People who are uglier or have less status

I think it's acceptable to sleep with people uglier than yourself out of convenience, but not date them. How many of you consider the people you date to be a signifier of status? For example going out with an attractive person brings you up, but going out with an unattractive person brings you down.

These values are culturally assigned, so I'd wager people take these things into account defacto in their decisions.