The other day, as is our wont, Rose and I were chatting on the phone about our lives, our families, current events, etc. I gathered from our conversation that she had not been watching the Olympics with the same avidity that I have been, and I talked about the various events I had been watching and why. As I have alluded in other posts, one of the things I have enjoyed about the Games of the XXX (heh) Olympiad is that many of the events feature attractive gentlemen in outfits that display the benefits of rigorous athletic training. Including one Mr. Ryan Lochte.
During our conversation, I mentioned the impression I had gotten that Mr. Lochte is not known out of the pool for being a scholar or raconteur. Indeed, the sense I had is that he is probably the exact type of lunkheaded dude whose presence I would flee in almost all circumstances. I brought up his famous “grill,” the less spoken of the better. And, after alluding to all of these things, I admitted to my best friend that they didn’t make any difference, and that my DVR would still be laden with Lochte-heavy events.
My co-blogger mused that this was a difference between guys and gals. No matter how pleasing to the eye a man may be for her, if he’s an idiot or a lout then it’s a total deal-breaker. He ceases to be attractive, even for the purposes of mere ogling. She had not observed the same reservations in men, who seem to be able to find a woman attractive no matter how brayingly stupid she may be. In this, I seemed to be more like my straight brethren. We then segued into a discussion of the merits of Timothy Olyphant.
In her own celebrated post on whether it is acceptable to ogle the comely, Rose wrote this:
Men like to look at hot women, and women like to look at hot men less. This doesn’t mean that women are less sexually interested. Women’s sexual interest lies, in a much greater degree than men, on being seen and being attractive. I think women get off more more than men on being found hot. I think men believe that the woman in a provocative outfit wants to get laid. I think she wants men to want to sleep with her, and both men and women underestimate the primacy of that desire in women. I am agnostic on whether this is cultural or innate, and for the purposes of this writing, it is irrelevant. I also think that of course, as with any generalization by gender, there are bazillions of counterexamples on either side. There are plenty of women who get off more on looking, and plenty of men who get off on being desired.
As I commented at the time, I think gay men fall in that last category to a greater degree than straight men. I don’t think it’s horribly uncomfortable for me to admit that I certainly do. No matter how hot I may think a guy might be, if he doesn’t think I’m cute then I’m not going to find it all that tantalizing to spend the time with him. This is a reason (of several) that I find no appeal in the prospect of paying for sex, because if the attraction isn’t to me but to my money then it ceases to be potentially enjoyable. Similarly, as toothsome as Mr. Lochte may be, I won’t be spending my time daydreaming about him because I know that he is unmistakably fond of the ladies. (The happy existence of the Better Half renders this entire discussion academic, anyway.)
So, in my willingness to ogle the dunderheaded I seemed more like heterosexual men, and in my desire to be ogled right back I am more like women. I am at peace with that. However, with regard to the former I seem to have found a threshold below which I apparently cannot tolerate a potential object of my fascination falling.
To wit (by way of a rather silly essay in the New Republic), this feature in Jezebel about why Mr. Lochte is “America’s Sexiest Douchebag” (her word, not mine):
If you like going out and having no-strings-attached sex just for fun and tension release, I ain’t mad. Sometimes one night stands can be fun (I hear), and there’s no reason to assume that every one night stand involves two insufferable douchebags trying to catch glimpses of themselves in a full length mirror, Patrick Bateman style. However, while not all one night stands involve douchebags, most of the douchebags I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in life really, really love one night stands. One night stands are such an important part of Ryan Lochte’s dating life, apparently, that even his mom knows they’re all he ever does. Yesterday, she told Today,
He goes out on one-night stands. He’s not able to give fully to a relationship because he’s always on the go.
Friends, I would rather fill my ears with Gorilla Glue and then stick my head in an anthill than discuss my sex life with my mother. (Mom, if you’re reading, I think we’re on the same page here.) The fact that Mr. Lochte and his mother chat about such things with each other and then publicly suddenly renders him markedly less attractive.
There are many other reasons listed in that piece, among them Mr. Lochte’s taste in footwear, a sample of which is displayed above. I’m sorry, people. Those shoes look like something hallucinated by the love child of Hermes and Elton John while listening to John Philip Sousa during a particularly bad acid trip. I just can’t.
There is, thank heaven, always Dannell Leyva.
Anyhow, what with the more heady Democracy Symposium convening over at the main page, consider this your space to discuss the relatively less taxing topics of physical attraction, brains, and the combination (or lack thereof) of the two.
Hey, check out that Kendra Wilkinson person you linked to. She’s hawt!
(Actually, she’s “reasonably attractive” and I’d far, far prefer the society of my wife, who I think is at least equally physically attractive if not more so, closert to my age, as well as smart and charming. But that truth sort of ruins the joke.)
I once, for some reason, watched an episode of “The Girls Next Door.” I was struck by several things:
1) The lives of the women on the show, while cushy and materially comfortable to a jaw-dropping degree, also seemed soul-crushingly boring. How many pool parties can a person attend before they lose their appeal? What the hell do these women do all day?
2) Even blurred out, Ms. Wilkinson’s breasts appeared obviously fake. They may as well have been made out of Legos.
3) I’m sure she’s a dear, sweet woman, but I couldn’t bear listening to her speak or (even worse) laugh for more than two minutes. She is… not a genius.
I don’t get the big whoop about her. Not only do I not like fake things (fake boobs, fake blondes, fake tans), but she just isn’t particularly pretty. She strikes me as the type of person who may actually be prettier without all that crap, but I dunno… Her face just doesn’t scream “beauty”.
