What If Polyamorous People ARE Ugly?

Written By Leanne Yau

If you’re a polyamorous person who is online, chances are you’ve been called ugly regardless of your actual perceived level of attractiveness. Instead of responding with “here’s proof that me and my partners are actually hot”, I invite you to consider: maybe polyamorous people ARE ugly. So what if that was true? 

I’m not saying I believe I’m ugly, but also, why would it matter if I was? Do you believe that ugly people don’t deserve love, or that only beautiful people can and should find it? Does it make you insecure that I found love, especially with multiple people, as an ugly person? 

Me and a partner had a conversation once where we both admitted to each other that neither of us think that the other is the hottest person we’ve ever had sex with. People don’t believe me when I say this, but the honesty of that conversation was incredibly affirming. In that moment, I genuinely felt so loved and connected to them. 

What that conversation revealed to me was a truth I had always known but that others constantly denied: that I don’t need to be a “conventionally attractive” 10 out of 10 to be dateable and loveable. In many ways, I feel I am valued more as a person if I know someone isn’t with me just for my external qualities. I believe I am attractive to those who value me, not just for my body but for my whole self, and that’s enough. I don’t feel the need to prove my hotness to people in general. 

Also, people hate to admit this, but (conventional) beauty is temporary. If someone loves you for who you are as a whole person, that’s worth more than being loved for being considered beautiful by some arbitrary societal standard. Our bodies will change. We will get older and therefore less conventionally attractive. If we want our relationships to last a long time, then we need to accept that in ourselves and in our partners and see beauty in other ways. 

I don’t want people to see my body, I want them to see my soul. I believe my partners see me for who I am, which is why I have never felt threatened even when they had sex with people who were conventionally hotter than me. I know that my personhood isn’t something anyone can compare or take away from me. 

As an autistic, polyamorous, bisexual femme of colour who isn’t fat but also isn’t model-thin, in many ways I will never be seen as conventionally attractive by mainstream standards. That doesn’t mean I don’t think I’m beautiful - but it just literally doesn’t make sense for beauty to matter to me. I’m grateful to have partners who are not only able to recognise the beauty I know I inherently possess, but who also don’t value physical beauty as a reason to love me. 

So yes, maybe I am a polyamorous person who is ugly. I’m okay with that. And I hope that instead of getting defensive when people call you ugly, you can instead pity these people for trapping themselves in a system that would value something so superficial and temporary. You are capable of seeking genuine connection beyond the physical. You don’t need to be considered beautiful by society to be loved and worthy of love. 

At the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes. So if the system won’t behold you, you gotta do it yourself.

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Leanne Yau
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