What is it about super high fashion magazines that convinces straight male actors to remove their shirts? The latest victim is Ryan Phillippe [Photo via Just Jared], who poses pensively in the new W Magazine, staring out a window with his nipples exposed, hands held abreast as if squeezing two imaginary Big Gulp cups. The same type of thing happened to Brad Pitt in Italian Vogue when he was promoting "Troy" several years ago (examples after the jump). These aren't the kinds of shots you see in GQ, or Esquire, or Shotgun News. Is it a desire to appeal to fashionable women? Or fashionable men? Or some secret spell that only rarefied fashion photographers can cast? What about the ridicule one should inevitable suffer from one's male friends over this? As a fellow straight man, I have no answers here.

Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.