I'd like to think I'm actually pretty aware of my crush-triggers. Unfortunately, they're not all really things I value in long-term companionship. (Some are--like assertive self-confidence, but I'd think that one's pretty common.)
she looks like she'd have a husky voice.
I wasn't aware that I crushed on skinny women (not anorexic) for quite some time. Keira Knightley is my current fave.
Or does she cross the anorexia line here?
Magic 8-ball sez: eat a pizza.
If you value your faith in human agency, it's probably best that you don't know what your triggers are, no? If you are being led, and you know that you are being led, maintaining that faith would be harder.
I don't know if crushing on skinny women constitutes a "trigger," I think that's just "being male." Crushing on non-skinny women might be a trigger.
Well, I would consider crushing on skinny women a trigger, but one that happens to be heavily reinforced by the norms of our society.
Yeah but I grew up without cable in a portion of the Midwest with a notable absence of skinny women. Maybe they were just exotic to me. But really, is Keira too skinny?
As I said the other day, I need to stop around unfogged more often.
is Keira too skinny?
Hard to say. Certainly could be seen that way from that picture, but maybe she's just super-buff. I dunno, some people are built skinny. I'm disinclined to call people "too skinny," either they are actually anorexic, or they aren't, but she certainly looks good.
I'd call her unusual-looking in that picture, in a not positive sense, but I neither know anything about her health nor am I going to judge anyone for finding her attractive.
Coloring is a bigger deal for me than makes any sense. I don't think I've ever dated anyone with dark eyes. I'll go for a light hazel, but not a true brown. This may be coincidence -- it's not something I've ever thought about ahead of time, and there are plenty of dark-eyed men I've thought were attractive -- but given the uniformity of who I've ended up with, I think it must be a subconscious criterion that I use.
Ugh, I think you're OK on the fabulous Keira. I've had a thing for her since Bend It Like Beckham, which revealed her six-pack abs. She's also quite open about having a sort of boyish body, saying in one interview that she has pecs rather than breasts.
I think she's beautiful, but I also like her because she openly admits to being a fan of West Ham United, which is sort of like being a fan of the Brewers.
If they look like French movie starlet or an eastern european model, that'll do for me... pouty lips, high cheekbones, unusual coloured eyes, accents, faces that are on the edge between incredibly beautiful and slightly odd looking, etc.
(Think Isabelle Adjani, Emanuelle Beart or Linda Rybova)
It's not too much to ask.
Luckily I married someone who ticks all those boxes and who seems content with receiving 'impoverished Scot with ginger facial hair and no visible abnominal muscles' in return...
I am most attracted to diminutive women with very dark hair and dark eyes. This doesn't account for everyone I've dated, but the ones I've most actively pursued, most against my better judgment (i.e., have found most irresistable), have fit that profile.
I find that a wedding ring also automatically increases a woman's attractiveness. This was illustrated most vividly at a friend's wedding, where I had known his fiancee for a while, but was never particularly struck by her -- then later at the post-reception party (for which she changed into street clothes, so it's not the wedding dress itself), I caught myself thinking, "Wow, she's looking good." The same thing happened with one of my fellow students who got married over the summer -- I kept noticing that she seemed a lot better-looking this year, and the only explanation was the stupid wedding ring.
None of this hurts my faith in human agency. I would say that from a certain point of view, we are completely determined; from another point of view, we are free. We make our decisions from the latter point of view, unless we wish to absolve ourselves of responsibility by pretending to espouse the former view.
It has never made much sense to me when people say they want to "make room for" human agency or freedom -- the whole point of freedom is that you can't account for it. It brings its own "room" with it.
Do you have crush-triggers that you've discovered only after they've been leading you around for years?
Are those like tush-chiggers? Man, there's hardly anything worse than a chigger bite. Skeeters are pretty bad, but chiggers really take the cake. Ain't ever had one on my tush that I know of, though. I imagine it would flat suck.
I usually think Keira looks smokin' hot, but that picture makes me want to buy her a sandwich. (And she still looks smokin' hot.)
