Your score on their sexual lovemap. We fancy people who look or act like other people we love or have loved. From the moment we're born, our brain continuously feeds us physical data about people close to us. It divides these characteristics into 'people I like and were nice to me' and 'people I don't like who hurt me', then it tries to generalize. If two-thirds of the people you've disliked had bushy eyebrows, you'll be suspicious of everyone who has a hair or two extra. If it was the opposite, your tongue will be on the floor at the sight of them. When we meet a potential partner, our subconscious checks against the 'liked people' list in our heads and tries to find the closest match. The more 'chemistry' we feel, the more matches we've found. We do the same with gestures. The way she brushes the hair from her neck, the dimple he gets when he smiles, all affect our opinion of who's sexy, who's not. Lesson: Don't take rejection personally. It's not just about you, it's about their past. (All the more reason to take risks and go for what you want!)
• You've perfected one supersexy look Some people seem born knowing how to turn legs and loins to jelly with one look. The best look I've ever received was from a guy sitting opposite me in a restaurant. I was having a business lunch, he was there with friends and I noticed him because he had the sexiest mouth I've ever seen in my life. Over the next two hours he drank 3 glasses of wine, ate salmon fishcakes but skipped dessert (doesn't have a sweet tooth), divulged plans to buy a house on the river, would love to come to Peter's place for dinner next week and if the neighbour's cat pees on his front porch one more time it's history. Not that I was looking at him or eavesdropping or anything. I was hardly noticed he was there. OK, in between staying supremely focused on the work issues I was discussing with a colleague (not), I might have darted a few (65 billion) little glances at him. He looked at me just once. His eyes slid up, caught mine and then, maintaining eye contact, he sat back, put down his knife and fork and simply stared at me. His lips curled in a half-smile which made me drop my eyes to look at his mouth and that's when he caught his bottom lip with his teeth, released it slowly and then, when my eyes went back up to his, smiled. It wasn't a 'Would like to get to know you' smile. It wasn't even an 'I've watched you watching me' smile. This was predatory: a we-both-know-I-could-make-you-faint-with-pleasure smile. I suspect he was right because I damn near fainted on the spot, without him even touching me. Now, that's what I call sexy.
Mr Sexy Stranger had it down pat. Happily, it's something everyone can learn. Practise in front of a mirror. Yes, you will feel like a right twit but who cares if you can waltz around making people swoon all over the place.
Lesson: Copy what he did or invent your own. Choose from the many eye contact techniques in the book, then add your own individual mouth, hand or hair movements until you've come up with your own signature 'sex look'.
• You've chosen your moment Certain events and situations make us more attractive to someone. If someone's just been dumped, lost their job or been through a rough time, they're much more likely to find you sexy than when life's going well. When your self-esteem is low, you underestimate your own attractiveness and over-estimate other people's. You're vulnerable, need a cuddle and are less fussy about who gives it to you! Being scared also has the same effect - but for different reasons. Research shows when our bodies are flooded with adrenaline, we're more likely to fancy whoever is with us at the time. Which makes mountain climbing or skydiving a damn good option for a date (though a rollercoaster ride or seeing a good thriller will also do the trick). Lesson: This also means it pays to be around immediately before and after things like job interviews and dreaded public speaking events. If you fancy them, volunteer to hold their hand.
• You don't go overboard on the compliments Once, while making a TV show, I had to be filmed walking in and out of the front doors of a busy bar. Needless to say, this took rather a long time since it's pointless even bothering to ask big groups of drunk people not to look at someone repeatedly making an entrance surrounded by three whopping great cameras. Anyway, the first time I walked in, a guy sitting near the bar said to me, 'I read somewhere that you're 35 but there's no way you are. You're having us all on.' Given that I was 39 at the time, I was obviously flattered and the next walk was a lot bloody jauntier, let me tell you. Problem was, he insisted in telling me the same thing every single time I came through the door. All 10 takes were ruined by his you-don't-look-your-age line, to the point where you had to assume he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. My suspicions were confirmed (and ego dashed to the ground) when another man came bursting through the doors to claim him. 'He escaped,' he said, 'He's not meant to be unaccompanied'. Excellent.
You get my point though. When someone tells us we're sexy, young-looking, funny, clever - whatever - it has the optimum effect the first time it's said. Keep harping on about it and you not only dilute the compliment, you get the opposite reaction to the one intended: instead of liking you, they find you annoying.
Lesson: Only compliment people once on that particular attribute.
