'm not getting braces just to pick on you, like Invisalign for a certain reason. Like we have these ideas about how maybe we aren't shallow about being shallow, etc. So I agree. Rooting it back, I like how you even brought up ugly fruit. That really took it. There's a whole business that sells you ugly fruit. Did you know that?
Mike Steger 05:47
Yeah, I know it's better for the planet, better for everybody.
Jodi Wellman 05:50
Yeah,
Mike Steger 05:51
got it. So I was reading literally last night a New York Times profile of Wallace Shawn. Do you know this person? Inconceivable. Now, do you know this? Right. Yeah. So, and then it. So then it like describes his face. Like, if you know inconceivable, you know who I'm talking about, right? Busy. Very different character acronym. Apparently, he was like in Annie Hall is like a very good lover, and he apparently dated some of the people in Sex and the City. I don't really know how this works. He was Clueless. He's been a lot of cool things, but one of the throw lines was so they describe his features, right? Like his features are are very interesting and fun, and I think endearing in a lot of ways. But then in a lot of movies he's kind of cast as, and the quote here is an unlikely Lothario, right? And this is this idea that somehow the appearance that Wallace Shawn, beloved character actor, all five foot two of him, appears portrays of the world is not what you would think of as someone who'd be attractive or into being a good lover or anything that sort of stuff, right? So, knowing we were preparing for this episode, I thought that it's really interesting the bundle of things that come along with thinking someone's attractive versus thinking someone's deep, shallow versus deep.
Jodi Wellman 07:18
Yeah, yeah, and I love just because I'm hoping if we fast forward to the end that we come to the conclusion that there's room for both. Let's just spoiler alert. That's my for
Mike Steger 07:28
shallow people like you. Yes, for deep people like me, it's all it's really just technical. Do your teeth work or not? Who cares what they look like? If they poke straight out like a narwhal, still cool.
Jodi Wellman 07:38
I know someone who decided when he was dating that he purposely did not? He swiped by people who he was physically attracted to because he was so concerned about his identity of being outwardly, and also just his belief about himself as I am. I want substance. I don't want belief was was that well? Surely she wouldn't be substantive because she's beautiful, and so to deprive oneself of attraction just to prove a point. Pretty sure
Mike Steger 08:11
that's that's a very revealing move, and I'm sure somewhere in there is the idea that women more than men might see inner beauty or value that more. Maybe we can talk about that a little bit as well. Where do you think all of this fretting over body versus mind? How how far back do you plant your flag in that sort of dualism? So I'm just doing some poking around.
Jodi Wellman 08:38
You were you? Okay, I have an
Mike Steger 08:40
idea, but then I need to check it. Of course.
Jodi Wellman 08:43
Well, would it be based? I mean, gosh, I think about like social comparison theory. I'm thinking, trying to think about ways that would have even happened earlier, where it was that I need to size you up. I'm thinking about logically. That if I notice that that caveman is really interested in that cave woman, and um, but you want the caveman or the cave
Mike Steger 09:11
woman yourself? Is that where you're going with this?
Jodi Wellman 09:13
Say that one more time, sorry.
Mike Steger 09:14
Like, but you, like you're saying that you see one caveman is in one cave woman. Is this a setup for you being interested in that caveman or that same cave woman, or is well? I think I'm observing the cave.
Jodi Wellman 09:25
I'm watching the cave, and I'm seeing if there's a there's a desire there where it's like caveman is interested in the certain cave women, and vice versa. And everyone else observes that, and then it's that well, I need to somehow have my loin cloth look a certain way, and so I feel like this desire early days. We're observing each other, and because I, you know, I think attraction is also it's guttural inside, but it's also observed as like a social thing, right? Like it's pattern matching in the world. It's not so much like this. Soulmate, magic dust. So I think it's cave people. Can you tell what's the answer to the test?
Mike Steger 10:07
Well, okay. Well, this is very interesting. I mean, it's got to be something very human. You would think, right? Because, you know, people have done all this sort of stuff. Does attractiveness indicate genetic fitness, right? Like you look at someone the symmetrical phase or whatever it is, then you know that the babies they kick out or initiate within the womb are going to be pretty good babies for other reasons. That like like you know like any other creature in the world, when we try to attract a mate, we're trying to signal some potential for a successful and healthy offspring by whatever we're doing to attract that mate. Now we're a little bit more complicated, maybe than a bird jumping around in the forest with bright little feathers. But like that, that's that's basically the argument. Like we have like these attractive people, and then we get the social layers that suggest that what different cultures find attractive is different, and that those change over time. Sometimes response to broader things, right? Like it's possible now that that the you can get away with being called attractive if if you're relatively slender, whereas in the past, like Rubenesque or you know Zaftig, like body types would be more attractive because they signified wealth or they they signified access to food, so the babies wouldn't be starving, whatever it might be, and now we signify wealth and access food in different ways. We are we've changed, right? So all these sorts of ideas come right on, and so it's got to go back somewhere. Now I I had I keep misreading I keep misreading Plato. I don't know why, and no matter how many times people tell me, I still forget that. Like it's really Plato who gave us this this reality ideal dualism, right? Like we live in this reality of of bodies and physical sensate life, and but then they're just a poor reflection of the the better abstract, beautiful forms that exist, right? So, like, there's the physicality which is flawed, and then there's the ideal forms that our physicality reflects. So that weaseled its way into a lot of early, later Greek, but also early Christian thought, right? So we have like some writings from the Book of Wisdom, right, around like 100 BCE, and that starts to show up in in some wacky little quotes. But then Paul, like remember Paul, he wrote some letters to some Corinthians and probably other people as well. I should note this. Paul's letter to the Ephesians kind of get bonus points if that's right, right? So then he's like, you know, the body is like generating all this sin and all these terrible things, right? So the person I thought I was going to eventually find myself obsessing over was Augustine, Saint Augustine, right, like the super influential Christian writer, convert Paul was also a convert. The converts tend to be a little bit more hardcore, right, than the inheritors of a wisdom tradition. So Augustine has this very famous quote, and so in this book Confessions. He says, "Give me chastity and continence. He doesn't mean pooing, so he just means like fortitude, right? Give me chastity and continence, but not yet, right? So he's like, some dad like to stop being, you know, a player. Such
Jodi Wellman 13:58
a rascal.
Mike Steger 14:00
He keeps wanting to add to his body count. Saint Augustine of Hippo does, but you know, someday he won't, and then he'll be a good person. That that's why I thought we were going to probably end up like when we think about mind body dualism. Sometimes you talk about Dick Hart, but even earlier than that was Augustine, and then even earlier that than that was like these early Christian, other Christian folks, and even earlier that was Plato. So that's interesting, I think, in of itself, right? But then I have, then I was reading. I think I brought, I know I brought up Herodotus before, right? The this ancient history, and I can't remember, cannot remember the tribe because they all had like bonkers names for a current American to try to remember, it could have been the Masjidianins or the Cessazajeanans one of those, you know, Thracian-ish, Scythian ish tribes from north of the Black Sea. Let's say back in the way ancient times. Right, so this this guy Herodes, he's wandering around the world, writing everything he sees down. He's a little bit before Plato, and he's talking about this one tribe. He likes to talk about the culture and particularly sex. Like he's pretty, I can't really get around it. He talks about sex and sometimes tastes, but mostly access. Like, what is? There's no. There's no nice way to put this. Like, what is done with women in each tribe, right? Like, how he really takes care to let us know which which tribes? Every woman is available for every man,
Jodi Wellman 15:46
but you.
Mike Steger 15:47
Or there's one day of the year, or one time, one day in the life of someone where they have to go hang out in a temple, and anyone who wants to go to them can be with them. Like just strange things. It sounds like a pretty horrible time, to be honest.
Jodi Wellman 16:01
Bring birthday,
Mike Steger 16:04
be birthday. You are going to sit in the temple until people pay you, bring you gifts, and have sex at you.
Jodi Wellman 16:12
Right.
Mike Steger 16:13
So, but then there's this one tribe, and this is this is the system that he likes best. You think it's a very sensible system. Once a year, they get all of the women and all of the men together who are single within a a big a big festival, and I think this is the first hot or not sort of moment in history. And you have to bid on who you want to be your wife, right? And the money goes into a pool, so the the the more attractive females, women get higher bids, and then their money is pooled so that you can, if you don't have enough money to buy an attractive wife, you you did less money on a on an unattractive, yeah, with a asymmetrical face, maybe no face. I don't know what they thought was attractive in the Sassajidinian tribes. That I for sure is not correct, right? But then, like he thought it was really great because then all the money that you paid to have the chance a hot a chance of the hottie, that money eventually trickled down to to help the the poor person who was stuck with a not hottie wife in this model had money enough to start their family.
