Commentary on a Bettie Page Video

I saw this Bettie Page video on Harem Girl and thought it was very interesting:



The video is divided into two very distinct sections, one a longer-shot that gives an entire sense of the set and the situation, with a second section of close-ups and slightly pulled-back video focused on Bettie's face. The transition between the two sections is just an abrupt cut, disappointing, no doubt, for modern viewers, but important to the way the video works. This is a striptease video, with much more tease than strip.

In the first section of the video, Bettie and her co-stars move with exaggerated gestures, like silent movie stars, which makes sense because this is, essentially, a silent movie. At first, I thought Bettie was dancing, and I thought, she's a terrible dancer, but then I realized her movements aren't dancing at all, but coordinated pageantry that approaches but never really wants to be dancing. Instead, it is a ritualistic performance designed to display and promote certain fetishistically important features, especially her legs. She most reminds me of a Barker's Beauty, only the prize on display is herself. It would be easy, I imagine, to let the gestures become mechanical and tired, but she keeps them fresh and playful. Even in these distant shots we see a little of the personality that will be the main feature of the video's second section.

The far shots are okay, but what really makes this video is the close-up section. Of course, she's beautiful, with her wide, white smile, her bright red lips, her black hair framing smooth white skin, and her eyebrows that are pronounced enough to be almost masculine, but hover instead at the line suggesting enhanced sexuality. Her face is strong, but all that power is in abeyance here, as she engages in play. And when she looks at the camera, her eyes look through it at me, and I feel that special sense of "golly-gee"ness that makes men blush when a beautiful woman singles them out for attention. But instead of pushing that line, she pulls back. There is no stress here. This is play, this is fun. And then she winks at me. Wow. Just wow. Now I've got a smile to last all day. Really nice.

Dr. C's Science Corner, Plus a Correction

Some months ago, you may remember a post on our friend's blog that included an allusion to Willem Defoe's stage show that included leading an anthropomorphic duck around by its genitals . . .

No? Well, here it is: Larryville Chronicles

In response, I made a comment about ducks having no penis at all, which, as it turns out, is incorrect. Although about 97% of all bird species have no penis (or phallus as biologists prefer to refer to them, since they're not actual penises), ducks are different. In fact, some ducks have ridiculously long phalluses, sometimes as long as the rest of the duck's body. In addition, the duck can shoot its phallus out in an attempt to aggressively deliver its sperm during forced copulation. If you dare, see the slow-motion video here:

Duck Phallus Eversion (WARNING: It's pretty gross.)

Of course, no duckess is going to just take this kind of behavior, so female ducks have evolved an oviduct (analogous to the vagina) with all kinds of counterscrews and dead-end pockets. The female ducks can relax or contract the structures in the oviducts to either allow or deny intromission.

If you want to read a longer summary of the research, look here: Kinky Science

For the original research in all its scientific glory, see here:

Coevolution of Male and Female Genitalia Morphology in Waterfowl

PLOSone is a favorite journal of mine. You may also remember it as the source of the first documented non-human fellatio. Missed that one? Here's the link to that exciting story:

Bat Fellatio

A Cat and Venus (An Aesop's Fable)

A young Fellow that was passionately in Love with a Cat, made it his humble Suit to Venus to turn Puss into a Woman. The Transformation was wrought in the twinkling of an Eye, and out she comes, a very bucksome Lass. The doating Sot took her home to his Bed; and bad fair for a Litter of Kittens by her that Night: But as the loving Couple lay snuggling together, a Toy took Venus in the Head, to try if the Cat had changed her Manners with her Shape; and so for Experiment, turn'd a Mouse loose into the Chamber. The Cat, upon this Temptation started out of the Bed, and without any regard to the Marriage-Joys, made a Leap at the Mouse, which Venus took for so high an Affront, that she turn'd the Madam into a Puss again.

MORAL: The extravagant Transports of Love, and the wonderful Force of Nature, are unaccountable; the one carries us out of ourselves, and the other brings us back again.

Another Saturday Night Creature Feature

Another woman/monster that springs to mind is this creature from the classic Star Trek episode "The Man Trap." No, she's not the star of Cougar Town, she's a salt vampire. Although she looks hideous in her native state, she has innate cosmetic powers that transform her into a seductive creature (yes, I know what this sounds like, but I assure you, she's not the star of Cougar Town), able to be the woman that you most desire. She uses this power to lure men into private places for her own purposes. What she craves is hot, white salt, and once she's sucked you dry, she discards your husk.

