Ugly people should be paid monetary reparations from the government treasury for the amount of trauma and abuse they endure in a lifetime.

This is going to be a controversial topic. Additionally, I know it has zero chance of gaining any ground with people, because it will be dismissed as ridiculous. But, I honestly believe that ugly people should be paid reparations for the amount of punishment they endure in their lives from a society that values beauty.

As a society, beauty is a privilege that is flaunted time and time again, whether it is on social media or access to partners or benefits I can't even think of at the time of this writing. And everybody knows it, yet no one wants to talk about it. We have reached a point in our society where nothing seems to be off the table. There are talks among lawmakers to pay reparations to the ancestors of slaves (a thing I strongly support). We are talking about income inequality in a huge way, and vilifying billionaires like they rightly deserve (I raise a glass to you Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for calling billionaires amoral).

We talk about racial inequality. We talk about gender inequality. We talk about residential inequality. We talk about global inequality. Well, in this post, I want to talk about beauty inequality.

Beautiful people get all kinds of benefits that ugly people do not. It is a fact that being pretty is a privilege, and we refuse to acknowledge it. The world throws at the feet of pretty people 1) popularity, 2) higher grades in school, 3) more positive work reviews, 4) lighter sentences in court, and 4) career advancement. Rare doors to unheard of opportunities get flung open for pretty people. Beautiful people are perceived as smarter, healthier, and more competent when this is patently and scientifically not true. For example: do you honestly think Kim Kardashian would be as successful as she was if she had been born ugly?

With the rise of social media and the internet, the contrast between how pretty people and ugly people get treated can even be shocking. There are even new terms that have crept into the zeitgeist that describe the phenomenon of being found unattractive: "swipe left." If you are unfamiliar with this term, on the online dating app called Tinder, "swiping left" indicates that you were found unattractive by someone, so they moved their finger to the left across an image of you on a touchscreen.

Ugly people are bullied constantly. Trump called Rosie O'Donnell a fat loser and a complete and total disaster. I know you may say that Trump is not indicative of the average American, but I'd fight you on this. Millions of people in this country love this guy, because he's just like them. My own co-worker who is fifty and consistently hits on young attractive women (he's very liberal) admits that he is "shallow and vain," and that he will live a life alone. I think that kind of honesty is healthy. He treats beautiful people with more respect and with more kindness. That is just a fact of life, AND ALL OF US KNOW IT. If you are sitting out there shaking your head at where I'm going with this, you are part of the problem.

Life is harder for ugly people, plain and simple.

I follow the cutest and most attractive gay couple on Instagram, which actually led me over to their Only Fans porn site. This couple is unbelievably beautiful while at the same time being (I think) of just average intelligence. They use their phones to film themselves having sex (they have monetized their relationship), and the rest of the time, they use the money that flows in (from viewers watching them have sex) to buy fabulous vacations all around the world, to donate to charities, to buy things for each other, and to live a life free of the burdens of education and real work. As far as I can tell, they are around the age of nineteen, they have the equivalent of whatever a high school education is in Scotland, and they make $20,000 per hour whenever they decide to do a thing in front of their iPhone. If they want a trip to Rome in the most fabulous hotels, they take some requests via Only Fans, film it, and bam! It is paid for in an hour.

I don't think they are even old enough to drink legally in the United States, but they drive around in a $100,000 Range Rover made by the same company that owns Jaguar, they have a beautiful home, and they have every luxury an ambiguous tween could hope for, including a following that is around a million people who really like seeing them naked. The reason? They are beautiful. An ugly couple or person could not take advantage of any of these opportunities. That door is (quite simply) closed. Ugly people have to go to years of school to get paid shitty wages by people who undervalue their contributions constantly. Meanwhile, they get to watch their beautiful peers go sailing through every life hurdle which may be just difficult enough to cause them to lose empathy for anyone else who is not them by convincing themselves that they got there "through hard work and determination." This (of course) is complete bullshit.

The point of this post isn't to disparage couples who call themselves "adult performers" and who make huge amounts of cash by doing something that comes natural to them. Nor is it to point out that people like Scarlett Johannson and Timothée Chalamet should not be paid millions just because they look really good. The point is to open a conversation about beauty inequality, and to get people to start talking about it openly. Beauty is something that you either have or you don't. I'd say nearly 90% of it relies on good genes and luck. Maybe 10% is within a person's control. And this world really sucks for the people who don't have it. Ugly people get excluded from social gatherings, get treated like crap, spit upon, derided, bullied, and then gaslighted by (usually beautiful people) that the world is actually fair and that they just need to try harder.

So here's my solution (and I'm being serious): ugly people should be paid reparations of $2,000 a month for being ugly, and the money should come from the government. Imagine how much easier life would be. Someone knocks on your door, you answer, "Hello, I'm from the government bureau in charge of rating beauty, and it has come to our attention that you are (in fact) very ugly. People swipe left on you all the time, you live a life alone, you can't find clothes that fit you, and you are turned down for promotions and despite your education, you are underemployed because no one wants to be around you. We are sorry that this has happened to you, so here is $2,000 a month for the rest of your life. Perhaps you can use it to get therapy? It is possible for some really ugly people to live meaningful lives that aren't filled with despair. We hope that is possible for you. Also, because you are ugly, I'm not interested in being your friend. But you should have expected that. Again...the $2,000 payment is to apologize for all of us out here that feel sorry for you. Good day."

I will enjoy reading your thoughts (if you have any) in the comments below.

Beauty does not equate goodness

Seeing this quote gave me pause to think about how so often, humans are lured in by beauty only to discover that the wrapping on the outside does not equal at all what you find on the inside. And for me, beauty isn't just physical beauty. I define beauty as having an ability to appeal to any sense. Something you feel, something you hear, or something you smell and touch.

I'm sure the boys who were victimized by Sandusky in the Penn State scandal felt really good about themselves prior to their molestation because something beautiful had finally come into their lives through the Second Mile charity. The same goes for the Horace Mann School which got a tell-all expose written in the New York Times this week from author Amos Kamil. It's a long article, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. By the time I'd finished reading, I just about threw up in my mouth.

If you haven't read the New York Times article, please do so unless real life details of pedophilia and boys being raped by the teachers that they trusted offends you. It's horrific what happened to those kids in that place of such great beauty and promise. You can find it HERE. I guess the same can be said nationwide as more and more of these stories surface from elite schools, athletic institutions, churches, and scout troops.

In an interview on NPR this week, comedian Joan Rivers (I like Joan...say what you will about how fake she looks...I think she's a good person and keeps it real) said in defense of all of her plastic surgeries something akin to, "We live in a society where appearance is everything."

Do you agree with that statement? I know that I do. Just living in Salt Lake City, my ears get bombarded with advertisements to remove unwanted hair, to get liposuction, and to basically create a better you. I want to ask...what was wrong with the natural you? Is the way I am or the way you are not good enough anymore?

And then there's the other thought that creeps into my mind. As a society, are our children growing up in a world where they are learning that if something is beautiful, that it is inherently good and should be trusted? If so, I think that this is a terrible mistake.

Can you think of specific examples where something beautiful ended up being something evil? Is your villain in your book beautiful?

Do you judge a book's goodness by the beauty of its cover? And if so, have you ever been surprised by the "sour grapes"?