Jodi Wellman 17:35
Right, right. They get some action.
Speaker 1 17:37
Yeah,
Jodi Wellman 17:38
technically, just
Mike Steger 17:39
yeah. So this is, I think, like like this is the one where really, if there was a price, people paid a price literally
Speaker 1 17:47
to be
Mike Steger 17:48
with a more attractive person.
Speaker 1 17:49
Ancient
Mike Steger 17:50
history, ancient history. So at least we can go back to the whenever that tradition started,
Jodi Wellman 17:56
right,
Mike Steger 17:57
in the steppe lands north of the Black Sea,
Jodi Wellman 18:00
and that. So you've brought up it's the norms of the time, so the social norms. It's the continuity of the of the species. Like I, I, it's probably likelier that you will deliver an offspring that will live because of your somehow the translation between looks and Health and how much at that point do you think was there any social influence of you are from a better part of the tribe, you know, like back to the well if you are you're an aristocrat or you're worth more because I wonder if that could have muddled muddied the waters of the hot or not right because it could have been ah she's not the hot, but I'm going to still bid a lot because that means that I will get better access to the goats. Yeah, I don't know how deep you went into the research, but
Mike Steger 18:50
wow, I didn't go deep at all. Like, I do think that people who are well resourced have typically had more choice, right? And they've oftentimes used that pretty horribly.
Jodi Wellman 19:07
Yeah, fair,
Mike Steger 19:08
right? I mean, like you don't want to get too sad about this, but like, yeah, you see, influential wealthy people have huge networks.
Jodi Wellman 19:19
Yeah,
Mike Steger 19:21
supporters and people want to buy into all that bullshit. Even if that person at the hub is in jail for pedophilia, right?
Jodi Wellman 19:31
Yeah, the
Mike Steger 19:31
whole Epstein files thing, and all of those people who are sucking at the sucking at the the trough. I changed my metaphor the last second there.
Jodi Wellman 19:42
Yeah, you did.
Mike Steger 19:43
Yeah, we've got past presidents, current presidents listed, hanging out, buddy buddy photos, saying great things about this horrible monster. We have Harvard presidents. We have wellness influencers.
Speaker 1 19:59
Describing
Mike Steger 20:00
was it Atias? Is that his name? Yes. Describing our
Jodi Wellman 20:04
diets. There we go. Yeah.
Mike Steger 20:06
Caloric values of various horrible things. We have princes. We have business people. We have in some countries though those people resign in shame when they're found out, and then in America those face fake news and move on and become adored for it, right? So I I think that side of it, access in a sense, it's no more modern. I mean, it's it's equally predatory in a sense. It's equally abusive. So the dark side, obviously, of of of these examples is people with power and money
Speaker 1 20:44
go after beauty. Yeah,
Jodi Wellman 20:48
it's interesting because in this example, and there be different versions over time over the centuries. It's already a qualification that we well we know we're dealing with the hot, not the not. So you know you're going to be getting a great piece of ass on the plane, and then at the at the island. The issue that's interesting, if we we take this and go, it's the but interesting. It's a very youthful piece of ass. That is the back to access because some of it is it the mystique and the allure that it's wrong, is it the deep-seated notion that oh, as animals, there's a desire for youth? Like we're getting-it's a whole other ball of wax. I realize, but there's something else about this nuance, right? The underagedness that is a different twist, because then that's-is that just pure up objectification? Like I want you because I can have you.
Mike Steger 21:38
Yeah, and I think I think that is that is pure objectification, where you where you annihilate the humanity of of someone for some surface reasons, right? Like I want, like it's it's kind of like if you're if you're famous, I guess you don't know if people actually like you or they they hang out with you because you're famous or because you're rich, right? Like like people you've been reduced. This came up in Walla with Sean, right? So like when people say inconceivable to him, and sometimes they'll ask like someone will ask like because he's a playwright. That was that's how he thinks of himself as as a playwright. And then a couple times he was in movies to help pay the bills, right? Or because people thought he would do that, and he liked acting in his own plays and other people's plays, right? But you know, someone said like, "How do you feel about that? And he's like, "Oh, it doesn't really do any harm, but I do think it's maybe a little sad for anyone to be have their entire lifetime and complexity reduced to a single
Jodi Wellman 22:48
yes
Mike Steger 22:49
moment
Speaker 1 22:50
yeah
Mike Steger 22:50
or line or roll
Speaker 1 22:53
yeah so like
Mike Steger 22:54
I did not know we're I was gonna invoke endlessly the the specter of the guiding spirit for this topic, of well, Sean, you know, like so, objectification in a sense probably could happen, and we call it exploitation or like using someone for something, right? And someone, you know, I guess if you are trying to be very, very hot, like it's great because it can get you access to people who have resources if that's what you want, but then you're stuck with these people who want to use their resources to get access to beautiful people and beautiful things, and do really want to be around those people-they seem kind of horrible a lot of times, right?
Jodi Wellman 23:29
Right, right. Yeah, I do
Mike Steger 23:31
want to throw one thing, one other thing out there: the people who had the hot or not bidding wife auction were considered to be barbarians, right? At that time, uncivilized folk. Look at these crazy barbarian ways, right? So this emphasis already, in a sense, on beauty as the reason why you would make a marital alliance was already seen back in those days.
Jodi Wellman 24:00
Yeah,
Mike Steger 24:00
some of the scans even before Plato. Like this is not how civilized people would do this shit, right? Like you're not just gonna have people parade around. Although he thought it was sensible because there was a redistribution for the for the community. It makes sense long term, but yeah, right. So early on, we have this idea that like this is for barbarians to do, like to just judge on on appearance, right? But is it is it barbaric or is it like human nature and and the fancy people who can get away with it in modern life, sophisticated, smart, successful people, and still be around hotties, whatever that looks like to them.
Jodi Wellman 24:43
Right, right, yeah. As the times go by, and as the culture changes, and it certainly can become more of a gender thing or not. And I, to be super honest about it, like I don't even find the gender part to be the most interesting thing because I think it goes both. Ways, it's about our perception of others, and then what, how it's valued, and what that means. Fast forward to now, and it has not been new. It's not news right now. It's been along for a long time. We know the studies about how people who are attracted do better at work, especially you know CEOs are often taller men of a certain look, and I don't just mean you know white. That's certainly another characteristic, unfortunately, but have the back to the symmetrical face and being taller. I mean, you're a perfect CEO candidate over there, guy. You could be rocking the corporate world.
Mike Steger 25:30
Probably too tall, right?
Jodi Wellman 25:32
Well, especially with your Invisalign now, though, you'll be able to really take over corporate America.
Mike Steger 25:37
I'm pretty white. I mean, this is this is another thing, of course, that you know racialized images of beauty have been a thing not forever. Like you read, like it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, where there were definitely like religious animosities. There's sometimes empire to empire animosities, and you hear people saying like all all those, no Spaniards or whatever, like the English and the French didn't really have nice things to say about each other for about 1000 years there in the middle. But there wasn't a point where it feels like a relatively modern thing where there were ideas that attractiveness also had racialized features to it.
Speaker 1 26:25
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Steger 26:27
That's also very strange to think about how that plays out now, right?
Jodi Wellman 26:31
Right. Yeah. There's dominant culture that gets to say, like, this is the shape of a face. This is the shape of a part of a face. This is the shape of a body part. Yeah. The kind of
Mike Steger 26:40
hair. This is the kind of skin tone. These are some of the facial features. You know, like you can see, Korean beauty culture seems to be a big deal. If if I've heard of it, and I've heard of it for years, it is clearly a global phenomenon that speaks the first of human experience. Yeah, right. But like you know, like eye widening is the is a big thing, and in in some parts of Korean beauty culture, right? Or skin lightening has been something that's been an issue, and it just is really it is really pervasive. Now we would never support anything like that. Like, like as humans, I don't think anyone is like on board. This is a great idea. Like, yeah, we definitely should treat hotties better than noties, right? We should all get behind that. It's almost like we all grudgingly accept that it it happens, and then we do our little things to try to,
Jodi Wellman 27:40
yes,
Mike Steger 27:41
you know, like we can be as judgmental as we want, but do we ever do anything to make ourselves more attractive? Probably. I mean, like we know the rules of the game, so it's very strange. Like the persistence and the fact that we buy into it, even though we know it's bad,
Jodi Wellman 27:57
right? Something
Mike Steger 27:58
fundamental is happening.