An Exercise Video for Your Enjoyment

Now, I know most of you out there may not find Kelly Brook as attractive as I do. Still and all, I think this curvaceous gal is, well, very bone-able, and I think this exercise video is a great example of why.

What she has going for her:

• Delicious curves
• Cute face
• Great smile
• Accent
• Beautiful hair

And in the video, you get to see:

• A trainer almost as sexy as Kelly
• Foxy boxing
• Mamboing
• "Bum busting"
• Hula hooping!!!

Seriously, that hula hooping almost pushed me over the edge. That motion with her curves, and her smile--it's just too much. But enough from me. Enjoy.

Where to Meet Chicks Supplement

Recently, a couple of lists of the best places to meet chicks came to my attention. One was in Men's Health July/August issue. It lists the 13 best places to meet chicks based on 3 "scientific" rules.

Rule 1: Build your romantic network. Principle being if you become friends with a lot of women, one of them is going to set you up with her friend. Places to become friends with women (and men):

Dallas Sport and Social Club, where it recommends coed kickball, which, fortunately, you can do virtually anywhere these days

ImprovBoston theater performance classes--"Women like a man who can make 'em laugh." (Okay, they didn't say this, but I think the Genie did in Aladdin.

Durham Bulls Athletic Park--buy a bunch of tickets and have friends invite friends. Then root for your team, building up your testosterone. This is guaranteed to get you laid (unless you paint your face or your belly).

Volunteer groups--"Selflessness is sexy."

Rule 2: Let chaos be your wingman. Go places. You might run into women.

Santa Monica Farmers' Market--"tap into a spirit of sociability, exploration, and inquisitiveness." They do note that you can find a closer market by gong to localharvest.org

Yelp.com--this can lead you to places "where all the cool people go," which is fine if a) you believe this, and b) you're one of the cool people, in which case you're probably not having too much trouble meeting people, b/c you already know where you go.

Waterloo Records (Austin, Texas)--People are more attracted to someone who shares their musical taste, apparently. But you can only meet people at independent record stores.

Ikea--that's right, Scandinavian furniture will set you free. Or the Apple store. Or, if you're the more active type, go to L.L. Bean or REI. Go to a store and talk to women.

Rule 3: Use spare time as show time. Did we mention you need to get out of the house to meet women? And show off. Women like that.

First Fridays at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. According to a U of Iowa study, women are more concerned with a man's intelligence and education than good looks and financial prospects. Which is why every PhD I know has to fend 'em off with a stick.

Movies in the Parks (Chicago)--People are apparently really social at these things.

Mile High Music Festival--Did we mention that people like people wth a similar taste in music? Oh, we did? Well, how's about this--go to a music festival because it attracts a more diverse crowd and you can meet people with different tastes in music. Maybe you'll hit it off with them.

Philadelphia Punk Rock Flea Market--Meet strange people here.

Bank of America Chicago Marathon--Apparently the real goodie here is training for the marathon with someone. You can look forward to it together. And if you survive, maybe you can call her and find out all you really had in common was the marathon. This might be great if you're a runner looking to meet other runners, but if you are, you've probably met 'em.

And that was their list.

I also ran into a featurette on thefrisky.com, generally a terrible website, but in this case it was interesting. It was basically a bunch of women sharing anecdotes about where they met their guys. Turns out a surprising amount of them met him in line somewhere. The grocery store, the bank, buying tickets for a game or movie, or buying food at the game or movie.

This makes perfect sense to me. You're there. She's there. You're both waiting. Strike up a conversation. It happens every day. There's no pressure. If she's married or a bitch or thinks you're an idiot, you can just part company after you check out, but if not . . . well maybe you don't have any place to be, and she doesn't have any place to be, and the rest of the story just writes itself.

Saturday Night Creature Features

I've always been a fan of the Sam Cooke song "Another Saturday Night." I like most of the witty lyrics, including

Another fella told me
He had a sister who looked just fine
Instead of being my deliverance
She had a strange resemblance
To a cat named Frankenstein.

Whether he's referring to the doctor or The Monster, you've got to agree it's not exactly the quality a man wants in a date. But it did inspire me to try out Saturday Night Creature Features, which combine two of my interests--women and monsters--by focusing on female monsters.


