Redefining "Sexy"
Recently, Jason Kelce was nominated for People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. Some people may think that's a joke, but here's why Kelce may be more deserving of that tile than any other nominee.
What do Patrick Dempsey, Pedro Pascal, Timothée Chalamet, Jamie Foxx, Lenny Kravitz, Chris Evans, Paul Rudd, Michael B. Jordan, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Legend, Idris Elba, Chris Hemsworth, and Channing Tatum all have in common?
Firstly, they are all actors.
Granted, some of them are predominantly known as singers or musicians (Lenny Kravitz and John Legend) but even musical performers are, in their own way, actors. Today, most even have actual acting credits - as is the case with both Legend and Kravitz.
Secondly, they have all been deemed at some point in the past to be the “sexiest man alive” by People magazine.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they are all spectacularly visually appealing. Generally after having spent an absolute fortune on plastic surgeons, dentists, prosthodontists and personal trainers. In fact, a very strong argument could be made that most of their success is far more the result of their visual appeal than their actual talent. Which is also important, because while you may think their primary job is to act or sing, it’s really not. Their real job is selling you an entire galaxy of products.
Everything about Jason Kelce would seem to suggest that he doesn’t belong anywhere near this list of “sexiest men alive”, yet in truth, Kelce may be the only one that genuinely qualifies as being legitimately “sexy,” as defined by women and not men.
Because most of what we’re being sold about every other man on this list isn’t real.
Yes, in the fictional worlds they inhabit, the characters they play do in fact often exhibit the traits and characteristics women find to be “sexy,” but those are the characters they play, not the actual men themselves.
Men have a longstanding history of equating physical beauty with “sexiness.” What’s interesting about People’s Sexiest Man Alive is that it’s not a contest people vote on. If they did, the results might be very different. It is unclear who exactly makes the final decision as who the shall be crowned the Sexiest Man Alive or even by what criteria their decision is based on. The only thing that is patently clear is that they are spectacularly handsome. The implication being, of course, that “sexy” and “hot” are the same thing. Which makes sense, since women who are deemed to be the “hottest” by men are also generally deemed to be the “sexiest.”
But what if what women actually find to be “sexy” is very, very different from what men do?
We often use the words sex and intimacy interchangeably, as if they are one and the same. Sexual intimacy is sexual and therefore, intimacy is sex. But what if it’s not? Intimacy has often been referred to as “into-me-you-see.” Men seem desperate to believe that the “sexiest” man is the one who is the most dominant and virile, which only reinforces their idea that the most dominant man gets (and rightly should get) the girl.
On some level it seems perhaps People magazine at least marginally understands this because this year they offered us McDreamy. The man women watched skillfully woo Meredith Grey for more than a decade. We watched him be loyal, vulnerable, romantic, passionate and yes, even screw up on occasion and then humbly work his way back into our good graces. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that he has a strong jawline, impossibly blue eyes and - let’s not forget - is a world-class surgeon at the top of his game and therefore wealthy. Which means he not only meets women’s standards for “sexy” (being vulnerable) but perhaps even more importantly, he is worthy based on the standards of men.
While it is certainly possible that Patrick Dempsey is legitimately a good guy, we honestly have no idea what he - as a person - is actually like. When we look at him, we don’t see a man we barely know, we see a man we’ve spent more than a decade watching in his most vulnerable and intimate moments. All of which were carefully scripted, and often by women. We don't see Dempsey, we see McDreamy.
But Jason Kelce doesn’t fit in that tribe. He’s not an actor, he’s a football player. We haven’t watched him time and time again whispering sweet, sexy, intimate lines to an actress playing his wife or lover that tug on our heartstrings. What we know of and about him is actually about him, not a character or series of characters he plays on a screen who delivers lines written for him by other people. Perhaps even more importantly, much of what we know about him comes not just from himself, but from the people who know him best, including his wife, his mother, his brother and his teammates.
Here are some of the things I believe are true of Kelce based on what he himself and the people around him have said about him. You can decide for yourself if you think that qualifies as “sexy” or not.
