OH THE RAGE

[puddingcat]

Via faerierhona, a link from The Times Online.

Ok, there's a related article with a different point of view as well, but still THE RAGE. IT BURNS.

(Worst of all, I suspect it burns most because I have a deep-rooted belief that he's telling the truth. I dislike my RAGE being directed at myself.)

Comments

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Remember, it's the Evil Brain Hamsters who tell you that spending £1000 per month on grooming yourself to within an inch of being Barbie is good, rather than spending it on fast liquor and strong women :-)

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Marlboro Lights and Gin for me please!

Fuck tanning.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I earn £1000 per month. Damn right I'm spending it on cake not manicures.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

That whole article just vaguely sickened me. I think it's telling though, she's comparing somewhere in London (probably cheap as she's a writer) with LA and New York? Come on. Stupid bitch.

On the whole I'd say girls in Manchester groom WAY THE HELL MORE than girls in Portland. There are regional variations.

Though the plethora of chavs is a little alarming.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Women in Cambridge are vastly different from those in Manchester, too. Orange tans and fake Burberry are a rarity down here (hurrah!)

[wendy-lady.livejournal.com]

Ah, come on, Tiff, barely anyone in Portland grooms, let alone bears any resenblance to personal hygiene!

[redshira.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I feel *sick* having read that. Just...oh my god. Makes me want to dance about and say "I haven't shaved my legs in three months! I am twenty stone and counting! I have split ends! My nails are short and clean but unpainted and unmanicured! The most attention I give to my feet is to make sure they're clean and comfortable! My teeth are not white enough to glow! My tits need some serious scaffolding! AND YET I AM STILL HOT. FUCK YOU."

Wordy McWord

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I haven't shaved my legs in months either, and I have split ends and a visible inch of roots on my hairdye, and my nails are bitten, and my feet are clean but not primped, and I have always had dodgy teeth (although I brush them twice a day) and my tits dangle about my knees.

Lying next to me is a naked man who is vastly more attractive than Tad, and I can tell this just from reading Tad's article, BECAUSE I AM ATTRACTED TO BRAINS AND PERSONALITY OVER LOOKS.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I AM STILL HOT

YOU STOLE MY STRAIGHT, DAMN YOU WOMAN!

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Read the comments. I particularly like the ones from Matthew in New York and Evangeline in California. Tad might be telling the truth as he sees it, but would you really want to attract the sort of man who is only interested in the amount of effort you put into your looks and not your marvellous brain?

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

When I read them, the comments were about 50:50 agreeing with us and with him.

I liked the spam one from the PhD, Oxon :)

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

who is this writer and who are the women he is spending time with as they sure as hell don't sound like 99% of women in either the UK or the US

then again all the women in the US he spends time with has $1500 dollars a month to spend on beauty products and the Women in the UK have 4 drug dealers on speed dial so clearly he lives in the real world

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

He's a US screenwriter who we've never heard of, so clearly spends all his time with wannabe starlets who realise that the only way they'll get a bit part in a straight-to-cable film is to be skeletal and plastic.

I'd *like* to spend £750 a month on looking good, but I have neither the money or the time.

[pond823.livejournal.com]

I love guys like the one from the Times. He and his ilk ignore and even fear the truly great women, leaving them for the rest of us who don't.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

He seems not to have grown up. I can understand teenage boys thinking like him, when they only have Zoo and Nuts to base their opinions on, but adults? Gah!

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Spending all that time on something as pointless as manicures and waxing is wasting valuable manporn-writing and reading time. This is something I suspect he doesn't understand, the poor fellow.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Now you have me wondering which beauty treatments *are* compatible with manporn.

Hairdressers definitely are (well, haircuts, but you know what I mean...), as are pedicures. Manicures not so much, unless you have a stick taped to your head to hit the Page Down key, or a talking book (Ooh! Cupidity and Striper!Gojyo talking books! Oooh!)

Perhaps manporn would make brazilian waxes tolerable?

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I've not read all of the articles because they are loooooooooooooooong and I'm stupid. So I probably shouldn't comment until I have...

However! Looking at the two photos at the top of the first article, I feel I should point out that the more curvaceous British lady on the left is infinitely more attractive than the skeletal American form on the right.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I wish they hadn't used those pictures; neither is exactly overweight, and both are very well grommed.

[wrangler.livejournal.com]

I'm cool with this! No, really. He's paying for it, right? British women can now get paid to have time off work, and free beauty treatments, courtesy of this man, right?

Right?

(Also, I like neither, but give me Charlotte Church's boobs over Paris Hilton's brainlessness any day.)

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

If he gives me £750 a month, I'm getting an Aston. Then I can be out of the house any time he calls to check up on the results of his largesse, and pull men with their priorities on straight :)

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

This has exploded all over my f'page today. I'm in two minds about it - I think the article is extreme, and the various points people have made as to why this is so are fair.

