Sex appeal

I was sitting in the office waiting for the edits I needed to come in, when the always-on televisions flashed clips of actor Salman Khan at Madame Tussauds doing something or the other, his beefcake image on full show. One of the young women trainees gazing open-mouthedly at the screen sighed deeply and then almost shrieked, “He is sooooo sexy!” I looked up, saw Salman Khan looking at the wax model of his own starry self, and then went back to my work. But the concept of ‘sexy’ has been pinging in my mind for a while, more so after that squeaky sigh that the girl emitted, sounding vaguely like a cross between a fire-engine in a hurry and a very large bat.

What is ‘sexy’? To me, for years, it has been just one man, an actor I first saw on American television when I was in school. He played a detective-by-accident, a man with no clue what he was doing, but with a way of doing it that made women (and lots of other men) sigh longingly. He wore his designer suits with élan, smiled his way into more hearts and minds than he had any right to and wiggled his nicely shapes behind most enticingly when he ran, which I bet the scriptwriters wrote into each episode because they knew it would bring in the viewers. It certain kept me there, had Mother giggling girlishly and Karen looking more goofy-eyed than she would ever have done otherwise. The actor was Pierce Brosnan and the show was Remington Steele. We watched re-runs of re-runs of re-re-runs and never tired of wistfully viewing that wiggle. And because he was, to me, the definition of ‘sexy’, I even sat through screenings of dreary and dark movies where he played Irish terrorist, sidekick fiancé and much more.

And then came James Bond. Brosnan wiggled his way through all sorts of completely improbably adventures and stunts, enjoying himself (or so it seemed) while he battled the baddies and seduced the women, flew planes, drove stunning automobiles, blew things up and generally has a whale of a time. And we all sighed as he ran through the mayhem, his gorgeous face grimy but still gorgeous, his bottom still wiggling happily through it all. And we sat through The Thomas Crown Affair, where he rolled about with Rene Russo and we all looked on, green eyed and fuming, but still buggy about him. And we probably will stay that way even as he ages his way through the sequel to that film and more.

That is one version of ‘sexy’. Once upon a time, I was accused of liking some young man (I still don’t remember who) because he had long eyelashes that curled upwards. There was a dress I once fell for that I thought was ‘seriously sexy’, with a large and glorious frill that slid off my shoulders when I wore it. There is a design for a bracelet that I saw in the window of Gubelin in Geneva when I was a teenager and still believe to be the ultimate in ‘sexy’. The first Ferrari I saw on the autostrada just outside Naples elicited a fairly unanimous “Wow! Sexy!” from all of us in the family car in the next lane. And there was a certain chocolate mousse that I ate in a rooftop restaurant that echoes a softly luscious ‘sexy’ in my tastebuds even today….

But seriously, what is ‘sexy’ all about? Speaking as a woman, it almost mandates a male identity. Is it the way his eyes melt into warmth when he looks at you? Or is it the way he smiles as he reads your writing? Or even perhaps the way he argues passionately about why he needs a photograph of you in his wallet? Who knows. It’s all about what makes you go warm and fuzzy and smile idiotically when there is really nothing at all to smile about. And that’s what ‘sexy’ is...or should be.