Enough With The SexyFace Already

Recently released pictures of Scarlett Johansson on the April cover of French Vogue will surely have the majority of the universe cooing about how sexy she is. Yet my first reaction was a bit different.

Honestly, you guys? My first reaction when I saw the picture was this: “That is a hardcore case of SexyFace.”

SexyFace, of course, is the ridiculous, open-mouthed, come-hither look that is always the go to for stories on ingenues and sex symbols. A woman is usually seated in a somewhat awkward position, with her eyes expressing one emotion (lust for sex symbols, innocence for ingenues) and her mouth hanging open in a way that makes it seem like she’ll do anything with it except, you know, talk to you.

I understand the science behind SexyFace; the mouth is supposed to turn people on, the look is supposed to make people feel like they are intruding on a private moment, whatever. But you guys, I swear, with few exceptions, SexyFace is the unsexiest face in the history of the universe. It often looks similiar to the face one makes when one smells something really bad, or when one hears a story that ends with “and then I was in the bathroom for like two days straight.” It’s such a pre-designed, calculated, mass marketed idea of female sexuality that it becomes quite sterile and ridiculous looking. Every magazine has at least one shot of hardcore SexyFace within its pages, diluting the notion of “what is sexy” to a lame-ass cheesecake shot that has been done a billion times before.

The SexyFace phenomenon has spilled over onto the red carpet as well; actresses tend to pose with their SexyFace on in an attempt to give off an air of mystery and sexuality, when all it really does is make them look absolutely ridiculous.

Here are few examples of the total ridiculousness of SexyFace in action (feel free to caption these in the comments):

Jennifer Lopez

Paris Hilton

Christina Aguilera

Lindsay Lohan

Megan Fox

So my question here is this: is there any other way to represent female sexuality without dragging out the same old shot? Because right now, unfortunately, we’re being represented by SexyFace, and the notion of what is sexy has been boiled down to an open mouth and a pair of empty eyes.