No blog is an island, though some of us are well behind the curve.

A while back I noticed a mini-trend among political bloggers in which they amazed themselves by looking at Forbes' list of "The Celebrity 100", and seeing how many of them they'd never even heard of. Unlike so many celebrity lists, Forbes' actually uses some sort of objective scale for the ranking, though I never bothered to figure out exactly what it was.

For fun, I took the test and counted 59 that I'm reasonably familiar with. Another 12 I'm aware of who they are but not really familiar. Six more I had to think about but could eventually recall some rudimentary identity for them. Five more I've heard the name but I'm not really sure where. Finally 17 and a half I've never heard of at all. (The half comes from #33, listed as "Brian Grazer/Ron Howard". I know Ron Howard, but who the heck is the other guy, and why are they paired?)

Like everyone, I found my list of unknowns topped with #9, Jay-Z. With a name like that, I'd guess he's a rapper, but I'd never heard of him.

A few weeks earlier I had looked through an even more frivolous list, Maxim's "Hot 100". (The Maxim link sends you through a sort of slide show where you have to click through all 100 one at a time, but a page on LiveJournal provides a condensed list.) Yes, the rest of this post really is going to be about the comparative sexiness of various female celebrities. If that sounds terribly shallow and uninteresting to you, you may as well stop right now.

Maxim, for those who don't know, is a "lad mag", a men's magazine which, in addition to various other material aimed at young men, has lots of pictorials with scantily clad minor celebrities. Unlike Playboy, Maxim stops short of showing any actual naughty bits, but it comes about as close as it can, and the pictures are obviously intended to be sexy. (And, indeed, they often are more sexy than nude pictures you might find elsewhere.)

What struck me about the Maxim list was not just how many of the women on the list I hadn't heard of at all (61 of them, it turns out), but how many of them really didn't appeal to me at all. With the scores of super-sexy women that populate the celebrity universe, I kept wondering, how could they neglect so many of them in favor of all these nobodies?

I had forgotten about the Maxim list until tonight [um, actually about a month ago, when I wrote this...], when I chanced upon a lesbian site, AfterEllen.com, offering a "Hot 100" list of its own, based on a poll of its readership. Neither list does a very good job at reflecting my own taste, but after further review I'd have to say the lesbians come much closer.

Admittedly, the AfterEllen list has a greater incidence of spectacular failures — the sort that make me recoil and say, "Oh God, no! she's not attractive at all," but it succeeds more often, and even the unknowns look intriguing. While none of Maxim's choices are truly unattractive (well, OK, maybe one, its list has pages and pages that evoke in me utter indifference, especially in the vast wasteland stretching from 60 to 90. Is "ho hum" really any less sexy than "eew"? Either way it's zero.

Of course I realize that for all the unknowns I'm judging only from the picture and short paragraph Maxim provides, and thus I'm probably rejecting Maxim's presentation aesthetic more than the women themselves, but surely the two aren't unrelated.

Of the 61 unknowns on Maxim's list, only three looked intriguing to me (Christina Milian (#93), Alessandra Ambrosio (#51), and Sienna Miller (#11). Miss Milian looked particularly promising but was also the biggest letdown after further review via Google images. But all three still seem reasonably attractive to me after cursory go'ogling so I'm willing to qualify them as "hot" by the same standard that I've rejected the other 58 unknowns with no further review.

In addition to these three, I find only eleven more on Maxim's list that I would classify as particularly sexy. That means Maxim scores only a meager 14% with me. Pathetic.

Because I know you're dying to know, my other 11, in approximate order from smokin' hot down to barely-makes-the-cut, are: Angelina Jolie (#12), who really is as supremely sexy as the world of pop culture makes her out to be; Katherine Heigl (#14), the only good reason I would have to watch my wife's favorite TV show, Grey's Anatomy; Jessica Alba (#2), the only one of the new generation of startlets who lives up to her hype; Kate Beckinsale (#21); Scarlet Johansson (#3); Halle Berry (#55); Amy Smart (#31), underrated by grown-ups; Kate Hudson (#27); Beyoncé (#13); Keira Knightley (#20); Rebecca Romijn (#30).