• They know you fancy them We fancy people who fancy us. If you know someone thinks you're brilliant, you instantly up their attractiveness to make it more of a compliment. It also forces you to consider them as a prospective partner and - perhaps most importantly - provides some (often much-needed) feedback. You've got to have hope or you give up. There's no point in being attracted to someone when we know without a doubt, there isn't a chance in hell of ever waking up to find their face beside yours on the pillow.
Lesson: Let people know if you think they're sexy.
• You're happy to get your gear off Few of us are completely happy with our body and proud to prance around naked. Yet nothing is sexier when it's let's-get-naked time than someone who shows off their bits and let's their lover admire them, rather than cowering under the covers. There's loads on getting over a bad body image on pX, but I just want to have a little word here about size hang-ups. Most particularly that size hang-up guys. I know you've heard it before but I'm going to tell you again (and you have to listen to me because I'm a 'sexpert' remember?): people don't fall in love with bits, they fall in love with the person they're attached to. Make this your personal mantra if you are concerned you're too small. There's loads you can do to even it all up - any good sexual manual will fill you in on the specifics - so do your homework, but then forget about it. (To solve any misconceptions once and for all, here are all the statistics you could possibly want. An average flaccid (relaxed) penis is about 4 inches long, 1 ¼ inches in diameter and has a circumference of 3 ½ inches. An average erect penis is about 6 inches long, 1 ½ inches in diameter, with a circumference of 4 ½ inches. While we're on the topic, penises don't seem to be proportionate to body size either. The tall, muscle-bound body builder doesn't necessarily have a large penis. If anything, there appears to be an inverse connection. Evidence suggests small, slender men often have proportionally larger genitals.)• You stick your bum out Women spend their lives trying to reduce the size of their buttocks - yet the more pert and rounded they are, the stronger the sexual signal to men. Bottoms are so integral to sex appeal, zoologist Desmond Morris believes they're even more important than the two matching bumps on our front. Females of all other primates send sexual signals via the colour and smell of their bottoms, which, since they walk on all fours, are in full view of potential mates. Humans have evolved to walk upright and we tend to face people, which means our bottoms aren't on constant display. Breasts provide us with a front-on sexual signalling device. Not only do they mimic our buttocks to attract a partner, our nipples tend to stiffen with desire to show we fancy them. (Unfortunately, a cold breeze has the same effect which confuses things somewhat, but the thought was there).
To show your bottom off to its best advantage, turn your back to someone you fancy, put your hand on one hip, shift your body weight so the hip with your hand on it juts out furthest, then turn your upper torso around and make eye contact. Just as good: put your hand in the back pocket of a tight-fitting pair of jeans or (absently) slide both hands over your hips. The overall show-off-your-bottom award though goes to… high heels. Heels lengthen legs and shorten bottoms. According to the Harper's Index (yes, bizarre as it sounds, there is an index for measuring this), the average increase in the protrusion of a woman's buttocks wearing heels is 25 percent. (This, remember, is a good thing.) They might not have their own ass-index, but a tight, toned male bottom also rates extremely high on the 'Cor!' sex scale for women.
Lesson: Stop asking 'Does my bum look big in this?' and start asking, 'Does my bum look big enough?'
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• You've perfected one supersexy look Some people seem born knowing how to turn legs and loins to jelly with one look. The best look I've ever received was from a guy sitting opposite me in a restaurant. I was having a business lunch, he was there with friends and I noticed him because he had the sexiest mouth I've ever seen in my life. Over the next two hours he drank 3 glasses of wine, ate salmon fishcakes but skipped dessert (doesn't have a sweet tooth), divulged plans to buy a house on the river, would love to come to Peter's place for dinner next week and if the neighbour's cat pees on his front porch one more time it's history. Not that I was looking at him or eavesdropping or anything. I was hardly noticed he was there. OK, in between staying supremely focused on the work issues I was discussing with a colleague (not), I might have darted a few (65 billion) little glances at him. He looked at me just once. His eyes slid up, caught mine and then, maintaining eye contact, he sat back, put down his knife and fork and simply stared at me. His lips curled in a half-smile which made me drop my eyes to look at his mouth and that's when he caught his bottom lip with his teeth, released it slowly and then, when my eyes went back up to his, smiled. It wasn't a 'Would like to get to know you' smile. It wasn't even an 'I've watched you watching me' smile. This was predatory: a we-both-know-I-could-make-you-faint-with-pleasure smile. I suspect he was right because I damn near fainted on the spot, without him even touching me. Now, that's what I call sexy.