Are certain books/writers "sexy"?

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I am often toting around Heidegger or Schopenhauer or Emerson. But the chicks don't seem to dig that. My friend, however, a big reader of Nietzsche and Marx, gets all kinds of action.

This was inspired by meeting a girl today and getting her number written in Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.

So what books should you read in public places to attract the opposite sex?

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

To answer the question: well, yes. Now to publish a book.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm just waiting for someone to say Sade...

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom Robbins' novels are sexy.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.divastation.com/sade/sade_biopix/sade_bronze.gif

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I find that conspicuously toting a copy of Holy Hannah! I Have No Personality and I'm Desperate for Sex usually works.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Carrying around a copy of "The Fountainhead" is not recommended.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Math textbooks seem to work on a lot of my friends. (I don't know why....) But if I saw a guy carrying around The Sot-Weed Factor I'd probably jump him.

― Maria (Maria), Thursday, 31 March 2005 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I am often toting around Heidegger or Schopenhauer or Emerson. But the chicks don't seem to dig that. My friend, however, a big reader of Nietzsche and Marx, gets all kinds of action.

Innit just that the latter two are much more well known than the first three? Not that they're *read* all that much, but for many ppl Nietzsche probably exists solely as a signifier of sexy nilhist gothdom, and Marx as a signifier of sexy righteous politico youth. Heidegger, Schopenhauer and Emerson don't have anything like that.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Thursday, 31 March 2005 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

unless you hang out at http://www.theatlasphere.com

2xpost

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 31 March 2005 18:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know, but if I caught a girl reading Situationist pamphlets or Baudrillard or Emma Goldman I'd have to pouncey-boom her and from there on it'd be inappropriate.

― What we want? Sex with T.V. stars! What you want? Ian Riese-Moraine! (Eastern Ma, Thursday, 31 March 2005 18:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I regret not fully working out what this thread's purpose was before posting. Tom Robbins' novels are sexy to read, but have no outward impact on one's pulling abilities.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 31 March 2005 18:11 (twenty-one years ago)

MANDEE TOTALLY OTFM.

It makes me happy when I see people reading "A Confederacy of Dunces" on the train. But it's usually a dude.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 31 March 2005 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Cesare Pavese, the Italian writer who committed suicide after an unhappy relationship with American filmstar Constance Dowling, noted in his diary: "Intelligence, like a great glittering machine, leaves most women quite indifferent. This is a truth you must not forget."

― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 31 March 2005 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

x post. I first read Confederacy of Dunces on the train to work. Trouble is it's one of those books where people think you are a maniac 'cos you keep breaking out in fits of laughter...

Not neccesarily sexy when you are reduced to a dribbling wreck because you're laughing so much.

And yes I'm a dude (man)

― Guilty Boksen (Bro_Danielson), Thursday, 31 March 2005 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

But I watch these people when they're reading it, and they NEVER laugh. It's weird. They look really grim. So either they have really good self-control or they are dumb.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 31 March 2005 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to carry around a Gide novel in my bass case so I could read it backstage and boys would think I was, like, deep or something.

The only time a boy EVER actually approached me backstage and asked what I was reading, I was caught actually reading a picturebook biography of Marc Bolan.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 09:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Not the thread purpose, but after reading Adam Thirwell's Politics I really wanted to shag him. Not because I particularly liked the book, but because he bangs on about sex so much, part of me couldn't help thinking "mmm, I wonder what he's like in bed."

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 1 April 2005 09:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i think jonathan sfaran foer who wroet evertything is illuminated is HOTTTTTT

― phil-two (phil-two), Friday, 1 April 2005 09:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I have decided I had to date someone because they had a Perl manual on their shelves. This was a good decision.

I am not sure I would fancy someone who was reading something actually sexy, like Anais Nin or something. Whatever could they ever see in me?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Friday, 1 April 2005 11:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I have decided I had to date someone because they had a Perl manual on their shelves. This was a good decision.

Why didn't you say so on our Access Programming thread? ;-)

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I am reading Naked Lunch at the moment, and am convinced that people looking over my shoulder on the train think I'm a sexual deviant cos of all the gay s3x described therein.

Clever blokes want clever women, who want butch blokes, cleverness optional. Fair?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Which thread is that, Kate? I am sad I missed it!

Completely not fair, Johnney! Opposite way round, maybe, even?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:08 (twenty-one years ago)

No, no, no, no, no!

Clever women want clever men!

Clever men, however, want bimbos so their egos are not threatened. :-(

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, maybe it wasn't on the Access thread. Oh wait, I remember. It was Ken C accidentally posting Access code on the ATP threads, with sexxy results.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the REAL truth is that no-one likes a smart-arse, therefor no-one fancies cleverness.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:11 (twenty-one years ago)

There is a difference between smart-assness and cleverness.

