The 22YOBS.

The phrase "22-year-old blonde skinny chick," or variants thereof, has been getting tossed around a lot recently. It's a lazy shorthand for "conventionally sexy," with some unfortunate negative undertones--men and women will imply that only shallow men would want the 22YOBS, and women can be shockingly upfront about resenting the 22YOBS. Often there's an implication that she's doing it on purpose, she's selling out. That 22YOBS, her life must be so easy, but it's coming at the expense of real women.

All this is a little unfair to women who are young, blonde, and skinny, and actually look quite different from each other and have their own lives that may or may not involve being full-time sex symbols. Some of them you wouldn't even call conventionally sexy; some are conventionally sexy but aren't sexually active or have a relatively "boring" sex life; some even feel sexually deprived. And the ones who do get sex more easily than most, don't necessarily get other privileges along with it.

I can't be so easy on the guys who want a 22YOBS. Some of them, it's totally legitimate, it's just what they like. (Particularly if they're also 22.) Maybe they have or had a 22YOBS girlfriend and she was great; maybe there's a particular 22YOBS they know well; maybe they have just absorbed some social messages about the universal desirability of the 22YOBS. If you're not weird about it, hey, have fun with it, guys.

But other guys make it weird. Other guys talk about wanting a 22YOBS, but they're not really attracted to her. They're attracted to what she represents--the highest status, the best prize. She's the gold medal, and it doesn't matter if you personally think silver is prettier, it still doesn't mean winning. When the question is not "who do you want to wake up next to?" but "who do you want to show off to the other guys?", the answer is the 22YOBS.

And other guys, I think, want a 22YOBS because they don't know what they want. She's the "I'll have what he's having" of sexual preferences; the default if you've watched a lot of TV and haven't met a lot of women. There's nothing particularly attractive about a 22YOBS except for the way the camera always seems to linger over her and she's a lot more likely to take off her clothes. I think the more you get out in the world and the more women you get to know in person, the less you're drawn to any specific physical type because you see people much more as individuals and personalities.



I don't really have a conclusion for this post. I can't say "hey guys, stop liking 22YOBS!", because sometimes it really is a legitimate attraction. I can't say "real women have curves, real women aren't Barbie dolls!" because the 22YOBS is just as much a woman and a person. I guess all I can say is that 22YOBS isn't a synonym for "beautiful." It's just a body type.



(By the way, while I don't think this can all be reversed to apply to men, I am fascinated how often "Brad Pitt" is used as the shorthand for a male 22YOBS. He's like the official male celebrity for this kind of discussion. No one ever says "I'm no Ewan McGregor but..." Even though Ewan McGregor is damn fine.)