When I was growing up, my mother's way of saying someone was sexy was to exclaim, "He could eat crackers in my bed any night!" (Of course, this led me to believe that what adults did in bed together was eat crackers but the ways in which this has possibly warped me is a story for another time.)
Over the years, she became less subtle and there were many discussions in our family about what - and who - was sexy. A close friend of mine does a fabulous imitation of my mother, recounting a conversation they once had. Mother, who had no compunction about being verbally honest in her assessment of others (one of her favorite sayings was, "He can't help being ugly, but he could stay home"), was using that well-known Southern method of insulting someone. She noted that a friend of mine was "just so unattractive, bless his heart". She went on to comment that my father "always had a lot of sex appeal".
It was from her that I learned that being sexy and being good-looking were not necessarily the same thing. She was adamant that my high school boyfriend looked just like Alfred E. Newman, the nerdy cover cartoon for Mad Magazine, yet she freely admitted that "there was something very sexy about him". (She wasn't as kind about my college boyfriend and she told the rest of my family that the man I was involved with in the last years of her life - a man she adored - was "the ugliest man [I'd] ever dated".)
It wasn't just the men my sister and I brought home who were subjected to her scrutiny. Every man she met was rated on her "sexy" scale, whether she voiced it or not. We women think men are shallow and looks-obsessed? My mother was willing to overlook no end of vices if a man was sufficiently sexy.
The subject of whether women were sexy never really came up, and I suspect that's just as well. In those days, big breasts seemed to be the primary criteria and, unlike my mother and my sister, I fell very short of meeting it. Yet, after hearing so much about the importance of sexiness in men, I desperately wanted to be sexy myself! I wore low-cut blouses whenever possible to show off my non-existant cleavage. I used temporary tattoos to peek, alluringly, I hoped, out of those blouses. False eyelashes, short-short shorts ... in retrospect, I suspect I looked quite trampy, but I never managed sexy.
And then I gave up. I decided to audition for a role in a play which the script described as "not sexy - an attractive, wholesome, All-American girl look". Great! A role that specifically said I shouldn't be sexy. I could do this! So I auditioned. Several people at that audition came up to me afterwards and said they knew I'd get the role because my reading was far and away the best anyone gave. Only I didn't get the role. A friend of mine who was also friends with the director asked him the reason and he was honest. I wasn't sexy enough!
Okay. So I'm not even sexy enough to play someone who isn't sexy. Short of major plastic surgery and possibly an entire personality overall, there wasn't much wiggle room here. I wasn't sexy and that wasn't going to change. After an appropriate period of eating lots of chocolate and wishing I'd been born someone else, I decided to prove my mother wrong. Sexy wasn't that important. At least, I was determined to convince myself that it wasn't.
When one looks around, there are all sorts of women whom one wouldn't immediately think of as "sexy" without that being much of a detriment. Then I read somewhere that only flat-chested women can wear haute couture! (Not that I've ever worn - or even have any interest in wearing - haute couture; that's not the point.) Clearly, there is room for all sorts of looks. I've actually never been much good at trying to fit myself into someone else's mold, so letting go of this one was a relief. Much better to create my own mold.
Over the years, society's definitions seem to have loosened a bit, but I still don't pay much attention to them. Yes, I can still appreciate the sexiness of a wicked grin on a good-looking guy, but what I really find sexy now - for men and women - is a kind smile, a killer sense of humor, a quick mind, a love of animals, a body and face that are cared for, and a large degree of compassion. Would it still feel good - just once - to have someone tell me I'm "traditionally" sexy? Sure. But if it never happens, it's okay. In the end, my kind of sexy never sags.
