Luce (Lena Headey, left) and Rachel (Piper Perabo)

What I like about this movie is not only the beautiful love story and the romantic notion of love at first sight (which I do believe in – as I’ve said before, I’m a hopeless romantic), or that in the end, the girl gets the girl, but it’s the entire atmosphere and tone of the movie – the shots of autumn foliage on the streets and in the park, the beautiful music, the dialogues, the likeable characters and the great cast. I like that Rachel’s husband Hector is a decent and nice guy who only wants to make his wife happy but who just isn’t the right one. I like that Buffy’s “Giles” (Anthony Head) is in it, but this time in a very different, very funny role. And of course, I like the two women who are at the center of the love story: Piper Perabo and Lena Headey aka Rachel and Luce, who have great chemistry and make a beautiful couple – no wonder that they were mentioned in the “Favourite On-Screen Kiss” poll.

If you don’t know the movie, this trailer should be enough to convince you that it’s must-see:

And for those of you who already know the movie, here’s a reminder of why it is so great:

(Video by queengorgo)

The same certainly applies for what we consider as hot or sexy. It depends on the culture we grew up in, the way we live today, the images we are being presented with every day, and of course our own personal taste.

Still, every spring we’re being presented with tons of lists which tell us who the most beautiful or sexy people in our country or even the world are supposed to be. Just last month, U.S. magazine People came out with their annual “100 Most Beautiful People” list. And only a few weeks later, German newspaper Bild proclaimed “Die 100 erotischsten Frauen Deutschlands” (Germany’s 100 most erotic women; read Natazzz’ take on the list here). Unlike People, Bild at least limited the list to Germany. Dear People magazine editors, do you really think that the most beautiful people in the world are almost exclusively Americans? Don’t you think that’s a little – what do they call it? Oh yes: arrogant?

Instead of letting their editors decide, thereby giving their lists the semblance of objectivity, other magazines and websites ask their readers and users to vote for the most beautiful/sexy/hot people. Like AfterEllen.com, whose annual “AfterEllen.com Hot 100” list has become one of the website’s most treasured features. And only last week, FHM magazine published a list of “The Sexiest Women in the World 2009” as voted for by their German and predominantly male readers.

One of the major prejudices about lesbian women is that they’re just like straight men, especially when it comes to taste and interests. After all, just like straight men, lesbians love women, don’t they? Accordingly, a list of the sexiest women in the world voted on by straight men should be very similar to a list voted on by lesbians, shouldn’t it?

Unsurprisingly, it’s not. In fact, there are only very few overlaps. The highest ranking woman who can be found on both lists is actress Megan Fox. But while for the men, she’s among the Top 10 of sexiest women, she’s only No. 32 on the AE list. On the other hand, there are only two women of the AE Top 10 who even made it on the FHM list – Lena Headey (AE: 3, FHM: 34) and Tina Fey (AE: 7, FHM: 83).

Lena Headey (left) and Tina Fey (Pictures: fhm-online.de)

There are various reasons as to why the lists are so very different. As I wrote in the introduction, our perception of what’s hot and what’s not is influenced by what we see every day. AE readers certainly watch different movies and TV shows and read different magazines and websites than FHM readers. I have to admit that I don’t even know a lot of the women on the FHM list, even though they’re German, because I don’t watch the programs they’re on. And the average FHM reader probably doesn’t know “The L Word” and hasn’t seen “I Can’t Think Straight”, otherwise the FHM list would certainly have included Jennifer Beals or Lisa Ray.

Jennifer Beals (left) and Lisa Ray

More significantly, women both gay and straight in general have a very different perception of eroticism and sexiness than men. Whereas men usually want the “naked truth” and as little clothing on a woman as possible, most women prefer images that don’t unveil everything at once, but leave room for their own imagination. That’s why a lot of women aren’t turned on but are rather appalled by the bluntness presented in porn magazines or porn movies.

Furthermore, it seems that for straight men, a woman just can’t be sexy anymore if she’s a lesbian. What other conclusions could be drawn from the fact that there are no out lesbians on the FHM list, even though there are a lot of sexy and hot openly lesbian women out there by now? Portia de Rossi, who took the top spot on the AE list, is certainly known to straight German men as well. And before she came out, TV host Anne Will had once been voted sexiest woman on television by the male readers of another German magazine. Now, she’s No. 11 on the FHM list of “Unsexiest Women in the World 2009”

Anne Will (Picture: fhm-online.de)

To give the guys some credit, even the readers of FHM don’t agree on their various choices. For example, Britney Spears, who didn’t make it on the AE list, is among the Top 10 in both the list of sexiest (No. 9) and “unsexiest” (No. women. And even though enough FHM readers actually think that vice-presidential candidate and hockey mom Sarah Palin is sexy, placing her on No. 28 on the sexiest women list, even more think the exact opposite of her (No. 10 on the “unsexiest” list).

