Aphrodite Kallipygos, Plus Dr. C's (Pseudo)Science Corner

So, while trying to come up with blog topics for buttock augmentation, I came across the Aphrodite Kallipygos, who inspired me to write a series of blogs starting with "Does this Peplos Make My Butt Look Big?" about the appreciation of large buttocks in Western culture. I always knew that the Greek notions of what makes a woman attractive were ass-centric, but this statue of a woman lifting up her peplos to check out her own ass is classic.

Also interesting: a psychologist in Britain claims to have developed a formula for determining the aesthetic value of women's butts. Here it is:

(S+C)(B+F)/(T-V)

Where S is shape (highest rating: like a small peach), C is circularity (pair of pink grapefruits), B is bounce (doesn't quiver during aerobics), F is firmness to touch (latex-coated cricket ball), T is texture (like a baby's), and V is vertical ratio (like a pert pair of breasts). Apparently, the ideal number is around 80. Obviously, this is somewhat subjective, so it isn't really "scientific" (but when is psych ever?), but next time you go out to the bar, you can go up to a woman and tell her, "I'm trying to calculate the perfection of your ass, and the last data point I need is firmness to touch. May I?" See how that goes over.

This research is a nice complement to the breast biomechanics department at Portsmouth University. Let's hear it for the Brits!

Why Isn't Katy Perry Smiling?

Here is a pick of boombox babe Katy Perry on vacation. She's on the beach. She's in a bikini. She's on the beach. It's sunny and (presumably) warm. Q: Why isn't she smiling?




















A: That Corona obviously isn't cold enough. Perhaps someone can tell her where to get a colder one. . .

SPD's Gift Guide for Guys

Having trouble finding a gift for that man in your life? Here are a few ideas that are sure to go over well with guys of all ages.

Classic Erotica

Sure, he's read Fanny Hill, and can tell you all about the "vermillion-capped gentleman," and "any port in a storm," but it's likely that he's not familiar with anything between that and Anais Nin. Fill in the gaps in his knowledge with recent CHEAP editions of Victorian/Edwardian porn for his Kindle book reader. Titles include The Memoirs of a Voluptuary (an exciting bisexual tale), and The Erotic Adventures of Arabella. No matter how you feel about electronic texts, they do make available titles that no one would bother to print. And if he doesn't have a Kindle, hardcopies are available, too.

Sexy Calendars

Calendars, as a general rule, make terrible gifts, but a sexy calendar is a great gift. The calendar serves as a justification for having titillating pictures hanging around. And it will make it more fun for him to keep track of all your important dates. After all, when he's looking at Kim Kardashian's picture ten times a day, one of those times he's bound to notice that your anniversary is coming up.

Pinups Galore

What man doesn't love pinups? And now you can get all your favorite hot celebrities as pinups in the recent book Hollywood Pinups. This book has received some serious flak from Amazon users, but I think these people don't really understand pinups. Pinups are fun, flirty fantasies of impossible women. They are sexy, but really only at the same level as a wink. Pinups are not Penthouse centerfolds. They'll never be mistaken for a gynecological exam. Instead, pinups are idealizations of the feminine form to give men an everyday encounter with the kind of beauty that thrills on a visceral level.

If you want original pinups, you can always check out my favorite current pinup artist, Andrew Bawidamann, but if you want something from his shop, count on getting it for next Christmas--he's a one-man operation and can be a little slow to ship.

The Personal Touch

Feel weird giving your boyfriend or husband pictures of other women? Why not give him pictures of yourself? Used to be that if you wanted to have a sexy photo shoot, you needed to involve all kinds of people, but nowadays digital cameras and at-home publishing mean you can make your own sexy calendar or pinups. You may think he doesn't look at you that way anymore. Perhaps all he needs is a little reminder.

An Interesting Logo

This is the logo for the Healthcare Economist Blog. I guess I can accept that they'd pick a mountain to represent them (who doesn't love mountains?), but is it just me or does that mountain have a nipple?

Brits Get Special Treatment

While American gents were treated in their quarterly to much-promoted pics of Jennifer Aniston promoting her dumb dog movie














Their British counterparts were given a much better selection, with this sultry neo-noir spread of Jessica Biel.

















Jessica Biel has the distinction of being one of only two women to make both Maxim & FHM's top ten hottest women two years running (with Scarlett), and I think she's far more worthy than Aniston of receiving attention in a men's magazine.