Appropriately, let's start with The Bride of Frankenstein. It's interesting how attractive and relatively normal she is. A face uninterrupted by scars, petite but plump lips, and of course that crazy hairdo give her an exotic attractiveness. Where The Monster seems befuddled at the world and staggers through it clumsily, she has an intense stare that sees the world and she immediately knows what she does and does not want, choosing the doctor over her intended mate. Her gown gives her a columnar stature, and automatically makes her more like Frankenstein and less like The Monster in his rough-hewn clothes and huge clunky boots. She is, obviously, a better creation, a straight retelling of the feminist joke about man being God's rough draft and woman the final one. And tragically, inevitably, she rejects The Monster's advances, making this another retelling of The Monster Gaze.

Not Quite as Good as Shakespeare in the Nude

Remember when strip clubs got the brilliant idea to have their "actresses" perform Shakespeare? The idea was to avoid local ordinances against nudity b/c nudity was allowed in connection with legitimate theater. Well, this isn't quite as good, but entertaining for about 30 seconds.

Princess of Sluts(k)

I dunno how faithfully y'all have been keeping up with Harem Girl and Slave Girl, but did you see the selection from Anastasya Slutskaya? Princess of Slutsk sounds like a title you might find at Miracle Video, but apparently Slutsk is a city in Belarus and this is a historical epic about an eastern European Joan of Arc. The first couple minutes of this are worth watching. Amazing how clean-shaven those Russian girls were in the 16th century!

Christina Hendricks

A couple days after I posted my redheads entry, this spread on Christina Hendricks in Esquire magazine was released. She is a gorgeous, curvaceous gal--always a treat. If you haven't already, you should read the interview that accompanies them. Pure fluff, but it talks a lot about how she loves pork. (Don't we all?)


Upon seeing the pictures, some people cry "photoshop," but aside from evening out skin tone and the like that they always do, I'm not sure how much was done. Personally, I'd cry "shapewear." If you've got one or two assistants, a corset can do a lot for a woman, and that can do a lot for a man. Corsets will be the subject of a future blog.



Anyway, here are some miscellaneous pics (some of which I've posted before) by way of apology for my omission.














I'm not sure either red or green suits her that well. She does look great in black though. The close-up shows her looking tired, sad, and enticingly tragic.

Gisele Bundchen Offers More Tips for Modeling While Pregnant

Pick a strategic angle!

Bikini Fatigue?

Last issue Entertainment Weekly put celebrity bikini fatigue on their bull's eye. My initial response was: You've got to be joking. Then I looked at the pics and said, yeah, I'm tired of them. But still it isn't fair to discard the whole celebikini season on the basis of a couple of ladies that nobody really wanted to see that much anyway. They really need to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

So here's my guide to some of the celebrities hitting the beaches this year, a few representative swimsuits, and my personal fatigue level with each of them.

AnnaLynne McCord: Extreme Fatigue.

She's EW's poster girl for bikini fatigue and I've gotta agree. I think this is the first time I've seen her in a bikini, but I sure as hell don't care about her. And look at her chipmunk expression. Take her away!






Kim Kardashian: Heavy Fatigue.

Do I object to high heels and a bikini? No, sir, I do not!











Do I object to wearing makeup while playing on the beach? No, sir, I do not!













I love the eye-mystifying design on this swimsuit. I keep hoping it's like a magic eye and if I unfocus my eyes just right it'll disappear.










To this plastic photo shoot I do object. Take it away!













Gemma Atkinson: Heavy Fatigue.

If she looked like she did in the photo shoot for her calendar, I might not get tired of her, but she went pale blond and her skin seems so pale and a little less fit. She looks fatigued herself.

















Jennifer Connelly: No fatigue.

She's older than a lot of these other women, but she looks great. And she has personality and talent. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her, especially if she wears bikini bottoms that are a little less weird.








Katy Perry: Ambivalent.

Her music is really damn annoying, which is a good argument for why she should spend more time on the beach in a bikini. And she looks pretty nice, but would it kill her to smile once in a while?








Marisa Miller: Gimme More!

Honestly, how can you possibly get tired of Marisa Miller in a bikini? She is the perfect California Girl. Sun-freckled face that has character, sun-bleached hair, and a great bikini body. Idyllic cleavage, hourglass curves, and--wait for it--an awesome curvaceous ass.



































