This is for all genders, not just men or women or non binary people

From what I can tell, physical attraction just seems to be an illusion where you associate certain values with certain physical characteristics. You then project those values onto the people you see with those characteristics, believeing them to have those values even though you dont know them as a person.

We already know from studies that physically attractive people are percieved to be happier, more intelligent, more trustworty and more sociable, despite the fact that this has little correlation with what people are actually like. Likewise, just because a man has a strong jawline doesnt mean he has a more masculine personality and just because a woman has wide hips doesnt mean she has a more feminine personality for example.

It makes sense to me then, why objectification is a problem with people and attraction, we project images onto other people using physical attractivness as a means which may or may not match up with what the person is actually like. Either way such a image seems to prevent real intimacy occurring, after all, how can you be attracted to a person if you are instead attracted to an image of them that doesnt represent them properly?

I haven't even started talking about the beauty/ugly binary and how that affects ugly men and women and essentially removes them from the dating pool for most people. A lot of people will just not date these people as they do not meet minimum standards of physical attractiveness necessary for people to consider dating. Not to mention how our society has constructed a hierachy of 'beauty' in which some people are given privelage pretty much by genetics alone. If it were for any other trait like intelligence, people would be outraged, but because its for a "subjective" trait like physical attractiveness, we aren't.

So AFAIK, Physical attractiveness is quite problematic as all it seems to do is create distance between us and those we are attracted to, and also creates a hierachy in which those in a given society are deemed "attractive" are put on a pedestal while those deemed "ugly" are made invisible or even demonised.

I would love for someone to provide counters to this but I don't really know how you could. I just does seem to me like this concept creates a lot of uncessary suffering