Living: Unplain Jane

Is beauty a beastly burden?

Welcome news for plain Janes: stunning appearance may not be a very valuable sexual asset. In fact, according to a University of Rochester study, beauty may not be a help at all.

Probing the social lives of 35 male and 36 female freshmen at the upstate New York school, Social Psychologists Harry Reis and Ladd Wheeler of Rochester and John Nezlek of William and Mary found that physical attractiveness is a great advantage to men, but not to women. The beautiful and the plain spend about the same amount of time with men and report the same amount of satisfaction. The women who do best are those with average to good looks. Says Wheeler: "These borderline women seem very satisfied in their relationships with the opposite sex."

One explanation is that men are threatened by beauty. Another: glamorous women think that men are only interested in them physically. It's plain from this mini-sampling that beauties will just have to bear their burden. Life is hard.