Tag Archives: adultery

All In the Head?

So, I’m having a bit of writer’s block on the novel, so I guess another day or two will pass before the next installment(s), though I think I’ll be picking up steam on that project again soon. In the meantime, I’ll go and get spiritual instead today, since Miz Pink seems to have dropped off the radar again temporarily (I blame the dang kid that insists on being changed and breastfed regularly…two activities that I’m sure make typing pretty near impossible).

So, what I want to talk about is the whole idea of sinful thoughts being as bad as sinful actions. A popular belief among many conservative, Bible-belting-you-over-the-head types.

A belief which, I have to say, is a total load of horsecrap.

Jesus talks about this notion a bit, supposedly, as chronicled in the Gospel of Matthew, and here’s one snippet:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew chapter 5, verses 27 & 28)

Now, by way of an aside, there’s an interesting discussion about what adultery really means, right here, but you can look at that later. It doesn’t have any bearing on my arguments here. Also, before I start making my arguments, I’ll remind those of you who are still confusing me with a theologian that I’m neither a linguist nor biblical scholar, so take my ravings here with an appropriate dosage of salt.

I don’t think that Jesus’ argument was really that thinking about sex outside of marriage, for example, or thinking about killing (which he mentions right before the adultery thing), for instance, are as sinful as actually doing the acts.

First, Jesus talks about the heart, not the mind. That is, we’re talking about true feelings. Intense motions. Intentions. Not mere passing thoughts. Fact is, as humans, it’s pretty much impossible to never look at someone with sexual desire. Flat out impossible. The issue is more this: Did you think about sinful activity with a real fervor and serious consideration about doing it?

If so, there is where your sin may lie.

But more to the point, perhaps, let’s look at the context in which Jesus is speaking. This was the ancient world. People didn’t typically live in cities, and cities of the time were still much smaller affairs than what we have today. Therefore, to look at, say, a woman with serious lust was a problem in part because this is a woman you have access to.

If I look lustfully upon a woman on the commuter train of a major city, chances are I won’t really have a chance to act on my desires. I don’t know where she works. I don’t know where she lives. The most pressing danger of “sinful” fantasies is that you might actually act out the sin. In the ancient world, looking at some dude’s wife with lust meant you might have a very real chance, regardless of which woman in town you chose, of knowing how to find her and giving yourself an opportunity.

So, the mere thinking of a thing isn’t sinful.

Because, let’s face it, if that were the case, good intentions would be enough to save us in the eyes of God. Because if thoughts are as good as actions, then wanting to do something good is just as powerful as actually taking action, right?

Of course not. We are supposed to take positive actions, not simply intend or wish them.

Finally, another nail in the coffin of the notion of sinful thoughts being as bad as sinful actions: Jesus thought sinful things.

Oh, don’t get ready to stone my ass, now. Satan tempted Jesus. Jesus led a sinless life, despite knowing the power and allure of sin. Jesus couldn’t possibly have gone his whole life without considering the possibility and implications and consequences of doing a sinful act. He had to be capable to considering the possibility of sin, or he couldn’t be tempted. He had to know what it felt like to desire things that were wrong, or he couldn’t have understood his human side. Plus, if he was incapable of even considering sin, then what was the big deal about his sinless life? If it was some cakewalk for him, then the whole exercise meant nothing.

Just because you think a thing doesn’t make it so.

Nor does it define your true intentions.

Two-fer Tuesday: Marriage by Miz Pink

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Deke agreed to let me be saucy with today’s topic, while he’ll throw his body on some other grenade topically speaking.

So, how’dya all feel about open relationships?

No, silly, I am NOT asking you if you’d like to get all jiggy with me or Sir Pink. Don’t email me with any photos of yourself or offers of salacious intent. I’m pretty much keeping my bedroom off limits to outsiders and I don’t much like the idea of me or Sir Pink going visiting anyone elses private parts. No matter how much I suspect he might want to go…there…someday. Maybe it’s just because I don’t see any good pickins for myself and won’t ease up on that idea until I have some options to pick from for myself too.