1. He has his priorities straight
In 2016, Tom Brady’s mother Galynn was diagnosed with breast cancer while he was battling a mandatory four-game suspension due to Deflategate. After spending months fighting the suspension in a long series of highly public legal battles, he finally acquiesced and chose to spend the time with his family. In a 2021 interview, Brady recounts a revelation he had on the golf course at Pebble Beach during that time.
“My wife [Gisele Bündchen] was walking out with my daughter Vivian. I had my nieces and nephews running up and down the fairway on the 18th. The Pacific Ocean’s on the left, waves are crashing and I was reflecting and having some perspective on the situation and realizing that this is what matters most,” Brady said. “Being with my family at a very vulnerable time. I was gonna do my best to forget about football for a little bit and catch up on some other aspects of my life.”
That is what I would call a wake-up call. Although it seems that Brady clearly heard the wake-up call, he also doesn’t seem to have heeded it. He went right back to playing football as soon as his suspension was completed, while his mother spent the year battling cancer, with the rest of her family by her side. Her son was too busy trying to get another ring.
In 2021, following his seventh Super Bowl win, this time with a team other than the Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick, Brady shared on a late night talk show how his wife whispered in his ear “what more do you have to prove?” That same year, he announced his retirement, only to reverse his decision a few weeks later, possibly just as a ploy to get rid of a head coach he didn’t like. The following year, he was divorced.
Five years before Brady faux-retired, another legendary football MVP retired gracefully with an intact marriage that seems to have continued to withstand the tests of time. Although you never really know what a marriage genuinely looks like on the inside, Peyton Manning is at least still married. Perhaps because he chose to finally place his relationships above football before he lost them all.
At some point, every man is going to reach a place where he has to choose between his own personal growth in his occupation and his relationships. Some men choose wisely, many do not. The ones who do not generally end up gliding into old age with nothing but their championship rings, their big bank accounts and a revolving door of women to keep them company. Many have publicly stated that they chose the wrong thing and if they could go back and send a message to their younger selves, it would be to choose the relationship over the ring.
Although I cannot prove it, I deeply believe that if Jason had to choose between football and being there for his mom as she battled cancer, Mama Kelce would win. Although it was fairly clear that Kylie fully supported his decision to play one more season, Jason Kelce also made it clear in his recent retirement speech that rather than resenting the time and energy his family was taking away from his focus on his career, he was instead finding the pull of family to be stronger and stronger than the pull of the gridiron. Like Manning, he didn’t wait until his personal life was in shambles before finally hanging up his cleats.
A woman doesn’t need to be the highest priority in a man’s life every single day, but they do need to know (or at least believe) that if the day ever comes when a man has to choose between his family and his career, he’s going to make the right choice. A man that gives a woman that kind of confidence is sexy as hell. I believe Jason Kelce is a man who would always make the right choice in the end.
2. His identity is not wrapped up in his status
The reason it is so hard for so many men to walk away from professional sports is because they literally have no idea who they are without them. By the time they reach the pros, most have already spent at least half their lives sacrificing other interests, activities and relationships to master their sport.
Many have also spent years being worshipped like gods for their athletic abilities, and that worship can become like a drug that is very hard to walk away from. Their very names, in addition to their very large paychecks, can unlock doors and shield them from a great deal of daily unpleasantness most people are forced to endure. As age and injuries begin to set in, men can’t help but wonder who will they be when they can no longer dazzle the crowds with spectacular acts of physical prowess or pull down paychecks ending in multiple zeroes.
What I believe about Kelce, however, is that he could be a janitor and still hold his head high. What I also believe is that if he were a janitor he would take great pride in having the shiniest floors and the most pristine toilet bowls in the city and woe to the person that questions or challenges that. Contrary to the bad rap women get, many women would far rather be married to a janitor that takes pride in his work than to a corporate raider who lives for nothing more than increasing his personal wealth.
