Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Photo by Flickr user marsmet462. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Echidne says

Not a single popularization I saw suggested this:  Women!  Do more traditional female chores and you get more sex!  But that's also the implied conclusion of the study.

Source: Echidne of the Snakes

That's because we all know why no woman would ever do anything to get more sex!

The very idea is inconceivable!

Echidne also notes the consistency with which men doing any kind of chores is referred to as "helping around the house." Because, you know, that's the only reason women ever "give" sex -- as payment for help with their job around the house: housekeeping.

In my necessarily anecdotal experience, doing all the chores, half the chores, the "manly" half of the chores, doing the "womanly" ones, or or doing no chores around the house whatsoever has never had any effect on the frequency of sexual activity with any of my domestic partners. Nor the enthusiasm level. Nor, when there was a lack of it, the lack of enthusiasm.

And while my experience might be anecdotal it's also noteworthy: if I recall correctly from a radio interview with one of the authors the other day, the difference in frequency is only about two percent. Various decidedly non-sex-related studies including time motion, industrial, and marketing research suggests the average person has difficulty noticing anything less than a 5% change in the frequency of pretty much everything.

Probably not worth the additional aggravation of letting a coffee cup sit next to a sink or leaving a lightbulb un-screwed just because a) it's not your gender's job and b) doing the "wrong" chore might reduce your frequency of having sex, on average, by once every 10-25 weeks.

Anna Karenina - Dance with me by teasertrailer. I wish I could have found a better clip. Forgive the opening commercial --fl.

Loved the "waltz" scene with all my heart.  It was evidently absolutely fabricated by the choreographer, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui -- neither Russians nor anyone else in the 1870s (or any other time) engaged in such fluidly graceful ballet of the hands -- but it was amazing to watch.

Actually, the choreography was the best part of the show.  No, it wasn't terriffically faithful to Tolstoy's text but then a ballet based on the novel wouldn't have either, and I doubt many would have objected to that.

Actually I think the worst part of the movie was... it was still faithful toTolystoy's text!  Geez what a creep!  By all accounts it was horrible enough being a part of his real life, particularly if you were female.  To be a character in his novel would leave one completely at his mercy!

In one of her best known works, Intercourse , Andrea Dworkin dwells on Tolstoy at length.  The guy was a complete asshole to his wife -- nearly killing her with repeated pregnancies while also repeatedly excoriating her for "forcing" him to backslide into sexuality despite his public yearning for pious celibacy and male chastity.  (Her diaries tell a story different enough that even if you average the competing claims he's... still an asshole.)

Early in the story Tolstoy has the title character, Anna, travel to Moscow to persuade her brother's wife to forgive him for his affair with their nanny.

The brother, Stiva, is presented as an affable, emotionally content, and ultimately simple man.  His take on his affair? (emphasis mine)

And then he suddenly remembered how and why he had been sleeping, not in his wife's chamber, but in the library; the smile vanished from his face and he frowned.

"Akh! Akh! Akh! Akh!" he groaned, as he recollected everything that had occurred. And before his mind arose once more all the details of the quarrel with his wife, all the hopelessness of his situation, and most lamentable of all, his own fault.

"No! She will not and she cannot forgive me. And what is the worst of it, 't was my own fault — my own fault, and yet I am not to blame. In that lies all the tragedy of it," he said to himself.

Clearly not his problem -- he was tempted, end of story.  His own fault yet he was not to blame.

Tolstoy wrote the sister-in-law, Dolly, as a saintly but tormented soul.  An epitome.  An ideal madonna.  Anna, frightened by this woman's determination to let her own virtue overcome (cough*patriarchal*cough) duty to her husband, manipulates her by suggesting first that she's not there to condone Stiva or to make excuses for him.  Instead, after letting her vent a bit, Anna turns the tables on Dolly's virtue, saying only she could have enough love to forgive him.

A few pages later Anna, herself married, falls in with a wealthy, noble cavalry officer. And despite urging it on Dolly she herself, lacking the ability to maternally submerge herself in her husband's welfare, generally makes everyone's lives miserable before jumping under a train.

Aah, but the dancing in that movie, choreographed to perfection with the music, was supernal.

Everyone Poops (My Body Science Series) By Taro Gomi

According to a quote from David Edwards at Raw Story, General Jerry Boykin thinks women are and would continue to be great combat soldiers. But men still shouldn't have to serve with them. Because tampons? Let's take a look.

