Triangulation
Many things were unacceptable to Representative Karen Miscold, Democrat from Austin: capital punishment, food deserts, fracking, gas stoves, and speaking in Texas vernacular.
In high school, she liked wearing short dresses and getting mad at boys who ogled her. She never admitted to going harder on the lame ones, but she never thought of the studs’ attention as ogling. When she grew up, she simply moved the battlefield online—policing microaggressions on Twitter and flogging corporations to be responsible. In 2024, she wanted to drive the deplorables from her party; in 2026, she needed them. It was time for bipartisanship—time to bring in moderates and Republicans you didn’t want to talk to but whose votes still mattered. Better to triangulate on symbolic issues and save Mother Earth.
She needed something soothing. Algorithms obliged. Miscold was sipping chardonnay and watching reels of men slicing avocados with slow, firm care, wrists flexing as they eased the pits free. She told herself she was studying gender roles in the wellness economy.
Her phone buzzed: AP News — Klara Yarman guilty, guillotining scheduled for Monday at 9 p.m. EDT.
She opened the app.
“If I were on the Guillotine Court, I’d let her appeal in person and offer her my briefs.”
Representative Miscold saw it, seethed, and typed before she could stop herself:
“Republican empathy begins at C-cup and ends at size 38.”
Before clicking send, she mortified herself with Matt Yglesias:
“This ethic of shunning is counterproductive and unworkable… a political coalition large enough to wield power and accomplish useful things absolutely needs to include bigots.”
It helped a little. Then another tweet appeared—this one from a rural Texas Republican:
“I don’t need to be protected from her. She could come to my house. Take a shower. Spend the night.”
It had 52k likes and a GIF of a pineapple. She almost puked. Even her favorite neoliberal shills couldn’t save her. Maybe intersectionality could.
The early feminists weren’t poor. They had better dresses, softer hands, paler skin, and more teeth than coal miners’ daughters. For their time, they were sort of hot. The first Black president was half white; FDR was a trust-fund baby. Maybe the revolution needed rich girls too.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to write the bill. The male gaze could be reappropriated. It could become a weapon of justice—and carbon-free air travel. In college, she once talked her way out of a DUI by drawing close to an officer and wiggling her breasts. Without them, she might never have been elected. Time to pay it forward. She opened a new document and began to write:
House Bill 669
Whereas, female beauty is a divine gift;
Whereas, hot female bodies inspire family formation, work, lawn mowing, and even occasional male dish-washing;
Whereas, beautiful women can repay their debt to society through childbearing;
Whereas, the structure of the Texas Whole Head Guillotine Court has proven cheap and popular;
Be it enacted that:
Section 1. Hotness Review Board.
There is hereby created a Hotness Review Board of three members:
a Fox News producer;
the operatives who chose Sarah Palin to be McCain’s running mate; and
the CEO of Halliburton.
Section 2. Eligibility.
Any biological female under the age of thirty-two may petition the Hotness Review Board for aesthetic clemency.
Section 3. Submission Requirements.
Each candidate shall submit three verified swimsuit photographs, accompanied by a signed affidavit affirming the absence of digital alteration or AI enhancement.
Section 4. Evaluation.
Candidates shall be rated by the Board on an open-ended scale with a mean of five and a standard deviation of two. The Board may employ such statistical consultants as necessary to maintain distributional integrity.
Section 5. Relief.
Any candidate whose median score is seven or higher shall be paroled, and shall remain on parole provided that she produces one live baby within two years and a total of three live babies within five years. Continued release shall be contingent upon satisfactory maternal conduct as determined by the Hotness Review Board. In no event shall parole be revoked for refusing to take a vaccine, have one’s children vaccinated, or for Christian home schooling or service in the Israeli Defense Force.
Section 6. Male Petitioners.
Any biological male who petitions for relief from the Hotness Review Board shall be declared a pansy and executed forthwith.
Section 7. Cool girls.
Any female over the age of 31, but less than 35, and spontaneously certified as a cool girl by two-thirds of the surviving men in her high school class, may be declared too hot to die if assigned a score of six or more by the Hotness Review Board. Cool girls may apply up to one preexisting child to the fertility requirement.
Section 8. Title.
This bill shall be known as The Too Hot to Die Act.