What I find fascinating about Ryan Lochte is that while he is, as you put it, exactly the kind of person who turns me off (in whatever sense of that phrase you’d like to imagine I’m using it) in almost all circumstances, every time someone hates on his crazy antics – like the grill, or those shoes – I find myself actually liking him more. That grill is kind of amazing. It’s absurd, in your face, juvenile jingoism. Ironic Ryan thinks that’s just the funniest thing imaginable.
Also… “something hallucinated by the love child of Hermes and Elton John while listening to John Philip Sousa during a particularly bad acid trip” sounds way better than you seem to be implying here.
Is it possible to find someone sexually attractive ironically?
I assume that’s how my wife views me.
Space awesome
Well played
I just googled him. I was expecting hotter, even minus the stupid.
Matt Grevers is secretly the sexiest member of the US Olympic swim team. Just FYI.
Check out Mr. Leyva.
If it’s U.S. Olympic eye candy we’re talking about, my preference runs to
soccerfootball. Alex Morgan in particular is easy on the eye (although her official Olympics photo is not hugely flattering; it doesn’t take much to Google pictures of her looking much better). I’ve no idea if Ms. Morgan is smart or not, but as you note, for the salacious male viewer this is not a pertinent area of inquiry.The young lady is also quite an athlete and the US Women’s team for which she plays is favored to best Canada today in the semifinals. Does it make an athlete more attractive if (s)he is on a winning team?
Google Image Search. Totally. Thanks, Burt.
Wait.
http://wizbangblog.com/2012/07/26/olympic-babe-of-the-day-alex-morgan/alex-morgan-soccer/
And suddenly she’s just another girl making kissy face at the camera. Which is, of course, an utterly unfair assessment, but if I wanted to evaluate her on her actual virtues, I wouldn’t be playing this game in the first place.
Does it make an athlete more attractive if (s)he is on a winning team?
Something tells me just got a little more attractive, then.
I note with wry amusement that this post has been picked up on Twitter by @ryanlochtenews. Let’s all see what happens.
“Everything you say about the lovely Ms. Likko is quite spot on.”My co-blogger mused that this was a difference between guys and gals. No matter how pleasing to the eye a man may be for her, if he’s an idiot or a lout then it’s a total deal-breaker. ”
It’s been a long, long time since I and all of my friends were young and single, but FWIW my memory of those years this is not really so true. In fact, I had the distinct impression that for many, many girls around my age when I was in my 20s, being a lout, idiot, jerk or creep in addition to being hot was a bit of a girl magnet.
huh. the first paragraph above had been intended to be a reply to Burt above, and an acknowledgment that his better half is space awesome. the second part was quoting Russell from the op.
stuck together like that, it just looks weird.
I will note that the comments of the Jezebel article are full of women saying “yeah, what a douche, but I’d totally hit that anyway.”
I saw that, too. But they do seem at least a little ambivalent about it.
It’s not uncommon to see very attractive women in their thirties or forties married to intelligent, funny, personable men of no particular physical glamor, both raising the kids from her first mariage to a hot jerkass. I don’t know why the sociobiology crowd doesn’t go bonkers over this.
Spend some time around the people who do talk about this, and be glad that it’s not more a part of the conversation than it is.
Allow me to be clear: a man’s personality is more relevant to a woman. That is NOT to say that she always prefers that he be nice. Sometimes she prefers the jerk. But then the jerkiness is relevant.
Absolutely personality is more relevant.
It gets old quick when the dick above the shoulders is bigger than the dick below the belt.
I’ve long believed that the importance of male personality and the importance of female looks are both overstated in popular culture. Though it does reinforce itself, at least somewhat, insofar as partner-selection is based on social positioning. If everyone thinks that looks are all-important, then even people who otherwise wouldn’t care as much start caring more less for the looks themselves and more for the positioning that the looks represent. For instance.
As far as male personality goes, when we meet someone, we make judgments by filling in gaps. I mean, we don’t really know someone until we get to know them for a while. We make assumptions on their personality.
There’s an old cartoon I’ve heard about how to pick up chicks. It shows a nerdy guy saying something like “What’s your sign, baby” and says that this is the wrong way. Then it shows a good looking guy saying the exact same thing and says that this is the right way. The difference between depth and nerdiness is sometimes defined by things that a guy is not saying and how he is looking saying it.
This isn’t a condemnation, as these things happen more above-board when it comes to men, so who am I to say? Nor is it dispositive in comparison with men and the common perception that looks matter more.
It’s just that the difference is not nearly as determinative as a lot of people think. Attraction is a complex soup all around. It’s also something that changes with age and priorities. Not just that we’re consciously looking for different things as we get older, but that different things genuinely attract us in that magical way.
Ryan Lochte? He’s yesterday’s news.
Here’s today’s. True, I’m already married to a NASA engineer, but for those of you who aren’t…
1) I saw pictures of that guy, and did have my usual “hmmmmm….” reaction.
2) I also was thinking congratulatory thoughts about your husband, and imagine he must have been chuffed as all hell.
The scientists, engineers, and computer guys at NASA — brilliant as always.
Whoever named it “Curiosity” instead of something more swaggering — amazing.
And the guy who gave it its own Twitter feed — space fishing awesome.
I’m friends with the woman who is part of the triad who writes Curiosity’s tweets.
That’s right. I know the person who wrote the, “I AM IN YOU” line.
Muscles turn flabby, good looks are eventually replaced by the face the person deserves, and gravity will have its way.
This is why it’s important to find someone who can cook.
Nobody mentioned Nathan Adrian, whom I consider the most attractive Olympian I’ve seen this year.
Barbara