History's sexiest women
By Randy B. Hecht Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. Mata Hari. Through much of history, sexy women have been linked to and blamed for men’s ruin and death.Of course, most of that history has been written by men. But in spite of it all, you guys never have lost your fascination with sexy women, have you? Here’s a look at some of the femmes who, fatale or not, have driven men to distraction—if not destruction.
Let’s start with Cleopatra. Did you know she was married to not one, but two of her brothers? That’s how things were done back then; they were brother and sister, husband and wife and joint rulers of Egypt. Ptolemy XIII drove her from the throne but was killed in battle after Julius Caesar returned her to power. Did that free Cleopatra to marry Caesar? Nope. She automatically became wife to another brother, Ptolemy XIV, though she and Caesar lived together. After his death, Marc Antony left his wife to live with Cleopatra and killed himself on hearing the misinformation that she had died. Finally, Cleopatra herself committed suicide by taking a poison asp to her breast.
And you thought your dating life was complicated?
Things didn’t get any better for a long, long time. Sex and power were so intertwined that Queen Elizabeth refused to relinquish any of her power by marrying and, despite having had a succession of lovers, retained the title of the Virgin Queen.
Centuries later, following the death of her Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's prudish widowhood inspired the term Victorianism, the ultimate in sexual repression.
Of course, outward appearances concealed some serious 19th century depravity taking place behind closed doors. Perhaps most notorious in the U.S. was the “velvet swing,” on which aristocratic architect Stanford White placed a series of comely young women whose charms he enjoyed. And most notorious of those was chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, who later was pressured into marrying the man who would kill White in a jealous rage.
Somewhere along the line, it began to dawn on men and women that we were going to have to stop pretending that nice women don’t like sex. And once that not-so-secret secret went public, so did a lot of women who said things that could make a sailor blush.
Dorothy Parker quipped, “If all the sweet young things in this room were laid end to end... I wouldn’t be the least surprised.”
“Why don’t you come up some time and see me?” Mae West said to Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong.
And Tallulah Bankhead, daughter of the then Speaker of the House, wasn’t even making a movie when she said, “I am not promiscuous, you know. Promiscuity implies that attraction is not necessary.”
Girls, it turned out, did indeed want to have fun.
We still do, and nowadays we can—and we don’t even have to be wealthy, eccentric or movie stars to get away with it—though I suspect none of that hurts. Men have come to appreciate a woman who can be sweet and sexy, loving and lusty... maybe even, by turns, demure and depraved. And we’re all having a lot of fun in the process!