The ten women of 2008 who stimulated our brains… and our minds. Plus: The Daily Beast celebrates the best (and worst) of the rest of the year.
Before we dive into the Top Ten Thinking Man’s Sex Symbols for 2008, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. TMSS is a term that’s thrown around a lot. So let’s quantify.
A man has two minds. The lower mind is a brainless whore excited by any woman with breasts, curves, and a thong. The upper mind, which works with actual grey matter, is more persnickety. The upper mind, when employed, is moved by intelligence, success, power, self-confidence, a smart sense of humor, and, of course, not having a castrating nature.
And that’s the challenge. Can a woman be independent, creative, sharp, witty, strong, and self-empowering without making me feel like she wants to be a man? Ann Coulter and Judith Regan could never make the list—they’re sexy, brainy, powerful, but I feel like they secretly want to steal my manhood.
If she’s the smartest chick in the room and she’s going home with you, what does that say about you?
A TMSS is someone we imagine having great conversations with, laughing with, reveling in her success with, and getting drunk on her power with. Where Maxim girls are purposefully brainless, we look at a TMSS and say, she’s hot because she’s smart and beautiful. A female friend of mine has a t-shirt that says “The Show Is Upstairs.” These ten women proved that this year.
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Touré is the host of BET’s The Black Carpet and the host of Treasure HD’s I’ll Try Anything Once. He is the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN’s first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
Gerald Posner is the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism (www.posner.com). Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Renata Espinosa is the New York editor of Fashion Wire Daily. She is also the co-founder of impressionistic fashion and art blog TheNuNu and a sometimes backup dancer for "The Anna Copa Cabanna Show."
Amanda Fortini has written for The New Yorker, Slate, Elle, and New York, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.
Touré is the host of BET’s The Black Carpet and the host of Treasure HD’s I’ll Try Anything Once. He is the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN’s first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Touré is the host of BET’s The Black Carpet and the host of Treasure HD’s I’ll Try Anything Once. He is the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN’s first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Touré is the host of BET’s The Black Carpet and the host of Treasure HD’s I’ll Try Anything Once. He is the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN’s first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
by Touré
Touré is the host of BET’s The Black Carpet and the host of Treasure HD’s I’ll Try Anything Once. He is the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN’s first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
wow. not one african american woman? interesting. and, sadly, not surprising. *sigh*
i am a quite saddened to see a black man that can't think of one black one that he finds smart and sexy. very, very sad. i wonder if a white man had written this and put all non-white women on the site, how odd it would have been viewed. thanks brotha!
I'll agree with #5, #4 & #2. But seriously-Sarah Silverman. She's not sexy for the upper or lower head. She's just annoying-like a rash...The rest I've never really heard of so, I want comment on...Only fair
You only managed to mention twice Sarah Palin. Two out of ten is a really poor performance. We have the right to expect at least 50 %. And so on until next election year.
You are in really bad shape. In all fields, it seems.
If a whiney, nasally, yenta is your idea of sexy than Sarah Silverman wins hands down. Would there be anything sexier than a double date with Silverman and Fran Drescher? Double your nasal, double yaaaw oy vey !
What in the hell was this list other than a waste of time??? You have lost your (Samuel L. Jackson's favorite f-word) minds.
enjoyed the post. but, what a horrible first pick. the rest are at least debatable. How is picking and athlete based on her athletic ability a "thinking" man's sex symbol? But I have to defend you from the "there's no black women" remark. It's his top ten. It's not his "top ten sexy women but i should throw in at least one sister so somebody doesn't try to call me out" list. And how about you throw out a few examples? It's definitely criminal that there aren't more prominent, outspoken, intelligent black women who get main stream attention, but it's not his fault.
Yes, Lisa Ling.
Damn Bruh,
No Michelle Obama......? How could she seriously not make this list?
Mr. Toure, are you also into bestiality? I cannot see a reason to invite any of these "chicks" to any room other than to feel humiliated by the spectacle of it all. This is one sorry list of freaks designed to seriously explore the joys and benefits of the homosexual lifestyle.
The exceptions to this are Ms. Lahiri, if she actually looks as photographed here and Ms. Zadie Smith who looks like she expects me to chase her around. I know she would be fun, just look at her!
