Sex appeal

[kkokkolis]

Steel appeal in fact.
We buy SAKs and Multitools for various reasons. To use them, to collect them, to donate them. Their apparent value therefore depends on the reason they appeal to us, their usability, their collectibility, their potential to satisfy a person we love.
But there is another reason that fires our sentiments and consumeristic insticts, either resulting to hoarding behaviour or simply craving over the screen of an electronic or material shop. Sex appeal, design, beauty, eye candy, promise. Hedonism.
No more talking, just some products that appeal to me, regardless if I find them useful or not.  No coincidence I bought most of  these, it is exactly because I found them sexy.

[N_N_R]

Honestly, I have nooooooo idea how people can call tools "sexy"

[kkokkolis]

Understandable. Tools are female.

[Steinar]

Nah, I know of plenty males who are utter tools.

That said, for any slipjoint mechanism, good walk and talk is central to its inherent sexiness. Just like people. 

[AimlessWanderer]

I can say with great confidence that I feel no sex appeal for the tools I buy. I can also say with great confidence that I ain't using a tool that kkokkolis has had his hands on unless I'm wearing rubber gloves 

[PTRSAK]

I half expected the first post in this thread to be...

"Give Generously"

[Luna Knife]

That Mike Horn Ranger is very appealing to me

[Kampfer]

This one is for 50ft-trad 

[comis]

kkokkolis, if tools are sexy, won't this thread becomes tool porn for you?  I hate to know what you do with them...

[kkokkolis]

Guys, I meant metaphorically sexy, but if they are literally sexy for you I accept it, what anyone does in his bedroom is not of my concern.

[Syncop8r]

My definition of sexy: Do I want to have sex with it?
In the case of multitools, cars, whatever - no. Inanimate objects aren't really my thing.

[ducttapetech]

This one is for 50ft-trad 
(Image removed from quote.)

BAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[kkokkolis]

My definition of sexy: Do I want to have sex with it?
In the case of multitools, cars, whatever - no. Inanimate objects aren't really my thing.

That's the literal meaning, yes, and you aren't a fetishist, nice to know .
But the fact is that sex appeal is a brain function and those brain circuits are interconnected with others that affect reward, emotion, attachment, aesthetics, territorial, aggressive and acceptive functions, as well as many more I don't remember or we don't yet identify.
A good industrial designer or any productive worker (who works for advertising for example) knows that academically or instinctively or by experience and he exploits it to produce desirable products. It might be through use of curves, analogies, surfaces' tactile feedback, smell, color, whatever works.
If not, you tell me why lipsticks are made the way they are. They could have so many different forms and sometimes they are (like cream in a small box) but they didn't sell that much.
Why men prefer curvy sport cars (at least when they are in their reproductive age, before they grow older and shift to long, black, German cars that could transport a man to his final residence) and why women prefer big, all terain, muscle cars, the thinner and shorter the woman, the most Godzilla like the car? What do they need them for, do they go for hunting? In Greece they "park" them on the pavement outside the stores they go for shopping.
Why long ties sell more than bow ties? And so on.
Products have aesthetically masculine, feminine, hermaphrodite or neutral properties (and some times animal properties, resembling small mamals usually, for the other side of the sex coin, maternal and paternal insticts). The best designers in the world come from Mediterranean countries (Italy and France, but we have our share too) where it is at the top of the everyday agenda most of the time (and religions historically tended to be more strict in those countries about sex in order to counterbalance that fact).

[N_N_R]

So wait, since I like tools, does that make me gay But wait, I like flashlights, too, so ... maybe not. Or maybe YES?? Great.
Or maybe men who use chapsticks are gay, too Wait. I'm all confused. I guess I'm gonna give up tools and lights or I'm gonna suffer some sexual..disorder soon
I'm not gonna eat cucumbers or ever make banana smoothie again coz I may be accused of misandry

[kkokkolis]

Those products designed by nature or by accident might be excluded.

[Syncop8r]

Actually this reminds me of reading in Future Shock about how things like tractors and combine harvesters are streamlined these days.

[Higgins617]

So wait, since I like tools, does that make me gay But wait, I like flashlights, too, so ... maybe not. Or maybe YES?? Great.
Or maybe men who use chapsticks are gay, too Wait. I'm all confused. I guess I'm gonna give up tools and lights or I'm gonna suffer some sexual..disorder soon
I'm not gonna eat cucumbers or ever make banana smoothie again coz I may be accused of misandry

I died at this , but I also get the point. Basically the draw of a gorgeous design for whatever boxes it ticks in your head over its functionality. Yeah maybe it's useful, but damn look at that  fine bit of engineering. Sadly I don't really own any good looking tools

[N_N_R]

Well, I do get the point, too Just it's always been extremely weird for me to hear a ... non-human being called sexy