What is sexy?

I wrote that Sarah Palin is sexy. I said Obama and Nancy Pelosi are, too. On a long windy walk on the prairie path, I re-thought this. "What is sexy after all," I asked myself. It's a word we toss around easily...so and so is sexy, this food is sexy, that piece of furniture is sexy. But do we ever really realize what we're saying? If we did, I don't think we'd use "sexy" so frequently.

My Oxford English Dictionary defines "sexy" as "sexually attractive or stimulating". It defines "sexual" as "relating to sex...and relations between [the sexes]" So sexy actually means "looks good for sex", doesn't it? Does that imply we're thinking sex with that person, (object) would be good or just that, generally sex with him/her would probably be good? These are deeply personal, intimate thoughts. When we pronounce "George Clooney" "hot", (read "sexy") are we openly admitting we'd like to have sex with him? Or are we simply speculating that he may be good in bed? Still, it's pretty titillating and I think, and essentially private thinking; imagining another person in the sex act.

When Sarah Palin graces the cover of a major newsmagazine with legs bared, in a pinup-pose, has she even imagined the implications of the thoughts she'd be arousing?

Granted, "sexy" is highly subjective and we've become such a "sex-numb" society, it could be that most people looking at the photograph only see a vivacious, grinning woman in running gear. Maybe it takes lewd nudity, the clinical exposure of a Playboy centerfold to suggest sex. After all, adolescent girls are wearing bustiers to school, so how can exposed legs mean anything?

Once when I took a "Philosophy of Sex" class at NYU, (or maybe it was The New School), the professor asked the class if they thought masturbation was sex. It was a large group. Only three hands went up, mine included. When he asked if they thought oral sex was sex, same response. No-one thought it was. Nor did they think kissing was sex. Big laugh there.

Teenagers don't think "hooking up" is really sex.

So it's OK for an aspiring presidential candidate to reveal her legs? Would Obama do it? Would George Bush have done it? Would Clinton, the sex-scandal president have?

How about breasts? Remember the criticism of Hillary Clinton's cleavage? Or are breasts different from legs? Racier, more evocative. Not in the 1920's when women shockingly raised their hemlines and bound their breasts.

In the end, it's all relative. Maybe Sarah Palin never considered for a moment that displaying bared legs to millions of people was provocative. Maybe she thinks there's no connection between shiny, postured legs and sex. Maybe legs simply aren't sexy to her. Maybe they're just something that holds us up, that we walk and run on.

So why do it?