He looks drab

Somebody on Reddit postulated that DC’s Poison Ivy/Pamela Isley might not be that good-looking but still manages to seduce men well due to something in her arsenal: the ability to manipulate pheromones, but since it can’t be conveyed well in cartooning as people can’t smell cartoons unless if they have synesthesia, she had to be portrayed as attractive as possible. Though it seems fairly reasonable in the DC Comics canon, barring ongoing sexualisation, but I feel similar things about Nick Carter at this point. I actually had a crush on him when I was younger, but upon getting more exposed to certain bands and musicians that made me realise how plain he dresses.

Like it’s really shocking to realise that the guys at Bauhaus and Duran Duran as well as David Bowie consistently dress much better than he does, that you get the impression that Nick Carter’s rather sartorially drab. He does wear suits but they’re not too fitted to his body, even when he made the means to show it off in another way on a good day. Contrast that to Bauhaus’s David J who not only wears suits from time to time, but that they fit his thin frame well. David Bowie may not be famous for having a wonderful physique, but that’s really nothing compared to his fashion game which is often impeccable. Or for another matter, Prince Nelson for most of the part.

Given how some women appreciate it when men dress well that it makes for a painful irony that barring Duran Duran and Tokio Hotel, western boy band members like those coming from Backstreet Boys dress boring despite that they were heavily marketed to young lasses in their prime, whereas bands like Interpol have members who’re closer to what women want in a man. It’s as if Backstreet Boys are a whole team of Pamela Isleys, rather drab-looking people who manage to seduce folks just fine due to something in their arsenal. Though in their case it’s got to do with marketing that makes them more attractive than they really are at times, coupled with nostalgia that sometimes blinds them to reality at present.

Still they manage to rig things in their favour just the same, no need for supernatural abilities to do the job. One would wonder if bands like Duran Duran, Bauhaus and Interpol could be analogised to any other DC cartoon superheroine, they could easily be whole teams of legitimate glamourpusses instead. People who do care about the way they dress well enough to bother consistently and constantly dressing well on any basis, far moreso than the Backstreet Boys would despite them being constantly marketed to young girls in their youthful heyday, maybe save for DD. It really makes for a painful irony that somebody who’s actually attractive would be overlooked and ends up desexualised by many, despite fitting the criteria in many regards.

Or how somebody could be technically ugly manages to arouse the libidos of others, something in the lines of Adam Driver and frankly, he’s rather a little drab looking yet he’s a good example of how hyping up something or someone makes them more attractive than they should be. It’s like the things with Marvel’s She-Hulk and also the hype around female bodybuilders that marketing and advertising can make them more attractive to certain people in a way they normally wouldn’t do, given female bodybuilders illicit a strong love it or hate it due to their unusual appearances.

It’s like how having considerable amount of muscle tone is appropriate for men to be point of being normalised and expected, yet it’s really unusual if expressed on women. Or for another the Backstreet Boys given the way they dress, especially for themselves, is usually drab and kind of indescripit but due to years of marketing to girls and coupled with the latter’s nostalgia that they come off as more attractive than one would actually find them to be, especially if bands like Interpol may actually fit women’s preferences for well-dressed men more consistently than the Backstreet Boys ever would.

It makes for a weird irony to think that even if Interpol might actually fit women’s preferences much better since its members don’t just dress stylishly, but also constantly so and on their own volition in a way it’s not with the Backstreet Boys, but it’s the Backstreet Boys that have been marketed as pinup idols to teenage girls for so long that it doesn’t feel the way it should. It’s not just Nick Carter who gives me these vibes as I get older from being exposed to more stylish men these days, given one could say similar things about AJ McLean and also Harry Styles, especially regarding one of their hobbies giving others a bad impression.

Since some women feel terrible around crossdressing men that if it weren’t for years of hyping both the Backstreet Boys and One Direction as hotter than they really are, that they’d actually be more repulsed by a crossdressing AJ McLean or Harry Styles than they would with Sam Fogarino (who doesn’t do this thing at all and like everybody else in Interpol, he often wears a suit, to my knowledge). It’s kind of disturbingly ironic that due to years of marketing the Backstreet Boys to teen lasses that they come off as more attractive than they actually are, since their usual fashion sense is way plainer than those of Duran Duran, Bauhaus and Interpol put together.

