The Strutting Peacock

[Magickman]

Back to Google, now, and a search for "Men as sex objects" brought me to the following article:

The beefcaking of America - sexual objectification of men by women

Psychology Today, Nov-Dec, 1994 by Jill Neimark

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_n6_v27/ai_15868238

(Excerpts)

"John Wayne. A dusty town in the wild West, and our sweaty, wind-bitten hero with a bit of a beer belly, rumpled clothing, and an air of absolute indifference to his appearance. Slinging his gun and saving the ranch."

"Marky Mark. Urban billboards and bus depots. A tauntingly insolent beefcake of boy, smooth skinned, dean shaven, with a tight, carved body that's part tough guy, part Greek god."

"Men don't look like they used to. Think of Fabio. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or the countless men who, in cologne ads, lie like languid odalisques on sandy beaches. In movies, heartthrobs from Alec Baldwin to Keanu Reeves are seen shirtless, with rippling pecs and lats; on fashion runways male models in skin-tight tanks and jackets unbuttoned to flaunt washboard bellies pace before cheering crowds. Think of the television commercial where a whole bevy of office secretaries rush to a window to watch a stunning hunk of man take off his shirt and drink a Diet Coke."

"There's coming to be an acceptance of men as sex objects, men as beautiful," reports fashion arbiter Holly Brubach, style editor for the New York Times Magazine. Male mannequins now sport genital bulges and larger chests, and for the first time in window-dressing history, have achieved equality with female mannequins. The male body is even being used to sell cars, no doubt to both men and women: "If the beautiful lines of the new Monte Carlo seem somehow familiar, they should," reads a current ad. "After all, we borrowed them from you." Above the caption, melting photos show the classic waistline of a woman, curving leather, and the sinewy torso of a naked man. A closer look at each photo reveals a masterful blend of male and female images, of shadowy clefts and powerful bulges."

"Women, in general, are quite willing to adapt to their own mate's appearance, accepting features such as baldness or extra weight, even though their ideal male is different. Women tend to like what they've got - whether he is bearded, uncircumcised, short, or otherwise "off" the norm."

"A significant subset of women who are financially independent and rate themselves as physically attractive place a high value on male appearance. This new and vocal minority unabashedly declares a strong preference for better-looking men. They also care more about penis size, both width and length."

"Women can choose men who are not rich or successful, but who are beautiful."

"As ideals of manhood shift, so has the ideal male body. While it is dearly more masculine - well muscled and sexually potent - it is paradoxically feminine as well. Our ideal man is no longer rough and ready, bruised and calloused, but, as Schwartz puts it, "as clean skinned and clear complected as a woman." His body is "no longer stiff and upright, but sinuous and beautiful when it moves. Sinuousness didn't used to be associated with manliness." A sexual object, a source of pure visual pleasure, men are increasingly being looked at in ways women always have."

"This fascination with male beauty is not entirely new - consider the ancient Greeks, the beautiful boy of the Renaissance, or Elizabethan noblemen parading the court in revealing tights, silks, satins, and jeweled codpieces."

"Charles Darwin himself popularized the idea of women as selectors of plumed and spectacular male mates. "He was speaking of finches and partridges," explains historian Thomas Laqueur, Ph.D., author of Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Harvard University Press, 1990), "but we generalized to humans. It was known as the peacock phenomenon - the notion of the male as the one with plumage."

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The peacock phenomenon, the decorated male as sexual object to the female. Brightly hued attire, sparkling accessories, a cowboy hat, pierced earrings, bejewelled and bedazzling, and, of course, tall shaft boots with lofty, narrow heels.

The high heeled, peacocking man is a visual trigger for female sexuality. My acceptance of this reality has been slow, because it was unexpected. The evidence has been accumulating. I was just unable to comprehend it.

It might have dawned on me, as women (strangers) kept complimenting my boots and appearance. The women's sly smiles should have let me know. The staccato tap of my heels on a hard floor focused womens eyes on my boots. I should have noticed.

Women are every bit as much sexual beings as are men, perhaps more so. Female sexuality is equally strong, just a little different.

The peacock phenomenon works. We should learn to use it.

[Shafted]

I definitely use it. I tend to strut like a rooster in the henhouse when I'm wearing my heels.

[Dawn HH]

That's a good thing to remember for the future. Strutting like a Peacock. The next time that Mickey and I are out and I'm wearing my heels and she says that I am walking like a spastic because of my lousy joints, I have a great comeback now. "I'm strutting like a Peacock, Dear". Cheers--- Dawn HH