Jodi Wellman 27:59
Totally. I think about the people I know where there's a desire to stop the insanity, for example, or to know that this shouldn't matter. Well, a lot of things shouldn't be, and yet we still live in this society, and so we're going to have to go through with it until there's a massive what upheaval. I don't see that happening, and and the number of people I know who resent, especially as females, having to you know go and get the hair done, the nails done, the waxing, the I'm gonna say it, anal bleaching, the stuff, like all the different things that I'm just reacting to your face right now. I knew that I was gonna get a face. I knew it.
Mike Steger 28:39
Yeah,
Jodi Wellman 28:40
but the feeling, like, because it goes beyond when you know others deem these things to be attractive, and or I'm going to get promoted more if I am like this, or I'm going to get bid on higher in the you know ancient wedding higher. Then then it internalizes, right? So that's of course where you end up with awe, the sadness, then all the well-being research about when your self-worth is contingent on to the degree to which you feel like you have fit into this beauty-focused culture, or trying because you may not have the symmetrical face, although you can fix that, you can get it broken and fix it, or you can just do your darnedest to groom and maintain to have some semblance of self-respect in a world that's predicated on is is is it okay that my skin is this color, you know, or is it okay that I have I done my I'm trying to figure out another body part that's maintained. I don't know, like am I waxed okay, you know? That self esteem is contingent on that. Is yeah, always
Mike Steger 29:44
soak my hands in the right kind of emollients so that they don't have like that. The skin gets old looking.
Jodi Wellman 29:52
Well, I can show you right here. Here's like right there.
Mike Steger 29:54
Oh, I mean, some of these freckles. Look at this. These are the hands of a 1000 year old man. Oh. Right there, yeah, right. So we're going to talk about aging gets its own thing, and you've mentioned you mentioned as much as you brought up anal bleaching, you have actually mentioned waxing more. So we're going to have a whole hair episode as well. Like you have to,
Jodi Wellman 30:18
hairy, yeah, times
Mike Steger 30:19
biggest existential stumbling block of all, obviously,
Speaker 2 30:24
it does go without
Mike Steger 30:25
saying, but we will eventually get around to saying it. But yeah, like we have all these these things we have to try to take care of, and we participate in the system, so it maintains the system. And so, in a sense, like as a consequence of paying attention to beauty, we see that there are downstream consequences that aren't good, so we don't want to participate. That this is a little bit like the ugly fruit thing. We don't want them to just throw away fruit because they grew it somewhere. They used a lot of pesticides and water and all these things, and they put it on a boat. It sailed forever. Then it got on trucks. It drove forever. Got stuck in traffic. Kicked out diesel fumes, and then somebody had to wear like on those weight belts, and I had a dolly to roll it up into the the store's warehouse like warehouse unit, and then they put it on shelves, and then they had to make it look nice when like someone like me takes it and you know like tries to figure out which one I'm gonna want. I touch them all, you know, and then like eventually there's one with one blemish, and they're like, "Okay, now it goes straight in the garbage. All that energy, time, resources that went into it, waste food. There's people are hungry, all these sorts of things. We know we should eat the. I've already forgotten where I'm going with this. We know we should eat the ugly fruit. So it's good for us to try to not participate in this like esthetic perfection contest, right? Like this conveyor belt of ever tightening margins for error over what is good looking, because we know that somewhere down the line it really creates a system that causes damage every step along the way.
Jodi Wellman 31:56
Yep.
Mike Steger 31:57
That being said, we spend a lot of time on these sorts of things, right? Like, I don't mean to be crude, but the game fuck Mary Kill or is it Smash Smash Mary? There's like there's different versions of this, right? Like I don't even know
Jodi Wellman 32:15
what the new versions that got.
Mike Steger 32:16
I know, you know, I don't know. But anyways, like like who would you just have sex with who? Would you want to have a partnership with, and who is you for some reason just murder? Yeah, it could be ban. Let's just say banish, but like yeah. So like you name three celebrities or three friends in your friend group, or you know three existentialists: Camus, Sartre, De Beauvoir. Which now go fucking near you, kill right? Or right, like Hot or Not was a big thing for a while. We still like Love Is Blind, is is put together by the same people who do like Hot Too Hot to Handle, right? Like all these reality shows, like all these right. There's still an appeal, right? There's still an appeal to play those games to like be able to express, like find those excuse excusable moments to say, all right, I know I'm a serious person and right deep,
Jodi Wellman 33:09
yeah.
Mike Steger 33:09
But you're forcing me now to pretend to put on a hat where I somehow notice appearance in other people. So I definitely thought this person married this person, killed this person.
Jodi Wellman 33:21
Yeah, how would I? And I think that that's part of for a lot of people this allure to the those shows you're mentioning. And by the way, I don't watch them not because I'm so superior. I just watch 8000 other shows, and so it's just I haven't gotten into that. And I, at any rate, the idea that deep down it's still fascinating for people, right?
Mike Steger 33:40
Like what? Like what's happening with those shows? Like it's, it's fascinating, and we like these excuses to to sort of open those those gates a little bit and play in that space. We do see that there's some people, and we tend maybe to judge them who are in that space a lot. They're constantly saying who's dressed well, who's looking good, who's attractive, who's hot, who's worth trying to pursue at the club. Now this person gets an eight, this person gets a seven. We're rating all these sorts of things, right? And in it, in isolation from other things, that's disgusting, right? Like that's gross. Like the whole thing about swiping on dating apps that your friend was resisting is this idea that it does anchor you to something that's not particularly predictive of good relationship satisfaction, right? So like it would be interesting. I don't know what the alternative is. Maybe there's a new dating app out there where you don't get to see people's pictures at all until after you've already considered what you like about spending time with them. Who knows?
Jodi Wellman 34:50
Right,
Mike Steger 34:51
right. But like, there's there's something about it. Like the dualism feels like if you're focusing on attraction, you're you're ruling. Important stuff, and we meaning folks like to dive into the important stuff.
Jodi Wellman 35:04
Yeah, what percent of people do you think would admit that attractiveness, for example, is in like their top three things about finding a partner, a mate, or even just a? I don't know if I know
Mike Steger 35:17
enough people.
Speaker 1 35:18
Yeah,
Mike Steger 35:19
I do know that if you went on stage and said, "Okay, here's here's what you need to do before you die. Get with someone super hot and only spend time around hotties. I really feel like people would not like that. They might say, "Like
Jodi Wellman 35:39
I would somehow not resonating.
Mike Steger 35:41
Easier said than done inside. Like, sounds great, good, but you know. So, I think it's hard to it's hard to know. I feel like there's both a lot of emphasis on rating people for being hot or not, and also on pretending that you either don't notice, or it doesn't matter, or you're just attracted to people that you're not you don't find attractive, right? Like this whole I had the whole conversation I had to explain to to someone very very important in my life the difference between or the just the inertness of attraction, right? Like if I said that person is attractive, for some people that means they are attracted to them, like they have desire for that person. They want that person.
Speaker 1 36:31
Okay.
Mike Steger 36:32
And for me, it's like I just how would you not notice? How would you not notice that person is attractive? Right.
Jodi Wellman 36:38
Right.
Mike Steger 36:39
And it doesn't it doesn't get into a motivational space for me, really. Yeah, and I don't know if that's a differentiator.
Jodi Wellman 36:46
Yeah, my mind doesn't even go there, so I can't even comment. Yeah, I know.
Mike Steger 36:50
Like, what would it be like to be a barbarian like me?
Jodi Wellman 36:55
Exactly. Try that. Hold
Mike Steger 36:56
on, Jodi.
Jodi Wellman 36:57
You'd have to. You'd you just be grunting and like lunging. That would be it. See something,
Mike Steger 37:03
and that's just my bathroom routine.
