Hot Lunch.

What makes a person sexy?

To get on board my mental segue train: was waiting to pick up my lunch order at New China Star and started looking at the various specimens of humanity at and around the restaurant. No one there was what I would consider homely, and some people were, at least by American standards, good looking. Yet I didn't think any of them were sexy. So I wondered, "What makes a person sexy?"

Now, when I say "sexy," I don't mean that I necessarily want to have sex with the person. There is some sort of simple (or not-so-simple) recognition that the person has an attractive quality that generates an appreciation that transcends the visual aesthetic.

Geeze, I love b.s.-ing with euphemisms.

Supposedly, symmetry = attractiveness. It's not just having two eyes, ears, nostrils, lips that makes one attractive, but having them symmetrical and proportionate. I can look at an image or an individual who is symmetrical and state that s/he is attractive, but that's it. There's nothing "sparky." Like at the restaurant. There was a guy there who was technically a hottie: tall, blonde, blue-green eyes (two of them, even!), spoke in complete sentences, looked trim. A woman came in with gorgeous flowing dark hair and green eyes, well-proportioned.

My response? Yawn.

I kept hearing two terms of my mother's-- "shapida" and "not sympatico." Sympatico, though I know it's been translated in other places, implies a relevance, a connection, something captivating in the person's person-ality. Shapida means, well, blah. No vibrancy, excitement. No sense of soul emerging through all of the prettiness.

So is this a definition by absence? What is lacking determines what isn't sexy?

and I stand here, looking up and thinking while shaking my head back and forth. (Don't try this at home, kids.)

So, what makes a person sexy?

Intelligence--not necessarily in that analytical geometry sense (though that may be a turnon for some, heaven help 'em), but (again defining by lack) not having to wonder if there's a "vacancy" sign posted on that person's forehead. Humor--laughing at life, the world, one's self, not in deprecation but in celebration. Let's face it: a good laugh elevates as much as other physical activities. Finally, Passion... I don't mean pseudosexual passion like some trumped up Latin Fabio wannabe with melodramatic delivery, but that real, unpretentious joy / appreciation / elan / exuberance / captivation that only happens when one's soul is singing.

Of course, back to examples of blue-eyed boy and green-eyed girl, I only observed them. Perhaps they were intelligent, funny, and passionate, and my detached evaluation could not sense the complexity underneath the exterior. But I think not. There's a "zap" to a personality that, even in passing, I -- I think we all-- sense, no matter what our sexualities and tastes.

Then again, what do I know? I don't have a single porn site bookmarked.