What women do we love? Let’s think about that for a minute.
For some time, Esquire—tag line: “Man at His Best”—has featured a section called “Women We Love.” I went online to see some of the women “men at their best” are in love with.
The eight all-time (stretching back to 2002) most loved women are Kate Beckinsale, Megan Fox, Katy Perry, Christina Hendricks, Anna Torv, Angelina Jolie, Beau Garrett, and Monica Bellucci. In the thumbnail preview shots, two of the women appear to be putting at least one finger in their mouths, one is lying in bed seductively, one is wearing a wet T-shirt, and one has her lips parted suggestively. Only Angelina’s image suggests some kind of self-respect.
I click on bustier-clad Katy Perry and skip down to the interview, trying to ignore Ms. Perry in full black lingerie, complete with garter belt. After all, this is about man at his best; there must be something serious here that we all love so much.
Ah, here it is: “I always wanted to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling banana,” Katy tells Esquire.
I’m done. I close the browser window and stare out the window.
Who are the men Esquire‘s talking about? What is it that we love about these women? Their twirling-banana-swing fantasies? Their factory-fresh “breasts”? Their naughty smiles? Are those things truly what men at their best love about women?
When Hanna Rosin wrote about “The End of Men” in The Atlantic, she pointed to the fact that women represent the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history, and that for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. But there is something more basic going on.
In media and culture, men are increasingly caricatured as knuckle-dragging cartoon characters, particularly when it comes to how we view women and sexuality. And by whom? Men, of course. It’s not women running the strip clubs, porn websites, and editing spreads in Esquire. We have an enemy—and the enemy is us.
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The popularity of Esquire’s “Women We Love” section gets down to the very core of what has happened to guys in 2011. We have allowed our manhood, the nuanced truth of who we really are, to be stolen from us. If Rosin is right that men are doomed, it’s for this reason.
Yes, we are the minority in the workplace and at college—but that’s because our motivations and meaning in our lives have been scrambled by popular culture, which mandates that the thing we really should want, the thing that will prove we are the alpha males, has turned out to be hollow, addicting, and spirit-crushing. While we watch football and stare at Megan Fox, women in this country are getting shit done.
Put more bluntly, I am talking about the difference between masturbating and making love. “Women We Love” aims at the former, focusing on naked pictures of improbably shaped, unattainable movie stars who play dumb for our satisfaction. (I suspect that Katy Perry is quite bright, bananas aside. And largely, it’s not the women’s fault they appear so vacuous.)
Most of the guys I know are unfulfilled looking at pictures of women they will never meet (not only are they unmeetable, they don’t actually, technically, exist). They prefer making love with a woman who stirs their passions on more than one level. But we have been conditioned like so many Pavlovian dogs.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Yes, good men love women. But we love women in all their complexity, for the things they do, for their intelligence, their wit, their athleticism, their creativity, their power, their force of personality. We seem to have forgotten that along the way, and our brain-numbing intoxication by pornography in all its forms threatens to end us—not because it is morally wrong but just because it distracts us from the truth and scatters our power. It’s one big acid trip fantasy with no connection to improving our lives, being good fathers and husbands, and advancing our careers.
The models I have met in the flesh have all turned out to be quite unattractive. When a supposedly beautiful woman opens her mouth and soulless, empty nonsense tumbles out, the perfect 10 becomes a two in a big hurry. No amount of cleavage can make up for the lack of soul.
My wife is a lawyer turned decorator turned child advocate. Yes, she is hot—but she is also smarter than I am, far more graceful in a crowd, and can convince just about anyone to do just about anything when it comes to helping at-risk children. She is hot not just because she is beautiful, but because she is all those other things, too.
So with no further ado, here is MY list of the women men love, if we actually stopped to think about it. These are women who are fascinating, cool, and lovable. They have it going on—and not because they might (or might not) want to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling banana.
- Chelsea Handler
- Melinda Gates
- Jhumpa Lahiri
- Kate Middleton
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Patti Stanger
- Steffi Graf
- Lady Gaga
- Michelle Obama
- Laura Hillenbrand
- Portia de Rossi
- Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Esquire, how about switching it up and working off my list for a change of pace? And let’s not ask any of these women we love to wear black garter belts for the photo shoot, OK? Let’s focus on what’s really important for once.
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Tom Matlack, together with James Houghton and Larry Bean, published an anthology of stories about defining moments in men’s lives — The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood. It was how the The Good Men Project first began. Want to buy the book? Click here. Want to learn more? Here you go.
About Tom Matlack
I agree with your basic proposition–that a woman’s soul is more important than her boob size. But your article is badly written and also sexist. You write:
“In the thumbnail preview shots, two of the women appear to be putting at least one finger in their mouths, one is lying in bed seductively, one is wearing a wet T-shirt, and one has her lips parted suggestively. Only Angelina’s image suggests some kind of self-respect.”
Since when did posing sexily for a camera mean lack of self-respect? Oh right, when the guy looking at the photo has a madonna-whore complex. Because we all know that women’s self-esteem shouldn’t be based on their talents, accomplishments, etc., but on how much skin they don’t show. Right.
