Because I'm a romance writer, and a friend of many other romance writers, my Facebook news feed is filled with photos of naked men day after day. I have no idea if regular people share these pictures at the same rate, but if you're a romance writer you know what I mean. These men are young and lovely, smooth of skin and firm of muscle. How could I possibly get bored looking at them?
The answer is I don't find them interesting, and to be sexy to me a man has to be interesting. These men are so much alike they're virtually interchangeable. If you've seen one waxed, steroid-pumped male model, you've seen them all. It doesn't matter if they're stark naked on the beach or dressed like firemen with their pants barely hanging off their gentleman's parts. One set of perfectly sculpted and unnaturally over-developed abs looks very much like any other.
I was an art history major in college, and I've spent plenty of time studying nude classical and Renaissance sculptures. Believe me, I understand and appreciate the beauty of the male form. But most of these models' photos have no more warmth and life than Michelangelo's "David". They are beautiful in a detached sort of way, but certainly not sexy.
What they scream to me is narcissism, and narcissism is the antithesis of sexy. Those bodies do not happen naturally. They require countless hours of hard work and concentration - concentration on one's own appearance. Not sexy. Give me flashing eyes and a wicked smile any day. A man who looks like he knows.
There are few things sexier than a man who knows what a woman wants, even (or especially) if she doesn't know herself. I never mind postings of photos of interesting men like Colin Firth, Gerard Butler, Johnny Depp, or Hugh Jackman (clothed or unclothed), because it's not their bodies that draw me. I gaze into their eyes and hear their voices in my head, and I'm a goner.
I realize that men have been ogling pictures of naked women forever. Now we have the freedom to do the same, and perhaps a lot of the current trend is a tongue-in-cheek reaction to that. It's fun to be a little naughty. I'm just getting a bit tired of it. Like I'm getting tired of naked male torsos on book covers. I'm glad I've never had one, and now that I design my own covers I never will. There's nothing wrong with them. They signal to the reader that the book is a romance. They just look so much the same. B. O. R. I. N. G.
Go ahead, tell me I'm a dried up, old fogey. I'm a big girl. I can take it.
