Another Boy Below the Bracket

It had been awhile since any of my regular library hotties had wandered through the stacks. So I had basically given up hope on finding an attractive man in the library when in walked Charles.

Taller than me. Dark hair. Dark eyes. And a style and attitude that were neither high maintainance nor low. Perfectly in between.

Af first I wasn’t going to pay him any real attention. I didn’t strategically position myself in his line of sight or offer him my librarian services. But then I just happened to be at the circulation desk when he was checking out, so I casually inventoried the books stacked before him. And I fell in love.

Charles was checking out three books: a cookbook, a book of war poems, and The 9/11 Commission Report.

Now, attractiveness is always the first thing anyone notices when they meet a person. But, let’s face it, there are A LOT of beautiful idiots out there. The world is overrun with gorgeous bimbos, ripped morons, and drop dead sexy dumbasses. So when I find someone who is not only attractive but also smart, sensitive, and cooks, all my single girl antennae tune in.

So, as a coworker checked out the books, I violated his privacy by casually glancing at the library card application on the counter in front of him. His name, as you know, was Charles (not the sexiest name in the world, but it’s better than Bob). And his age was 24.

Now, I’ve already mentioned that my coworkers nicknamed me “Puma” for my tendency to be attracted to younger men. This is not something I do intentionally. It’s not like I want a younger guy. It just seems that the men I find attractive in the library tend to be in the age bracket below mine.

And I can’t help but wonder (yet again) why this is. Am I in denial about my age? Am I destined to become one of those desperate cougars who shops in the juniors department and stalks young men? Or is it just demographics? Do men in the 25 to 35 age bracket not enjoy reading? Did the brains and beauty combo skip the males in my generation?

Whatever the reason, I think there is a chance I may end up being some young thing’s sugar mamma one day (of course, that’s hard to do on a librarian’s salary). But please, dear friends, if I’m 60 and still wearing mini-skirts and four-inch heels, stage an intervention. Pronto.

Artists, Leaders, and Adventuresses

Besty Prioleau finishes up her tour through seductress history by zeroing in on seductresses of the creative sort, the leader sort, and the adventurer sort.

Seductive Artists. The Goddess of old was a divine creatrix, unleashing her creative powers unto the Universe. Artists (painters, dancers, actresses, writers, etc.) are naturally plugged into this divine creativity, and thus into the Goddess’s great art of seduction.

Take Violet Gordon Woodhouse (1871-1948) for example. She wasn’t a great beauty, but her musical talents led a number of men to fall in love with her. She had so many lovers, in fact, that she lived with four of them at once in a menage a cinq.

Political Seductresses. Powerful women can be quite the aphrodisiac. Cleopatra is often the symbol of the ultimate seductive leader, but there are many others on the list: Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, to name a few.

More modern political seductresses include Eva Peron (Madonna played her in the film Evita) who changed the face of Argentina after she snagged Vice President Juan Peron. And then there’s the even more modern Gloria Steinem.

Yes, Gloria Steinem. Prioleau includes the feminist ground-breaker in her list of political seductresses. Although some of her feminist colleagues looked down upon a feminist that wasn’t afraid to flaunt her beauty and sex appeal, she managed to snag some big names while making strides for women’s rights. And who says you can’t have it all!?

Seductive Adventurers. History has often looked unkindly at women who dared to leave the safe world of home and hearth. Women that dared to forsake marriage and family in order to follow their whims across continents and oceans were viewed as unfeminine and, sometimes, downright evil.

Beryl Markham (1902-1986) stands out in particular. She was as wild in spirit as her native continent (Africa). During her life, she became an expert horse trainer, led safaris, and became the first pilot to fly east to west across the Atlantic in one trip. Oh yeah, and she managed to rack up a number of prize men: Mansfield Markham, a rich aristocrat; Prince Henry, the duke of Gloucester; Denys Finch Hatton, the Casanova of Kenya; and the list goes on.

In today’s culture, we tend to associate great seductresses with Playboy Bunny types and/or Hollywood screen sirens. But, in reality, seduction knows no bounds. You can paint watercolor landscapes, march on Washington, and/or go on safari across Africa and still be a seductress. It’s all just a matter of claiming your Goddess-given sexuality!

Easier said than done, I know…. Now where’s that how-to manual….?

Cougars and Brainiacs

Why is it that as single women age, we start to go into panic mode? As our friends around us start to walk down the matrimonial aisle, we break into a cold sweat and feel the urge to throw ourselves at whatever available groomsmen comes our way?

It’s odd, really. Even after all these years, after all these strides we’ve made, we still suffer from the fear of not getting married. Of ending up alone. And it’s ludicrous. Age really has nothing to do with being marriageable. Or being desirable, for that matter.

Today we call them “cougars” but, in reality, they’re super-seductresses–older women that manage to attract and seduce well into their AARP years. Betsy Prioleau documents some of these “silver foxes” in Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love.

Take the infamous Mae West, for example. A witty actress, she was making conquests well into her twilight years. On the verge of 70, she snagged a 33-year-old “muscle man”. And then there’s George Sand and Colette–two literary mavens that weren’t at a loss for men, even in old age.

