We went to their campus, which is situated inside the upper–middle class neighborhood of San Lorenzo Village. When the encounter started, Gomez, a handsome 6-footer classmate of mine, was immediately clobbered by girls coming from different angles – they attacked him like vicious lions chasing an African deer. They tried all sorts of ploy and flirt moves just to get his attention. It was like he found the power ring in the Lord of the Rings and used it to trap these women. Average–looking male teenagers like me, were reduced to speaking to, well, average-looking (to whom?) females – so much for maximum mingling.

Gomez isn’t witty, funny, or rich, but he has something that is more precious in today’s media hungry world – a stereotypical attractive face and body. The Assumption encounter is my shining first–hand example of the power of beauty. We tell others that we are looking for a great personality, yet deep inside we know that if our date is ugly we will not see that person again, unless that person brings something else of equal value to the table. Reminds me of an old dating joke I vaguely remembered:

A man goes out on a blind date.

After the date, his friend asked him “well, is she beautiful?”

The man averted his eyes slowly, paused, and blurted “she is kind.”

In the Catholic mostly boys high school I went to, I observed a physical attractiveness pattern. Most ugly students get lower grades, are the last one to be pick in basketball by the member of the class, are blamed most of the time for a trouble they didn’t started, are suspended a lot, and alone most of the time.

On the other hand, handsome students get good grades with the same effort or less of those of ugly students, are varsity player or president of a club, get excused most of the time for starting trouble, never suspended, and have lots of friends. And of course there are us, the average blokes, en masa.

But these are the teenagers I’m talking about – kids who are unsure of their identity. Perhaps we have outgrown our beauty stereotype as adults?

The elusive charisma

When I was in 3rd grade, I woke up early just so that I can sell newspaper at dawn. I used the money to watch pre–EDSA revolution protest. My mother found out about this, and exiled me to the province. I always wonder as a kid, what has caused all this trouble, that even I, a mere child, was affected.

There is only one word for the cause: charisma. The dictator Ferdinand Marcos has been gifted with a charisma like no other Philippines president. He took this power and run with it like there’s no tomorrow – even my mother who witnessed the horrors of martial law, up to this day, lament how great Philippines when Marcos was in power.

What is exactly is this elusive charisma that has skipped most of the population? I was among the sea of masa at the acceptance speech of Estrada at Quirino Grand Stand, and at the triumphant oath taking of Arroyo at Ortigas during EDSA 2 – and I can say in earnest, that Erap has a fair amount of it, Gloria/Ramos in smaller dosage and Cory almost none (up to this day, whenever I see her on TV, all I can remember is the monotonous tone of her voice).

Charisma is an inborn trait and has many elements. You can aspire for it, but like singing, you can only do so much. Take for example one of its component, stage presence. Almost always, the stage talent for charming others starts really young through showing off for a smaller crowd of friends and family, culminating in facing a bigger and bigger crowd.

Another element of charisma is the innate clock for timing. Charismatic singers have this natural ability to sing the right note at the right place, right pitch, and right time that send shivers down my spine. Charismatic comedian don’t strain for laughs, their punch line is so surprising, that I don’t know what hits me after my throat was sore from laughing. Charismatic politicians and religious leader, have this knack for building the drama, the waves keep getting bigger and bigger, that when the climax do happen, we follow them to whatever heaven or hell road they take us.

What is beautiful?

What is beautiful in human figure anyway? Can it be measured ala Golden proportion of the ancient Greeks (Plato, etc.), and Renaissance (Da Vinci, etc.) movement? Is it really in the eye of the beholder? Or as anthropologist, biologist, and evolutionist propose: it’s all in the genes.

So which comes first the chicken or the egg? Is it because we perceive that beautiful people are good? Or is it because most of them are good in the first place, we form the belief? Descartes says that you become what you think. But could it also be true that you become what others think of you?

It is quite possible that beautiful children, having been treated as “good” and lovable from a very young age, will grow up viewing themselves the same way, and behave as thus. On the flip side, a less attractive child after being continually treated as "bad" and unlovable, becomes what they see themselves, and they will start to behave as told.

Thus the beautiful becomes more confident, and more confident is more beautiful. But could it be also possible that people whom we like, we perceive as beautiful?

