Tuesday, September 19, 2006

No Hips and Other Delights


I realize men are attracted to women because we have some things they don’t. Specifically, breasts. Sometimes I sit back in amusement that men are so fascinated by body parts simply because they don’t have them. I think most men don’t even have particular standards as far as breasts--they like them all, which is good seeing as my own are not really boast-worthy.

This fixation seems very silly to me until I consider my attitudes about the male body. I mean, how amusing is it to be entranced by the lack of something? I speak here of hips. Yesterday I came upon a couple photos of one of my celebrity-obsession-guys wearing jeans and a tank top. These were very well fitting jeans. This guy is one of those nice, lean types, and from waist to thigh there is not the slightest bulge on him front or sides, and not much in back either.

It’s embarrassing (and yet I’m telling you) how long I can stare at these pictures without tiring of them. They are the equivalent of a nice shot of Jack Daniels, and the buzz is completely natural.

I know how men check out women’s breasts and it gives them itchy palms. Well, that’s how I feel about no hips. I would just love to take hold of the hip bones on this guy and feel their narrowness and that incredible lack of fat. Seriously, hip bones! I amaze myself really, but there it is.

Now I can understand the female fascination with washboard abs, great pecs, rippling biceps/triceps, runners’ legs, and wide shoulders. I understand what these things represent to the female psyche: physical power, virility and all that. But what about the lack of things...hiplessness and my other personal fascination, the small posterior? There’s little explanation for the appeal of those except I don’t have them. Lacking the Y chromosome, I can’t lose my hips, not that I really want to. So I guess the narrow-hipped, small-assed male attracts me simply because he’s different from me.

I suppose if I stretch my imagination, I also appreciate that lack of hips suggests mobility, motion, even a sort of aggression. While women seem more domestic, fertile, nurturant in shape, men such as my lean friend are the opposite. Think of the classic Elvis archetype, whose narrow-hipped pelvic thrusts drove several generations of women to swoon. Perhaps that leanness also hints at efficiency: as in, “I’ve got nothing superfluous here, nothing to distract you from the penis...and after all, what else matters?”

Just as women don’t get the big appeal of breasts, I’m sure men utterly take for granted their lack of hips. I suppose they can see why their muscles and shoulders could impress, but it must evade them why a woman should be driven to a frenzy by that 1-to-1 waist/hip ratio. I wish I could better explain, gentlemen, but trust me: when you wear those well-fitting jeans the virility just pours off you in waves.

The no hips/small posterior phenomenon is a factor in a lot of classic female fantasies, including:

  • Guys playing guitar in leather pants
  • Slow dancing with hip pressure (my hands will drift down, sorry)
  • Guys leaning against a bar, a juke box, a car, or anything else that results in the pelvis thrusting forward (are you brandishing that weapon at me?)
  • Shirtless attire (you thought we just wanted to see your torso; actually, it’s just nice not having any shirttails hanging down over your pelvic bones)

I’d happily picture my fellow in any of those scenarios--okay, I already have while composing this. And goodness, this hip thing is really addictive. It occurs to me what would be really embarrassing: You know those tests they can do on people to see where their eyes travel to on a page? I can just imagine the incriminating results they’d get analyzing my eyes and these photos.

I’m sure my little brain will move on to a new obsession soon enough. But it has been fun the last 24 hours being in my small hip rut. Not to worry, it hasn’t done anything to reduce this romance author’s productivity...much the opposite, happily. The last dozen pages I’ve written aren’t bad at all. Do I mention hips? Well, okay, yeah…once or twice.

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