And age isn’t the only myth that Prioleau busts. Ever heard the little rhyme “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”? It’s the old myth that men don’t like smart women. And it’s wrong. Very wrong.

Veronica Franco was a sixteenth century courtesan. Although beautiful, it was her knowledge that made her one of the most famous courtesans in Europe. Living during a time when education was denied to women, Veronica was determined to educate herself. She used her mind to entertain and intrigue her conquests, adding to conversations and debates. Ninon de Lenclos, Lou Andreas-Salome, and Martha Gellhorn were also “scholar-sirens” that fascinated men with their minds.

So why are we so terrified of growing old alone? Or of being so smart that we’ll scare men away? Why do we subscribe to these ridiculous myths? If history has taught us anything it’s that there are no real “rules” when it comes to love and attraction. All women–regardless of beauty, age, and intellect–can be desirable.

Notes from Seductress, Part Two

As a culture, we seem to equate a great seductress with a great beauty. The two, however, are not interchangeable. There are great beauties whose love lives are more pitiful than mine, and great seductresses who would never stop traffic.

Betsy Prioleau devotes an entire chapter to dispelling the myth that to be a seductress, one must be beautiful. Women today should take note of this. All too often we’re bombarded with images of scantily-clad bombshells and told that that is what men want. But, like most other things in this world, taste varies widely and belles laides (a French phrase meaning ”homely women whose charisma, fire, and charms of character transform them into beautiful sirens”) might just be what some men want.

Take, for instance, Wallis Windsor (1895-1986). Wallis is described as having “an Aztec nose, hatchet jaw, bushy eyebrows, and a ‘masculine figure’.” Yet, she managed to snag David Windsor, international heartthrob who abdicated the throne to marry her.

Or go back even further and learn from Therese Lachmann (1819-1884), a “thick-waisted”, “hawk-like”, vulgar woman who became one of the most sought-after courtesans in Europe. Her many admirers included famed pianist Henri Herz, a Portuguese marquis, and Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck.

And then there’s “squat, pint-size Edith Piaf” (1915-1963). In her own words, she was “ugly,” with “sagging breasts, a low-slung ass, and little drooping buttocks.” Far from the image of the tall, lithe Hollywood sex goddess, yet she never lacked admirers.

Other belles laides include Pauline Viardot, Catherine Sedley, and Isabella Stewart Gardner. These were women who were lacking in the looks department but didn’t let that stop them from embodying the power of the archetypic sex goddess. And all of us “ordinary” women can learn a lot from them.

We may bemoan our bulging bellies, thunder thighs, and freckled faces but can still be skilled seductresses. We can still snag the heartthrobs, still enjoy fulfilling love lives. All it takes is some confidence, some character, and few more skills that we’ll learn about later in Prioleau’s book.

Thou Shalt Not Lie About Ye Weight

It dawned on me last night that I have, in fact, done the online dating thing before.

Well, sort of.

The year was (wait…let me get out my calculator…) 1999 and AOL was THEE thing. I spent countless evenings listening to that funky dial tone as it tried to connect a shy, overweight sixteen year old to the information super highway. It was on that highway that I met Nate, a nineteen year old guy that I–in my hormonal, teenage way–”fell for” instantly.

We talked for weeks. Flirty emails back and forth. Then late night phone calls. And if you can remember from that era, you didn’t exchange photos right away–you actually had to describe yourself using–gasp!–just words. So, when he asked me how much I weighed, I (surprise, surprise) lied my a$$ off.

And I mean LIED. Like, a thirty pound lie.

When we did exchange photos, I (of course) sent him a very flattering photo of me (good angle, dark lighting, with most of my body cropped out). He, in turn, sent me a photo that matched how he described himself: 6’5″ and a bodybuilder. Nice. Very nice.

So, you can imagine his horror when I showed up for our first meeting. The look on his face said it all: “Who the he!! are you?”

But we “hung out” for about half an hour (during which I realized that the size of his ego was proportional to the size of his biceps). And, needless to say, it was over after that.

Although I know that my weight wasn’t the main reason why Nate and I didn’t work out, the fact that I wasn’t honest about who I was was a contributing factor. Apparently, honesty is crucial when it comes to online dating. And that includes what photos you use in your online dating profile.

Leslie Oren devotes an entire chapter of her book Fine, I’ll Go Online to photos. There is apparently an art to choosing the right ones. She lists what you should NOT do, including: post pictures of yourself with all your beautiful friends, post pictures of yourself that are more than two years old, and post pictures of yourself 20 lbs thinner. It’s the “20 lbs. thinner” part that’s quite difficult to follow. I mean, who doesn’t want to show themselves in a thinner light?

But, like Oren states (and like I found out the hard way), you don’t want to shock the guy. If he’s expecting a size 8 and you show up a size 14, he’s gonna notice. And he’s gonna feel duped.

So, I’ve realized that, before I start this online dating thing, I need to lose 20 (OK, 30) lbs. and then have a photoshoot. Anyone know a good photographer?