Jodi Wellman 37:07
That's just you on the way to class. That's just a lot
Mike Steger 37:10
of grunting. No lunging. Can we be clear? No lunging when I'm walking across campus. Let's
Jodi Wellman 37:16
just-you've had a no lunging morning. Yeah. This idea about watching other people, whether it's on a reality show or obviously they're like the red carpet dissections, right? Like who wore it best and like the different outfits. I'm not seeing out this they do. Do you do you as a man? Do you know about who wore it best?
Mike Steger 37:36
I know about it. I know it exists. It's a little bit like there's. I know for sure. There's some European council that determines what kinds of cheeses you can sell.
Jodi Wellman 37:48
It's exactly like that. You nailed it. And you cannot sell a Manchego outside of Spain. No, it's like two stars both wore the same dress. Oh, shock and horror! And yet, wait a minute. Let's analyze who wore that dress by Valentino best, and it's like, well, her bust was this or her whatever. So they pick everybody apart, but like that's okay. We can rationalize that celebrity culture. You people are all, you know, in a league of your own, and it's partly society's job to, you know, again objectify, but also just pick you apart at the seams, literally the seams. Get it?
Speaker 1 38:20
Yeah.
Jodi Wellman 38:20
Outfit really
Speaker 1 38:21
good. So
Jodi Wellman 38:22
we watch and we're pouncing, not lunging like you, but we're pouncing on these ideas and these notions about. Can't
Mike Steger 38:30
just lurch around instead of lunge around.
Jodi Wellman 38:32
Lurching, lurching is cooler. I like lurching. You got it. Okay, I lurched around. We get to we get to be so horrible, and then this this transition I see of like the the judging on the outside of others, but then weirdly, like we're also watching our own lives in a way, like we're not necessarily immersed in them or living them. It's like this idea about self monitoring, like how am I presenting myself? Am I are my clothes okay today? Or like thinking about what is the way in which I'm showing up. Like I'm not dissing this because I teach classes in it sometimes, like about your personal brand, but ways in which it's like are you living or monitoring your life? Like are which requires confidence to not care, you know how you're showing up if you're coming into a meeting or whatever. But it's interesting to tease that apart, right? It's like the degree to which you are this observer of your life and always caring about how you're coming across, how was your presentation, did you shave your legs, like versus Just being,
Mike Steger 39:42
yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? Like I was, I was thinking of the celebrity thing kicked off this whole other thing in my head, which is occasionally someone will say, "I look like a, I remind them of a celebrity, right, in appearance only, not in terms of success. Charisma. I don't like
Jodi Wellman 40:03
those people. Yeah.
Mike Steger 40:03
Anything. I'm grunting and lurching nonstop, and it's funny. I'm trying to remember the first. Like, it really just depends on my hair. I think literally just depends on what my hairstyle is because the first person I remember being told I looked like was Jim Morrison, and this is at the time when I had long curly hair, and then no one said that ever since I cut my hair. So I don't look like Jim Morrison with short hair. I don't look like him at all. When I had long hair, my hair looked like Jim Morrison's hair there for my face. Super implanted on Jim Morrison's. Okay, so I was like, well, that's kind of cool because I was in college at the time. Everyone thought he was good looking or sexy or at least could get away with some shit, and I was like, okay, that can't hurt. Then I started going a little gray, fast wearing a little bit here, and the George Clooney comparison started coming out, or the what's the newscaster guy, Anderson Cooper,
Jodi Wellman 41:01
yeah,
Speaker 1 41:02
you see the
Jodi Wellman 41:02
yeah, can see a bit of that
Mike Steger 41:04
silver fox guy or whatever.
Jodi Wellman 41:05
Yep, both of them
Mike Steger 41:06
are quite a bit older than me, I think. So I was like, okay, they're both considered to be handsome in their own way, blah blah blah. But the reason people are telling me those two is because I have gray hair now, or salt and pepper. I'm like, who can I think of? Who do you remind me of? Oh yeah, the person with the other hair. Like it's like I don't even have a face, right? I just hair, and the people are like, "You look like the person who I last saw have a picture of hair like that. Now there was one example that that ran against this, and recently the last two I've been compared to. I know this this is long, feels self intelligent, but the first, there's two, and I was happy about, I was distrustfully happy about one, and sadly trusting of the other. If that makes any sense.
Jodi Wellman 41:52
Yes, I hear you.
Mike Steger 41:53
Okay, one was Alan Alda from Mash and The West Wing, and this person actually pull up a picture of Alan Alda as a young man, Mash era, and then the other one's Matthew McConaughey, right? Okay, so which one do you think I was distrustfully pleased to hear, and which one do you think I was sadly trusting to hear? Hmm, it's a puzzle, right?
Jodi Wellman 42:21
I don't know. It
Mike Steger 42:22
was interesting, like that. I cared enough to care, right? Like,
Jodi Wellman 42:26
yeah.
Mike Steger 42:26
What celebrity do you look like is a weird thing, anyways. I mean, I don't know who I want to look like. What celebrity would I want to look like? George Washington? I don't know, right? Yeah, that's
Jodi Wellman 42:37
a good question.
Mike Steger 42:37
When do you get points? Like, I guess everybody, like that's why I think they keep Brad Pitt around as a famous actor because he's just been like the good-looking man for like 40 years or something since *Selman Louise* whatever that was, right? So we don't really have new ones necessarily. Channing Tatum, I don't know. I know that name. I think he's done things. I think he's scripted a
Jodi Wellman 42:56
lot, but I'm just going to say something here. I'm going to go out on a limb, and this may risk having Brad Pitt on our show, but I don't really see it. Brad Pitt, just one girl. It's like not for me, thanks. Just saying.
Mike Steger 43:09
He's just
Speaker 3 43:09
trying
Mike Steger 43:09
to be so pure and so deep about all this sort of stuff.
Jodi Wellman 43:15
Okay, things got a little too exciting, so we had to divide this into a part one, part two situation. Come on back for the next episode. More bodies, more objectifying, more tying it somehow to well-being and meaning. Can't wait to see you then.
Mike Steger 00:00
You're listening to This Could Be It, the podcast which gives you conversation, research, and big ideas for living a life that truly matters, and for helping you start today. Because, well, you know, this could be it. So, we're talking about bodies, and I there's there's a couple things I definitely want to get back to, you know, the close-up video of you showing your kissing technique, which we'll definitely have to feature because that was gripping. But then I also had this thought that will come up. Don't worry. I had this thought: like the body is always an issue, right? We know this is a problem, and I thought, what if we work our way from the outside in, right? There's all right. We we're not allowed to even say the phrase inside out because that's trademarked, right? So what outside in though? I think that can be our space. So eventually, we'll we'll start with what do you see when you look at a person, and then we'll move in to fitness, maybe health-related issues like organs. What's that?
Jodi Wellman 01:06
Like organs, like inside organs. Then
Mike Steger 01:08
we get to the organs.
Jodi Wellman 01:09
Oh, I see. There's still a layer. Yeah.
Mike Steger 01:11
Yeah. Disgusting, embarrassing body stuff. Right. Start with the surface.
Speaker 1 01:17
Yeah.
Mike Steger 01:18
But not dermatology because I don't really know how to be dewy, but then then we go to Strinds Day Alive, right? Which is a topic I think you like, and then we go to farts and stomach grumbles, right? Drool, snoring. There's a whole there's a whole list of things that our bodies do that we don't tend to enjoy very much. So, anything but that a whole series of episodes.
Jodi Wellman 01:48
Oh, oh, you're saying episodes. I was thinking this was like a this was today.
Mike Steger 01:52
No, because we really need about a half hour for your your kissing masterclass. The elaborate,
Jodi Wellman 01:57
yeah, it's like a multi phased.
Mike Steger 02:00
Yeah, to have grace? Grace, right? I'm saying it like Elaine from Seinfeld. Grace. There was a whole right because I can't help but say it like Elaine from Seinfeld with my Invisalign. I guess Invisalign would go towards today's topic for some
Speaker 1 02:18
people.
Mike Steger 02:19
Next body topic for others. I like think of myself in the second category, right? So the first category, some people want straight, beautiful teeth because it makes them boxier, foxy teeth. For me, I like to imagine that I'm above all that sort of shit, so I don't like the fact that my teeth are like literally chiseling on each other, and I was doing all sorts of jaw stuff to avoid my teeth ever touching, and I'd wake up with headaches and jaw aches all day long. So I like to think I'm pure still. I doubt we'll be able to maintain that illusion by the end of.
