Afua Hirsch Doesn’t Seem To Understand Human Beings

So, Libby Purves says summat about how birds have to look good on TV. Afua Hirsch then leaps in to insist Me Too, Me Too! For what is a social observation without a fan base these days?

Except Ms. Hirsch seems not to understand the species she – presumably – is a member of.

Of course, the reason we are watching television is so that we can see something visually stimulating. But the idea that this needs to be in the form of a young woman, or one who is thin, has perfect teeth, or is generally age-defying, is demonstrably nonsense. A cursory glance at the physical appearance of many of the older men who remain staples of our TV schedules eviscerates that notion.

Visually stimulating is what is visually stimulating. We are a sexually dimorphic species. Yes, tastes vary, luckily, or most of us never would get laid. But it is possible to give a little pencil sketch in which the attractiveness of males is based – more perhaps – upon their social status, of women upon their perceived fertility. Mr. Briatore and his recent wife being an example. The pages of scientific journals being filled with less paparazzi based observations of the same point.

What is true of attractiveness in the male is not necessarily true of that in the female. And, of course, vice versa.

Something which we’d rather hope that a journalist, and commentator on the human condition, were aware of but apparently not.

Note what is not being said here. That it should be this way. Rather, that it is. Which is the very thing that Ms. Hirsch is insisting is not.