My wife Nita and I recently celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. This got me to thinking about the concept of fidelity and staying “true” to your woman. I can honestly say I have never come close to straying. I am totally in love with Neets (my nickname for Nita) but that doesn’t mean I don’t see any number of women on a given day that I find attractive…I am a red-blooded male for goodness sakes!
While I generally regard myself as a mature and courteous guy, I still, on many occasions, find myself rating women on their looks using the proverbial 1-10 scale…the same scale we all used in our (hopefully) wild and crazy single years when describing the women we were dating to our male friends. Sometimes, however, instead of assigning a 1-10 rating to an attractive woman, I’ll make a simple mental note that “boy, she’d make it onto my top ten list.”
I know what you’re thinking…maybe I’m not as “true” as I’d have myself believe. That simply isn’t the case; in fact I’d be more worried if I wasn’t still participating in the somewhat adolescent practice of rating a woman’s looks. As the saying goes (and Neets agrees), “just because you’re on a diet doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu.”
In addition to all of this, we are constantly besieged with various top ten lists via the media regarding celebrities (both male and female, but as a straight man, I’m focusing solely on the female side) based on their looks; for example, “the ten best female beach bodies,” “the ten best-looking women over forty years of age,” and so on. Let’s face it guys, most of us fantasize when we see these lists. I find myself thinking, “now there’s a woman I would like to have known in my single days.” So I decided to jot down my current top-ten list of celebrities who can make me stop in my tracks…uh Neets honey, remember I’m only looking at the menu…
With a nod to The Late Show with David Letterman, here’s today’s top ten:
(honorable mentions who just missed the cut: Marisa Miller, Jeri Ryan)
10. Elle Macpherson
9. Rosario Dawson
8. Halle Berry
7. Monica Bellucci
6. Catherine Bell
5. Diane Lane
4. Salma Hayek
(author’s note: for the top three choices on this list, I present women you may regard as past their heyday, but not only are they still damn attractive, they are my first three entries into Neal’s personal all-time Hall of Fame)
3. Raquel Welch
2. Ann-Margret
1. Sophia Loren
There you have it, women of all sizes, shapes, color and ethnicity; all extremely talented in their field. Hey, I’m not just a one-note kind of guy! Some of the names, notably my Hall of Fame entries, are mainly thought of by us 50 plus males, but that’s OK; we know what the rest of you guys are missing.
-Neal
