Sexiest Geeks Alive

I promised Cyan that I would try to post here once a week, and that I would try to be funny and/or write about sexy geeks. Well my last post was last Tuesday, and it is now Wednesday, so it is time to write something. I am not feeling particularly funny (except maybe in my tummy a little… I think it was the pickled herring and pepperoni slices I ate for breakfast), so the topic will have to be some serious thoughts on what it means to be a sexy geek. And apparently serious thinking gets done in the shower around here, so that is where I am headed. Be right back…

…Ok, here is what I came up with:

* * *

When I told all my friends that I was now officially one of the “sexiest geeks alive” I received many interesting responses ranging between:

We already knew that.

and

I still don’t think you’re sexy. Or a geek really.

But the response that made me do the most thinking was what my friend Rex Kerr wrote. (Please note that I am using the term “friend” here based on a most peculiar definition - inspired by such internet phenomena as social networking sites, online forums, and mailing lists - which means roughly “A person for whom I inexplicably feel genuine affection, even though I have never actually met him, often get into heated arguments with him, and seem to experience no guilt whatsoever when I find myself publicly quoting his email without permision…”)

Anyway, he is the guy that wrote:

Congrats!

Although I wonder whether a “sexiest geek” is something like a “most peaceful general”, “most mathematical art historian”, or “ditziest chemistry Nobel prizewinner”.

–Rex

So this made me wonder, Is the term “sexy geek” actually an oxymoron? Just what does it really mean?

Cyan invited me to this blog, so I should probably be using her definition, whatever it might be. I could just ask her, but first I thought I might try to pin down a more objective (widely understood) definition. So I went to my favorite (because it has the shortest url) online dictionary m-w.com, where I found the following definitions:

SEXY

1 : sexually suggestive or stimulating : erotic
2 : generally attractive or interesting : appealing

I think it is obvious that the first definition here can be folded into the second one, so I am just going to assume the broader case of general attraction or interest in my understanding of what it means to be a “sexy geek.” For example: when Cyan declares that someone is sexy geek, she may not actually be having erotic fantasies about them (although I certainly wouldn’t rule it out), but she probably, at a minimum, finds them to be quite interesting.

GEEK

1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked
3 : an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity

I am pretty sure that Cyan did not have definition number one in mind when she said that I was a sexy geek. Now, I am not denying that I have ever bitten the head off of a live chicken or snake, but it is not something that I am likely to ever do in public as part of a carnival show, and I seriously doubt that this is an aspect of Cyan’s mental picture of me (or at least it wasn’t until now.)

It is pretty clear that definition three is the way that Cyan would intend the term “geek” to be understood in the phrase “sexiest geeks alive” and it certainly gives us a nice result. The combination of sexy2 geek3 with a superlative emphasis added to the former and a plural version of the later, produces a definition of:

The most attractive or interesting enthusiasts or experts especially in technological fields or activities.

But as nice as this definition is, we skipped over definition two, and I think it contains some information worthy of consideration. It certainly reveals the degree of oxymoronicism (is that even a real word?) that Rex noticed in the term “sexy geek,” as we can plainly see in the combination of sexy2 geek2 which yields:

A generally attractive or interesting person of an intellectual bent who is disliked.

There is clearly some serious contradiction here between the terms “attractive” and “disliked.” There is no denying that the word “sexy” has almost entirely positive connotations, while the word “geek” definitely carries a negative undertone.

The reason for this is that the word “geek” as it has been applied to intellectuals, experts, and technology enthusiasts, did not start out as a friendly term of affection. As the order in which the three given definitions are listed suggests, it started out as a term of derision that any social group might use to brand an outcast or outsider with different ideas or customs, and came to be used by groups of less intelligent and less educated people to brand those who stood apart from the crowd due to greater intellectual capacity.

That we can now refer to our friends affectionately as geeks, is a phenomena seen in oppressed cultures throughout history. The smaller oppressed group tends to adopt the hurtful words of the larger group and turn them into friendly terms of endearment - thus removing the sting of the word. For example, homosexual men have no difficulty referring to each other affectionately as “Faggots” and African Americans often use the word “Nigger” or the slightly altered term “Nigga” in a friendly and affectionate way, even though these words started out as hurtful and derisive terms.

Geekdom has embraced a previously insulting label.

But that does not mean that the underlying problem has gone away. While Cyan, in thinking that I am a geek, almost certainly means “enthusiast or expert in technological fields or activities,” the same “intellectual bent” that gives me technological enthusiasm and expertise, certainly also makes some people tend to dislike me. I am willing to examine, with honest intellectual curiosity, the real underlying basis for ideas that many people like to think of as unquestionable truths. This often creates anger in faithful believers. Such anger comes from the same root cause as the feeling that there is some degree of oxymoronicism (again, sorry if that’s not a word) expressed in the term “sexy geek.”

“Sexy,” is a term that can have strong roots in collectivist thought. Although we each personally generate our own ideas about what is and is not attractive, these ideas are strongly influenced by the ideas of those arround us. Our likes and dislikes, which are a large part of the basis for our individuality, are also a basis upon which we are judged according to the standards of a larger social construct. The collectivist impulse is that all people should exhibit the same behavior, and for this to happen, they all must have the same desires - the same ideas about what is and is not sexy.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the ideas that hold a social group together have evolved resistance to new ideas that might replace them. But being a “geek” is to embrace different ideas - particularly new ideas. New technology - and especially technology that involves new forms of communication - disturbs the environment in which old ideas have evolved and to which they are best adapted. It makes sense that old ideas should fight against such change - the ideas are fighting for their lives. So it is no surprise that those who express different thoughts, and particularly those who make it known that their minds are a fertile place for the growth of brand new ideas, should be socially ostracized.

So where “sexy” is taken to be only what current popular culture says it is, and a “geek” is someone who has ideas that go beyond what current popular culture is, and into what it could be, there is an obvious conflict of interest between the collective impulse to conform and the individualistic impulse to create - between the geek and what is accepted as sexy.

What Cyan and the rest of us are doing here, by declaring that there are indeed “Sexy Geeks” in this world, is to not only continue to defuse the word “geek” by using it as a term of affection, but to also reclaim the word “sexy” as something to be defined by individual values, rather than controlled by any collective dictate of what attributes we should or should not find attractive. We are pointing out that some of us place great value on new ideas - on the fruits of logical thought and scientific experimentation - that even if some larger societal organism is not ready for the changes that such new knowledge might bring, some of us are more than ready. Some of us welcome and embrace these changes.

New ideas make some of us quite hot.