Jodi Wellman 02:53
Yeah, I also think you have just technically busted yourself anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 1 03:00
Nope.
Jodi Wellman 03:00
No. Okay, he's he's he's stubborn.
Mike Steger 03:03
I did not say. Boys and girls.
Jodi Wellman 03:05
Right now, he's maintaining that this is purely for technical reasons.
Mike Steger 03:10
Yeah. No. Yeah. It's like an emergency. I never got braces when I was a kid.
Jodi Wellman 03:14
Yeah, but that doesn't mean you didn't live in horror and shame ever since that moment. Just since you're, you know, not that we're saying that you should have felt.
Mike Steger 03:22
I've lived in horror and shame. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever stop. That's that's where I. It's like my space to shine.
Jodi Wellman 03:28
You own it. So, well, I like this. So, really, we're talking about the hot and bothered bodies starting from the outside in.
Mike Steger 03:38
Yeah, hot or not, existential edition. Let's get right to it, right? Let's let's confront the biggest conundrum facing meaning focused people,
Jodi Wellman 03:50
which is what Mike
Mike Steger 03:52
or not.
Jodi Wellman 03:53
Okay, just in general as a topic, one comes up with
Mike Steger 04:01
Attraction, all this sort of stuff, and we've got good. We've got good precedents. We've got good precedents. I was looking this up a little bit. I had some little threads in my mind of where all this stuff came from. Right, like meaning is very pure. Right, like we're supposed to be like, if we care about meaning, then and the research suggests we're pretty good at this, but like if we care about meaning, then we're supposed to kind of not care about someone's hot. If we're hot, we see deeper stuff. We don't care about if the food is blemished. We'll eat ugly fruit, right? Like all this sort of things, right? We're supposed to be about the depth, the seriousness. We're not supposed to be about the frivolity, the pleasure. Whether people are looking at us when we walk into a room with a little bit of lust or twinkle in their eyes. Instead, we're just supposed to wait until we talk to them, and then they're really impressed with the depth of our soul, and we're impressed with theirs because we don't see the. Their face or their body, either right. So, like, I feel like this is an unspoken conundrum toward this whole topic. What do you think? Is it an unspoken conundrum, or am I is am I self owning again?
Jodi Wellman 05:13
Nobody knows what you're talking about right now. I totally agree. It is a it's a I think a pretty generous issue because it's the differentiator about am I shallow versus not, you know? And even though it's like self worth on self worth, like I don't want to think I'm not getting braces just to pick on you, like Invisalign for a certain reason. Like we have these ideas about how maybe we aren't shallow about being shallow, etc. So I agree. Rooting it back, I like how you even brought up ugly fruit. That really took it. There's a whole business that sells you ugly fruit. Did you know that?
Mike Steger 05:47
Yeah, I know it's better for the planet, better for everybody.
Jodi Wellman 05:50
Yeah,
Mike Steger 05:51
got it. So I was reading literally last night a New York Times profile of Wallace Shawn. Do you know this person? Inconceivable. Now, do you know this? Right. Yeah. So, and then it. So then it like describes his face. Like, if you know inconceivable, you know who I'm talking about, right? Busy. Very different character acronym. Apparently, he was like in Annie Hall is like a very good lover, and he apparently dated some of the people in Sex and the City. I don't really know how this works. He was Clueless. He's been a lot of cool things, but one of the throw lines was so they describe his features, right? Like his features are are very interesting and fun, and I think endearing in a lot of ways. But then in a lot of movies he's kind of cast as, and the quote here is an unlikely Lothario, right? And this is this idea that somehow the appearance that Wallace Shawn, beloved character actor, all five foot two of him, appears portrays of the world is not what you would think of as someone who'd be attractive or into being a good lover or anything that sort of stuff, right? So, knowing we were preparing for this episode, I thought that it's really interesting the bundle of things that come along with thinking someone's attractive versus thinking someone's deep, shallow versus deep.
Jodi Wellman 07:18
Yeah, yeah, and I love just because I'm hoping if we fast forward to the end that we come to the conclusion that there's room for both. Let's just spoiler alert. That's my for
Mike Steger 07:28
shallow people like you. Yes, for deep people like me, it's all it's really just technical. Do your teeth work or not? Who cares what they look like? If they poke straight out like a narwhal, still cool.
Jodi Wellman 07:38
I know someone who decided when he was dating that he purposely did not? He swiped by people who he was physically attracted to because he was so concerned about his identity of being outwardly, and also just his belief about himself as I am. I want substance. I don't want belief was was that well? Surely she wouldn't be substantive because she's beautiful, and so to deprive oneself of attraction just to prove a point. Pretty sure
Mike Steger 08:11
that's that's a very revealing move, and I'm sure somewhere in there is the idea that women more than men might see inner beauty or value that more. Maybe we can talk about that a little bit as well. Where do you think all of this fretting over body versus mind? How how far back do you plant your flag in that sort of dualism? So I'm just doing some poking around.
Jodi Wellman 08:38
You were you? Okay, I have an
Mike Steger 08:40
idea, but then I need to check it. Of course.
Jodi Wellman 08:43
Well, would it be based? I mean, gosh, I think about like social comparison theory. I'm thinking, trying to think about ways that would have even happened earlier, where it was that I need to size you up. I'm thinking about logically. That if I notice that that caveman is really interested in that cave woman, and um, but you want the caveman or the cave
Mike Steger 09:11
woman yourself? Is that where you're going with this?
Jodi Wellman 09:13
Say that one more time, sorry.
Mike Steger 09:14
Like, but you, like you're saying that you see one caveman is in one cave woman. Is this a setup for you being interested in that caveman or that same cave woman, or is well? I think I'm observing the cave.
Jodi Wellman 09:25
I'm watching the cave, and I'm seeing if there's a there's a desire there where it's like caveman is interested in the certain cave women, and vice versa. And everyone else observes that, and then it's that well, I need to somehow have my loin cloth look a certain way, and so I feel like this desire early days. We're observing each other, and because I, you know, I think attraction is also it's guttural inside, but it's also observed as like a social thing, right? Like it's pattern matching in the world. It's not so much like this. Soulmate, magic dust. So I think it's cave people. Can you tell what's the answer to the test?
Mike Steger 10:07
Well, okay. Well, this is very interesting. I mean, it's got to be something very human. You would think, right? Because, you know, people have done all this sort of stuff. Does attractiveness indicate genetic fitness, right? Like you look at someone the symmetrical phase or whatever it is, then you know that the babies they kick out or initiate within the womb are going to be pretty good babies for other reasons. That like like you know like any other creature in the world, when we try to attract a mate, we're trying to signal some potential for a successful and healthy offspring by whatever we're doing to attract that mate. Now we're a little bit more complicated, maybe than a bird jumping around in the forest with bright little feathers. But like that, that's that's basically the argument. Like we have like these attractive people, and then we get the social layers that suggest that what different cultures find attractive is different, and that those change over time. Sometimes response to broader things, right? Like it's possible now that that the you can get away with being called attractive if if you're relatively slender, whereas in the past, like Rubenesque or you know Zaftig, like body types would be more attractive because they signified wealth or they they signified access to food, so the babies wouldn't be starving, whatever it might be, and now we signify wealth and access food in different ways. We are we've changed, right? So all these sorts of ideas come right on, and so it's got to go back somewhere. Now I I had I keep misreading I keep misreading Plato. I don't know why, and no matter how many times people tell me, I still forget that. Like it's really Plato who gave us this this reality ideal dualism, right? Like we live in this reality of of bodies and physical sensate life, and but then they're just a poor reflection of the the better abstract, beautiful forms that exist, right? So, like, there's the physicality which is flawed, and then there's the ideal forms that our physicality reflects. So that weaseled its way into a lot of early, later Greek, but also early Christian thought, right? So we have like some writings from the Book of Wisdom, right, around like 100 BCE, and that starts to show up in in some wacky little quotes. But then Paul, like remember Paul, he wrote some letters to some Corinthians and probably other people as well. I should note this. Paul's letter to the Ephesians kind of get bonus points if that's right, right? So then he's like, you know, the body is like generating all this sin and all these terrible things, right? So the person I thought I was going to eventually find myself obsessing over was Augustine, Saint Augustine, right, like the super influential Christian writer, convert Paul was also a convert. The converts tend to be a little bit more hardcore, right, than the inheritors of a wisdom tradition. So Augustine has this very famous quote, and so in this book Confessions. He says, "Give me chastity and continence. He doesn't mean pooing, so he just means like fortitude, right? Give me chastity and continence, but not yet, right? So he's like, some dad like to stop being, you know, a player. Such
Jodi Wellman 13:58
a rascal.
