Welcome to another instalment of Backshots, a series where I select a sex symbol – definition: notably thirsted after celebrity or fictional character – and explain why they are hot in an amount of detail some are calling “extraneous.” In case you missed it, last time we considered the big man, the panicked king, the ultimate embodiment of ‘provider’ masculinity in ways both irresistible and fading: Tony Soprano.
Incidentally, discussion of Tony Soprano’s sex appeal went viral again recently after that guy who exclusively tweets about how everyone dresses like shit asked his audience to explain who they find more attractive: James Gandolfini in suit trousers or Andrew Tate in suit trousers. I addressed the first point quite specifically in Backshots #1, and the second more broadly in a previous essay about male sex symbols. Sorry to be gauche and quote myself, but: “There’s a reason why Jeremy Allen White is attractive to people and Andrew Tate isn’t, and it’s because one wears a vest like he can fix your sink and the other is a weird cunt who hates being alive.”
It’s the same difference here. James Gandolfini, and by extension Tony Soprano, is a hot man. Like he quite literally looks warm. His veins carry piping hot blood around his big beefy body, propelling him to laugh and eat and fuck and fear; to wade nostrils-deep into life and bask in its earthly pleasures. You can imagine what he smells like after spending a few hours in the sun (as opposed to Andrew Tate, who seems like he would spend millions on an invasive, high risk procedure that makes your sweat freakishly odourless). He’s a sort. End of.
Now let’s move on, for there are more pressing matters to consider.
Backshots with… Larry David.
Much like Tony Soprano, Larry David is often talked about in terms of “I find this man sexy even though he is [insert physical characteristic that has been internalised as unattractive in western cultures, such as ‘balding’ or ‘perfectly regular height’].” However, unlike Tony Soprano, men generally don’t have trouble accepting that women want to ride Larry David like Nemesis Reborn. The reason being that they feel less threatened by him on account of his physicality, which is a big mistake. Huge.
Tony Soprano might be more intimidating, both in stature and status (you have to be a real sack of shit to be threatened by a comedian, let's be real), but he’s also impulsive and lacks standards. If he has the opportunity to lay pipe, he will lay pipe. He might bang your wife in your favourite armchair and never speak to her again but, like Obama in the last few years of his presidency, he’s an easy get.
Larry David, on the other hand, is a neurotic with incredibly specific standards that often don’t reveal themselves until it’s too late. He’s easily turned off and once that happens it’s impossible to reverse. He will be interested in someone one minute and repulsed by them the next due to some minor social faux pas, or the way they sneeze, and there is nothing to be done about it. This is deeply frustrating from a female point of view because it is very difficult to comprehend a man who would pass up sex so flatly over something so trifling. The audacity will bother her for the rest of her life; confusion and resentment hanging around like low-level tinnitus. It will destabilise her interior logic, destroy the fabric of her reality, and ultimately leave you wifeless.
Though being anal isn’t charming enough on its own, of course. There is also the matter of his:
1. Smirk
To get the obvious out of the way: Larry David is funny. Obviously, he’s funny – a skill he has cultivated through inherent genius but also probably in part because he has never knowingly looked a day under 42. If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter I have to assume you’ve been laughed into bed at least a handful of times, so I’m not going to get into the reasons why having a sense of humour makes you at least a base level six. If you need that explained, I suggest you consult the fundamental texts (Tom Green’s dating history, Scotty T’s “best moments”) before reading on. What’s less common and more intriguing is the power to compel someone to drop their pants just by smiling, and that is something Larry David has.
Larry David has a world class smirk on him, and he whips it out to devastating effect. In Curb Your Enthusiasm he does it when he’s trying to get someone to admit to something they’ve done; he does it while explaining an incredibly unlikely turn of events to a person who clearly doesn’t believe him; he always, always, always does it when Susie is calling him a cunt. He does it all the time. He will look someone dead in the eye and his mouth will start curling up to the right, forming this lopsided little smile that basically says: ‘I don’t give a fuck. There is a situation unfolding and I sense where it’s going, but it does not matter to me what happens either way – and it really matters to you. So, I’ve already won.’ In many ways, this is how it feels to be an arse girl wearing a sundress in June.
Some might see the smirk as arrogance, which is fair enough, but there’s something about the ability to maintain a cool, critical distance from emotional events that’s quite sexy. To me it signals strength of character and spiritual fortitude. I wrote in the previous Backshots that sex appeal is a game of contradictions – and that paradox is here, too, because a charming and near-permanent smile flies in the face of his misanthropic character. He might spend two thirds of Curb yelling, but Larry David is actually a deeply unbothered man. Which leads us to his…
2. Complete indifference
A lot of the time, when women are mad at a man they’re trying to date it’s because they think there’s something mean-spirited afoot. Inconsistent messaging, never asking to do shit first, not engaging with your nudes as enthusiastically as one would like – these are often interpreted as signs of deliberate withholding or game playing, and sometimes that’s true, but usually they just don’t care. They’re busy, playing CS:GO, not arsed whatsoever. Don Draper in the lift like “I don’t think about you at all.” It’s a less flattering reality, especially when you do care or have put in some degree of effort, but once you accept how much of people’s irritating behaviour comes down to sheer indifference, life becomes much easier. If he wanted to he would! Release yourself from the prison of armchair psychoanalysis and astrological examination! Put the calipers down!
All of which is to say: Larry David is a horny man who doesn’t really care about sex. In Curb he never goes out of his way to seek it out and he doesn’t try to keep it going when he gets it. It’s treated like a business meeting or a dinner party or anything else in the show: a constant source of amusement or grief that ultimately doesn’t hold much weight at all. It certainly means a lot less than golf. This goes against everything we are told as a society; that men will rake themselves over a mountain of hot coals if there is potential sloppy on the other side. Not so. This isn’t just a function of the show, either. There’s a good story about Jennifer Lawrence giving Larry David her number in her mid-twenties and he didn’t do anything with it, which in her eyes made him “so much hotter.”