Hitler, has massacred millions of Jews on the basis of them not being genetically beautiful. And, what of the latest debate, whether genetic engineering is ethical or not. Will we get our body parts from stem cells, so as to prolong ones life and aid in our never-ending quest for youth and beauty? Will there comes a time when humans will be discriminated on the basis of the beauty of their genetic sequencing, that no make-up or plastic surgery can hide, putting to death the debate on nature versus nurture?

The Beauty Contest World

Politicians know the power of beauty. Ferdinand Marcos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo won partly because they are good–looking. The Great Heroes: Rizal, Bonifacio, Jaena, the Lunas, and Ninoy are all good-looking. I remember my late great grandfather, who was in his rocking chair, tells the story of the famous Kennedy–Nixon debates. People listening on the radio thought Richard Nixon had won while those watching TV thought the handsome John F. Kennedy won. This is why showbiz and news personality are entering politics by the dozens. The better looking candidate almost always wins. No matter how much the naysayer refute it - its politics by personality.

Imagine for a moment that you are a personnel manager, who is interviewing two woman job applicants with equal qualification but of different physical attractiveness. Who will you hire? Who will you give a higher starting salary to? Who will you pay more in the long–term? Who will you predict to be more successful? Except in cases such as hiring a maid, wherein your husband is a known atsay killer, I predict more than not that you would pick the better looking.

The charismatic Michael Jordan certainly did get the job. I took up basketball because of Michael Jordan. I trained and ached in a summer basketball camp; pick–up the ball everyday in the adjacent street where I grew up as a teenager; shoot hoops with my tongue sticking out during physical education class, recess, and school intersection competitions; fade away jump shoot during summer and Christmas season inter–Barangay for four years; competed using switching hand moves at the Barangay summer league in Baguio. I want to be like Mike. I want Jordan’s shoes and his number – I watched every game awed by his acrobatic aerial ballet unlike any other.

Jordan has more endorsement than any sports personality I’ve known, and no doubt the greatest basketball player in the 20th century, yet would he have been as charismatic if he looks like his contemporary Patrick Ewing? Why is Anna Kournikova, who has never won a major singles women's tennis championship, makes millions more dollars from endorsements than players ranked higher. Yao Ming is not the first and only Chinese in NBA, yet why is Batir or Wang, his fellow countrymen, unknown? Why is Kobe Bryant who is almost dancing when playing, have tons of international products on his portfolio, while Tim Duncan whose moves are so businesslike, has just one or two? Why is David Beckham, an average English professional soccer player, a million dollar football franchise unto himself, and is known internationally as far away as China, than player better than him?

It’s because beautiful people excites us, touch our emotions – and we would perform acts that we wouldn’t otherwise do under normal circumstances. Want to move like Jordan? Buy his very expensive shoes. Men, want a suave move ala James Bond, women want to be with him? Sip martini, shaken not stirred. Want the flawless skin of Kris Aquino? Buy one her billboards, cut it out, and wrap it around your body.

The power of beauty

I am scared and awed by the breathtaking effect of beauty.

Some people will follow the very beautiful to the depths of hell, and back – they’ll offer their soul, their fortune, their being. It’s a tremendous frightening power. I’ve witnessed barfights because of a beautiful woman, and scandalous catfights because of a handsome married man – as friends, brothers, sisters, and family members become bitter rivals.

Even the greatest minds of humanity have been inspired by the power of beauty. In Homer’s epic Illiad, Paris, the prince for Troy, stole the very beautiful Greek queen Helen, and because of this set off a chain of event that led to a catastrophic Greek–Trojan war that lasted for more than a decade and led to the destruction of Troy. In the Old Testament, the angels themselves was tempted by the beauty of some human females and led to their downfall; King David integrity took a plunge, when he sent to the frontline of war the husband of the very beautiful Batsheba so that he can have her; Samson sleep with the very attractive enemy Delilah that led to his death.

Shakespeare wrote how the beauty of Cleopatra of Egypt, affected virtous Anthony of Julius Ceasar’s Rome. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, showed how Elizabeth Bennet’s beauty attracted Mr. Darcy, a man of money, property, connections – and how she remains in power despite all of Mr. Darcy’s affluence.