I read the Katy Perry interview. Yeah, she talks about twirling in a banana. The interviewer also comments on what chords she uses in her songs, asks her what her main musical influences are and where she sees her career going. You would’ve seen that if the sex stuff hadn’t disturbed you so much.
My understanding of his issues (in particular the issue of the way that the women have posed for the camera) is simple. The women in those photos demonstrate a lack of self-respect not because they are fully in charge of their sexuality but rather because they are owned by it. If those photos were meant to define those women, as they undoubtedly were, then they come to represent women whose only gifts are sexually charged. Why not a picture of Katy Perry on stage if what they love so dearly about her is her performance? Why not place the most pressing information from the interview earlier so that the banana comment seems off-hand or insignificant? To say that this article is sexist is to imply that the Esquire article does not reduce these women to bare sexuality, which it in fact does. Meanwhile, young women all over the country, just like me, are learning that sexual liberation consists of putting oneself on display for the world and “owning” one’s sexuality. How we go about doing this is to have meaningless and often indiscriminate sex, to actually give men total control over us again by becoming objects for their adolescent fantasies. We give them exactly what they want instead of demanding to be valued and appreciated for who we are instead of who we will sleep with. Men get ideas from porn or celebrities about what they want in women and instead of saying, “That’s unrealistic, that’s not who I am, I am not okay with that!” we learn from a young age that we will need to attempt to measure up to those fantastical standards. We’re not going out in stilettos because it makes us feel good; we go out in them because it garners attention. Unfortunately, it is the only way too many women know to earn any attention and so, once more, they are slaves to the sexual appetites of men, because how else will they be told they are worthwhile? There are ways to be sexy without being objects and there is a difference between having a Madonna-whore complex and recognizing that those women don’t value themselves enough to put their talents before their bodies.
What I take issue with in the article is his inclusion of Lady Gaga on the list of women he loves. (And Gwyneth Paltrow, but that’s a personal thing.) If Lady Gaga felt comfortable with her talent, she would not prance around on stage and in public wearing ridiculous costumes. If she felt secure enough that her music alone could earn her the fame and musical freedom that she clearly desires, then that music would be allowed to stand alone, and not to be overshadowed by the pranks and silliness that she pulls on us all. Gaga hides behind her gimmicks and lets her music fall by the wayside. (Which isn’t to say that I think her music is bad; it’s not my cup of tea, but it’s not bad as that genre goes.) I wish she would wash her face and play her piano while wearing some clothing.
But, while Lady Gaga is not my cup of tea either (and my following comments may be completely wrong) my impression is that Lady Gaga is not just about music, the same way serious graphic novels or movies are not about just the visuals or just the story or just the audio, but about the synergi of all that makes that medium. Lady Gaga, as far as I have understood it, is essentially Visual Kei with brains: not just brainless music/lyrics, not just flashy and provocative visuals, but a kind of art stemming in the combination of interesting music/lyrics and thought-provoking visuals. Art also never is produced in vacuum, but is heavily dependent on context, elements of which are timeless to seriously varying degrees: The modern audience miss out on a huge chunk of all the references, jokes and puns in Shakespear plays, while a lot of other references and emotions are far less volatile and more timeless. No, I am not implying that Lady Gaga is a modern equivalent of Shakespear, just that the latter is partially overrated and overhyped in part thanks to Sturgeon‘s Law, as well as that he seems classier than he is thanks to most people not getting all the crude and disgusting jokes, making modern examples of artists and authors less classy looking just because the less classier aspects are still obvious to the mainstream.
That said, I might just be seriously overestimating her. I have only seen/heard six or so music videos of hers, one of which I seriously misunderstood and loathed until I was enlightened about its context (“Telephone” – which to my radio/tv avoiding self at face value looked initially like nothing but a spamtastic attention-whoring 10 minute long commersial music trailer for various services and products. Having avoided mainstream medias for the past decade most definitely have its disadvantages as well as blessings: you misunderstand and fail to get a lot of the in-jokes in society when they touch the less savory aspects you have been avoiding.)
I’d like to see a different Boolean: how about “Cleavage AND Soul”?
Esquire’s thumbnails are also not doing any favors for people who may be most attracted to other physical attributes not shown from those angles. Waist-up from the front doesn’t necessarily show what all hetero men find pleasant to look at. Does the magazine assume every man is a “breast man”? I like a good kneecap. Show me a sexy patella.
“Show me a sexy patella”
A+
Wow, Jhumpa Lahiri is beautiful. Her neck and shoulders are exquisite. Hair up off the back of the neck is very sexy. Excellent choice for a photo. Yay, reform!
great article! I’d disagree however with this statement about porn… “not because it is morally wrong but just because it distracts us from the truth and scatters our power. It’s one big acid trip fantasy with no connection to improving our lives, being good fathers and husbands, and advancing our careers.”
I would say that it is for these reasons precisely that it is indeed morally wrong. It destroys people. This statement seems to say to me that we are afraid of upsetting people in a pluralistic society by assuming that anything is morally wrong. Follow this line of thinking and the Newtown tragedy is also a morally neutral act. Otherwise, love this article and it’s overall point!