Emphasis mine:

During a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin why he disagreed with the Pentagon’s decision to remove the ban on women in combat.

“You need to frame this thing correctly,” Boykin explained. “It’s not an issue of women in combat. Women are in combat already and have been in combat since 9/11, and in fact, prior to that.”

“My issue here is mixing the genders in infantry units, armor units and special forces units is not a positive, there are many distractors there, which puts burden on the small-unit combat leaders and actually creates an environment — because of their living conditions — that is not conducive to readiness.”

Boykin agreed that “some women can meet the standard,” but the issue was about “personal hygiene.”

“What I’ve raised is the issue of mixing the genders in those combat units, where there is no privacy, where they’re out on extended operations and there’s no opportunity for people to have any privacy whatsoever,” the retired lieutenant general insisted.

“Now, as a man who has been there and as a man who has some experience in those kinds of units, I certainly don’t want to be in that environment with a female because it’s degrading and humiliating enough to do your personal hygiene and the other normal functions among your teammates,” Boykin opined.

Source: Raw Story

Ok, so no doubt "some women" can meet the standard. But not all, which is fine, because not all men can meet the standard either.

So meeting the standard isn't the problem.

And I don't even think he's using "personal hygiene" as the usual euphemism for pads, tampons, or other menstrual products, so I don't think he's got the stereotypical macho "girl cooties" problem.  

So it's not a matter of Newt Gingrich style mythology of keeping women out of combat because "females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections, and they don't have upper body strength."

Instead look at his "framing" again:

I certainly don’t want to be in that environment with a female because it’s degrading and humiliating enough to do your personal hygiene and the other normal functions among your teammates.

Let's go one step further and overlook that bit where he differentiates men as "teammates" and women as "females" and get to the very heart of what he seems to see as the real problem: the degradation and humiliation of, what?  Men in combat having to "go poopie" around "females?

Seriously, gang!

When are we going to get it through their thick skills that actual non-stereotypical men can handle women seeing their peepees in non-sexual situations, just like women can handle men seeing theirs?  I mean, sure, it's not fun, and it's sure not interesting to see your teammates of any body type attending to their bodily functions.  But assuming you're in combat situations together, as Boykin acknowledges women and men have already been for at least 10 years now, you're going to see dramatically more traumatic things happen to your teammates and possibly to yourself than little bits of poop, pee, blood, or toilet paper here and there.

And even if you can't pull up your big-boy pants and deal with it there's no reason to penalize someone else just because you lack the trainability, resilience, or maturity to deal with it.

Photo by Flickr user ejpphoto. Used under a Creative Commons license.

So eight years ago today I began this blog with the following post

Regarding Cock-suckers
Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2005-01-20 08:49

Cock-sucker: The term has many unfortunate uses and connotations, which is a shame since very very few of the connotations have anything to do with actually sucking cock. Let’s go one step further. Just as boys in the lockeroom stop bragging about sex as soon as they actually begin having it, it’s hard to use cock-sucker as an epithet once you’ve met someone who knows how to do it.

Even before I wrote that first post I'd been puzzled by "cocksucker" as a nigh-unto-nuclear taunt and insult. Because first because it's so frequently said by men, and so often said about women. What always seemed so weird about it was that second of all... well... most men kind of enjoy getting them!

This morning I finally figured it out. Which just goes to show I'm either a slow learner or else pretty indoctrinated into something I posted about a few years later.

A few years later I wrote what's turned out to be a productive for me and modestly popular post

The Bogus Two Rules of Desire (a.k.a. the Shorter No-Sex Class Paradigm)
Posted by figleaf on Fri, 2009-01-30 10:29

Over the years I've written hundreds of entries for my "no-sex" class category. Without ever feeling I'd gotten it exactly right.

Then one day I got a brainstorm and streamlined it to two basic, bogus, but amazingly deeply ingrained rules.

• It is simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a woman to have sexual desire.
• It is simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a man to be sexually desired.

I hadn't put it together before, eh. The reason that a) men generally enjoy receiving fellatio while b) using it as an insult most vile would be c) that second bogus rule of desire, right?

Sigh.

That it's taken me this long to twig to something both as vexing and as obvious as that just shows how far I've still got to go.

