Hot over 40, if 40 is degrees Celsius
Today at lunchtime, as I took a momentary break to merely think about eating carbohydrates (the fallout from a physician office visit this morning) and watch more raindrops fall on my backyard, I caught the last three-quarters of The Greatest: The 40 Hottest Over 40 on VH1.
Two questions came to mind as I watched.
Question One: What is it about Teri Hatcher (#3 on the list) that everyone else sees, but I don't?
Age aside — and I'm on record as appreciating the attributes of women in my own post-40 age bracket — Teri Hatcher is not an attractive woman. She's not even a sort-of-pleasant-looking woman. She's a 40-ish Paris Hilton, and that isn't a compliment. (Sidebar question: What the heck do people see in Paris Hilton? But that's another post.)
Teri Hatcher is frightening, to be blunt about it. She needs to join Jared at a local Subway, and eat until closing time. Her smile can best be described as "ghoulish," and I don't mean that Hungarian stew with paprika. When she grins, she looks like an anorexic jack o'lantern in haute couture.
Of the so-called Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher is the one I'd have to be the most desperate to commit housewifery with, if you know what mean, and I think you do. And yet, some TV producer thinks she's the third-most-attractive Hollywood personage over the age of 40.
What am I missing here?
Question Two: What do people mean when they say, in reference to an example of masculine pulchritude, "Even straight men want to [coital reference deleted] him"?
Speaking as a straight man...
Umm, no.
I think I'm capable of judging, more or less accurately, when a man is handsome. George Clooney is a good-looking guy. So is Denzel Washington. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, the male principals on CSI... all good-looking guys. I make these observations strictly from a detached, non-experiential point of view. I've just known enough women and gay men to identify, based on their collective commentary, what makes a man sexually attractive.
That's a markedly different kettle of fish, however, from being sexually attracted to a man.
I'm not making a value judgment here about men being attracted to men, by the way. I'm simply saying that's a whole other train, on which I don't have a ticket, and can't pretend to have one.
Quality transcends personal taste. I can understand that Garth Brooks is a talented country singer, even though I dislike country music and have no desire to be within earshot when Garth exercises his talent. In the same way, I ought to be able to recognize that Brad Pitt is a well-put-together hunk o' man, without going all Brokeback Mountain over the deal.
But then, as I've already observed, I wouldn't want to go all Desperate Housewives with Teri Hatcher, either.
I'm probably just grumpy because I didn't make the list.
Two questions came to mind as I watched.
Question One: What is it about Teri Hatcher (#3 on the list) that everyone else sees, but I don't?
Age aside — and I'm on record as appreciating the attributes of women in my own post-40 age bracket — Teri Hatcher is not an attractive woman. She's not even a sort-of-pleasant-looking woman. She's a 40-ish Paris Hilton, and that isn't a compliment. (Sidebar question: What the heck do people see in Paris Hilton? But that's another post.)
Teri Hatcher is frightening, to be blunt about it. She needs to join Jared at a local Subway, and eat until closing time. Her smile can best be described as "ghoulish," and I don't mean that Hungarian stew with paprika. When she grins, she looks like an anorexic jack o'lantern in haute couture.
Of the so-called Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher is the one I'd have to be the most desperate to commit housewifery with, if you know what mean, and I think you do. And yet, some TV producer thinks she's the third-most-attractive Hollywood personage over the age of 40.
What am I missing here?
Question Two: What do people mean when they say, in reference to an example of masculine pulchritude, "Even straight men want to [coital reference deleted] him"?
Speaking as a straight man...
Umm, no.
I think I'm capable of judging, more or less accurately, when a man is handsome. George Clooney is a good-looking guy. So is Denzel Washington. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, the male principals on CSI... all good-looking guys. I make these observations strictly from a detached, non-experiential point of view. I've just known enough women and gay men to identify, based on their collective commentary, what makes a man sexually attractive.
That's a markedly different kettle of fish, however, from being sexually attracted to a man.
I'm not making a value judgment here about men being attracted to men, by the way. I'm simply saying that's a whole other train, on which I don't have a ticket, and can't pretend to have one.
Quality transcends personal taste. I can understand that Garth Brooks is a talented country singer, even though I dislike country music and have no desire to be within earshot when Garth exercises his talent. In the same way, I ought to be able to recognize that Brad Pitt is a well-put-together hunk o' man, without going all Brokeback Mountain over the deal.
But then, as I've already observed, I wouldn't want to go all Desperate Housewives with Teri Hatcher, either.
I'm probably just grumpy because I didn't make the list.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 2:06 PM
3 insisted on sticking two cents in:
You know a guy is good looking when a straight guy can attest to the fact that he's good looking.
Just ask my boyfriend. He'd totally do Johnny Depp.
My point, Janet (and yes, I do have one, although if I brush my hair just right you can't really tell), is that yes, I can see, and affirm, that Johnny Depp is a good-looking man. (At least, when he's not tricked out like Captain Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka.)
But that, to me, is not the same as saying that I could totally do Johnny Depp. The only characteristic a man could possess to enable me to totally do him is... well... not be a man.
Can't I, as a straight guy, attest to a man's attractiveness without finding him the least bit attractive myself? I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out.
Don't straight women do this all the time? That is, attest that another woman is attractive, but without wanting to throw her down on satin sheets and ravish her? If so, why can't straight men?
Re: Denzel and attraction.
I think it's this overemphasis in our society that if you find someone, you have to sleep with them.
Never understood it myself. One can admire, for example, their sibling (or parent!) as attractive but not want to sleep with them.
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