What’s so sexy about short stars?

Men seem to be coming up short on sex appeal these days. Have you noticed how short in stature the men are who are widely proclaimed to be the world’s sexiest men?

Blame it all on Tom Cruise. It started with him. He’s the one responsible for this downward slide. I’ve encountered Cruise a few times. The first time I met him was at a NASCAR race. I noticed that a group of excited women were starting to assemble in the garage area.

“What are all these women doing here?” I asked someone.

“Oh, they’re here to see Tom Cruise.”

That got my attention. “Tom Cruise is here? Where?”

At that point, someone tapped on my shoulder and I turned to see a guy I had already greeted. He grinned, lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers in salute. I blinked hard.

“You’re Tom Cruise?” I asked, astonishment refusing to retreat from my face. “Why, you’re so...” I stopped short.

He laughed. “I know. Folks are always expecting me to be taller.”

Personally, I like tall men. At least ones who are taller and bigger than me. At five-foot-two, I don’t think that’s asking too much. I can tell you this – I certainly don’t want anyone over whom I tower or who makes me feel anything less than somewhat delicate.

Since Southern women are so tough, feeling delicate is important to many of us. We want to have both – delicacy and toughness.

Karen is a more than a bit taken with country music superstar Keith Urban. I admit that he is very pretty, which is something you would never want to call a tall man. A big guy would swat you for saying that.

“Do you know how little he is?” I asked one day when she was rhapsodizing about him and moaning over Nicole Kidman who, apparently, likes little men. “He’s no bigger than I am. In fact, I think I could beat him in arm wrestling.”

I know of which I speak. One day when I was lunching with a couple of girlfriends in Nashville, both who work in the music industry, Keith came over to our table to talk. I couldn’t believe how small he is. He was wearing smaller-sized jeans than I wore when I was 13. It’s embarrassing to admit but honest, nonetheless.

Then, there’s country star Kenny Chesney who also married a Hollywood star and whom women swoon and moan over. I encountered him when leaving a radio station where I had just finished an interview and he was coming in to do one. I couldn’t believe it. I turned around to look at him and was more astounded than I had been with Tom Cruise. His rear end across is smaller than the back of one of my thighs. This is nothing to brag about or even share. But the truth’s the truth.

And, to make matters worse, he was wearing white pants. Which, as all women know, make you look bigger. Just imagine how small he’d look in pair of black pants.

We won’t even talk about today’s NASCAR drivers, most of whom look like teenage boys. I swear I don’t know how they even see over the steering wheel.

“Why are all these guys so little?” I asked a towering Richard Petty.

“Power steering,” he replied after spitting tobacco juice to the pavement. “When I come along, we didn’t have power steerin’ so you had to be big to handle the cars.”

Being short is one thing but being tiny is another. As for me, I’ll stick with guys who wear bigger jeans than me. I like ‘em better that way.