Don't fight us on this.
I am a girl. As such, science dictates that I am to find the cast of The Expendables 2 — this Friday's big-budget, action-packed, dick-swinging sequel — unspeakably arousing. See, in prehistoric times, we selected mates based on their ability to protect us from predators, and as a result, we've evolved to want to bone on men with machine guns and calves like Christmas hamhocks. Thus, we at Hooksexup have ranked these Grade-A, top-choice hunks of man-meat from least to most sexy. Our ratings system is based on a complex matrix of such criteria as "beardiness," "bangability," and "number of illegitimate children fathered with exotic dancers."
So set your genitalia to "aroused." These are the men of The Expendables 1 and 2, ranked by lifetime sexual magnetism. Any dissenters will be summarily executed.
14. Chuck Norris
According to ChuckNorrisFacts.com, Chuck Norris has a big penis. This impressive biological feat alone, however, cannot spare Chuck Norris from the ignominy of taking the last spot on our list. A diehard conservative, Norris is a columnist for the far-right website WorldNetDaily, penning screeds against gay marriage and Obamacare that, when printed out, double as homemade antidotes to vaginal lubrication for liberal women. Even more offensive than Norris's politics is his facial hair, which is like the beard your uncle grew during that two-week cruise to the Bahamas before your aunt told him to shave that goddamn thing off, Larry, or the customs officials in Nassau will search our bags for pot.
13. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin
Here are the three things I know about "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. 1) He is a professional wrestler, and this kid in my sixth-grade class who had WWE stickers on his binder once referred to him as a "pussy." 2) He was in a movie called The Condemned, about a group of prisoners on an island forced into a televised fight to the death, that I remember as kind of a cross between Battle Royale and The Even Stevens Movie. 3) Although he might be a sweetheart in real life, he looks like he'd murder me and my entire family for a pack of menthols, and I find him absolutely terrifying. Next.
12. Randy Couture
According to Wikipedia, Mr. Couture is a "retired mixed martial artist," "actor," and "Greco-Roman wrestler." However, based on name alone, I had assumed Randy Couture was one of the cast members of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. So points off, Randy Couture, and shame on you for accusing Teresa of stealing family recipes for her Italian cookbook.
11. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Schwarzenegger began his career as a world-class bodybuilder and notorious womanizer. But even at peak physical condition, the Governator's bulbous, well-oiled physique was more topographically interesting than sexually arousing: you wouldn't want to bone him as much as you'd want to study him in geography class.
10. Dolph Lundgren
Perhaps best known for playing Soviet sociopath Ivan Drago in 1985's Rocky IV, Lundgren has spent most of his career languishing in the Wal-Mart DVD bargain bin. At fifty-four, he looks less like a Nordic fighting machine and more like a calcified Alexander Skarsgaard. Yet the six-foot-five, 250-pound Swede of Steel is rumored to boast a staggering 160 IQ, making him the ultimate catch if you're the kind of girl who likes her discussions of Kierkegaard's Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits with a side of whup-ass.
9. Liam Hemsworth
Liam, if you're reading this, I want to extend a personal apology to you. I'm sure when you clicked on the link you thought you'd place much higher than you did, because you're the youngest and most conventionally "hot" guy on this list and all. But during these tough times, one credit as Guy Who Makes Eyes At Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games does not an action heartthrob make. Ponder that next Christmas, when you're at the dinner table and your brother is telling that funny story about how he kept ripping his Thor suit because his muscles were too big.
8. Jean-Claude Van Damme
IMDb tells me that Jean Claude Van Damme is famous because he can do "360-degree ultimate leaping and super flying karate kicks." I don't know what this means, but I'm sure it would impress the hell out of an eleven year-old boy. The Muscles from Brussels also wins Sexy Man points for a) being the only man in film history to successfully pull off a mullet, b) for being the only man in film history to successfully pull off a mullet and hoop earrings, and c) for being the only man in film history to successfully pull off a mullet and hoop earrings whilst punching and biting a rattlesnake to death. Has People's 2011 Sexiest Man Alive, Bradley Cooper, that putz, ever done that? I think not.
