Letters to the Editor
Sandra M
Published Letters: 579 Editor's Choice: 139
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Lusty and the liberated
[Read the article: Speedo freaks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I used to cackle at men in Speedos, too. There was something funny - both funny strange and funny ha ha - about a man who seemed so anxious to call attention to his junk. But then I grew up and went on vacation to Rio and saw all those delicious smooth-chested, bronze-skinned, tall lanky Brasilian men playing soccer on the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and I stood rooted to the spot, mouth open. I've never seen so much male skin on display, and the fact that it was nearly all fit and gorgeous sure didn't hurt matters much. Suddenly I didn't give a crap about my husband ogling the babes in their Brasilian bikinis. I had my own eye candy, the best since Sports Illustrated for women had it's Best 50 Bodies issue featuring an Ivy Leage water polo team - those guys were all in Speedos too, and they were so fantastically fit they seemed to have developed extra muscles around the hip/pelvis area that led the eye downward to their - as Mr. Broudy so aptly named - 'excitable dachsunds'.
But lust aside, it was the liberated attitude about the body that was really captivating. Everyone in Rio goes as bare as they dare. On the Sunday promenade along of Copacabana beach people of all ages sauntered in their bikinis and briefs. I saw a woman well into her 60s strutting along in tight white capris, her thong clearly visible from the back. Her equally old husband strolled her, belly bulging above his Speedo.
I love this egalitarian approach to ogling. I don't know where American men get the idea that women don't care about men's looks. Yeah, sure, other things matter - sense of humor blah blah. But on the beach, well, they don't. I'm sick of guys wearing knee-length board shorts. They look stupid. You might as well be wearing corduroys. Get in shape and get in a Speedo! And don't worry about people having a difficult time looking you in the eye when you're standing before them in your low-slung glory. It hasn't stopped women from wearing bikinis. You might even find you enjoy the attention.
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You already know the answer
[Read the article: My boyfriend wants an open relationship]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not about being right or wrong but having different values and goals for this particular relationship. You've reached a crossroads.
The choice seems to be: remain in a monogamous relationship in which you will be happy right up until the time he cheats on you and/or breaks up with you because he resents being held back by your values, or convert to an open relationship in which he will be happy while you mourn the loss of an exclusive partnership and feel betrayed and guilty.
It seems to me that for an open relationship to work, you both must want it, you must have exquisite communication about what will be workable vs. not workable, and you must have a history of talking about the relationship in an open, loving way that encourages discussion of all issues, even painful ones. Right now it doesn't seem you are all that comfortable with talking to him about the *idea* of an open relationship; it's hard to imagine the channels of communication are going to improve once he starts sleeping around and you are dealing with the cold hard reality of your heretofore imagined jealousy, hurt and resentment. I think you will find yourself in hell.
Consider this: tell your bf that you aren't ready for an open relationship and may never be. That if and when you are ready you'll tell him but until then he should stop bringing it up and consider that he is in a monogamous partnership from which straying constitutes cheating, which will hurt you very much and destroy the relationship. That if he feels in his heart that straying for him is inevitably what he will do because mutlitple partners is indubitably what he wants, to please spare you the pain and humiliation of being cheated on and allow the two of you to end the relationship on a sad yet amicable note, before the good memories are wiped out by a brutal and totally avoidable mistake.
It would be better to look back on the relationship fondly, as your first taste of a rewarding committed relationship, than to change it into something that will be rendered hateful and unrecognizable because of jealousy, hurt, anger and misery.
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Humorlessness is just as unappealing
[Read the article: Hollywood and swine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Details got a little heavy handed with the pork analogy. But come on - Details hardly represents what most men, or people, think . Go to Ask Men.com - many of the 'fat' actresses are ranked very highly in their hot babes poll. Monica Bellucci has been ordained the sexiest woman for something like 3 years in a row.
What I found interesting in the porkers list is the fact that most of these women carry all their 'extra' poundage in the bosoms. Liz in her heyday, Rachel Weisz and Kate Winsley and Zeta Jones and Bellucci are all quite slender - it's their bosoms that are ample, and nothing else.