Cleavage or Soul?

What women do we love? Let’s think

about that for a minute.
For some time, Esquire—tag line: “Man at His Best”—has featured a
section called “Women We Love.” I went online to see some of the women
“men at their best” are in love with.

The eight all-time (stretching back to 2002) most loved women are Kate
Beckinsale, Megan Fox, Katy Perry, Christina Hendricks, Anna Torv,
Angelina Jolie, Beau Garrett, and Monica Bellucci. In the thumbnail preview
shots, two of the women appear to be putting at least one finger in their
mouths, one is lying in bed seductively, one is wearing a wet T-shirt, and
one has her lips parted suggestively. Only Angelina’s image suggests some
kind of self-respect.
I click on bustier-clad Katy Perry and skip down to the interview, trying to
ignore Ms. Perry in full black lingerie, complete with garter belt. After all,
this is about man at his best; there must be something serious here that we
all love so much.

Ah, here it is: “I always wanted to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling
banana,” Katy tells Esquire.

I’m done. I close the browser window and stare out the window.

Who are the men Esquire‘s talking about? What is it that we love about
these women? Their twirling-banana-swing fantasies? Their factory-fresh
“breasts”? Their naughty smiles? Are those things truly what men at their
best love about women?

When Hanna Rosin wrote about “The End of Men” in The Atlantic, she
pointed to the fact that women represent the majority of the workforce for
the first time in U.S. history, and that for every two men who get a college
degree this year, three women will do the same. But there is something more
basic going on.

In media and culture, men are increasingly caricatured as knuckle-dragging

cartoon characters, particularly when it comes to how we view women and
sexuality. And by whom? Men, of course. It’s not women running the strip
clubs, porn websites, and editing spreads in Esquire. We have an enemy—
and the enemy is us.

♦◊♦

The popularity of Esquire’s “Women We Love” section gets down to the

very core of what has happened to guys in 2011. We have allowed our
manhood, the nuanced truth of who we really are, to be stolen from us. If
Rosin is right that men are doomed, it’s for this reason.

Yes, we are the minority in the workplace and at college—but that’s because
our motivations and meaning in our lives have been scrambled by popular
culture, which mandates that the thing we really should want, the thing that
will prove we are the alpha males, has turned out to be hollow, addicting,
and spirit-crushing. While we watch football and stare at Megan Fox,
women in this country are getting shit done.

Put more bluntly, I am talking about the difference between masturbating

and making love. “Women We Love” aims at the former, focusing on naked
pictures of improbably shaped, unattainable movie stars who play dumb for
our satisfaction. (I suspect that Katy Perry is quite bright, bananas aside.
And largely, it’s not the women’s fault they appear so vacuous.)

Most of the guys I know are unfulfilled looking at pictures of women they
will never meet (not only are they unmeetable, they don’t actually,
technically, exist). They prefer making love with a woman who stirs their
passions on more than one level. But we have been conditioned like so many
Pavlovian dogs.

Yes, good men love women. But we love women in all their complexity, for
the things they do, for their intelligence, their wit, their athleticism, their
creativity, their power, their force of personality. We seem to have forgotten
that along the way, and our brain-numbing intoxication by pornography in
all its forms threatens to end us—not because it is morally wrong but just
because it distracts us from the truth and scatters our power. It’s one big acid
trip fantasy with no connection to improving our lives, being good fathers
and husbands, and advancing our careers.

The models I have met in the flesh have all turned out to be quite
unattractive. When a supposedly beautiful woman opens her mouth and
soulless, empty nonsense tumbles out, the perfect 10 becomes a two in a big
hurry. No amount of cleavage can make up for the lack of soul.

My wife is a lawyer turned decorator turned child advocate. Yes, she is hot
—but she is also smarter than I am, far more graceful in a crowd, and can
convince just about anyone to do just about anything when it comes to
helping at-risk children. She is hot not just because she is beautiful, but
because she is all those other things, too.

So with no further ado, here is MY list of the women men love, if we

actually stopped to think about it. These are women who are fascinating,
cool, and lovable. They have it going on—and not because they might (or
might not) want to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling banana.
 • Chelsea Handler
• Melinda Gates
• Jhumpa Lahiri
• Kate Middleton
• Gwyneth Paltrow
• Patti Stanger
• Steffi Graf
• Lady Gaga
• Michelle Obama
• Laura Hillenbrand
• Portia de Rossi
• Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Esquire, how about switching it up and working off my list for a change of
pace? And let’s not ask any of these women we love to wear black garter
belts for the photo shoot, OK? Let’s focus on what’s really important for
once.

About Tom Matlack

Tom Matlack is just foolish enough to believe he is a decent man. He has a

16-year-old daughter and 14- and 5-year-old sons. His wife, Elena, is the
love of his life.

