The XX Factor: What women really think.

Return of the Beautiful Uglies

It must be the season of the listicle. Too lazy to write an article, or, heck, even create a charticle, print and online writers turn to the list in an attempt to draw as many list-loving readers as possible. The latest comes from the folks at Nerve.com, who have seen fit to list: "The Twenty Sexiest Ugly People." Fair enough. I've long been enamored with the "beautiful uglies," or what the French refer to as jolie laide: "the aesthetic pleasures of the visually off kilter: a bump on the nose, eyes that are set too closely together, a jagged smear of a mouth."

Nerve's collection of the seemingly hideously sexy—or is that sexily hideous?—includes... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)