"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. 

"I believe we may have reached 'peak bullshit.' And that increasingly, those who push back against the noise and nonsense..."

"... those who refuse to accept the untruths of politics and commerce and entertainment and government will be rewarded. That we are at the beginning of something important."

We see it across our culture, with not only popularity but hunger for the intellectual honesty of Jon Stewart or the raw sincerity of performers like Louis CK and Lena Dunham....

I believe Barack Obama represents this movement, that the rise of his candidacy was in part a consequence of the desire for greater authenticity in our public life.....

"'Girls' actor leaves show after realizing it is terrible."

Instapundit quotes the Daily Caller headline, which isn't supported by what the actor Christopher Abbott ("Charlie") actually said or supposedly said. The actor's spokesperson said "he’s working on numerous other projects" and "a source" said "Chris is at odds with Lena [Dunham]" and "He didn’t like the direction things are going in." That doesn't mean he thinks the show is terrible. At most he's arguing with Dunham or doesn't like what she's doing with his character. My guess is: He's negotiating his salary.

Note: The show is not terrible. It's just — as sitcoms go — a grim picture. People are young and they get naked and have sex on occasion, and yet it's not fun. It tends to be dismal and dark. You'd think conservatives would know how to take that. Are they dumb or just unwilling to watch the show they berate?

"I'd come up with a theory that I thought made a tremendous amount of sense... which was that you'd lay next to someone you loved, you wished for a baby..."

"... and then the sperm and the egg met through the pores of your skin. My friend Amanda was like, 'No, a man puts his penis in your vagina,' and I was like, 'This is the worst thing I've ever heard; this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.' I told my little sister when she was five, so I wouldn’t have to be alone with it. And now she's a lesbian. So there, we've nailed it! That and the fact that I used to make her make out with me through my grandmother's dialysis mask. No, that's not why someone's gay, but it's a funny theory."

Apparently, people hate Anne Hathaway.

But why?

Psychology professor says:  "When times are good we prefer actresses with rounder faces...They convey these ideas of fun and youth."

But Hathaway hath a narrow face, which "suggests she would be popular when times are more challenging... As the economy improves, Hathaway...  may just be a reminder of bad times."

The haters have been chided by Lena Dunham (of "Girls" fame):

"Ladies: Anne Hathaway is a feminist and she has amazing teeth. Let's save our bad attitudes for the ones who aren't advancing the cause," Dunham tweeted.

I hope you can tell that's sarcasm. (Dunham is a genius. Interpret her words accordingly.)

I haven't been reading the anti-Hathaway scribblings (and I've never seen Hathaway in anything), but I would simply assume that women reject idealization of someone that thin.

Grammys.

I have no interest in this topic. I mean I was slightly interested in this photo of Ellen DeGeneres aiming her nose at the "keyhole" opening of Katy Perry's dress and in the fact that Lena Dunham has a boyfriend and he's in a band that had the "Song of the Year." And I'm interested in speculating about whether it was because of the Grammys that they ran such an atrocious episode of "Girls" last night. (The last few episodes of the show had been great, but this one descended into real estate porn: The girl gets a boyfriend seemingly for the purpose of letting us see all the rooms in his expensive house. Oh, that wasn't all there was. There was Lena Dunham — in one of said rooms and in nothing but her panties — playing ping pong. That carried forward the show's theme of really awkward nakedness. That's why I had to correct myself after I said "I might as well be watching HGTV.")

"Would she, like me, have found a cosy coffeehouse environment on the internet, a way to connect with people who understood her aesthetic and validated her experience?"

"Would she have been less dependent on the approval of viewers and critics and more aware of the positive effect her book was having on splintered psyches and girls with short bangs everywhere? Or would that kind of connectedness and access to unmitigated and misspelled negativity have driven her even madder?"

Reflections on the 50th anniversary of a suicide.