Keira is also like, what, 17? Okay, maybe she's 20 by now, but still...
And in my completely unprofessional judgment, in that picture she doesn't look anorexic.
I watched Pirates of the Caribbean with my (then) seven-year-old son. In one part, the first mate brings Keira Knightley the dress to wear for dinner with the pirate captain and she says she won't. The first mate replies something along the lines of, "Captain said you'd say that. in that case, you'll be eating with the crew. Naked."
Keegan turned to me and said, "I'd like to see her naked. She's pretty." Uh oh. Couldn't quite figure out what to respond. I'm the daddy, you know, have to set the proper example and all that. After casting about for a minute, I just replied, "Yeah, me too."
You're written a lot of funny things here, apostropher, but not many of them have made me laugh as hard as that.
Ogged,
I know someone who knows Sherry Stringfield. I'm sure that if I got her to introduce Ms. Stringfield to your blog, the rest would take care of itself. She also knows Parminder Nagra, who knows Keira Knightley. Maybe I could try to work something out for Apostropher's son?
I'd really like to see that happen, pjs. What could possibly go wrong?
Maybe I could try to work something out for Apostropher's son?
Oh yes. Please do. Think she'd wear one of those au pair uniforms?
I spent years beating myself up for a big crush on Sherry Stringfield
Beating yourself up why? Sherry Stringfield is hot. Take her out of TV land and put her in your office. She'd turn heads all the livelong day.
Husky Voices: Jill Schoelen. If no one remembers her, she was in the Stepfather. Lauren Bacall?
As far as what I am attracted to, Sophie Marceau is about perfect. Adjani approaches. Irene Jacob is also the type. But I have seen Umbrellas of Cherbourg maybe 30 times. Parlez-vous?
Jill Schoelen. If no one remembers her
See what I mean?? Hott. I totally remember her, and now I know why.
Apostropher, I take your point, but you're defining hotness down.
Now I feel ripped off that I gave away my crush triggers.
what I am attracted to
As I've gotten older, I'm finding a much wider slice of the population attractive. Wide to the point that I can't even say "this is what I find attractive" anymore.
Then again, going back through all the women I've dated, I can't find anything remotely resembling a common thread. Guess this still holds.
Now I feel ripped off that I gave away my crush triggers.
It's not like they're rivalrous goods.
See what I mean?? Hott. [...] Apostropher, I take your point, but you're defining hotness down
Me? No way, yo.
And on things that make me go "yes, oh YES," it's posture, weirdly enough. Not necessarily good vs. bad posture, but more the story that the posture tells.
A recent Volokh thread discussed the possibility that criminal law might be underestimating the hunches of experiences cops, as unconscious to the cops as the subconscious processes that (*cough* sometimes) yield results might be.
Well, I'm in a similiar bind between prejudice and intuition; as someone who trained for years as a dancer in multiple techniques, I find myself making snap psychological judgments about people based on the way they hold their vertebrae. And I've rarely been proven wrong. (Melville talks about the physiognomy of the backbone--I can't lay my finger on it--but it's all seemingly about whales, surprise, surprise.)
I used to go out to clubs without my glasses, in the name of vanity and denial that my vision was so bad, and I'd find myself concocting crushes on mostly blurry individuals because their posture was so exciting. When these individuals moved into real visibility, they tended still to be interesting to me.
Data point.
That's low googling, apo. Stepfather was almost twenty years ago, and I hadn't seen her since. And the whole point is that husky voices make me find otherwise not so hott women hott. I concede that in 23, I should have said "I find her hott!"
years as a dancer in multiple techniques
Are your toes all fucked up? I dated a woman who spent several years with the Atlanta Ballet Company and her toes looked like she'd spent time in a Uzbek prison.
Actually, Jackmoron, I'm totally with you. I tend to refer to it as "carriage" or "bearing," but yeah, you can tell a lot about a person from it. Sorry about your time in the Uzbek prison, though.