7. Scott Adkins
With his puppy-dog brown eyes and a jaw that could cut through steel, English martial artist Scott Adkins is perhaps the most conventionally handsome of the Expendables crew: you wouldn't be surprised to see him gracing the cover of J-14 alongside the boys from One Direction, answering questions about his favorite ice-cream flavor and whether he prefers boxers or briefs. Adkins's sexiest attribute by far, however, is his facial hair on the poster for The Expendables 2. It looks like what would happen if Stalin's mustache and Daniel Plainview's mustache got drunk and decided to experiment together.
6. Jason Statham
When I asked my boyfriend how he felt about Jason Statham, he rolled his eyes and said, "He's… fine, I guess." This was a sharp contrast to his response when I asked him about Jean-Claude Van Damme, which was to loudly proclaim Van Damme's epicness while making karate-chop noises. I'm sure many hard-core action fans feel similarly about Statham, but I have to note that he's a former model who boasts the bone structure of a Brooks Brothers mannequin and the ass of a Greek warrior god. Plus, he has an accent, so he could literally step in front of the camera and recite the digits of pi and Americans would still find him sexy.
5. Sylvester Stallone
At sixty-six, Sly has fully descended into sneering, roided-out self-parody. So it's easy to forget that during the 1970s and early '80s, he was awfully attractive. In Rocky, and even in bit roles in Bananas and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, he positively smoldered, trading on his loutish, primal energy to conjure up that hot but dumb guy you went to high school with who'd make out with you in exchange for copying your pre-calc homework. And don't even get me started on his nude scenes in the 1970 softcore Party at Kitty and Stud's. (Spoiler alert: Sly's wang is on the guest list.)
4. Terry Crews
Crews, a former NFL linebacker, has made a career out of playing Hollywood's favorite role for actors of color, the Scary Ginormous Black Man; he famously belted Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" in the Wayans Brothers' trenchant filmic commentary on American race relations, White Chicks. Yet despite his questionable taste in film roles, Crews has displayed some serious comic chops, most recently in spots for Old Spice's Odor Blocker Body Wash. A hot and funny guy who can do party tricks with his own boobs? Sign me up.
3. Bruce Willis
In addition to holding lifetime coolness points from Die Hard and Pulp Fiction, Willis is one of the most versatile performers on this list, having mastered genres from comedy (Moonlighting) to drama (The Sixth Sense) to movies featuring things that can talk when they shouldn't be able to (Look Who's Talking, Rugrats Go Wild, Over the Hedge). If Willis's acting talent isn't sexy enough, consider his role as the de facto leader of the Hot White Guys With Shaved Heads movement, which was nary more than a smattering of '70s TV detectives and gay porn stars before Willis took its helm. For refusing to go gently into that good night of male pattern baldness — and for, in so doing, paving the way for dozens of cueball-headed sex symbols, including a few entries on this list — we award you approximately 150.75 sexiness points, Bruce Willis. Thank you for proving that bald can be beautiful.
2. Jet Li
At five feet six inches, or approximately one and a half of Dolph Lundgren's calves, Jet Li is the daintiest slice of man-meat on this list. Yet what Li lacks in size, he makes up for in, well, pretty much everything else you can imagine: he's lithe as a cat, strong as an ox, and cute as a button that can fucking kill you. Plus, Li is a devout Buddhist — as is Sting, who famously engaged in an eight-hour-long Tantric sex session with his wife. Most doctors recommend that people sleep for at least eight hours a night. Therefore, by the transitive property, it is a scientific fact that Jet Li spends as much time boning as the average person spends sleeping. Fact. It's science. Fact.
1. Mickey Rourke
In the mid-'80s, Mickey Rourke looked like a cross between a young Bruce Willis and Christian Slater. Now, he looks more like a cross between Christina Aguilera and a California Raisin. Yet Rourke still manages to be the sexiest Expendable, in part because the aura of craggy resilience his characters give off seems to carry over into his offscreen persona. Having battled demons that would test the mettle of even the toughest action hero — drug and alcohol addiction, health issues stemming from boxing injuries, third billing beneath Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman in Double Team — Rourke still managed to stage one of the most epic comebacks in Hollywood history, earning an Oscar nomination for his role in The Wrestler without punching a single snake in the process. He's not a celluloid hero so much as he's a real-life survivor, and there's nothing sexier than that.
Want to meet a grizzled mercenary? Meet them in the jungle, or on Hooksexup.
