The Pun Also Rises

"Animal Attraction"

    A recent article in the New York Times (a reasonable second-choice newspaper if you can't get the Transcript) discussed a scientific study that had been done on what attracts women to men. According to the study, women are less attracted to wealth in comparison with previous decades, and more attracted to, well, attractiveness. Apparently, now that women are earning more money and becoming more financially independent, they are also becoming more like men. Although they still get mad when you leave the toilet seat up.

    However, this study is bad news. Bad news for rich men, and bad news for ugly men. And bad news for humor columnists who received a lovely letter last month in praise of their writing, but a letter which mentioned that the sender looks forward to seeing the protruding proboscis of one's caricature in the paper, leading one to believe that perhaps one's nasal member is not going to win an attractiveness award. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

    More importantly, this study is bad news for society in general. Society works because men go out and make money to attract women, and women pretty themselves up to attract men. If we start valuing men for their attractiveness instead of their money, things will be thrown out of balance if we don't start valuing women for their money instead of their attractiveness. The most important thing is to make sure we never judge anyone based on their personality.

    Thankfully, we seem to be in little danger of that. Our society now is still very focused on women as an image. Magazines all focus on the body image of women, and everyone focuses on those magazines. The country has a billion-dollar diet industry. It would not be incorrect to say that our country is obsessed with being slim.

    And I mean unhealthily obsessed. I have a friend who was sick recently, and she lost some weight. A friend of hers, upon seeing this, said, "Hey, you look great, what's your secret?" Is this the point we've come to? One almost expects reporters to have been accosting Jill Carroll, saing, "Hey, you look great, what's your secret?" Five months from now the Terrorist Capture Diet may be the hot new trend.

    But our obsession with attractiveness doesn't stop with weight. There's also the cosmetics industry. Unlike diets, which are mostly tested by other people before being brought to the world, cosmetics tend to be tested on animals. This is why we will often refer to a hot woman as a "fox".

    Anyway, I'm sure we're doing these animals a favor by giving them free cosmetics. Animals have much more complicated dating rituals than humans, so it's unlikely that any animal mating would occur without our help.

    Meanwhile, we can't help it if lipstick starts to make animals look attractive to us. With a little eyeliner, a sheep gets very pretty. And you don't have to be Scottish to appreciate it. Music has been praising ovine beauty for centuries, from the modern "I only have eyes for Ewe" all the way back to when Handel dedicated a section of the Messiah by calling it "For we like sheep".

    Then again, not every animal needs makeup to be pretty. You wouldn't need makeup on a kangaroo, or a penguin. You might have ice cream on a penguin, but only if the penguin was visiting a mechanic, and the explanation for that is a joke that I probably can't print in a family newspaper. (If only I wrote for the New York Times.)

    No, penguins will do fine either way, since they are wearing a permanent tuxedo. The tuxedo symbolizes wealth and attractiveness all at once, which is why very few penguins care about the result of the recent study. But even if you aren't rich, or you aren't good-looking, you can learn how to attract women just by following the example of the penguins: Don't leave the toilet seat up.

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    Seth Brown is a local humor writer whose favorite penguin is still Burgess Meredith. His website is www.RisingPun.com

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