No One’s Body (or Mind) Is Perfect, Nor Is Any Playboy Survey
I t arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago, screaming about the chance to win big money, cars and Other Valuable Prizes, and all you, the lucky recipient, had to do was complete the two-page “1994 Playboy Perfect Woman Poll.”
It sounded pretty intriguing until we looked at some of the questions and criteria, which appeared to have come straight out of 1957 and must have been specifically calculated to make Andrea Dworkin rigid with fury.
So . . . is the idea of constructing the perfect woman, or man, a worthwhile exercise or a resounding 10 (10 being just shy of Nazism) on the politically incorrect scale?
HE: I say it’s fairly harmless because, let’s face it, we all do it to one degree or another. I have a weakness for red hair and a kind of astringent smile. Big deal. But the Playboy survey details you to death. It wants to know, for instance, whether you think the perfect woman ought to have--I’m not making this up--an “innie” or an “outie” belly button. It’s like a personal ad run amok.
SHE: For the record, I prefer “innies.” They’re great for eating celery in bed (you can put salt in an “innie”).
I get a kick out of the way this poll is organized. Such originality. There are sections dealing with vital statistics; beauty; body parts (“What one feature about a woman’s face do you look at most?”); brains (Choose one: “I believe the perfect woman should have common sense or lots of dollars and cents”); fashion; lifestyle/work style, and sexual attitudes.
Garbage! Where’s the section on values? When are the sexes going to figure out that it’s our shared value systems, not body parts, that keep us loving each other?
HE: Well, we ought to acknowledge that Playboy has never really been on the sharpest cutting edge of sexual politics. The airbrush is not exactly a philosophical tool.
The closest category to values on the sheet is lifestyle and workstyle, which gives the respondent a smorgasbord of choices that suggest a myopically narrow focus. The perfect woman, it implies, would love to do only one or two of the following: eat, dance, spectate, work, talk, draw, participate or travel, and would favor the indoors, the outdoors, music, motorcycles, talk radio or convertibles. She could also be career-minded, goal-oriented, family-oriented, a homemaker at heart or good with children and in-laws. Each of these choices has a little box next to it for the respondent to check.
I’d say that if 90% of those boxes weren’t checked, the resulting perfect woman would be either a crashing bore or just plain mean.
Another limiting question, under the “brains” designation: The perfect woman would have an interest in art, English, history, finance/math, physiology, sciences, foreign languages, political science, psychology or “other.”
Is that all?
SHE: I’m going to pretend like this is a questionnaire about the perfect M-A-N and fill in the blanks on the body parts section.
What one feature about a man’s face do you look at most? (check one, it says): cheekbones, chin, ears, eyebrows, eyes, lips, nose, teeth, other . I look at a man’s teeth the most. (I keep my eye on their level of dental hygiene and their smile.)
The perfect man’s lips would be: full, thin, thick, pouty (check one). Forget pouty and thick. Mens’ lips should be slightly full. My, I didn’t know I cared about such things.
But while we’re at it, what feature do you look at the most on women? And what about her lips?
HE: You’ve really been reading the questionnaire carefully, haven’t you? OK, OK, I’ll bite on this one. If a woman has an easy, sunny smile and the kind eyes to back it up, I always figure there’s a lot behind that smile and those eyes that’s worth finding out about.
Lips? Who cares? I’m sick to death of that yahoo parade of bee-stung lips pouting at me from the covers of fashion magazines. Give me an open, expressive face and you can slap any pair of lips on it you like.
SHE: Here’s the killer question: “Other than her face, if a woman could have only one absolutely perfect physical feature, it should be . . . Please Specify.” Then the form gives you a little hint (like you’re too dumb to figure it out): “In other words, are you a ‘leg man,’ or what?”
I’ve wanted to ask a man this for years. Is is true that men categorize their attraction for women this way? Are there really leg men? Derriere men? Breast men? And if so, why?
HE: Answers, in order: Yes, yes, yes, yes and I don’t know. And it’s not a phenomenon limited to men. Sure, I’ve talked to a lot of guys who would automatically rule out a stunning woman if she had anything but blond hair. I’ve also heard lots of women deep-six an otherwise terrific guy because he wasn’t tall. If you don’t look at the total person and instead fixate on something as irrelevant as the size of a bra or a wallet, you deserve what you get.
SHE: In spades.