That it's actually still true that it's inconceivable enough to imagine that no one would ever desire to perform fellatio, and that it's actually still true that it's intolerable that there are those who nevertheless do, and that it's men ourselves who are most likely to condemn it socially (even while perhaps enthusiastically receiving them in private) shows how far society still needs to go.

The good news, actually, is that in the last eight years the inviolability of both Rules have softened considerably, particularly among those who've come of age in that time. It's not likely another President would be impeached for receiving one. And increasingly it's no longer barkingly taboo, let alone illegal, that men who desire to perform fellatio on each other might finally marry each other, as women who sexually desire each other may. It's been years since I've heard anyone (mostly my generation or older) imply or outright state that fellatio is not vanilla. Even longer since I've heard anyone imply that only a "closet homosexual" would let his female partner "go down" on him. Or that only a "fallen woman" or one who didn't "care about herself" would willingly (let alone enthusiastically) do so.

So. Progress in one dimension anyway.

But people still use the epithet.

And mean it.

Maybe in the next eight years we'll grow past it.

Photo by Flickr user wanderingmagpie. Used under a Creative Commons license.

First Bloomberg News breathily exclaimed Brazilian Bikini Waxes Make Crab Lice Endangered Species.

In Save The Pubic Lice! Or, Adventures In Lousy Reporting the staff of the respectable Sex and the 405 called their bluff.

I've mentioned in the past that humans around the world and through time -- from the ancient Egyptians to observant Moslems to King Louis XIV's France to Laura Ingalls Wilder's fellow "Little House on the Prairie" pioneers to 1960s hippies in Haight Ashbury used shaving, plucking, threading, sugaring, and, yes, even waxing to remove their body hair in order to... control pubic and other body lice. Not to disappoint Larry Flynt or Gwyneth Paltrow but for most people hairlessness hasn't been a synonym for "hot!"

And yet pubic lice have persisted despite something on the order of billions of people depiliating for reasons far more personal and urgent than to tickle their partner's fancies (or, I guess since we're talking about hair removal, not tickle them)

And now, if you're inclined to believe studies of unknown size or provenance, here's another reason why lice may still be with us for a while.

About a year ago a journal called Medical News Today published the following, under the keywords "Dermatology; Tropical Diseases:" Want To Stop Bed Bug Bites? Don't Shave Off That Body Hair.

So. Bedbugs vs. body lice. Whee!

All I can say is thank goodness we here in the 21st Century can condemn, celebrate, and otherwise debate it as a fashion issue instead of a health one.

Photo of someone else via Tumblr user GeekyVamp. Reblogged 3,188 times so I'm sure a 3,189th reblog won't hurt.

Years ago I used to add naked photos of myself to my posts.  This post is about why I felt more comfortable about stopping than continuing.

When I stopped I lost more than 75% of my regular readers. 

Australian self-photography and snark blogger Geekyvamp things have changed since... well... ok, mostly since she and others like her have started being able to curate Tumblr blogs of erotic and pornographic imagery she wants to see.

When I was a young indignant feminist with fire in my eyes, I would regularly enter adult shops and demand to know where the “porn for women” was. “I want to see naked men! show me them!”. the bemused male shop assistant would proceed to point to the gay porn section, and I would respond “NO! they’re still posing for the male gaze. I want to know that they’re posing for me. why should I have to appropriate them!”

invariably the shop assistant would give me a lecture at this point on how “women don’t like porn. they prefer reading romance novels.” 

That was 20 years ago. Thankfully the internet has provided a space in which that binary can be shaken up a bit. 

Source: banter-tits

Yup.

I'd always felt more activist than erotic about posting my own photos, so while I never felt bad about doing it I felt less... well... exposed when I stopped. 

One of the reasons I feel a lot less urgency about blogging is that a heck of a lot of stuff that used to be drastically overlooked about sex is... well... at least a lot less overlooked. Back in 2006 I wasn't voted the DirtySpoke Reader's Choice Best Male Blog because I took the best erotic photos of my naked, hetro-male self.  

I actually wasn't the best, and I certainly wasn't the best looking. Instead it was more like the old Grateful Dead bumper sticker "He might not be the best at what he does but he's the only one doing it."

Instead I tried an experiment of making erotic photographs of hetero men based on what hetero women said interested them.  As opposed to what, like GeekyVamp's pornshop operator (and everybody else) said women were "supposed" to be interested in.

