THE only good thing (according to men) about watching beauty contests is that you can stare at women, comment on every aspect of their looks, from their hair down to their toes and other interesting things in between, and get away with it.

If you tried that stunt with any woman in the street you would get dirty looks or nasty remarks about your mental health or a tight slap.

If she was with a boyfriend, you might get a punch in the face from him or dirty looks, comments and threats of legal action (depending on whether he was a karate black belt or a florist.)

I have always believed that beauty is only skin-deep. (With a face like mine, I have had little choice.)

So if I am going to watch a beauty contest, I’ll be quite happy to turn off my brain and judge contestants purely on their looks and certainly not on their standard of English or philosophy of life.

Look, if you have a beautiful face that can render men speechless (not very hard to do), you wouldn’t instantly become less beautiful in my eyes just because you said “duck green” instead of “dark green”.

If you have a beautiful body that can make men willingly give up their CPF for you (also quite easy to do), would your body suddenly become less beautiful just because you commented that loosening credit card controls was one good way of stimulating recessionary economies?

Men don’t have beauty contests. (Unfair! Unfair! Gender discrimination!)

Okay, so maybe “beauty’ isn’t the right word. Maybe “Mr Handsome” contests or “Macho Man” contests.

Wait a minute! We do have beauty contests for men. I’m talking about body-building competitions where big boys spend years working with weights to build up bodies that make them look like comic- book heroes.

The grand finale is when they all troop on stage in their bikinis (with one piece missing), looking like a procession of greasy lobsters destined for a barbecue, to win their title.

Usually, they’re required to demonstrate a number of poses, each one more comical than the previous one, where judges carefully and seriously (I don’t know how they manage that) decide who gets to be King Crab.

I don’t think they’re judged by whether their standard of English is TV newsreader quality, or by their views on who their dream woman is, or global warming or whether there is life in outer space.

(In the world of international weightlifting, grunting is probably the most commonly used language.)

Misspelled?

The most famous body-builder in the world must surely be Arnold Schwarzenenergenr (and I must have misspelled his name) .

The ex-Terminator and present governor of California still speaks with a strong Austrian accent, and I recall when he first began his career as a movie actor, he had an accent as thick as his biceps.

If he had been judged by the standard of his spoken English rather than his muscles, he wouldn’t have made it past the heats.

It seems to me that it’s rather unfair that women all over this multi-lingual world are compelled to demonstrate some ability in English to win international beauty contests.

I’m sure there are millions of women out there who don’t know the meaning of “duck” or “green” who could probably take the title.

If the United Nations (which is a sort of international parade of global politicians) can make allowances for the use of many languages, international beauty contests should do the same.

After all, international beauty contests aren’t looking for only beauty any more, are they?

The way things are going, they expect women to demonstrate that they are not just pretty faces but likely candidates for the UN Secretary-General’s job.

This article was first published in The New Paper