KYRA DAVIS

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)!