Let's Talk About Sexy, Baby!

Sexy. Arousing or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest. What makes someone sexy?

APK talks often about sexy. I've asked him on a number of occasions if he found a sweet girl or a softly pretty girl or a cute girl or even a smart girl attractive. His response to many of them has been, "she's just not sexy." And no, I don't think he's just saying that to appease me.

He talks often of liking sexy ugly. Sexy ugly is someone that isn't attractive by normal standards of attractiveness in the least. They might be shaped like a bowling ball or have teeth resembling a chipmunk or an asymmetrical face with not so nice features. Sometimes they're dressed in an unflattering pair of jeans or talk with an unattractive accent. But there's something about them that screams to men, "Take me to bed now!" The closest I've come to feeling this way about a man is having the overwhelming urge to jump into bed with Sean Paul.

The main reason women don't need to make up catchy phrases for why they won't or will date someone is that women don't need to justify they're attraction to a man infront of their friends. Perhaps we're just cattier than men are and secretly hope that our friends don't end up with the perfect package of hotness, smartness, wealth, and prestige. I've heard one too many times that a guy couldn't date a nice looking girl because she's got FP (Fat Potential, which means she will eventually be a total porker) or a But-her Face (Everything's hot on her except she's ugly in the face). SC's mother's advice about how to take it when a man isn't acting up to par was "Remember that women are mean and men are dumb." Or perhaps we're just more in tune with our sexual desires and know that the way a man speaks or his passion for his job or the way he irons his trousers are enough to make us turned on in the bedroom. Considering that for a woman to have an orgasm, we need the mental stimulation in check, we're in no need of phrases like sexy ugly, FP, or but-her.

But what makes someone sexy? I remember years ago Victoria's Secret put out a little box of 10 sample perfumes with each named after an adjective like happy, outgoing, seductive, playful that also included a bottle of unscented pheromone. Could it be that sexy is so primitive a reaction, merely all about our projected pheromone? I doubt that.

My belief is that sexy is all about signaling to the opposite sex the need to get laid. Giselle modeling Very Sexy lingerie in the Victoria's Secret add campaigns is unmistakably saying to men, and yes some women too, "grab me and thrust me onto a bed". But maybe it's more than just the clothing we wear. Maybe it's a confidence in ourselves that someone wouldn't be crazy to feel the urge to devour us.

I'm often told I'm sexy. I don't know how to take that, because I don't know many women who'd prefer to hear "Your sexy" over "Your beautiful" or "Your hot". Sexy isn't necessarily a good thing. The funny thing is though, I dress very very very conservatively. I rarely show cleavage. I even wear a freaking minimizer so that no one knows how big my boobs really are! Honestly, I look more like a Brooks Brothers advertisement than a Victoria's Secret commercial. So why then am I sexy? And why is someone who dresses way more provocatively and would most likely go home with someone they met in a bar... why would they not be called sexy?

I end up circling back to confidence. Confidence not in what I say or what I wear. Confidence in my abilities, ahem (sorry mom), in the bedroom. I know full well, with proof, that when someone hooks up with me they definitely won't forget me. I have way less confidence in my ability to satisfy my partner as a girlfriend than I do in how to satisfy my partner as a lover. So perhaps that's what's projecting out of me. Take me out to dinner. Date me. And you won't regret it. Maybe that's what sexy is. Anyone else? What's sexy?