What ma es someone sexy? Good question! After all, what's sexy to one person is 'Are you idding?' to another.

I'm not entirely sure whether it ma es me sad, h opeful or a resourceful wor aholic (it's my job, after all, to wor with potenti al), but I can usually find something sexy about practically every person I meet . As evidenced by one (admittedly rather bleary) morning, standing outside a hot el in Bordeaux, waiting for everyone else to get their act together, and trying hard not to be seduced by the posh shop windows. Instead, I got seduced by the s ight of a man who sauntered up the street toward me. These French really have go t that sexy loo mastered, I thought to myself, I mean loo at this guy! The sli ghtly dishevelled hair, shirt buttons undone, deliberately unshaven. It's all so well done, it's a little contrived really, I sniffed Except what was he doing rum maging around in that rubbish bin? Turned out the dishevelled loo wasn't contri ved after all. I now there's probably a law against fancying tramps/ma ing any sort of sexual comment about the less financially fortunate, but it is a complim ent and it does illustrate my point. Which is this: sex appeal is all about atti tude and aura and ma ing the best of what you've got. This guy wasn't waiting fo r money or status or society's approval before he'd let himself feel sexy. He ju st was and being seen rummaging in a rubbish bin didn't stop him throwing me a iller smile and saying something which sounded deliciously naughty. (Well, given the only French I now is 'Pardon. Je parle pa Francoise' - Sorry but I can't s pea French - it could have been 'Sod off', quite fran ly, but it sounded guttur al and gorgeous.) There's a lesson in there for all of us. Of course, what people really mean when they as 'What ma es someone sexy' is 'A m I sexy' and 'How can I be sexier?'. So let's just get right down to it, shall we? Here's the real secrets of sex appeal, along with how you can use the eviden ce practically to help boost your sex appeal. You've on the right trac if Both sides of you match. The more symmetrical your face and body, the more sexua lly attractive you are and the more attention you get. It's not the result of na sty brainwashing by society either - even babies go ga-ga for symmetry. Far more manipulative than the media is Mother Nature. She consistently protects the hea lthiest of the species by ma ing sure those from the strongest gene pool (in thi s case, the symmetrical) are seen as the most attractive. While no body is ever truly symmetrical (so stop stressing about your left boob/testicle being smaller /lower than the other right now), appearing 'matched' helps immeasurably. Female bodies are actually programmed to appear 30% more symmetrical on the magical hi gh-conception day after ovulation. Not that it matters terribly much if you're s ymmetrical the rest of the time, mind you: you were probably shagging anyway! Pe ople with symmetrical bodies usually lose their virginity much younger and have more sexual partners than their lop-sided friends. (Which supports my own person al theory that the more attractive (a a symmetrical) you are, the more opportuni ties you have had to have sex and the higher your sexual scorecard. So all you s mug bastards who loo wide-eyed when as ed and say, 'I've only ever had three' c ould effectively be saying, 'Only three people have as ed me'.) Lesson: Wear matching soc s. (Not much else you can do to influence this one). You loo li e your genitals Err, perhaps I'd better explain this one properly. S ex obsessed creatures which we are, anything which reminds us of sex usually get s us going. A female with full, glossy, red lips is a turn-on because her lips m imic what (he fantasises anyway) is hopefully happening elsewhere: the vagina al so 'plumps', moistens and dar ens in colour when aroused. Phallic shaped foods l i e courgettes and bananas also subconsciously influence desire. Which goes a lo ng way to explain why a. hotdogs are so popular (let's not even go there about t he sauce); b. people cling to the myth about oysters being an aphrodisiac and c. the 'just got out of bed' loo never goes out of fashion (we li e to imagine an yone attractive in one - with us of course). In the same vein, a 'fertile' face