Bar Rafaeli: Gimme More (beach pics)!

Rafaeli is, I think, one of those women who gain/lose weight in their breasts first. Candids on the beach often show her with pretty big breasts, but when she is modeling they seem much smaller. And I know it's not just photoshopping (as if they'd shrink her breasts), because I've seen her in a couple interviews where she looks really small.



















Kelly Brook: Gimme More, Much More!

I dunno why I never get tired of this girl, but I don't. Soft, curvaceous, feminine, I just love her body. And these pics offer some pleasant surprises.


I would even say she looks pretty cute fully clothed!

London Fog's New Ad Campaign

Flashing: Not just for scabrous old pervs!
(Yes, that's Giselle Bundchen. I think they rejected the slogan "Trenchcoats: Something you can still model while pregnant.")

Geek Power and the Rise of the Redheads

As I said before, for a longtime Hollywood & American as a whole was caught up in the blonde/brunette dichotomy. Occasionally, redheads would make a splash (Rita Hayworth (note the tiger behind her) or Ann-Margret, for example) but for the most part they were considered comedic and didn't really register as sex symbols.

Then in 1988, things began to change. This was the year Angie Everhart hit the scene in all her redheaded glory. She is considered by some to be the first "supermodel," and she was the first redhead ever to grace the cover of Glamour magazine. Apocryphally, she had been told that "Redheads don't sell," by the head of a modeling agency. Well, they didn't, but suddenly they were about to.

The same year, Geena Davis was allowed to be her redheaded sexy self in Earth Girls Are Easy. Sure it's a comedic role, but she wouldn't have been cast if the director wasn't sure she'd excite the audience appearing in a bikini in the movie's opening sequence. She really is hot in all her nipply see-through bikini glory, but here she is as Odette the Brunette "vampire," since I know that's what everybody's into these days.


Coincidentally, in 1988 I was dating my first redhead. An Irish girl with pale, freckly skin. She had long, wavy, thick red-brown hair. She was short and curvaceous. I fell hard and she broke my heart into at least a million tiny pieces. Every now and then I'll step on one in some unswept and unexpected corner of my memory. They are tiny but sharp.

For the public at large, the redheaded sex symbol had arrived. Tori Amos broke out as a sexy singer/songwriter in 1992 (Suzanne Vega had of course released her significant Solitude Standing album in '87, but didn't quite make it as a sex symbol (yet?)). In 1993, Gillian Anderson hit the scene as agent Dana Scully in The X-Files. Also in 1993, Julianne Moore definitively broke out of soap opera hell with a bit part in The Fugitive and her bush-baring appearance in Short Cuts, really the only reason to see the movie. She boldly stood on the camera without her skirt on, showing off the bright orange of her cedarn cover, all the while carrying on a heated argument with her onscreen husband. She confirmed that redheads are indeed fiery and indomitable, and that it makes them all the sexier. When she followed this up with The Big Lebowski, she went one further, showing that redheads are smart, too, and that smart can be sexy.

To be fair, I ought to give props to Nicole Kidman and her turn as the sexy damsel in distress in Dead Calm in 1989. Yeah, she was a redhead then.

Since 1993 we've had a regular stream of redheaded sex symbols like Lindsay Lohan, Amy Adams, and of course songstresses Jenny Lewis and Neko Case.

But what allowed for this sea change? Molly Ringwold made a splash in the early to mid-80s with her brat-pack shtick, and as the cute ragamuffin sidekick in Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (okay, so this contributed essentially zero to her fame, but in elementary school I couldn't go see the movie, but I remember my best friend describing it, and it seemed sexy at the time. Of course, we did have a tendency to exaggerate the naughty bits.), but by '86 she had pretty much evaporated and never quite made the transition to mature stardom.

What she had done, though, is capture the heart of "The Geek" incarnate in two subsequent films. And if we look at the redheads making their way into mainstream sex-symbol status, the majority of them are "geek" icons. I think this holds true, even to this day.

Why are geeks more likely to love the redheads? Well, traditionally, redheads are

• Free-spirited
• Fickle
• Strong-willed
• Smart

Many of which most guys hate, but which geeks embrace. Strong-willed, smart women? Geeks love 'em. After all, somebody has to make the first move and know what to do in the sack!

Long before they went mainstream, geeks have been in love with redheads. Mary Jane Watson has been the love of Peter Parker's life since the 60s, and the redheaded sex mutant Jean Grey has been wowing the comic book world since shortly thereafter.

