Beautiful

Adjective. Marked by a quality or a combination of qualities that delights the senses or appeals to the mind.

That is how my copy of Webster defines beautiful. I hesitated in calling my boyfriend Anthony beautiful the other day, but went ahead and did it anyway. Why the pause? Somehow, it initially felt strange to call him beautiful, it being a word more often applied to women than men. Why did I do it anyway? Because it was what I meant.

I think there is this tendency to call a man handsome as a substitute for beautiful, even though the two words have completely different meanings. Handsome, again according to my copy of Webster, means very attractive and often striking in appearance. Mind you, I'm not saying that my boyfriend is not handsome- he is, quite. It is just not what I meant at that precise moment in time. I wanted to get at something bigger than mere physical appearances. Beautiful does it, handsome does not.

So, why do we hesitate in calling men beautiful? Men, do you have a problem with it?