Trump Goes There on Carly Fiorina’s Looks

Not that Trump would be on my list of guys I believe the ladies would find handsome…But Dayam!

TRUMP: Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?! I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?

I mean…This is the guy who purportedly has offered the Snow Heaux (Sarah Palin, head MILF to the old white guy set) a cabinet position!

I met Carly back in her Lucent days, before she got stupid joining the Republicans. She was one of the smartest people in the room at that time, and was highly respected by both her troops and peers. While I doubt her ability to lead the country, in large part due to her complete meltdown at Hewlett Packard…But comparing her to Palin, is like comparing Einstein to a brickbat.

 

“Never Make a Pretty Woman Your Wife”…Or Apparently, a Dumb One

Wow – My first thought in reading this article was “this explains the popularity among women of those dreadful Uggs boots!”

Recall this image of Venus Williams –

Looking dumb as a beauty strategy to attract guys.

It also goes a long way to explaining conservative men walking around with tented trousers at the thought of the Sno’ Ho’ – Sarah Palin…

And the lore (and allure) of the “dumb blonde” stereotype.

Do Men Find Dumb-Looking Women More Attractive?

Ask a straight man, “How do you like your women?” and it’s unlikely he’ll answer, “Dumb and sleepy.” But according to new findings, these characteristics—and any other traits suggesting that the lady isn’t particularly alert—are precisely what the human male has evolved to look for in a one-night-stand.

In an article soon to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, University of Texas–Austin graduate student Cari Goetz and her colleagues explored what they called the sexual exploitability hypothesis. The hypothesis is based on thedifferences between male and female reproductive strategies as humans evolved. For ancestral women, casual intercourse with an emotionally unattached man who had no clear intention of sticking around to raise any resulting offspring constituted a massive genetic gamble. By contrast, for a man with somewhere around 85 million sperm cells churned out every day—per testicle—the frivolous expenditure of gametes was far less detrimental to his genetic interests. Goetz and her team began with the assumption that—because our brains evolved long before prophylactics entered the picture—female cognition is still sensitive to the pregnancy-related consequences of uncommitted sex and women remain more reluctant than men to engage in it. They set out to test the idea that any indication that a woman’s guard is lowered—that she’s “sexually exploitable”—is a turn-on for your average man. “[T]he assessment of a woman’s immediate vulnerability,” surmise the authors, “may be central to the activation of psychological mechanisms related to sexual exploitation.”

Reminds me of an old 60’s song…

This is an inflammatory hypothesis, of course, and the language employed in the field doesn’t help matters. It’s worth noting that in the evolutionary psychology sense, the word exploitable simply means that a woman is willing or can be more easily pressured into having sex—which takes her own desires, rather disturbingly, out of the equation. Even if she’s the aggressor, a prostitute, or a certifiable nymphomaniac, having casual sex with her would still constitute “exploiting” her (or at least her body), according to this model. 

 

Dating Uglies

Ugly Betty From the TV Series

This one kind of blew me away. First off, where do you find folks who are willing to put their names out there on a site dedicated to Ugly People Dating. And second, beautiful or ugly in terms of matches between folks seems to me to be highly subjective, and completely in the eye of the beholder.

Ugly People Get Their Own Dating Site

Talk about a niche dating site. TheUglyBugBall.co.uk launched on Monday as the first online dating site only for ugly people in the U.K. It claims to “deal in reality,” is free to join and filled with 1,500 unattractive people who want to, um, bump uglies. First of all, that’s the best name for a website ever. Second of all, founder Howard James’ quote is the funniest ever: “It’s a sad fact that up to half of the UK is made up of ugly people yet amazingly nobody has ever thought of providing a dating service for them.” The rules are strict: attractive singletons are not allowed!

But isn’t a dating site for “the aesthetically challenged” kind of … wrong?

True, they are a self-selecting group, who willingly put themselves on there. And I suppose some singletons would feel like it’s easier to date among a pool where everyone has lowered expectations about physical appearances. I’m troubled, though, because “ugliness” and “attractiveness” are so subjective. The idea that some people may define themselves as being “ugly,” if they’re not really at peace with it (i.e., not embracing it in the empowering way some people have embraced slurs like “gay” or “slut”), seems exploitative. Why would society want to encourage people to identify themselves like that?

The site itself makes a lot of downright untrue — not to mention cruel — assumptions about “ugly” people. Try: “Ugly people are a better calibre of human—pretty people generally aren’t very nice and are often a bit shallow.” And: “Ugly people have had a tougher life and therefore tend to be more considerate and more loyal. A recent survey [on the site] also proved that they try harder in bed.” And this gem: “Ugly people have lower expectations – for a first date a Family Bucket will usually do the trick.” So guys, don’t bother wooing an “ugly” woman or treating her like she’s a human being! Just buy her a bucket of fried chicken and she’ll be grateful.

Gross.

There’s also the question of how “ugly” do you have to be to join. What are the qualifiers? Weight? The size of your nose? Facial deformities? Skin color? It seems to me this would just contribute to sizeism, racism, ableism, etc. Even if it’s a self-selecting group who joins, it saddens me that the online dating pools — which can already be a vicious meat market — are further subdividing in a way that doesn’t challenge notions of beauty.