Hm. This whole "adult [females] find preadult [males] attractive" flap sounds like a flap I remember from -- I was probably 14 or 15, so I'm sure I remember it poorly. You guys recall that old Madonna video, where she is all peep-show and bustier for the first 80% of the video, and then at the end goes prancing around in the street, in non-sexy clothes, with a skinny preteen boy? I can't even think of the song, but I remember there being people all het-up in the media about it, that she was imposing adult sexuality on a kid.

She explained it by saying that she fantasized about being a preteen boy herself, and she moved on to industrial-chic and chains, but being a young teenager at the time, I recall being very interested in how strongly people responded to the playing with boundaries in the fantasies about (and about being) preteens.

I don't know as how that's any kind of analytical wisdom that pertains to longing for people from Harry Potter, but that's what popped into my head when I read about the current flap. Personally, I think I have more of a problem with the persistence of adults in fantasizing about their perfect and exciting childhoods than I do with those same adults expressing attraction within their fantasy-adolescent personae.

Also, suddenly in my mind's eye, Madonna's young doxy is Leonardo DiCaprio. How creepy is that??

the persistence of adults in fantasizing about their perfect and exciting childhoods

Which seems to include no one here.

eta: That wasn't to contradict you, Nutty. Just a reaction to the discussion in Natter.

Nutty, your tag! What's it from?

For posterity: "Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

So funny!

My appreciation of quite-a-bit-younger men seems to go along the lines of recognizing that the person I was at 13 would find them totally crushable. Or, the 13-year-old part of me. But that 13-year-old's still a part of me, surely? I mean, I don't, as a cough-something, want to shag them, no. But...

Okay, next time organize the thoughts before posting.

(ETA: Er, that note's directed at myself, not any of you. You are all lovely posters, whether organized or extemporaneous. Yes, I just like that word. Extemporaneous.)

There's lots of men I'll gleefully describe as hot that I wouldn't ever actually sleep with. The magic with them not really existing is that my hypocrisy can live healthily, unchallenged.

Do I think most of the men on my wet site hot? Yes. Would my loins be tempted by most of them in person? I don't really think so.

I'm not sure how to describe the discrepancy I don't feel between squeeing over pics of Tyson Beckford and being capable of walking past him IRL without a second look.

It's not that I'm kidding when I say he's incredibly hot. It's just that it doesn't translate into wanting to mack on, or be macked on by his very sexy person.

But I use the same language with him as I would with Djimon Hounsou, to whom I couldn't give a second look, because it was so terribly terribly distracting, attractive, appealing.

Which seems to include no one here.

Well, you know, there's a working theory that Buffy appeals to people who still haven't gotten over high school, and doesn't to people who have. So, yeah. (Theory put forth by: my aunt, who aesthetically appreciated S1, but did not become emotionally involved.)

Although, really, my general objection is to people who fantasize about anything being perfect, dramatic and uncomplicated, and the prevailing myths of childhood are such that childhood is an incredibly easy target for such fantasy. I blame the toy industry.

"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir" comes from Berkeley Breathed. He did a small series of strips in Bloom County where a bunch of animals rode around with Wheelchair Guy like the crew of the Enterprise. Opus was Mister Spock. I loved it as a kid, and it turns out I wasn't the only one: in a later collection of reprints, Breathed said something like, these were hands down the most popular things I ever did, including that time I wrote a poem about Caspar Weinberger.

I think I see the distinction, ita; one is an aesthetic appeal and one is visceral. But you use the same terms for both. Is that more or less right?

Or possibly because you couldn't break away from that first look?

there's a working theory that Buffy appeals to people who still haven't gotten over high school, and doesn't to people who have

Does the group of "not over HS" include people who make it perfect? I'd think it would have to.

I'm very over high school. Loved it. It was much fun, plus with the learning complicated stuff. But that was seven million years ago, and I've had fun since too.

Bloom County! I have all the books! I even have the record done by Billy and the Boingers--never been played.