This is one of the most important things you have ever written. I absolutely _must_ comment on this, even though there is little that I can add to what you have written here.

I have one thing to say: We are often told to value "inner", spiritual, beauty. I agree. And I say that one is spiritually beautiful to the exact degree that one can perceive and appreciate the value of physical beauty. And, conversely, one is spiritually ugly to the exact degree that one denigrates and devalues physical beauty.

Just as a certain convergence of air vibrations form what we call "music", so it is that a certain convergence of physical, especially facial, features form what we call "beauty". Physical pulchritude is music made flesh. And, just as music both expresses and arouses in us the profoundest emotions, so does the pulchritude of the body express and arouse, both in the the beholder and in the beheld, certain profound qualities of soul.

I am proud to be preoccupied and obsessed with sex. It is _not_ for drooling morons, but only for those who can appreciate beauty. Here are my thoughts on the deliberately ugly anti-concept "sex object".

The great Eric Scheie profoundly observed:
"I see this as an attack on the beautiful by the ugly. The dark side is that when ugliness attacks beauty, the ugliness is made uglier. The bright side is that the beautiful is made more beautiful."

No truer words were ever spoken.

I must paraphrase another profound statement, a statement by a conservative which I often think about, which I here translate it into this context:

The duel between Beauty and Ugliness is the most important in the world. All other struggles are the same struggle reproduced on other levels.

Up With Beauty!

You just reminded me of a comment a friend of mine made when he observed how sexy one woman was. Someone protested that he was gay. His reply? "I'm gay, I'm not blind."

I'm also reminded of a curmudgeonly Usenet poster whom I happened to know in person; many people tried to terminate his employment because of his posts (since he was a computer programmer, he would often post while his programs compiled, which they took as a sign of posting on his employer's dime.) When he died, the amount of sheer vitriol that those people expended on what was basically his online funeral stripped me of all illusions regarding basic civility. Some people just don't have it, and never will.

Don't ever make the assumption that people will behave in a rational or civil manner. While that is true for the VAST majority, it only takes one exception to poison the well.

Funny. My non-riposte to the right-wing "feminist" who attacked me attracted support from someone who called me "bitchy". Well, I am proud to be bitchy in the face of the ugly and the stupid. Churchill had something to say on that subject. At least I may wake up tomorrow morning in a better mood.

I'm possibly one of the most straight women on the planet Earth. It's not a choice. When entering a room, I'll notice the men first (even homely men) and only after a few minutes -- or if one of them says something interesting -- will I realize there's women present. (I used to feel bad about this until, talking to my sister and female cousins, I realized they all have this problem. Perhaps it's genetic, perhaps it's a family-culture thing.) However, I would be lying if I said I didn't derive much enjoyment from looking at two of my female friends who are absolutely gorgeous. When they fail to dress themselves properly (rare) and we meet, I always feel a little let down and realize I was looking forward to the show.

It is, btw, in this spirit that I thanked Eric for posting Sean's picture. I like looking at beautiful people. I've never understood people of either gender who don't. The whole thing about "sex objects" seems to me a mean-spirited fruit of envy. People who feel ugly resent people who are beautiful.

Because, what is there of "sex" in admiring a beautiful human form? Beauty doesn't mean sex. Beyond being extremely married, I remember a really bad time in my life when I spent grocery money on a book of photos of classical statues because I wanted to look at them. Looking at them made me feel better. And, trust me here guys, pretty as those hunks of stone were (or hunks in stone) I had no intention of sleeping with any of them, nor even the human version could it be conjured.

Why is it we can admire people for their mind, their personality, their independence, but feel churlish in admiring them for their body? Is one quality more inate than the other? Less worhty of credit? I beg to differ. As I near middle age, I've continued working on my mind, but let my body go a bit (around the waist ) People presume to praise me for my mind all the time. (Crazy people on mescaline praise me for my body, too, but that's something else.) Why should someone who chose to do the opposite not be equaly praised?

I want Nick to win this one. This is not feminism, it's just envy masquerading as high-minded altruism.

Done ranting.

P.

Portia:

Excellent. Thank you!

YOU are STRAIGHT, i.e., an androsexual. Since I'm a gynosexual, I can never be straight.

You are right that an appreciation of beauty need not be sexual in nature. E.g., I can appreciate the manliness of a man like Eric Scheie without being at all drawn to him sexually.

Sex, by which I mean the whole spectrum from the first stirrings of longing all the way to full bodily consummation in the embrace, is the deepest internalization of one's response to a certain type of pulchritude in the male or in the female.