The Masculine Genius

The quest for and the perception of beauty. This is an integral part of the masculine genius, yet much maligned in our age both by women (with some justification) and by some feeble-minded men who think they can thereby ingratiate themselves with women. Men can be friends with women or lovers, but no man should ever be buddies with women, especially at such a price. A man who disparages the masculine genius is just as pitiable as the woman who disparages the feminine genius. You want to shake him and say, "Snap out of it, brother!"

If no man ever found Helen beautiful, there never would have been a Trojan War; but neither also would there have been an Iliad. Speaking from my own experience with women, it just doesn't seem that women have a taste for beauty like men. This can be seen foremost in the ways some women attempt to make themselves appear beautiful to men. A woman's beauty resides in her soul and her virtues; anytime she attempts to appeal to a man with immodesty, she appeals to what is base and lustful in man, but not to man's desire for beauty. But sometimes it seems that women don't see any difference between the two. 

(We first learn from our mothers that we are loved, but it is only from our fathers that we learn that we are worthy of love, that is, that we are beautiful. And for those of us who had absent or less than perfect fathers, we learn that more perfectly from our Heavenly Father anyway.)

The works of art women make, too, are often original, powerful, tender, humorous, disturbing, genius, intricate, and often moreso than art made by men, but rarely do I find it more beautiful. (A notable exception, I think, is the realm of the performing arts, at which women excel in creating beauty, and that, I think, because they are portraying beauty from within, rather than beauty in something else). I know I have some female readers. I don't mean to offend by saying this. I'm generally curious whether you agree. 

It follows, also, that women just can't perceive beauty in men like men can. I do not think women find beautiful men attractive. There are other things about men that attract women. As with women, a man's beauty lies in his soul and his virtues. A woman may find a man's soul and virtues attractive, but probably not because they are beautiful, but for other reasons (and there is nothing wrong with this; it is perfectly natural). I got the sense, growing up with my mom and my sister, that they were entirely oblivious to male beauty. Maybe I'm wrong, and their appreciation of beauty was deeply hidden, but as they would have had no reason to hide it, this doesn't seem likely. 

This is one reason why I think men need male friends. Everyone needs someone to find him beautiful (women, do you agree?), and men are the ones best equipped for the task. It is a part of man's genius, after all. (And I mean nothing impure or disordered here). In friendship, men show other men that they are beautiful and worthy to be loved, though in our age of suspicions about love between men, this end of friendship is heavily veiled under other pretexts, communicated in indirect ways. In less perverted ages, this was not necessary, as can be readily noted from literature and Scripture. 

But I am curious as to whether I'm wrong about all this. To any women who wish do respond: Do you find men beautiful? Is your attraction to men motivated by a quest for beauty? What qualities do you find make a man beautiful? In seeking female friends, are you drawn to the beauty of woman, or to something else? What makes a woman beautiful?