025 - Maury's Lessons

For the record I can't stand shows like Maury and Jerry Springer, but having watched some episodes in my days of unemployment I have learned a few valuable lessons...

If a hick is pregnant, the baby belongs to someone other than her partner.
If a black guy looks innocent, he's guilty.
If a white guy looks guilty, he's innocent.
If you look like the back end of a horse, you will have had several abusive relationships.
If your wife looks like the front end of a horse, you are in an abusive relationship.
If your best friend and your partner are both ugly, they are sleeping with each other.
If your best friend is ugly and your partner is attractive, and they're sleeping together, you're pregnant.
If you wear big hoop earrings, your partner is cheating.
If you're on Jerry Springer, you're probably a hick.
If you're on Maury, you're probably a minority.
If you're on Dr. Phil, you're white and can't afford a real psychologist.
If you're waiting for any of these shows, don't do anything with the obvious hot decoy they send into the green room before the show. It's a trap!

003 - Face Value

"A person is only beautiful when their own beauty is reflecting on to others."

- Tara Grady

*****

It's not usually something I dwell on, but several separate conversations and topics over the last few days have revolved around natural beauty and Hollywood beauty, and what people perceive as a standard of attractiveness.

I've always believed that every single person is beautiful to someone, somewhere. Some people have the kind of face or features or body that turn more heads than not, but those kind of people probably count for about 5% of the population. The rest of us, well, we're beautiful to a more select group of people. At least, that's what I've always thought.

Unfortunately it's obvious that mentality isn't shared by everyone.

I guess you could say this is a blast against the media in general; the people behind the cameras and the magazines, the make-up artists and plastic surgeons. Somewhere along the line in the past 30 years or so the public perception of what is beautiful or ideal - what is or should be attractive to the opposite sex - has changed, and it's still changing.

We are lead to believe that what men want is something women simply cannot deliver. At least, not without sacrificing one's health or genetic make-up.

OK, so not every woman would want to change their face structure or their body to get a man, but what about the women that plaster several layers of make-up on before leaving the house? If we're not expected to change our bodies to look like Megan Fox or Lindsey Lohan, are we expected to at least slap on the war paint? Very few women survive without at least a little bit of make-up, which is something I've always known but only recently started to wonder, why? Is turning your face into a work of art really going to make you more attractive to the opposite sex? Or does it say you're trying too hard? If that's the case, is there such a thing as trying too little? Should women always have some sort of mask, some ounce of falseness, to be beautiful?

If the answer is no, then why are images and ideas that skinny, tanned, toned, pouting young women what men really want?