But I do wonder, is it all that bad? Is adultery really adultery if the two people in the marriage are OK with it? It’s not really cheating. No one is being lied to in the marriage.

Marriage may be between two folks, but does that mean you can’t invite a third or fourth or the entire crew of the good ship S.S. Open Minded for a visit?

Marriage I think is largely what the two people in it want to define it. Supposedly, everything is good in that ole marriage bed so I think as long as people are in agreement, I don’t think we can really be casting stones at people who go off on a little different track.

Anyhoo like I said, it’s not the kinda thing I’m into…at least not right now. And if Sir Pink is into it, he’s wisely keeping his mouth shut and waiting for cues from me before he broaches it.

So don’t send me any photos or emails. But I’ll keep an open mind about the whole notion. Sort of.

The F-Word, Part 1

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Well, I got things rolling with The F-Word Prologue; now let’s get down to brass balls….er, brass tacks.

Because fornication is a popular sport worldwide, and curious minds want to know where I stand (or lie, as the case may be, preferably on silk sheets) on the issue of getting naked and sweaty with someone to whom you aren’t married.

Before I really get into fornication in depth (and who doesn’t like to go deep when it comes to fornication?), we need to establish what it is at its most basic.

I would assume people know, but just in case:

for·ni·ca·tion | Pronunciation: fȯr-nə-ˈkā-shən | Function: noun | Date: 14th century | Definition: consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other

OK, so that fornication thing that the Bible is so down about is sex without benefit of being in wedded bliss. It is distinguished from adultery, which is sex with someone you’re not married to, but when one or both of you are married to someone else. So, you know, if you’re single you can go for the double play and have sex with someone who’s married and wallow in a couple sins.

Uh, oh. We already have a problem. Because now I have to start by addressing just what the hell constitutes marriage these days—and yes, we do have to frame this according to the modern day because things are far more complex socially than in the really old days from centuries or millennia ago. Hell, they’re way more complicated than they were in the 1950s.

Because, if we don’t have a handle on what marriage is, we’re already in trouble. And it isn’t as easy as saying, “If you had a wedding, you’re married.” That’s legal. That’s a social contract. That’s of the world. Marriage in the spirit is what we’re talking about, and that’s what’s important, because God works in the world of the spiritual. Sin is committed through physical acts usually, but the damage in spiritual. So it’s the souls of the people having sex we have to worry about, and whether they are connected through marriage.

Miz Pink, in some of her earliest posting around here, spent a couple days talking about divorce (Splitsville and Splitsville 2)—I highly recommend you read those first then come back.

OK. Done? Great.

Her “Splitsville 2″ post is especially telling. And I agree with her 100% that she didn’t really have a marriage with her first “husband.” It doesn’t matter than they said some words and traded some rings. The reasons for the union were faulty and unsound. There was no foundation there and, frankly, no real commitment to try to build one and move their metaphorical house onto it. They were married according to the law, but really, they weren’t connected and, in my humble opinion, still committing fornication.

Now, to be honest, I am a big believer in getting up and saying some vows before people and before God. Why? Well, let me quote the theory of the “gold standard” here. In most professions, there are gold standards. For example, in the world of medical care, a certain diagonstic test, medicine, treatment plan or surgery may be the best for a certain problem. It is the gold standard because it gets the most positive impact for the most number of people most of the time.

But let’s remember the word most. Not all. Most.

We should aim for the gold standard of a church marriage where you bring God, family and friends together for the wedding.

But it would arrogant of me to say that it’s the only way or that it’s the right way for all people.

There are people who live together for years and function in every way as a married couple, but for whatever reason don’t want to be locked into the legalities or do things a certain way just to please the parents or the pastor or the meddling friends. Hell, this is typically what committed gay couples are forced to do.

Simply saying some vows before an altar doesn’t make it a true connection. People marry for lots of reasons: to be contrary, to be spiteful, because they’re confused, because they’re pregnant, because they’re infatuated, because they’re high as a kite or drunk as a skunk, and so on.

How many times in your life have you told someone you loved them, either because of an orgasm, sexual afterglow or just a romantic moment by candlelight or something? And then you realize—minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years or decades later—that not only don’t you love this person now, but you quite likely never did.