Comments

1. mordicai says:

January 21, 2011 at 6:54 am

I agree with Tom in principle– most “women we love” categories are

just the more polite & less honest version of a…well a “women I like
to objectify!” sort of thing. That being said, I don’t think slamming
models is the solution. Putting other people down to get to the end
point isn’t required.
 Reply

o Amanda Marcotte says:

January 21, 2011 at 9:57 am

I don’t think he slammed them. He put the blame solely on the

men who make the aesthetic choices, own the magazines, etc.
The women are doing a job. Like anyone doing a job, you can’t
tell who they are at home from the face they wear at work. The
men who run the industry are the ones who create the demands.
The women who do the work are just getting paid.

Reply

2. Viv says:

January 21, 2011 at 7:12 am

Good to read a guy with sense.

the interesting thing is that the parallel happens with women; they
objectify men in the same sort of way.
The answer? Not sure, but actually spending time talking with people
of the opposite gender through a spectrum of topics might recondition
people into trying to see the soul in another body.
Perhaps also we might like to try and see beautiful people of any
gender just as we see works of art: lovely but not real, until
relationship creates that bond where you can see more than the
exterior.
Nice article. Thanks

Reply
3. Elizabeth Damewood Gaucher says:

January 21, 2011 at 9:30 am

Very well done, Mr. Matlack. I especially liked the “because it

scatters our power.” That is certainly true, and may get the attention of
some people who otherwise would not understand your point. Thank
you.

Reply

4. Alex says:

January 21, 2011 at 9:58 am

Gillian Anderson.

Reply

5. Lance says:

January 21, 2011 at 10:04 am

I stopped reading Maxim, Esquire, and other “men’s” magazines a

few years ago simply because they were uninteresting. Is it
athestically pleasing to lok at women half clothed, sure. I’m a dude, I
get it. But most of those magazines are for other women or gay men.
Look at the ads.

I agree with your hypothesis but I’m also realistic. Magazines are
trying to sell copies, not enrich my soul. Rolling Stone stopped being
about music 10 years ago when they featured Britney Spears, who
can’t sing, on their cover three times in 18 months, I got it, they
wanted to make money, If I wanted to read about Radiohead’s next
 album, I should go elsewhere.

My wife will pick up magazines like that every once in a while, flip
through them, show me some pictures, and say “there’s nothing in
here but Katy Perry’s boobs. we saw those, don’t waste your time
reading it.” and saves me a good 15 minutes of my life. I love the
complexity of women as well. I concentrate on the one I have at
home, the ones I;m raising, and the ones I have as friends. It saves me
stress in the long run. That being said…nice pictures, Tom.

Lance

Reply

6. Joel Schwartzberg says:

January 21, 2011 at 10:05 am

A more accurate title for the Esquire section would be “Women We

Lust After” or “Our Excuse To Show Photos Men Like” or “Our
Maxim Moment”.

That said in agreement, I love my wife, my family, chocolate cake,

lite rock, horror movies, my cats, stuffed cabbage, writing, and
watching the NFL Playoffs on a DVR. But women like those on your
list — to which I’d add Gabrielle Giffords and Cate Blanchett — are
women whom I ADMIRE. Attraction shouldn’t even be part of the
equation.

Reply

7. brooke says:

January 21, 2011 at 10:47 am

What a refreshing experience, to read an article written by a man with

such an (excuse me), honest and “evolved” perspective. Women don’t
want to think of our men as “knuckle dragging cartoon characters,”
even though we are aware that our brains are physiologically different
and that you guys think about sex much more than we do, yet that’s
the very image that so many men seem to want to perpetuate. Media
geared towards and run by men only reinforces this cardboard cut-out
image – that really serves no one. Attraction to “beauty” is natural.
It’s part of human nature to be drawn to our ideals, so I certainly find
no fault in lauding beautiful women. However, reducing beauty to
nothing more than an object to be used by men and tossed aside is
another matter altogether. If Esquire was as honest as you, Tom, they
would call their section: “Women We’d like to F**k,” and be done
with it. At least that way, they wouldn’t be tossing the concept of
“love” into the same shallow pit.

Reply

o Tom Matlack says:

January 21, 2011 at 10:58 am

Honesty is really I think we as guys can aspire to when thinking

about goodness. So yes I kind of like the ring of “Women We’d
like to F**k” as a way to reframe what is really going on here.
That said, F’ing really doesn’t much help get guys out of the
box we find ourselves in right now. Don’t get me wrong, I
actually have nothing against sex, nudity, whatever it is that
floats your boat. The issue for guys is that the sex industry has
taken hold as such a central force in our collective lives (and
brains) that we are missing the whole point when it comes to
women and to ourselves. So my way of attempting to wake our
slumber is to simply ask, if we really think about it, is Megan
Fox or Jhumpa Lahiri more attractive? Is going to a strip club
or being happily married really more fulfilling? Is going to
college and working at a meaningful job (like all those women
are doing) or staring at porn more important? If the answer is
porn, strip club and Megan Fox more power to you. But at least
I made you think about the question.

Reply