Mike Steger 14:00
He keeps wanting to add to his body count. Saint Augustine of Hippo does, but you know, someday he won't, and then he'll be a good person. That that's why I thought we were going to probably end up like when we think about mind body dualism. Sometimes you talk about Dick Hart, but even earlier than that was Augustine, and then even earlier that than that was like these early Christian, other Christian folks, and even earlier that was Plato. So that's interesting, I think, in of itself, right? But then I have, then I was reading. I think I brought, I know I brought up Herodotus before, right? The this ancient history, and I can't remember, cannot remember the tribe because they all had like bonkers names for a current American to try to remember, it could have been the Masjidianins or the Cessazajeanans one of those, you know, Thracian-ish, Scythian ish tribes from north of the Black Sea. Let's say back in the way ancient times. Right, so this this guy Herodes, he's wandering around the world, writing everything he sees down. He's a little bit before Plato, and he's talking about this one tribe. He likes to talk about the culture and particularly sex. Like he's pretty, I can't really get around it. He talks about sex and sometimes tastes, but mostly access. Like, what is? There's no. There's no nice way to put this. Like, what is done with women in each tribe, right? Like, how he really takes care to let us know which which tribes? Every woman is available for every man,
Jodi Wellman 15:46
but you.
Mike Steger 15:47
Or there's one day of the year, or one time, one day in the life of someone where they have to go hang out in a temple, and anyone who wants to go to them can be with them. Like just strange things. It sounds like a pretty horrible time, to be honest.
Jodi Wellman 16:01
Bring birthday,
Mike Steger 16:04
be birthday. You are going to sit in the temple until people pay you, bring you gifts, and have sex at you.
Jodi Wellman 16:12
Right.
Mike Steger 16:13
So, but then there's this one tribe, and this is this is the system that he likes best. You think it's a very sensible system. Once a year, they get all of the women and all of the men together who are single within a a big a big festival, and I think this is the first hot or not sort of moment in history. And you have to bid on who you want to be your wife, right? And the money goes into a pool, so the the the more attractive females, women get higher bids, and then their money is pooled so that you can, if you don't have enough money to buy an attractive wife, you you did less money on a on an unattractive, yeah, with a asymmetrical face, maybe no face. I don't know what they thought was attractive in the Sassajidinian tribes. That I for sure is not correct, right? But then, like he thought it was really great because then all the money that you paid to have the chance a hot a chance of the hottie, that money eventually trickled down to to help the the poor person who was stuck with a not hottie wife in this model had money enough to start their family.
Jodi Wellman 17:35
Right, right. They get some action.
Speaker 1 17:37
Yeah,
Jodi Wellman 17:38
technically, just
Mike Steger 17:39
yeah. So this is, I think, like like this is the one where really, if there was a price, people paid a price literally
Speaker 1 17:47
to be
Mike Steger 17:48
with a more attractive person.
Speaker 1 17:49
Ancient
Mike Steger 17:50
history, ancient history. So at least we can go back to the whenever that tradition started,
Jodi Wellman 17:56
right,
Mike Steger 17:57
in the steppe lands north of the Black Sea,
Jodi Wellman 18:00
and that. So you've brought up it's the norms of the time, so the social norms. It's the continuity of the of the species. Like I, I, it's probably likelier that you will deliver an offspring that will live because of your somehow the translation between looks and Health and how much at that point do you think was there any social influence of you are from a better part of the tribe, you know, like back to the well if you are you're an aristocrat or you're worth more because I wonder if that could have muddled muddied the waters of the hot or not right because it could have been ah she's not the hot, but I'm going to still bid a lot because that means that I will get better access to the goats. Yeah, I don't know how deep you went into the research, but
Mike Steger 18:50
wow, I didn't go deep at all. Like, I do think that people who are well resourced have typically had more choice, right? And they've oftentimes used that pretty horribly.
Jodi Wellman 19:07
Yeah, fair,
Mike Steger 19:08
right? I mean, like you don't want to get too sad about this, but like, yeah, you see, influential wealthy people have huge networks.
Jodi Wellman 19:19
Yeah,
Mike Steger 19:21
supporters and people want to buy into all that bullshit. Even if that person at the hub is in jail for pedophilia, right?
Jodi Wellman 19:31
Yeah, the
Mike Steger 19:31
whole Epstein files thing, and all of those people who are sucking at the sucking at the the trough. I changed my metaphor the last second there.
Jodi Wellman 19:42
Yeah, you did.
Mike Steger 19:43
Yeah, we've got past presidents, current presidents listed, hanging out, buddy buddy photos, saying great things about this horrible monster. We have Harvard presidents. We have wellness influencers.
Speaker 1 19:59
Describing
Mike Steger 20:00
was it Atias? Is that his name? Yes. Describing our
Jodi Wellman 20:04
diets. There we go. Yeah.
Mike Steger 20:06
Caloric values of various horrible things. We have princes. We have business people. We have in some countries though those people resign in shame when they're found out, and then in America those face fake news and move on and become adored for it, right? So I I think that side of it, access in a sense, it's no more modern. I mean, it's it's equally predatory in a sense. It's equally abusive. So the dark side, obviously, of of of these examples is people with power and money
Speaker 1 20:44
go after beauty. Yeah,
Jodi Wellman 20:48
it's interesting because in this example, and there be different versions over time over the centuries. It's already a qualification that we well we know we're dealing with the hot, not the not. So you know you're going to be getting a great piece of ass on the plane, and then at the at the island. The issue that's interesting, if we we take this and go, it's the but interesting. It's a very youthful piece of ass. That is the back to access because some of it is it the mystique and the allure that it's wrong, is it the deep-seated notion that oh, as animals, there's a desire for youth? Like we're getting-it's a whole other ball of wax. I realize, but there's something else about this nuance, right? The underagedness that is a different twist, because then that's-is that just pure up objectification? Like I want you because I can have you.
Mike Steger 21:38
Yeah, and I think I think that is that is pure objectification, where you where you annihilate the humanity of of someone for some surface reasons, right? Like I want, like it's it's kind of like if you're if you're famous, I guess you don't know if people actually like you or they they hang out with you because you're famous or because you're rich, right? Like like people you've been reduced. This came up in Walla with Sean, right? So like when people say inconceivable to him, and sometimes they'll ask like someone will ask like because he's a playwright. That was that's how he thinks of himself as as a playwright. And then a couple times he was in movies to help pay the bills, right? Or because people thought he would do that, and he liked acting in his own plays and other people's plays, right? But you know, someone said like, "How do you feel about that? And he's like, "Oh, it doesn't really do any harm, but I do think it's maybe a little sad for anyone to be have their entire lifetime and complexity reduced to a single
Jodi Wellman 22:48
yes
Mike Steger 22:49
moment
Speaker 1 22:50
yeah
Mike Steger 22:50
or line or roll
Speaker 1 22:53
yeah so like
Mike Steger 22:54
I did not know we're I was gonna invoke endlessly the the specter of the guiding spirit for this topic, of well, Sean, you know, like so, objectification in a sense probably could happen, and we call it exploitation or like using someone for something, right? And someone, you know, I guess if you are trying to be very, very hot, like it's great because it can get you access to people who have resources if that's what you want, but then you're stuck with these people who want to use their resources to get access to beautiful people and beautiful things, and do really want to be around those people-they seem kind of horrible a lot of times, right?
Jodi Wellman 23:29
Right, right. Yeah, I do
Mike Steger 23:31
want to throw one thing, one other thing out there: the people who had the hot or not bidding wife auction were considered to be barbarians, right? At that time, uncivilized folk. Look at these crazy barbarian ways, right? So this emphasis already, in a sense, on beauty as the reason why you would make a marital alliance was already seen back in those days.