The capacity for humans to lie to themselves is tremendous.

Of course, so to is the capacity for self-serving justifications. A person could say, well, I’m married in my heart to this person so we should be having sex, and it’s not fornication at all. You could, and maybe you’re even right, but how often have you told yourself that same thing before, and how many times will you do it again?

OK, enough of that for now. I haven’t definitively answered what marriage is, and frankly there is no really clear and ironclad way to do it. Marriage is a connection of mind and spirit between two people. It is a sharing of yourself. It is, in fact, the giving up of a large portion of yourself to the other person (and that other person better be doing the same). It is commitment and rebirth, it is reward and sacrifice, it is freedom and surrender.

You might not have to wear a tux or a gown to make it happen, but be honest with yourself. Are you really married, whether you have a ring on your finger or not?

If you aren’t, sex with that other person is fornication.

(Next time, we’ll get more into why God might care and some of the other nitty-gritty of what is or isn’t fornication.)

Your Cheating Heart

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Lord, we do love us some drama around a politician boning someone other than his wife, don’t we?

John Edwards became the latest perpetrator-slash-victim in this wonderful cycle, and folks are spouting off all over the place about how terrible it is what he did to his wife, Elizabeth and how it shows his complete lack of moral character and damn aren’t we lucky he didn’t get the Democratic nod because either (a) he’d lose to McCain for the infidelity [if of course we were to ignore that McCain left his disabled wife for a younger, and rich, woman] or (b) we’d have a philanderer in the Oval Office!

Oh, my God! A politician who sleeps around. Stop the presses!

There have been saner heads in the world of commentating and blogging that have pointed out the fact that fidelity is hardly a necessity for being a good politician and that holding politicians to a higher moral standard than other professions doesn’t make much sense. But there still a lot of venom being sloshed into Edwards’ face, from men and women alike. In in my humble opinion, though, we’ve given the country over to greedy, selfish, heartless folks for eight years. Is fucking someone other than your wife really so much worse than fucking people over?

Look, before I go any farther, let me be clear that I don’t support adultery. I have never desired to cheat on my wife and I hope I never do. And I didn’t like what John Edwards did in terms of cheating; it is disappointing. But there are a few reasons I realized that I don’t have a right to get all judgmental and self-righteous about what he did.

First off, unlike Bill Clinton and Elliot Spitzer and some other notable randy politicians in recent years, there is no indication that what Edwards did was some habitual thing. So far, it looks more like an isolated event.

Second of all, Elizabeth isn’t throwing her husband to the wolves but keeping his back, and it’s not my place to be outraged on her behalf if she’s coming to grips with it. Hell, Mrs. Blue and a former social worker she knows (also female) were discussing that with the breast cancer troubles Elizabeth Edwards has been going through, she may not want to have sex and may feel like less than a woman; apparently, this is not uncommon among those fighting breast cancer. They’ve gone so far as to theorize that she may have encouraged her husband to get his business taken care of by someone else. These are woman talking, not me. Such a thing wouldn’t have even crossed my mind as a theory. But it is entirely plausible. We just don’t know.

Finally, though, I am reminded of what Jesus said when the mob dragged before him a woman they had caught in the act of adultery and saying she be stoned to death according to Jewish law and asking what Jesus thought, to try to trip him up and show that he didn’t care about the law. Instead, he said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” (This is all in John 8:3-11, by the way)

Most of us are familiar with that line and that story, and how it tells us that none of us are without stain or sin and none but God can truly judge and condemn anyone fairly and honestly.

But there is another element to it as well. Recall that the mob didn’t bring the man who had been committing adultery with this woman. They let him go free. Also, in the story, you might recall that before Jesus uttered his famous line, he was drawing in the sand with a stick. My father-in-law, in more than one sermon, has theorized that he was drawing words, perhaps something like, “So, where the heck is the man?” Because to my father-in-law, that is probably the only thing that would have truly made everyone disperse; throwing it in their faces that they only wanted to punish half of the adulterous couple.