is seen as a beautiful one. Clear, fresh s in, shiny eyes, youthful plump lips, a cold nose (or is that just dogs?) - a healthy-loo ing face li e that tends to come attached to a body which is bursting to conceive. That's right, good old MN again, guiding us to the people most li ely to eep the planet populated! Lesson: Feel zero guilt when spending up big on lipgloss and load it on. You've got a big mouth Researchers created computerised versions of the average female face before getting test groups to rate their attractiveness. The first s et were awarded an average attractiveness rating. In the next set, researchers i ncreased the eyes and lips by 10% with this result: the faces were seen as young er and more beautiful. Once these features were exaggerated further however, the faces were universally judged as sexier. Loo at the ma eup on a typical glamou r model: lots of heavy eyeliner to enlarge the eyes, pale, pouty lipgloss to acc entuate the lips. Exactly the loo you should aim for if you want to inspire lus t and if all you're searching for is a short-term fling. If you're after a long-t erm love affair, then a totally new set of rules apply! Prepare to bury the 'all men are bastards' theory forever (it's ridiculous anyway!): it's personality, n ot loo s, which men go for in a long-term partner. A sexy face might inspire lus t, but it's the girl with an average face and a nice personality who hoo up lon g-term with. Why? It's her again! MN wants men to choose women whose idea of hea ven is staying at home to raise their babies rather than dancing half-na ed on a podium at a dance party. Lesson: Loo s count but it's your personality which ma es people stic around. You wal young Along with swinging hips and general 'attitude', there's another crucial element to harness if you want to be seen as sex-on-legs: flexibility. F lexibility is what ma es people appear to 'wal young' - an instant winner in th e sexy sta es, says US human behaviouralist David Lieberman. Lesson: Loosen those limbs. You ma e pots of money. If the 'all men are bastards' theory isn't true, the 'al l women are bitches' one just might be. Countless studies show women continually go for good loo s and money and if forced to choose between the two, money wins every time. I strongly objected to this research, convinced it was inaccurate. I'm not money-obsessed and neither are my girlfriends, so I as ed a broad select ion of men (aged 15-80) what the real story was. I'm embarrassed to report they and all said this is true of 80% of the women they meet. Maybe it's the old baby theory again (he earns enough to support you), I'd rather believe that than gre ed. You loo li e a girl, even if you're a blo e Just li e men, women go for differe nt types depending on what she wants from the relationship. This was again, all rather nicely illustrated by an experiment which allowed women to control the fe atures on a computer generated face. By moving a bar, she could ma e the man's f ace more masculine or feminine loo ing. Most of the time, the feminine face won her heart because they trusted and felt safer with this sort of loo . During ovu lation, when women are at their most fertile, the sweet guys didn't even get a l oo in. Bugger nice, they all said, this is about sex, and they pushed the bar i n the other direction to choose the most masculine face possible. But it's not j ust a case of going for the traditional bad boy loo at the time when you're mos t li ely to feel li e a bit, evolutionary theory says this is the guy with the m ost testosterone. Which of course means a guy who'll father healthy offspring an d be physically strong enough to protect them from the dangers of outside world. Post ovulation, when lust ta es a bac seat and logic settles in, the women agai n rejected the masculine men. Then they were voted too aggressive and womanizing : 'a man li e that would want lots of sex and see it elsewhere if he didn't get it at home'.

 Your score on their sexual lovemap. We fancy people who loo or act li e other p eople 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 characteristic s into 'people I li e and were nice to me' and 'people I don't li e who hurt me' , then it tries to generalize. If two-thirds of the people you've disli ed had b ushy 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 chec s against the 'li ed 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 br ushes the hair from her nec , the dimple he gets when he smiles, all affect our opinion of who's sexy, who's not. Lesson: Don't ta e rejection personally. It's not just about you, it's about their past. (All the more reason to ta e ris s an d go for what you want!) You stic your bum out Women spend their lives trying to reduce the size of thei r buttoc s - yet the more pert and rounded they are, the stronger the sexual sig nal to men. Bottoms are so integral to sex appeal, zoologist Desmond Morris beli eves they're even more important than the two matching bumps on our front. Femal es of all other primates send sexual signals via the colour and smell of their b ottoms, which, since they wal on all fours, are in full view of potential mates . Humans have evolved to wal upright and we tend to face people, which means ou r bottoms aren't on constant display. Breasts provide us with a front-on sexual signalling device. Not only do they mimic our buttoc s to attract a partner, our nipples tend to stiffen with desire to show we fancy them. (Unfortunately, a co ld breeze has the same effect which confuses things somewhat, but the thought wa s there). To show your bottom off to its best advantage, turn your bac to someone you fan cy, put your hand on one hip, shift your body weight so the hip with your hand o n it juts out furthest, then turn your upper torso around and ma e eye contact. Just as good: put your hand in the bac poc et 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. Accordi ng to the Harper's Index (yes, bizarre as it sounds, there is an index for measu ring this), the average increase in the protrusion of a woman's buttoc s wearing heels is 25 percent. (This, remember, is a good thing.) They might not have the ir own ass-index, but a tight, toned male bottom also rates extremely high on th e 'Cor!' sex scale for women. Lesson: Stop as ing 'Does my bum loo big in this?' and start as ing, 'Does my b um loo big enough?' You've perfected one supersexy loo Some people seem born nowing how to turn le gs and loins to jelly with one loo . The best loo 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 dran 3 glasses of wine, ate salmon fishca es but s ipped dessert (doesn't have a sweet tooth), divulged plans to bu y a house on the river, would love to come to Peter's place for dinner next wee and if the neighbour's cat pees on his front porch one more time it's history. Not that I was loo ing at him or eavesdropping or anything. I was hardly noticed he was there. OK, in between staying supremely focused on the wor issues I was discussing with a colleague (not), I might have darted a few (65 billion) littl e glances at him. He loo ed at me just once. His eyes slid up, caught mine and t hen, maintaining eye contact, he sat bac , put down his nife and for and simpl

