Beautiful people

Egalia, my favorite Guerilla Woman, tapped into an interesting and lively debate currently making the rounds on the ‘net. I would like to give you my perspective, but first, some background.

Pink Kitty likes to dance, and she’s damned good at it. She posted a vid on her blog. Brittney at Nashville is Talking picked up the vid and reposted it on her blog. First comment, from God’s Gift to Women “Wintermute”:

Skip it, dudes. Another blogging whale.

And thus arose a shit storm. I found Aunt B’s post (on her blog, Tiny Cat Pants) particularly intriguing. One of her commenters asked the question,

I’m constantly tempted to write something about the general unf@#$ability of sexist asshats like our friend Wintermute. I’ve yet to see an attractive MRA, for example. The question is whether my doing so would do more harm than good. I’m not sure, honestly, but I remain tempted. Thoughts?

In other words, does it serve the cause of feminism to call an ugly asshat an ugly asshat? I encourage you to read Aunt B’s full post, including the comments, but her bottom line answer is, No, it’s not okay, because it plays into the very thing we’re trying to condemn:

So, it’s true that, not only are there a great many men who think they deserve beautiful girls to fuck; there are a great many women who believe that certain men deserve beautiful girls to fuck and, if those women can prove that they are among those beautiful girls, that they deserve the perks that come with being the arm candy of a man who deserves to fuck beautiful women (usually, a man who has power of some sort).

I think the trick is to realize that we disagree with that whole worldview and to refuse to play into it at any end. Not because it’s more moral, but because we really do want the world to be different than that, and, in some way, the only way to have a different world is to do the difficult work of already living as if that world were here now.

I agree with this, but I also agree with one commenter, Magniloquence:

Anyway, the shortest answer, and the one that keeps coming to me, is that you can’t tell him how butt-ugly he is because that’s rude. Yes, there are feminist implications, but the main reason you don’t do that is because you’re better than that*, and there’s nothing to be gained.

. . . [snip] . . .

* Not inherently more moral, but better trained. Not “women are better than men” or “feminists are better than everyone else,” but you, as a nice person, are better than the troll, who is not being nice.

I keep thinking, Miss Manners would approve of Magniloquence’s reasoning. It’s a bigger issue than feminism — it’s about common decency. You don’t go around making hurtful comments, you know? It violates the Golden Rule, and y’all know how I feel about that.

But, back to this issue of thinking you deserve beautiful women (or men) to fuck. Of requiring some minimal level of physical attractiveness before you’ll ever deign to consider the other person as potential BF or GF material. Bear with me for a moment — I’m going to say some very self-serving things, but when you get right down to it, I’m not as honorable as it will at first seem.

I’ve never chosen a woman on the basis of looks. Never. Personality, wit, a sense that we looked at things the same way — those are my prerequisites. I’m not saying these women aren’t beautiful, though, because to me, they’re gorgeous. But are they among the Beautiful People of the world? Not really. Would I have traded any one of them for someone more conventionally beautiful? Not if it meant settling for someone with a shade less brilliance.

I wonder sometimes if I’ve been just as ruthlessly materialistic in my own way as the guy who has a list of physical requirements — has to be chesty, has to be a redhead, has to be thin, yatta yatta. Because, like that guy, it always has been about my needs. That guy wants to get laid by a beautiful woman. He wants her to be his public arm candy. He wants a certain level of physical/aesthetic satisfaction.

I want mental satisfaction.

I want to be stimulated (mentally. Well, that other stimulation, too, but that’s another issue). I want to be entertained. I want to feel less alone.

Funny, isn’t it, that my demands should meet with public approval, while the Wintermutes of the world are viewed with scorn? (And, by the way, what kind of guy chooses as his online handle the name of a murderous AI? It’s like calling yourself HAL 9000, only more arrogant, since fewer people will catch the reference.) On some level, aren’t we being equally selfish?

Because I really do think people like me can be every bit as piggishly demanding as Wintermute. If a guy never thinks about your needs, never acts selflessly for your benefit, and instead expects you to satisfy his emotional demands, how is that any different from the egocentrist who expects you to satisfy his physical demands?

This kind of thinking can drive a guy nuts. And what about the supposed “selfless acts”? If I scrutinize the things I do which others might consider selfless, I find a whole host of self-centered motivations. For an extreme example, consider this gedanken experiment:

I can do something which benefits another person, but that person will never know it. No one will ever know about it but me. Do I do it?

Yes, because, thanks to self esteem issues, I’m always doing things like that just to feel less worthless. I do it because it gives me temporary internal relief to do it. An idealized example of selfless behavior, and I’m doing it for purely selfish reasons.

See what I mean? A guy could go nuts. Stark raving nuts.

D.