True, there is a gender reversal when we look at the Bible story, where the woman gets dragged out, and with John Edwards, where the man is the one who gets the spotlight. But I think there is a parallel in that we always want to point fingers, usually at just one of the people, and then declare that a single act or a certain mistake can permanently make someone unworthy or somehow erases all the good they’ve done in the past. And for some reason, we chose adultery as some special way to do this, as if it’s so much worse than lying or greediness or pettiness or lack of general human compassion, things we have overlooked in politicians on both sides of the aisle on a regular basis.

None of us is without sin. All of us can commit the same mistake of adultery (or murder or theft or whatever) as quickly as anyone in the public that we want to vilify. All that is needed are the right circumstances.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t pay a price for deliberate harm they commit or stupid mistakes they make. I’m not even saying we don’t have a right to wonder about them when we do.

But we don’t have a right to judge a person’s entire worth based on a few unflattering snapshots from their life.

Mrs. Blue’s 7th Commandment Hot List

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All right, in my Women I’d Break the 7thCommandment With post from a couple days ago, the women have chimed in with some of their thoughts, both male and female, and WNG for one has rightly pointed out the eroticultural (patent pending) discrepancy that exists in having those 10 women and my lustful ramblings about them, along with some lovely little shots of them—and yet nothing to represent for Mrs. Blue’s libido and, by extension, the fantasies of my female readers.

As I noted in the other post, Mrs. Blue just doesn’t have the same level of the celebrity lust thing that most of us do, and her list is, therefore, far too small to get to ten. However, because I am a creative sort who finds all sorts of ways to get around his wife’s lack of time to guest-post here, I am going to present to you her top five “menzes” that she’d step out on me for, the three that she has already mentioned and two more that I am twisting her arm to generate. Then I’ll provide my top five suggestions for men I would, regrettably, also allow her to sin with if she had the chance. Hopefully, she’d come back to me after sowing her oats, but she’s made it pretty clear that a couple of the guys in her picks could push me out of the picture entirely.

(Yes, I’ve clearly been on a more sex-oriented kick this week and less of the pseudo-scholarly ramblings. Even my other post that I’ll be doing later tonight has sexual overtones, though from a more moralistic standpoint.)

Mrs. Blue’s Picks

Benicio del Toro

Even Mrs. Blue admits he’s not a classic “looker,” but she digs his deep thoughts. I think that it would be hard for him to steal my wife away entirely because, based on the interviews I’ve read featuring him, he’s almost too deep. The only real-life man who ever posed a real threat to me winning Mrs. Blue’s heart suffered from similar “too-deepness.” Sometimes, having too much intellect is just too much pressure for the other person unless he or she is an academician. But even beyond Benicio’s mental sexiness, I admit that I can see something in his eyes that would draw women in: The brooding, almost melancholy smouldering look that almost seems sleepy but also somehow says, “I want you, and I can have you, and you know it. Come to me now.”

Terrence Howard

Not a man who is necessarily “classically” handsome in that chiseled beefcake style or perfect facial features, but someone who just has a package that exudes masculine sensuality. There is something of the stalker in him, and I don’t mean the creepy “I’m outside your window looking at you” kind but the type of man who might prowl through a nightclub, capturing the eyes of most of the women, the hearts of those he actually engages in conversation or dance, and the actual time of one or more of them back at his place. My wife freely jests that he seems to do a little too well in film roles that have him as a man who might (or does) smack a woman across the face from time to time. But we all know that dangerous-seeming men and women have their own allure. And I have faith Mrs. Blue could block any backhand attempt or return it in kind.

Rick Fox

I don’t know if my wife had a thing for this guy before we rented Meet the Browns a week or two ago, but she made it abundantly clear to me while watching him steam it up with Angela Bassett (who made my top 10 list of women, by the way, if you don’t recall) that I could kiss our marriage goodbye if he declared amorous intentions toward her. He’s a handsome man, I’ll grant that, but my son says he looks “kind of goofy,” so I find myself wondering if it’s really his looks that got my wife steamed up. Or is it his voice (she’s a sucker for aural stimulation) and the way he so deftly projects a vibe that exhibits masculinity and sensitivity?

