Since I had left a comment, and read her blog entry twice, I conclude I have a need to indulge in a totally juvenile activity - the game of "who do you think is cute?" I'm old enough to remember conversations about "who's your favorite Beatle?", though I was very young. I also rememer my answer: "Keith Richards." The Beatles were too clean cut for my taste. When I was a young girl, my two rock star crushes were Keith Richards and Jim Morrison. I felt somewhat ashamed of my crush on Jim Morrison. His raw sexuality seemed a little too much for a very young girl to handle. Or maybe I had a sense that he could be dangerous. Maybe he was the kind of person for whom things like the age of consent meant nothing. I suspect that may have been true, but it's interesting to me that I even gave this any thought.
I want to point out that there seems to be a double standard for men and women when it comes to discussions of this nature. It's okay for women to sit around talking about who they find hot (or to write a silly blog post about it). It's not really okay for men to do the same thing. Sure, they can do it when they're with a bunch of other men, but if some guy had a blog post like TMC's (or the one I'm attempting to get to), he'd be eviscerated by his girlfriend. Women can be quite jealous about celebrity crushes. They also (and I'm not immune to this one) can feel badly about even hearing about "who's hot and who's not" from men. We think, "Oh, I can't possibly live up to her, or women like her!" And no, I can't. But why is it okay for us women to write about men as if they were just sex objects? Does it make men feel bad (and they're just not saying anything about it)?
One time I was at a family gathering and three generations of women were all looking at People Magazine's "100 Sexiest Men of 2007." Do they even have a special issue for sexiest women, or is that just reserved for Sports Illustrated? Anyway, all three generations of women agreed that Johnny Depp is hot. Did any of the men mope around for the rest of the day, harboring secret feelings of inadequacy and jealousy? I have no idea, but I doubt it. Think about how angry the women would be if all the men sat around perusing pics of sexy women during a family gathering. They'd be fuming!
Well, now that that's said, I'm starting to change my mind about this blog entry.
Never mind.
I'm skipping Johnny Depp. You've all seen enough pictures of him. Russell Brand is a good substitute in a pinch. I suppose that some women don't like men who tease their hair and wear more makeup than they do. But Brand's a funny guy with a British accent. That counts for a lot, in my book.
Matthew Gray Gubler, from CBS's "Criminal Minds", is the geek heart throb of many.
Let's not forget that "Dr. Spencer Reid"
is a fictional character, and Matthew Gray Gubler
was a runway model before he was a television actor.
It took me a long time to find a photograph of Cheng Chan in the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
There's only a handful of official photographs. Most of the fan photographs are of Ziyi Zhang. She is gorgeous (especially when angry).
If it weren't for TMC, I would have not been able to tell you the name of an actor whose visage makes my heart beat just a little faster, Gurgon Kyap (seen here in the film "Himalaya").
I'd never thought of Bob Dylan as any sort of sex symbol until I saw the 1967
documentary "Don't Look Back."
This is ridiculous. There are so many celebrities whom I find sexy that I could sit at my laptop for a week and not be done with this post.
Matthew Gray Gubler is a real exception to my usual taste. Generally speaking, a person has to have a hooked or crooked nose to attract me. I have no idea why that is. My first real kiss was with a boy who had both a hooked and crooked nose. Which started first? The first kiss or the nose fetish? If I could answer that with any authority, I'd be able to solve the nature or nurture question, and I'd get the Nobel Prize, but that isn't going to happen.
I was teased by my friends for liking that boy. The other girls thought he was ugly. Not only did he have a funny nose, but he was scrawny and had long, stringy hair.
Another odd thing, about me, is that I much prefer long hair on a man than on a woman. Of course, there are always exceptions (like Matthew Gray Gubler). I find androgyny quite alluring, to say the least. If I can't tell what gender a person is, I am usually instantly smitten.
So, here ends one of the sillier entries I've posted on this blog. I'm not sure why I think celebrity crushes are a sillier subject than socks, which just got three full entries, but that's my way of thinking.
On the other hand, the reasons why we are attracted to certain types is a subject that I do find fascinating, and it's one that has merited a lot of study. Recently, though I can't remember where, I read that it's not only symmetry that attracts us, but "ordinary-ness." The word used in the study was something more succinct than the clunky non-word that I just used, but you get the picture. I am attracted to crooked noses, faces with obvious asymmetries, and ones that are truly out of the ordinary. "All American" looks turn me off. The women that grace the pages of men's magazines bore me silly. Studies also say that we are attracted to people who are our attractive equivalents. In other words, if you're a "5", you're usually attracted by another "5." But that doesn't quite make sense of my particular tastes. Of course, making sense out of my taste doesn't really matter, but I do find it, um, interesting.
4 comments:
very clever... you wrote the whole post w/o using the "s" word. Ha!
I thought my post ventured into indecent but I've been feeling testosterone-ish and just went with it.
Russell Brand... good choice. Not quite a looker but the accent would get me knickers... oh, nevermind.
I'll have to hop onto that ever-growing Johnny Depp bandwagon. He was hot at 20, and he's hot at 40-something. A bad boy, but one who seems like he could carry on a stimulating conversation, too.
I quite like Kiera Knightley, ever since I saw her in "Bend it Like Beckham." Melissa HATES this crush, and gives me no end of grief about it. She doesn't mind the Johnny Depp crush, though. Orlando Bloom is sexy, too, so watching "Pirates of the Caribbean" is a speacial treat for me ... (not to mention I love Piratey fun ... except I did mention it ... oh, I do hate that figure of speech).
And that Tibetan actor is quite beautiful. Tibetan people are almost always gorgeous. Especially when they aren't monks, because I, too, like long hair on a man (but not teased ... no,no,no ... never teased).
This is a great post, as was TMC's. There's nothing trivial about attraction. I think you're right about women's discomfort with their partner's celebrity crushes, but I seem to be an exception to that. I like hearing Dave gush about somebody. That's partly because I often share his crush, but it's also because I like seeing him have fun. I am not so open-minded about his real-life infatuations.
As far as my own crushes, I am a John Lennon girl, forever and always. I love smart, difficult men. I get kinda revved up by listening to James Hillman, though he's older than my father and I've always assumed he's gay.
My pretty-guy celebrity crushes include Jesse L. Martin (from Law & Order) and Clive Owen. My pretty-girl crushes come and go, but I never get enough of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Louise Brooks, as she appeared in Pandora's Box, is my ideal female love object.
Russell Brand was great fun on David Letterman recently. Liked him immediately. He was a little podgy, compared to the photo here, but I didn't care.
Teased, dyed hair, makeup and jewelry is OK on both men and women, in my book. It all depends on the person and the presentation. (Re this: the lead singer of the Cure.)
Louise Brooks was an exquisite icon, a law unto herself as Lulu. She had today's scrawny girl-scraps beat out all hollow.
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