I know what I'm getting Dominick Dunne for Christmas...

Dear Vanity Fair,

When A. M. Homes calls something "slightly naughty", I believe her. One of our more subversive modern authors, who has mentioned more than once in interviews that she had sexual feelings about her biological father when she first interacted with him as the result of a search for her biological parents, if SHE thinks something is indecent, I'm sure Tipper Gore is drafting a bill to put through congress right now to save us all from it.

So, you crazy content creators at vanityfair.com, looks like I fell for one of your nasty lexical tricks. You put Lilly Pulitzer and "naughty" as a tease for an article and I'm thinking sock garters and horsewhips for stockbrokers available in a flamingo pink or billiard table green. These ties are more like what Stanford Blatch from Sex and the City would use to distract you from the awful eyeglasses he wears.

I am willing to concede that maybe I don't have a firm grasp on what passes for modern masculinity these days (c.f. my comments about the inaugural issue of another Condé Nast publication, Men's Vogue on this blog.) Hell, I'd wear them if I didn't think women-in-ties a dangerously tricky sartorial move only best attempted by someone at the top of their game or in a Billy Idol video, which I admittedly at this juncture am not. But I do have what I will christen my McQueen Masculinity Maxim which when stated as a mathematical proof looks like this:

If Steve McQueen is THE MANLIEST MAN OF ALL TIME, then everything he does is masculine.

Ergo, if Steve McQueen would not do X, then X is not masculine.

Q. E. D. Masculinity can be determined by answering the question, "Would Steve McQueen do X?"

According to my calculations, that makes these ties less than virile. However, the Grande Dame of Palm Beach apparently disagrees with me. When Homes queries Pulitzer about her target market, "who is the Lilly man?", she responded thus:

"He's confident, of course. He's walking down the street wearing pink and green elephants," says 75-year-old Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau

I admit it would take nigh on to McQueenian confidence to do something like that.

What exactly does Lilly Pulitzer have on you, Graydon Carter?