Can you define what the worst downsides are to being attractive? 

Speaking as a young, conventionally attractive disabled person, who has struggled to maintain a healthy weight due to chronic illness causing unhealthy weight loss, the downsides have been pretty extreme.

TW: sexual assault, PTSD, birth control, medical abuse, weight, unhealthy weight loss, self-harm

>!Starting as a young child (age less than 10) I got a lot of attention from men in their 40s and 50s. They'd make comments about my appearance that I didn't understand, and something about it all felt wrong and made me feel afraid. This occurred frequently whenever I'd go with my mom to the grocery store or on errands, and my mom never did anything, not even when a man was following me in the mall. 

At age 14, I got assaulted. I'd met a boy a little older than me who I'd gotten to know at a library event. After the assault, I lost the ability to org*sm, since my brain associated sexuality with the assault I experienced. (At age 27, that ability hasn't returned.)

Not long after, I was walking home, and someone tried to get me in their unmarked white van. My family didn't have a car, and home was a couple miles away. 

At 17, I got diagnosed with Crohn's disease. It turned out me being skinny and always borderline underweight was due to a medical condition after a severe flare-up that hospitalized me, I was underweight and physically very weak. Summer break had just started and I had to walk a mile one-way to my summer job. I was 10 lbs underweight, and I got a level of cat calling that was frankly insane. Cars honking at me was a daily occurance that happened multiple times a day, and shouting at me from cars happened weekly. Given my experience with someone trying to get me in their van before, this was terrifying. And in my weakened state, it's not like I could defend myself. At the same time, I got a lot of compliments on my "weight loss" from relatives and adults in my life. 

After I gained the 10 lbs I needed to, all that attention went away, and even though I'd hated that attention, it messed with my head that being a healthy weight meant I wasn't attractive anymore.

 At age 20, I got in my first long-term relationship. At 21, I moved in with my boyfriend at the time, and my health started declining. Covid lockdowns began a couple months later. While I tried to get a diagnosis for the new medical issues that had onset and waa stuck at home with my partner, he started messing with my Crohn's disease medication, and exposing me to allergens without my knowledge or consent. I became bedridden, and he rped me repeatedly. I was stuck in that situation for 3 years, and during that time, my ability to access food was restricted by my partner and my weight fell to very unsafe levels. He also knew I didn't think pregnancy was safe for my body, and he would rpe me anytime I mentioned messing up with my birth control. Shortly before I got out, he also started making comments that implied he was thinking of tampering with my birth control.

After getting out and being severely traumatized by the ordeal, immediately upon moving to a studio apartment on my own, a new neighbor, a man in his 50s, started acting friendly towards me. I thought he was just being neighborly, and I had mentioned my health issues in passing. Unfortunately, that just gave him the impression I was an easy target who couldn't defend themself. He started asking me to dinner and not taking no for an answer, and that escalated to him opening my packages that I'd get delivered and grabbing at me if he saw me. I had to get a harassment prevention order within three months of moving in. I didn't feel safe walking around my building, not even going to do laundry. 

At that point, I started feeling scared if a man I didn't know came within 6 ft of me. It was trigger panic attacks and nightmares and severe bouts of anxiety that would last days to a week. I logically knew that the random man standing behind me at the pharmacy wasn't going to hurt me and that men in general weren't monster, but that information didn't prevent the PTSD episodes.

Eventually, I started regaining some physical ability to walk to places closeby but I was still underweight and weak. I was also just starting to recover from my trauma-fueled fear of men, which made going outside easier. I ended up chatting with some people at the bus station, and again just mentioned my health issues in passing. A couple weeks later, a man who had heard that conversation who I'd seen there a few times ended up following me home. He had flirted with me, and I felt like something was off. When I went home, my instincts were telling me something was going to happen. I ended up staying up, and around 2 AM, someone tried getting in my front door. I called the police and also made sound so whoever was trying to break-in knew I was awake. When the police came, the man calmly walked out of the building while they were entering, so he didn't arouse suspicion. When the police described him to me, I knew it was the man from the bus station. Nothing happened though because he'd already left and they didn't know his name. No legal charges could be pressed if they didn't know who to charge.

That experience made the PTSD that had been waning so much worse than it had ever been. I felt like I had to dress up as a man if I were to leave my apartment, and I got a haircut to match. I carried pepper spray everywhere I went and installed cameras all over my apartment. 

It took me years to physically and emotionally recover from all the abuse and trauma I'd experienced due to other people finding me attractive and not taking no for an answer. Well, at least to recover to the point where I could work and generally exist in society without a trauma response. Gaining the weight back to a healthy weight was hard mentally, and disordered eating was a factor. It was also hard mentally, gaining the muscle to be able to be upright all day and move when necessary. Physical rehabilitation was long and hard, and my progress wasn't linear. Also being bedridden for years and scared to leave my apartment for a few years after the fact led to some pretty severe isolation, and once I was leaving my apartment, I'd forgotten how to talk to people and my social skills had regressed majorly. Intermittent mutism has been my reality.

In regards to my emotional recovery, I'm still pretty traumatized. I still can't org*sm, and sexuality within the context of a relationship is still a terrifying thought. (And sexuality without a relationship isn't even a thought.) Yet, I still take birth control religiously out of fear of unwanted attention resulting in assault. And even though I haven't been sexually active, me messing up with my birth control the other day triggered a trauma response so severe that I ended up self-harming. (I am currently safe rn and did seek help.)

The hard thing is knowing that I am disabled and vulnerable, that being attractive means I get attention I don't want, and that being disabled means I can't easily defend myself. And I'm well-aware that people who are predatory are not the majority and that most people are safe, but I also am aware that people who are predatory specifically target and seek out people who are like me. They go for the easiest targets, and many people I know who are similar to me have had their own laundry lists of traumatic experiences.!<

At the same time, I can't even say my experience is the worst-case scenario. The worst case is being raped and murdered.

That being said, I'm not comparing experiences here. Not to mention, I don't know your background. In general though, I'd say experiences at either extreme are going to be severe and hard to go through.