Unless he can muster up some form of superpower, though, the redheads, like all the other girls, go to the hunk in the end.

Movie Review: Vicki Christina Barcelona

Vicky Christina Barcelona is a movie that had a lot of pre-release buzz surrounding the lesbian make-out scene between Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz. Anybody who went to the see the movie hoping to see a passionate, sensual scene starring two of our most most beautiful celebrities (the same hope that brought many of us to the theater for the otherwise lackluster Black Dahlia) were probably disappointed. Johansson is a good actress, and she displays a lot of emotions really well, but I've never scene her convey passion well on-screen. She's great at love, longing, even lust, but when it comes to passion, it rarely surfaces (with the exception of the rain scene in Match Point). I don't think it makes her a bad casting choice here, for reasons that I'll revisit in a little while.

Vicky Christina Barcelona is a movie about threesomes, sort of. From the title on, the movie revolves around several proposed or realized threesomes, but this is no Wild Things. All the threesome activity unfortunately happens off-screen, despite the fact that they've got an ideal configuration for a visually appealing threesome. Curvaceous blonde with pale skin and a darker-skinned, more athletic brunette makes for a great-looking threesome. I understand the stars might not want to be involved, but I wouldn't complain about reasonable body doubles. But, whatever, I'm obviously not a well-respected director like Woody Allen, and I guess he knows what he's doing.

So, without the possibility of hot bedroom action, what're we left with? Quite a lot, actually, and this turns out to be a really good movie. First, it's a movie about love, attraction, and what draws us to and repels us from the people we care about. It's crucial to this theme that the characters in the movie be attractive enough to convince us that people love them despite their flaws. Thus, it's crucial that Christina (Johansson) have a charming smile and a rocking body that looks great in the casual American styles she wears as well as an honest and sincere persona that lets us excuse her fickle immaturity. Maria Elena (Cruz) needs to be even more appealing because of her violence, anger, and self-destructiveness. And Cruz pulls it off wonderfully. From her dishevelled hair to her smoky eyes that simultaneously show pain and spit fire to her sensual body to her beautifully inflected Spanish, we can't help but love her.

And let's not forget Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who has to be great from the very beginning when he walks up to our heroines Vicky & Christina and proposes that they fly with him to a tiny Spanish town for a threesome. He's wonderfully costumed in soft sensual fabrics and portrays his character with such casual charm that I would've considered hopping on that flight.

But Vicky Christina Barcelona is not just about threesomes. To some extent threesomes stand in for any life experience that is outside of the norm, and how different characters respond to threesomes stands in for the whole of how they approach new experiences. Christina, of course, is immediately engrossed in the idea of the novel experience, but eventually bores and must move on. Vicky, on the other hand, is initially repulsed. But later she grows curious and explores the option, only to learn that she is just not prepared for the scary danger of stepping outside her comfortable life.

This is a great movie. In my opinion, it's one of Allen's best. A joy to watch, with an impact that endures. Anybody who hasn't seen it should definitely do so.

Ever Despair about the Time between Posts on this Blog?

Now I know I have even fewer readers than my friend over at the Larryville Chronicles, but I do know that there are a couple of people out there who wish this blog were updated sooner. If you ever find yourself wishing I would post an entry, here's someplace you can go:

Raul Z. Duke's Style of Eye

There are two main things to recommend this blog: his entries are more insightful than mine, generally, and he collects a lot of images. Look, for example, at this great retrospective on Penthouse covers. Very nice work, full of nostalgia for those of us who grew up with access to only two adult magazines, Playboy and Penthouse. Penthouse, of course, was the really dirty one, the one that made you feel delightfully unclean after you finished. Duke reminds us that sleazy ain't always easy, and as clumsy as they may appear, there is still an artist behind all those cheap-looking images. I also love his appreciation for horror/exploitation posters. And his ability to appreciate truly good-looking men without tainting his heterosexuality.

The only disadvantage is that his blog updates even less than mine does.

More Pulp Pleasure

Ever wish there was some way to satisfy your titillating desire to see beautiful women attacked by cephalopods without going beyond the pale and getting caught in the world of tentacle porn?

Well, there is: an awesome collection of octopus magazine covers, most of them featuring bikini-clad buxom beauties in need of imminent rescue: Octopulps!

