What Makes Cat Dads So Sexy? A Look at Dave Franco and More Hot Guys With Cats

Cat dads are hot; that’s not up for debate. They’re so hot, in fact, that when People magazine, along with the Temptations brand, recently crowned Dave Franco “Sexiest Cat Dad,” there was some caterwauling in the comments from celeb cat daddies who felt they’d been overlooked. “whoa love you dave but me and my 3 cats have something to say about this…” wrote mgk (formerly known as Machine Gun Kelly), cat dad to Whiskey, Tickets, and Na'vi. Meanwhile Bobby Flay, cat daddy to Stella, Canelo, and the late Nacho, said he was “literally devastated.”

Franco, who beat out fellow hot feline fathers Myles Turner, Mark Ruffalo, and Kumail Nanjiani to win the title (RIP Bagel, Nanjiani’s beloved cat and “tiny perfect angel”), is a doting cat dad to Max and Otis. And though he once said that being “the single guy with two 18-pound cats” narrowed the dating pool—“not a lot of girls are into that”—many people beg to differ, including, presumably, his wife Alison Brie, who agreed to let Franco’s cats move in with her even before the couple officially lived together.

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But what is it, exactly, about a cat dad that makes so many of us go weak in the knees? When I asked Lauren Oster, a writer in New York City, why men who love cats are so sexy, she waxed poetic. “A cat lord is a man at peace with his place in the universe, and that stillness is deeply hot,” she says. “Living with, and loving, cats is a shortcut to ego death.” Some people take ayahuasca to achieve ego death; adopting a cat seems like an easier option. Less vomiting, more cuddling.

It’s true that when my boyfriend, who I already find almost unbearably sexy, scoops my girl Freddy into his arms and dances around with her, singing softly into her perfect pink ears, he instantly becomes even hotter to me. And I’m not alone: Instagram abounds with sexy cat dad profiles. Just for starters, there’s Albert Washington, aka blackbestcatdad, who asserts that “REAL MEN LOVE CATS,” Daniel Foster (catdaddy.dan)—tattoos, muscles, and cats, an unbeatable combo—and sweet Nathan Kehn (nathanthecatlady), friend to all animals, but to cats especially.

Want to scroll through a veritable candy shop full of sexy cat dads? Try Hot Dudes with Cats. They’re holding tiny kittens up to their chiseled jaws, they’re tucking a fat cat under each bulging bicep, they’re snuggled up and sleeping with their cats, they’re wearing cats like scarves! It’s enough to make me whip out a fan in the this cold fall air and do a few rounds of box breathing to calm down. Whew.

Still, there’s an idea floating around out there that a man with a cat is less than, well, manly. “There are a lot of people…who consciously or unconsciously enforce patriarchal standards,” says a Reddit user on a thread about cat dad stereotypes. “The important thing to remember is that these aren't the kind of people you want to be with anyway.” Amen! 

“A guy who doesn't care about the social stigma of owning a ‘feminine’ pet is probably a guy who's confident and secure in his own identity,” they add. “Cats respond best to gentleness and hate people who try to intimidate them…if a guy's cat loves him, that tells you a lot about how he behaves when other people aren't watching.”

Others point out that cat dads are more likely to understand the concept of consent—and what’s sexier than that? “I love a man who loves cats. It tells me that they respect boundaries,” writes one Redditor. “Cats are very comfortable with telling you, ‘No, I don’t want to be pet’ in their own way,” adds another. “My husband is a cat dad and he's always had a great sense of empathy and consent with them and with me.” Now that’s hot.

Whatever the reason, I for one am glad that hot cat dads are having a well-deserved moment in the limelight. And hopefully, it won’t end anytime soon. I can’t wait to find out who will be named sexiest cat daddy of them all next year. (Personally, I’m ready to cast my ballot for Tim Meadows.)