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28 January 2008
Zac Efron What gives? →[More:]I can see why 15 year olds might think he's hawt, but what's with grown women falling for him, too?
I haven't seen him in any movies- is his acting so studly that it overwhelms the barely-pubescent-ness of his look?
My theory: same reason some grown men fall for Britney Spears, et al, some people like their sexiness unthreatening and childlike. If Brit is a walking, talking Barbie, this joker is a walking talking Ken.
His acting isn't great, but it's not painful (he's sort of a goof). He's got a nice voice, and seems to be doing mostly musical related stuff - the only things I know him from are the pubescent-targeted High School Musical and Hairspray.
Note: I am neither 15 years old, nor a grown woman.
Well- "sort of a goof" redeems him somewhat. Childlike and unthreatening are two traits pushed by the media as sexy in women, but are there grown women who like childlike men, too? I haven't met any I don't think.
As a tangent- (childlike and unthreatening brought it to mind) are there any female Japanese sex symbols who aren't childlike/helpless? I haven't seen any, but then I only see what makes it over to the states. Are we getting a warped view of what Japanese media thinks is sexy, or is that really it? (Or am I seeing behaviors as childlike/helpless that aren't really- they just seem that way to me as a westerner?)
I had never seen the gentleman before and damn does he look creepy. It's as if someone took Ian Somerhalder from Lost and took super fine sandpaper and a buffing wheel to him and the result was that guy. He looks like the love child of Richard Gephardt and a Naugahyde sofa.
But TPS- he's more boy than man. That's the part I'm confused on. I can see wanting to feed him cookies and cut his bangs for him, but that's about it.
Oh there are young boys that I think are cute michael cera but he is not one of them. He looks creepy and plastic. And overtanned. And in the linked picture... gah, men with hair like that remind me of Tom Cruise.
He's 20 years old. Fine if you don't care for him, but he's not a child, and I for one find the implications that "real" men are X, Y, or Z totally lame. Real men are all men.
I meant that as a deliberately hyberbolic counterpoint to 'sings and dances,' to demonstrate my point about boyish cuteness versus grownup male sexuality.
On that note, I gotta go do laundry and meet Hugh Janus at the bar and get schnockered.
Fair enough, TPS. Do you feel the same about women, too? Because I admit it gives me the heebie jeebies when 40 year old men lust after Hermione Grainger or someone equally young.
I could really care less what celebrities other people lust over (although Emma Watson is 17, which is slightly creepy, but still? Thinking she's attractive? Not exactly a crime). It's not really my job to police such things.
It seems like a gray area to me, if we're talking about "lusting" over people in the public eye (and what is that for most people, really- just admitting, hey, they're cute. Obsessive behavior is something else, but I think that's more rare). Put a young person in designer clothes, have someone do their makeup and hair, give them a personal trainer... and now how do you tell the difference between a 16 and 19 year old? A 15 and 22 year old? It gets blurry.
Ignore the glossy red carpet shots; poor lad hasn't quite gotten the hang of public male make up. But Zac Efron can sing, dance, and look like this ≡ Click to see image ≡ in my kitchen any day. Whee!
He's cute, but I've always liked older men. I don't really dig "safe" I guess... He doesn't really look kid-like to me, just young, so I can understand people having crushes on him. I think it'll be fun to watch once he decides to rebel against his good-boy image, though. (At the SAG awards last night he looked a little more grown up, maybe he just needs to lay off the mascara more often.)
Whether or not you find ZE cute or creepy isn't really the point here. Some women (myself included) DO NOT GO FOR the 'hypermale' type. Not even a little bit. In my case, not at all.
case in point: I think Zac's a little, er, 'overproduced' but I can definitely see his draw. But then, I specifically have always been attracted to smooth, slim, somewhat 'pretty' blond boys (to the point where I finally let one talk me into marrying him). It has nothing to do with prepubescence or adolescence and everything to do (probably) with the fact that I tend to have always dated bicycle d00ds, who are by default pretty girly-looking to the average hetero male. I also am left pretty much unimpressed by deep voices, height and muscle mass.
There are other factors at play. As I would hope everyone is aware, sexuality is not a polarised set of options; there's a pretty finely granulated continuum there. I probably trend a little towards the 'genderqueer' side of things, where my preferences aren't the 'norm' or the 'stereotypical' American woman's norm.
Zac Ephron is a cutie, no doubt. I'm old enough to be his mother but I can see the appeal. When I was in my 20s I was into guys that looked really manly and rugged but now I like a guy that has more fem qualities. A softer version than I liked before. So I find him appealing in that way.
And in the 'wow aren't I a hypocrite' department: a woman in her late 40s told me the other day that my 17 year old son was hot, and I really wanted to hurt her. Ok, fine, think it, but don't freaking TELL me, you idiot. That was just creepy. What was I supposed to say? There is NO good answer, so I just pretended I didn't hear her.
