has anyone called you CUTE, the term? If so, did it apply? All it makes me think of is Rudloph cartoon when his nose is all plugged up and he yells, “She thinks I’m CUEDTDTD!” Do you like this term? What does it connote to you?
Cute is usually a pleasant term. I tend to be more attracted to folks that I consider “cute” than would normally be called “hot.” “Hot” people tend to try WAY too hard to be conventionally attractive.
my motto is publicly cute, privately hot
No, the best compliment I received was FEISTY though. Loved that compliment.
i like “omgcuetest”
I’m 100% with kingfish on this one.
“cute” people can be seriously fucking annoying in their never-ending quest to get that pat on the head (and a cookie). i think a lot of “cute” girls have weird unresolved daddy-issues.
“hot” doesn’t have to mean conventionally attractive; it’s more intangible than that.
“hott” is only good when it’s tangible.
I’m always being called cute, and it does my head in. For me, cute is like a puppy—you want it around, but you don’t want to fuck it.
unless you’re a furry
For me, cute is like a puppy—you want it around, but you don’t want to fuck it.
For you, and for male comedians over the last 40 years.
Bernard Manning != cute
haha jb otm. i’ve been thinking about cute vs hott bc i said something to someone about current crushboy being “cute” then realised he isn’t cute At. All. but he is really hott.
Cute [kyoot]
...
3. mentally keen; clever; shrewd.
Cuteness in itself isn’t necessarily hott, but cuteness can be a constituent of hottness. And is there a gender difference? Cute girls are usually hott, but does teh same happen for cute guys?
The correct response to this is always “I know”.
I prefer ‘sweet’. I don’t know any ‘cute’ people. Baby animals are cute.
Now the word is annoying me. cute cute cute queuet kyeeoot. Sounds weird.
Cute [kyoot]
...
3. mentally keen; clever; shrewd.
Yeah, this was the sense it was used in, n Mill On The Floss, i.e. “acute” and it did my head in that they wanted cute boys and girls that weren’t cute. Surely that should be the other way around in that age and place?
I’m not “cute” (in the original sense) at all. And it kinda bugs me that I’m not cute, and never get considered cute. The only place I ever get to be “cute” is onstage, where I get to “act cute” even though I’m not and never am in real life. But it’s playing a role.
Sometimes people have thought me Hott, but that’s not the same thing. Hott is a sexual thing, cute is more a way of being, a different sense of attractiveness. (if you find that sort of thing attractive. I find it *REVOLTING* in girls, but hey, lots of men seem to find it entrancing.)
some use cute as a noncommittal hot. it has so many variants you need context to make any sense.
but for the record, i’m a fan.
Cute [kyoot]
...
3. mentally keen; clever; shrewd.
This is used often in conjunction with the word “hoor” in Ireland. As in, “he’d have the eyes out of your head. He’s some cute hoor, that fell.”
I think the main thing about “cute” is that cute is non-threatening.
that’s why it’s such a girly thing. That girls should be cute, because too hott (sexy) is kinda threatening. And boys don’t like being called cute because the traditional archetype for a hott boy involves some element of danger.
yeah but sometimes they’re used interchangeably, it’s like that.
“Cute” is pretty much the only compliment I ever get. :p
girls should be cute, because too hott (sexy) is kinda threatening
Really? Sexy is . . . well, sexy, and so also a good thing. Cute and sexy are certainly not incompatible with each other.
What I’m saying, is that if sexy wasn’t sexy, then it wouldn’t be sexy.
Although I’m with you that archetype hott boy does have some danger/mystery/unknowability—see all Jane Austen ever.
What is the male equivalent of the Jane Austen Male?
All I’ve read about this is that Germaine Greer essay, talking about Fantasy Predatory Women in detective novels.
I get called cute ridiculously often, which I think is because a) I am a small person, b) I look younger than my age (less so now than I used to though), c) I smile a lot, and most importantly, d) I have a cute name. (No really, my last name is part of a cliche involving the word “cute.” It’s so annoying.) I wouldn’t mind being a bit more sexy and a bit less cute, but they don’t seem to be mutually exclusive.
i don’t think i’ve been called cute in a year. but god bless that girl and her poor choice making ways.