Indifference is a powerful force. It can drive you psychotic with confusion or feral with lust. A devastating piece of information to have out there in the public domain – the dating landscape is perilous enough as it is – but nevertheless true. In Curb, one of the only times we see Larry properly throwing himself at a woman is in the Palestinian Chicken episode, and that’s only because they’re supposed to hate each other. As Larry puts it: “You’re always attracted to someone who doesn’t want you” – a fact just as true of indifference as it is of, uh, seething ethnic discrimination.
Indifference towards sex can come from many different places, but in Larry’s case there’s an element of knowing you can get it and being comfortable enough in your existence to not have to debase yourself in its service. More to the point, the man is old. He was 53 when they started filming Curb. The desperation of the chase is a young man’s business. He’s got things to do, probably.
3. Neutralised insecurities
We’re used to seeing male insecurity manifest in extreme negative terms, through rage and bitterness and spiking your mate’s pre-workout with estrogen in an elaborate bid to steal his fianceé. Less visible, but no less common really, are those who step into their insecurities like a perfectly tailored suit. Behold Larry David snorting in Conan O’Brien’s face when asked if he’s bothered by the prospect of someone dating him for his fame and riches (“Why would I care?”) as opposed to his personality (“There’s not that much to like, actually!”).
Larry is transparent about his past desperations, his present particularities, and his sexual incompetencies at large. For some women that’s actually quite endearing even if the outcome is the same (weird sex with a guy who is too busy hating himself to fully love you). Mind you, he doesn’t adhere to the Woody Allen method of being a snivelling narcissist about it either (Orson Welles take the wheel). Instead, he invents a new one, which is the George Costanza method: an electric combination of massive ego and low-self esteem that, when leveraged well, can be very refreshing. Given that George is the exaggerated embodiment of Larry on Seinfeld – his id – a primo Costanza moment gives a pretty good idea of Larry’s psychosexual make-up.
Jerry: “She sees you with hot fudge on your face and she ends it? Do you really think she’d be that superficial?”
George: “Why not? I would be.”
Truly a freak that cannot be matched, but you have to respect it.
4. Particularities
To speak more of particularities: this one could go either way.
On the one hand, being particular is an attractive quality because it reflects a strong sense of self and a deep consideration of the world in which we live. An astonishing number of people just bumble around on autopilot, oblivious to their surroundings, having no feelings whatsoever about the material of their trousers or the weight of a pen or which corner shop does the best plastic bags. By contrast, the particular man notices everything and has hardline views on all of it, from apricots (“a low percentage fruit”) to caterers in bow-ties – though, crucially, you will never catch him taking an inflexible position on anything meaningful, like sexuality or religion. They’re far too preoccupied with their own trivial principles to care what anyone else is up to. It reminds me of this tweet I love about pathologically horny men and perfectionism (see above); it represents a degree of passion and care that gets your blood going. Wishy-washy, “yeah, s’pose” kinda guys just don’t have the same sauce.
On the other hand, spending more than 25 complete minutes in close quarters with this man would be a total fucking nightmare. And you know he has some really rogue thoughts on public hair.
5. Insane drip
If there’s one thing Larry David is going to do when he wakes up in the morning it’s get a fit off. No one on earth rocks a fleece and a pair of muted trainers like Larry David. As Curb progresses, he only dresses sharper and with more intention. The older and balder he becomes, the more powerfully he turns his swag on. I personally like him best when he’s dripped out like a member of Quicksand, but there is much in his wardrobe to admire. And don’t even get me started on Leon.
6. Shamelessness
The premise of Seinfeld and Curb is that people are fundamentally selfish, and the only thing keeping society together is our capacity for shame. Remove that and you’re left with endless petty squabbles over minor inconveniences. Both shows present you with the question: what’s stopping you from being like this? How thin, really, is the line between you and sociopathy?
To phrase it as he might: Larry is shameless. He is without shame! Curb Your Enthusiasm is a comedy of manners in which Larry is essentially right all the time. Or if not right then at least representing a sympathetic position that most people would not bother to state out loud because of the drama that would ensue. He is the people’s champion, the unreasonable voice of reason. The entire premise requires a base level of alignment with him because he shows us what would happen if we just said fuck it and became the worst versions of ourselves. If you don’t buy into that, the show doesn’t work.
Though his writing is massively inspired by Woody Allen, this is where it deviates. They both deal in a similar kind of neuro-eccentricism, but Woody Allen leads a pained, wincing existence and Larry David leads an incredibly liberated one. He’s so far beyond social norms he doesn’t even recognise that he’s in opposition to them. He does not appear self-conscious, nor does he embarrass easily. He stands in the middle of someone else’s living room, a thousand swords pointed at his chest, and he says: “eh.” This carefree vibe also extends to women, who are not treated as intimidating creatures or beautiful puzzles. When he’s in their company he acts the same as he would around with Richard Lewis. There are no lines drawn. There is no gender war. Sometimes a woman will be hot, and that’s fun, but everyone has the equal right to be annoying. He’s not a fucking simp, basically.
I’ll let Curb’s Susie Essman have the last word, here. Remarking on Larry’s appeal among women in 2016, she identified something about him that is unspoken but palpable, and anchors down all of the above: “They throw themselves at me in an effort to get to him so I can only imagine what he goes through," she says. "I think of him like a brother, so there’s an incest taboo” – sidenote but remember when celebrities would say things like that in passing in interviews, even as a joke? God I miss when people had no filter – “But he’s a man who loves and appreciates women, and there is nothing so sexy and attractive to a woman as desire."