Aniston definitely has gossip interest for some and certainly has her place in a woman's magazine, but to my mind Aniston hasn't been at all compelling since she ditched her Chotchkies' uniform.

Scarlett in Spirit

So I'm not particularly interested in Spirit. Independent of the strip (of which I know nothing), the movie looks like a lame attempt to recapture the success of Sin City. And since 300 made me wish someone would just cleave my head in half and get the whole thing over with, I really can't get excited about another Frank Miller piece.

But this promo pic of Scarlett Johansson is really hot. It makes me think that if I were a bachelor with no familial obligations on Christmas Day, I'd probably see the movie when it opens.

Not only is this a gorgeous representation of neo-retro-noir dangerous/sexy gals with the black, the hat, and the bright red lipstick, but Scarlett looks simply beautiful here. I'm very happy about the resurgence of Chix in Spex. Between Tina Fey, Sarah Palin, and now Scarlett, women are taking to big glasses in a big way. You just see it all around, and I like it.

And, of course, not to be ignored is Scarlett's cleavage, which once again shows the superiority of natural breasts over fakies. Natural breasts have a subtle curve to them, something inscrutable, the product of the dramatic interplay of flesh and gravity. And it is this subtle shape to which true breast men, with a fully developed sense of breasthetics, are drawn.

Fake breasts take the shape of the implant, namely "round," or, more properly, circular. They are the shape of breasts that you learn how to draw in third grade to amuse yourself and your friends, and they stimulate at about that level. Don't get me wrong--I won't eschew them altogether--but fake breasts are like Velveeta, a plastic parody of the real thing. Better than nothing, but not sufficient to satisfy your real craving.

Incidentally, ever wonder who's responsible for much of the sameness of Playboy, FHM, and Maxim model's breasts? Michael Ciarivino, "The Breast Doc," wants to take much of that credit. With his streamlined approach, he says, he can do boob jobs faster than anyone, does more than just about anyone, and really likes 'em big & "round." The more I see, the less impressed I am.

The Tender Flower

The other day I walked into a conversation about how men have "junk" "down there," but women have a "tender flower," which reminded me of this add I saw for vaginal rejuvenation, which I thought was funny and obscene, so I've reproduced it here for your edification.

And of course, it brings up the subject of euphemisms for a woman's "most tender part," which is always a fun one. I've found a couple of good websites, although unfortunately one of my favorites, "butter groove," is nowhere to be seen.

http://www.starma.com/penis/muffy/muffy.html has some interesting stuff, although the site has many more euphemisms for a man's "fearsome engine."

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQTyRGW4u_yI46ds6m9H6kZ2wtrQqb5Zi8-CUZKWvjrzsvA4Gr8GuJX_Xz9w1MT8FtvtxLt2zUVntqwfRDowoTYf2IfX2qE-GmMyMJnoVRMavklxuQA8KXaTI9B11SFrccCrzqfB26UVP/s1600-h/v.euphemism.png is a bar graph of survey results of women about their favorite quiffisms.

And, in case you didn't have enough trouble finding your way to the well, here's a word search for love box handles http://www.wordsearchfun.com/58859_Euphemisms_for_Vagina_wordsearch.html

Have fun.

Ginger Spices up Award Show

I don't spend too much time thinking about the Spice Girls. I unfortunately run across Posh Spice all the time as an occupational hazard b/c of her big fake boobs. It irritates me that anyone thinks that expressionless automaton is at all attractive, let alone a model of beauty that other women should strive to achieve.

Much more attractive is Ginger Spice, Geri Halliwell, who is also appropriate to this season of gingerbread houses and gingerbread men. It's nice that she's shed the fake glam image of the Spice Girls

for a much more comfortable one of hot mama.

Over the weekend, she created quite a stir when her red dress was caught in the wind, revealing to one and all that she was not wearing any panties. Although she received a lot of flack for this, even receiving an "embarrassing outfit of the day" award from a blogger, I say this is totally unjust.

This is no Britney-style, I'm too drunk to realize I'm flashing my cooter as I get out the car in my miniskirt. This is a woman whose outfit is tasteful and, I think, attractive, who decided either on the basis of comfort or on the way it fit with the skirt, to go without panties, and the wind caught her skirt. It happens. In fact, I think it gives a very positive message: even responsible mothers can (and should) go without panties every now and again, and if the wind gives people a free show, count it as a sign from God that he looked down and it was good.