The double–edge sword of beauty, not only manifest in the ancient but also in the contemporary. In the true–to–life movie Catch Me If You Can, con man Frank Abagnale, was able to pull an International multimillion–dollar bank fraud, ranging from Israel to France to the whole USA to Singapore. He did it all as a teenager. Like Marcos and Erap, he is good–looking. Frank Abagnale story mirrors real–life humans justice system who favors the beautiful – they have a lower bail, have lower sentence, and most likely to be pronounce not guilty. We trust beautiful people. A residue of our childhood fairy tale –wherein the villains are always ugly, the heroes always handsome.

My affairs with fat women

So it is given that most beautiful people are treated better as children by parents and teachers, get higher grades, have fewer rejections in dating, are likely to be accepted in a job, has higher starting salary, can sell a lot more product, is likely to be voted, receive more fame in sports and showbiz, and is a better criminal.

So knowing all of this you would perhaps conclude that I would cringe at the latest marketing ploy of Dove - the multinational arms of a soap disguising itself as a chummy friend - Dove cosmetics masquerading as a self-esteem booster - women, male gays and metrosexuals dancing to the same tune all over again.

Yet despite knowing all of this, I did not cringe.

When I saw the gigantic Dove billboard of a fat woman amidst the ads filled horizon of Guadalupe, I couldn’t contain my excitement.

"Do you think I'm fat?" the proverbial question of the ad lingers.

The first thing I did when I arrived home was to make sure I check on the Internet who the fat woman is. It turns out that her first name is Kristina. Now I don’t know if fate is playing a joke on me, but a few months back I’ve dated (more than dating really), a woman named Cristina (yep, that’s her real name), and like the model Kristina she is fat.

Tall (5’6”), confident, career-oriented and malambing, Cristina, the angelic face, is the epitome of a modern woman. Like any modern woman, she tells things as it is, and I love her for it. She told me she wants to marry me, I said I love her and I’ll think about it. She told me I’m the best she ever had, the cynic in me took a vacation and I ended up believing her flattery (or is it? perhaps it's a genuine praise). She gave me gifts, she was there for me when I have unresolved issues, she was always available when the night calls for the warmth of her body, and by god I love her for it.

I broke her heart. Her parents gave her a house and lot complete with furnishing for us to live if ever we decided to tie the knot - I couldn’t envision myself in that house. I could still remember the details as if I’m still there: midnight strikes, Cristina and I snuggling in the bedroom of our future house, synchronized orgasm, and then the news – yes I am the devil, yes I’ve broken the heart of Cristina, yes she was naked when she clasped my thigh from the bedroom to the sala, yes I was crying, yes it was real tears, yes it fucking hurts.

You might think I parted with her because she’s fat, but that is not the case here. I have two previous affairs with fat women before her, one of whom lasted almost five years (their real name rhymed with Len and Rina, but that is another article altogether). I parted with Cristina because I can’t pretend with her - when the passion dies, nothing in the world can save it.

Anyway, Dove’s campaign reminds me what fat women have to go through to conform to the society’s notion of beauty.

I used to work for a photo studio where the bulk of the customers are women. My primary job was to digitally manipulate the taken shots to make the photo conform to the current fashion of beauty.

“Can you make the pimples, scar, freckles, wrinkles disappear?”

“My skin is so dark, can you lighten it a bit?”

“Can you make me thin?”

“Make me beautiful, okay?”

Eventually, some customers started nicknaming me doc. I was doing a digital surgery, digital make-up, and a free show in one package. Sometimes I come across a beautiful raw photo, and I tell the customer that it’s beautiful as it is, but to no avail, most of them want a straighter shinier hair, mestiza colored skin, a straight aqualine Eurasian nose, firmer arms, straighter whiter teeth, twiggy bone structure, dolled up facial skin.

At the end of the day, I just want to go home to the warmth of a real woman with blemishes and flaws.

Am I getting fatter?” Cristina, Len, and Rina used to asked.

“I don’t want very thin girls,” I would always answer.

My hunger, my thirsts for oh how real ignite igniting the fuel. Sexy her swirling chubbiness, my drums beat-beat-beating to the rhythm of her bod-bod-body’s music.