“Beauty, contrary to what most people think, is not simply in the eye of the beholder,” said lead researcher Daniel Cohen-Or of the Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences at Tel Aviv University.
Attractiveness – for men or women – can be objectified by a computer and boiled down to a function of mathematical distances or ratios, Cohen-Or said, admitting that the work is likely to be controversial.
Controversial? You better believe it. Dr. Cohen-Or has punched a hole the size of a semitrailer in the argument of our multi billion dollar a year cosmetic and fashion industries that every man/woman can be handsome/beautiful if he/she would only trryyy.
Thus knocking that bitch Helena Rubinstein’s famous sneer “There are no ugly women, only lazy ones” into a well-deserved, ignominious cocked hat.
For years, I’ve listened to hooey – usually from pretty, photogenic females who have been married at least once if not multiple times and have the jewels, furs and antiques to show for it – about how they are beautiful on the outside because of the transcendent, physics-defying reflection of their beautiful, pure, inner self-love, blah blah blah blah blah.
The other day, I tried an experiment. Seeking that beautiful inner self that has hidden from the world for so long, I stood in front of a mirror and attempted to get a photo that looked like the image in the mirror.
Impossible, couldn’t do it.
Not only am I not beautiful because my features don’t conform to the ideal mathematical distances or ratios, but I’m not photogenic, either! Double whammy.
Homely people have had it rough in this world for a long time.
I mean, my gosh, even Jesus went out of his way to cultivate Mary, a prostitute, not exactly the profession a homely woman would have been permitted to adopt.
Buddha as Prince Siddhartha selected Yasodhara from a bevy of beautiful girls invited by his father to the palace – not girls who were kind, bright, or virtuous, but beautiful. And the fact that she was his cousin didn’t stand in the way of their marrying and having a child.
It makes me wonder how us homely people have managed to survive the forces of natural selection.
Or, more practically, how to get our hands on Dr. Cohen-Or’s computer modeling software.