Bowled Over

The American college football National Championship was decided this week, and all anyone can talk about is the quarterback's girlfriend.  If you didn't see the game - or wisely bailed out early on the one-sided contest - there was a moment when the cameras showed Katherine Webb, girlfriend of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron.  At that point, the eyes of veteran announcer Brent Musburger sprang out of his head towards Ms. Webb, his heart shooting out of his chest with every beat.  Okay, obviously I don't know that's what happened; as a commentator, the cameras weren't showing him.  But based on the profound effect her beauty had on him I can only assume he was reacting as a cartoon character.

A lot of people found it offensive, or just awkward.  I'd go with the latter: My policy has always been that there's nothing wrong with acknowledging a person's beauty, or even mentioning a personal attraction.  So I see nothing wrong with mentioning that the quarterback's girlfriend is beautiful - though it is about as surprising as mentioning that the quarterback has a strong arm.  You'd think that a guy who's covered college football for twenty years would have noticed the trend in hotness of quarterbacks' significant others.  And that brings me to why it was awkward.  Not that Musburger attested to her attractiveness, but that he was so moved by her beauty that he seemed to lose his composure, as though he had never seen such a woman before - also odd for a guy who's spent most of the last twenty years on college campuses.  Whether you're approaching this issue from a perspective of feminism or chivalry, you'll agree that a man should have some control over his hormones.

This brings up something I've never understood about men.  I mean other men.  And that is their over-the-top reaction to certain women.  Okay, you're a heterosexual man, you're attracted to women.  Some women more than others.  Logically there has to be a "most attractive" woman in the world for you.  But in my experience that woman is maybe 0.01% hotter than the second most beautiful woman.  It seems odd to pick out one exceptional unattainable woman and claim that she is head and shoulders above all other exceptional unattainable women.  Most human traits are like that: there's usually little to separate the top people in any one quality.  If, for instance, you put the top two football teams on the same field, you'd expect them to be so closely matched that there's no way one would crush the other by 28 points.  Okay, bad example.

Really, I think this phenomenon of men claiming one woman as the far-and-away most attractive is something that helps them in relationships.  By maintaining the idea that one woman can be that superlative, they can plausibly maintain the claim that the woman they're with is the best in the world.  If any man were to admit that many women are attractive to him, it would deprive him of any success with women.  Crap.