Chix in Spex

I'll be brief here and say that I think women in glasses are hot. And they're hottest when they mostly don't wear them, then suddenly they do, and it's like walking in on them in their boudoir. (Yes, I just said "boudoir"--shut up and enjoy the pics!)

Magazine Covers

The thing I hate about magazine covers is how homogenous they are. The goal seems to be to take a woman whose appearance has some character, some interest, some uniqueness that makes her beautiful, and transform her into a flat plastic label that can be stuck on any product. Two powerful cases in point are the cover images for Marisa Miller (on Maxim) and Scarlett Johansson (on Cosmopolitan), where the women are made so indistinct that I have to read the label to see who I'm looking at. Another powerful example is this cover from Vanity Fair, in which Angelina Jolie, who has perhaps the most distinct physiognomy of any sex symbol in Hollywood, has been rendered indistinct. Her nose is completely blended into her face. Her lips are so accented by lipstick that they lose their natural appearance of fullness. Not to mention that there is a limit at which cleavage ceases to appeal.

It amazes me that these things appeal to anyone. I mean, I ought to be an easy sell. An image of Scarlett Johansson in a red dress with a plunging neckline: how can it not be good? But it isn't.

Breast Help

As you guys know, I regularly have to write articles about breasts, which begins to tax even my considerable creativity on the subject. One way I thought to get several articles out of one topic was to run a series on the best breasts in film, but I need to generate a list.

I found a decent place to start w/ Film Threat's 50 best breasts list, but some of their choices are a little odd, and it's not a rank order list, which, of course, would be very hard to do. But if you guys can help me with a few suggestions, I'd be very grateful. Here's their list:

Mae West ("Maudie Triplet," Night after Night; "Tira," I'm no Angel)
Jane Russell
Marilyn Monroe
Dorothy Dandridge ("Malmendi, Queen of the Ashuba," Tarzan's Peril; "Carmen Jones," Carmen Jones)
Jayne Mansfield ("Hippolyta," The Loves of Hercules; "Camille Oaks," The Wayward Bus)
Sophia Loren ("Jimene," El Cid; "Dulcinea," Man of La Mancha)
Elizabeth Taylor ("Margaret Pollitt," Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; "Cleopatra," Cleopatra)
Brigitte Bardot ("Juliet Hardy" And God Created Woman)
Ursula Andress ("Vesper Lynd," Casino Royale; "Aphrodite," Clash of the Titans)
Honor Blackman ("Pussy Galore," Goldfinger)
Raquel Welch
Chesty Morgan
Tura Santana ("Varla," Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!)
Uschi Digard
Pam Grier
Jennifer Connelly
Monica Bellucci
Rosario Dawson
Scarlett Johansson
Eva Green
Jennifer Tilly
Asia Argento
Thandie Newton
Helen Mirren
Jessica Rabbit

If you search, you can find the list on their site, which includes film clips and a brief (often not very interesting) blurb.

The Breast Debate

As much as I respect the opinions of my esteemed readership, I must dissent from their opinion on my last blog that breast connoisseurs only judge one the basis of naked breasts.

First, I have to say that bare breasts are best, and if we had our druthers, every woman would flash us her pair whenever our spirits were low. But if if's and and's were pots and pans, what would tinkers do?

Nearly all the breasts we see each day are fully clothed, but this does not make them unattractive. Bare and clothed breasts are both beautiful, for somewhat different reasons. Let's use Natasha Henstridge as an example, since I happen to have clothed and unclothed images of her handy.

She is not necessarily the best example, but we can still make comparisons. Advantages of clothed breasts: cleavage & unified line that generally creates a better figure. You get better definition and generally a better shape. Plus, movement is somewhat controlled,so that the breasts aren't going any which way when the woman walks. Advantages of bare breasts: nipples, for sure; and you do get the natural erotic curve of the breast, with the downswooping top and the rounded bottom. So . . . they both have advantages. Here are some pictures of clothed & bare breasts:

And how nobody talked about Marisa Miller, I'll never know.
And for your amusement, here's a JS nipple slip.

An Obligatory Response

In Touch Weekly, the lowest of the so-called entertainment mags (or the highest of the tabloids, it kind of blurs the line), recently published the results of their poll on Hollywood's best breasts, and here's the results, some of which are more indicative of their readership than of the quality of the breasts. Of course, I must respond. Here are the top three, with pics and commentary:













1. Jessica Simpson, who definitely has some fine breasts. I used to have an image of her in her white jacket, on my desktop. It helped me get my day started right. Unfortunately, I can't find a copy of that exact image, but here's one I like because she looks like one of my coworkers in it.













2. Tyra Banks in a weird twist of fate, I have found myself defending Tyra on a number of occasions for many things, but, this picture (which is old) notwithstanding, I can't accept that she has the second best breasts in Hollywood.

3. Scarlett Johansson had the first place last time In Touch did their poll. She is, of course, my top pick, partly because she's a whole package and not just great tits on a dim bulb. But I can imagine her and Simpson fighting it out for first place (in oil and string bikinis).

And the rest:

4. Carmen Electra

5. Lindsay Lohan

6. Katherine Heigl

7. Audrina Patridge

8. Jennifer Aniston

9. Megan Fox

10. Beyonce Knowles

Now, some of these are reasonable, defensible choices, but many of them only make sense if you remind yourself that this is a poll of readers of the magazine pitched to those too dumb to read PEOPLE. Take it for what it is: an excellent opportunity to think about tits.

Revisiting the Issue of Hair

I've talked bfore about my personal preferences when it comes to pubic hair, but here's an interesting post on the subject from one of my favorite blogs to support, although not necessarily to read.

Beauty and the Breast is an anti-cosmetic surgery blog written by a number of women, at least one of which has had a botched breast augmentation. I say botched in that it didn't go the way she wanted it, not that it was performed especially badly. The truth is that about a third of all breast implant operations go awry. Many times it's just that they don't look right, but in other cases the complications can be really serious. Anyway, the women write about a lot of issues related to body image, which is something very dear to my heart because I have known so many beautiful women (including my wife) who have a very bad body image.

This post on pubic hair is interesting because it really gets down to the follicle of the matter: why do women think men want them to be hairless? Why, in fact, do women feel compelled to remove all their hair elsewhere as well? I've read some interesting reasearch on the subject, and it seems like most women start hair removal in their pre-teen years, and most of them can't identify the cause of their desire to do it. In the majority of cases, it is not parental pressure, or even perceived peer pressure that makes women remove their hair. Women report the cause to be a desire to be or feel "sexier," in some vague way. This means that they have internalized images of hairless women's bodies so that they perceive they are doing it for themselves.

I'm not saying I want women to stop epilating altogether (I like smooth legs as much as the next guy), but I think women should take control of their issue and evaluate what they're doing and why.

It's peach season again . . .

And I took a California peach to work today. It smelled so good, felt so good, I just couldn't wait to eat it. But then, California peaches are like California girls: they look good and smell good, and they're juicy, but ultimately they're bland and waxy.

Are Georgia girls like Georgia peaches: tight, tough, and tart?

And Colorado girls like Colorado peaches: sometimes a little on the large side, but oh, so sweet and juicy you can't help but love every ounce of them?

I've Been Spending a Lot of Time at Home Improvement Stores

And I noticed that you see a distinctly different demographic at the two major home improvement chains. At Lowe's you're like to see this kind of woman:

Whereas at Home Depot, you're more likely to see this kind of woman:

They may or may not be dressed like that . . .