For the past two weeks I've listened to women talk about what a stud David Beckham is.

For those of you living in a vacuum, Beckham is a 32-year-old former English soccer star who is trying to incite interest in major league soccer by suiting up for the Los Angeles Galaxy. This brought him a contract worth an estimated $250 million.

His arrival has been hard to miss, as he's been on the covers of Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine, and a recent Island Life section in The Honolulu Advertiser.

A former multimedia sensation in Europe, he is married to a waifish former member of a flash-in-the-pan girl band who now has a reality show on NBC.

My reaction to his arrival?

Who gives a Spice!

Beckham is another one of those guys whom women fawn over because they are rich, famous and supposedly, good-looking.

My gripe: Those three attributes also apparently absolve all transgressions and behavioral flaws.

Beckham, the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and Brad Pitt have long reaped affection from their female fans, no matter what they do.

My fiancee thinks Becks is "OK," her code for cute.

Her co-worker, who had a scary fascination with former University of Hawai'i men's volleyball player Lauri Hakala, admires Beckham's abdominal region, which she compares to the brick-strewn streets of his native England.

I've asked some of these women if they laud their husband, boyfriend — or fiance — the same way they lavish adoration on these larger-than-life figures who have claimed fame on the big screen or in front of 50,000 screaming fans. The answer each and every time is no.

"I don't talk like that, ever," said one woman, who has been seen stroking the stomach of a bare-chested man on the cover of a blockbuster DVD case right in front of her future husband.

"My husband?" responded one female veteran of a marriage entering its fourth decade. "He's my husband; those guys are hunks!"

While women heap praise on seemingly unattainable superstars, their significant male other is often overlooked. Affectionate assessments of their partner's aesthetic appearance are muted and rare, but if A-Rod is batting, time stops.

Never mind that the guy has essentially ditched his wife and 2-year-old child for the lap-dance ladies of Manhattan.

This guy, no role model, apparently cuts more of a figure digging in at home plate than I do hunched over my laptop talking to myself while typing furiously away on deadline. Is that right?

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.