And back then there really weren't a lot of people doing that.

Now? It's a whole 'nother world out there. A lot of women are posting visual imagery of what turns them on, not what the same bunch of guys responsible for pretty much all porn until maybe 1990 thought women ought to might like.

Enough so that the uncompromising, Andrea Dworkin quoting author of STFU Fauxminists can still answer "how do I wean my boyfriend away from what pornography has taught him sex is meant to be like" this way

First off, have you told him straight up that he doesn’t make you come? If you’ve tried hinting around and you find that’s not working for you, it’s time to be direct. And maybe you could direct him to some things that you like. Tell him what you like and what makes you come. Or, in order to kind of direct him away from porn, you could show him some feminist porn or some erotica? Something more centered on women’s pleasure? I mean, I tend to read smut for that, so I probably won’t have many helpful recommendations as to what you could offer, but I’m sure my followers might?

Source: STFU Fauxminists!

Even 10 years ago it would have been hard to answer the question that way. (Not impossible. But hard. Nothing like what women are able to curate for themselves today.)

Oh, and for the record?  When I stopped posting those photos my readership dropped about 75%.  And dropped nearly another 75% when I took down the ones in my archives.  Now I'm wistful but relieved to say the numbers wouldn't go back up if I started posting again.  There's now, maybe finally, too much able competition.

Photo by Flickr user cherbert. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Heads Up: This post is about blind spots regarding sexual violence and gender assumptions.

So... what do we call the activities recorded in those "embarrassing moment" photos taken by drunken straight girls and boys of the things they do to even drunker and/or passed out members of their own sexes?  (No, I'm not going to post photos I was quickly able to find but you should be able to find some just as quickly.)

So here and over at the other blog (e.g. The Problem With Prosecuting Rape is Patriarchy - Time to Get Rid of It) I've been wrestling with the gradations of understanding/misunderstanding degrees of sexual violence, who commits it, who it's committed against, and especially how we prioritize different kinds of violence either for greater punishment or outright dismissal.

The classic example would be 1970s throwback Whoopie Goldberg's dismissal of Roman Polanski's notorious aggressive assault on a drugged and still resisting teenager because  "I know it wasn't rape-rape."  Because, presumably, Polanski didn't jump out of a dark alley and assault a complete stranger.  See also erstwhile Senate candidate Todd Aikin's 1870s throwback requirement that an assault is "legitimate" only if the victim experiences organ failure.

We can mock and scorn those attitude for being benighted, but I'd like to argue instead that rather than being different from the rest of us their lines are only drawn unfashionably further along the spectrum of unambiguous sexual violence than we draw ours.

I mentioned photos I'd found.  You know the kind, right?  They're what really drunk or high people do to whoever passes out first -- usually involving undressing them, tying them up, writing obscenities on them with Sharpies, putting phallic objects in their mouths or buttocks, getting behind them and pretending to "hump" them?  

Oh, and, duh!, taking and posting photos!  All, pretty obviously, without the unconscious victim's consent.

And with the extra juicy assaultive/abusive elements of a) intentional wielding of power advantage, b) implicitly establishing or enforcing relative status over the victim, c) calculatedly sex-related humiliation of the victim for not-necessarily-directly-sexual gratification, d) triumphal disclosure to peers.  Oh, and for even juicier extra credit, e) doleful tisk-tisking by peers and parents at the victims for passing out rather than the perpetrators for committing "not rape-rape" sex-related violence, and f) further peer and parental tisk-tisking about how their damaged reputations (but somehow not their assailants!) will haunt them in later years.

Who's doing this sort of stuff?  Well, about half an hour with Google Images I'm able to confidently say "everybody."  Stoner dudes assaulting other passed-out stoner dudes? Check.  Sorority members assaulting other passed-out members?  Check.  Drunk male and female college students assaulting other passed-out male and female college students. Drunk women drawing penises on passed out men? Check. Drunk men drawing arrows and words like "fun" on passed-out women's legs or collarbones? Check.

On the other hand you may not want to check.  Not just g) because "eww" but just as often because "yikes!"  And other times "why didn't someone call the police?"  Even though you know that, h) once sober, the victims are generally too ashamed to do so themselves.  (Gee, doesn't this all sound familiar?)