Some new, but most old, this is a great collection of covers. Few of them are really what might be called "art," but boy are they fun! With titles like "The Deadly Blonde Wench of Waikiki" how can you possibly go wrong? And don't forget to check out Iris Bristol, the Christopher Marlowe of smut.

Are These Erotic Paintings?

I have read descriptions of these paintings as being erotic, but for myself I'm not sure. They're in the category of 19th century paintings that received attention primarily because of their perceived eroticism, including a significant amount of scorn, parody, and being banned from public view. Similar paintings were reproduced in saloons all across the country for their perceived eroticism, and many paintings similar to the second one were even reproduced and displayed regularly in upper middle-class drawing rooms to show that the owners were cultured because they could tolerate an appropriate amount of "scandal."

These paintings are both by Gustave Courbet, who I learned about probably four times in four different art classes as one of the paragons of realism, but for some reason these works never came up.

I'll give the paintings first and then give my commentary. I guess some people might be offended by the graphic nature of the images, so if you're one of those people, take advantage of the white space below to avert your eyes.














This one is called L'Origine du Monde (Origin of the World). According to Wikipedia art criticism (surely the best in the world), "The framing of the nude body, with head, arms and lower legs outside of view, emphasizes the eroticism of the work." But I don't see it that way. This is such a powerful realist work that neither romanticizes nor embroiders its subject that it almost gives the illusion of making no commentary, of allowing the viewer to come to his or her own response, be it revulsion or arousal. Of course, that's not the truth. Like all realist works, merely showing the real is not the goal. The real is merely a path to understanding. What we're to understand is that this is where we all came from. That's why the image removes extraneous material to focus on the relevant material, and is composed in a way that encourages the eye to travel from the vagina to the one exposed breast, around which a milk-white garment is crumpled. The second image, Le Sommeil (Sleep), seems to me to really be an erotic piece, though, with arousal as one of the primary effects it seeks to achieve in its viewers. Concealment is one of the means it uses to achieve this. By not showing us what we want to see, it makes us want to see it more. This is also a surprisingly romanticized (in the vulgar sense) image for Courbet. Note the shiny bright skin on the women and the smooth, pale colors of the backdrop. Note also how the women's flesh doesn't press together the way it would with real sleepers. Especially telling, I think, is that the pale woman's head doesn't disturb the idealized shape of the darker woman's breast.

What do y'all think?

Finally, a 3-D Movie I'm Excited to See!

I haven't seen any of the recent batch of 3-D movies in 3-D, and I don't really feel like I've missed out on much. Finally, though, a 3-D movie is coming out that I'd love to see: Piranha 3-D. Oh, yeah, that movie that terrorized me (and probably some of you) so much as a kid is coming back. I didn't realize as a kid that the director of Piranha would go on to direct so many movies that would have such a big impact on me. Joe Dante went on from Piranha to direct Gremlins, of course, and its sequel, and another influential kids movie Explorers. He also directed Innerspace, a movie I have probably an inordinate fondness for, and Small Soldiers, ditto. His real classic, though, is of course, The Howling, the first and best real exploration of the sexual nature of werewolves. Without Joe Dante there would be no Harry Lupus, and, without Piranha there would be no Joe Dante as we know him. (And, in a minor note, Piranha 2: The Spawning helped launch James Cameron's career. (One of the best things about Piranha 2 is Milhouse's description of a scene that I can't even remember is or is not in the movie.))

But what makes Piranha 3-D potentially awesome is that it stars curvaceous Kelly Brook, in a bikini



(With what some claim is serious camel-toe, but may just be crinkly fabric.)
















fooling around with a porn star.

I dunno if current 3-D movies are as sleazy as those from the 70s, but if they are Kelly Brook can certainly add some dimension to a picture.

The Results Are In . . .

I opted not to jump on Maxim's top 10 sexiest women list when it appeared, but waited until the other major men's magazine, FHM, published its list for comparison's sake. Here are the lists:

Maxim's 10

10. Jennifer Love Hewitt
9. Jordana Brewster
8. Rihanna
7. Adriana Lima
6. Eliza Dushku
5. Mila Kunis
4. Malin Ackerman
3. Bar Rafaeli
2. Megan Fox
1. Olivia Wilde









FHM's 10

10. Katy Perry
9. Anne Hathaway
8. Heidi Montag
7. Elisha Cuthbert
6. Adriana Lima
5. Madeline Zima
4. Jessica Biel
3. Scarlett Johansson
2. Jessica Alba
1. Megan Fox

One of the first things to consider about these two lists is that one is a "Nebula" style list, selected by a small board of editors, while the other is a "Hugo" style list, generated by popular votes. So, of course, the popular vote list is going to include more familiar names.

