"I wish I could be with you tonight, but I find it impossible to sit through two hours of relentless adulation..."

"... especially for somebody else."

"Obviously not designed by a heterosexual man. It looks damaged and hideously asymmetrical."

Says Clyde, in the comments to the post about that very bizarre (and asymmetrical dress Cate Blanchett wore to the Paris premiere of "Blue Jasmine").

I say:

Heteros are bugs for symmetry and on guard for hideousness and damage? What evidence is there of that?

I see hetero men around all the time who don't seem to mind hideousness and damage.

Clyde says:

Ann, while standards of beauty vary from culture to culture, one thing that is a constant is facial symmetry. Asymmetrical features are often subconsciously viewed as evidence of bad genes. While we are talking about clothing, most of it is very symmetrical as well. I can't think of any men's clothing that isn't. The exceptions are in high-fashion women's clothing, and it's usually something like a strap on one shoulder, or a curved or diagonal cut on a dress or skirt, done to highlight one part or another of the wearer's body. In the case of Kate's dress, it didn't highlight anything; rather than accentuating her beauty, it drew attention away from it. You might as well have called it the Harrison Bergeron collection. It was the sartorial equivalent of Miley Cyrus's VMA performance. It got everyone talking, but not in a good way.

As for the "not designed by a heterosexual man" bit, a female friend and I have discussed some of the more outrageous fashion runway pictures we've seen in online galleries, and we generally agreed that anyone who would create some of the outfits that not only looked ugly but uncomfortable as well could not like women, at all. A straight man would create something to try to make a woman look good, something that would make a man say, "That dress looks great! She's hot! I want her!" A gay man might try to sabotage her so that the man would say, "That dress looks hideous! She's a hot mess! I pity her! Maybe I should try guys instead."

Not responding to all of that —I'm still drinking my first cup of coffee — I double down on symmetry:

"While we are talking about clothing, most of it is very symmetrical as well. I can't think of any men's clothing that isn't."

So what's the tailor talking about when he asks if you "dress right or dress left"?

And:

Aside from the testicles issue...

The handkerchief pocket is on one side.

You wear a watch on one side.

Most sports are one-sided -- tennis, bowling, golf, baseball...

Masturbation... do you balance which hand you use?

You guys are very asymmetrical. The whole idea of orientation only to one of the 2 sexes is asymmetrical.

Now — finishing up that coffee — I'll just add that I'm not buying the old idea that gay men don't want women to look beautiful. Go to that the second link above — the one that takes you to the photo of Cate Blanchett's dress — and read some of the other posts there. Tom & Lorenzo — gay guys — clearly love to see women looking beautiful. Look at this post of theirs about Lena Dunham's photo shoot for Marie Claire magazine:

We pray to all that is holy and fabulous that Miss Lena has learned a very valuable and important lesson here....

It’s okay to shoot for fabulous, honey. You’re more than capable of landing on it.

Etc. 

"Honestly, to whatever extent this is working, it’s working because it’s on Cate Blanchett."

"Except for maybe Tilda, we doubt anyone else could wear this without looking batshit insane or like they just walked away from some horrible, flaming industrial accident."

"12 Personal Finance Lessons, Broken Down, In Woody Allen's 'Blue Jasmine.'"

A nicely done piece in Forbes, which I arrived at after Googling "blue jasmine is a movie about handbags," because that's what I said at the end of the closing credits: "That movie was about handbags." In the middle of the movie, I nudged Meade and said: "I've never seen a movie with so many women so attached to their handbags."

The 2 main female characters were constantly carrying around big handbags. One of them was dancing at a party with a big, clunky bag hanging from her shoulder. There was a scene where the 2 women carried big bags while buying a smaller bag, and yet they continued to carry big bags after that. We saw the main character — Jasmine, played by Cate Blanchett — dig in her bag for money, throw her bag on a sofa in a tantrum, accidentally dump the contents of the bag on the street in a moment of hysteria.

That darned bag — Hermes — should get a nomination for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.

But importantly — spoiler alert — when Jasmine leaves the apartment in the final scene, after she takes the shower, she walks out to go wandering the streets talking to herself, she has no handbag. That's how you know she's really crazy now. She was pretty much crazy from the first scene, but she had her handbag every step of the way. And now: No handbag!