I am a male, raised in a western culture that glamorizes violence and demonizes the human body even while we proclaim that we were created in the image of our God. I am unapologetic about the fact that, for whatever core psychological reason, I am fascinated to the point of near-obsession with the female body — especially those parts that you can’t show on network TV without risking boycotts from the people who wouldn’t know a nice body if they paid $100 for a half hour with one.

Yeah, Britney Spears in the Toxic video? Hot. Angelina Jolie in leather? Hot. Scarlett Johansson in oxygen? You had me at “restraining order.”

Now, granted, I’ve got some occasionally odd visions of beauty – at least, this is what my guy friends tell me. I have NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in Paris Hilton, even as a mindless, soulless object of lust (does anyone else find it odd to imagine objectifying her? Don’t you need something beneath the surface to be objectified?). Kate Moss is too thin; I want badly to take her to a buffet before even thinking of her in bed. And I’ve always included (apparently) uncommon women on my “top ten” lists — Maura Tierney, Julia Stiles, Sarah Chalke. Out of all the girls on LOST, who’s my favorite? The psychologist.

There’s this thing that I call nerdsexy, and it’s probably the hottest thing in the world to me, because it works on a physical level and a mental level as well — as opposed to the Maxim marketing department, which goes straight for the libido and not much else. It’s the librarian look — hair pulled up, wearing the glasses. Only I have no need to see her let the hair down, a la every Clairol commercial since 1978.

The nerd part has to do with personality and intelligence, sure, but there’s a sincerity that’s important to me. The current trend — at least as it appears to me, who hasn’t had a run-in with trendiness since about 1984 — is for the emo girls to carry a sort of geek chic look, but that’s so far removed from what I’m talking about. No, the nerdsexy comes from within, and it’s not so much even about being a nerd, but about being so amazingly attractive without having the first clue in the world.

It makes me sad on some levels that these girls, like my friend Kasey, don’t realize how beautiful they are. It tells me that they haven’t heard it enough, and that’s sad. It amazes me, too — how people (guys, girls, friends, family, whatever) can’t take five seconds out of their day to complement the people around them is just weird and alien to me.

But I’m really happy, too, that these girls are out there, carrying themselves meekly and unassumingly as they go about their day. They get self-conscious when they come out in public without a bra, because they don’t want to be stared at (not realizing that so many girls in the past few years have started doing so that no one notices any more). They don’t think twice, on the same hand, about dressing down, because it’s not about the physical — even though it could be, so easily. If these women were aware of how guys look at them, of how sad and pathetic and testosterone controlled we all are, they could have the world in their pocket — and yet they’re not, and so they carry on.

That’s nerdsexy. You place the attitiude of someone who has no interest in using sex as a weapon or gamepiece in the body of one of the most beautiful women you will ever meet, and you’ve got nerdsexy.

If you meet one of these girls, pay attention. Sure, the Angelinas of the world are more apt to stand out in a crowded room, but they’re a dime a dozen next to the nerdsexy. Rare, hard to spot, and impossibly elusive, the nerdsexy is a beast that should be appreciated at every opportunity.