Roger Guenveur Smith

My wife still calls this guy “Mr. Monroe” and I don’t remember in which movie he played a character with that name, but she reminded me years ago when we were watching Get On the Bus (in which he played the character Gary) that he was one fine piece of man and that I should despair for our marriage if he ever called her up. I could give Mrs. Blue all sorts of hell for digging an actor so much while still not knowing his name, but then again, if she got him alone in a room, she’d probably make him forget his own name.

Morris Chestnut

OK, this guy isn’t actually my wife’s pick, but that of Hawa, who authors the blog Fackin Truth. She had thrown his name out there as a male sexpot, and since my wife couldn’t come up with a fifth, we’ll just go with Hawa on this one. I approve of him if for no other reason than he’s bald (like me) and rocks a goatee (as I do about half the year; full beard the other half of the time). Got his start in Boyz n the Hood, a fine movie if I do say so, and apparently he’s an excellent Texas hold em player. My wife always did harbor dreams of becoming a pro gambler (or a bounty hunter)…

My Picks

George Clooney

Look, first of all, my wife’s list is short on racial diversity based on personal preferences (I’m an exception to her normal predilections), so I have to balance things out a bit for my racially mixed readership. Also, George Clooney is consistently voted as, and widely considered to be, one of the sexiest guys around, and he’s young enough for me to still consider him acceptable for my wife (otherwise, it might have been Sean Connery in this slot instead). I know that it’s become such a truism that George is suave, self-assured, accessible, friendly, cool and good-looking that it’s almost a cliché now. But still, he is a man that is so cool that even if he stole my wife, I might be willing to be drinking buddies with him afterward.

Kurt Elling

Another white guy, but Kurt Elling transcends race in many ways. He’s soulful, he’s one of the most talented jazz vocalists alive, and he earns the respect of not just white folks but also many black artists in jazz—and in hip-hop and R&B (even crusty underground rapper M.F. Doom listed him as one of only maybe 5 or 6 musical artists that he didn’t consider “whack”). This is a man I’d choose for my wife because of sheer talent and seeming emotional depth, and not because of looks. Because, while he ain’t ugly by any stretch, he isn’t exactly going to be on any beefcake-style posters either.

Common

This is actually my son’s pick. Mrs. Blue doesn’t feel any particular tingle for the guy, but she has admitted to our son that he’s a handsome guy, and he does have both musical talent and some potential acting talent. So, like with my inclusion of Scarlett Johanssen in my list based on my son’s taste, I’ll do the same with Common here. He’s got a listtle activist in him, and that is something that appeals to Mrs. Blue’s sensibilities, and he’s stayed true to Trinity United Church of Christ, of which he is a member last I heard, even after the media brouhaha over Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright that prompted Barack Obama to jump ship. That’s one thing that Mrs. Blue still hasn’t really forgiven Obama for, though she’s still going to vote for him.

Laurence Fishburne

I had briefly considered putting Denzel Washington on this list, but according to my son, the man done “plumped up a bit.” Not that such a thing would be unheard of in Hollywood for an upcoming role, but I don’t know. My wife just spent two years getting off excess maternity weight and adopting a pretty healthy lifestyle, and Denzel can be kind of stiff anyway sometimes, so despite being handsome and talented, I have to nix him. But Laurence Fishburne has always struck me as “Denzel-like” in terms of being serious, having great talent and seeming to be thoughtful and intelligent as well. He isn’t as handsome as Denzel is (or was, if my son’s dispersions are correct), but he’s still good looking. So, he makes my personal “final five” for Mrs. Blue.

Christian Bale

Look, I’m still trying to keep the races somewhat balanced here. Would have loved to add an Asian man for good measure, but I can’t think of a single celebrity of Asian descent that would remotely mesh with my wife. And I’m not coming up with too many Latino hunks that I think would either; we’ll have to leave it with Benicio del Toro for that. So, another white guy to finish out the list. Christian Bale is classically good looking, is currently sporting a very nice-looking physique in The Dark Knight (and did in Batman Begins, too), and he is a great talent. Moreover, he owns both the Bruce Wayne and Batman sides of his role. My son and I are big Batman fans, and so the next best thing to putting Batman on the list is putting Christian on it (and since I picked a Batman-related character in my list of hotties—Catwoman—it seems like nice corollary to have a Batman-related celebrity in Mrs. Blue’s list).