So if beauty and sexiness actually are in the eye of the beholder, and our tastes are so different, what are all the lists good for? Well, for one, it will be interesting for sociologists and anthropologists in upcoming ages to look at those lists and draw conclusions as to what the ideal of beauty of our time was and how much it differed in various groups of society.

But most importantly, the lists are a great excuse for editors and columnists all over the world to write articles about and post pictures of hot women.

This eurOut columnist included.

Posted on eurOut on June 7th, 2009

Prominenente gegen “Prop. 8″
Der Oberste Gerichtshof von Kalifornien hat das Verbot gleichgeschlechtlicher Ehe, welches durch die Bürgerinitiative “Proposition 8″ im November in die kalifornische Verfassung eingefügt wurde, aufrechterhalten. Gleichzeitig erklärte es jedoch die ca. 18.000 Ehen, die zwischen Juni und November 2008 geschlossen wurden, für gültig. Hiervon sind unter anderem Ellen DeGeneres und Portia de Rossi betroffen, die im August letzten Jahres geheiratet hatten, sowie auch Schauspielerin und Comedian Wanda Sykes, in Deutschland derzeit auf Comedy Central in der Serie “The New Adventures of Old Christine” zu sehen.

Prominente wie die Schauspielerinnen Drew Barrymore, Emmy Rossum und Kathy Griffin nahmen an Demonstrationen gegen diese Entscheidung teil, andere machten ihrer Enttäuschung bei Twitter Luft. So schrieb Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow): “I’m sure you heard the prop 8 news. One day when everyone is treated with full equality, we’ll look back and realize how wrong this was.” (Eine Übersicht über weitere “Tweets” zu Prop. 8 gibt es bei AfterEllen.)

Angelina Jolie, Ellen DeGeneres auf der Forbes’ “Celebrity 100″ Liste 2009
Laut Wirtschaftsmagazin Forbes ist Angelina Jolie in diesem Jahr die mächtigste Prominente der Welt. Auf der jährlich veröffentlichten “World’s Most Powerful Celebrities” Liste belegt die Schauspielerin Rang 1 vor Oprah Winfrey und Madonna. Ellen DeGeneres verbesserte sich in diesem Jahr auf den 40. Platz, nach Rang 71 im Jahr 2008. Ausschlaggebend für die Platzierung auf der Liste sind unter anderem der Jahresverdienst und die Präsenz in den Medien (Printmedien, Radio, Fernsehen und Internet).

Angelina Jolie

Ellen DeGeneres

Die sexiesten Frauen der Welt – FHM vs. AfterEllen
Und noch eine Liste: Das Männermagazin FHM hat seine deutschen Leser über die ihrer Meinung nach “Sexiest Woman in the World” abstimmen lassen. Auf Platz 1 landete Monrose-Sängerin Mandy Capristo, gefolgt von “Sturm der Liebe”-Schauspielerin Anna Angelina Wolfers und Bahar Kizil, ebenfalls Sängerin bei der Gruppe Monrose. Heterosexuelle deutsche Männer haben damit eine deutlich andere Meinung darüber, wer sexy bzw. “hot” ist, als lesbische Frauen. So findet sich Megan Fox, von den Herren immerhin auf Platz 5 gewählt, in den AfterEllen Hot 100 erst auf Platz 32. Und von den Top 10 der AfterEllen-Liste finden die Männer nur Lena Headey (AE: 3, FHM: 34) und Tina Fey (AE: 7, FHM: 83) ebenfalls sexy. Bemerkenswerteste Platzierung der FHM-Liste: Vizepräsidentschaftskandidatin Sarah Palin auf Platz 28. Bei der würde wohl keine AfterEllen-Leserin schwach werden…

Lena Headey (links), Tina Fey

Barbara Rudnick, Monica Bleibtreu gestorben
Die Schauspielerinnen Barbara Rudnick und Monica Bleibtreu sind im Mai an Krebs gestorben. Barbara Rudnick ist bei lesbischen Zuschauerinnen insbesondere wegen ihrer Rolle an der Seite von Ulrike Folkerts in dem Film “Die Leibwächterin” bekannt, Monica Bleibtreu für ihre beeindruckende Darstellung einer 80jährigen lesbischen Klavierlehrerin in “Vier Minuten”. Barbara Rudnick ist 50 Jahre alt geworden, Monica Bleibtreu feierte nur wenige Tage vor ihrem Tod ihren 65. Geburtstag.

Der Rest in Kürze:
Wanda Sykes (s.o.) und ihre Frau Alex sind Anfang Mai Eltern von Zwillingen geworden. +++ “Sex and the City”-Darstellerin Cynthia Nixon hat sich mit ihrer Freundin Christine Marinoni verlobt. Die beiden Frauen sind seit 2003 ein Paar und erziehen gemeinsam Cynthia Nixons Sohn und Tochter aus einer früheren Beziehung.

Christine Marinoni (links) und Cynthia Nixon