Welcome to our annual pop culture showdown among our beloved entertainment entities, with the ultimate determined by our even-more-beloved readers. The impassioned Life section crew presents sex symbols this year for your consideration, a concept that has less to do with beauty, congeniality, style, talent or taste - and more to do with whose image leaves us a little breathless with desire, no matter how many times we're exposed to it.
To paraphrase my brother Tony, a sex symbol is someone whose name would get mentioned if you polled 20 random men or women on the topic. Our patron-at-the-bar interviews on who's the sexiest of them all elicited likely responses: Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, John Cusack, Sam Elliott (this is the South), Dr. Drew Pinsky (OK, that one is my pick).
The standard of what makes a male sex symbol has changed little during Hollywood's rise compared to how the female standard has changed. Sexy men have long been confident, capable and powerful, and the plain fact that other women desire them is the ultimate love potion among the ladies.
It's a different game for women, though, and I'd point to the Playboy organization as a convenient and consistent manual on what the day's "sexy" woman looks like. Hef had it nailed from his magazine's kick-off in 1953 when he put Marilyn Monroe on the cover - a strong contender in this year's showdown. It'd be tough to beat her seduction record in this day and age: our coolest president and his equally awesome brother, one of baseball's greatest players, a literary genius for the ages. Breathe and squeal Happy Birthday to You to Barack Obama, Brett Favre and John Updike, Angelina. And then we'll talk.
One only need flip through The Playmate Book: Six Decades of Centerfolds for a strong sense of how the mainstream definition of what characteristics suggested sexual prowess evolved through the decades. The women toward the end of the book are distinctly more homogeneous than those early on; the popular view of who's a "sexy" woman has become very specific:
The sexy shalt have long, tousled hair, extensions permitted, an uninterrupted tan on a hairless body, a smooth, sloped nose, a navel piercing, plump lips and high heeled shoes. Fingernails need be longish and squarish with both finger and toenails painted in the French tip style. Artificial lashes shall be glued on or implanted in the smoke-shadowed lids, teeth should be bleached and uniform in size. Thy abs shall be washboard, thy booty perky and thy breasts shall fill D-cups, and may be stuffed with goo-filled sacks as needed to reach this desired effect. A tattoo on the center of the lower back is customary, but not required.
And that's how you build a sex symbol these days - gone are the variety in hairstyles, tan lines, makeup application and body shapes, and photo doctoring makes doubly sure of that.
To any readers left huffing and puffing about how wrong I am, and how a natural woman is so much sexier: I'm just commenting on what the market has decided. What's on the cover of lad mags, what exotic dancers look like - such is what the average dude thinks is hot. That look is what rock stars and athletes who have their pick of the planet marry, it's what Eliot Spitzer paid to be next to.
And, to satisfy demand, women pay thousands to look this way. Assembly line sexpots, wonderfully American in spirit: whatever attributes God didn't give you, just go ahead and buy.