Gore Vidal was once questioned as to whether his first sexual experience had been with a male or a female. “I was too polite to ask,” he replied.

I was reminded of this bit of drollery, for reasons which will become apparent, during the first episode of TV Land’s “She’s Got the Look” (the second episode airs tomorrow at 10 p.m.), a somewhat staid but not entirely uninteresting six-part reality series in which 10 women over the age of 35 compete for a modeling contract with the renowned Wilhelmina Models agency and a photo spread in Self magazine. If a pro forma reality show can make you think of America’s wittiest writer, even for a moment, it has to have something going for it. In fact, “She’s Got the Look” has at least two things, or rather contestants, going for it.

The first is Paula, a 37-year-old black woman from Los Angeles who, it’s safe to say, has not spent much time obsessing over lipstick, mascara, and silk dresses. Muscular and tattooed, with a bluntly sensual face, she walks with a masculine swagger, says there’s nothing “straight” about her, claims to be the “evolution of woman,” and has an androgynous sex appeal that could not only place her in the Vidalian “too polite to ask” category, but in the “too intrigued to care” bracket.

The second is Bahia, also 37, a French Muslim of Iranian extraction who lives in Beverly Hills and about whom there could be no sexual confusion whatsoever. Bahia, an authentic beauty, identifies herself as French and carries herself with a Parisian hauteur. (She has cigarettes, she has cheekbones, and she has disdain). Bahia says she was raised in a conservative Muslim family, but if so, she has discarded the conservatism and appears ready to discard much else. During a photo shoot in which the contestants are asked to drape themselves in bolts of semi-transparent blue organza, she says, “We’re not allowed to show boobs, right?” and sounds disappointed when the bad news is confirmed.

Although not the only foreigner on the show (Karin, a tall, 40-year-old, platinum blonde, is from Sweden), Bahia is the only contestant who seems a bit culturally alien. When, in tomorrow night’s episode, Paula goes into a meltdown about how the show is only judging the women on their surface (read: stereotypically feminine) beauty as opposed to that mysterious inner stuff, and how nobody’s interested in what a difficult life she’s had or who she really is, Bahia is openly contemptuous of such emotional self-display. “I almost felt like yesterday was a competition on who got hurt the most in her life,” she says, giving her eyes a roll. “Please.”

Still, as the show’s designated rebel against traditional femininity, Paula is surely correct to say she doesn’t have a chance of winning the competition. Her allure is closer to that of the female athlete, and three decades after the launch of America’s fitness revolution, society is still not quite sure what sort of sexual accolades it is supposed to bestow on women who can flex a pair of biceps. On the other hand, it’s Paula — the woman with the hard outer casing — who gets the most hysterical, which does upend another stereotype.

Such moments can make “She’s Got the Look” quite entertaining, despite its overly familiar format. As the host, ex-supermodel Kim Alexis is weirdly stiff and looks as if she’s wearing contact lenses injected with blue neon. The three judges — Wilhelmina Models president Sean Patterson, ex-supermodel Beverly Johnson, and stylist Robert Verdi — seem subdued and cautious in their comments, perhaps because they’re dealing with a more mature demographic. (The oldest of the models, a black woman named Sharon, is 63.)

The overarching theme is second chances. Celeste, a black woman from Chicago, is 50 but could pass for a youthful 40. She modeled earlier in life and wants another go-round. Melissa, a 38-year-old Christie Brinkley type from Los Angeles, looks as though she ought to have modeled, but apparently never did. Several other women took stabs at modeling careers in their salad days, only to give it up and later regret the missed opportunity.

Then there are those who have something to prove. Karin, the 40-year-old Swede with the sepulchral demeanor (one of the judges says she looks “sad”), has always regarded herself as a gawky misfit. Paula thinks of herself as a misfit pure and simple. Bahia was not allowed to exhibit her looks as much as she’d have liked when she was young. The 63-year-old Sharon was always told she should have been a model by her late husband. And so on.

The show’s ultimate plus is that all 10 women are distinctly different types, visually and otherwise. They’ve been around long enough to develop fixed personalities, and in a couple of cases, multiple personalities, and no one is anyone else’s exact peer. Which means the question of who has “the Look” at least has curiosity value, unlike the many occasions on television when everybody looks and sounds almost exactly like everybody else.

bbernhard@nysun.com