Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The new Miss USA
The manager of the safari camp is hoping that the news Miss USA will visit us.
“Just think of all the publicity we’d get,” he says. “We could film her eating a banana in the swimming pool.”
I scratch my neck pensively. To be honest, I’m not sure whether having her here will be good for our image. On the plus side, Miss Rima Fakih has a degree in economics, which will counter the erroneous belief that women who eat bananas in swimming pools are airheads. On the minus side, she is the winner of a pole dancing competition, which is not a pastime we would wish to encourage in the Congo. Behaviour of that sort distracts the men and confuses the baboons.
Another cause for concern is the cloud of controversy that engulfed this year’s Miss USA pageant. The muttering and harrumphing began when the contestants distributed revealing photos of themselves in seductive lingerie. Many fans protested that this betrayed the core values of the competition. I see their point. An event in which nubile young women wiggle their bottoms on stage should not be cheapened by the wanton flaunting of flesh. Anyone would think they were trying to influence the judges by making them horny.
I detect the sinister hairpiece of Donald Trump behind it all. He who pays the piper decides which pipe is blown. His response to the complaints was incredibly mealy-mouthed and evasive:
“I think the girls have gone maybe a little over the top this year,” he waffled.
Over the top of what? – the hedge outside his mansion? – the vaulting horse in his gymnasium? – the stuffed rhino in his bedroom? When a hard-headed entrepreneur starts using ambiguous language you can be sure that funny business is going on behind the scenes. Someone should shake Trump by the lapels until he confesses. Owning the store doesn’t entitle him to stick his hand in the candy jar whenever he wants.
Many people disapprove of beauty pageants on principle. I have a lot of sympathy for their position. What does the title of Miss USA really tell you about a woman? I’ve seen pictures of Miss Fakih and I’m damned if I can say what put her ahead of her rivals. Judging a woman as a package doesn’t make sense unless you’re going to marry her.
These competitions should be run like an athletics meeting, with specialist events for the diverse talents on display. Multiple queens could be crowned for excelling in different qualities – Miss Cutie for the prettiest face; Miss Chest for the perkiest boobs; Miss Buns for the nicest behind; Miss Hoochie for the girl most likely to sleep with Charlie Sheen. Picking out one contestant as the most beautiful is unfair to the others and too big a burden for the winner. Imagine having to act the like flower of your nation’s womanhood for a whole year, pouting for the cameras and holding in your farts. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy it.
I think I’ll send a telegram to Miss Fakih congratulating her on her coronation and advising her to behave with discretion. The title of Miss USA is regrettably a man-ho magnet, and I’d hate to think of some conceited dandy adding her to the notches on his bedpost. A woman who takes the name of her country must mercilessly shoot down intruders who enter her airspace.
Labels: Donald Trump, Miss USA, Pole-dancing, Rima Fakih
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Five fat men and a pole
A correspondent cheekily suggests that I audition for a new show in London. It features five pot-bellied men who cavort on stage while embracing a vertical pole. Rather than shaving and oiling their skin, they proudly display their body hair, a gimmick which inspired them to name their act “Bearlesque”. It has attracted a large following of middle-aged women, thrilled at the spectacle of these human potatoes pawing the pole like bears searching for honey. The performers never remove their underpants – there are some sights which even the raunchiest matrons would prefer to forgo.
As one who has flexed his own limbs expansively in the circus, I am not without empathy for these podgy pole-dancers and wish them every success. I need hardly point out, however, that they are a long way from being bears, let alone gorillas. As any wild creature knows, all the hair in the world is useless if you lack mobility. These fellows would clearly be out of breath if you even mentioned the idea of climbing a tree or chasing marauding baboons. Not that they’d be capable of doing much if they actually caught up with the baboons. In all probability, the baboons would make mincemeat of them.
It’s a far cry from the feats I performed in the circus. I don’t deny that my most enthusiastic fans were women, but I earned their adulation in a manner worthy of a jungle ape. After years in the ring, I found that what the human female admires most about gorillas is our long, strong, hairy arms. All I had to do to induce excited gasps from heaving bosoms was grasp a fleeing dwarf by his ankle and swing him around my head like a shepherd’s sling. It was stunts like this that motivated the ladies to queue for my autograph and other mementoes. There was no need for me to straddle a shiny pole or mince about in a sexually ambiguous fashion.
Yet I’m not the sort of ape who fails to give credit where it is due. Let no one belittle the fact that Bearlesque has put bums on seats, albeit rather large ones. The reason for the show’s success seems to be that its female fans enjoy ogling men who look like their husbands. It’s really a very clever piece of psychology on their part. Men who see their wives hooting at fellows no better than them will naturally feel more confident about their own sexual allure. And this restored confidence will lead to a general rising of the sap, prompting them to give the missus a thorough seeing to when she gets back home. Anything an honest wife can do to enhance her husband’s self-esteem will be re-paid with interest when her furrow needs ploughing.
The importance of flattery in human fornication reminds me of the finale of a film called Carnal Knowledge, which starred the redoubtable Jack Nicholson. By the end of the movie, Jack is a middle-aged man with a string of failed relationships behind him. He is contemptuous of women and utterly cynical of the idea that male and female can co-exist in healthy symbiosis. Yet he is not celibate. In the final scene of the movie, he enters the abode of an attractive lady who stimulates his waning sexual appetite by sweet-talking him in the most exaggerated manner. But then she fluffs a line, and we discover that she is actually a prostitute speaking from a script that Jack had written for her! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I leave you to draw your own conclusions from that sorry denouement – there are surely profound lessons there for humans of all classes, genders and persuasions.
Labels: baboons, bears, Jack Nicholson, Pole-dancing
