is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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"sexy."
Went to bed after writing about Madonna last night (Madonna, and Britney, and � China?), woke up still thinking about Madonna. My thought of the morning: if I find it hard to look away from Madonna, it�s not because she�s sexy. I haven�t ever found her sexy, because she�s �sexy.� She manufactures �sexy,� so I can�t find her sexy because it would mean I had allowed myself to be manipulated by her plot. Not that I have such tremendous control over my desires that I can only desire authentic things. It�s more like: things that seem to be calculated to be �sexy� are rarely the things I find sexy. Like when young men strip their shirts off and sing a panty-jam song, I�m like �whatever.� And when on afternoon soap operas they give you elaborate bedroom scenes with candles and rose petals and �sexy� music, I�m all �where�s the fast forward mechanism on this thing?�. And when some guy or girl in a bar tries to lay down an alluring line in my direction, it feels like I�m the straight man in a hilarious comedy act�
[Short digression: when Marilyn, Linda, Gus and I were drinking copious margaritas in Philly last weekend, somehow the conversation turned to Linda�s new bedroom pod�a large piece of cabinetry housing her bed and hiding it from the rest of her studio-sized condo�I suggested she get a bunch of switches installed like Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk, so she could turn her apartment into a man trap. He had switches that dimmed the lights, drew the curtains, put on sexy music, and flipped the couch out into a bed with leopard sheets. But I suggested she could get the girl-equivalent of switches. So she said she�d need a switch that would make rose petals fall out of the ceiling and scatter all over the bed and floor. Much laughter ensued.]
�And when Madonna does anything �sexy,� I find myself watching intently without feeling anything at all (except some sort of visual pleasure at seeing Madonna, or some sort of ambivalent visual confusion at seeing Madonna, who does not always look �good.� For instance, I think she looks great��sexy,� pretty, dance-y, etc.,�in the Don�t Tell Me video. But then there�s that Hung Up video, where she looks like a freaky old lady who wants to squeeze you with her be-nyloned thighs.)
All that says less about what makes something sexy or about Madonna than it does about how sexy-seeming works (or doesn't work) for me. I mean, if I can't find it sexy when, towards the end of the Don't Tell Me video, Madonna is wearing a tight leather cowboy shirt without a bra, doing a jumping dance toward the camera, and her rack is jiggling in a good, good way, then, well, I guess my desires can't be bought. At least not in that way. It's similar to how, often, I can't cry if I'm watching a movie that is calculated to make me cry. However, there IS aesthetic pleasure in watching Madonna's rack jiggling. It just doesn't do much for my southern states.
So there you have it. Some examples of what I don't find sexy. If you tuned in to learn �what is sexy,� you must not know much about this diary (ha). But I'm nothing if not brimming with aim-to-please aplomb, so here's a tip: I hear that Victoria�s Secret can introduce you to a bunch of semi-emaciated models wearing underwear who will let you look at them in various media formats, for as long as you want, and you know THAT�S SEXY.
No, it�s really not. I once watched the Victoria�s Secret �What is Sexy?� fashion show on television and it was like Las Vegas, but I didn�t get to play the nickel slots and get free drinks. Or it was like the world was ending and I got to watch it on TV instead of being part of it. Or it was like gazing into the abyss, and it's covered with a thong. (Heh.)
11:26 a.m. - April 11, 2008
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