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What do you think is the overriding distinction? That said, I'd love to hear what you think distinguishes the kinds of men gay guys are attracted to compared to straight women. Mostly, I find him physically attractive but otherwise not particularly interesting. It's a little perplexing to me, but it might be because his career really became big when he played a very heterosexual role in "The Notebook," or the fact that he's never played a character that comes close to being gay, or the fact that his self-deprecating persona isn't over the top enough for gay culture to grasp onto. That said, there's something about him that leaves me cold, and I'm actually fascinated by the fact that he doesn't seem to have a huge following among gay men. He's definitely buff and handsome in all the traditional ways, and he's definitely very Manly (with a capital "M"), even though his masculinity does seem affected (New York magazine has pointed to his gradual move from a Southern Ontarian to a working-class Brooklyn accent).
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Of all the people we've discussed, Ryan Gosling is the closest to that gay aesthetic. And although the clone has disappeared since the '70s, it has since morphed into the steroidal, plucked circuit boy - an obvious example of this would be Reichen Lehmkuhl, from "The Amazing Race" and "The A-List." These are the kinds of guys that most people tend to think of when they picture upper-middle-class white gay men, and the people that tend to populate gay ghettos, like Chelsea, in New York. It was a hyper-masculine look, a way of compensating for the perceived effeminacy of gay men. The clone was a man who was muscular, and manly, and generally wore jeans and work boots and tight T-shirts. Thomas Rogers: It's funny because there's this cliche about gay male attraction, that we're more interested in muscle-y, well-groomed men - partly because we're more visually oriented - while straight women are more likely to be attracted to the "regular guy." The gay male obsession with the muscle queen has a curious history that goes back to the years immediately following Stonewall, when something called the "clone" aesthetic appeared. Somehow, I just don't see you getting hot and bothered over the sex scene in "The Notebook." Am I right? And does he fit a "type" in the gay universe? I've made my feelings on this topic well-known - although even I am experiencing fatigue at this point - but it's always seemed that you have a lack of libidinous feeling for Gosling. Before our list turned toward a more earnest vision of sexiness, he was the subject of much debate: He seemed too obvious to include on the list but too obvious to not include on the list. Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon sex writer: You know, I'm dying to know your thoughts on Ryan Gosling's sex appeal.
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You know, the normal kind of healthy bickering. I would send something to you and you'd be all, "gross," and you'd send something to me, and I'd respond by calling you a 1950s Long Island housewife. But this year especially, the differences between gay men's and straight women's notions of attractiveness have become a talking point since, as you're probably aware, you are a straight woman and I am a gay man. We're looking for men that aren't just physically attractive, but actually have other sexy qualities - that are interesting and smart or edgy, and this year in particular, politically aware - and as a result, people's suggestions tend to offer a lot of insight into their own preferences and personalities. Part of what makes this process so complicated is that, unlike People's Sexiest Man Alive list, our list is premised on something more complicated. We've been doing that list in one form or another for the last five years, and every year it turns into a battle between editors, between writers, between interns (all of Salon has painful memories of Zach Galifianakis-gate 2010). Thomas Rogers, Salon editor: Over the last few weeks, you and I have spent a lot of time discussing the meaning of male sexiness as we've put together our annual Sexiest Man list.