Beauties get ugly

11 February 2013 - 02:07 By KATHARINE CHILD
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File photo
File photo

Website beautifulpeople.com, a dating site with a membership of 11 000 South Africans, is making its strict "No Uglies" policy public.

The website, with the slogan, "Beauty lies in the eyes of the voter," restricts membership to attractive people. Its management will today announce that it is now introducing "beauty police" to man the doors at its public events in New York, London and Cape Town.

The beauty police will screen hopeful party-goers and turn away those who aren't good-looking enough. The website has 750 000 members worldwide.

Members vote on whether applicants are beautiful enough to join.

The company is introducing stricter standards for its parties because, according to a beauty policeman known only as Obi, "The concept simply does not work if you dilute the gene pool with less-than-beautiful people".

Greg Hodge, the site's managing director, said: "It's not uncommon for members to bring less-than-beautiful guests [to parties] which upsets the beauty balance and, naturally, our members as well."

The first parties at which beauty police make sure that "one bad apple does not spoil the bunch" will be launched in March. There are plans to have the inaugural event, named Sixty Shades of Beautiful, at a private venue in Beverley Hills.

In Cape Town, Coza Productions is organising an inaugural public party, with beauty police, at which beautiful people will make up about 70% of the guest list and get VIP treatment.

The event company's CEO, Ryan Christian, said the website already organises exclusive parties for members at discreet locations in Cape Town and that "members get free drinks; free food. There are great DJs. It's usually an amazing party".

Good news for South Africans wanting to join the site is that one in five women who apply is permitted entry. The global average for acceptance is one in eight. In the UK, only one in 14 applicants is accepted.

Hodge said: "Women in South Africa are more beautiful than the men, but both men and women are considerably above the global average.

"This makes sense to me personally. I am always impressed by your beautiful people".

South African women, however, are, like their international counterparts, much tougher beauty critics than men. The male-to-female ratio of South African members on the site is 57% women, 43% men and that, said Hodge, was because joining was harder for men because of women's high acceptance standards.

"Women look at the bigger overall picture such as does this man sound articulate, display a sense of humour; does he look like he has money or does he have a good job?

"It's not enough for men just to be good-looking."

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