Slatternly Looking? Oh My, Yes.

When the story broke about General Petraeus' affair with his smokin' hot biographer, I got a good look at the wife versus the mistress, and in a blog some time ago, did indeed imply that perhaps if Holly Petraeus wasn't such a dowdy, obese, horrific wreck, she'd have had a better chance of affair-proofing the General. The notion was somewhat, admittedly, in jest, but I did warn Holly and, um, other slatternly looking wives on this sphere something that is historically a truism: Men are visual, fickle creatures. Someone told me, and I'm paraphrasing, "Just because Holly isn't very attractive doesn't mean she deserves to be cheated on." A fair statement, and I agreed that no one really deserves to be cheated on, but Holly looking like a total mess certainly didn't help matters, while the General was spending countless hours intimately with the Harvard Hottie. Some people agreed with me; others thought I was being too superficially nasty. There's that old adage, "Opinions are like assholes: Everybody's got one."

I'm not even remotely naturally good looking, though I'm certainly the opposite of dumpy/frumpy, but on what the Annie Collective have all agreed: Lady GuyGuy took one look at me the scathing night I had to meet her & snap judged that, for starters, she was going to castrate Guy because apart from both having short hair (and I have a hairdo, she has a hair don't), we are the polar opposites on the attraction scale. She probably stomped her Keds-wearing feet down when they got home & forbade Guy from going out with me unsupervised again, which is why he's always clamoring for group activities and chastity guards. Point being, she doesn't trust him around me, as well she shouldn't. The road goes in two directions, though.

Evil right-wing televangelist Pat Robertson and I don't agree upon ANYTHING and he's a total douchebag. Yet recently, on his "700 Club" vomit-fest, he and his (not dog-like, but who in fuck would want THAT job?) co-host fielded a question they tore from the pages of men's Maxim Magazine, in which a 17-year old boy wrote in for advice because his dad played video games all the time & wasn't paying much attention to mom. Herein lies Problem #1 with this: No 17-year old boy is going to write to Maxim and ask for marital advice for his parents. A boy that age could either a) give a shit or b) not give a shit. The Offbeat Drummer completely thinks the letter to Maxim was written by Mom, which is all kind of an aside to Pat Robertson's revelation, which frighteningly, for once, is similar to something I iterated:

Marriages are on the decline because wives are AWFUL LOOKING. Now, stack that on top of some pancakes with a pat of butter drizzling down because not only are wives ghastly, distracting their husbands' attention, but men are uniformly breaking free from the veritable noose that is marriage by DRINKING HEAVILY, according to Robertson.

Robertson's suggestion? Mom and Dad need to go away on a weekend retreat together in order to rekindle their romance sans distraction. That's almost going to work, not, hello? Long-term partner relationships get like 56 times more tense and, while the fantasy-romance-novel worthy scenario of the husband once again sweeping the wife off her feet is lofty, realistically? Either or both partners are saying (by Saturday afternoon), "Jesus Christ, I have to listen to his/her yickety bullshit for another 24 hours and we have no wifi?   Wow, thank God I brought a book. Wow, thank God we escaped to wine country. Why yes, I pretty much have to be drunk..."

ROBERTSON: Maneuver something where you can get them out of the house; romantic resort for a couple days, assuming they can afford it. I mean, take a weekend and go somewhere, and just be alone with each other, see if they can’t rekindle that romance. The romance has obviously gone out of the marriage, there’s not as much excitement as there used to be.

The co-host chick is a bit taken aback. I'm sorry, but in general, you couldn't pay me enough to forcibly agree with Pat Robertson for a living. She asks Robertson how he can blame the mom for this whole thing.

ROBERTSON: It’s easy to blame the mother! You know, a woman came to a preacher that I love, it’s so funny, and she was awful-looking. Her hair was all torn up and she was overweight and looked terrible, clothes [unintelligible] and everything. And, um, she said, “Oh, Reverend. What can I do? My husband has started to drink.” And the preacher looked and her, he said, “Madam, if I was married to you I’d start to drink too.”

WOMAN: Oh, my…

ROBERTSON: We need to cultivate romance, darling! And it needs to be the men…have got to be cultivating romance, and the women…you’ve always got to keep that spark of love alive. It isn’t something that just lie there, “well I’m married to him, so he’s going to take me slatternly looking,” you’ve got to fix yourself up; look pretty, look alluring.

You think I'm making this shit up?

That's fucking awesome. In just over 2 minutes, Pat Robertson clears up any confusion as to why embers poof dead in modern marriages: stoking what's left of a fire when you behave like Nurse Ratchet or look like a beached whale at high tide will shoo any husband into the welcoming arms of a more interesting woman. Not ever having seen Robertson's wife of 58 years, I have a sneaking suspicion that she's probably less than hot, and while he may speak from the experience of marital bliss, he's still pretty much full of crap, this being a very rare exception. 

Feminist, angry wife, you're-so-jaded backlash on this topic could be devastatingly anti-Offbeat Drummer, but as per usual, I really don't give a fuck.