However, I like well-groomed people. Not the fake tan and the plastic tits, no, but I prefer to look at someone who is clean, with a nice haircut and well-kept hands and all the rest, to someone who looks like a slob. It's not important enough to instigate or cut off contact in itself - personality goes a long, long way with me - but overall, I would prefer not to spend my life with an unkempt genius if I could have a well-groomed one instead.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Yes; this is why I can't *quite* convince myself he's wrong. I like looking at pretty things; I find well-groomed people more attractive than those who haven't made an effort, and I don't believe I'm the only one.

Personality counts for *more* than appearance in relationships, but physical attraction is necessary as well.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I love the way he seems to expect women to spend vast amounts of time and money on their looks when all he feels is sufficient for going on a date is...
I’d put on a clean shirt, shaved and brushed my teeth

When he's willing to spend hours in the gym and stacks of time and cash getting a perfect body, then he might have the right to demand a buffed beauty.

Then they'll both be too knackered to actually have sex.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

And rips out his pubic hair by the roots. I would be quite willing to volunteer my help for that, free of charge, out of the goodness of my heart.

Because I am a petty person.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

HERE'S TAD!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Tad_Safran/657111861

Re: Because I am a petty person.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

* tries to suppress urge to create sock puppet account *

[xambrius.livejournal.com]

Spend hundreds a month to keep your car in top shape? No way.
Spend hundreds a month to keep your TV in top shape? No way.
Spend hundreds a month to keep yourself in top shape? Sure!

<blink>

Humans. Go figure.

--
Tim Harris
The Seeker
Time Lord

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I've now read both articles.

The first guy is clearly a bloody misogynist fool.

Reading between all the sweeping generalisations, I'd say that he's either working for the cosmetics indutry or has just been dumped by a lovely English woman and this is his revenge.

Mind you, the American women don't fare much better. They're apparently all obsessed with their appearance and have no social skills!

Make your mind up pal!

[scribblemoose]

What a load of bollocks. Facile, capitalist, mysogynist bollocks.

Not that I don't like a nice pampering as much as the next woman. But you can put all the slap on you like: if you don't have confidence and a belief in your own sexuality you still won't look stunning. Whereas confidence, personality and a smile can be totally knockout. (Felicity Kendall in wellies in the Good Life, to pick an example that shows my age).

My smile is that much brighter today, mind, because I don't have to sleep with him. ;)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think possibly the message of the article is undermined by the two pictures they are using to illustrate the difference between British and American women.

For Britain, we have Charlotte Church, who is an incredibly talented singer with a successful career as a TV presenter, a long term and happy relationship, a small child, and who still (in my opinion) looks pretty damn hot.

For America, we have Paris Hilton. Who...erm...made a bad sex tape and then got arrested for drunk driving.

Right now, I'm not feeling any strong urge to take Paris as my new role model.

[lark-ascending.livejournal.com]

Hah. What a load of balls. American women have bought into the plastic-doll ideal, and unsurprisingly American men now expect it of them (you note that this Tad Safran is actually male). I have really quite a lot of sex without a Hitler-moustache fanny in sight, without doing anything to my nails and with a homegrown hair-dye job that comes at two packs for £4 at Superdrug. And I don't *have* hundreds of quid to spend on beauty even if I thought the whole idea was anything more than consumer-culture bullshit to begin with. Making a rod for your own back, anyone?

[lark-ascending.livejournal.com]

... Oh. My. God. This guy is *seriously* not straight. How uptight do you have to be to find it surprising that working with horses gives you rough hands, and to go for pedicures when you're a sodding bloke?!

I call closet case. No wonder he doesn't find women attractive.

[munchkinott.livejournal.com]

lulz @ teh funneh ppl.

And I quote: but at least I’d put on a clean shirt, shaved and brushed my teeth.

When men are prepared to put £1,000 a month into THEIR appearances, then they can talk. But a clean shirt, shaving (I bet he stopped at his face) and brushed teeth (no floss, no mouthwash - I bet he was out and done in 5 secs) and EXPECTING TO WIN HIMSELF A SUPERMODEL?? AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! X-D X-D

I can't get angry at that. I really can't. Being pissed off at the mentally ill is discrimination now, isn't it? What he scored was a nice, normal girl and he's projecting his failure onto her via the medium of a checklist he pulled out the back of an old issue of Cosmo. To make matters worse I spy with my little eye the socially acceptable side of paedophilia - English girls? Get 'em young n' fresh n' within 20 minutes of being legal.

American girls? Ah, well, there you have to wait until they're at least 18; 21 if you want to wine n' dine 'em. So of course, they're better and have had time to cultivate and craft their virginal flora appearances.

THAT I can get mad at. THAT right there *points up* SEE ME RAGE!