The Obsession With Arnold's "Ugly" Women

Now that the dust is settling a little on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity revelations, it’s time for everybody to analyze the attractiveness of the lady he cheated with. And since she doesn’t look like a model, it’s time to scrutinize what could possibly possess him to sleep with her.

HollywoodLife reels in shock that “Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s fantasy girl wasn’t a busty porn star or a supermodel,” and asks, “Why would Arnold bed women that were no where near as beautiful as his loyal wife Maria?” For an answer, they turn to Anthony Pellicano, the private investigator now serving a fifteen-year sentence for wiretapping and racketeering. This upstanding individual says, “He sees himself as the dominant, beautiful one. The physical is most important to him and he does not want to be upstaged or lose the spotlight in company of a strikingly beautiful woman.” Also, a source says ex-Schwarzenegger mistress Gigi Goyette “confided that Schwarzenegger enjoys sex with plain women, because they tend to demonstrate more admiration, adoration and excitement over his body.”

Maybe this is how Arnold thinks, but an anonymous second-hand source isn’t super-convincing. And isn’t it likely that Schwarzenegger had sex with Goyette and housekeeper Mildred Baena because he was attracted to them? In the wake of celebrity cheating scandals, the women in question always come in for scrutiny — but there’s an unpleasant whiff of incredulity when those women don’t have traditional Hollywood looks. It’s as though cheating on your wife with a conventionally hot woman is totally understandable, but if you do so with somebody who doesn’t look like she stepped out of a Vogue spread (or porn movie) — well, then you must be some kind of weirdo. We saw this line of thinking with Bill Clinton, when critics sniped about Monica Lewinsky’s weight and Paula Jones’s nose. It appeared more recently in discussions of Jesse James and Tiger Woods. Writes Effie Orfanides at the Examiner,

Tiger Woods and Jesse James found themselves having affairs with women who crossed the line. They were strippers or women who weren’t as clean-cut as their wives. Not one of their mistresses was better looking than Sandra Bullock or Elin Nordegren.

Orfanides and others seem to be saying that cheating is one thing, but you must be really crazy to cheat with someone who isn’t even hot. This attitude ignores the fact that infidelity often isn’t just about screwing someone better-looking than your partner, and that an especially attractive paramour doesn’t make it more or less of a betrayal. It also perpetuates the stereotype that every dude has the exact same taste in women. No guy could possibly just want to fuck a lady who looks like Baena, so Schwarzenegger must have had some kind of power fantasy, some kind of fetish for being the sexy one in the relationship. Now, maybe he did — from the rumors of his behavior, it certainly seems possible that Schwarzenegger got off on having power over women. But that doesn’t mean he necessarily thought Baena or Goyette were ugly, or that he needed some sort of external motivation to get it up for them. They may not look like his costars or his wife, but he may well have had sex with them for the most time-honored reason people choose to have sex with each other — because he thought they were hot.

Why Arnold Schwarzenegger Bedded ‘Unattractive’ Mistresses: He Wanted To Be The ‘Beautiful One!’ [Hollywood Life]
Arnold Schwarzenegger Complex Caused Affairs With Ugly Women [Examiner]