Please note, by the way, that these are just the photos that people are willing to post. That these are the photos that Memebase- and LOLcats-style sites with names similar to "passedoutfirst" and "embarrassedmyself" are willing to keep up unflagged. Keep in mind these are just incidents people happen to photograph at all!

So!

Where do you sit on the... let's call it the Goldberg spectrum of "legitimate" vs. "all in fun" sexual violence?

So the question over at Em & Lo's "Your Call" this week is "How Can a Woman Enjoy Lots of Sex Without Shame?" Specifically:

How does one go about feeling better about a very sexual personality? I realize I’m human and I accept sex and all that comes with it with open arms. However, our society does not. Obviously I’m not saying I sleep with the masses, but I do enjoy sex and I don’t feel I should have to hide that without being labeled “whore.”

Source: Today on EMandLO.com

I’m going to be a little contrarian here (especially for me) and say rather than be completely open about her sex life she might approach it the way a lot of wealthy people approach conversations about their money: proudly, without embarrassment, but also quietly.

If it comes up in conversation consider being non-defensive but indirect: “I’m just lucky to meet such wonderful people.” “Well, it’s not as big a deal as people say it is.” “I’m sorry, I’ll be busy next weekend.”

You’ll never please everybody and some people are going to be in a snit no matter how one frames it, but for lot of people the resistance lies somewhere their own obstacles and “must be nice” envy. Which is how most people also feel about other people’s financial good fortune. And based on the advice most often given to those with financial fortune, downplaying (without lying or denying) is probably the best way increase comfort levels all around.

---

So I think this approach appeals to me in part because it makes an active sex life normal and unremarkable when there's overwhelming to make it extraordinary and noteworthy. Think about it like other normal and unremarkable things people do a lot of, like canning, golf, contra-dancing, couponing, scrap-booking, travel, and so on. On Monday mornings are you particularly interested in hearing someone else going on and on and on about their particular extracurricular activities?

Chances are that unless you share the same hobby you're going to be somewhere between jealous and bored stiff by a colleague going on and on and on and on about the rave they went to, their hang gliding workshops, their book club gossip, and so on. For all the slavering lather on magazine covers, cable TV programming, and, yes, blog posts, our sex lives just aren't that different from bass fishing or suduko tournaments: fascinating to us because... well... we're fascinated by it, but not really that fascinating to anyone else.

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Another point along these lines: People are generally quietly tolerant of things like a big appetite for money, sex, or travel, front-row season tickets, or (who knew) 1915 Cracker Jack baseball card collecting they don't like the feeling of having it rubbed in their faces.

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Final, most important figleaf-approved point: People have a surprisingly strong tendency to project our own disapprovals on others, with the result that, say, we may assume others disapproval is about the amount of sex we're having when instead a) they don't actually care one way or another and we mistake their indifference for disapproval, b) we mistake their wistfulness or envy for disdain, or c) they, again, we mistake their disapproval for getting their nose rubbed in it with disapproval of your sex life. Oh, or d) they actually don't much care for you but that's not why! One way or another we should be careful not to confuse how we think people "probably" feel for how they actually feel unless they tell us directly that, no, that really is what's bugging them.

Photo by Flickr user intvgene. Used under a Creative Commons license.

It's not ready for prime time, and maybe never will be. But for reasons great and small I'm going to go ahead and mention that I'm starting a new blog that'll focus more specifically on the subject of men and feminism for men.

I'd been brewing the idea for years, actually, ever since Twisty Faster taunted some guy or another (I don't think it was me) that if he wanted to do feminism he should go do it with men instead of bugging her about it. The most proximate cause was a post by Amanda Marcotte called Why Progressive “Men’s Movements” Are Bound to Fail, about the latest, shark-jumping blow-up at the Good Men Project (which at one point Amanda and a bunch of others posted at.)  Also while I used to blog a lot about actual, you know, real adult sex on this blog I've sort of been derailing that subject here for years. And there are a bunch of other reasons.

The reason I decided to call it "The Bad Men Project" came out of a conversation in comments on Amanda's post.

Men shouldn't have to be "good" to participate in feminism. Instead, once he starts to see the full impact of gender expectations on men and women you'd expect even very self-serving men to be as invested as the "goodest" man.

Oh, and one final thing about that "good" men business? One of the biggest gender constructions on the planet is the "good" man as Sir Galahad: the strong, virtuous arm lent in support of "the little ladies" who've been so oppressed by those other men. Who therefore aren't as "approval-worthy."

