Ogling the G8 Summit
Is it what you think... or not? (Photo: Reuters)
The 35th G8 Summit has drawn to a close in the city of L’Aquila in the Abruzzo region of Italy. This annual meeting of world leaders is intended to address important issues that impact the international community. This year, climate and renewable energy were among the primary subjects. Many of them are monetary in nature. I’m sure Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (who chaired the event) approached President Barack Obama, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to ask them about a payday loan and cash advance. Specifically, whether he can use them to throw parties for 18-year-old models who aren’t his wife. It’s easy to imagine, anyway… but short-term loan products should be used responsibly.
But that’s not what the people care about
Was Obama looking at that girl? Was Obama checking out that girl? She does have a name, you know. Mayara Tavares is the name of the 16-year-old Brazilian delegate to the G8 Summit. She is a community activist who has worked on UNICEF projects regarding the rights and welfare of children in Brazil’s slums. Tavares sounds like an intelligent, driven young woman with a promising future ahead of her.
She shouldn’t be the butt of these jokes
Ryan Witt, a St. Louis political correspondent for The Examiner reports that the “scandalous” photo has been making the rounds in the media. He suggests that those who claim to clearly know whether or not President Obama was glancing at the hindquarters of the passing Tavares don’t know anything at all. Without being in Mr. Obama’s mind, it’s impossible to know. Yet we all know that it’s easy to stumble into moments that appear to be very inappropriate in still photography. John McCain knows this quite well.
Yes. Yes he does.
Yes, this was an incidental moment following a presidential debate. John McCain wasn’t ogling Barack Obama. But doesn’t it appear, for that fraction of a second, that McCain is giving into some animal impulse and charging the hindquarters of Obama? Like a honey bee to a fragrant blossom. It was a funny moment.
Media: the butt of all decency
Is it any surprise that America’s media has spent more time focusing on Obama looking at a girl than what actually happened at the G8 conference? From early indications, Obama didn’t take the lead when it came to the environmental portion of the program. Environmental protection and the establishment of strong green energy sources are key issues that the Obama administration must tackle. But what the American news media gives us is the lowest common denominator and leaves it up to us to assume the worst. Witt reminds us that even if this was a mini-incident (if Obama was looking on purpose), it does not compare to Mark Sanford’s E-mails.
What if he WAS looking?
On the one hand, Obama would likely have some explaining to do to his wife and children. I wouldn’t justify it as him simply being a man, but I would say that there is biological hard-wiring there. Men and women notice attractive people. It doesn’t mean that one side is presenting and the other can think of nothing else but insemination. Clearly, that’s not what Mayara Tavares was doing, and President Obama hasn’t been driven to betray his family and abandon his duties (et tu, Mark Sanford) by 16-year-old hindquarters. But from an evolutionary standpoint, human beings notice attractiveness. It’s unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to govern our behavior. We can choose.
Try this from Match.com
Todd Katz writes about our sexual predisposition
According to Robert Deaner, Ph.D., a co-author of the study, humans, like our simian cousins, are probably hard-wired to act this way. “In both human and rhesus monkey societies, individuals vary in their influence and reproductive potential,” he says. “So for both humans and rhesus monkeys, natural selection would have favored individuals that valued information accordingly.” In other words, evolutionarily speaking, it pays to pay attention to who’s most powerful and who’s most eager to mate.
Natural selection at work
If that’s not enough for you (and there have been plenty of studies supporting this information), try this. From the book “The Psychology of Sexual Orientation, Behavior, and Identity” by Louis Diamant and Richard McAnulty:
The behavioral elements of mounting, thrusting, hindquarters presentation, and intromission seen to be integrated into definite patterns during infancy in monkeys and apes. (p. 151)
Female solicitations include… hindquarters presentation. (p. 141)
Both males and females are more likely to mount an individual that presents the hindquarters or exhibits other species-specific solicitations than one that does not. (p. 150)
So there you have it. We still don’t know if Obama was looking, but the ABCNews video below makes it seem as if he was just paying attention to his footing, in my opinion. But as all men know, he could have been doing both. Men can multi-task that way. But can they apply for a payday loan or cash advance at the same time? Yes! Yes they can, because the application process is quick and simple. The world’s environment problems, unfortunately, are not.
(and for those who want G8 footage)…
Was Obama looking at that girl? Probably. Was Obama checking out that girl? Exactly, what do you mean by that question? Is it like when I “check out” my grandma when she’s having “hot” flashes? Is it sexual? No. So, was Obama checking out that girl? Well, if he was looking at her for more than 2 seconds, then he probably was checking her out. However, I’m more than positive he was thinking the same thing I’m thinking. He sees an ambitious, “driven young woman with a promising future ahead of her.” I too would be looking at her, but in no such way. I swear, the media has a thing of taking stories and adding twists to them before sending it out to the public under a different approach (good or bad). It’s their way of getting attention.