Short, straight hair, a little stringy. Like, a little below the ears. Blonde or light brown. Small, tomboyish body. Sort of like F/amk/e J/ans/sen, though something about her face is a bit off for my taste.
I saw a woman who fit that description on the train platform this morning, and I totally stared.
Alternatively: dark-haired, confident, sophisticated Englishwomen with piercing, sensual eyes. The woman I have in mind played Ben Cross's love interest in Chariots of Fire (A/lice K/rige, the one who was a light opera singer). Also, the woman who played Fanny in Mansfield Park, and Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest (Fr/ances O'C/onnor).
For me it's a smile. A big, but genuine, smile, which is rare than one would think. Just kills me.
Are your toes all fucked up?
No, that was the one thing I really had going for me in advanced Balanchine Hell: my feet were more ornery than the shoes. (N.B.: my toes are stubby. The only word for them. And the rest of me tends towards rangy and muscly, which is how I figure I avoided the tendonitis that beset all of my dancer friends by age 15.)
And, really, Ogged, I can understand the occasional typo, but that one tends to rankle.
Damn, SCMT, that's actually sweet. Now I have to wait until you comment again to go back to thinking that your soul is dead.
...because then I know she'll have a heart worth betraying. (How's that, ogged?)
Well, that kind of malevolence still says "spark o' life" to me. I was thinking of something more like this.
Pfehw, I finally found the Melville referent. My point (and life) can be complete. Moby Dick, Chap. 80:
Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are, A thin joist of a spine bever yet upheld a full and noble soul I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world!Now that's hott.
Are you sure the Stringfield crush is due to her husky voice, and not because she bears quite a resemblance to Jennifer Jason Leigh?
I'm thinking the same as jackmormon, except what gets me is the way a person moves. Not so much being especially graceful or stumbly or something singular and noticeable but how a walk tells how a person feels in his or her company. That's intimate, to be able to read that.
My wife, when she's happy, has this spring to her, a dynamic vitality in her carriage, a bounce in her step, that just shouts that all is right with the world. That I get to be near her and experience that kind of daily pick-me-up, just kills me.
It occurs to me that my crush triggers don't seem to be related that closely to appearance - which isn't to say that physical attractiveness doesn't matter, only that there doesn't seem to be anything specific that always draws my interest.
On the other hand, every woman I've ever been attracted to has read a lot, been interested in literature, film, and (to a certain extent) history, and has participated in some kind of performing art like music, dance, or theatre.
Also, is crush trigger a common phrase? I'm not sure I've heard it before.
I thought I'd made it up, but it could be kleptomnesia in action.
Google says it mostly has to do with metals. But I didn't read through all the results.
crush-trigger, n.
1. a personal attribute that leads inexorably to the development of a crush by one person on another whenever one finds it in that other
2005 Unfogged Do you have crush-triggers that you've discovered only after they've been leading you around for years?
Excellent. What someone seriously needs to do is add "wizard cocksucker" to the Urban Dictionary.
Searching for "wizard cocksucker" does lead us to this. Such a supple wrist.
Also, I guess this guy Mikel is geigh.
It recently came to light that four of my ex-girlfriend's past five boyfriends (me included) yearn to make their own typefaces. The fifth probably does as well, but if so it never came up in conversation. Somehow I doubt that that's a crush-trigger, though. What really turns her on is the way we all modulate our subvocal pitches to match hers, I bet.
Do you think it would be possible to change the direction of your libido on purpose, through a dedicated program of porn consumption and masturbation? How deep do you think such conditioning could go? Could you turn yourself gay (or straight, or bi)?
There's only one way to find out: Ben w-lfs-n, let us know how it turns out.
Adam, there's quite a bit of research on that.
There are certainly people who think it can be done, as a treatment for so-called 'ego-dystonic homosexuality'.
I had to read a bunch of these articles in the process of my doctoral research (which is on the philosophical analysis of disease).
I'll post some citations when i get the chance. It's fair to say that a lot of it is published in ideologically suspect sources -- i.e. not mainstream journals -- and is funded by people with religious interests. However, not all of the articles seemed totally nuts.