Jodi Wellman 24:00
Yeah,
Mike Steger 24:00
some of the scans even before Plato. Like this is not how civilized people would do this shit, right? Like you're not just gonna have people parade around. Although he thought it was sensible because there was a redistribution for the for the community. It makes sense long term, but yeah, right. So early on, we have this idea that like this is for barbarians to do, like to just judge on on appearance, right? But is it is it barbaric or is it like human nature and and the fancy people who can get away with it in modern life, sophisticated, smart, successful people, and still be around hotties, whatever that looks like to them.
Jodi Wellman 24:43
Right, right, yeah. As the times go by, and as the culture changes, and it certainly can become more of a gender thing or not. And I, to be super honest about it, like I don't even find the gender part to be the most interesting thing because I think it goes both. Ways, it's about our perception of others, and then what, how it's valued, and what that means. Fast forward to now, and it has not been new. It's not news right now. It's been along for a long time. We know the studies about how people who are attracted do better at work, especially you know CEOs are often taller men of a certain look, and I don't just mean you know white. That's certainly another characteristic, unfortunately, but have the back to the symmetrical face and being taller. I mean, you're a perfect CEO candidate over there, guy. You could be rocking the corporate world.
Mike Steger 25:30
Probably too tall, right?
Jodi Wellman 25:32
Well, especially with your Invisalign now, though, you'll be able to really take over corporate America.
Mike Steger 25:37
I'm pretty white. I mean, this is this is another thing, of course, that you know racialized images of beauty have been a thing not forever. Like you read, like it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, where there were definitely like religious animosities. There's sometimes empire to empire animosities, and you hear people saying like all all those, no Spaniards or whatever, like the English and the French didn't really have nice things to say about each other for about 1000 years there in the middle. But there wasn't a point where it feels like a relatively modern thing where there were ideas that attractiveness also had racialized features to it.
Speaker 1 26:25
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Steger 26:27
That's also very strange to think about how that plays out now, right?
Jodi Wellman 26:31
Right. Yeah. There's dominant culture that gets to say, like, this is the shape of a face. This is the shape of a part of a face. This is the shape of a body part. Yeah. The kind of
Mike Steger 26:40
hair. This is the kind of skin tone. These are some of the facial features. You know, like you can see, Korean beauty culture seems to be a big deal. If if I've heard of it, and I've heard of it for years, it is clearly a global phenomenon that speaks the first of human experience. Yeah, right. But like you know, like eye widening is the is a big thing, and in in some parts of Korean beauty culture, right? Or skin lightening has been something that's been an issue, and it just is really it is really pervasive. Now we would never support anything like that. Like, like as humans, I don't think anyone is like on board. This is a great idea. Like, yeah, we definitely should treat hotties better than noties, right? We should all get behind that. It's almost like we all grudgingly accept that it it happens, and then we do our little things to try to,
Jodi Wellman 27:40
yes,
Mike Steger 27:41
you know, like we can be as judgmental as we want, but do we ever do anything to make ourselves more attractive? Probably. I mean, like we know the rules of the game, so it's very strange. Like the persistence and the fact that we buy into it, even though we know it's bad,
Jodi Wellman 27:57
right? Something
Mike Steger 27:58
fundamental is happening.
Jodi Wellman 27:59
Totally. I think about the people I know where there's a desire to stop the insanity, for example, or to know that this shouldn't matter. Well, a lot of things shouldn't be, and yet we still live in this society, and so we're going to have to go through with it until there's a massive what upheaval. I don't see that happening, and and the number of people I know who resent, especially as females, having to you know go and get the hair done, the nails done, the waxing, the I'm gonna say it, anal bleaching, the stuff, like all the different things that I'm just reacting to your face right now. I knew that I was gonna get a face. I knew it.
Mike Steger 28:39
Yeah,
Jodi Wellman 28:40
but the feeling, like, because it goes beyond when you know others deem these things to be attractive, and or I'm going to get promoted more if I am like this, or I'm going to get bid on higher in the you know ancient wedding higher. Then then it internalizes, right? So that's of course where you end up with awe, the sadness, then all the well-being research about when your self-worth is contingent on to the degree to which you feel like you have fit into this beauty-focused culture, or trying because you may not have the symmetrical face, although you can fix that, you can get it broken and fix it, or you can just do your darnedest to groom and maintain to have some semblance of self-respect in a world that's predicated on is is is it okay that my skin is this color, you know, or is it okay that I have I done my I'm trying to figure out another body part that's maintained. I don't know, like am I waxed okay, you know? That self esteem is contingent on that. Is yeah, always
Mike Steger 29:44
soak my hands in the right kind of emollients so that they don't have like that. The skin gets old looking.
Jodi Wellman 29:52
Well, I can show you right here. Here's like right there.
Mike Steger 29:54
Oh, I mean, some of these freckles. Look at this. These are the hands of a 1000 year old man. Oh. Right there, yeah, right. So we're going to talk about aging gets its own thing, and you've mentioned you mentioned as much as you brought up anal bleaching, you have actually mentioned waxing more. So we're going to have a whole hair episode as well. Like you have to,
Jodi Wellman 30:18
hairy, yeah, times
Mike Steger 30:19
biggest existential stumbling block of all, obviously,
Speaker 2 30:24
it does go without
Mike Steger 30:25
saying, but we will eventually get around to saying it. But yeah, like we have all these these things we have to try to take care of, and we participate in the system, so it maintains the system. And so, in a sense, like as a consequence of paying attention to beauty, we see that there are downstream consequences that aren't good, so we don't want to participate. That this is a little bit like the ugly fruit thing. We don't want them to just throw away fruit because they grew it somewhere. They used a lot of pesticides and water and all these things, and they put it on a boat. It sailed forever. Then it got on trucks. It drove forever. Got stuck in traffic. Kicked out diesel fumes, and then somebody had to wear like on those weight belts, and I had a dolly to roll it up into the the store's warehouse like warehouse unit, and then they put it on shelves, and then they had to make it look nice when like someone like me takes it and you know like tries to figure out which one I'm gonna want. I touch them all, you know, and then like eventually there's one with one blemish, and they're like, "Okay, now it goes straight in the garbage. All that energy, time, resources that went into it, waste food. There's people are hungry, all these sorts of things. We know we should eat the. I've already forgotten where I'm going with this. We know we should eat the ugly fruit. So it's good for us to try to not participate in this like esthetic perfection contest, right? Like this conveyor belt of ever tightening margins for error over what is good looking, because we know that somewhere down the line it really creates a system that causes damage every step along the way.
Jodi Wellman 31:56
Yep.
Mike Steger 31:57
That being said, we spend a lot of time on these sorts of things, right? Like, I don't mean to be crude, but the game fuck Mary Kill or is it Smash Smash Mary? There's like there's different versions of this, right? Like I don't even know
Jodi Wellman 32:15
what the new versions that got.
Mike Steger 32:16
I know, you know, I don't know. But anyways, like like who would you just have sex with who? Would you want to have a partnership with, and who is you for some reason just murder? Yeah, it could be ban. Let's just say banish, but like yeah. So like you name three celebrities or three friends in your friend group, or you know three existentialists: Camus, Sartre, De Beauvoir. Which now go fucking near you, kill right? Or right, like Hot or Not was a big thing for a while. We still like Love Is Blind, is is put together by the same people who do like Hot Too Hot to Handle, right? Like all these reality shows, like all these right. There's still an appeal, right? There's still an appeal to play those games to like be able to express, like find those excuse excusable moments to say, all right, I know I'm a serious person and right deep,
Jodi Wellman 33:09
yeah.
Mike Steger 33:09
But you're forcing me now to pretend to put on a hat where I somehow notice appearance in other people. So I definitely thought this person married this person, killed this person.
Jodi Wellman 33:21
Yeah, how would I? And I think that that's part of for a lot of people this allure to the those shows you're mentioning. And by the way, I don't watch them not because I'm so superior. I just watch 8000 other shows, and so it's just I haven't gotten into that. And I, at any rate, the idea that deep down it's still fascinating for people, right?
Mike Steger 33:40
Like what? Like what's happening with those shows? Like it's, it's fascinating, and we like these excuses to to sort of open those those gates a little bit and play in that space. We do see that there's some people, and we tend maybe to judge them who are in that space a lot. They're constantly saying who's dressed well, who's looking good, who's attractive, who's hot, who's worth trying to pursue at the club. Now this person gets an eight, this person gets a seven. We're rating all these sorts of things, right? And in it, in isolation from other things, that's disgusting, right? Like that's gross. Like the whole thing about swiping on dating apps that your friend was resisting is this idea that it does anchor you to something that's not particularly predictive of good relationship satisfaction, right? So like it would be interesting. I don't know what the alternative is. Maybe there's a new dating app out there where you don't get to see people's pictures at all until after you've already considered what you like about spending time with them. Who knows?
