Attention hetero ladies–contrary to what country crooner Mickey Gilley may have led you to believe back in 1976, you do not, in fact, “look prettier at closing time” (or apparently at any other point in the day) to a drunken potential date, though you may find him hotter if you’ve imbibed.
A new study published in the British Journal of Psychology announces this curious discovery. Researchers showed (presumably heterosexual) women and men–in various states of inebriation–pictures of members of the opposite sex and asked them to rate their attractiveness. According to a summary in the Daily Mail:
While the women rated the faces in the pictures as more attractive after drinking, alcohol had no effect on the men’s judgement.
On the surface, the study may seem rather shallow, but, in fact, its findings have some important legal implications:
Drinking did not affect either sex’s ability to judge age, leading to the researchers saying that the influence of alcohol should not be a mitigating factor in the case of a man accused of under-age sex.
Not surprisingly, since their publication, the results have spawned a spate of news stories, like this one and this one. Interestingly–and disappointingly–among the crop are a number that downplay or completely ignore the portion of the study’s outcome related to the women’s perceptions of men or how men’s ability to judge age accurately despite drunkenness might affect the legal outcome of sex with minors cases. Instead, in many quarters is much guffawing over the fact that men apparently no longer can use the so-called “beer goggles” excuse when their buddies tease them about the women they take home. Sigh.
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Confabulous badges!
