KYRA DAVIS: May 2007

For those of you who haven’t already heard: Lindsey Lohan is Maxim’s hottest woman of the year. She beat out such heavy hitters as Beyoncé, Eva Longoria, Shakira (who didn’t even make the top 30) and Jessica Alba.

It’s true that when Lohan wears more make-up than a drag queen, strikes an extra provocative pose and wears an outfit so skimpy it would make a hooker blush she can look like the kind of girl who could get an instant rise out of a man (pun totally intended). On the other hand when she’s not doing those things she looks like she’s about 14. All Beyonce and Alba have to do is put on a fitted dress and some lip-gloss and they’re stopping traffic---no extra effort required.

So how was Lohan able trump so many natural born sex goddesses? Is it because she does look like a teenager and thus fulfills the Catholic-school-girl-fantasy? I’m sure that plays a part for some but mostly I think it’s the fact that the tabloids, rightly or wrongly, have painted Lohan as America’s good-girl-gone-bad. When men see her picture now they see a naughty but deceptively innocent looking party girl and let’s face it, men like bad girls as much as women like bad boys.

But what about that whole cliché about there being one kind of woman a man likes to sleep with and another that he likes to marry? Well I don’t’ really buy that because I know too many men who married the bad girl. In fact I know more men who married bad girls than women who married bad boys. Those marriages usually end in divorce but it’s worth noting that it’s often the bad-girl who initiates the break-up. Even when she’s been caught cheating she’s the one who gets to say, “Mmm, you know, I don’t think our relationship is worth saving.” As a side note, I would also like to advice women to steer clear of the guys who really do like to marry one type of woman and sleep with another because chances are he’ll STILL be sleeping with another once you’re married to him.

But WHY do so many people crave bad-girls/bad-boys? Is it because they’re exciting in a dangerous kind of way? That makes sense if your dating some chick into extreme sports or some dude who likes to wrestle crocodiles in the outback but the dangerous behavior of most of America’s bad boys/girls consists of the DUI variety and as someone who was married to a man who got a couple of those I gotta tell ya, there’s nothing exciting about getting a 3 am phone call from your loved one while he/she is locked up in a drunk tank.

Maybe the attraction is due to the fact that bad boys/girls are finicky and tend to go for whoever’s captured their interest at any given moment so if they choose to be with us we feel like we must be absolutely riveting, not to mention impossibly hot. Then again, maybe we like bad boys/girls because they usually have a lot of sexual experience and thus may have a few more tricks up their sleeves than the rest of us. Of all the reasons to be into a baddie that last one is probably the most grounded in reality.

I don’t have any clear answers or explanations but I think this might be a issue worth looking at because most of us (including myself) do entertain the occasional fantasies about hooking-up with a treacherous hottie and I think that if we take a moment to consider what that really means we may come to understand why those hook-ups really are better left to the fantasy world.

Which I guess means that Maxim got it right because what is Maxim if not a magazine that caters to men’s fantasies and if their readers want to fantasize about Lohan, more power to them. After all, the vast majority of Maxim readers will never get within a hundred feet of the woman so it’s safe for them to drool over her picture and trick themselves into temporarily believing that dating a gal fresh out of rehab is fun. As for me I’ll date and, when I’m in the mood, sleep with the good guys and when I feel like messing with a bad boy I’ll create one and stick him in a novel.

Anybody else in the mood for a White Russian?

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
Pre-order your copy of OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE (in stores 09/07)!

Insider Dating

Before Sex, Murder and A Double Latte ever hit the bookshelves of Barnes & Noble, Jennifer O’Connell was reading it. She was the first author who (after reading an advance reading copy) offered to give me a blurb. Since then she has become a wonderful friend even though I’ve never actually met her outside of the world of email and IMing. She and I share a publicist and she has given me tons of publicity ideas and when I’ve been stressed about my career she’s always been there for me ready to reassure and empathize. She even invited me to contribute to a wonderful anthology collection that will be out in June titled Everything I Needed To Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume (it’ll be out on June 5th--more about that later).

On top of being a great person she is also a spectacular writer. I loved her books Bachlorette #1 and Dress Rehearsal so you know I’m going to run right out and buy her new book, Insider Dating, a novel about a woman who starts a business that enables women to list the men they’ve dated in categories based on their attributes and weaknesses (think stock market). She thus creates a kind of data base where women can look men up and judge for themselves is the guy that caught their eye is worthy of their emotional investment. Can I tell you how much I wish that service really existed? And I KNOW the women that my ex has dated since me wish it existed.

So anyway, I strongly suggest you check it out (and so does The Denver Post, Cosmo and Us Weekly). Be sure to let me know what you think when you do and by all means stop by Jennifer’s blog. The woman is nothing if not entertaining.

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
Pre-order your copy of OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE (in stores 09/07)!

A while back I blogged about a YA book by Lauren Barnholdt titled Reality Chick which was pegged as both a Can’t-Miss Pick by Teen People and a Best Book for the Teen Age by New York Public Library. Well she’s just come out with a Tween novel (12 and up) titled The Secret Identity Of Devon Delaney. I know some of you are “tweens” and many of you have tweens so this would be a good book for you to check out. Barnholdt always writes with wit and sensitivity and while I personally haven’t read it yet I have heard from a few girls that this book is filled with all that and more. You can learn more about Barnholdt on her blog.

That's all for today...I'm fairly sure I mean that this time.

Looking At It Differently

Considering the subject matter of my last blog I feel like I have to comment on recent revelations regarding James Mosqueda’s personal history. Seems he has a bit of a criminal record. A dismissed weapon’s charge, a couple of charges of drug possession and 1 parole violation not to mention a second degree burglary charge. None of this prevented him from legally obtaining the license that authorized him to haul hazardous materials. According to Assemblyman Pedro Navo, “It’s reprehensible that the Patriot Act is so riddled with these kinds of problems that a drug-using, gun-toting, hit-and-run burglar is licensed to drive hazardous materials in the state of California.”

While the statement is funny, I don’t agree. The weapons charge, as far as I’m concerned, shouldn’t have even made the papers. For one thing it was dismissed. For another it happened in 1979. No one should be judged by charges that wouldn’t even hold up when they were originally brought up 27 years ago. The drug, burglary and parole violations that occurred between 1992 and 1998 are a different story and I did giggle when I read that after the burglary he apologized for his actions in a letter to the judge explaining that he had been battling depression and had been using drugs to self-medicate. That argument may have held up with some if the drug he was medicating with was marijuana…maybe. But Mosqueda was self-medicating with heroin. Of course Kurt Cobain once claimed to that he used heroin to self-medicate, although he said he was using it to treat a stomach condition which is a good thing because if he was using it to treat depression it was a pretty spectacular failure.

But Mosqueda’s been in rehab. There is no evidence that he was using any substances while he was driving that truck or that he has so much as looked at a needle after he “went straight.” If anything this makes this story all the more tragic and makes Mosqueda more sympathetic. He got his life together, overcame an incredibly intense physical and emotional addiction, got involved with his church’s youth outreach program and worked things out with his family and now…

In no way am I a criminal rights activist but I really do feel for this guy. If you skim the headlines that brazenly tote Mosqueda’s spotty record please keep all the facts in mind. If you are angry with him be angry because he was speeding for that did show a grievous lack of judgment. But to fault him for past mistakes he’s worked so hard to make-up for is not only unfair, it’s cruel.

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
Pre-order your copy of OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE (in stores 09/07)!