Lesson: The message for both sexes is clear: we're attracted to one type of loo /person for sex, another type/loo to marry. Customize yours to suit.

y stared at me. His lips curled in a half-smile which made me drop my eyes to lo o at his mouth and that's when he caught his bottom lip with his teeth, release d it slowly and then, when my eyes went bac up to his, smiled. It wasn't a 'Wou ld li e to get to now you' smile. It wasn't even an 'I've watched you watching me' smile. This was predatory: a we-both- now-I-could-ma e-you-faint-with-pleasu re smile. I suspect he was right because I damn near fainted on the spot, withou t 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. Pr actise in front of a mirror. Yes, you will feel li e a right twit but who cares if you can waltz around ma ing people swoon all over the place. Lesson: Copy what he did or invent your own. Choose from the many eye contact te chniques in the boo , then add your own individual mouth, hand or hair movements until you've come up with your own signature 'sex loo '. You've chosen your moment Certain events and situations ma e us more attractive to someone. If someone's just been dumped, lost their job or been through a roug h time, they're much more li ely to find you sexy than when life's going well. W hen your self-esteem is low, you underestimate your own attractiveness and overestimate other people's. You're vulnerable, need a cuddle and are less fussy abo ut who gives it to you! Being scared also has the same effect - but for differen t reasons. Research shows when our bodies are flooded with adrenaline, we're mor e li ely to fancy whoever is with us at the time. Which ma es mountain climbing or s ydiving a damn good option for a date (though a rollercoaster ride or seein g a good thriller will also do the tric ). Lesson: This also means it pays to be around immediately before and after things li e job interviews and dreaded publ ic spea ing events. If you fancy them, volunteer to hold their hand. You don't go overboard on the compliments Once, while ma ing a TV show, I had to be filmed wal ing in and out of the front doors of a busy bar. Needless to say, this too rather a long time since it's pointless even bothering to as big gro ups of drun people not to loo at someone repeatedly ma ing an entrance surroun ded by three whopping great cameras. Anyway, the first time I wal ed in, a guy s itting 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 ob viously flattered and the next wal was a lot bloody jauntier, let me tell you. Problem was, he insisted in telling me the same thing every single time I came t hrough the door. All 10 ta es were ruined by his you-don't-loo -your-age line, t o 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 b ursting through the doors to claim him. 'He escaped,' he said, 'He's not meant t o be unaccompanied'. Excellent. You get my point though. When someone tells us we're sexy, young-loo ing, funny, clever - whatever - it has the optimum effect the first time it's said. Keep ha rping on about it and you not only dilute the compliment, you get the opposite r eaction to the one intended: instead of li ing you, they find you annoying. Lesson: Only compliment people once on that particular attribute.

Lesson: Let people

now if you thin they're sexy.

They now you fancy them We fancy people who fancy us. If you now someone thin s you're brilliant, you instantly up their attractiveness to ma e it more of a c ompliment. It also forces you to consider them as a prospective partner and - pe rhaps most importantly - provides some (often much-needed) feedbac . You've got to have hope or you give up. There's no point in being attracted to someone when we now without a doubt, there isn't a chance in hell of ever wa ing up to find their face beside yours on the pillow.

 You're happy to get your gear off Few of us are completely happy with our body a nd proud to prance around na ed. Yet nothing is sexier when it's let's-get-na ed time than someone who shows off their bits and let's their lover admire them, r ather than cowering under the covers. There's loads on getting over a bad body i mage on pX, but I just want to have a little word here about size hang-ups. Most particularly that size hang-up guys. I now you've heard it before but I'm goin g to tell you again (and you have to listen to me because I'm a 'sexpert' rememb er?): people don't fall in love with bits, they fall in love with the person the y're attached to. Ma e 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 homewor , but then forget about it. ( To solve any misconceptions once and for all, here are all the statistics you co uld possibly want. An average flaccid (relaxed) penis is about 4 inches long, 1 inches in diameter and has a circumference of 3 inches. An average erect penis i s about 6 inches long, 1 inches in diameter, with a circumference of 4 inches. W hile we're on the topic, penises don't seem to be proportionate to body size eit her. 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.)