Jodi Wellman 34:50
Right,
Mike Steger 34:51
right. But like, there's there's something about it. Like the dualism feels like if you're focusing on attraction, you're you're ruling. Important stuff, and we meaning folks like to dive into the important stuff.
Jodi Wellman 35:04
Yeah, what percent of people do you think would admit that attractiveness, for example, is in like their top three things about finding a partner, a mate, or even just a? I don't know if I know
Mike Steger 35:17
enough people.
Speaker 1 35:18
Yeah,
Mike Steger 35:19
I do know that if you went on stage and said, "Okay, here's here's what you need to do before you die. Get with someone super hot and only spend time around hotties. I really feel like people would not like that. They might say, "Like
Jodi Wellman 35:39
I would somehow not resonating.
Mike Steger 35:41
Easier said than done inside. Like, sounds great, good, but you know. So, I think it's hard to it's hard to know. I feel like there's both a lot of emphasis on rating people for being hot or not, and also on pretending that you either don't notice, or it doesn't matter, or you're just attracted to people that you're not you don't find attractive, right? Like this whole I had the whole conversation I had to explain to to someone very very important in my life the difference between or the just the inertness of attraction, right? Like if I said that person is attractive, for some people that means they are attracted to them, like they have desire for that person. They want that person.
Speaker 1 36:31
Okay.
Mike Steger 36:32
And for me, it's like I just how would you not notice? How would you not notice that person is attractive? Right.
Jodi Wellman 36:38
Right.
Mike Steger 36:39
And it doesn't it doesn't get into a motivational space for me, really. Yeah, and I don't know if that's a differentiator.
Jodi Wellman 36:46
Yeah, my mind doesn't even go there, so I can't even comment. Yeah, I know.
Mike Steger 36:50
Like, what would it be like to be a barbarian like me?
Jodi Wellman 36:55
Exactly. Try that. Hold
Mike Steger 36:56
on, Jodi.
Jodi Wellman 36:57
You'd have to. You'd you just be grunting and like lunging. That would be it. See something,
Mike Steger 37:03
and that's just my bathroom routine.
Jodi Wellman 37:07
That's just you on the way to class. That's just a lot
Mike Steger 37:10
of grunting. No lunging. Can we be clear? No lunging when I'm walking across campus. Let's
Jodi Wellman 37:16
just-you've had a no lunging morning. Yeah. This idea about watching other people, whether it's on a reality show or obviously they're like the red carpet dissections, right? Like who wore it best and like the different outfits. I'm not seeing out this they do. Do you do you as a man? Do you know about who wore it best?
Mike Steger 37:36
I know about it. I know it exists. It's a little bit like there's. I know for sure. There's some European council that determines what kinds of cheeses you can sell.
Jodi Wellman 37:48
It's exactly like that. You nailed it. And you cannot sell a Manchego outside of Spain. No, it's like two stars both wore the same dress. Oh, shock and horror! And yet, wait a minute. Let's analyze who wore that dress by Valentino best, and it's like, well, her bust was this or her whatever. So they pick everybody apart, but like that's okay. We can rationalize that celebrity culture. You people are all, you know, in a league of your own, and it's partly society's job to, you know, again objectify, but also just pick you apart at the seams, literally the seams. Get it?
Speaker 1 38:20
Yeah.
Jodi Wellman 38:20
Outfit really
Speaker 1 38:21
good. So
Jodi Wellman 38:22
we watch and we're pouncing, not lunging like you, but we're pouncing on these ideas and these notions about. Can't
Mike Steger 38:30
just lurch around instead of lunge around.
Jodi Wellman 38:32
Lurching, lurching is cooler. I like lurching. You got it. Okay, I lurched around. We get to we get to be so horrible, and then this this transition I see of like the the judging on the outside of others, but then weirdly, like we're also watching our own lives in a way, like we're not necessarily immersed in them or living them. It's like this idea about self monitoring, like how am I presenting myself? Am I are my clothes okay today? Or like thinking about what is the way in which I'm showing up. Like I'm not dissing this because I teach classes in it sometimes, like about your personal brand, but ways in which it's like are you living or monitoring your life? Like are which requires confidence to not care, you know how you're showing up if you're coming into a meeting or whatever. But it's interesting to tease that apart, right? It's like the degree to which you are this observer of your life and always caring about how you're coming across, how was your presentation, did you shave your legs, like versus Just being,
Mike Steger 39:42
yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? Like I was, I was thinking of the celebrity thing kicked off this whole other thing in my head, which is occasionally someone will say, "I look like a, I remind them of a celebrity, right, in appearance only, not in terms of success. Charisma. I don't like
Jodi Wellman 40:03
those people. Yeah.
Mike Steger 40:03
Anything. I'm grunting and lurching nonstop, and it's funny. I'm trying to remember the first. Like, it really just depends on my hair. I think literally just depends on what my hairstyle is because the first person I remember being told I looked like was Jim Morrison, and this is at the time when I had long curly hair, and then no one said that ever since I cut my hair. So I don't look like Jim Morrison with short hair. I don't look like him at all. When I had long hair, my hair looked like Jim Morrison's hair there for my face. Super implanted on Jim Morrison's. Okay, so I was like, well, that's kind of cool because I was in college at the time. Everyone thought he was good looking or sexy or at least could get away with some shit, and I was like, okay, that can't hurt. Then I started going a little gray, fast wearing a little bit here, and the George Clooney comparison started coming out, or the what's the newscaster guy, Anderson Cooper,
Jodi Wellman 41:01
yeah,
Speaker 1 41:02
you see the
Jodi Wellman 41:02
yeah, can see a bit of that
Mike Steger 41:04
silver fox guy or whatever.
Jodi Wellman 41:05
Yep, both of them
Mike Steger 41:06
are quite a bit older than me, I think. So I was like, okay, they're both considered to be handsome in their own way, blah blah blah. But the reason people are telling me those two is because I have gray hair now, or salt and pepper. I'm like, who can I think of? Who do you remind me of? Oh yeah, the person with the other hair. Like it's like I don't even have a face, right? I just hair, and the people are like, "You look like the person who I last saw have a picture of hair like that. Now there was one example that that ran against this, and recently the last two I've been compared to. I know this this is long, feels self intelligent, but the first, there's two, and I was happy about, I was distrustfully happy about one, and sadly trusting of the other. If that makes any sense.
Jodi Wellman 41:52
Yes, I hear you.
Mike Steger 41:53
Okay, one was Alan Alda from Mash and The West Wing, and this person actually pull up a picture of Alan Alda as a young man, Mash era, and then the other one's Matthew McConaughey, right? Okay, so which one do you think I was distrustfully pleased to hear, and which one do you think I was sadly trusting to hear? Hmm, it's a puzzle, right?
Jodi Wellman 42:21
I don't know. It
Mike Steger 42:22
was interesting, like that. I cared enough to care, right? Like,
Jodi Wellman 42:26
yeah.
Mike Steger 42:26
What celebrity do you look like is a weird thing, anyways. I mean, I don't know who I want to look like. What celebrity would I want to look like? George Washington? I don't know, right? Yeah, that's
Jodi Wellman 42:37
a good question.
Mike Steger 42:37
When do you get points? Like, I guess everybody, like that's why I think they keep Brad Pitt around as a famous actor because he's just been like the good-looking man for like 40 years or something since *Selman Louise* whatever that was, right? So we don't really have new ones necessarily. Channing Tatum, I don't know. I know that name. I think he's done things. I think he's scripted a
Jodi Wellman 42:56
lot, but I'm just going to say something here. I'm going to go out on a limb, and this may risk having Brad Pitt on our show, but I don't really see it. Brad Pitt, just one girl. It's like not for me, thanks. Just saying.
Mike Steger 43:09
He's just
Speaker 3 43:09
trying
Mike Steger 43:09
to be so pure and so deep about all this sort of stuff.
Jodi Wellman 43:15
Okay, things got a little too exciting, so we had to divide this into a part one, part two situation. Come on back for the next episode. More bodies, more objectifying, more tying it somehow to well-being and meaning. Can't wait to see you then.
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