Skinny v. Curvy and Tits Aplenty

SvC is a blog I read pretty frequently. I discovered it when i was looking for material related to the Sex in the City movie, when there was an entry on Kristen Davis, who, apparently, showed how best to dress for the pear-shaped body. It said she had come to terms with her body partly by learning to dress for what she had and stop wanting what she didn't.

Since then, I've discovered that this blog, while superficial, is pretty good for collecting pics of celebrities in all forms of dress and using them as the focus of aesthetic discussions about what makes women beautiful. Since I like that topic, I return frequently, both for work and recreation.

So one day I came across this breast showdown. Now, Megan Fox may ostensibly be the hottest woman on the planet but to me the winner here is a no-brainer. Salma Hayek has some of the best breasts on the planet. There are a lot of things to like about Megan Fox, and they did a nice job of making her look pretty good in Transformers, which was considerate of them because otherwise there wouldn't have been anything worth looking at. But her breasts are nothing special. With all due respect to the readers of InTouch magazine, they certainly are not among the top ten pairs of celebrity breasts.

What surprised me about this post though, was that a number of readers commented that Hayek's breasts sagged too much. Really. It's pretty unbelievable. I guess there are a lot of people out there who don't understand that real breasts, natural breasts, if they are of any size at all, have a certain heft to them. They acquire a shape that is a geometric compromise of forces between gravity, mass, internal cohesion and skin elasticity that is not only natural, but is generally considered attractive. That shape is highly convex on the bottom, slighly concave on the top, with the two curves meeting at around the nipple/areola complex. You can squeze them flat to create convexity on top, which has its appeal in certain situations, but is overall not a really attractive look, in my opinion. However, according to a recent survey by the American Society of Plastic Surgery, that's how many women think their breasts really should look all the time.

Real breast sagging is only when both the concave and convex hyperbolae grow steeper, the meeting of the two descends, and the breasts grow flatter. I don't see any of that here. Just a pair of really beautiful breasts.

If you go to SvC to look at this post, you might also look at the ones about Hollywood Pinups (including Kate Hudson!) to get a preview of a future subject . . .

Where to Meet Chicks #1

Okay, so I know this is going to be a real disappointment for y'all, but the number one place to meet chicks is:

Special Interest Events

or whatever you want to call them. I haven't come up with a good name, but it's basically anyplace you go to enjoy the things that really matter to you. If you're a long-distance runner, it's a marathon. If you love music, it's a concert. If you love motorcycles, it's a ride or Sturgis or something. I can't really tell you where the best place to meet chicks is, but I bet you already know. You might put it hypothetically, "Wouldn't it be awesome if I could meet a chick at . . . X!" And you know what, you can.

But, Dr. C, you might be saying, What if what I really love is Y, and hardly any women like Y. True, but the way I see it is that numbers don't matter, and ratios don't matter, there really only has to be one woman there--the one for you. And besides, the less women, the better. If you want to meet a run-of-the-mill, everyday woman, you can look on the bus or at the bar or the grocery store, but if you want to meet a special woman, you've got to look someplace where the selection isn't just Jane Schmoes off the street.

Situations like this, though, require a little more than bar-banter or grocery-store pickup lines. You've got to shine, you've got to be impressive, and you might not think you're up to it. But remember, you're in your element. Draw strength from your surroundings and let your best self out to play. Who knows what could happen . . .

Where NOT to Meet Chicks

Okay, so I know you are all eager to learn the number one place to meet chicks, and I know it's been a really long time coming (sorry, I got sick & I got tired from framing, then unframing, then reframing in the basement.) But first I want to share some of the ideas I rejected in coming up with my list. It's not that these places are bad. I'd've never considered them if I hadn't noticed many possibly eligible women around to think about them. It's just that they're not good enough.

The Movie Theater When I was a teenager and we'd go out to the cheap flix theater out at Bear Valley, I often thought of trying to pick up girls there. There were a lot of them around--all dressed up a little skanky, to be sure--and they were hanging around and I was hanging around. But, here you are, with your friends, and so you've got some obligation to hang with them. And then if you go up and talk to a girl before the movie, well, chances are she's going to a different movie. And then, after the movie, you're all tired and wired from the movie you saw, which, again, is likely not the one she saw.

