BiDanFan: I'm with you on the cologne. Fortunately, I've easily convinced the few men that I have known who wear it to stop. It probably helps that the main reason they were wearing it was because they thought women liked it.
I actually hate any scented anything on skin--which includes perfumed/scented laundry detergent/fabric softener. Which is harder to get someone to stop using than cologne. People are quite attached to their brand of laundry detergent. Yay for Tide Free.

As to the shaving, or not (really waxing, if we're talking pubes). I have been able to look at it as a money saver. And I've just compromised: I'm not going to alter the topographical, head-on look, so I'm sporting that good old triangle. But from below, I'm going to return to being bare. So the labia and all the way back to the anus will be smooth sailing. For me, it's far less an aesthetic choice as it is one grounded in sensation: things feel more intense without even the little barrier that hair provides. But I don't think I need to have it on top to reap the sensation benefit.

Ms Star - It's unfortunate it took you all the way until #85 to make the most important statement you've made all thread.

@86: I was clearly out of gas too, I read your comment as having been posted by Ms Star. Apologies to both of you, I should not post without a decent night's sleep!

I'll redo comment 87:
We're clearly not on the same page if you think I'm talking about mullets and Mom jeans. I will have to, reluctantly, make this all about me and give my example: I have an androgyny fetish. I only fancy people who are androgynous. This involves a collection of physical traits such as, for guys, long hair, delicate features, slim build, the less body hair the better; for girls, a boyish figure and a general bad-ass attitude.

(I agree a Mom-jeans fetish would be strange, but I've heard of stranger, right here in Savage Love.)

So yes, styles change; but even so, the features I like are naturally occurring. Effeminate boys can be encouraged to let their hair grow, or girls to cut theirs, but a square-jawed linebacker type is just never going to do it for me, ever.

Hope this makes more sense now!

@98: Where do the androgynous boys hang out? At the goth clubs! :)

@95: As I said, I am not a scientist. Do you have scientific data supporting your theory that sexual orientation and fetishes develop in different parts of the brain, or is that just your sense of how things work?

"As for whether attraction changes over time, really? Most people are attracted to 18 year olds when they are 18 and not 60 year olds. Yet, when we hit 60 those 60 year olds start to look pretty good."

Did you click my link? It directly contradicts this statement. And again, go back to "what we want versus what we can get." If every man could be Hugh Hefner, don't you think they would?

"Of course our image of "what is attractive" changes over time. Long term relationships could hardly work otherwise, because people change physically. And since we're running on this assumption that sex is not possible without this thing called attraction, every marriage would end up in divorce as soon as the hair started falling out and the weight started packing on."

Lots of them do, or at least lots of people start writing to advice columnists about it. I posit that one way people make long-term relationships last is by fantasising about their spouse in a younger incarnation while making love to them in their present incarnation. Lava is right about adjusting expectations to what is realistic, and then using one's imagination to fill in the missing bits. Could I have great sex with Beyoncé if I were fantasising about Emma Watson instead? Quite possibly I could, but that wouldn't really be fair to Beyoncé, would it?

I find that even today, I'm attracted to the same kinds of people as my very first celebrity crushes (or even the same people -- no one's ever beaten Joan Jett). So you may have to adjust your theory that everyone's tastes change over time, or accept that some tastes change a lot while others change very little.

Anticipating the reply:
"If every man could be Hugh Hefner, don't you think they would?"

OK, not EVERY man; that was hyperbole for effect.

@101: Waxing, ow! I tried that once. Never again. *shudder*
But totally agree that hairlessness is most important between the legs. My main reason for shaving is that I want oral sex with me to be as pleasant as possible for the giver, so that they will do it enthusiastically and often. :)

I really wish everyone would replace the word "hardwired" with what they really think they mean. There seem to be basically two definitions in use, and by one everything is "hardwired," and by the other, nothing is.

Estar, the fact that poor people tend to eat cheaper food and don't go on expensive vacations isn't proof that they prefer cheap food and don't like shopping in Paris.

@106. If there was such
limit, a few people would be on the enforcer's list.

My husband and I were talking about celebrity crushes the other day and both of us found it interesting how our tastes aged with us. Maybe we're odd, or maybe it's not that straight forward.

Men and women in their 20's do nothing for me anymore. They are too baby faced, too inexperienced looking.

Seriously, Dan's last hinted-at solution works well for a lot of men and women. The guy's hands and possibly part of his forearm might eventually work their way in there, and totally take care of her need for size.

Eud in #108 makes a point that should hardly need making: people get with, and stay with other people that they're not necessarily attracted to, because they find that they can't land anyone better, and they figure that it's better than being alone. And as #103 said, plenty of people split up when one party slides down that greasy laundry chute of complacency.

Hugh Hefner was brought up way upstream – Hugh's playmates weren't Playmates because nubile 20-somethings are tractored in by gray temples, a velvet smoking jacket and a pipe. If you have certain resources (money, fame, and sometimes drugs seem to work quite well), there's a segment of the 'attractive' population that's willing to heroically overlook your aesthetic shortcomings, which is the way it was, is, and will be in future. Don't quote me on this, but I hear this is a prime reason that some people go foraging after said resources! Meet me up in that tree later, I'll tell you more.

I remember, must have been more than a decade ago, Dan explaining (as though to a slow child or bright ape) to a listener that Gina Gershon was not, in fact, drawn to Paul Allen by his gravitas, mild paunch and thinning blond hair. Doesn't mean that everyone's a gold digger, does mean that with some things in the mix, people Make Allowances.

As Coppola Dracula said, the luckiest man who walks this earth is the one who finds True Love. If you have, and you're looking to stay with that person, congrats. As noted, other people really don't want to be alone, and figure they've done the best that they will, nothing wrong with that. Others figure Jesus will smite them or some shit, they're miserable but they won't leave. It's nice to think that all longterm couples are still attracted to each other, like it's nice to think that all older people are wise enlightened masters, but it just ain't so.
Here's to those who pull it off, though!

Jesus @111; that's one big girl.

@110: I've gladly accepted that I'm the one who's odd. ("Odd," not "insane." Takes all types to make up the world.)