‘HOT RODENT BOYFRIEND’ IS THE LATEST TREND REFRAMING MEN’S BODIES – WHY CAN’T WE EXTEND THIS GENEROSITY TOWARDS WOMEN?
There are prices I pay for being a lesbian who spends too much time on the internet and loves film, TV and pop culture. One is that I spend a lot of time on the internet.
I also know a lot of useless things that take up prime real estate within my ever-shrinking brain, where “understanding maths” could be. But, while I may not be across things like the Dow Jones (a guy?), I am always up to date and aware of the real things – like society’s current hot people. This includes those in the public eye having a glow-up moment, or the new ones emerging from their cocoons like moths who can’t live among us normals, heading instead for the bright lights of Hollywood.
Related: The hot rodent boyfriend: why gen Z has gone wild for ‘sexy rat’ guys
Sometimes, we get a trend where a few of these people seem to appear at the same time, are similar in some way, and people notice. This time, it was the “hot rodent boyfriend” – actors du jour with sort of rodenty features and faces, like Timothée Chalamet, Jeremy Allen White, and Josh O’Connor from Challengers. Not to be confused with “ratshit boyfriends” that I’ve met, “rodent boyfriend” is a compliment, and something people find very appealing. This categorising of the hot and famous is not a new phenomenon; it seems like at least once a year we are introduced to a New Kind of Guy we now want to appreciate. That’s fine, but my question is: where are the New Kind of Gals?
In the last handful of years we’ve had thirsty internet trends for dad bods, short kings, zaddies (older men), big dick energy, himbos, nerds, golden retriever boyfriends and now rats – widespread emphatic appreciation of certain kinds of guy that are outside the norm in some way, but explicitly desired by many. I think this is great! I love to see society (very slightly) expand its definition of what we are allowed to find attractive. I love to watch people star in movies and TV who look different or normal or interesting, or have teeth that don’t look as if they would glow upon entering a nightclub. I just wish that some of these kinds of trends happened for women as well. Society is already way more open to the different kinds of hot that (white) men can be than women, and yet we continue to come up with new ways to expand what women will not only accept as hot, but put on a pedestal. This sort of thing almost never goes in the other direction.
There are never stories like “Men are going wild for ‘sexy teapot women’”, or about how yet another movie has cast another “anxious spider girlfriend” type as the lead, yawn. The definitions of attractiveness for women remain inflexible, except to sometimes swing from “big butts are in” alllll the way to “big boobs are in” – as long as you are also still thin (always on trend) and conventionally beautiful. Women outside these rigid norms are largely excluded, and if they do happen to break through, it’s only ever an individual, and like with the slightly fat Nicola Coughlan, it becomes discourse – not a fun trend.
Of course, most of these fads involve men who are still conventionally attractive, if remixed slightly in some way – and the trends come and go. But I think anything that might open people’s eyes to the possibility of desirability outside strict boundaries we enforce can be good. Especially if it goes both ways. Barry Keoghan, for example, went from playing odd little guys to starring in films and dating Sabrina Carpenter, one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Would it happen in reverse? These trends might be embraced and driven by people attracted to men, or publicity agents, but they come from the media and the patriarchal culture. The pool of people we draw our sex symbols from is shallow, but men get to play in the deep end. Even if they are short.
As a man, if you have crooked teeth or are chubby or have a rat face or one that looks (to some) like it’s been kicked in by a horse, you can still be cast as a romantic lead or an action star in blockbusters; you can still be a sex symbol. If a woman is beautiful but not attractive in just the right ways, or not attractive “enough”, she will never be the lead. And if a woman has a unique face, a weird body or “rat” features, she will probably become a character actor. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to categorise people like this at all, because all kinds of bodies and faces can be attractive, and there is a horny audience out there for everyone. But until the system can be exploded in some sort of huge disgusting hot mess, I want to keep expanding our view of what is deemed attractive – for everyone, not just the hot rodent men.
Rebecca Shaw is a writer based in Sydney