The problem, as people here have noted, is that the calling of those names based on appearance, feels to some folks here like they, themselves, got hit in the face. And when some of us speak up, it is because we feel like we are speaking for the underdog in some way = just as when people who aren't fat or aren't on depression meds, come to the defense of those who are when they feel someone has maligned friends and family who are.
It's a simple matter of realizing that there are people out there, reading, who will be offended, who will feel the sting of another person called ugly, as they themselves have been called ugly. And as I pointed out in my story, ugly is a word that can and has been used as a weapon of social caste/class power, to enforce boundaries of who belongs and who doesn't. It also carries important racial connotations as you just pointed out with regard to the female indian author habitually referred to as beautiful (just the obverse), almost always because she upholds western ideals of beauty.
i guess you could say that those poor dears readng out to shut up and take it, butch up and learn to take a joke. I think that it's a lot easier for the name caller to think of a different way of unleashing their frustration - especially if the end result - the criterium carrol has always used with rhetoric - is: does it build solidarity among us, or does it tear it down?
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)