Since the weekend there has been a lot of buzz over Kaci Fennell and her strong showing at the annual Miss Universe 'beauty' pageant.

"Was she robbed?" seemed to have been the question of the week. "Is Jamaica more than just Bob Marley and Usain Bolt?" seemed to have been another.

That the lovely Miss Fennell captivated the world during her appearance was huge as she threw some positive light on this beautiful country of ours, that has relatively very little to smile about in a long while. One couldn't escape all the conversations about Fennell's Miss Universe appearance.

For some reason people kept asking me what I thought about the fact that she didn't win. A friend who is a security guard at an insurance company asked me if I thought Miss Fennell was robbed, and I kind of felt bad that I could not give her the answer she sought because frankly, these so-called beauty contests are like the biggest sham ever.

type of beauty

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder and while there is no denying that Miss Fennell as well as the eventual winner, Miss Colombia, are beautiful, the Miss Universe and Miss World contests, are not beauty contests, they are contests of a particular type of beauty.

For those contests, beauty is defined by a slender, fair-skinned woman with long hair (Miss Fennell being an exception), with aquiline noses and particular facial features, but while I admit that profile is attractive, I see so much more beauty in other profiles.

Personally, I like a woman with curves, many curves, her own hair and a nice juicy butt. That for me, is not just beautiful, it's hot!

When I see a picture of a Miss World or Miss Universe it doesn't make me feel the same way as say, a Dolly Castro, a Lauryn Hill or, closer to home, Terri-Karelle Reid does. I told Terri-Karelle once that the only reason people watch Digicel Rising Star is to see her because there is usually nothing rising about the talent on that show. These women excite your every hormone and make you feel alive. It's the same way I feel about the woman I married. Every time I see her I get giddy with excitement. I don't get that when I see a Miss World or Miss Universe, not even Lisa Hanna. She is very attractive and has great abs but what really does she sit on?

There are also many more women, who for me and for a lot of men, would make a lot more interesting Miss World and Miss Universe.

next best

The other reason why I say the Miss Universe and Miss World are shams, especially when it comes to this country, is that the women from here who have won, don't even look like most of us. Jamaica has won Miss World three times Carole Crawford in 1963, Cindy Breakspeare in 1976 and Lisa Hanna in 1993. The country has never won the Miss Universe title. Yendi Phillipps came the closest in 2010 while Miss Fennell was the next best since then with her fourth runner-up spot last weekend. Of those five women, how many of them look like most Jamaican women?

The only way I would even start to pay attention to a Miss World or a Miss Universe is if the women who entered represented what most of the women in their respective countries looked like and then that wouldn't make sense because then a global panel of judges would have their own tastes, likes and dislikes to deal with. And that's why these 'beauty' contests make no sense. One race's concept of beauty is not and should not represent how all of us define beauty.

That is why they say that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

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