What is sexy?

 It's been a while...pandemic life, right!!  Well, one silver lining is that this time has given me a lot of perspective...it has allowed me to flesh out my ideas and even change a few.  It's good to just sit back, look around, and ponder.

The current idea which I'm currently tossing around is....well, let's start with a brief backstory.  I have been watching a lot of movies (Pandemic) and I started looking up some of the actors (They're all actors now, not actors and actresses...I think it's strange only because I was accustomed to the designation and did not see it as demeaning but I could be speaking from an area of naivety, so I researched, I thought this was a good perspective - https://www.playbill.com/article/actor-vs-actress-self-esteem-com-101726). 

So I as started down this research road, I started finding myself in these forums of who is sexist and all these sexual ranking systems.  I found it interesting only because they were explaining themselves and using some forms of logic to create sexual parameters.  Comical but still interesting. I reach an impasse were I deviated from the norm.

Now I could make this argument for men and women but I 'll stick to women for now. I will identify 3 actresses to start - Gwyneth Paltrow, Zoe Saldana, and Natalie Portman.

 

These women have consistently been in the top 20 of sexiest women in Hollywood and I have always been surprised at this ranking.  They are beautiful but they sex appeal (IN MY OPINION) is rooted is an age old idea of what constitutes sexiness.  Granted "sexiness" is a relative term but media for years has conditioned it anyway it could and more often then not it was based on smaller framed, long legged women.  I mean people still think Kate Moss was one of the sexiest women in the world and I always thought she needed a sandwich. 

 

 I just don't see the allure.  I had a buddy who brought his "very" thin girl to a party and he was so protective of her.  He thought guys would try to hit on her so he stayed close and kept asking us to stay back.  We were looking at him like he was crazy.  It wasn't that she wasn't pretty but she was just not the level he was making her out to be.  That's pretty much my position with some of these women who are portrayed as sexy and it's just not there.  Don't get me wrong, you can find a great number of men who will think these women are super sexy but I'm not one of them....now, if we want to go another way with this...I present 3 more women: Hayley Atwell, Serena Williams, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

   

Now, I will admit that AOC is not a performer like the other two but I will definitely says she is sexy( And being sexy does not objectify her or diminish her as a US Representative or a woman).

I guess the point I am trying to make is these women in my opinion are in the sexy conversation but will not be designated as such because they are to fat - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5058591/Hayley-Atwell-reveals-bullied-weight.html, to ugly - https://www.vox.com/2015/3/11/8189679/serena-williams-indian-wells-racism, or too serious? - https://www.ft.com/content/4983806b-3460-44a0-a5e7-6fffbc91603e.  It's like there is a belief that there's an accepted standard and that standard is what will be promoted and celebrated.  But unconventional standard will be ridiculed either subtly or quietly.  You can be sexy and smart but not too sexy, you can be beautiful and successful but only if you're the kind of beautiful we like...I digress, this is about sexy (def: sexually attractive or exciting.).  I find these women sexy and while they are different idea of it, I do not find these thin, barely there, women sexy at all (I mean they have their moments, Gwynth Paltrow in Iron Man?...but overall no).

There's a reason Kim Kardasian is popular and it's not her show.  It's like when you get too sexy, you leave being beautiful or someone who is adorned, and you move into a hyper sexual category where you are only seen is a sexual way.  She has made an industry out of it along with J-Lo, Cardi B, Pamela Anderson, and Madonna (That was a stretch but it still applies).  Sex sells and why not get paid for it.

 I'll put it in one last perspective - remember the old school Charlie's Angels? 

 

 

Now all of them were beautiful but Kate Jackson's (Right) character was smart so she was really cast as the love interest or the sex symbol (She was thin...honestly, they all were).  Jaclyn Smith's (Left) character was beautiful and "softer" (girl next door, strong but still approachable - always the love interest), more of the traditional beauty.  Then there was Farrah Fawcett (Middle) she was the curvy one of all of them and clearly the sex symbol (She was too sexy to be just a love interest).  One might think I'm saying curvier is sexier...and I am saying that, pretty and sexy are two different things.  I wish things were advertised that way but like I said some people like their sexy in different packages.