Ok, I wrote the original version of this post over on Livejournal about eight years ago, at the request of someone, I believe, who asked me what my criteria for sexy were since I’m all over the board with my attractions.  They’d said they couldn’t put a finger on what my “type” was.  The answer is:  I don’t have a type.  Different people ping me on different levels all the time, and to be honest, being physically hot is one of the least important of these.  I mean, it’s a factor.  I like looking at pretty as much as the next visually stimulated primate of any gender or species, but there has to be more.  So I wrote a version of the following to clear that up, and I’m posting it here to shut down the cries of “You’re just a shallow bitch!” when I post about Tom Hiddleston, Matthew Gray Gubler, or Freeman Dyson.

The Layers of Sexy

There are levels of sexy. They are mostly the same for celebrity crushes and people I’ve actually met. It goes something like this:

1. Eyecandy. Ooo, they’re bright and shiny. For examples, we shall use the Rayment twins (or Tom Hiddleston).

Ok, before I’d even seen Matrix Reloaded, the commercials and the posters of the Twins made me tingly. Ooooo… Creepy-sexy-hot.  (Loki, “You were made to be ruled!”  *swoon*)

So, being me and having the internet at my fast little fingertips, I do a little research. Ok. Without the make-up they’re still hot, don’t quite hit the kink button as heavily, but still hot. I read a few interviews and they sound pretty intelligent and quite witty. Which leads us to the next level:

2. Intelligent. I can talk to you. And I don’t have to stop and explain myself every third word. As far as celebrity crushes go, I can only rely on interviews for this. But intelligence only enhances the sexiness. Lack of intelligence… If I can hold you at eyecandy distance ok, but it’s diminished. There were a couple people at the club where I used to bartend like this. I’d watch them from afar, but the minute they opened their mouths I cringed.   Holding the pretty and dumb at arm’s length is way easier with celebrity crushes because you don’t ever get to talk to them.  And while I have a lot of patience with people who genuinely are not smart, demonstrate to me that you are instead Willfully Ignorant, and it’s over.  I’m done.

3. Twisted fucking sense of humor. Ok, this one you can sometimes get from interviews for the celebrity crushes. But mostly I reserve this for folks I meet. If I can say things like: “I find once you stitch their mouths shut, the screaming isn’t so much of an issue,” and you don’t look at me in wide-mouthed horror, you may live. You may even hang out with me. And to be honest, if you react to the above with horror, you don’t want to hang out with me anyway. And if you can make me laugh with lines like the above, you are so hot.

4. You can keep up with me. Not just sexually, but mentally and verbally as well. This is why I love the Geek Husband What Rules. He is one of the few who can keep up with me in all arenas. He’s as smart as I am, often wittier, and can keep up with me sexually and physically, and by physically I mean when I slug him in the arm, he slugs me back. And I can wrestle with him without worrying about hurting him.

In sum: While all of the sexy layers are nice, they are not all required. Ok, intelligent and sense of humor are definitely required. The eyecandy level I have been known to skip entirely for someone who had a hot enough brain and twisted enough sense of humor. Because lets face it, you have to talk to them eventually, but all cats are grey in the dark.

Now, the problem comes when you place the most importance on, or even get stuck at, level one:  Eyecandy.  And this is the problem I have with the way a lot of guys in this society are conditioned to view women.  They just want hot.  They don’t care if she’s smart, if she has a nice personality, if she wants to save the dolphins or the rainforest, or if she even has compatible interests.  They are looking at her as if she were an object they have to win and maintain.

Many of this particular brand of guys don’t know anything about these women they “fall in love with,” apart from appearance.  Their “feelings” are based on the same thing that catches your eye when you see a hot car or a beautiful painting.  In order to have actual, functional relationships, you have to look below the surface and find out if you’re compatible on more levels.  See, this is the thing, I KNOW my crush on Tom Hiddleston is primarily based on shallow, surface attraction to the pretty.  And seeing as I will likely never meet him, you know, that’s ok.  It’s a silly harmless infatuation that will probably pass eventually.*  Granted, every interview I see with him is sort of feeding the crush right now, but again, that’ll probably pass in time.**

I’m not trying to have a relationship with Tom Hiddleston, so it doesn’t matter if we have nothing in common.

The game changes when you try to have actual relationships with people.  Look, if she’s into health food, the gym, mountain biking and tanning, and you’re into playing X-box until your eyes fall out of your head looking like shriveled up little raisins, and you survive on a steady diet of Rock Star energy drinks and Cool Ranch Doritos and can’t remember the last time you SAW the sun, you probably aren’t going to mesh.  And here’s a hint, girls who spend a lot of time working on their bodies are generally into guys who spend a lot of time working on their bodies, too.  Because they’ll have shit they can talk about.  Just like girls who are really into comics and video games are really into guys who are into comics and video games.  They’ll speak each other’s language, and that’s really important.  Yes, I do know people who have successful relationships who are each passionate about different things, but there’s usually some overlap somewhere.

Now, I’m not saying anyone has to “settle.”  What I am saying is that you’ll be happier in the long run with someone you can talk to, than with someone you have nothing in common with, who is simply pretty to look at.  I mean, I can only speak from experience, the Geek Husband What Rules and I have been married for 18 years now, and we’re still disgustingly schmoopy with each other, we game together and separately, we don’t read the same comics but we both love the ones we do read, and we don’t usually play the same video or computer games, but we both love the ones we do play and like watching each other play them.  We were both history majors, we both like to write, and we’re both totally bent.

There is no guarantee of success or happiness in marriage, but if you can find someone you actually like as a person and not just as an object or trophy, and who likes you back, you’re going to have a better chance out of the gate.  Maybe later we’ll discuss relationship warning signs.  You know, like hating all your friends or calling your hobbies a waste of time.

If you like the blog or the podcast, or if you would like to help fund continued marital bliss, please, please, please donate to keep us going.  Donations go to pay for the podcast hosting and website domain, primarily.

Also, we’ll have an announcement about t-shirts in the next week or so.  Ok, more like “or so” but it’s coming.  Seriously, I have “stuff.”  Soon.  Really and truly.  Soon.

Oh, and we picked up the fuck off big fish tank.  I just have to figure out where we can put it. Seriously, it’s huge.  And that’s another level the GHWR and I are compatible on:  He doesn’t hate my over-riding desire to rescue ALL THE ANIMALS!

Remember we’ve got the GGR Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook page.

*Ok, I do have a few crushes that have never petered out:  David Bowie, but I swear that man isn’t even human, Adam Ant, Nightcrawler (shut up, I know he’s fictional), Johnette Napolitano, Siouxsie Sioux.

**The GHWR doesn’t give me shit about my crushes, and I don’t give him shit about his crush on London Andrews, plus size porn star.  Ok, mostly because I have a huge crush on her, too.  She fosters orphaned kittens!!!!!!!!