HOT-BABES-R-US (Or, R U CUTE, PRETTY, BEAUTIFUL AND/OR SEXY?)

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Y’all know Missed Periods, right? She’s the owner/operator of the cleverly named blog ‘Missed Periods And Other Grammar Scares’, where she educates her readers about punctuation and grammar in such an entertaining fashion that they ain’t got no idea they’re bein’ taught sumpin’. (I could use a few more lessons.)

Not too long ago, Missed Periods posted a blog bit titled ‘Crazy Sexy Men’ which she closed with this sentence:

“And speaking of the dictionary, in your opinion, under the word SEXY, whose picture will you find?”

My comment started thus... uhm... ‘thusly’? [Missed Periods, where ya be when I needs ya?!] :

First thing I need to do is differentiate between the categories. (I once considered composing an entire blog bit about this subject with photographic examples of each group, but I just never got around to it.)

I have 4 categories for desirable women:

1: Beautiful
2: Pretty
3: Cute
4: Sexy

Well, guess what, 'STUFFS' fans! I just now "got around to it."

Being the sort of man who appreciates the look of an attractive woman (in other words, “bein’ an ordinary bloke”), I have given this A LOT of thought over the years decades.

Most women would probably assume that most men would be most attracted to #1: Beautiful women. [Missed Periods, was that too many “mosts” in one sentence?] Followed by #2: Pretty. Then #3: Cute. And ALL women want to be thought of as #4: Sexy, or, at minimum, NOT thought of as a “dog”. (Don’t worry, babe, there are very few dogs out there, and you prot’ly ain’t one o’ dem. Besides, dogs need and deserve love too!)

Well, if that’s generally thought to be true by most men – that “Beautiful” is best and “Cute” is least in the ‘Battle Of The Babes’ - then I just ain’t like most men. (But then if you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes reading my blog, you already knew dat.) I will state unequivocally that there are plenty of Cute women I am more attracted to than Beautiful women.

I find that there really is four different classifications for the attractiveness of women. But I also find that there is a little bit of cross-over at times. For example: there’s sometimes a fine line between Beautiful and Pretty, and I’m not always sure which class I would dump a woman into. (Uh... well... if I couldn’t decide whether she was Pretty or Beautiful, the chances are I wouldn’t “dump” her at all.)

And sometimes there is a hard-to-define line between Cute and Pretty. However, NEVER do I find myself confused about whether a woman is Beautiful or Cute. (Is this classifying and labeling of women offending any of you females out there? Gee, I sure HOPE so! You’re so cute when you’re angry.)

The most intriguing, nebulous, elusive, subjective, hard-to-quantify – HOT! – category is #4: Sexy.

Not all Beautiful, Pretty, and Cute women are Sexy. Sexy women have a certain - I dunno - “It” quality that’s almost impossible to put into words, but it just makes a dudeguy’s motor immediately overheat. It’s not necessarily a good thing. I repeat: It’s not necessarily a good thing.

I can admire and I can desire a woman who’s Cute, Pretty, or Beautiful, but a woman who’s Sexy makes me... LUST! Sexy is a kinda Va-Va-Voom(!) essence that brings out the baser, animalistic tendencies in a man. It appeals to the raw, earthy, Pirate-y “Arrrrr!” instinct in a man. "Sexy" is that indefinable something that silently screams: "Jump my bones; have your way with me, boy!" It’s the difference between “loving” and “something-else-ing”.  ...I threepeat: Sexy is not necessarily a good thang. “This world” would probably be better off without it.

Below I will provide two photographs for each 'Attractiveness Category', as seen through Stephen T. McCarthy’s eyes. I’m not trying to imply that I’ve labeled all these women correctly; I’m stating outright that I’ve labeled them ABSOLUTELY correctly.

THE BABE-O-METER ACCORDING TO McME:

1 - BEAUTIFUL :



[GENE TIERNEY]

The founder of 20th Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, said that Gene Tierney was "Undeniably the most beautiful woman in movie history." 

Zanuck couldn't have been more right! Gene Tierney is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen anywhere. But the problem is, Tierney was SO beautiful that she seemed almost unearthly, goddess-like. Any woman who looked like that and allowed a man like me to paw her with his grubby little fingers would immediately lose all my respect!