I don’t get called cute and I definitely don’t get called hot. The best I’ve been called is “attractive”, which is so bloody ambiguous that they might as well have not bothered.
I have very little understanding of the Venn relationship between sexy and cute. You want to protect cute things and preserve their cuteness, not fuck their glasses off. Err, right?
I do understand the appeal of despoiling cute things but not how that appeal is supposed to last, assuming the association lasts. I suppose to the supply of cute is renewable up to a certain age but that still seems like kind of a dead end.
i have actual WRITTEN PROOF that someone, somewhere, at sometime, once thought i was hot. again, god bless that girl and her poor choices.
the urge is to expose the sexy hiding beneath the cute. the glasses can be the cute see, then you fuck them right off.
also cute is just charming, fulfilling all sorts of other needs.
My bets friend describes the typical woman I’m attracted to as “Small, cute and slightly dizzy.” So I guess i do want to fuck their glasses off after all...
it’s somehow not been mentioned here that cute is used in wildly differing ways by men and women.
Yeah, baby animals with eyes the size of saucers are cute, in my book. That’s probably not what you were going for.
weird, seems usually women are more likely to use cute as a stand in for attractive.
a lot of men never admit to being subject to the forces of cuteness ever, under any circumstances, not even puppies.
who can’t admit to the inherent cuteness of puppies?
tuff guyz
CUET
yeah but her too
being called cute used to really annoy me, probably because things like big-eyed kittens and bjork (sorrry) and such make me want to vomit. i HATE whimsy, and to me cute implies that and seems patronizing as well. i’m learning to deal with my anger issues, though.
I’m with her.
well i’m sure i hate bjork in the same way you do, but still i would enjoy humping her glasses clean off—which demonstrates the cute/libido connection.
Cute and not sexy: Bjork and kittens.
Cute AND sexy: Beth Orton and Joanna Newsom
(I know I’m in the minority with the Bjork!=sexy thing)
some find kittens sexy
They are also in the minority.
I’m also with Kate, in that I find premeditated cuteness in girls really off-putting. It ought to be something you ARE, not something you LOOK LIKE. Or something. I haven’t thought it out, tbh — too annoyed.
NB: I say this as someone who always wanted to be striking and Amazon-like and ended up fresh-faced and short.
Abbott called me cute on wdyll.
Cute does NOT mean unthreatening. Believe that at your peril.
I don’t mind being called cute, when and if that ever happens. (Rarely these days)
It’s better than nothing!! If cute is what I have, I might as well work it. I will never be striking glamazon or Busty Russell.
I am with everyone who finds Bjork non-sexy.
I tend to be more attracted to folks that I consider “cute” than would normally be called “hot.”
Yeah, me too.
(Which is probably absolutely no surprise to anyone who has met anyone I’ve dated.)
Coming from a busty Amazon, I’ve spent my whole life wishing I was *cute*. Can’t win, can you?
Nah. Or rather, we can all win — just not with the strategy we’d planned ahead of time.
You want to protect cute things and preserve their cuteness, not fuck their glasses off. Err, right?
No.
I’ve never been “handsome”, “hot”, or “studly” (not that anyone says that, not anymore). I’ve always been “cute”, which I’ve never really known what to do with.
NB: I say this as someone who always wanted to be striking and Amazon-like and ended up fresh-faced and short.
OTM X 1000!
As for men and women using the word cute in different ways—I also use it to describe things that are not cute in a physical sense, to mean “sweet” and “mildly amusing,” and I have never ever heard a man use it that way.
“That’s a cute top you’ve got on.”
Y’all should read the chapter on “cute” in Daniel Harris’s Cute, Quaint, Hungry, and Romantic.
dude has a pretty impoverished version of cute
Yeah, I was gonna say — unless that chapter gets more interesting (and I did just put the book on my reading list), he’s not really hitting the mark.
i was searching for pictures of Iraq carnage and stumbled upon the cutest lil’ soldier you ever did see. awww, she couldn’t hurt nobody. i’ll bet bubble gum comes out of her rifle:
anyway, i came on here to say that i would call my maria cute more often if i weren’t so staggered by her beauty. true story!
(xpost) It’s an interesting take, though. Dude is cranky.