Women I’d Break the 7th Commandment With

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I saw a recent post at Pajiba.com titled “2008’s Most Bangalicious Celebrities” and well, I guess Pajiba is frequented by many more women and gay men than heterosexual guys, because only three out of the ten are women. Not that I have any quibbles with their male picks from an objective standpoint, but I was left hanging. Sort of the same worked up and frustrated feeling one gets going to a strip club (hmmm…maybe my next sex post should be on that entertainment venue). To show you all my very flawed human side, I will admit that there exist certain celebrity women who could easily make me stray from the marital straight-and-narrow. In the interests of getting some “bangalicious” women out there for those of you who are interested, but mostly for entertainment purposes, here are my top ten women who could make me break the 7th Commandment in a heartbeat.

For the record, there are male celebrities that my wife has admitted could not only make her stray but probably make her leave my ass entirely. So far, that list is small, Benicio del Toro and Rick Fox, but considering she’d leave me for one of them, I don’t feel too bad having ten ladies that could make me take a weeklong vacation.

I may have some favorites in this list, but I’m not going to reveal them in “top ten countdown” style; just going to do this alphabetically.

Angela Bassett

It’s a shame that this very talented actor has been reduced to some semi-schlock-ish movies lately. She’s got brains, style, panache, talent and beauty for miles upon miles. She’s been given some good roles even in recent years, but too many people are enraptured by Halle Berry’s unearthly physical beauty that they let that trump that fact that Angela has much more talent and is only marginally less perfect physically. There have been many places I’ve looked at her and longed for her, but I think it was 1995’s Strange Days in which I was totally captured by her mix of tough and sexy. The movie was forgettable; she was not. And in What’s Love Got to Do With It? she almost made a better Tina Turner than Tina did, and that’s saying a lot.

Catwoman

Hey, I never said I was going to limit myself to real people. And as far as fictional women, particularly in the comic books, none is sexier to me than Catwoman, the chick that even Batman digs, and you have to imagine that he’s pretty hard to impress. In movies and TV she’s been pretty damn sexy too, from the ’60s-era version played in the campy Batman TV series by both Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt and clad in spandex, to the Batman Returns movie with Michelle Pfeiffer giving her a latex-clad upgrade in 1992, this is a bad girl who could make be bad too. I wouldn’t even kick the silly Halle Berry version from the Catwoman movie out for eating catnip in bed. In short, Catwoman can wrap her whip around me, purr in my ear and use me as a scratching post all night long.

Rosario Dawson

Between her turn in Clerks II with an on-screen personality that screamed sexy-witty-smart geek goddess to her role in Sin City as a tough-as-nails gun toting lady of the night, what more could I ask for? OK, she’s got gorgeous eyes too, and a face that can sometimes be sexy and sometimes just plain cute. Nice smile too. She may not have the raw acting power of some her fellow Hollywood peers in this list, but she ain’t bad in her acting skills, and she once dreamed of being a marine biologist, so I’m going to bet good money she has a very nice brain in that head, too.

Linda Fiorentino

I understand she is a bit of a pain in the ass for directors, which suggests to me she might be a pain in the ass in general, but I’ve had it for her since the first time I really noticed her, in the movie The Last Seduction in 1994. That is a character that is so self-assured, so sexy and so raw in her sensuality that I would bed her even knowing in advance that she would probably do me as wrong as Peter Berg’s character Mike in the film. She hasn’t had as many roles that were so stand-out as that one, but I still liked her more sedate character in Dogma and was glad to see her in a role that didn’t completely waste her talents, as did the movie Men in Black. And it wasn’t until years after The Last Seduction that I re-watched 1985’s film Gotcha! and realized I had already fallen in lust with her once before when I was still in high school.

