The venustraphobia or caliginephobia is an anxiety disorder that consists of the irrational fear of beautiful women. It should not be confused with gynophobia, which is the fear of women in general.
Tachycardia, dry mouth, a sudden and exaggerated flush on the cheeks accompanying a certain inability to articulate meaningful sentences ... Who has not ever experienced this when faced with a tremendously attractive person?
A priori, being with a beautiful woman does not have to cause any problems, on the contrary, it is always nice to have good company. However, there are people for whom such a seemingly harmless situation is an ordeal.
If you think this is happening to you and being surrounded by beautiful women causes you great discomfort, it is very likely that you are suffering from venustraphobia.
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It is normal that when you meet someone you like and attract you, you get nervous, flushed and even stutter, due to the large amount of chemicals that the brain is secreting at that time as a result of excitement.
The problem comes when these symptoms are experienced in a very intense way and cause such discomfort that they prevent any type of contact with attractive and beautiful women.
Although it can affect women, it is men who suffer the most from this phobia. Symptoms can manifest even without having any contact with women, simply observing them in photographs or films.
People who suffer from this problem tend to feel, in addition to shame and shyness, feelings similar to those of an anxiety attack and tend to avoid any type of situations that include attractive women in order to be safe..
So, if when you are surrounded by beautiful women you feel a bit ashamed but you are able to face the situation, calm down, you do not suffer from this problem..
And the truth is that it can be quite annoying since approximately 50% of the world's population are women. In addition, the book of tastes is not written so within that percentage, the number of women considered beautiful and attractive can be very high.
The symptoms that venustraphobia produces are those of problems grouped within anxiety disorders:
It must be borne in mind that the problem does not manifest itself in the same way in all people, as it depends on their characteristics, what caused the problem, the environment in which it occurs, etc..
In the end, the important thing is the degree of discomfort felt and how much it interferes in the life of each one.
In general, most phobias occur as a result of the experience of some negative or traumatic event, except in some cases in which the mere observation of such an event may be enough to trigger them.
In the case of venustraphobia, being involved in embarrassing situations due to the lack of skills to deal with women of certain attractiveness, having been teased by one of them or a failed romantic relationship, can be the origin of the problem..
However, these types of problems cannot be reduced to a mere cause-effect relationship (negative event -> fear) because, unfortunately, fear has the ability to feed back on itself. That is, most of the things you do to avoid being afraid end up encouraging it and delaying its disappearance..
In fact, the most frequent and, after all, the most natural response to fear is to flee. So people avoid what causes fear in order to reduce discomfort.
However, although it is paradoxical, the relief you feel for having avoided meeting that beautiful woman is contributing to your continued fear and even to increase the next time.
Other things that affect the maintenance of venustraphobia (and any phobia) are cognitive distortions: rumination, catastrophic beliefs, self-criticism, anticipation of aversive situations ... that do nothing other than feed the monster.
Among the most common cognitive distortions in this disorder we can find:
Venustraphobia is a little known disorder in itself as it is identified as a variant of social phobia, which is why it is usually intervened in a similar way.
There are several techniques to combat this type of phobia, both from the branch of psychiatry and from psychology:
The most used in these cases are antidepressant drugs (SSRI) and anxiolytics, which can serve as treatment for extremely serious cases.
However, numerous studies have shown a greater efficacy of drug treatment when it has been supplemented with psychological therapy, rather than alone. Its use is not recommended during treatment with exposure techniques..
This is because the drugs act on the body, reducing the symptoms of anxiety, which makes you feel good at the moment. However, it does not eliminate the problem as the inability to interact with attractive women is still present..
Among the recommended techniques from the cognitive behavioral approach we can find:
It consists of gradually exposing the patient to attractive women so that he can gradually get used to their presence and in turn learn to control his fears until they disappear.
To do this, a list of situations must be made and ordered according to the degree of discomfort they produce. Once done, the first situation in the hierarchy that the patient will have to face is chosen.
Training in social skills is usually the step prior to exposure, so that the patient has sufficient tools to cope with the situation..
Despite being a little-known disorder as such, it has been exploited a lot in the film field and in television series. You can find multiple movie plots in which a male character appears who feels dread in the presence of attractive women.
Without going any further, the actor and film director Woody Allen, is very assiduous in this type of argument in which he himself represents the neurotic character who feels intimidated by women.
If you remember the mythical anime series Dragon Ball, Yamcha's character suffers from this disorder, not being able to even see Bulma without fainting.
Also, in the series The Big Bang Theory the character of Raj appears, who has a high inability to relate to women who seem beautiful to him.
Other examples are the films in which the protagonist is the typical misfit who every time he sees the head of the cheerleaders he becomes blocked and becomes very anxious, until he manages to overcome his fear and talk to her.
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