Also worth reading: “A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse,” by Stephen Jay Gould, in which he claims that “babyish features [in both actual babies and in animals] tend to elicit strong feelings of affection in adult humans.”
too true. on the dark side of cute, aging animals bred to look like babies—ie a 15 y/o poodle. yr just all what have they done to you?!
I’m also with Kate, in that I find premeditated cuteness in girls really off-putting.
It depends on how far it goes. If it’s wearing a little cardy, I don’t mind. If it’s “hewwo, do oo wike my buttefwy?” it makes me want to throttle them. “YOU’RE FUCKING THIRTY! GROW UP!”
“hewwo, do oo wike my buttefwy?”
I dunno, that soldier looks kinda evil to me.
weird unresolved daddy-issues.
THE WORST
i guess that i think that “cute” and “hot” are two different things, but i would be lying if i said that i didnt want to fuck the glasses off of both cute and hot girls. its just different kinds of attractiveness maybe.
also, i have been called cute and hot by the same person, but in different circumstances. i think that is a key point maybe.
When I was five, my sister’s friends would always call me ‘cute,’ but circa fourth grade, that stopped. I remember in seventh grade, some girls made a list of boys and how cute they were. After finding out about it and bugging my friend for a day or so, i found out that i was considered ‘ok’ by girls. Everyone thought my nose was my best feature. ???
Cute seems a natural thing to call people on the online. I just really despised the word for about 3 weeks after I got this job at a diner waitressing half the time and dusting the country-time patchwork angel knicknacks up front. Jesus aitch, I heard so many dipshit arteriosclerotic red hat society bitches call all that tacky shit “cute” every goddamn mintue. I came home from work the first day and said, “OK, the work cute is now banned in this house.”
Now I am over that and can describe my freakishly exponential crushed-upon folks as cute, fucking cute, totally adorable, good goddamn they are cute...I don’t know how well the sailor talk and the fawning intertwine, but so goes my mouth.
people use it really differently. don’t like the hot term unless it is for someone i don’t know—very random person, celebrity, person i would never... for me, cute is a simple and probably not adequate way to say you find the person hot/pleasant/adorable so feel some measure of affection for them etc. on top of wanting to xxxx them usually. and i rarely feel moved to point out things that are just plain old cute—babies, etc. seems unecessary, trite.
C/H: Jenna Fischer?
more hot, i’d say
I always feel like I’m quoting Seventeen magazine if I call someone “hot.” The worst slangy for this idea was “fine,” as in “he’s so.” It’s as bad as styrofoam rubbing together.
I had to do a lex-like googlerun to find her out. From the couple of eps I’ve seen she’s a LOT like the british The Office receptionist—cute rather than hot, but somehow my brain got tricked into thinking she was hot. But cute, I think, then hot.
As far as I know, I’ve never in my life been called “hot”. I usually get “handsome” and occasionally “cute”, but never ever “hot”. That said, I’m like Susan w/r/t using “hot” myself.
I’m not entirely sure who thinks I’m cute, who thinks I’m hot, and what the difference is.
I know what most women seem to think my best features are, though.
I have NO IDEA what women see in me. (They usually don’t, but that might just be my inner cynic talking). I think I’m more likely to be hot than cute, since tall-ish people like me are NEVER cute.
So cute things, like baby animals and people who are charming/appealing/non-threatening/etc — my mental shorthand for them is “snowglobe”, meaning I want to have them around to enjoy their appealing qualities, and the pinnacle of that wd be to keep them in snowglobes on my dresser and shake ’em up whenver I want a laugh/coo. There are definitely strains of my own convenience and of ownership or...possession, and perhaps for some people also a little exclusivity too, ie, that no one else can partake of their cuteness?
I’m thinking that for me there’s no sexual component, I don’t want to get off with the cute object, I just want to take it in, make it mine forever (cf also, “I could eat that kitten’s head in ONE BITE” — didn’t someone write that eating something is the ultimate loving destruction? I forget). But then one of the wise ladies of a certain age said on another thread that she feels the key to her feminine sexuality is the knack of enticing things to cross her threshold willingly, rather than a desire to invade them so maybe there’s a male/female divide here.
Discus.
cutness rules f u guyz
But then one of the wise ladies of a certain age said on another thread that she feels the key to her feminine sexuality is the knack of enticing things to cross her threshold willingly, rather than a desire to invade them so maybe there’s a male/female divide here.
