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By Lisa Palac

June 11, 1999 | It happened when I least expected it, long after the crowds had thinned out -- but isn't that always how it goes with romantic obsessions? "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" had been out on video for over a year by the time I finally saw it.

From the moment I first set eyes on his Beatle boots and blue-striped suit, I felt our connection. Austin Powers and I had the same couture aesthetic, the same crazy dance moves, the same overwhelming desire to be both a slutty sex object and gracious subject. I loved the way he defeated those voluptuous Fembot assassins by blasting them with his bare mojo, as well as the sense of decency he displayed by not taking advantage of a drunk Agent Kensington. But the clincher was, of course, his vaguely heart-shaped chest hair, which was so silly and absurd and yet so ... erotic. I knew right then and there that I was hooked.

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That evening I watched the film again, this time with my husband, Andrew.

"Look, honey! It's just like yours!" I said when we got to the Warm Liquid Goo phase where Austin's fur is first revealed.

"His chest hair is fake," he said flatly.

"That's not the point," I said, and hit pause. "Isn't it just a little bit refreshing to see at least one hairy man up there on the big screen? I mean, the reality is that men are by-and-large hairy, but where are their media representatives? Nowhere. Not in GQ or up on the latest Calvin Klein underwear billboard or even in the world of pornography where the ideal, the waxed torso, reigns supreme.

"It's all so oppressive, isn't it?" I said softly, stroking his fuzzy shoulder.

His eyes filled with the kind of wary empathy you'd give a mental patient. "What about Burt Reynolds?"

"Oh, right. Burt Reynolds. Like one hairy icon every 25 years is supposed to be enough."

Well, things just snowballed from there, and soon I became convinced that Austin Powers was the modern model of romantic masculinity. My thinking was as follows: For years women have been complaining about their on-screen Madonna/whore treatment, but the truth is, Hollywood's current portrayal of men isn't much better. Who is the guy every woman wants and every man wants to be? Is it the depilated, I-can't-draw-my-way-out-of-a-paper bag Jack Dawson (Leo DiCaprio) in "Titanic"? The lying, cheating yet gifted Mama's Boy Blake Allen (Robert Downey Jr.) in "Two Girls and A Guy"? Ben Stiller's erotically retarded, genitally mutilated Ted Stroehmann in "There's Something About Mary"? Certainly not.

Next page | Austin reveals his own sexual hypocrisy