By Request

This post is being written upon the request of a friend who insists that I need to post something, already.

It's a common conversation.  You're sitting around with friends, shooting the breeze, and you talk about some movie you loved, or something funny you read, and invariably someone will make a comment about how "yummy" some actor or actress is, or "hott."  Many of my friends have discovered over the years that my list of attractive actors is... eclectic.

What I have to say up front is that, to me, there is a very distinct difference between physical and intellectual attraction.  In the very best circumstances, those two overlap very strongly (hey, DH von sexy pants), but I think we all have had the experience of finding just the one or the other to be true, or to feel a stronger pull to one more than the other for any particular person.

I feel that I have to defend -- or explain? -- my preferences further by saying that I find odd, weird, quirky and silly to be great attractors in just about anything (books, music, movies, underpants, etc.).  Richard Gere is considered to be "hunky" by most but to me he is very vanilla.  George Clooney and Brad Pitt only barely get in under the wire not because of their looks (okay, for Clooney partly because of his looks) but because they are willing to be in quirky movies like Burn After Reading or O Brother Where Art Thou.  You can buy pecs and shiny white teeth, and Hollywood is full of "beautiful" people.

All this painfully long intro will, I hope, further explain the following list of attractive actors:

1.  Alan Rickman (no, not Snape; see Die Hard as reference)
2.  Steve Martin (in this case, pure intellectual attraction; if I could ever make him laugh, I'd probably drop dead on the spot of sheer happiness)
3.  Rowan Atkinson (okay, I've taken a lot of heat on this one in the past -- not Mr. Bean, people, I'm talking Black Adder; witty sarcastic repartee is one of the best aphrodisiacs, IMO)
4.  Christopher Walken (the man can dance, after all)
5.  Eddie Izzard (oddly barrel-shaped, "Action Transvestite," but still... he has a flag)

I'm sure there are others, and I'm sure that my friends that read this post will be happy to remind me of any particularly odd preferences I've voiced in the past.

What is true -- whether you read it as cute or tragic or implausible -- is that it doesn't matter if I find them attractive or not, ultimately.  I love my husband so deeply that in an idle moment where I might think of being physically romantic with anyone, it is DH -- arms and lips, hands and legs, eyes -- that I see.  Schmaltzy?  Lucky?  All of the above.