Is this where I’ve been going wrong?
No, this seems like such a narrow view of feminine sexuality. but maybe that’s what you’re getting at—that this is the *cute* stereotype, as opposed to the hott one.
Please note that I said “her feminine sexuality”, not “hers, yours, and everyone’s, forever and ever amen.” Didn’t mean anything else by it.
Ha, Kingfish — I’ve been annoying my girlfriend lately by talking about how hot Jenna Fischer is — I don’t think she’s ever actually seen The Office, though. I’m realizing now that part of the reason I used the word “hot” (besides the jokey annoyance factor) because a) she’s cute, and b) she’s on TV — which has the effect of translating her cuteness into something else. When my girlfriend finds women on TV attractive (like Penelope Cruz, or the actress who plays Marta on Arrested Development, or Alexis Bledel) she says they’re “beautiful.”
*...annoyance factor) is because...
In our house, we use the word ‘gorgeous’. I have observed that people sometimes shorten this to ‘gorge’, and this is very wrong.
she’s on TV — which has the effect of translating her cuteness into something else.
She’s on tv therefore she must be attractive/her attractiveness has been tacitly approved therefore I find her (random appealing but nonsexual qualities) attractive? That doesn’t necessarily seem like you, John, but it’s the only chain of reasoning that comes to mind.
More like: She’s on TV therefore she must be attractive/her attractiveness has been tacitly approved therefore I find her (personally appealing sexual qualities) smoothed out somehow.
Alexis Bledel looks like an alien baby, not beautiful.
i was searching for pictures of Iraq carnage and stumbled upon the cutest lil’ soldier you ever did see. awww, she couldn’t hurt nobody. i’ll bet bubble gum comes out of her rifle:
Have you seen the “OMG HOT ISRAELI SOLDIERESS” blogs?
In our house, we use the word ‘gorgeous’. I have observed that people sometimes shorten this to ‘gorge’, and this is very wrong.
No you are very wrong! George-ous is also acceptable.
I am neither cute nor hott I am more: I am kv_nol, hear me roar!
i don’t think that her being on TV makes her more attractive(she’d have to be in a band for automatic-attractive-increasing), but they do play up the adorable factor, if you will.
(runs her own myspace, she does)
Christina Ricci has gone from “cute” to “theoretically hot but in reality kinda scary”.
(Same for Brittany Murphy.)
katherine hepburn was really beautiful though—her personality would be the thing that makes her handsome
yeah, c ricci is another dimension of cute/sexy, it’s kind of weird
more of the XPOST from me
pretty?
Do Ashton Kutcher and Tom Welling count as pretty boys?
rugged/handsome = ?
pretty boy = Sydnor
sexy = Lester
hot = McNulty
cute = Bunk
pretty = Lt. Daniels
xpost—dude it’s DEADWOOD. Who else is going to be pretty?
Tom Welling is beautiful in that way that Angelina Jolie is beautiful: sort of pushing past human into alien territory.
again, with roslyn it’s a personality issue—when she’s not presidented up, she’s kind of beautiful and flowly. oh oh, i know—STRIKING
Handome as applied to women requires a certain statue/gravitas/firmness of feature, I think? (Firmness as in...resolve/confidence, not as in lack of wrinkles/sagging).
oo! oo! nother pretty man in a western = Billy Zane(before he lost all his hair) in Tombstone
yeah, exactly, Laurel. Frances McDormand, too, maybe.
Err, stature. (XXXXP)
rugged/handsome = Caesar
pretty boy = Brutus
sexy = Titus Pullo
hot = Lucius Vorenus
cute = Mark Antony
pretty = Octavian
That 70s Show is still the hottest cast on TV, and Laura Prepon is like the 4th hottest one.
y’know, i think Cillian Murphy might be the male equivalent to Christina Ricci, as far as these attractiveness labels go
because he kind of looks like an alien? he’s prettier than Ricci, I think.
Yeah, Cillian had the weird mix of pretty boy/Thunderbird-plastic in the batman flick
Laura Prepon was #1 TV hottie until she went blonde during the seasons I didn’t watch.
even though there’s a 70% chance she’s a Scientologist.
