EDITORIAL
THE SLEUTHSAYER
"Thanks to a panicky fin de siècle lend of the century} fitfulness,"
complains writer Lucy Kaylin in GQ, "people find themselves in one of two
modes: Either they're on a last-ditch search for meaning and answers—getting
religion and buying books about angels and mystic ancient texts—or they're
partying like it's 1999, on the conga line to Armageddon. It's this latter crowd
that most of us fall into, having traded in that prissy, puritanical disdain for
an equally noxious, all-purpose irony. Condemnation meets Condom Nation."
And Sleuth's 1999 edition of "The 25 Sexiest" is where the rubber meets
the road.
"WHAT IS SEXY?" asks authoress Amy Bloom in feminist Self magazine.
"If you watch enough television, or read enough of the wrong kind of magazine
(not this one; Ed. note: or THIS one!), you get the idea that sexy is all about
a tight, spandex-clad butt, a stomach you can bounce a dime on, hair that flows
like a river down your well-defined, lightly tanned back (see Denise Richards,
p. 78}. Those are all good and attractive things {see the rest of our '25'), but
they don't even come into the neighborhood of sexy." For that, welcome to
Mr. Sleuth's neighborhood...
"Sexiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder," says one scribe.
"For some it's a trace of scent, a whisper, a bead of caviar. For others,
it's a split-second image etched into the consciousness—a shoulder bared,
a midriff revealed, the silhouette of a breast, the curve of a calf. Sexiness
infuses the senses, but starts with a sense of one's self." Which is why
two-time Sleuth "Sexiest" Siren Elle MacPherson makes perfect sensb:
"I don't think of myself as an object of lustfor millions of strangers. I
do my job."
As does Sleuth...and, thankfully, needs no little blue pills to be UP to the task!
Speaking of the "Pfizer Riser," did you know that Viagra was actually
"discovered by mistake in 1991 in clinical trials for a drug treating angina
and hypertension. It gave poor results in these tests," medical reports state,
"but had the side-effect of producing massive erections." Sleuth says,
"Go with the flow"...
Which is, pointedly, what we've done: Feeling firmly that defining "The Sexiest"
means different strokes for different folks ("you say angina, we say..."1,
we've stressed VARIETY in this year's selections. Why, the first ten in the countdown
(#25 to 161 are, respectively: Danish, an All-American girl, Vietnamese, Afro-American,
Dutch, French brunette, Hollywood blonde, Hispanic, light Black, and Brazilian.
The final fifteen range from age 66 to 22, cyber to "Selena," and born
again to porn again.
Let's leave the final word to the undisputed "Glamour Girl of the Century"
(by 12,500 points over her runner-up), Marilyn Monroe, who believed: "The
body is meant to be seen. But I never understood it—the sex symbol. I always
thought symbols were things you clashed together."
Time for the GONG "Show,"
