Well, and one of the time-wasting internet quizzes (which one are you? I’m the meta one) going around is the Fashion Style Test over at OK Cupid, which is actually quite fun to take, in part because the testmaker has acknowledged that most quiz questions have no good answer, and you aren’t going to like the choices you are given. The test breaks down into four categories, as these things are wont to do, being in this case Tastefulness (Flamboyance), Originality (Conventionality), Deliberateness (Randomness), Sexiness (Prissiness). Your Humble Blogger came out Tasteful, Conventional, Random and Prissy, the category called Librarian. If I were simply to describe myself by those choices, I might well choose Tasteful, Conventional, Deliberate and Prissy: The Office Master. The sketch of the Office Master looks more like something I might wear, although it also looks to me more like a librarian’s stereotypical outlet than an Office Master’s. Certainly more like a librarian’s outfit than the librarian one does. Although as Jed points out, there are other traditional librarian’s outfits as well.
My first significant thought, in fact, was hunh, are they really claiming that librarian is the opposite of sexy? My second was are they really claiming that prissy is the opposite of sexy? Particularly as they appear to (from the questions) define sexiness as showing lots of skin and prissiness as covering up. Well, and I suppose that’s true, and then it’s also true that a very sexy outfit can cover a person up head to toe and still be sexy. And an outfit that shows a lot of skin can be a turn-off. It depends on the outfit, on the person wearing it, on the person seeing it... one of the reasons why librarians show up in porn so much is that the stereotypical look (high-neck shirts, long black skirts, hair in bun, etc, etc) is very sexy indeed, in part because it covers up so much. And although I don’t claim to be sexy myself, I must say that I think that a fellow who was sexy might well be much sexier dressing the way I do than dressing in shorts and a muscle shirt. Or not. Depends on the fellow, on the point of view, on the mood, on the moment.
See, the thing is, people are different one to another. There isn’t really anything that is definitively sexy. Lots of things that other people clearly find sexy I find horrifying, or dull, or annoying. Lots of things that I find sexy is, I’m sure, dull or annoying or horrifying to plenty of other people. Furthermore, much of what I find sexy I don’t even find sexy, unless I do, and some of what I don’t find sexy at all, I find tremendously sexy if I happen to find it sexy. You know? Models don’t define the world, and by model here I’m not talking about a professional picture subject but a scheme for predictions. I could say that, for instance, my Type is curvaceous shortish brunettes with low voices, and that could very well be true. I could find most curvaceous shortish brunettes tremendously attractive, but then there are curvaceous shortish brunettes who do nothing for me. There may well be tall slender blondes who I find attractive. A muscular redhead. A guy with a beard. I can’t predict it, and I can’t do much about it. I think Marilyn Monroe is the epitome of sexiness, and so is Audrey Hepburn, and so is Mandy Patinkin. What are you gonna do.
There’s a difference between a type and a password; if I think that somebody who Isn’t My Type doesn’t have my password, well, I’m going to be surprised at who I’ve let in. And, I should add, that password can expire without warning, and the person can be issued a new one. Have y’all ever had the experience of seeing someone you used to have a crush on, and thinking, gosh, I remember being crazy about him/her/it, and he/she/it is certainly very attractive, but there’s sure no chemistry there. And then a few months later, you see him/her/it again, and your eyes bug out, and steam comes out of your ears, and there’s that a-OOO-gah sound, and you have a variety of embarrassing physical reactions? It ain’t logical, boys and girls, and others, things just is.
So I may find a particular fashion style trampy on Sally but HOT-HOTT on Suzie, and then I may find it trampy on Suzie next week, or HOT-HOTT on Sally next week, or maybe not. My point is (a) that setting up fashion rules by what is sexy and what is not is a fool’s game, and (2) it’s a good idea not to spend effort worrying about it. You know? I’m not saying you should proposition every sexy woman/man/g’koid you see, but I perceive a lot of people spending a lot of concentration and effort ruling people in or out based on some criteria other than their own actual reactions of the moment.
Of course, I also think all women are beautiful (except of course a few yug-uggs). In a novel I once read (I can’t remember which one), a fellow used to play do-her, a mental exercise where he would walk through Manhattan (where he worked) until he had seen a hundred women, counting how many he found attractive. He figured a good day would see something like twenty-five attractive, if I remember correctly. I have done that myself, and I usually clock around eighty, counting only women who appear to me to be between twenty and fifty. The number drops off over the age of fifty, although for (apparently) fifty to sixty-five I would guess I would still be over twenty-five. I find it too disturbing to clock the teenagers; I was too creeped out by older guys ogling teens when I was a teen myself, I guess. Anyway, the point is that my reaction to the game was that the Manhattanite of the novel must live in an ugly world in his head, a world where imperfection was ugly and he looked for imperfections. That may have been the intention of the author (I couldn’t decide; I thought that the author was showing the shallowness of the character, rather than his pickiness), but still, I think a lot of people succumb to that. By the way, I don’t recommend this game. Even if you can keep your hands to yourself, and your face and eyes schooled, and give no offense to the passers-by (and you, like me, are probably not as good at that as you think you are, even if you take into account that you aren’t as good as you think you are), you are still creating in yourself a habit that can lead to trouble later. I’m not agin girl-watching, but as I’ve been saying, the idea of categorizing women into attractive and yug-ugg is dependent on your mood and hers, the weather, the surroundings, etc, and you will fool yourself into thinking that the categories exist and are meaningful. They aren’t, any more than the categories of Librarian, Office Master and Glamorous Soul. The world, I’m afraid is more complicated than that.
... and that’s what makes it interesting and fun.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.