Yeah, Mila Kunis is about the most conventionally “hot” girl that I find compelling, probably because she has a pretty high cute/neotenous element. Definitely a straight-up sexual, not romantic or protective, attraction there.
xpost
milo totally otm
laura prepon = more hot with red hair, obv
xpost
yeah, alien looking, scary/cute/weird eyes
thank you for new word, lurker2421
The patron saint of “hot, but not handsome or particularly cute” (though the big eyes do help):
xpost you’re welcome, isn’t it a great word?
ew. that is crazy talk. Jeff Goldblum is gross.
I find the woman in this current British TV ad for Baxter’s soup spellbindingly pretty. She has a delicious voice too.
Seriously, though, That 70s Show = small handsome boyish dude (Topher Grace), rosy-cheeked, floppy-haired pretty-boy (Ashton Kutcher), and dark-haired saucer-eyed cute/sassy girl (Mila Kunis). All my types on one show. Prepon is totally expendable.
(NB of course not everyone shares the Goldblum-love, but for some he’s the epitome)
xpost like I said.
thank you for new word, lurker2421
Ha, I know! I cracked open the Webster’s on my desk.
haha what is that? i have internet
I am a copy editor. :D
the longish hair really does a lot to help cillian murphy not seem so weird/scary but we know the truth
in fact, that kind of hair does a lot for most people/men—creates approachable cuteness factor—deceptive
xpost haha I KNOW
i know what a good word for that kind of hair is
(it’s not Jeff Goldblum’s face that’s gross, just his unctuous being).
what is Tom Hanks??
ack jeff goldblum no
xpost Tom Hanks is horrible
yeah, and longish hair only served to make him more horrible! i cannot deal with his nose. i wish he would go back to comedy.
because comedy really does make weird-looking men more attractive, i think
not that attractiveness is the goal for him, or anyone. or maybe it is.
not that attractiveness is the goal for him, or anyone. or maybe it is.
Probably on most people’s Top 5, I’d wager.
yeah, true, v true
also in comedy-making-people-more-attractive zone:
jack black—seriously now, dude is starring opposite kate winslet, hottest beautiful woman in the world, probably?
owen wilson
vince vaugn
jerry seinfeld (?)
chris rock
Sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you over the hair dryer. (XP)
Jerry Seinfeld had the quote(or at least, Conan attributed it to him) that nobody who thinks that they’re good-looking is funny.
that’s pretty otm
Not true! Baltar! In season 1, at least. He is funny despite himself, though.
Is Joan Cusack handsome?
no. Allison Janney is handsome.
handsome/rugged = Josh Homme or mebbe Hugh Laurie?
pretty boy = Adrian Brody (almost typed Adrian Belew, ack!)
sexy = ...all I can think of is my fiance
hot = Buster Keaton
cute = Bud Cort back in the day
I think the Sarah Silverman fetish that I don’t understand has the comedy madness factor.
she’s much hotter than she is funny. but I have the hate.
Actually I think SS is beautiful! So haughty...until mouth opens.
She’s gorgeous and the first time I ever saw her was on ‘Greg the Bunny’ where she wasn’t particularly funny. She is most decidedly not cute, however.
How would you characterize Laurie Anderson? There’s something “cute” about her — short spiky hair, moon face, dimples, playfulness — and she can definitely take on an angelic mien:
But she’s also got those biceps and a piercing stare, which gives her a certain fierceness:
Then again, sometimes she just looks like Tim Robbins:
At any rate, I find her immensely compelling.
Yeesh, really? I don’t find her very attractive at all, certainly not on a purely physical basis. Way too horsey for my taste.
Laurie Anderson’s got something, but not my thing.
omg, Tim Robbins! Tim Robbins is where cute and hot intersect!
Thing is, it has to do with whether the guy(we’ll use guys here) thinks he’s hot shit or not, not whether he actually is or not.
Attractive people don’t need to develop attractive personalities, to put it another way.
(that first line was an xpost about Sarah Silverman)
xpost also the problem with using famous men as an example is that we get into Kissinger territory here, which complicates matters.
Oh jaymc, Laurie Anderson def. has the sexy, like a more elegant Patti Smith, who also has the sexy.
