Five Times You’re Sexy to Men

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a local cafe with my head in a book when my friend Violet (not her real name, but her real favorite flower) happened by. “What are you reading?” she asked. I showed her the cover: Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? Bodies, Behavior, and Brains —The Science Behind Sex, Love, & Attraction, by Jena Pincott. “It’s about what makes women sexy to men,” I told her. She slid into the chair across from me and leaned forward, hooked. “So?” she said. “What does make women sexy to men?”

Violet is, by any standards, easy on the eyes—petite but (ahem) stacked, with olive skin and long, butterscotch hair. And yet, at 33, my friend has had only two brief relationships and a long string of first-date flops. Thanks to the intriguing, sometimes maddening volume in my hand, I felt I could help her. “Let me tell you the easiest trick in the book,” I said.

The science of sex has long been pondered by Mensa types in white lab coats, but lately there’s been a surge of studies on attraction. In the name of helping us understand exactly why, how and how much we turn one another on (or off), researchers have scanned our brains, analyzed the pitch of our voices and counted our orgasmic contractions. For her book, Pincott, a science writer, exhaustively re-viewed these studies and translated the findings into straight-shooting (if occasionally too man-pandering for my liking) advice. With Pincott’s help—I now have her on speed dial—I’ve culled the most valuable lessons every woman can learn about what makes her undeniably sexy to a man. It came down to these everyday moments.

When You Lock Eyes and Smile

The head-smackingly simple flirting fact I passed on to Violet that day: According to researchers at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen Face Research Lab, when you smile genuinely and lock eyes with a guy, he finds your face markedly more attractive than if you look at him without smiling. Minutes after I imparted this wisdom, I watched Violet spot a cute guy, make I-dare-you-to-look-away eye contact and flash him a fearless grin. The man practically walked backward out the door, then lingered at the window, fiddling with his cell phone, all the while stealing glances at my friend. “It worked!” Violet crowed.

When You Use Girly Body Language

In a now classic 1985 study, psychologist Monica Moore, Ph.D., of Webster University in St. Louis, showed that a successful seductress will send her desired guy more than 35 “courtship signals,” including hair-flipping, back-arching and lip-licking. (See Eliza Skinner’s experiment with some of these tactics, right.) Whether or not they were good-looking, the women in Moore’s study who turned on their body language were approached by an average of four men, while nonflirters, even gorgeous ones, weren’t approached by any at all.

So what’s a shy woman to do? Flip and lick even if it feels ridiculous? Remembering how awkward I once was coming on to guys in clubs and bars, I asked Moore how I could have gotten better results. “It’s important for women to figure out their comfort zones,” she said. Moderation and common sense rule. “A more introverted woman might want to reconsider competing with the extroverts at big parties or happy hours, and instead try out her signaling on a solitary man at work or at an art museum. That may be where she’ll shine.” And find a true match.

When You Don’t Starve Yourself

Something to celebrate: real proof that guys don’t wish we all looked like runway models. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin showed men—from twentysomethings to octogenarians—several line drawings of female body types. When they were asked to pick the most attractive, their across-the-board first choice was (sorry to annoy all you naturally waif-y types!) the curvy, medium-weight figure. To Devendra Singh, the psychologist who ran the study, these findings jibed with the basic tenet of evolutionary psychology: We are driven by ancient instincts to survive and reproduce. Subconsciously, men know that our curves signal health, youth and fertility. They’re worth keeping!

When You’re… Ovulating

Psst—here’s a poker chip you already have in your pocket but might not know about: When you ovulate (generally two weeks after your period starts), you’re particularly sexy to men. In one study, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin asked female volunteers to wear the same T-shirt three nights in a row while they were ovulating. They were then asked to wear another T-shirt for three nights in a row during their nonfertile phase. Men who were asked to sniff the shirts overwhelmingly preferred the ones worn during ovulation, without knowing why. Other research backs up these findings. Why? Evidence shows that estrogen, which surges just before ovulation, plumps skin and lips and promotes a healthy glow; your body is signaling it’s baby-making time.

Pincott goes so far as to suggest wearing more makeup when you’re in the nonfertile, and thus less attractive, part of your cycle—but to me, this smacks of trying too hard. I asked her how she really incorporates all this data into her life. “Knowledge is power,” she told me. “It’s not something you need to take too seriously, but seeing your relationships through an evolutionary lens can demystify a lot of what goes on. When you have insight, confidence follows—and nothing’s sexier than confidence.

When You’re the Woman He Loves

Once you’ve grabbed a good man’s attention with all that confidence, how do you hold it for the long haul? What most stuck with me from Pincott’s book wasn’t another tip or trick, but a study that confirmed what my inner romantic has always believed. Researchers showed the same set of photographs to volunteers who knew the subjects pictured and then to volunteers who didn’t. Both groups were asked to rate the attractiveness of the people in the portraits. And guess what happened? The viewers who knew and liked the subjects simply found them better-looking. In short, the study proved that the more we know, like and respect someone, the more physically attractive that person becomes to us. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is heat: The more your man loves you, the sexier you are to him. The long haul will take care of itself.