[GENE TIERNEY again ...because she's just so luscious!]
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[CLAUDIA CARDINALE]

2 - PRETTY :



[MAUREEN O'HARA]



[AMY IRVING]

3 - CUTE :



[VALERIE BERTINELLI]

Oh, I had it bad, and that weren't good.
Until she went and married a guy named Eddie who was almost as "cute" as she was.



[RACHAEL RAY]

Get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans!
Well, roll my breakfast 'cause I'm a hungry man

3.5 – PRETTY CUTE :

This is a kinda in-between category. I can't quite decide if these two women are Pretty or Cute, so I've decided to call them "Pretty Cute".



[SUSAN DEY]

I once wrote a haiku about the 1970s:

Loud clothes! Fords explode! 
Seventies: silly, zitful. 
STILL want Susan Dey! 



[SALLY FIELD]

When she was very young and playing 'The Flying Nun' on television, Sally Field definitely fell into the 'Cute' category. But as she got older, some of the cuteness became prettiness, until she was inhabiting that borderland between the two. -- I like her, I really like her!

4 - SEXY :



[LAUREN BACALL]



[JULIE NEWMAR]

Lauren Bacall and Julie Newmar were both Pretty women, but they also possessed that aura or quality about them that just makes a man (well this man, anyway) have impure thoughts. The other women above - I can fantasize about having a relationship with them. I mean, a nice, good boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife relationship. But with Bacall and Newmar, my first thought is of buttons flyin' off and zippers screechin' down! It's horrible, and delightful ...in a sinful way.

I know it sounds exciting - (hell, you should see how exciting it looks in my mind!) - but truth be told, this is not a good, wholesome thang. I REPENT! (...with Penthouse).

How many of the other women shown above do I feel exude that "Sexy"-Appeal aura?

Tierney? No. Too Beautiful to have dirty thoughts about.
Cardinale? Oh, hell yes!
O'Hara? Well, I'd say she's "semi-sexy". She has that quality but it's not quite in full bloom.
Irving? No.
Bertinelli? No. She's too Cute to be Sexy.
Ray? Ditto.
Dey? Don't get me wrong - I would have jumped at the chance, but, no, not really.
Field? No. But she definitely looked "hot" in the movie 'The End' - one of the darkest of Black Comedies.

SPECIAL CASES :

Is it possible for a woman who is NOT Beautiful, Pretty, or Cute to be Sexy? Well, one does come to mind:



[JOAN JETT]

In my opinion, Joan Jett was not Beautiful, Pretty, or Cute [that's the BEST photo I could find of her on the Internet], but she did seem to send that silent signal: "Jump my bones; have your way with me, boy!" Unfortunately, she didn't just come across as "Sexy", but "Sluttish" as well. Because of that, I never lusted for her. She wasn't the type I would bring home to Mother ...nor bring home at all - I'd have to be rather drunk (and good friends tell me that on some nights I was!)



[PAT BENATAR]

I know that a lot of dudeguys from my generation lusted after Pat Benatar. She was Pretty, and she could really sing, but, there was always something about Benatar that turned me off: I always felt she was trying to act "Sexy". But Sexy is an organic thang: you either have it or you don't, and I don't believe anyone can truly "fake it", at least not to me, anyway. I know it when I "FEEL" it, and all your tight clothing, plunging necklines and sashaying around isn't going to convince me that you possess it. I'll know you have "It" when I feel the fire down below!

But, I fourpeat: Sexy is not necessarily a good thang! It makes me think bad thoughts and feel guilty. In a heartbeat I would have married Valerie Bertinelli, but NOT Julie Newmar. (However, there will always be a dark corner in my mind where I will meet Julie for martinis and then let her tie me down like I'm Batman.)

If NONE of this is clear to you, and if ALL of it seems confusing, you need to bear in mind that a person cannot adequately ‘splain sumpin’ unless he or she truly understands it. I confess that I don’t understand this stuffs at all. I instinctively know it, but I can't 'splain it.

All I can state with certainty is that the only women pictured above that I would kick out of bed “just because” is Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. I could embrace the rest of them smoking AND eating crackers in my bed.

Ladies, if all of this yakkin' 'bout women in (almost) strictly physical terms makes you begin to suspect that Stephen T. McCarthy is a "bad" man, please understand that "I'm not bad, I was just drawn that way" ...thirty years ago:



~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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