For every Duran Duran (a band that actually fulfills women’s other requirements for attractive men without even trying), there’s a Backstreet Boys as in it’s got people women wouldn’t normally find attractive, but rigs the game in their favour to pull it off well. Especially when it comes to years of marketing them to kids who’d become nostalgic broads that it went well as expected, despite going against certain women’s expectations for what attractive men should be and do, since the Backstreet Boys don’t normally go about dressing as formally as Interpol’s members do. It’s odd because despite women’s penchant for liking men in suits, it’s the Backstreet Boys that are marketed as hearthrobs for years.

Despite not consistently fulfilling this criteria in their entire lives, but everybody in Interpol does this yet aren’t marketed as hearthrobs for girls. It’s weirdly ironic but this goes to show you the power of marketing, to the point of influencing people’s tastes in idealised men and women.

Attraction

When it comes to whoever becomes a sex symbol, especially among geeky cishet women, there are the more obvious choices then comes the more unexpected ones. There are some women who’re (sexually) attracted to the actor Christian Bale, but it’s Adam Driver who’s become an unexpected geek sex symbol mostly because he’s so unlike most actors we’ve come and known. I could say many of the same things about Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston, two men whose roles have made them into Tumblr sex symbols.

When it comes to fictional characters, there are also unexpected cases where in the case with the video game Undertale while many of the characters also got sexualised by fans it’s Sans who’s become a major male fandom sex symbol in a way that Mettaton hasn’t. When it comes to what some women are into, they’re not always beholden to what’s expected of them to be into. Some women aren’t into muscular or fat men, some women aren’t into tall men either.

Then there are men het women aren’t supposed to be attracted to in any way, which probably accounts for why Tumblr sexymen become the way they do. Some of these characters aren’t buff, some of them tend to be thirsted after whenever they tend to be skinny and appear in a suit. Dick Grayson is sexy, but he’s not a sexyman the same way Riddler and Venom have become. That doesn’t stop Grayson and his ilk from being the subject of many slash fanfics, but when it comes to sexymen they’re a class of their own.

They’re pretty much major geek sex symbols in a way the more conventionally attractive men aren’t, not that they aren’t unattractive but they don’t garner a big, defensive fanbase the way these characters do.

Fnadom sexymen

When it comes to Adam Driver, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston these are the cishet white men cishet white geek women tend to be drawn to, whereas somebody like Ernest Khalimov (the real life ‘Gigachad’) never seems to have a big female following. I don’t know either, but I get the impression that for many cishet white geek women Ernest Khalimov seems to be the sort of man cishet white geek men want to be but their idea of a hot guy is much quirkier.

As in those white cishet men who are off-kilter in their features, but only to some extent as they hardly ever have dwarfism and such. Adam Driver’s often held as the man who breaks male beauty standards, even though I think somebody like Peter Dinklage does a better job at turning them on their heads. I still think with many cishet white geek women, they like their men to be unconventional but only to some extent as they’re not into dwarves or anybody with a visible mutation.

I really don’t get the appeal behind Adam Driver, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston but the best I can gleam’s that they tend to appeal to a certain kind of woman. The sort of woman who’s so not that into conventionally attractive men, even though she ignores dwarves and other less truly conventionally attractive men. It’s like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing, in the sense that men are drawn to unconventional women but not too unconventional as to not threaten their masculinity.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but I really don’t get the appeal behind Adam Driver and his ilk. What I do observe’s that somebody like Ernest Khalimov never became a geek sex symbol the same way Tom Hiddleston, Adam Driver and Benedict Cumberbatch are. It’s probably the quirky appeal they have over certain geek women, given Peter Dinklage never became a sex symbol on the same level as they do. I’m not saying we should fetishise or objectify men with dwarfism, I’m saying that Dinklage never became a sex symbol the same way Driver is.

It seems like what many cishet geek women are drawn to tend to be rather quirky (but not deformed) white men who are practically the equivalent of Manic Pixie Dream Girls, since black men rarely if ever or perhaps never become geek sex symbols. Surely Adam Driver has a deep voice, but so does Mehcad Brooks but he never became a geek symbol the same way the former does. Not to mention, there’s not much of a concept of a black fandom sexyman the way there is for white men.

Surely Ernest Khalimov never became a geek symbol, if because his features seem too much like what a man wants to be. But Mehcad Brooks, whilst fulfilling certain standards well, also never became a geek symbol. It seems like many cishet geek women are into sexymen if they are white and able-bodied,