Although only time will truly tell, Jason Kelce doesn’t seem like a man who needs to be a big shot to feel good about himself and that is hot, hot, hot. That’s not to say that leaving football wouldn’t be a huge transition, but he shows every sign of a man who can successfully make that transition without destroying his marriage or ending up at the bottom of a bottle of pills or booze. It also doesn’t hurt that he seems to have married a woman who is also not dependent on his high status for her own sense of worth and value.
3. He is the ultimate team player
Ask almost any athlete or coach what the most destructive attitude is on a team and they will probably tell you it is one or more players believing they are the MVP. As soon as one person believes they are more important and valuable than anyone else on the team, they stop doing whatever it takes to help make their team better. In many cases, that includes the hardest, dirtiest or lowliest work. In life, as on any team, there is always a great deal of work no one wants to do that still must be done. Trash still has to be emptied, uniforms laundered and training rooms cleaned.
Although most teams have staff that are hired specifically for these tasks, what happens when there is no one around to do them? Great teammates will jump in and do whatever needs to be done to help the team. They don’t believe there is any work that is “beneath them.” The same is true of couples and relationships. Too often, the person that brings home the bacon doesn’t actually feel like they should also have to be the one to fry it up in a pan.
Although you never really know exactly what goes on in a relationship, Jason shows every sign of a man more than willing to change diapers, do laundry or dishes, mop floors, take out trash or whatever his strong, powerful teammate needs him to do.
4. He is capable of both managing and expressing a full range of emotions
It seems to sometimes be difficult for men to understand that anger and rage are emotions. Whereas women are frequently referred to as being “emotional,” (or even “overly emotional”), many men seem to simply be one-hit wonders, who are only capable of expressing one emotion, while ruthlessly shoving the rest down. Kelce has made no secret of the fact that he can have a temper, but also seems to be able to direct his anger in positive, healthy directions or at least take it out on inanimate objects. When he was in college it was a sink and during his NFL career his helmets seem to have taken their fair share of abuse.
Yet he also seems capable of managing in a healthy way the emotions that can be caused when people anger, irritate us or get under our skin. In an early episode of he and brother Travis’s New Heights podcast, he had to step away from the mic for a full 24-hours after his brother called him out for making excuses. While he could have easily edited that out and pretended it never happened, he instead chose to allow followers and viewers to see him as someone that experiences a complex range of emotions, the same way we all do - if we allow ourselves to.
At the end of what was arguably one of hardest and most disappointing days of his life (his Super Bowl loss to brother Travis’s Kansas City Chiefs), he was able to return to his hotel room and engage in a very tender exchange with his tiny daughter. Although we love the idea of “reality TV”, the truth is we are all capable of acting and most people act very differently when they know cameras are rolling. Much of what people see on “reality TV” is not only usually highly staged, but also carefully edited - sometimes after multiple takes. But some things just can’t be faked and one of those things is the genuine tenderness that this big bear of a man shows towards his tiny daughter at the end of what was - for him - a truly terrible day.
Later, in talking about that day, he openly cried when talking about what that day meant to his mom and how much love had been shown to her on that day. In addition, he was able to both recognize and articulate that he himself had been going through a grieving process following such a tough loss. Although it is unlikely that he recognized all on his own, it does show his willingness to listen to those who can help him grow not just as a football player on the field, but as an emotionally mature and aware man.
While I certainly can’t speak for every woman, I think it’s fairly safe to say that emotional awareness and maturity will beat a dazzling white smile and six-pack abs every. single. time.
Physically speaking, every woman has a slightly different body type that she is initially attracted to, but most women have also had the experience of finding themselves deeply attracted to a man that looks nothing like the type of man they are generally attracted to. This is because attraction is only minimally tied to visual appeal. A hot body might get a man a moment of a woman’s time, but it is almost always what happens after he opens his mouth that determines how much longer he gets.
While Jason Kelce might have a harder time getting that first conversation started than some of the hotties crowned by People Magazine, it’s a fairly safe bet he would still be standing (often alone) days or weeks down the road.