That troublesome dichotemy

An excerpt from "Sexual Attraction: The Magic Formula":
"Women’s preferences for certain male scents and other male features change over their cycle. Near ovulation, they prefer masculine traits; at other phases of their cycle they prefer less sexiness and more stability."

Tonight I watched "Match Point," Woody Allen's new film. It is certainly a departure from his characteristic style, but definitely worth watching and thinking about. I found that some of the sexual relationships in the film resonated a bit with the comment above (from the full article that I read earlier today--thanks, Linshuang). Most of the film revolves around Chris' inner conflict between the seductive magnetism of Nola (played by Scarlett Johansson) and the "sweetness," niceness and stability of Chloe (played by some other actress), as well as the resources Chloe's family provides him. In the film, this distinction explains the difference between passionate love-making with Nola, who becomes Chris' mistress-muse, and machinistic attempts at producing a child with Chloe, his wife. Here are a couple fragments of dialogue in the film that shed some light on the "sexy" end of the dichotemy.

The first is an exchange between Chloe, Tom's sister, and Eleanor, Tom's mother, in which Eleanor attempts to use Tom's current (and ultimately short-lived) relationship with Nola in order to caution her daughter:
ELEANOR "Be careful. Tom's involved with a woman I have reservations about. Don't rush off."
CHLOE "Tom's happy with Nola! You're prejudiced because she's American."
ELEANOR "She's spoiled. And tempermental."
CHLOE "She's an actress! They're emotional!"
ELEANOR "She's deluding herself. And she's moody--she's not right for Tom."

Later on, Nola speaks with an admiring Chris:
NOLA "You should see my sister, she's very beautiful. But she's lost...drugs...and..."
CHRIS "I'm sure she's not more beautiful than you are."
NOLA "No, what I am is sexy. Linda--my sister--is classically beautiful..."
CHRIS "So you are aware of your affect on men."

And finally this, the same dichotemy restated in a line from a somewhat Feminist film critique of the film:
"So [Allen] grafts an eleventh-hour murder plot onto Match Point, a narrative twist anchored by the fallacious assumption that every woman on Earth is either an alluring cocktease or a needy shrew."

Or in this case, both, since Nola makes a surprisingly quick transition from "cocktease" to "needy shrew" as she becomes controlled by the conditions of her affair with Chris. In this sense she yields much less power as a femme fatale than she might have, had she remained an inaccessible fantasy to Chris or used her seductiveness on him in a more effectively controlling way.

Or neither, since Chloe is remarkably un-needy. However she is extremely stable, which bores Chris for most of the film, until he realizes how comfortable stability can be and how much of a pain in the ass sexiness can be.

Regardless, to return to the first quote, the core issue for me here is the pure irony of two attractiveness criteria, sexiness and stability, which seem essentially and irreconcilably at odds (for both men and women): Isn't it true that stability is necessarily practical and sexiness is by definition impractical, and that we all want them both?

This dilemma is alternately funny and frustrating. Woody Allen, always the pessimist, poignantly reminds us of the all-too-common tragedy of those who, asphixiated by their own selfish idealism, refuse to give up either passion or practicality and instead try to invent hackneyed schemes where both can be maintained at once. However, obnoxious infidelities aside, the dilemma stands.