1. And if we don‘t meet "hotness" expectations, we are there to be scorned.

2. It is time we got credit for something other than our cleavage then, because, let‘s face it, Maxim is not alone in its proclivity for rating women‘s "hotness". FHM has its 100 sexiest women in the world, People has its 50 most beautiful people, and countless other publications and websites such as hotornot.com use lists or rankings to judge women solely on looks.

3. In ‘The Scholar,‘ a group of incredibly bright students compete for a college scholarship, an education that will affect the rest of their lives. (I‘d add, parenthetically, that the series also serves as a stinging critique of this country‘s domestic and educational policy÷ if it‘s true that students as bright and hard–working as these are worried about getting a college education for financial reasons, we really have a problem.) In ‘Beauty and the Geek‘, the contestants are – not to get too Platonic about it – engaging in a project of educational virtue, where they strive to become better and more excellent people, to develop their capacities. (Yes, some of these capacities include hotness, but Rome wasn‘t built in a day.) Still, we‘ve come light–years from a program dedicated to showcasing the worst aspects of human nature.