Let’s call a spade a spade, and call the gorgeous “gorgeous”
So this post, on porn, beauty, women and relationships actually seemed to spur a bit more discussion than our usual political stuff. Ace of Spades said “man, did that provoke an angry discussion” over at his raucous-even-on-slow-news-day blog. Now Mike Greenberg, ESPN sportscaster, is hitting on a similar theme.
Boy, that Tanith Belbin is gorgeous.
There, I said it. You’ve been thinking it, I’ve been thinking it, what’s so terrible about saying it?
Somehow we have arrived at this place in sports where it is politically incorrect for a man to point out a great-looking woman. How did this happen? How did we get from avoiding language that would offend people (which is a good thing) to avoiding making fairly obvious and benign observations (which is pathetically stupid and pointless)? And please don’t tell me Ms. Belbin might be offended. There isn’t a woman on the planet who is offended by a man calling her gorgeous. The overwhelmingly gorgeous ones might become accustomed to it, but at no point do they say, “Wow, if only I could shed this gorgeous rap, things might really pick up for me.”
Also, I’m not listening if you tell me I’m objectifying women. I am the father of a 5-year-old girl, I am enormously concerned for her future, but nowhere on my list of concerns does it read: “I hope and pray no one ever calls her gorgeous.”
Let me pick up the bad boy mantle from Cam and put this in even starker terms. If you’re a woman, and you’re offended by a man calling a woman gorgeous… I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that you haven’t been called gorgeous too many times yourself. I don’t think these comments come from a principled sense of sisterly solidarity and commitment that we all be judged by a standard besides our physical asthetic; I’m gonna point my finger at “jealousy” as the root cause. Really, getting offended because somebody else is getting complimented ain’t a sign of nobility; it’s a passive-aggressive display of the green-eyed monster.
Cam: I have a “bad boy” reputation? Very cool. Usually Star Wars references lead to a “geek boy” rep. But I digress.
Picking up where you left off, who are the people that are offended by calling a woman gorgeous? I’ve never met one. Maybe it’s my red state upbringing, but where I come from, that’s a compliment, not a put down.
We had Anna Benson on the show yesterday. She’s undeniably hot. But that’s not why we had her on. I liked what she wrote on her website about being a “pistol packing mama” and wanted to talk to her about that. Just because you call a woman “gorgeous”, “smoking hot”, or “all that and a bag of chips” doesn’t mean you don’t also think she’s smart, witty, well-spoken, etc. I think the vast majority of people get that.
Maybe Mike Greenberg is hanging out with a different kind of folks than I am, but has it really become politically incorrect in sports of all places to talk about how hot a woman is? This is the same culture that gave us the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, the Laker Girls, and the Hooters Tour. I think Greenberg is trying to point out a controversy that doesn’t exist, frankly.