This is a column? Your limp sex fantasies?
Do us all a favor and go buy a Penthouse.
Forget "read this"; just "skip that".
I'll also nominate:
Rachel Maddow - she's up to date, smart and classically educated, probably can get top politicos and pundits, liberal ones anyway, to come to your parties.
Suze Orman - cute, brash, and a godsend in these tough economic times, she's not going to let you put that new home theater on a credit card, but could probably make the daily stock report a siren's song!!
Ellen - want Hollywood A-List friends? She's got 'em. Funny, nimble, party girl. And if she can make Chris Matthews danceable, she can make you look hip (and relevant)
I loved your choices and learned about a few women I knew nothing about other than their names.
There is good hope for that baby in your arms with a dad that 'lusts in his heart' (sorry Jimmy C.) after these women too.
Thanks.
Funny list. To all those haters out there, I thought M.I.A. and Zadie Smith were people of color. Do we have to always have a list that picks people by quota of skin pigment contrast as opposed to just whatever the subject of the list is? This is soon to be 2009; can't we all just get along?
As a 40 year old (self-proclaimed) thinking man, I find this essentially offensive. Tina Fey - absolutely!! Meredith and Katie??...paaalease!!! Where are Mika Brzezinski and Erin Burnett - the two most interesting, intellegent AND sexy women on "thinking TV"??!! Thanks for not making me respond to a Sarah-Palin inclusion!!
Robert G.
What kind of stupid article is this? Just because the guy who wrote it has also written in the New Yorker doesn't make it any less of an overtly brainless sexist piece than its relations in top shelf magazine trash.
Grow up.
Geeez Tour�, Aside from Tina and maybe MIA I gotta say U ain't got much edgy taste in thinking women, like Carla Bruni, Gwen Ifill and best of all Cate Winslet.
And what about some of those BBC and WorldFocus news presenters?
I guess it depends on what "The Thinking Man" (the author, in this case) is thinking about. Not very much it seems. A topic like this has so much potential, and yet this goes no where. Last week it was that dribble from Perez Hilton, and now this. BTW, I agree with SantaFromTheNorth - let's leave the color thing out by the trash bin.
Obviously, this column is an early April Fools joke.
Funniest comment: "wow. not one african american woman?". Uh, gee, so British-Jamaican-Black doesn't count? (Zada Smith). This reminds me of the argument that Barack Obama was not a "real" black, because he was raised in Hawaii and his dad was African!
It's almost 2009 exactly! So why are black women excluded from any list regarding beauty or achievements. Why put Race by the TRASH BIN? Is it because it is easier than to confront it? But why isn't SEXISM by the TRASH BIN? When women, usually white women, including Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and even 2008 sexy and smart Katie Couric, point out that bias, no one reaches for the BIN. I do expect a black man, who knows or should know the history of the black women being seen or depicted as one dimensional women, devoid of intelligence, beauty and just a servant to other women, to know better. Maybe 2009 will be the magical year when black women are included, without having the questioned posed in an afterthought, as women who are viewed as sexy and smart, even by a black man (imagine that).
As far Zadie Smith, she was added as an honorable mentioned AFTER I commented the first time. For you late comers, she was not on the original post. Perhaps, after the first 2 comments, Toure' had a conscious and tried to correct his view. Before you tell anyone to leave anything, check your own history to see what you have left. Probably very little because your history formulates your being, just ask Katie Couric, who publicly took the media to task regarding sexist media bias in 2008. Oh, but maybe you should tell her to leave it by the TRASH BIN, it's 2009!
I agree with santa and strangeboy. Quit complaining about how many people of what color were where. What happened to content of character over color of skin. Post racial my @$$. I think there are plenty of smart and sexy black women (michelle obama?) out there, but I don't think color should be the complaint for this article.
As a 43-year-old woman, graduate of an Ivy League law school, former US government official, and former partner in a big law firm, I always want to know what men REALLY think of women who like to think-and-do in the world and who can provide for themselves. I was glad to see this post, but I hope I can trust Toure'. Would he really want to be in a relationship with these women? If so, I can sleep better at night.
Thank you.
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