(Though I’m thinking more of their access to the signifiers of wealth, particularly high-end tailored clothing which, of course, shapes a lot of how we perceive each other...)
xpost
Re Kissinger territory: it’s not just publicly acknowledged power that attracts (or sometimes not at all), it’s also the power that a person gathers to him- or herself by her bearing. And Laurie Anderson = beautiful.
Also, I think I don’t know that “moon-faced” means at all — I always assumed it meant broad in the cheek, broadly smiling, round like a full moon. LA is not these things!
C. Ricci is the classic moonface. That or people with Cushing’s.
I guess I have a hard time constructing a way in which Jerry Seinfeld can be thought of as attractive that doesn’t involve his power!
But seriously, I agree with you, and that’s kind of my point, actually — that using famous people makes it impossible to differentiate between personal magnetism and the magnetism attached to fame and fortune. Not that we have any alternative, really.
OTOH I think Jack Black has perfectly fine features, it’s mainly his weight that moves him from the “conventional” category to “offbeat”.
LA has my thing, which is to say, that chiselled lip outline and obstinate chin. It ages so well, too.
Laurie Anderson has a round face, though, doesn’t she? I’m more likely to find round-faced women attractive (cf. Ricci) than long-faced women (cf. Sarah Jessica Parker) — which is why I’m stumped that I find Sarah Silverman as hot as I do. (I think maybe there’s a touch of cute wrapped up in the hot.)
yeah, Jack Black is v. handsome.
Jack Black is k-cute but I think it’s due to my thing for eyebrows like his.
I think Silverman looks like an evil snakewoman.
From straight-on LA’s face is quite long, it’s just that she has a high forehead, so the features are a little closer together at the bottom (and considering that the opposite of “moon-faced” is apparently “horsey”, no one can win this game, I’m afraid). Round-faced is maybe this?
George: Um, excuse me, have you see a guy with like a horse face, big teeth, and a, and a pointed nose?
Clerk: ... flared nostrils?
George: Yeah.
—-
Kramer: Hey, did that guy show up?
Clerk: The guy with the... horse face... and the big teeth...
Kramer: No, the guy with the big head and the flared nostrils.
Clerk: Haven’t seen him. There was a short guy with glasses... Looked like Humpty-Dumpty with a melon hat. But he left.
—
George: I went in with a pretty woman? You know, kinda short, big wall o’ hair, face like a frying pan?
Old photo of Laurie Anderson (1976):
I dunno about you, but that’s pretty definition of “moon-faced” to me.
That’s weird, the other pictures upthread don’t even look like the same person.
You are right! That photo from ’76 is super duper square. I just can’t figure out how she turned into Bicep Woman, who looks so fine of feature. Aging again, I guess?
Hanging out with Lou Reed for too long?
schwing:
YEAH, OKAY, FINE!
long-faced women (cf. Sarah Jessica Parker)
arrrgh. perfect body, but the face demands a bridle.
/meow
haha sjp is cute/ugly—boooya!
I’ve become curious as to what I thought was “cute” so have gleaned these pictures from personals websites and offer them here as a glimpse into my anonymous psyche. This is what I think is “cute.” And yes, I’m aware that all these women have the same expression on their faces. I’m only attracted to women with that expression.
So you like elves, then. With no lips. Glad we cleared that up.
the first one looks kind of like stacey slater.
wow, i have a huge crush on the laurie anderson of 30 years ago.
I am pretty much a moon-face-only kinda dude, that old LA photo looks creepily like (and kinda reignites) my first high-school crush :(
What became of Best Buy ipod girl?
curtis’ new facebook profile pic might be the cutest thing ever. curtis, you have to post it here, and prepare to have everyone go ‘awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!’ atcha.
crepe
OK Louis I had no issue with you really but yeah come on thats just weird now.
;_;
I’m being entirely innocent here. If you see the picture you’ll see what I mean (I only found it when having a routine glance at recently updated friends)...
Real life Pepe le Pew!
Oh my god, Madchen.
X3
dying!
Oh, that’s so cute!
skunk rape is never cute when you’re experiencing it
Puppy rape is. WHEN YOU’RE DOING THE RAPING AMI ETC
Never has kitten rape been so adorable.
someone plz to embed the “AW MWAH MWAH MWAH” kissy-whatever dialogue effect
i love how its little feet are splayed helplessly in opposite directions.
/crepey
the disgusted look on the kitten’s face is the opposite of cute.