Secure Attachment Is Sexy, & Benny Blanco Is Proof

In a dating landscape that seems to have never-ending situationships and avoidant partners up the wazoo, it's been refreshing to witness Benny Blanco taking the crown of "secure partner" as he does press alongside his love, and now fiancée, Selena Gomez.

We've seen glimpses of their relationships before — thanks to their multiple music collabs — but it was their joint interview on the Jay Shetty podcast that sealed the deal, making the world, and mostly single women, sit up and take notice: Benny is the new sex symbol.

Why? Because he's secure, emotionally available, and completely in tune with who Selena is. He hypes her up, makes her feel safe, and doesn't play games. He just shows up. What a concept!

However, Blanco does seem like a diamond in the rough in a culture that, as Dené Logan, marriage and family therapist and author of Sovereign Love, puts it, "socializes men to suppress what might be considered 'feminine' qualities like vulnerability, collaborative connection, and being in touch with their emotional landscape. Because of this, it creates struggles around intimacy and relational fulfillment, because these are fundamental aspects of their humanity — and we cannot selectively numb them. If we are cut off from our emotions, it's really hard to show up as an equally engaged partner."

By contrast, Logan says, Benny "appears to have developed a great deal of emotional intelligence and bandwidth for staying with these types of conversations." To better understand why Benny's vibe is resonating so strongly right now, Logan weighs in with her thoughts.

We’re tired of “cool” men who haven’t done their therapy.

It's clear that Blanco has done his own healing work. He's admitted to going to therapy, which means he's committed to self-growth and self-awareness. He has emotional intelligence. In other words, he's secure — and that's hot.

"While I can't comment on Benny's experience, I can say that secure attachment is when someone appears to be secure within himself. It's when one can stay present through a partner's emotions without identifying with them as a commentary on how he's doing as a partner," Logan explains. "So often men are socialized to see their partner's frustrations as a signal that they are 'failing' as a partner when that just isn't the case."

Not Blanco. He wants to soothe Gomez's anxiety. He anticipates her needs. He knows her triggers, and he's willing to soothe and alleviate them for her. He supports her emotionally. He knows what he's able to give her, and does so generously.

According to Logan, healthy modeling looks like showing up not as "responsible" for your partner's feelings, "but as though you've learned how to stay present in your body while you witness your partner. It's modeling what actual intimacy ('in to me see') looks like," he says. "I think the greatest way a man creates safety for his partner is by knowing himself well so that he's not inconsistent and emotionally immature."

That's Blanco.

Emotional visibility (and PDA) is sexy now.

We love seeing Blanco and Gomez shooting heart eyes at each other, snuggling and cuddling in front of the camera. We’re living for Blanco standing up and declaring his love for his woman, and not giving a damn what anyone else thinks.

Logan agrees. “I think the days of finding a stoic male who doesn’t communicate and leaves someone questioning how he feels about them are nearing their end,” she says. “Too many women are deeply immersed in therapy and personal development work to find qualities that reinforce early childhood wounding attractive.”

Blanco is also playful, silly, and isn’t afraid to show a softer side of himself. That’s also sexy. Because by doing so, he’s allowing himself to be vulnerable, which is what we’re all craving from our male partners.

“To me, playfulness and emotional transparency are indications that someone has integrated his own inner feminine qualities. It’s someone who is not defending against them and holding them with contempt,” Logan says. “Because most men are socialized to reject their own inner feminine, they cannot meet their partner any more than they’ve met themselves, and this creates a tremendous disconnect or feeling of contempt toward their partner.”

Meaning we love to see someone like Blanco embrace those traits of himself because you know he embraces those same qualities about Gomez — and/or lets herself embrace those qualities without feeling wrong or self-conscious about them.

Confidence now looks like clarity.

We don’t want confusing text messages, and we definitely don't want to wait on text messages that don’t come at all. We don’t want to wait for someone to figure out their relationship goals. We want clarity because clarity typically equals safety, consistency, and someone who’s all in! And, given what we watched from that Jay Shetty interview, Blanco seems to embody all of that.

“I often say clarity is king, and being clear about how a man feels about you should be a qualifier for interest,” Logan says. “It’s not about someone being perfect — at all — but if someone doesn’t have the capacity to engage in a conversation about their feelings for you, that’s feeling less and less like a relationship between two adults.”

This is the shift. As Logan puts it, “I think it certainly demonstrates a desire for women to be with someone who doesn’t add stress to their lives. The 'boy sober' movement and rise in women remaining unpartnered — to me — speaks to the place in history we’re living through. Women will enter into relationships that are justified because of the authentic sense of inspiration and respect they feel for this person... unlike previous generations, where women were taught to believe they were incomplete until partnered or needed to be in a partnership for survival.”

In other words, we’re not looking for a boy — we’re looking for a Benny Blanco.