Sexy or not Sexy?

I know I've mentioned before that girls will be girls and that we do at times share little bits of eye candy with one another either on our blogs or on chats. While we all enjoy a pretty, we don't always agree on what constitutes sexy. One or two of the ladies usually agree with me but I know one in particular who always seems unimpressed with guys I find particularly heart pounding. I don't think either of us is out of the norm, simply that different woman find different kinds of men sexy. Like the long hair/short hair issue I mentioned in a previous blog.

I contemplated this last night as I was cleaning out my photo files and disposing of pictures I'd downloaded for a blog but will never need again. I began to notice a pattern to the pics that I had downloaded. It seems I do have a "type". None of the guys were the short hair, button down, spiffy kind of dude. I have a friend who favors this sort of gent. B. loves a man in a suit and if he has glasses, the clean cut intellectual look gets her motor racing. Now for me the put together, GQ, metrosexual look just doesn’t work. Neither does the lean, pretty boy who looks like an escapee from a boy band. The only urges Orlando Bloom and Justin Timberlake inspire in me are the urges to feed them cookies and pat them on the head for being good little boys.

Don’t get me wrong, I find a nicely turned out guy to be attractive, but not necessarily sexy. The award shows red carpets are boring to me because the guys look too polished and too manicured. But don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tuxes per se. I’d just rather see them rumpled, tie untied, shirt unbuttoned like the guy just had to have breathing room.

So what do you think? Cleaned up or slightly scruffy and dangerous looking? Check out these pics and tell me which ones you find the most appealing.

Anyway, I began to wonder if there were any universal ideas or common traits that make a man sexy to women. After a little internet research, and we all know how amazingly reliable that is, I’ve come up with four essential characteristics. Feel free to argue with me.

Masculine- The man must be masculine. Now this doesn’t mean he has to be a macho jerk-wad or a leather bound biker. Simply that there has to be something in the way he moves, carries himself, holds himself that says “I am a man.” It can be subtle or blatant and different women will be attracted to different degrees of masculinity, but overall a man must be a man. He should be gentle, compassionate and tender, but there must also be that slight hint of the predator about him. Masculinity includes his body, his scent, his mannerisms, his walk and his voice. Studies I saw said that men with speaking voices in the baritone range or lower were consistently ranked as sexier than men with voices in the higher range of the male spectrum. And despite what most of us tell ourselves and others, over 95% of the women in one survey and over 98% in another said that they found just a touch of jealousy a very sexy trait. Cavemen need not apply, but a man with just the right balance of respect and territorialism was considered to be very sexy.


Good Communicator- intelligence is incredibly important to women in terms of finding a man sexy, but he must also be able to convey that intelligence in a meaningful way. Eye contact and an easy personable smile that welcomes you in and encourages you to trust him and get closer to him are tremendously sexy. But it must be sincere. He must show himself willing to listen and to hear what is being said to him. He must be able to express himself with wit and heart. Even a bit of bumbling can be forgiven and seem endearing if it advances the idea that he is sincere. As a good communicator he can make you feel comfortable and at ease. You know he finds you interesting and attractive and don’t have to guess.

Personality –He has to have one. 9 out of 10 women in several surveys indicated one of the top three sexiest things about a man was his sense of humor. A man who can make a woman laugh, laugh often and laugh freely is seen to be tremendously sexy. A sexy man is a self confident but slightly humble man who knows he is sexy, intelligent and good at what he does but doesn’t feel the need to demonstrate it to everyone or the need to be told repeatedly how wonderful he is. A supportive man who encourages his woman is sexy. A man who can charm us and our friends is sexy.

Uniqueness –A sexy man has those one or two little things about him that are quirky and unusual. Things that make him not too perfect. Maybe his misplaces his keys regularly and goes on a mad hunt for them. Maybe he’s overly attached to his autographed baseball. The way he mispronounces a certain word or can quote lines from The Godfather verbatim. These little things open up just a tiny crack in the perfection and make him real.

So what do you think? Did I get any of this right?

Don’t forget to check out Anny Cook, Amarinda Jones and Kelly Kirch to see what’s up with them. Anny and Amarinda, along with other authors, will be chatting Saturday from 7-10pm EST on Night Owl Romance’s Yahoo loop. Stop by, read some excerpts and ask the authors some questions.

Oh, for those of you interested. I’ve gotten a couple of questions about Smudgie’s due date. December 3rd is the date they’ve given us. And it looks like we have a winner in the name race. The SO has finally agreed to Aidan James. But he’ll always be mom’s little Smudgie.