The Affect of Ugly on the Libido

I walk through an amusement park on a hot summer afternoon, through scantily clad teenagers, small children and their parents. The air is filled with a mixture of sweat, hot dogs, and the stench of damp socks, soaked by the waves of salty water from the log ride around the corner. All around me there are children with sticky pink fingers and dirt covered shorts; teenagers boys with soaken t-shirts, giant basketball shoes and oversized denim shorts that could pass as dresses they reach so close to the ground; young girls barely covered by tiny tank tops and skimpy shorts that reveal pimpled buttocks, tattoos, bruises and bad skin; old men in sandals, plaid shorts and recycled work shirts carrying their 4 year-olds and looking like they just got out of bed; middle-aged queens with their fanny packs over their hips and a look of determination as they head for the nearest roller-coaster in their much too short shorts and designer active-wear sneakers and socks; sweaty, uncomfortable Amish families in neat dresses and white shirts that are nearly sweated through; 14 year-old, acne-covered, boys and girls with mouths full of braces in polo shirts and black shorts carrying around little brooms and upright dust pans cleaning up after the messy patrons who have missed the garbage can; 300 pound men with giant bratwursts in their hands sitting next to their pudgy children eating ice cream out of little cups. Next door at the water park there are men with deeply tan arms and the whitest chests I have ever seen; mothers tending to their children with sun-screen, wearing wrap around bathing-suit bottoms in an attempt to hid their cellulite legs but being entirely unsuccessful at it; tattooed skinny gentlemen with long, greasy hair riding slowly down the lazy river on round blue floats in their cut-off jean shorts; Men with mounds of flesh and bulges hanging over their red and blue swimming shorts heading off the mounds of water coming at them in the wave pool. Misshapen feet, beer bellies, flabby upper arms, bad tattoos, and misplaced tan lines abound.

There are times that I am disgusted by other human beings. These are times that thoughts of sex make my stomach churn and my desire for it is beyond nonexistent. These are times when I look at the people around me and wonder how in the hell these people could possibly be found attractive by any other human being on this earth, how they find mates, how they find it acceptable to walk around in public is such states of disarray and complete unattractiveness. It amazes me the way people dress in public, the ways they allow themselves to be seen out in the world. If it's not the girls walking around in their pajamas alongside their mother in the same outfits only 6 sizes larger holding back bulges with thin layers of fleece, it's the men in desperate need of a bath walking around in the liquor store in week old clothes and shabby beards. If it's not shirtless children in the department store along side their disheveled mothers and half-stoned fathers, it's the thin blond woman in her boyfriends shirt demanding her pain pills and the drug-store counter with the deep, raspy voice of a life-long smoker.

I may be cruel, but this feeling doesn't hit me all the time. There are times in my life that I am so driven by my libido than anything and everything looks attractive, just not today. Today I'd be much better off staying inside alone and tending to some matter that does not involve dealing with the outside world.