Fiona McCade: Naked truth is women need minds turned on

Published on Monday 8 June 2009 19:08

WHEN Daniel Craig emerged from the water in Casino Royale wearing nothing but a pair of Speedos and a moody look, women everywhere expressed their appreciation of Daniel's workout regime.

After decades of watching Ursula Andress rise from the waves in Dr No, it was nice for us girls to see a male equivalent; at last, some beefcake after all the years of cheesecake. The media made much of this breakthrough in gender equality, but did women really consider Daniel in his little kecks to be so incredibly orgasmic?

I know a couple who made him their screen-saver, but although he looked fine enough, I doubt many women rushed out and bought blow-up Daniel Craigs. Personally, I've always thought Mr Craig bears an uncanny resemblance to a disgruntled tortoise, so the earth didn't move for me.

Whereas most men would probably say Ursula Andress was gorgeous, it's not so easy for women to agree about what turns them on. It's the reason there's never been a male Page Three.

But if you feel that women's erotic needs aren't being met, you might enjoy a new magazine called Filament, which debuts this month. Filament aims to provide stimulating images of the male body – oh, and some text, too – specially created for "the female gaze".

This is fair enough. In a world filled with porn produced specifically for male gratification, why shouldn't there be a magazine with a few undressed men for the girls to enjoy? But ventures like this have been tried before (remember Playgirl? No, neither do I) and generally failed.

You see, we girls are difficult creatures to please. We need more than flesh. We need to be sold some sort of fantasy that we can personalise, and since there are several billion of us, that's one tall order.

Certainly, what I've seen of Filament doesn't float my boat. Even though the editor insists its erotic images won't fall into the trap of appealing only to gay men, the models I've seen wouldn't look out of place in a Hockney painting. The men chosen to please "the female gaze" look way too fey and girly and the poses are sometimes just weird (topless bloke with wires on his chest, anyone?). The models have been instructed to look directly and seductively out of the pages at us, but (typically for a female) I couldn't disengage my brain enough to enjoy it. Instead of thinking: "Wow! A sexy man with rings through his lip staring at me!" My reaction was: "How unhygienic."

I don't want to knock Filament because I've only seen what's online and I appreciate its pro-female stance, but I bet if this magazine is a success it'll be down to the eroticism of its writing and its fiction, not the barely dressed boys.

The apparently insurmountable problem of what turns women on can be summed up in two words – Barry Manilow. Incredible though it is, there are women out there – an embarrassingly large number of them, if truth be told – who find this bizarre individual attractive. In their strange, twisted minds, Barry is sex on legs. It can't be his looks, so it must be something to do with the person he is and the things that he does. And none of that – thank the Lord – can be captured in a photo. The male equivalent would be men drooling over pictures of Barbra Streisand, then throwing their underpants at her during concerts. I'm fairly sure that has never happened.

The problem with catering for women's tastes is that we have such varied ones. Yes, we occasionally like looking at oiled-up blokes, but we rarely manage to keep a straight face. Going to see the Chippendales isn't an erotic experience; it's a hoot. As a turn-on, it's only one step up from a Tupperware party.

To over-generalise, men's erotic needs tend to be simple: luscious bodies, whipped cream, no talking. Women are more complex; trying to please us all is like herding cats. If you stimulate our imagination as well as our emotions, then our bodies might follow. It's no accident that Mills and Boon don't feel the need to illustrate their novels; they know their readers' fantasies will do it for them. Women don't demand big biceps – or big anything – as a requirement for sex-symbol status. Bodies don't always matter.

We like Daniel Craig and Woody Allen. Coleen likes Wayne. Some of us even like Salman Rushdie. But whatever it is that turns us on, it's as much in our minds as it is in our loins.