Still, I don't think the editors at Maxim distinguished themselves at all here. I mean, Olivia Wilde is like a stick figure that sometimes gets boobs photoshopped onto her. Malin Ackerman, I've already said all I'm gonna say about her for now. JLH can be pretty hot, but not, I'd say, top 10 hot. FHM's list is, if not great, at least credible.

But I will say that Megan Fox has had so much media exposure she feels like sloppy seconds. It might be different if she were a better person, but every time she opens her mouth, something caustic, idiotic, or bitchy drips out. Perhaps I'm being a little mean, but her character just seems so nasty that I can't look at her without feeling slightly repulsed. Although I still have to admit that she does have nice eyes.

Bettie Page and the Brunette Revival

About 75% of the women I've known "worship" some icon of femininity. What exactly this means varies from case to case, but at a minimum it means putting up 1 or more images/posters of the icon in every personal space and professing an interest or admiration of the icon, often without any knowledge about her. Although there are exception, I'd say about 90% of these women worship 1 of 3 icons:

• Marilyn Monroe
• Audrey Hepburn
• Bettie Page

Women who believe they are or aspire to be attractive use Marilyn Monroe as an icon. Those who aspire to have "class" or "style" are adherents of Audrey Hepburn. Those who think they are intelligent, sexy, or free-spirited follow Bettie Page.

Although I've never really been a huge fan of Bettie Page (which I know is odd, given my pin-up enthusiasm), I have to say that the latter group of women have always been my favorites. I feel that through them, and through her general social contribution, contributed a great deal of happiness to my life. When she passed earlier this year, I felt a surprising pang of sadness.

Bettie Page's image became associated with the sexual revolution partly because of timing. She became the Dylan or Shakespeare of, well, smut, because she was in the right place at the right time. But, like Dylan and Shakespeare, she also became that icon because she had a rare talent. When you look at her images, there's a kind of power that she always reserves. She isn't there for us, isn't merely an object of our gaze. She's there for herself. Her smile (and the mock-terror she occasionally employs for the bondage images) has an impressive genuine quality. She portrays a kind of innocence that enhances the scandalous nature of some of the images, and then normalizes them. The net effect is a statement that a woman doesn't have to be a degenerate to enjoy her sexuality. She can be healthy, happy, and sexy all at the same time.

Because Page is a raven-haired beauty, brunettes profited more than other women from this change. Brunettes had always been a little naughty (I'll talk more about that below), but now, suddenly, that was a good thing. Brunettes were seen as smarter, tougher, and more independent, all qualities that have been increasingly valued in women both in society and in fiction.

It's not that there weren't big-box-office brunettes in golden-age Hollywood. But there weren't many. Ingrid Bergman, maybe. But there were two things going against brunettes, especially really dark brunettes, in early Hollywood. First, the simple schema established by filmmakers, with the good guys wearing white & the bad guys black meant that good women were blondes. Second, if I may cite The Little Sister again (and, heck, maybe I'll do it again in the future), dark-haired women had a taint of foreignness, especially Spanish blood. The blonde in Chandler's novel is sexy, almost desirable, but the brunette is over-sexed, dangerous, manipulative, and Spanish (?). This begins to dissipate in the 50s with Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jane Russell, but it isn't until the exotic element of Latin blood is embraced through Raquel Welch and Sophia Loren that brunettes are free to really move to center stage. And, of course, these things ebb and flow. I believe that the current brunette revival would have been impossible without mainstream culture embracing Latinas and African-American women as it did during the 90s. But now the trend is definitely brunettes.

If you would know what woman is

If you would know what woman is, what
strength the read of man unknows, forever
cannot know, look, look! in these eyes, look
as she passes, on this moving thing, which moves
as grass blade by grass blade moves, as
syllable does throw light on fellow syllable, as,
in this rare creature, each hidden, each moving thing
is light to its known, unknown brother,
as objects stand one by another, so
is this universe, this flow, this woman, these eyes
are sign

--Charles Olson, "For Sappho, Back"