I'd add that another good reason for calling it that is that the more I've reflected on  subjects and the longer my conversations with memoir groups, a councellor, and other people, the more I've watched my own children grow up compared to the toxic fire swamp of a society and immediate culture I grew up thinking (sweet mother of pearl!) was normal or even "progressive" the more of a bad man I've been over all.  I haven't wanted to be.  And I mostly haven't been.  But when I have they've been doozies. 

My worst transgressions, incidentally and maybe not surprisingly, have often been when I was trying my best to be a "good man."  And imagining myself a "good man," and while doing genuinely good things incidentally considering the toxic sex and gender wasteland I grew out of, I've managed to pull some seriously bad-news shit. While thinking I wasn't.  And yeah, again, a heck of a lot of it was somewhere between tame and lame at the time but, wow, getting back to my children and their peers, if any of them were to do any of that shit today their friends would be shocked and I'd be horrified.  The most difficult part is feeling pretty sure that if I were to wander around still thinking myself a "good man" it wouldn't be long before I was pulling some other kind of crap.  So... forget that.

A final note on that subject: I'm so not alone in having thought myself a "good man."  Which really, to paraphrase Mark Twain, is just a NiceGuy™ with a liberal arts education."  Which in turn is another way to say you're probably fooling yourself.

And since the whole challenge of subverting the dominant paradigm is learning not to fall for it in the first place when it's as invisible to you as water is to a fish is to get over the idea that it's even possible to be a "good man" in the first place.  At least not in this generation.

So anyway.  That's the background for the project:

• Subverting the idea that only a "good man" can a) not block progress on feminism, b) contribute to feminism, or especially c) benefit one's self from feminism.
• Acknowledging that I personally have not been and therefore can't declare with confidence I ever will be all that great no matter how repentant or reparative.
• Communicating to other men who've been raised to be "good men" that... well... pretty much everything we're taught to believe makes a man "good" is patriarchal indoctrination.

Wish me luck!

Update: Doh! Here's the URL: The Bad Men Project.

Via Brute Reason, here's a great post about not bashing those you're merely not attracted to from The Polyamorous Misanthrope

[L]et’s stop claiming that people we’re not attracted to are “disgusting”:

Can we all, please, stop using terms of disgust for people to whom we are not sexually attracted?

[...]Let’s say that, oh, people with brown hair aren’t attractive to you. It does not make people who have brown hair offensive or disgusting. It just means that they have brown hair and that isn’t your thing. It’s okay that it’s not your thing.

It’s not okay to get indignant because someone has the temerity not to be attractive to you.

Like curvy chicks? That’s cool. It’s not cool to snark the skinny ones just because that ain’t your thang.

Gay male? Cool. But freaking out about how disgusting pussy is? Gimme a break.

Source: Brutereason

This reminds me of a related point I was telling my children about yesterday afternoon. (They're right in the middle of the school-age crush zone at the moment.) Specifically my daughter mentioned a friend's disappointment upon learning that White Collar star Matt Bomer is not just gay but happily raising three children with his partner. My observation was that orientation really matters if and only if the person in question is a direct prospective partner. Which pretty much by-definition Matt Bomer, who lives a continent away, isn't now and isn't likely to be. Nor would it matter if my daughter's friend was a gay-identifying male: Matt Bomer still lives a continent -- not to mention a generation -- away!

This post fits in really nicely with that point! Consider the 1990s trope of people joking about then-attorney-general Janet Reno's lack of conventional/cliche sex appeal. Or the more recent "positive" comments about Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman's conventional/cliche good looks. Or the ambiguous but unnecessarily derogatory and/or adulatory remarks about nominally conservative performance artist Ann Coulter's appearance.

It doesn't matter because, since they probably wouldn't sleep with you, their looks, orientation, speculative, or even real talents in bed have no, zero, none bearing on one's fandom.

And, as you say so nicely, it even has no bearing if you're the one who wouldn't sleep with them! There's never, ever a reason to say anything more than "not my type."

Not least because saying anything more reveals far more about you than it does about the object of one's scorn.

And of course the added bonus confrontation when faced with someone's virulent rejection of, say, Marylin Monroe's mole or Paul Ryan's hairline or (my personal bugaboo) the makeup worn by various Kardashians.. or is that spelled Cardassians would be "projection much?" And/or "Trying to pass?"