Or, Why Gwen is a bad influence.
Does anyone remember that show with Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis, the half-hour sitcom that was supposed to be the sexiest thing on television at the time? No? Just me?
Anything But Love was this pre-Will and Grace show about two friends who love each other but won’t have sex, including the clever writing but minus the “opposing sexual orientation” twist. I remember one episode where Richard Lewis’ character (i.e. Richard Lewis but with a different name) was talking about how women wearing nothing but a football jersey was an unbelievable turn-on, and Jamie Lee Curtis was completely oblivious as to why, so she wore his Jets jersey (and nothing else) anyway.
That was my first introduction into the innocuous turn-on, the obliviously hot things women will do, things that they’ll wear, and habits that they’ll show that are unspeakably attractive. Given that I was anywhere from twelve to fifteen when I saw that show, I figure that’s pretty good — generally in that age range, subtlety was confined to judging yourself an “ass man” versus a “breast man”, as if I had seen anything of either.
Since then, of course, things have progressed. These days I’m blessed with all kinds of quirks, and that’s what we really want to talk about, isn’t it?
Pajamas, for example. Man, the frumpier the pajamas, the happier a camper I’m going to be. Every time I’m watching TV or movies with Tina, and they trot out an actress in over-sized track pants and a big sweater and a ponytail, I ask her if she’ll dress up like that for me one day.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says. “You could ask for a nurse’s outfit or a cat-suit or anything in the world, and that is what you’re interested in?”
“No really,” I answer. “That’s… yeah. That’s hot.”
“Well, just wait for cold and flu season, and you’re going to be in absolute paradise.”
“I know you’re making fun of me, but… okay.”
Cooking is another one, and not for the Oedipal reasons you might immediately leap to. Preparing food is practically like watching someone compete in sports — you see them at their most confident, their most productive; you watch them move through complex tasks as though they were routine, and handle problems or mistakes; you get to see them at their most inventive, or their most panicked, and sometimes both within seconds.
And let’s face it, cooking is physical, manual, sensual. It’s all hands and arms, arranging and tasting, finishing and displaying. There’s a reason that you’ll catch men watching the Food Network at three-thirty on a Saturday afternoon, and it doesn’t have anything to do with learning. When Nigella Lawson hefts a glazed ham out of her oven, it is difficult not to become transfixed.
And speaking of Nigella, let me pause for a moment and talk about collarbones. You know who has great collarbones? Gorgeous women. Collarbones are a signal of so many wonderful things: poise, posture, elegance, strength. There are lots of pretty women with nice shoulders, but I bet you’ll find most truly stunning women are rocking the collarbone in a way you hadn’t noticed before. It’s entirely one thing to have a great breasts — and indeed, mankind has now perfected the technology to allow anyone to get them installed at an affordable price — but altogether another to have a great chest.
I’m probably over-reacting to what is really the wire-hanger of the ribcage, but it’s just one of those happy physical features that stands out to me, and yet is almost totally non-sexualized in today’s world.
That makes me complex, because now I’m transcending simply being an “ass man” or a “breast man” — I’ve got my niche! It’s so much more civilized this way, and it only took me twenty years or so to get here.