The Zoo Yeah, I know, you think of moms pushing prams or escorting dirty, loud kids around the zoo. And, although many of these women are not unattractive, most of them are married. But I noticed that most of the people working in the cages feeding the animals and cleaning up after them were young women, and fairly attractive despite the zoo uniforms. It occurred to me that working at the zoo would probably be a good entre into meeting a lot of available women. But then I reasoned that they were probably high-school aged girls working off community service hours or some other reason for doing volunteer work, so probably not a good bet.

The Park There are a lot of attractive women at the park. Jogging or hanging out to read or whatever. But the running ones are hard to talk to unless you run up alongside them, and then they look at you weird (plus you've gotta be in really good shape to hold a conversation while jogging). And the ones at the benches with the books are trying to read and look at you weird. The truth is that it's hard to approach women at the park because men in the park are automatically suspected of being a) rapists b) flashers c) pedophiles or d) perverts of miscellaneous unsundry types. If you're gonna have any chance here, you need to have a dog, which at least gives you a healthy reason to be at the park.

Where you are now I actually considered this for #1 for a while, because I've always liked the "love the one you're with" motif for meeting girls. Wherever you go, there are pretty much always women there, and if you just talk to them, you might meet someone who turns out to be a good match. But then I realized that most people would be reading this column at home, and if you've already got a woman there, why are you reading this series?

So, anyway, there's where not to meet chicks. I'll post the #1 place to meet chicks later this week . . .

Where to Meet Chicks 2

School

School offers an excellent opportunity to meet chicks. We all remember that home-room angel with the soft, fuzzy sweaters too magical to touch, and the truth is that the girls just keep getting better and better looking year after year. In almost every class, there's at least one hot chick, and once you go to college the opportunities just increase. Now there are 20,000 or more men and women of legal age, but still young and mostly unattached. And you're not stuck with just a few girls in your classes, but the entire pool keeps rotating with each semester. And if you get into your core classes and find you're just not meeting the girls you want to meet, why not try a semester as a nursing major? Or ceramics? And if you don't have the time and patience for that, you can still hang out and scope out the chicks as they go to class.

It's also really easy to start talking to these girls. You've got a built-in conversation-starter, and that conversation can easily transition into grabbing a cuppa joe or meeting outside of class. If you can't figure out how to make the first move in starting a conversation, you can get a little more face time by manipulating your teacher's group selection algorithm to your advantage by sitting next to our four seats away or whatever. When I was teaching, I saw many a guy using group work to make time.

In informal surveys, the majority of couples I know met at school. Hell, it's how I met my wife. So why isn't this the number one place to meet chicks? Well, at a certain point, you run outta school. I know there are a few of my readers who are PhDs and still unattached. And although there's always continuing ed, I'd definitely have to say that after grad school the quality of leads tends to go down.

Where to Meet Chicks 3

Work

I know I wrote earlier about not dipping your pen in the company ink, and office relationships have a bad reputation, but the truth is that work is like the bar and its bad rap comes from the fact that so many people hook up at work and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't it often really doesn't. I heard on the radio a study indicating that relationships starting at work have no worse a success rate than those that start elsewhere.

Even Fox News' resident Sexpert says it's okay to date your coworkers. Who am I to argue with a cute and presumably educated media columnist? She also gives some advice on how to tell if you're feeling the stirrings of love (or at least lust) or if you're just happy to spend time with her because she's the best person you work with. They're pretty straightforward, but useful:

If you only fantasize about her at work or on your way to and from, then it's probably just a work crush.

If you're happy to work with her when the opportunity arises, but when 5 o'clock rolls around you're ready to roll, then it's nothing serious. It's when you start staying late to work with her that it might be something more.

And if you're volunteering to take on extra work just because it means the chance to work with her, that's a good sign to.

A coupla pieces of advice. The first is the one Mary-Louise Parker receives in the movie that introduced me to her (and her pert little tits) Grand Canyon: Be prepared to lose your job. If that's a significant consequence, then put the romance aside. If you can take the job or leave it, then by all means, pursue that bright elusive butterfly.

Next, don't get involved with a married woman. One of the main reasons office relationships get a bad rap is that they're often adulterous. It's in your best interest, too, her husband might not be a nice guy when you get to know him.

Finally, if you're gonna do it in the office, please keep it to your desk, and, for god's sake, clean up after yourself.

Where to Meet Chicks 4

Church

Call me a Romantic--or something--but I treasure the notion that inside every primly quiet church girl is a soul lusting for lust. Oh, she denies it--not least of all to herself--but she is a storm of passion: you bring the thunder, and she'll supply the wind and water.

