Beer Goggles Aren’t Real, Say Researchers Who Hate Good Excuses

Rob Fox12 years ago

According to a new study out of the U.K., “beer goggles,” the effect of a potential sexual partner (or department store mannequin) becoming more visually attractive the drunker one gets, is a thing of myth.

SHIT. How am I supposed to explain all of my questionable drunken hookups now? Goddammit science, why do you always ruin everything? I’m so distraught at these findings that I can barely concentrate on my internet job right now. I’m going to the bathroom to relax and watch porn and sports highlights on my phone while I sit on the toilet. Stupid science ruining my life as usual.

Study author psychologist Dr. Amanda Ellison said that alcohol doesn’t make people look more attractive, it just increases their level of lust.

“There is no imagined physical transformation, just more desire,” Allison said, according to MSNnow.com. “Alcohol switches off the rational and decision-making areas of the brain while leaving the areas to do with sexual desire relatively intact.”

So I can still use being drunk as an excuse for seducing some troll out from underneath her bridge? Awesome. And to be fair, I don’t think anyone ever claimed that booze made someone transform into a more a attractive person. Really being drunk just makes a person harder to see, not better to look at, and for all intents and purposes, what’s the difference really?

Ellison said it is a fluke of nature that the lust section of the brain –- the oldest part -– still functions after consumption of alcohol, the Metro reported.

It’s a fluke of nature that the lust section of the brain still functions after consumption of alcohol? Really? May I direct you to this quote:

Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. -Ben Franklin*

*Ed. Note: That’s the actual version of the popular and often misquoted “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” line that is attributed to American history’s most innovative pervert. Either way, same gist.

It should also be noted that while the lust portion of the brain may be left in tact after consuming alcohol, the lust portion of the male body, which I believe science refers to as “the wiener,” doesn’t always cooperate.

Although Ellison’s suds study suggests booze won’t make people look more attractive to you, other studies suggest it can make you more attractive to yourself.

French researchers released a paper last year suggesting that that the more alcohol you think you’ve had in a day will increase your self-confidence in your appearance, even if you haven’t had any.

That’s true, I do feel infinitely more awesome after having a few drinks, though that’s in part because the shakes have stopped and the headache goes away…I drink too much. Of course drinking won’t just increase self-confidence in one’s own physical appearance, but in physical prowess in general. The amount of things I assume I can jump over or punch through or punch over while jumping through increases like ten fold when I’m drunk. No wall is safe…from me bleeding on it.

So “beer goggles” aren’t a thing, sort of. It doesn’t matter, the important thing is you can still blame all your questionable decisions on being drunk. God Bless America.

[via The Huffington Post]