Not just a message for Tara Reid

Like the rest of you, I too was initially horrified when these pics of Tara Reid and her butchered stomach surfaced on the Internet.

The more I thought about it - and yes, looked at it - the horror, however, soon began to transition into pity and finally, acceptance. Regardless of how short-sighted her decision was to essentially drink and skank herself out of what might have been a promising film career (I have a you-had-so-much-potential! cringe every time I see The Big Lebowski), this is a girl who will for the rest of her life see the words "and her wonky stomach" printed next to her name.

Does she have the right to wear a bikini looking like a jacked-up cadaver? I think so. I mean, I certainly wouldn't, but I suppose that since her plastic surgery nightmare made the talk-show circuit and a few covers of widely-circulated magazines earlier this year, her boldness to show it all off can serve as a there's-life-after-disfigurement example to other women in the same unenviable position.

But not a second after I'd entered into the virgin territory that was taking Tara Reid more seriously, these snaps had to come along and vitiate all that progress:

This is a faux pas for which I have absolutely no patience, nor sympathy. Whether your breasts are real or fake, throwing them into a sheer green tube dress with nary a hint of built-in support better mean they are (1) perky, (2) relatively symmetrical AND (3) have either nipples impervious to hardening when a sudden decrease in temperature arises, or affixed to each a preventive nipple-petal.

As you can see above, Tara comes in at 0-3.

Unlike a beach excursion where a woman's what-to-wear options are inextricably linked to her desire to minimize tan lines, on the red carpet, no such limits exist -- there is no justification for a woman to strut out in a dress like this one that drew what I imagine was a massive amount of unwanted attention to her my-surgeon-really-f**ked-it-up rack when she easily could have avoided it with a fuller-coverage neckline and an up-top undergarment.

I'll be the first to applaud a woman who says she's found her own personal style, but I'll give a private lapdance and a cupcake-suitcase full of Funfetti-frosted treats to the one who tells me she's able to identify within that preferred style the looks that most flatter her frame.

We can't all wear a mini, we can't all wear lowrise jeans and we can't all go braless in a wafer-thin lurex tube dress -- a message for us all, not just poor, poor Tara.