Okay, so that's probably just me, but church is still a very good place to meet women. There are many single women looking for a man, because that's what they've been told will make them happy. And maybe you can be that man. And maybe you can make her happy, although truth be told a man's about the last thing that'll make a woman happy. And we know it, too, but that doesn't stop us from trying, sometimes really hard, especially when they look at you with those hazel eyes and you realize that the purpose of a man is to love a woman.

Christian churches hate to see women remaining single, so once you establish yourself as an upstanding member, they'll practically throw women at you with numerous supervised social events that can springboard to unsupervised social events. Or else they'll lure you to an underground lair where they hook you to a milking machine. Depends on whether the church is in the Kansas or Missouri mode.

Advantages: Time: not only do you have the entire sermon to survey the crowd for prospects, but if you can't work up the nerve this week, there's always next week. Plus, it's easier to look the slightly bad boy in this crowd.
Disadvantages: If you're not the marrying type, this may not be the place for you . . . Also, make sure you're prepared to keep coming back for the rest of you life (not to mention afterlife).
Classic pick-up lines: I never cease to be amazed at the beauty of God's creation. Did you know that lustful souls go to the second circle of Hell? That's practically Limbo!

Uganda Seeks to Ban Mini-Skirts

Uganda is threatening to become the second African country to ban miniskirts--can the US be far behind?

Unlike Kenya, which not only banned miniskirts, but proclaimed a man showing anything between his knees and his waist was "naked,"the ban was not proposed for moral reasons. Instead, it is being proposed because women wearing them distract drivers and cause accidents.

We all know what happened with the O'Henry heiress, and this serves as a reminder: wait until you stop at the light to gawk.

Natalie Images for Nog, etc.

Just something I came across as an occupational hazard:

And a reminder why red carpet affairs might be fun:

Where to Meet Chicks 5

Conventions/Conferences

Conventions can be a great place to meet chicks--they're full of them, especially most academic conferences. And it's a great jumpstart. You're there. She's there. You're both away from the prying eyes of friends and family that are normally always looking over your shoulder and cramping your mojo (or at least that's a convenient excuse). There's a general party atmosphere without the same old routine to shackle you. And you know you've got something in common if you're hitting on a fellow conventioner, or if you're trying to make it with a local, you can always open by asking for directions.

If things go well, it can be a whirlwind affair with a definite endpoint. You can make her the focus of the next three days or whatever, and never make a commitment beyond that if you don't want to. And if things don't go so well . . . this was a business trip anyway, right? And there's porn on tap back at the hotel. Speaking of porn, though, apparently the Exxxotica trade show is not a good place to meet women.

Advantages: It's sometimes easier to put it on the line when you know you most likely won't have to see this woman again. And there's nobody to see you go down in flames.
Disadvantages: If you're unlucky, you might have to see this woman again and again at conventions, depenending on your profession. Wingman? Where's my wingman?
Classic pick-up lines: Honestly, I don't know . . .

Where to Meet Chicks 6

The Music Store

There are a lot of stores I considered for this list. I mentioned the grocery store--and stick by that--but there's also the book store, the hardware store (once recommended to Chip), the shoe store, the "paraphernalia" store, even the porn store. You can see a lot of hot chicks at any of them (Unless your porn store is Miracle Video, in which case you'll only see trash and utility truck drivers) but the music store is the only one that belongs on this list. Why? Because if you meet a woman over music, you're halfway to the sack. With all due deference to Steely Dan, the girls always care what's on, and the right music can be the difference between, "Gee, nice place you've got here," and "I wanna f--- you in that chair!" And it's not just for her, it's for you, too. You know what certain songs can do to your wood. And if your music tastes aren't compatible, it's never gonna work, anyway. You won't like everything she likes and vice versa, but if you can't learn to like, or at least tolerate, 40-60 % of her music, give it up now, because sooner or later the cumulative irritation at her tunes will eventually push you over the edge.

So what better place to check out her pedigree than at the music store. Here you get to see not just what she has now, but what she's considering, and you've always got an automatic place to start: you know the band, you don't know the band but you want to, you went to the concert, you missed the concert. And the conversation can just flow from one band to another, so there's not that "what do we talk about after the first topic dies?" moment.

Advantages: All the kids are at home downloading music. If nothing else, you can always buy an album.

Disadvantages: It's very easy to get distracted and just end up buying the album instead of talking to her.

