The other day my Facebook feed informed me that a nightclub in Brixton, London held a party earlier this year to which men under the height of 6 feet were barred from entry. The event was called “Land of the Giants.”
And they were serious about the height requirement. Men—and only men—were measured at the door.
The event sold out, but social media opinions were divided. Supporters argued that this was really no different from height filters on popular dating apps. Opponents assailed the height requirement as exclusionary.
I am 5’10” tall. I therefore would have been turned away at the door. Perhaps I should be upset about this. (That’s obviously what Facebook’s algorithm was hoping for.) But I don’t do much clubbing in Brixton, London. (I live in Ohio, after all.) And at my current age of 58, well… I guess I don’t regard this as a personally pressing matter.
The height requirement is tacky. But if a woman really must have a man capable of playing guard on a professional basketball team… “Who am I to judge?” as the late Pope Francis once said.
As sexual beings, we are entitled to like what we like, so long as we confine our liking to consenting adults. Women are entitled to fetishize height. Men are equally entitled to fetishize youth, thinness, and thigh gaps.
The question is not what we are entitled to do, but—perhaps—what we should do.
And human nature is working against our better angels here. Despite all the prattle about soul mates and eHarmony’s 80-question compatibility quiz, a brutal truth remains: the bulk of romantic and sexual attraction really does boil down to superficial factors.
This is especially true in the early stages. A couple that has been married for decades, with children and grandchildren, may have something more substantive between them. But those people hooking up at nightclubs or swiping right on dating apps—they’re responding to superficial factors in almost every case.
I’m not going to join anyone on the barricades in protest of the “tall men only” night at a nightclub in the UK. I will, however, offer a word about the Law of Unintended Consequences.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If “tall men only” nights at nightclubs gain currency, it is only a matter of time before someone comes up with “thin women only” events to match them, complete with scales and measuring tapes at the front entrance. (Perhaps the “tall men only” nights could be combined with “thin women only” nights. A eugenics experiment with music and cocktails.)
I’m not some misty-eyed idealist. We are all superficial, to varying degrees, when it comes to sexual attraction. We all have preferences regarding height, body type, age, and—yes—even race.
Those preferences are not going away. But perhaps we could all benefit (and preserve some illusion of old-fashioned romance to boot) if we did not become completely crass about expressing those preferences from the get-go.
-ET