(That said, I do actually find a tiny wee spark of smart-assness occasionally charming.)

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Clever people want me. (I only want myself.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I am scared of access code :-/

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I never see anyone randomly reading anything good (much as I never hear any cars going past playing good music out of the window). If I did, I would probably be guilty of finding people attractive merely by dint of their reading matter, but it's more a case of thinking that they would be interesting to talk to... and where talking leads, who knows? (Note to Mr Emily - no, I'm not planning on jumping the next person I see reading a Georges Perec novel, really.)

― emil.y (emil.y), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyway, Johnney, seeing as how you are both clever *and* attractive I don't see what you're moaning about!

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i very rarely read female authors. ian penman's prose is sexy, isn't it? it's funny that books most associated with 'eroticism', like bataille are a) not sexy and b) you would not find their readers sexy, except one girl i knew who was reading 'henry and june' (i still don't know if this 'meant' anything in the context of our relationship), and that's a fairly me-centric reason.

― N_RQ, Friday, 1 April 2005 12:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree with Kate, on cleverness points.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I wonder what it says about me reading Jane Austen on the tube. Probably that I am the least sexy and very probably fuddy duddy old woman ever. :-(

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

The one about bimbos is a bit off. Anyone that insecure about their intelligence is probably just doing a good but fragile job of giving the appearance of being clever. xpost no, it doesn't, especially if it was "Mansfield Park" or "Northanger Abbey".

― Schwip Schwap (schwip schwap), Friday, 1 April 2005 12:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey, where did my post go?

I said, Wow! Reading Mansfield Park on the tube makes me sexy? Cool! That's made my day!

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 1 April 2005 13:00 (twenty-one years ago)

to answer the title: oh my god yes. I know sooo many women writers who are sexy it's just sad.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Saturday, 2 April 2005 00:15 (twenty-one years ago)

why is it sad?

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 2 April 2005 00:19 (twenty-one years ago)

because there shouldn't be that much goodness in the world!

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Saturday, 2 April 2005 00:41 (twenty-one years ago)

be supercliché and carry around the unbearable lightness of being and girls will tell you how amazing that book is and how much they relate to tereza and that you should be their tomas.

― tehresa (tehresa), Saturday, 2 April 2005 01:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Yesterday I tried sitting around in Lincoln's Inn Fields for a couple of hours reading a Peter Ackroyd novel. Nobody tried to pull me, though.

I have some Perl manuals, but don't actually keep them on my shelves. Does this make a difference?

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 2 April 2005 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Nietzche is a trap. The chick might be too serious. To me, on the right kind of guy, Bukowski is sexy. Others: Tom Robbins-OTM, Kerouac, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Keats, e.e. cummings, dylan thomas, william blake...yeah I know, mostly poets but I can almost guarantee it will work. Your copy MUST be battered, preferably paperback, preferably stored handily in your back pocket or coat pocket.

And I'm channelling memories of all the guys in college I had crushes on. It TOTALLY works.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 2 April 2005 07:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I know a guy who actually, honest to god, would keep five or six books on him for reading in public, and if one wasn't doing the trick, he'd switch.

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 2 April 2005 07:41 (twenty-one years ago)

The thing that works the best, is to read when you're in line for coffee, or going into a movie theater...like the book is so much more interesting than anything you're doing. Chicks dig that. Well. I dig that.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 2 April 2005 07:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Perl manuals have to be in close proximity to poncey art books to work, I think?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 2 April 2005 07:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Definitely. Maybe some Glen E Friedman photography books, Joseph Campbell, a Pauline Kael anthology, and then a few fiction picks, even if they're personal faves. Mix it up.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 2 April 2005 07:51 (twenty-one years ago)

My Perl manuals are in a stack on my bedroom floor, in close proximity to my laundry. I haven't been doing much serious Perl recently.

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 2 April 2005 09:34 (twenty-one years ago)

reading something actually sexy, like Anais Nin or something

I read some anais nin. It was the most fucked, stupid book ever.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Saturday, 2 April 2005 11:00 (twenty-one years ago)

carry around the unbearable lightness of being and girls will tell you how amazing that book is

oh dear.. I hated, hated, hated that book with about the same gut level hatred I have for stuff like Bret Easton Ellis. something about it just grates. But then, the use of the particular adjective "amazing" (isn't there a certain rapturous tone of voice that goes with this, as well?) to describe a piece of art usually guarantees it's one I won't like at all.

Hmm.. Deleuze, Wittgenstein.. I'm a fan. Nietzche, Marx = supercliché.

― daria g (daria g), Saturday, 2 April 2005 14:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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