Classic pick-up Lines: "Baby, let's put the x in sex." "Let's kick some bass behind closed doors." "Baby, I'm hot just like an oven, I need some lovin," "Would you be mine?" etc.

How Does an Article on the Exxxotica Trade Fair Show up on a Sedation Dentistry Newsfeed?

Read the article and use your imagination . . .http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/without_the_whips_exxxoctica_h.html

Where to Meet Chicks 7

The coffee shop

I can hear the outrage already. You rated the coffee shop over the bar? What's wrong with you? I can understand your disgust and am perfectly prepared to admit the bar might be a better place than the coffee shop to meet chicks, but here's my rationale:

Bars and coffee shops are essentially antithetical. One sells depressants, the other stimulants. One is frequented more at night, the other more during the morning. People go to one to act stupid & to the other to look smart. So it really depends on which you think is your better mode. My informal research indicates the two are about equal, but personally I think it's better to play the "smart" card.

While you may meet more chicks at the bar, you're more likely to hit on a longer-term relationship at a coffee shop. It's like telemarketing: if you're a great cold-caller it's better to have a long list of low-quality leads, but if you work the big sales you're unlikely to make headway with that kind of list.

Advantages: Bright light and stimulants make sure you know what you're getting yourself in for. Sunday morning girlfriends come here to commiserate about all the stupid, lame guys hitting on them at the bar last night--perfect opportunity! Chix in Spex. Chix with Bux.
Disadvantages: Nobody checking IDs, and with the current HS addiction to premium coffee, definite Jailbait Warning. She will be sharp, too, and can see through your ruses.
Classic Pickup Lines: I couldn't help but hear you order a . . .
I see you're reading Flaubert. I read Flaubert . . .

Where to Meet Chicks 8

The Bar

Bars get a bad rap as places to meet people and hook up, but the bad experiences come about because nowhere is a greater cross-section of society brought together in an atmosphere designed to reduce social distinctions, encourage people to have a good time, and engage in ill-advised (often sexual) behavior. Sure, there are biker bars and hippie bars, frat bars and yuppie bars, but as our good friend Nog has shown, a well-behaved individual can go to any bar and mingle freely with the population as long as he doesn't show contempt for the other patrons and respects the unwritten rules of the bar.

Despite the dismal experience of the Larryville Experiment, I still contend that if you talk to enough women (not just ogle them suggestively), you'll meet someone with whom you have some level of common interest and may also be available for a relationship. And in the meantime, you can have great fun talking to girls you have nothing in common with and have no hope of getting anywhere with, but who look great, smell nice, and either have something interesting to say or want you to take pictures of them simulating lesbian sex acts with with a friend.

Unfortunately, because of its reputation and because too many people are too eagerto "seal the deal," the bar atmosphere can be stressful for everyone. Relax, focus on getting to know her, and have one less shot of courage before starting the conversation, and your chances are much better.

Advantages: Alcohol increases sexual excitement and depresses her judgement. Someone is checking IDs at the door.
Disadvantages: Alcohol increases your sexual excitement and depresses your judgement. You could be being an ass and not knowing it. Once inebriated, it's hard to control your wandering eyes.
Classic Pick-Up lines: They've all been used. Hone your favorite at home to give it a personal touch and just the right edge. Then forget it.

Where to Meet Chicks 9

9: The Bus
You might think that the bus population is just old skeezy bag ladies, and you'd be mostly right, but there are still a lot of great prospects on the bus (especially if you like 'em a little rough around the edges). The same young, liberal women who are drawn to mixed commercial/residential developments are also likely to move into hip redevelopments of dilapidated urban areas along bus routes. Still, the pickings may be small (or they may be large), but it's a really low-pressure situation. If you can't work up the nerve to talk to her today, there's always tomorrow. And if your route is crowded, one of these days she's gonna sit next to you.

Strike up a conversation at the stop or on the bus. There's a lot of things to talk about ("What's that smell?" "When the fuck are we gonna get downtown?") and you can play exciting games like "Whore or Stripper," and "Fruit Racing" ("Go Banana!").

Advantages: It's cheap. You look (and smell) good in comparison to that guy passed out across the aisle. You can always just watch the "people" on the bus go up and down.
Disadvantates: Jailbait warning: You don't need a license to ride the bus. Find out if there's a high school on your route--"I thought she was 20" rarely works as an excuse. Also, find out if your route runs by a welfare office. Women who ride these routes once a month are a bad risk.
Pickup Lines: Where do you get off . . . ? My stop or yours? Is this seat taken?

