In comments to this post tlt had such a great example of Rule #2 I’m promoting it to its own post.

Before I started hanging out on this blog, I’d never too much thought about the fact that men spend nearly their whole lives being told that they’re not – and can’t be – physically attractive to women. I mean, yeah, why not go straight for bribes, trickery or force if you think they’re the only tools in the box?

An example so perfect that I couldn’t have made it up if I wanted to: I’m working on I Street in downtown DC and a couple of blocks over, on L Street, is a Grooming Lounge. It’s a spa/salon for men. Hanging in the window is a sign, at least 3’x 6’, on which is printed this clever jewel of enticement: “Look Less Ugly.” I felt sad the first time I saw it. Now I just roll my eyes.

While they do get credit for getting straight to the point they were trying to make, I hate to think of the lines they decided not to use.

In their blog post titled This Ad Just Wouldn’t Go Over So Well With the Ladies, The Grooming Lounge’s founders say that they use that line because “most guys just don’t take themselves too seriously” and are “relatively hard to offend.”

Funny, women are told that we could be “perfect” if we would just use this, buy that, pull this up, push that down, work out this hard/long/often/way, put this on, wax that off, suck this out, shove these in….But men are told to just give up because it’s hopeless. They’re not even allowed to wish to be thought of as good-looking, but rather to aspire to be “less ugly” than they would otherwise be.

How is it that people in parts of the world where no one ever heard of a “lip plumper” or a $50 haircut still manage to have all those babies?

She said it here.

It’s always nice to have one’s ideas confirmed, although in this case it would be really nice to be wrong. Because the consequence of rule #2 are just so bleakly pervasive.