Guess what, everyone? There’s a group on the Facebook called “The Wesleyan Raise Your Standards Crusade” and chances are, a couple of nice guys you know are in it. Without spending too much time describing the nauseatingly predictable manifesto of this group, I’ll just say that it involves a lot of complaining about the apparently lackluster physical appearance of Wesleyan females. These guys seem to want to add a piece to the long list of information that tour guides give prospective Wes students and their interrogating and/or impressed parents: something like, “Wesleyan is not known for its hotties,” which they probably think would be an act of charity to the co-eds of the future.
To be both fair and hypocritical, it doesn’t look from their pictures that the people belonging to this group are particularly worth pursuing either. The group’s ambition as a “call to all Wesleyan dudes” who “cannot stand the moderately attractive girls who think they are hot shit because the selection at Westech is so bad” smacks of precisely the arrogant presumption they’re so fed up with. The members of this group seem to have misread refreshing instances of self-confidence in a body of eclectic, attractive, intelligent women as non-verbal utterances of “I am hot shit,” which is near enough to the subliminal message of WRYSC. (I sure hope that acronym is intentional.)
The “officers” of this club have chosen to remain anonymous, which both vanquishes and restores my faith that they have brain cells. Hiding behind anonymity at the risk of being attacked for their little contribution to the Freedom of Speech Act is both cowardly and prudent at a school where generalized expressions of belief are rampant, injurious, and inspiring. I have to wonder, what is really going on here? If WRYSC is indeed only supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek or moderately exaggerated rant on sexual frustration, what’s with passionate and scathing statements like, “This is for every man who has ever complained about having to lower his standards and uttered the phrase, ”Well, she’s Wes hot.“”?
These boys make our species out to be animals guided by the fancy colorings of our potential mates’ feathers or fur—or rather, animals of which the male sex is perhaps known and loved as the provider with the very plain fur or feathers, and who has no evolutionary duty to be attractive. The female, on the other hand, just tries to look pretty and gazes adoringly at her potential mates, who are busy mauling each other (competing in the classroom, on the basketball court, or at Halo, or in fantasy baseball leagues) in the hopes of emerging as the one who gets to mount her by the end of the day. Sorry, WRYSC members, but the pendulum swings both ways, and we’re at the top of the food chain for a reason. Leave the sexual role-playing of yesteryear to angelfish and the baboons of the African savannah.
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