Katy Perry is Brainwashing Women

I recently watched the music video for Katy Perry's song Part of Me (I was just hoping she would look hot in it).

I was sorely disappointed by her looks in the video, but more importantly, the story line also bothered me. It didn't take me long to realize why...

After apparently being cheated on, Katy Perry dumps her boyfriend (which is smart), and then decides to overcome the emotional pain by cutting her hair, joining the military and being "tough" and independent. I am hoping the not-so-subtle message of the video is less catchy than the song (which is still stuck in my goddamn head...), because it essentially says "if you are hurt by a man, an appropriate and liberating response is to de-feminize yourself."

Nothing could be further from the truth. No reaction to rejection will damage your chances with other men more (especially if you cut off your hair like she does in the video). A woman who responds to rejection by becoming more masculine is like an athlete who responds to a difficult loss in sports by intentionally injuring himself or skipping trainings and practices - it is absurd. The athlete damages the body or lose the skills that made him a competitive athlete in the first place, just as like Katy Perry throws away the disposition and looks that attract men the most. She gains her personal independence at the expense of attracting men. That is to say, by throwing away her femininity and closing herself to male companionship, she sacrifices the potential for long-term happiness in a good relationship (however difficult it might be to find) for the momentary happiness of personal "liberation."

When a message like this is surrounded by a catchy song and a flashy music video with a famous celebrity, it is inevitably romanticized, and the message can be difficult to divorce from its medium. Be careful about getting sucked in.

The Bigger The Hoops, The Bigger The Whore

Women that wear large hoop earrings have a reputation for being slutty. I was recently fortunate enough to be taught the expression "The bigger the hoops, the bigger the whore." Most men have not heard this aphorism before, because it is not usually featured in male-female conversation. Instead it is saved for instances when Girl A steals Girl B's man in 'da club, when Girl A is then verbally relegated by Girl B to the circle of skanks and hookers. Oh, and it's because Girl A was wearing hoop earrings.

Anyway the expression is completely false. The accusation is something akin to Man A calling Man B - who gets a lot of attention from girls - a "douchebag," when the truth is that the Man A is just jealous because he doesn't know how to attract women. Being able to attract women doesn't make a man a douche any more than hoop earrings make a woman a prostitute; plenty of men are successful with women without disrespecting them and there are countless examples of gorgeous women that wear big earrings but aren't hoe-bags. Some women that wear them might be slutty, but that is only because slutty women get one thing right – they know how to make themselves hot. It isn't because hoop earrings look bad.

But I digress. Besides giving me an opportunity to share what is now my favorite expression of all time, the point of this post was to attempt to explain why hoop earrings make a girl look good. Though first I should elaborate slightly: it isn't only hoop earrings that make a girl look good. Hoops will almost always improve a look because they are almost always large. Size is the essential element. Obviously the earrings have to match the rest of the girl's look: her face shape, the length of her neck etc.; but all else being equal, it's a case of the bigger the better. The effect is extremely subtle due to the proliferation of earrings, and especially because women (collectively) wear such a variety of sizes. Men will not know why they are an extra 5 to 10 % attracted to you when you are wearing them, but our ignorance only makes the effect all the more powerful.

(An aside: I have never seen a woman wearing large earrings and found it unattractive, or thought she would look better without them. But on numerous occasions I have seen a girl wear them for the first time, and I found her noticeably more attractive. This does not mean there is no limit to who can benefit from them; but be liberal in deciding whether or not you can pull it off.)

Although it is ostensibly the reason for this post, why large earrings make a woman so much more attractive is still a bit of a mystery to me - and the world at large, apparently, as I've recently learned from asking many woman about their choice of earrings, and trying all kinds of different internet searches for an explanation.

I even did an experiment of my own in an effort to rid the world of such a confounding problem. I searched the internet for pictures of women with large earrings, and removed the earrings using a photo editor. Then I compared the two pictures side-by-side to see if I could determine what it was exactly about large earrings that improved a woman's look. Here are a few examples:

Kim Kardashian

Random Earring Model


Emmanuelle Chriqui

Katy Perry

There is no question that all of these girls look better on the left than they do on the right, but why is still not obvious to me. Here are the explanations I have considered:

1. The size of the earrings has a diminishing effect on the size of a woman's neck, making it look more slender and therefore sexy.
2. The low position of the earrings draw the eyes down, emphasizing the neck and collarbone - a highly feminine and sexy area of a woman's body.
3. The earrings offer balance to the face, which is otherwise dominated by the eyes, eyebrows and nose.

After looking back and forth between the photos, it was clear to me that the earrings do draw the viewer's eyes downward. This would suggest number two; however, I did a quick check by cutting the pictures off below the chin (i.e. removing the neck and collarbones) and seeing whether the earrings still made the girls look more attractive. They did. So although one and two might still be partially truthful, they are definitely not the only or the most important factors. Number three seems the most plausible based on my observations of the pictures, but I don't understand why the face needs or even benefits from this supposed "balance." And if a girl has pretty eyes (as Katy Perry does), wouldn't "balancing them out" make her less attractive?

I'm stumped. Any thoughts?
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Note: In a later post, I shared an answer that seemed accurate: Why Large Earrings Are Attractive


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