Scarlett Johansson

Look, I’ll be honest. I don’t know squat about Scarlett aside from having seen her in the fantastically sedate but gripping comedy Lost in Translation and having seen her on the cover of DVD cases for The Black Dahlia and The Prestige, neither of which I have seen yet, though I plan to. I admit that she’s a sexy woman, but I wouldn’t normally have put her in this list. However, my son insists that if a celebrity should ever steal me away from home life here for a lascivious vacation from my normal life, this should be the woman to do it. Basically, he’s in lust with her and he’s projecting, but I also respect his taste, so I won’t disrespect him by leaving her off this list.

Angelina Jolie

The sexy woman who’s also a bit crazy is a draw for many men. I’m not entirely immune. Angelina has settled down a bit in recent years but I still sense there’s a bit of slightly scary in her psyche. She’s become too thin lately, and really needs to gain back about 10 or 20 pounds, but still, that face, those eyes and, most particularly, those luscious, full, mesmerizing lips—I wouldn’t leave my wife for her, but I’ll be the Mr. Smith to her Mrs. Smith (without all the gunfire, I hope) for a couple nights if she wants. Also, anyone who can make a video game character (Lara Croft the Tomb Raider, for those among you who aren’t geeks) pop in not just one movie but two—I mean, video games don’t translate well to the screen—hell, that gives me mad respect for her right there.

Avena Lee

OK, look, it should be clear from my “Porn Again” posts that I’m not a stranger to porn movies (not exactly part of my daily diet either, mind you), so I had to include at least one porn star. In my childhood and much of adolescence, the Asian women were the ones who got my heart to pumping hardest, so it’s also important that at least one Asian represent in this list. Simply put, this woman has one of the finest bodies ever seen on any Asian woman, and she has eyes that seem to dig right into your soul. My wife, Mrs. Blue, is the only woman I’d rather spend hours staring into the eyes of. Scrumptious! I don’t know if there’s any other reason to be attracted to her beyond the physical, but don’t I deserve at least one entry in this list for pure eye candy value?

Michelle Pfeiffer

I’m really not that partial to blondes, I have to admit. Nothing against them; it’s just that brunettes have always been more my style. But Michelle Pfeiffer seems to retain her beauty, perhaps even grow more gorgeous, the older she gets. I’ve also liked her in most of the films I’ve ever seen her in (in terms of talent), from The Fabulous Baker Boys to Dangeous Liaisons and Ladyhawke to Batman Returns. She is radiant and I would gladly let my retinas burn gazing upon her from close up.

Soledad O’Brien

I’m a writer and editor by trade, and trained as a journalist. No media woman combines personality, intelligence, competence and sexiness in my opinion better than Soledad. If anyone should be gracing an evening news anchor desk after doing time on a morning show, it should be Soledad and not that annoying perky-yet-bitchy Katie Couric. In Spanish, her first name means “loneliness” or “solitude.” Well, my fair lady of the morning news, if you ever feel either of those emotions, let me know and I will ease your mind for a short time at least.

Gwen Stefani

Yup, another blonde, despite my obvious preference for dark hair. And finally, an entertainment celebrity who isn’t an actor. Gwen can rock a dance club party girl look or a 1940s glam look with equal aplomb, and that’s pretty freaking impressive right there. She can be perky without a hint of being annoying. She can express deep melancholy in some of her songs without dragging down your mood. She can project depth and playfulness at the same time. You don’t have to change your hair color for me, Gwen. Call anytime and make me forget all those brunettes forever, except for Mrs. Blue, of course. I do have to go back home to her sooner rather than later.

(OK, I got the alphabetical order messed up with Michelle Pfeiffer and Soledad O’Brien, but after finagling the text and photos already, I ain’t switching their order now and messing this all up now…)

UPDATE

It should be noted that Gwen Stefani has since been replaced by Salma Hayek. Click here to find out more. In addition to the sin listed there, the fact that Gwen’s kinda cool quasi-punk/ska style music has given way to annoying shitty pop music irritates me. She used to be cool and quirky. Now she’s a sell-out