Nice Men Turn Me On

4 minute read

Tastes change as you age, I can remember a time when I didn’t like olives or found memoirs boring. But I never imagined a time when a nice cup of coffee and emptying the dishwasher would be my love language.

I’ve been watching sexy videos online. I put my headphones in so my husband can’t hear them. I glance up to make sure he hasn’t noticed my flushed cheeks, my private smile. One evening I gasped and as he looked over quizzically at me on my couch on the opposite side of the room I masked it with a cough.

You may have seen these videos and if you have, you’ll undoubtedly know how I’ve been feeling. The first time I mentioned them in a WhatsApp conversation I was worried I’d be judged but my fears were quickly assuaged as everyone started typing at once. “Oh Jesus, I escape to the bathroom to watch them for a few minutes” and “holy shit, did you see the new one this week, I pretended I had a work Zoom and watched it five times in a row.”

The last time I saw there was a new one I showed a kind of restraint I didn’t think I had in me and waited until I was alone so I could really enjoy my four minutes and nine seconds of Stanley Tucci making a tequila cocktail in peace.

Oh, that’s right, I hadn’t mentioned what I was watching, had I? Stanley Tucci has become, for me, and for many women and men around the world, the standout sex symbol of the pandemic.

His tight t-shirts, his sharp suit on Christmas eve, the glint in his eye, and his forearms, oh god those forearms, have catapulted the actor into super sexy status.

A quick google will show that there are endless Tweets about the Devil Wears Prada star’s arms. They are hirsute, they are manly, they are strong, and they are gripping a cocktail shaker making me drink.

Part of the appeal of Stanley and his Instagram cocktails is that his wife Felicity is filming him making them. He’s speaking to us the viewer, sure, but he’s really talking to her through the lens and he’s flirting as he’s shaking. I’m not sure there’s anything sexier than an attractive man flirting with his own wife.

Stanley has everything I now find hot in a man. He loves food, he loves a cocktail, he loves Italy, he’s funny, he’s sweet and he loves his wife. My friends would laugh, it sounds like I’m describing my husband who ticks at least four out of six of those boxes.

Stanley’s first wife Kate, with whom he shared three children, sadly died from breast cancer in 2009 when she was just 47. At actress Emily Blunt’s 2011 wedding to John Krazinski, his Devil Wears Prada co-star introduced Stanley to her literary agent sister. The couple married in 2012 and have two children. He revealed just a few weeks ago that he actually has a photo of Kate and Felicity together at the Devil Wears Prada premiere.

So, there you have it, cocktails, Italy, tragic love story, nice guy – Stanley has it all. But that would not have been the ‘all’ I was looking for 20 years ago. In fact, it’s probably the opposite of what would have gotten me excited about a man. As we age our type changes, thankfully in my case, and niceness, respect and comfort become the things we crave.

I’ve had a few distinct types in my past. It started with anyone that would make my friends laugh or were vaguely useful. The two things often overlapped and there was kissing of nightclub bouncers (guaranteed free entry), dodgy local bar managers (free pints, after nightclub lock-in) and ridiculous boys that would make for hilarious stories.

Then came the men that would pay me absolutely no heed before, after and occasionally during hooking up. Soul destroying, confidence blitzing encounters that were pointlessly hurtful.

Type three were the men that adored me that I quickly grew bored of and would cruelly dump.

Lastly, there was type four: pricks. You know yourself.

Everyone takes their time to settle down and realise that niceness is sexy though none of my friends seem to have quite the same number of colourful stories from their youthful romantic encounters that I do. If you ever meet me do ask me about the young man in the full-length fur coat who caught me going through his chest of drawers with his passport in my hand.

Now, in my 40s, if I were single, should a hot, slightly filthy DJ or photographer who’d be guaranteed to treat me terribly flirt with me now, I’d run a mile.

What age and experience have taught me is that a slightly weathered, warm, funny, clever, kind man that knows how I take my coffee, leaves me alone when I open a book and will drink margaritas with me on the couch while watching Scandi dramas is the dream.

Along with Stanley, I find myself ogling Ethan Hawke, Jason Bateman, Mark Ruffalo and the ultimate in nice, kind, considerate, strong-armed, soon to be 60 hotties, Barack Obama. Now there’s a man who loves his wife, champions her and would never boil the kettle to make just one cup of tea. Though it must be said, Michelle is way too much of a phenomenal woman to have ever waited by the DJ booth hoping to be noticed.

Research shows that men reach their sexual peak at 50, which may have less to do with turning into silver foxes and more to do with putting down the guitar they can barely play and picking up a drill to do jobs around the house. DIY is sexy, you can quote me on that.

Wondering if they care is so 2005, mutual support, respect and taking turns to unload the dishwasher are what’s really hot.