The Trifecta of Feminine Charm

Three essential qualities, uniquely coinhering in a woman, make her irresitably charming, fascinating and captivating for the masculine heart and intellect: radiant beauty, interior goodness, and vulnerability. The first, beauty to the eye, entails a "radiance"...a mysterious, indescribable luminosity that exceeds the harmony and delight of proportion and eminates from a mysterious, hidden depth of goodness. Feminine beauty is especially rich and complex. For instance, three distinct types present themselves. The beauty of "petitieness" or smallness or cuteness. Such arouses in the larger male a propensity to protect, provide, cherish, even pamper. This is analogous to the fierce maternal response to the small, especially crying baby. The urge is primal and powerful. The fierce paternal instinct is aroused by the petiteness of the woman: think of Audrey Hepburn and the much larger Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, Judy Garland or Natalie Portman. In contrast to this would be the more contemporary "fitness" model of beauty: the athletic, firm, fluid, assertive femininity popular in action movies starring confident, impressive Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lawrence. Think Brigid Moynihan or Jane Fonda videos. Such beauty appeals not to the paternal instincts but to a man's desire for a fitting, competent partner in his adventures and conflicts. Quite different is beauty that is voluptuous or curvacious: such is sensuous, comforting and appeals to a regressive propensity of the male to return to the pleasure of enclosure in the maternal. The classic hourglass figure is so compelling because it combines the tiny (waste, legs, arms) with fulness in the maternal dimensions so it appeals to both what is strong and what is weak in the normal male. The three styles of beauty are contrasting but not mutually contradictory: my own bride of 50 years for example is much smaller than me; but has always excelled me in energy, industry and work ethic; even as her 70-year-old body still curves at the exact right places. Interior, deep goodness is far more dense, complex and mysterious. Primarily this entails compassion, sensitivity, generosity: the maternal impulse to give life, protect, nurture and comfort it. Add to this love for God, intelligence, energy and intensity, serenity, fun and humour, and sincerity or authenticity. Any or all of the above gives a woman a boundless fascination for the masculine heart and intellect. Lastly, and perhaps suprisingly, is vulnerability, even as fragility, sensitity and (properly understood) dependency. Like petitieness, vulnerabiltiy arouses the fierce virile urge to protect, provide and nurture. A woman who was perfectly beautiful and good and entirely independent would be quite a boor. A man needs to be needed; needs to be a hero; needs to have a purpose. Paradoxically, such "weakness" is in tension with the goodness, strength, nobility mentioned earlier. The woman is at once stronger, holier, more resilient and devout than the man; even as she is his equal partner in the Adventure; even as she is vulnerable, precious and in need of his virility. It is marvelous; it exceeds exact formulation. The three qualities of femininity may be seen as expressive of the three transcendentals: the Beautiful, the Good and the True. The first two are self-evident: the last, the True is fitting as the woman is transparent of the vulnerabiltiy that characterizes all persons and indeed all created being. A short abbreviation for this would be to understand a woman as a man's P.A.L.....equal in value and dignity, but delightfully Precious, Admirable and Lovely. Another shortcut: a woman, to a man, is Loveable, Loving, Lovely. The confluence of these three qualities, especially when Goodness deepens as Love and Holiness, becomes an efficacious sacrament in sanctifying the wild heart of the man.