May 17, 2008
Cheryl St. John on Physical Attraction
Written by Cindy Kirk in Jaunty Guests
Cheryl St.John is a RITA nominee for her novella in A Western Winter Wonderland. Her next releases are the Harlequin Historical western Christmas anthology, The Magic of Christmas 10/09, and a December HH with a title still being decided. Cheryl blogs about sexy cowboys at http://petticoatsandpistols.com/ and you can visit her at From the Heart http://cherylstjohn.blogspot.com/.
Women are attracted to the men they see as the strongest and most attractive. It’s all about biological quality, or the survival of the species. It’s doin’ what comes naturally. Female birds are attracted by the most colorful or attractive of the other gender, same with animals and mammals. Many males take part in battle rituals for the female, therefore strength and endurance win out. Nature is making sure the strongest survive, that the species will be carried on by the most capable, the best hunters and providers.
It’s our instinct to be drawn to a provider and a protector. This is why those alpha heroes appeal to us as readers. Reading romances validates the universal hope that there is one special person for everyone. Stories of successful relationships reassure us that many women around the world share our dreams.
Attraction is all about chemistry. In our heads we know that in selecting a mate, a human female must consider more than the initial attraction. The ability to make wise selections is what sets us apart from the animals. We have the ability to and the luxury of compiling all the information before we make a choice. Regrettably too many women will admit that relationships founded on sex appeal alone were not the stuff futures are made of. But there has to be something there – something that draws you to this person and keeps you attracted to him through thick and thin.
So what about facial hair — real facial hair that takes some time and testosterone to cultivate?
Mustaches are often culturally associated with wisdom and virility, and it’s not difficult to understand why. There’s something about a mustache that sings of maturity…masculinity. A subject that comes up often among writers is the youthful appearance of so many celebrities, cover models and singers. While there’s no disagreeing that Matthew McConaghy and James Marsden are fine-looking fellows, there’s something about maturity that speaks to us as women. Josh Holloway. Naveen Andrews. How many times has George Clooney been People magazine’s sexiest man of the year?
Now I know there are many of you who will disagree, in fact a recent survey discovered that an alarming number of women would refuse to kiss a man with a mustache. So maybe facial hair a simply a matter of taste. A big argument against mustaches has been that they’re out of style because so many men wore them in the seventies. The seventies? Men have been shaving — or not shaving — selectively since the stone age! Shaving with stone razors was technologically possible from Neolithic times. The oldest portrait showing a shaved man with a mustache is a Scythian horseman from 300 BC.
Historically, military men have often worn moustaches; in fact the number of nations, regiments and ranks were equaled only by the number of styles and variations. Generally, the younger men and lower ranks wore the smaller and less elaborate moustaches. As a man advanced in rank, his moustache would become thicker and bushier, until he was permitted to wear a full beard.
I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s an American Mustache Association. Neither did I, but they’re gung ho on protecting their rights to bear whiskers. At The World Beard & Moustache Championships 2007 there were 6 subcategories in the moustache category:
Natural Moustache - may be styled but without aids.
Hungarian Moustache - Big and bushy, beginning from the middle of the upper lip and pulled to the side.
Dalí - narrow, long points bent or curved steeply upward; areas past the corner of the mouth must be shaved.
English - narrow, beginning at the middle of the upper lip the whiskers are very long and pulled to the side, slightly curled; the ends are pointed slightly upward; areas past the corner of the mouth usually shaved. .
Imperial - whiskers growing from both the upper lip and cheeks, curled upward
Freestyle - All moustaches that do not match other classes.
Other types of moustache include:
Fu Manchu - long, downward pointing ends, generally beyond the chin
Pancho Villa - similar to the Fu Manchu but thicker
Handlebar - bushy, with small upward pointing ends.
Horseshoe - Often confused with the Fu Manchu style, the horseshoe was possibly popularized by modern cowboys and consists of a full moustache with vertical extensions from the corners of the lips down to the jaw line and resembling an upside-down horseshoe.
Moustachio - bushy moustache, with hair sometimes growing down the sides of the mouth.
Taylor moustache - a thin row of fine dark hairs along the upper lip.
Pencil moustache - narrow, straight and thin like a pencil, closely clipped, outlining the upper lip, with a wide shaven gap between the nose and moustache. Also known as a Mouthbrow.
Walrus - bushy, hanging down over the lips, often entirely covering the mouth. Popular during the American Civil War.
The GG - bushy hair grown only over the corners of the mouth, shaved in the middle.
Now we have that scruffy five-o’clock shadow look and of course soul patches.
So, what’s your preference on facial hair – thumbs up or thumbs down?
I’d love to hear about it if you’ve seen any mustaches on book covers.
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Then I returned my attention to Faith on a Harley. Mostly because I was getting a push from the contest coordinator to get the book in or she’d give the prize to the second place finisher, I finally get it back up to 190 pages (80 short of Steeple Hill’s word count at the time) and send it in.
