"Oh, he's so dreamy...."

If I was to refer to a female politician using anything remotely like the terms I'm seeing women use to describe our Prime Minister, I'd be drawn and quartered.

And that's too bad.

(Didn't expect that, did you?)

Look....anybody who knows me beyond the most superficial level knows that superficial levels barely register with me. Until I know something of your personality, empathy and level of intelligence, I will treat you exactly the same regardless of your physical appearance. I do appreciate beauty...I tend to see it in (many) places many others don't, is all.

This does not make me better or worse than most people, only different. I'm just as prone to prejudice and irrational instant dislike as other people, I just tend to base mine on different grounds.

Justin Trudeau has been dismissed as a pretty boy with nice hair for years. It rose to a fever pitch this past election campaign...perpetrated by a woman named Jenni Byrne and helped along by a gaggle of men desperate to discredit Trudeau any way they could. It turns out that women aren't the only ones who can be objectified, nor are men the only ones who objectify. Whodathunkit?

Anyone who's ever been to a bachelorette party, for starters. Anyone who's heard how women talk about each other (you think men are vicious?)  Anyone who has met a sexually aggressive woman (they're out there, and they do things that would get a man thrown in jail).

There is nothing wrong with objectifying a person, provided that person consents to being objectified. There is everything wrong with objectifying strangers, be they nursemaids or Prime Ministers.

Problem: how to distinguish a sincere compliment on someone's physical attractiveness from an all-encompassing, dismissive judgment call on their ability or intelligence? It should be clear from context. All too often, it isn't. This has made me very hesitant to compliment women on their beauty, and anything that reduces the amount of genuine appreciation of beauty in the world is a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.

The angle of Justin's dangle is all wrong for me, so I'll have to take the ladies' word that he's a fine specimen of Prime Minister. (Cue Jeremy Hotz: "it even SOUNDS like a cut of meat!") He's certainly not averse to showing off the six-pack and his insanely hairy arms --

--women, do those arms turn you on? I find them gorilla-like, myself (ewwww!), but then, I'm the guy who can't understand both genders' fascination with asses (really, people? The part the poop comes out of? Could you fixate on something, anything else? No? *sigh*)

Let's assume that Justin Trudeau *is* some kind of gorgeous. How is that relevant to his policies and practices? Don't you dare say he's "just a pretty boy with nice hair" unless you're fine with me saying "she's just a  hottie with a nice bod".  I've said before that the word 'just' really ought to be scrubbed from the language...it would go some distance towards making both the above statements more socially acceptable. What's wrong with being a hottie, or a hunk? Nothing...so long as people recognize there's a lot more to you.