“Frankenstein would want your mind…your lovely head…”

So sings Alison Goldfrapp in “Lovely Head,” referencing the famed doctor and his patchwork man, herself the possessor of a massive voice that seems like it was somehow transplanted into such a petite frame.

It’s a line I’m always repeating to myself, largely because it plays on my knee-jerk attraction to men with big, blocky heads. As a child I was quite smitten with Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster in a very Spirit of The Beehive way, and today I still get swoony whenever a guy with a serious flat top crosses my path.

Primary sexual characteristics are great and all, but sometimes it’s really the little personal details that are the most exciting. I’m partial to a very defined cupid’s bow shape to the upper lip and ears that have an elven sharpness to them. Kirk Douglas has that divot in his chin, and the reason Matthew McConaughey has his arms crossed on every one of his movie posters is because he has muscle penguin guns. John Allen Nelson — another very formative part of my childhood — has the most sky-high nipples I think I’ve ever seen on a man, while Justin Theroux‘s incredible Bela Lugosi hairline makes me hot and envious.

Phrenology — along other proto or pseudosciences like alchemy or dowsing that either fell by the wayside as superstitions or spun off into more credible disciplines — is now widely regarded as junk science for its positing that tactile examination of the skull could determine character or mental acuity, and craniometry tried to use cranial measurements as indicators of everything from race, intellect, and criminal tendencies. Both missed the mark, but the idea of certain facial features serving as evidence of higher evolution or elemental sex appeal might have some merit.

In the animal kingdom, the beasts with the best plumage or manes get the mate and pass on their superior adaptations to the young, and the human animal still has that inkling of seeking out physical beauty not just because it’s culturally encouraged, but because that impulse was bred into us over eons. Women will often be attracted to pretty men — and often, pretty gay men — because they instinctively equate soft, pleasing features as translating into good fatherhood potential. Conversely, a strong, chiseled countenance to the face and head signal strength, vigor, and the implicit ability to defend and provide. Even though modern humans’ sexual encounters aren’t necessarily tied to procreation anymore, I still wonder if our worship in particular of the Alpha Male and the Macho God isn’t at least partly rooted in that very same drive. A square-cut anvil head just makes me want to get all One Million Years B.C., so maybe the trait — perhaps a remnant of the Neanderthals with their robust bone structure? — is extant just for that reason.

Practically, a Blockhead tends to go to two extremes for me; either he’s very cerebral and brooding, as if too much were crammed into his skull, or he’s so dumb you can hear his tiny brain rattling around in there when he shakes his head. This will determine if I’m the sexual aggressor, because the latter will require me to take the lead or jangle my keys to keep him from getting distracted by something shiny. This is your Erik Rhodes or Zeb Atlas type — really thick-skulled and slack-jawed — and the sort of Lenny you have to remind to “Pet the puppy nice!” or he’ll accidentally crush you.

Howie Long is just freakin’ mythically American-looking, almost like a G.I Joe: super jocky with a crew cut that emphasizes the broadness of his pate. Ditto for super-studly Chris Steele and the Mephistophelean Colton Ford, while slabby Scott Evans has a more sensitive and approachable look. David Boreanaz has the best hooded, overhanging brow, and John Cena is a total macho hammerhead. Blogger Jim “Jimbo” Barrett conveys the warm, broad-boned handsomeness of a Rankin Bass marionette, and I could never get tired of Gumbi-headed Joel McHale‘s sharp, close-set face and movie screen forehead. Nobody, though can top Chris Meloni‘s Easter Island head — James Van Der Beek‘s cereal box noggin comes in a close second — because you’d need a sherpa to help you scale that magnificent peak.

My inner Lucy van Pelt would love to die trying.

© 2010, Shawn Baker. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com