Where to Meet Chicks

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Built Like a Frigerator with a Head?

So lately I've been thinking a lot about roller derby girls. Yes, Jim Croce has something to do with it, with his strangely apt representation of an inexplicable attractiveness of a really rough-and-tumble woman. (Lately a couple that got away have been drifting through my mind--women I was just not tough enough to handle. I regret not having tried a little harder.)

But part of it is also their advertising. I mean, you see something like this on a lamppost

and it's hard not to think, hey, that looks cool.

There's a lot of roller derby clubs around, and they all seem to have a distinct graphic style.

And the ladies are not as scary as you might think (okay, so some of them are):

Mostly, it seems like a fun curiosity.

What I Actually Do for a Living

Essentially, I'm a writer for the web. I work for a search engine optimization (SEO) company. We get paid by plastic surgeons, lawyers, ophthalmologists, and cosmetic dentists to make sure that when a young woman types "breast enlargement denver" into Google, the first page of natural results (as opposed to sponsored links) should include our clients. This is tricky, because Google doesn't really tell anyone what makes a website show up. Every once in a while, they make vague pronouncements. What we do know is that Google likes older, established websites, and it likes informative sites.

Since we can't make our clients' websites older, we try to make them more informative by having more and more substantive pages on a topic than anyone else. So, for breast augmentation we start with a general page, a page on implant options, a page on incision options, a page on placement options, a page on complications, and a page on achieving natural results or something, depending on what the client wants. If they're still not doing well, we might add a page on medical complications vs. aesthetic complications, or we might add a page on how to decide how big your implants should be, cleavage determinants, correction of breast asymmetry, or what have you. Breaking in a client in a competitive market can take months and lots of wracking my brain to come up with new substantive pages.

Google also likes websites that are updated frequently, which the pages help, but can also be helped w/ a blog, so I write blogs for clients, sometimes every day, sometimes twice a week, sometimes once a month. These are ideally topical and current, but relate to the practice, like this one on Fall Fashion:

http://www.drrai.net/2008/08/return-of-classic-style-puts-emphasis.html

Google also likes inbound links, so we write up magazine articles that are designed to be informative, then get posted on e-zines and link back to our clients. For example, I wrote an article today on what Scarlett Johansson, Megan Fox, Tyra Banks, and Jennifer Aniston tell us about what size breasts a woman should aspire to in getting breast enlargement. I stop just short of telling women they really don't need them, since this is an article and not on a client's website, so I can take whatever angle I want. Most women who get attention with their breasts are really only B/C cups. It's usually a question of proportion, presentation, and attitude.

Anyway, that's most of what I do.

My Odd Job

So, this is what I've been assigned to watch for the past week. Some day this job will go away, and I will miss it. But for now, a good time is had by all.

Tribute to Pulps II: Spicy

Okay, so now it's time for a look at the seamier side of the pulps. Still I guess pretty wholesome, but fun and titillating nonetheless.

Looking at my captions from last time, they seemed confusing, so I'm putting descriptions after the images from now on.

I like this image from Spicy Adventure Stories. Exotic, dangerous, enticing. The translucent drapery that reveals/conceals, the luscious red lips, the narrow, deadly eyes of the woman waiting in ambush with her unmanning knife. I love the way it is so dramatically foreshortened to create the impression of extreme closeness. You are there, so close you can smell the musk and perfume of her body, hear her calm, deliberate breaths. Awesome.

Something of a generic image from Spicy Detective Stories. Woman in danger, about to be rescued, her clothes torn but somehow miraculously clinging. The main thing I like about this cover is it made me wonder: Was "snatch" used in its sexual sense already? The answer: yes, for several decades by this point, making the cover definitely risque.

Sally the Sleuth was a feature of Spicy Detective Stories. Although a fiesty dame, she always managed to get herself in some sort of sexual peril, often involving her clothes being removed. In many cases, the illustrators were not above drawing some sexual detail (this was, after all, inside the mag), but I like this artist's playful work with the lei and the grass skirt.

And then of course there's Wink, a full-fledged men's magazine, I guess, with its subtitle: "A Whirl of Girls," and its cover devoid of anything but the sexual content. I like the ambiguity of the cover stories. "Should babes be spanked?": beginning S&M or parenting guide? "Love below the knees" was either a popular story or there were several variant covers of this issue. At any rate, what does that mean? Footsies? Fetishism? Stocking buying guide? I sure don't know.

