Blue-Eyed And Blonde – A Wet Dream In The Age Of Diversity

Harvey Parker’s girlfriend – as pure and pristine a Minnesotan as they come with long blonde hair, blue eyes, peaches-and-cream complexion, and a Midwestern simplicity that was disabling – was one of a kind.  Before her was Usha, the dark-eyed Palestinian woman who had escaped Hamas and the unremitting violence of the Middle East, his Sheba of the Thousand and One Nights – transparently veiled, pearled, and scented with frankincense, secretive and seductive, and alluring. 

Or Nadia, the charmed Egyptian princess with an ancestry back to the Ptolemies and Cleopatra who took him into her rooms in Alexandria and threatened the worst if he left her.  Or Farida, the Pakistani muhajir whose family had built Bombay, fled India after Partition, and who had resided in and helped build the new Karachi; or even Meta, the Haitian mulatto who had met him in Petionville, seduced him in Kenscoff, and lived with him in Jamaica.

Yet no matter how many women of exotic descent he had loved, Laura Johansson was the only woman he dreamt of, remembered, and wished he could revisit after so many decades of simple, uncomplicated, married life.



What was it about Laura – or blonde, blue-eyed women in general, for that matter? Why was Marilyn Monroe so seductively irresistible?  Ava Gardner, Hedy Lamarr, and Vivien Leigh were classic beauties, descendants of Greek, Roman, and Pompeian women  whose symmetrical features, sedate, but exotically feminine looks had been the ideal for centuries; and yet men of the modern era – as much as they might admire these Hollywood icons, would like, more than anything else in their lives, to bed Marilyn.

This classically beautiful blonde ideal was idolized in Phillip Roth’s The Human Stain where the black, passed-for-white Coleman Silk in his youth falls for a Minnesotan blonde beauty.  It is no coincidence that the virile, sensitive, intelligent, and desirable Coleman chooses her over all others to be his bride.  She is the final vindication of his deception, his long secretive life as a black man wanting to be white.  Marrying her – the quintessential white woman – would mean that not only had he finally arrived; but that all the hurt he caused his black family was worth it.

Woody Allen parodied this idolization of the blonde, blue-eyed white woman.  An imagined dinner in Minnesota with Annie Hall's family, though caricature and comedic, was no less telling than the story of Coleman Silk.

Italian Americans are no different.  For swarthy, short, dark men only a few generations removed from Naples, Bari, and Palermo, there can be no greater glory than a Minnesotan goddess.

In ‘A Newark Tale’ Joey Pandolfini writes:

The boat trip would have been routine – Stash Kryzewski and Larry Lugno fishing for blues off of Barnegat Light while Harry, Andy, and Petey Brogna did Yellow Jackets and goofed on the seagulls – if Stash had not invited Delia Bourne along for the ride. Delia was a friend of Stash’s daughter who had invited her down to the Shore for a week. Delia was a blue-eyed blonde from the Midwest, and like a million Sicilians before him, Larry was a sucker for white pussy. She was a religious wacko, and kept talking to him about his inner self. “I can tell you’re a seeker”, she said.

“I can feel your divine spirit trying to come out”; but Larry lapped it all up. Jesus this, Jesus that. Moses, Mohammed, Gandhi, angels, archangels – the whole religious pantheon was emptied and Larry couldn’t believe his good luck. Fuck the religious part. This was pure, golden, blue-eyed pussy. Every goomba’s dream. As the ship rolled with the swells and Delia leaned into him, and he could smell her hair and the fresh soapy scent of her body, all he could think of was her naked body, soft and smooth. Enough guinea poontang with wiry nipple hairs. Delia would have milky-white tits and a fluffy blonde bush like baby hair.

This preference for light coloring is as old as the hills. The ancient  Aryans were powerful rulers and administrators who imposed their religion, philosophy, and social system on  those under their authority.  The caste system was a unique and successful way of controlling and monitoring the conquered Dravidian population; and racial distinction was another.  While the Aryans were light-skinned (they considered themselves ‘wheat-colored’) the Dravidians were dark, if not black; and color became a convenient marker identifying the subjugated. This concept of racial distinction and preference for light-skinned beauty was not restricted to the Aryans.

 In the ancient Western and Eastern Zhou states, clear distinctions were made between them (Chinese) and ‘barbarians’, those tribes to the north who were racially and culturally distinct from them. Skin color for the Han (206 BC) as in the case of the Aryans, was an easy marker to delineate cultural and ethnic distinction.  This early racial/cultural segmentation became widely accepted in Chinese society and became codified in the caste system of the later Yuan Dynasty (1271).

Racial distinction was evident in Roman civilizations, largely because of its territories in Africa from which were brought black slaves; and the concept of ethnic difference spread widely throughout Europe and the Middle East as the Roman Empire expanded its borders.

The point is that the idea of a light-skinned racial edge has been around for a long, long time; and has been prevalent in the ancient civilizations of India, China, Japan, Korea, and Rome. So Southern Italian goombas come by it naturally.  Dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed peoples have always been, as Larry Lugno said, ‘suckers for white pussy’; and blonde, blue-eyed beauties remain the sexual norm



It is no surprise that of all the Hollywood actresses who have appeared on screen since the beginning of film, Marilyn Monroe has had the most interest.   She was not classically beautiful, but had an unmatchable sensuousness and sensuality.  She had allure, an immediate, unmistakable and undeniable sexual appeal.  She – and Brigitte Bardot before her – embodied sexual desire.  Men were drawn to her not to admire her beauty but to make love to her. 

The norm for classic feminine beauty has been unchallenged for millennia.  Tuba Büyüküstün is a Turkish actress of remarkable beauty well-known for her work on the television series, Kara Para Aşk



Despite the claim to the contrary, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, and most men will agree that Büyüküstün is beautiful.  Her type of beauty, with predictable cultural variations over time, is reflective of those characteristics which have always made women attractive. Symmetrical features, luminescent eyes, full lips, and luxuriant hair all express health, wealth, and well-being as well as being pleasing to a natural sense of geometrical order (the golden mean is universally appealing), and sexual appeal.  There is little difference between the women painted by Leonardo and Tuba Büyüküstün.



Asian women are no different and film and television actresses have the same classic beauty as their European counterparts.



One of the most popular African film stars is no different



Classic beauty will always determine feminine appeal, social status, and desirability.  When blonde hair and blue eyes are added to the mix, the result is irresistible.

Beauty is a fact, a tradable commodity, a factor in natural selection, a variable in social and commercial transactions, and the first and last thing we remember about people.  It is no surprise that some of the most famous paintings and sculptures in history have been of women.  Artists since Greek and Roman times saw a sublimity in the female form.



'Diversity' is all well and good - until it comes to beauty.  On that there is no such thing as the eye of the beholder or 'beauty is as beauty does'.  There is one standard for beauty and it has not changed since the Ancient era if not before; and the closer a woman comes to that norm, the more advantages she has. 

The only significant variation in beauty which has nothing to do with line, symmetry, shape, and form, is a light-skinned, light-haired sensual beauty; and thanks to the Aryans, this cultural variant has always persisted. 'Gentlemen prefer blondes' has never more been true, especially since the recessive genes responsible for Nordic beauty are quickly disappearing.

A blonde friend once told me that she, because of her hair color, had at least a ten percent advantage over other women....at least ten percent.