Posted by juliettex on Mon 11 May 09, 7:13 PM to juliettex's blog.
(Another little snippet from my main blog! Hey, you know where to find it by now 
Have just been watching a very strange programme I recorded last week - entitled Extreme Male Beauty.
Disturbing as this may appear, I must put my hand up and tell you that I enjoyed this show immensely - although admittedly, the enjoyment in question was of the most vicious and vengeful nature imaginable.
Because sadly, even today, physically insecure men seem to be in a tiny, nay miniscule minority - clustered round a couple of Soho gay bars and Muscle Beach gym. At least in the UK, the vast majority of men really haven't evolved much since 1970 - hell, since 1970 BC.
And their detestable 'real-men-don't-do-looks' smugness - their innate conviction that, while caring about being attractive is clearly the one and only raison d'etre for women, it's alien territory for any Real Man - is richly deserving of a hard kick up the arse. And a full-on ambush attack with their own lifelong, casually wielded weapons of physical judgement and contempt.
Sure, women can be shallow about men's looks, too - but nowhere near as vocally, egregiously and viciously. If a woman intensely fancies or intensely doesn't fancy a man in her immediate surroundings, it tends to be a more-or-less private matter. Maybe treasured as a personal secret. Maybe shared in hushed voices with a small group of trusted friends over drinks on a giggly Friday night.
With a man, however - as soon as he's weighed up exactly who he fancies and doesn't fancy in his immediate school/college/uni/workplace environment - he apparently feels the need to take out a fucking megaphone.
This may be a sweeping generalisation, and I'm well aware that there are exceptions to every rule. Nonetheless, you so often get the most revolting men - the sort who'd have an extremely hard time getting a shag off a drunken sheep without using Rohypnol or paying in cash - who apparently think the entire planet is a Miss World contest. And they're the Simon Cowell-esque judge.
They invariably feel that they can deliver their own - quite unsolicited - verdicts on women's looks in tone of magisterial ivory-tower authority. Not just the everyday women in their own immediate vicinity - although oh boy, do they ever comment on those women too - but also on the A-list celebrity babes of this world.
Leave any copy of any lad mag or celeb mag lying around in any male-dominated workplace, and I guarantee you that - in less than ten minutes' time - the following events will happen. Some hairy-faced, saggy-arsed, beer-bellied Jim Royle lookalike will waddle along, pick it up, skim disdainfully through the pages, and come to a big spread on some half-nude supermodel. He will stop turning the pages and will look down at it for some time, his expression that of a housewife inspecting potentially dodgy tomatoes at the supermarket. Then finally, he will pronounce, with the authority and finality of a hanging judge:
'Well, I wouldn't shag her.'
Ooh, dear. Well, that's her told.
I'm sure Naomi Campbell will be crying herself to sleep that night.
'Sob. I'm a multi-millionaire superstar supermodel with ex-boyfriends including movie stars and billionaires - but it all means nothing. Fat Barry from the supermarket warehouse says he wouldn't shag me.'
'Oh, the pain.'
So I found it darkly and viciously satisfying to watch some self-consciously imperfect men craning to look at their back view and agonising over the size of their tits.
It had almost as high a feelgood factor as watching MPs worrying about money.
I particularly enjoyed the one who desperately wanted a chest like like Peter Andre - when his own bore more of a resemblance to Katie Price.
On the other hand, this is an arena in which - from my perspective - vengeful glee and genuine personal preference are engaged in violent hand-to-hand gladiatorial combat.
Because, while men richly deserve to experience what women have to go through every day of our lives - and get a tiny, fleeting glimpse of how the other half lives twenty-four-seven-three-six-five - there's no getting away from an underlying fact.
Vain, insecure, physically neurotic men are the biggest turn-off this side of leprosy.
For guidance on female psychology in this area, I will refer you back to some classic works of romantic fiction. Love 'em or hate 'em, their heroes haven't become immortal fantasy icons for nothing.
Can you imagine Heathcliff turning to Catherine Earnshaw in a tempest of passion, raging 'damn you, tell me the truth, Cathy! You think Edgar Linton's prettier than me, don't you?'
Or Mr Rochester riding out of Thornfield Hall, parking his majestic uncontrollable stallion outside his local Bliss, and booking himself in for a back, sack and crack wax?
Or, indeed, Max de Winter off Rebecca turning to his nervous young bride with a seductive whisper of 'darling, there's something I want to ask you. You don't have to answer straight away. But if you love me, tell me truly - does my bum look big in this?'
Sorry, guys, but there's a reason why not...
J x
| 11 May 09, 7:32 PM CookieMonster UK, 6 yrs  |
so men evolve by becomming insecure narcassists?
I have no problem remaing primitive. | |
| 11 May 09, 7:34 PM spero UK, 11 yrs  |
I think you're gonna lurve this week's episode... | |
| 11 May 09, 7:35 PM juliettex UK, 3 yrs |
Well, I personally think primitive is better (if I had to choose between primitive and narcissist!)
'Primitive' can be obnoxious, but 'narcissist' is a total and utter sexual turn off in any circumstances whatsoever J x | |
| 11 May 09, 7:39 PM CookieMonster UK, 6 yrs |
I had a friend who loved to troll bodybuilding forums as he said almost all of them are mentally unhinged and it only takes one post for the whole forum to erupt.
Haven't watched the programme you reference but a psycological inquirey would be so much more revealing.
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| 11 May 09, 9:26 PM x_poison_x UK(G), 4 yrs |
watched it too - found it to be brutally honest and more enlightening than the standard makeover type show / reality tv that bores me to tears... so its in the sky+ planner ready for the next episode... "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, scotch in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ "WOO HOO what a ride!"" | |
| 11 May 09, 10:15 PM Tenderdom2 4 yrs |
Don't quite get this one. If men don't care about their looks then they're smug, and if they do then they're narcissistic nancy-boys? A tricky balancing act, then. Whatever it is, I'm against it! - Rufus T. Firefly | |
| 12 May 09, 6:41 PM juliettex UK, 3 yrs |
Tenderdom - you're right, it is a hard balancing act! But I'm not saying that all men who don't care about their looks are smug obnoxious tossers. Just the ones who waddle about looking like Piltdown Man, yet feel entitled to judge, bully and ridicule any woman who has more hair, body fat or cellulite than might be found on the typical Playboy centrefold.
The men who don't care about their looks and don't care if their women don't care about their looks either are 100% fine by me J x
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