ZE, with a little weight training around the arms and shoulders, would have a super hot body (like a swimmer). Plus, he's young (but NOT a kid) and (presumably) virile. Isn't that reason enough for women to drool over him? Aren't we allowed to have the reverse-poolboy fantasy or the reverse-Mrs. Robinson fantasy, if that's what we're in to?
Or, for younger women like me, he's exactly the kind of guy we would have been smitten with in high school. Is there anything wrong with a little nostalgic crush?
(Disclaimer: I don't really think he's all that cute, but I don't get all the judgy-judgy in this thread).
Not my type - too clean. But cute. And, hey, over 18 is, well, over 18. Even if he does look closer to my 16 year old's age than 20, still, whatever. He can make up his own mind. I wouldn't kick him out of bed for snoring. ;-)
on preview, hee, Ico, people tell me that about my son all the time. It just makes me laugh. After all, they're right and more power to them and good luck, there. If said son ends up somehow in a sophisticated French-type situation wherein he has a much older woman mistress when he's about 18 or 20 or thereabouts I think it would be excellent for him. My god, she might make him stop wearing those idiotic giant pants! Win win!
and I'm sure that such alliances can be very, uh, rewarding for the older woman as well. No further comment.
I have no opinion on him, but I just wanted to announce that Talk of the Nation is just about to start a segment on "The Curious Phenomenon of the Child-Man." Apparently they'll be talking about prolonged adolescence. So there.
Well, now I need to meet ico and mgl's sons. You know, purely for research.
As someone whose youthful crushes included Shaun Cassidy, Rob Lowe, David Bowie, Sting and Michael Stipe, I can't harsh on the lovers of Efron. (I'd still do Bowie in hearbeat. He just gets hotter every year. Damn.)
But my tastes have changed as I've grown older. I dig that my man can thwart my playful attempts at wrestling by just palming my wee head and holding me at arm's length while I flail fruitlessly. *shrug* Not everyone's engine revvs in the same way.
I'd like to get a bumper sticker that reads "Real men put stickers on their cars." It would go next to the sticker that reads "Got Cliche?"
RE. S_R's Japan question, I'd venture that the phenomenon in question is due to the perception that Japanese men generally lack confidence when it comes to the opposite sex. This is partly born out by the fact that it was one of those countries where the government was recently trying to incentivize marriage with financial rewards (not to mention the very existence of that "air-sex" competition).
Also, if, as some stickers declare, "Real Men Love Jesus" I suppose I am a fake man, because I have no strong feelings on the matter one way or the other.
I'd have added ZE to my stable of crushes when I was a teen. But like jrossi, my tastes have changed since then. Although, that last photo teeps has posted makes him look a lot better to me than most photos of him.
Yeah, I suspect that his belly hair is 'shopped on, considering most photos show him shaved all clean. I do not look at photos of ZE, by the way, except as research for this thread. Nope, no way, no how.
Also, this thread has made me realize that my taste in men runs towards the "has a penis" kind (and even there I'm probably flexible). I like them cuddly and buff and short and tall and chiseled and soft.
Thinking someone is cute or pretty or what have you doesn't immediately translate into me finding them sexually attractive. In fact, i don't generally think of people in terms of sexually attractive on sight unless it's overwhelming or i'm on drugs. It's how i can be happy people have fulfilling sex lives without being flooded by images that make me want to stab out my own eyes.
Still, i'd prefer not to know what's filling someone with love juice most of the time.
You find so and so visually pleasing, that's great.
You find your sex organs engorged at the sight of so and so, keep it to yourself.
a woman in her late 40s told me the other day that my 17 year old son was hot
Wow, there's a new one, instead of the socially acceptable "your son/daughter is beautiful". (alternative versions "She'll be a heartbreaker" and so on)
I can see his cute/sex appeal and seeing the shirt off I even caught myself thinking, gee why didn't I drag something like that home? Thing is, I probably did. At one point in their lives all boys are beautiful, right after boydom and right before mandom - they all have that sleek androgynous elf-man thing going on with different faces perched on top. But whomever you marry won't stay seventeen forever and my exes who were considered "teh hawt" back in the day are now balding fat gray men I wouldn't look twice at. My man, however, is stil beautiful and the only change from his youth is that he got a haircut. ;) He was never a washboard man.
Also, like I have the same exact taste as muddgirl coonsidering my exes pretty much would look like a Benetton fashion spread if you rounded them up for a shot. Tall, short, dark, blond, thin, black, chubby, freckled, brunette, redhead, japanese, James Dean lookalike. Yeah. Nothing in common!
Re: headspace posting the ZE pic of him in a swimsuit all shirtless-like:
Gyah. Hipbones. There's a community on LJ that I'm a part of that consists of nothing but guys with their pants riding so dangerously low that they're about to slide off their hips. We call those "dangerpants" pictures, and man... As Tycho's grandma once said, it's man-candy time.
And it's okay if I only talk about him as man-candy.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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