Tribute to Pulps 1

Having spent a couple days last week at the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, I thought I'd look at the wonderfully evocative women that graced the covers of pulp magazines, the kind of women that made 10-year-old boys aspire to acts of heteronormative heroism.

This is a great cover, coming in the latter part of the 20's and showing how scandalous these early covers could be. I'm not so big a fan of the aesthetic of the 20's covers. Although I like the clarity and simplicity of line they use, I don't like the tendency toward waify heroines. Nonetheless, this cover reminds me of some magazine covers where they airbrush out a woman's nipples to be able to expose more of the breast in an attempt to be evocative. Here, though, the candle cuts both ways, since it fools the eye for a moment into believing it actually sees the woman's nipple. Not to mention the odd, convenient tree.

This cover is good because its obviously S&M context seems really contemporary. The woman's outfit is practically the stereotypical bondage costume. And then to juxtapose her against the clothed or armored men completes the sense of perversity the magazine wants to use to entice its readership.

This cover, of course, pushes the nudity barrier just a little too far. At the same time, though, the revealing anatomical absence is interesting. It reminds us that what we are dealing with is fantasy. The images do not reflect real women or real men. All this is merely play. Simultaneously, it exposes the fantasy of control that is censorship. Censors may be able to remove the nipples from magazine covers, but they cannot remove them from real women, any more than they can stop real men and women from engaging in real sexual acts. Image suppression cannot effect mind control.

You gotta love Planet Stories, or, rather, I can't help but love Planet Stories. Classic woman harrassed by green BEM, late enough that this trope was standard fare. It's so formulaic, it's tempting to dismiss the art of it, but there are a number of cool things about this image. First, it's full of tension. Not just the suspense at the woman's peril, but tension in a real physics sense. As a static image, all the elements are balanced in terms of force pressing against each other. Second, it's so obviously a penis with tentacles attacking the woman. Third, the image powerfully controls the viewers' eyes. No matter where you look on the page, you are brought to the central image, which is a figure 8 or, more potently, an infinity symbol turned on its side.

A couple more Planet Stories covers. Not quite so well-done as the first, but good examples of the type of titillation the covers used. Shredded or revealing clothing and convenient angles that almost let you see what you want. Perhaps the story will tell you.

These covers may be a little sleazy, but I don't believe they're really degenerate. Although their dominant subject is woman, I don't think they are trying to or claim to say anything about women at all. Instead, their purpose is to celebrate virility. Action is the core element of their narratives, and sexuality is merely a side-effect.

The argument may not hold for the covers I'm looking at next time: "spicy" stories and men's mags.

Lesbian Aesthetic

In researching my last post, I came across something interesting. As some of you may know, Tina Fey was number one on AfterEllen.com's Hot 100 "The Sexiest Women, According to Women." Apparently, they receive over 100,000 votes from lesbian and bisexual women and assemble the results. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that the list is really different from the lists put together by Maxim or FHM, as you can see:

Maxim

1. Marisa Miller

2. Scarlett Johansson

3. Jessica Biel

4. Eva Longoria Parker

5. Sarah Michelle Geller

6. Elisha Cuthbert

7. Eva Mendes

8. Christina Aguilera

9. Lindsay Lohan

10. Ashley Tisdale

FHM

1. Megan Fox

2. Jessica Biel

3. Jessica Alba

4. Elisha Cuthbert

5. Scarlett Johansson

6. Emmanuelle Chriqui

7. Hilary Duff

8. Tricia Helfer

9. Blake Lively

10. Kate beckinsale

AfterEllen

1. Tina Fey

2. Jennifer Beals

3. Jill Bennett

4. Briget McManus

5. Leisha Hailey

6. Ellen Page

7. Sarah Shahi

8. Sara Ramierez

9. Kate Moennig

10. Lena Headey

No big surprise that they'd be different, right? I do think it's interesting that if you look back at the Larryville Chronicles "Babes" segment, you'll notice women from all three lists. Another interesting thing is the image selection. AfterEllen is much more likely to use just face shots than the men's magazines. In addition, while Maxim & FHM are more likely to put their hotties in swimsuits & lingerie, AfterEllen selects pictures featuring a slightly different attire:

And I'm not sure which is hotter. Love the hats!

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.