It’s A Guy Thing: Go Figure.
Our guy columnist Charlie O'Hay dishes on the female form.
From a sketchbook Toni’s mom saved from her artistic days.
(Russell Iredell, Drawing the Figure, 1941)
Rod Stewart once confessed: “I seem to have a particular liking for blondes. The most memorable is always the current one. The rest seem to merge into a sea of blondes.” And while Rod may be a bit of a prick, at least he’s honest enough to confess that he has a “type.”
Lots of guys do. I don’t.
Not that I’ve had a long list of partners. Six, to be exact. But I’ve been fortunate enough to have loved, and been loved by, some extraordinary women. Each is fiercely independent, intelligent, and passionate about life. If you asked me to name the one thing that most attracted me to them, it would be this last item: their passion for life, biting into each new experience as though it were a ripe peach. But physically, they’re all very different – tall, short, A cup, double D – and they wear a wide range of dress sizes.
So when it comes to the physical, women often want to know: what do men like? I have no idea. I don’t speak for other men; I only know what I like. It can be anything from the generous curve of her lips, a quickness in her glance, the way she puts her hair up in hot weather, that little soft place behind her ears, the sway of her hips in a summer dress, or her voice whispering my name in the dark. The best magic comes in these small moments.
I will tell you where I got my appreciation for the female form, at the risk of providing way too much information. No, it wasn’t from porn. Oddly, my dad had at various times in his life fancied himself a painter. Though he made a few expensive trips to the art supply store and issued the urgent request that my mom set up his new easel before lunch one Sunday, he never once set brush to paper. But he did buy books. Books of paintings and books of photography. Among them, The Artist’s Model, probably issued in the early 1960s. And late at night, when the apartment was quiet, teenage Charlie would sneak a few looks at the beautiful nude models featured in its pages. See? Probably too much information.
So, the first women I saw naked (and the only women I’d see naked until age 19) all had generous curves, and were photographed in black and white with the most advanced lighting techniques of the day. And fortunately, back then there was neither silicone nor a size zero.
I’m not sure there’s much more I can say. Although one of my wife’s favorite stories about me comes from when we were dating, when she asked, “How did you know you’d be attracted to me because the other women you’ve dated are so much thinner?” I thought about that for a moment before answering. Being the classy guy I am, I said, “Well, I felt you up pretty good in the car.” Yes, that was my answer. And rather than taking it as an insult, it remains, to her, quite endearing.
Go figure.
