Noses

I've noticed that most of the time poets describe a woman's face they leave her nose out of it. For example, Byron, in "She Walks in Beauty," describes the gal's cheeks and eyes and of course her smile. Shakespeare generally talks about his "woman"'s eyes and cheeks and lips, which is pretty conventional. Even the Song of Solomon, such a wonderfully diverse description, with lines like "Thy teeth are alike a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing, whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them," has pretty much nothing to say about the nose. I guess the conventional wisdom is that the best that can be hoped for in a woman's nose it that it go unnoticed.

Not so! A woman's nose is one of the places that her face becomes unique, that it really gets its character. If I may again be allowed to call attention to Scarlett Johansson:

This is not necessarily the best picture of her because she's not smiling, but it's advantageous because you can see her nose is, well, a little bulbous. It's part of what makes her so adorable, and, more than that, it makes her seem so real, so normal, so approachable, although I probably wouldn't dare. I guess the rumors are that she has had her nose done to make it a little smaller. These rumors are pretty ridiculous, in general, but I can't ever say for sure.

But it wasn't Scarlett's nose that made me think of this topic. I've been on kind of a nose kick lately, noticing a lot of attractive women with kind of off noses on the bus or whatnot. And I can't say exactly what it is about them that draws me to their faces, but I think the answer might be in the woman whose nose I really noticed, the one that kicked this whole thing off, I think.

Hanging around with (Dr.) Nog one evening we had a few beers and watched a grindhouse trailer compilation. One actress who did a lot of these ragged-edge productions was Christina Lindberg. Her most famous movie is They Call Her One Eye, which Tarantino referenced in Kill Bill. But she was also a Playmate, and really considered a great beauty for her day. Here's a picture of her that captures what, I think, made her affect me:

per my blog action day post, she's a, well, a natural woman. )cringe( Seriously, though, she's wearing mascara, and probably many other cosmetics, but look at her face. Not only her nose, which is obviously sizeable, but also the lines on her face, natural lines around her eyes and nose and mouth that make her face seem soft, like the petals of a flower just unfolded from inside the calyx. It's part of what made her such a great pick for exploitation films. She became an icon of corrupted innocence.

Consider this pic, as well:

Just natural beauty in soft light, beauty engrossed in beauty, looking at the flower, breathing its sweetness.

And this quality can transfer to other contexts as well. Consider this picture from Huge Real Boobs:

Although this pic, chosen partly to comply w/ my 70s PG self-rating, does not display the combination of her nose and smile that make her so winning, I hope you can see what they do. They make her seem real, and though I don't know whether her boobs are real or not (and I'm not sure "huge" is the size adjective I'd choose, either), I feel that they are, because I feel that she is real. Because of the imperfections of her nose.

Why Guys Like Porn

Okay, so this may seem obvious and some of it is.

The main reason guys like porn is that it's easy. We're lazy, and bedding a woman is a lot of work, especially if you're starting from scratch at the bar or wherever. If you're lucky, you might stumble on a woman looking for a revenge fuck for her cheating hubby and you just happen to be chosen. But for the most part, you're mostly just gonna get her number. Then you gotta call her, plan a date, go on the date, not make any mistakes (either coming on too strong and looking like a desperate creep or not strong enough and seeming like you've got no testosterone), and maybe get a kiss. A guy I know who went to strip clubs described them as "cheaper than a date, and with a lap dance." Two, three, four dates (months?) later and what're you at, second base?

And if you've already got a woman in bed, it's not that much easier. First there's your schedule, and her schedule, and her "schedule" to juggle. And then there's the whole "mood" issue, which is as bad as a date. Come on too strong and she's not ready yet, or not strong enough and all you get is a cuddle. Or you might've worked up a good wheedle that generally gets you what you want, but makes you feel low anyway.

Whereas porn you just have to hit "play."

And then there's the simple fact that the women in porn are not the women in your life. They're numerous and different, stimulating for the simple fact that they're another woman you get to see naked.

But the main reason guys like porn is something beyond this, something deep and emotional, a real need guys feel that porn generally answers better than most flesh-and-blood women. I discovered it as a result of a chance find that I like to talk about, so I'll repeat here, even though the two or three people who read this blog already know it.

One cold winter morning I was coming home from a long, grueling graveyard shift at the ghetto 7-11 where I worked, and though it was after 7am it was still dark. Garbage day. The dumpster full as I walked down the alley to the back entrance to my apartment building. But there, beside the dumpster, a huge stack, 3 feet tall, of magazines. It only took one glance to know they were porn, so I scooped up a huge armful and went inside, suddenly warmed.

It turned out to be Hustlers, some of the Barely Legal variety. Although I don't like Flint's politics or humor, the porn is not bad at all. And in one of the Barely Legals there was a photoplay of a man and woman having sex on a streetcar. One of the shots, which is burned into my memory, was a closeup of the woman about to give the man a blowjob (I think at the time they weren't allowed to show actual genital-genital or genital-lip contact). I don't remember much about the things you associate with a blowjob, the lips or the cheeks. What I remember is her eyes. They were wide, mediterranean blue eyes, and their expression could only be described as worshipful.

The cliche goes that men love women for who they are, while women love men for who they could be. And a consequence of that is that women often remind us of just how far off that ideal we are. Porn women don't do that.

Oh, sure, they may say "harder" or "faster," but it's by way of encouragement, not in a needling way, and when they get it harder or faster, they say "oh, yeah."

Part of the problem is that most of us guys aren't really worshippable material: we're not Adonises, or whatever. But most of the guys I know worship the women in their lives, and they're no Venuses. We're not asking for it all the time, maybe just (half?) an hour every couple of days. And if we got that, there'd be a lot less demand for porn.

According to Oklahoma Law:

"Nudity" means the:
a. showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area, or buttocks with less than a full opaque covering,
b. showing of the female breast with less than a full opaque covering of any portion of the female breast below the top of the nipple, or
c. depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state;

These Kids Today

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I just thought I would take advantage of Blog Action day to write a quick note that natural women are beautiful. Not just the hippies who don't wear bras (that can be nice, although, as I've noted, there are some places I think it's best for a woman to shave), but really all the women who let themselves be who they are. A smile and a wink is all you need. And if you can't wink, a smile will do.

Another Apology

Sorry I haven't been maintaining this as I'd like, but here's a related blog I have to maintain at least three times a week. Today's entry is dedicated to our friend Kip.