The AfterEllen list beats 14% easily. Glancing through I quickly see 18 that I would say are definitely sexy, with quite a few borderline cases on top of that. And that's not even pursuing the unknowns — fewer of them than in Maxim's list, but much more likely to inspire further research.

For starters, AfterEllen matches half of my choices from Maxim. Although only 15 of Maxim's 100 make it onto AfterEllen's list, seven of my 14 do. The intersection of the two lists, it seems, does have a respectable correlation with my tastes. On the other hand, that same intersection includes Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz, who do nothing at all for me. I've heard it claimed by men whose taste I wouldn't otherwise question that Salma Hayek is the most beautiful woman alive, but I just don't get it at all. And Penelope Cruz to me is just a milder version of Salma Hayek. The only woman represented on both lists whom I had never heard of, Lena Headey (#64 for Maxim and #4 for AfterEllen), has a similar look, too.

Where AfterEllen really gains ground is by giving proper representation to several tried-and-true sex stars of recent years whom Maxim has blithely abandoned in pursuit of novelty. I have to wonder if Maxim really thinks these sexy women have somehow become obsolete just because their careers have persisted longer than four years, or rather if there's some marketing rule that pushes them to introduce as many fresh faces as they can get away with. AfterEllen quite sensibly remembers to include traditional favorites like Charlize Theron (#43), Nicole Kidman (#94), Catherine Zeta-Jones (#61), and my sentimental favorite, Drew Barrymore (#42); along with slightly less traditional but sizzling hot Michelle Rodriguez (#24), Naomi Watts (#52), and Famke Janssen (#51).

If Maxim is biased toward youth and novelty, AfterEllen has its quirks as well. Most obviously, there's a slight tilt toward lesbians and a huge tilt toward actresses who have portrayed lesbians. Additionally, whereas few on Maxim's list have reached 30 years of age, AfterEllen includes quite a few who are over 50. (None in the older set appeal to me, though I suppose Meryl Streep comes closest.)

AfterEllen also includes several of unconventional shapes and sizes. One of these (Queen Latifah, #55) makes my list on account of (a) her ample figure is not nearly as unsexy as it's often made out to be, and (b) her voice is so fuck-all sexy that she'd be hot no matter what she looks like.

There's still several that are inexplicably (in my estimation) omitted from both lists. Where the hell are Alyssa Milano (she of the exquisite bosom) and Jennifer Lopez (she of the exquisite derriere)? I have no doubt they ranked high on Maxim's lists in past years. Did they stop being sexy when they turned 30? No, they surely did not.

Also conspicuously absent are my own personal #1 and #2. Traditionally, the what-celebrity-would-tempt-me-to-infidelity game lists a top five. I doubt my wife could list my 3, 4 and 5 (and indeed, I myself am not sure whom I'd pick for those slots) but she could tell you in an instant who are my top two: Diane Lane and Ashley Judd. Yum yum yum. How can any list of 100 — any list of 10 even — omit either of them?

In another post, which I wrote earlier today but haven't posted yet, I mention political campaign commercials as an art form. I'm serious about this. In the age of YouTube, when amateurs can produce and distribute their own "ads", it's not just about promoting the candidate; it's a form of artistic expression.

Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't appear on AfterEllen's list, though I wouldn't have been surprised if she did. (Of the U.S. Senate's dozen or so female members — how many are there now? I don't even know — I can think of two whom I find more attractive than Ms Clinton (Mary Landrieu and Olympia Snowe), a few about the same, and several more who are not attractive at all.)

If AfterEllen's poll had been taken a few weeks later, I wonder if there would have been any votes for the pretty little spokestidbit who stars in this "Hot for Hill" video:

I can't tell if this is genuine affection or just a parody of the earlier I've Got a Crush on Obama. More likely, she's a creative and ambitious career girl who recognizes an opportunity to get noticed.

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