Nothing Like A Grown-Up

So I was watching Sex and the City the other day.

Don't you look at me like that.  Yes, of course I'm a thinking person.  What?  YES, I care about things other than shoes and boys!  NO, I don't own the boxed se--well, okay, I mean I own three seasons on DVD, but not...you know what, listen.  It's an entertaining show, and the characters are funny, and every once in a while they stop talking about Jimmy Choo's and Charlotte's reluctance to say the word "fuck" and actually delve into some brave, important topics.  So stop laughing at me!  Stop it right now!

And no, Sarah Jessica Parker doesn't look THAT much like a horse.  Lay off her.

ANYWAY, I was watching Sex and the City the other day and it was the one where Carrie goes out with the politician.  The one played by this guy (John Slattery):

The first time I watched that episode, when I was like 19, I didn't like the guy.  Really I didn't like MOST of the guys on the show and didn't understand how the girls kept calling all these farty old men in suits "cute."  But this guy reminded me of my first boss when I was 16, the 55-year-old realtor/mortgage broker.

But uh...after watching it again, he's totally appealing.

So is Chris Noth (Mr. Big), despite his heavy eyebrows.

Y'know?  I mean he's kinda handsome.  I can sorta see it.

Even Miranda's guy Steve (David Eigenberg), whom I've always adored--I adored him in a different way this time.  He's got a pretty hot body to go with that sweet, geeky face, you know.  I didn't catch that before.

 

So adorbs and so sexy at the same time.

All of this led me to think...am I attracted to men now?  I don't see the appeal anymore in those smooth, manicured, too-perfectly-muscled young men with the good hair that you see in ads and on Disney movies.  

No thanks, kids.  Is your dad around?

Yeah, I mean...they're nice to look at.  But I certainly can't imagine boning them.  All that hard muscle would get in the way, and probably hurt.  Nobody wants someone with 2% body fat, it's just not comfortable.  Besides, is it just me?  Or...have we started to idealize youth in men as well as in women?  And granted, I'm thinking men who look 19 or 20 seem to be idealized whereas in many settings women are idealized at closer to 15 or 16.  But still.  Gross.  I don't want some 19-year-old boy who has no idea where my clit is and doesn't know how to fill out tax forms.

I like me some chest hair on a man.

P.S. Bonus points if you know who the guy in the second-to-last picture is.  He was sort of my dream boy as a kid.  My cousin Valerie and I used to talk about him nonstop, and go to painful degrees of searching to find the parts in shows where he looked the cutest and that sort of thing.  It was a little bit disgusting, but it was the old days before wifi or even DSL.  A girl had to work pretty hard to gaze longingly at her celebrity crush.