I don't see sexy

So you want to be sexy. Sexier, in fact. I will tell you how.

You can work your body down to a shape that fits into that two-piece swimsuit. You can wear a punishing girdle under that shiny evening gown. You can hire Leonardo Da Vinci’s great-great-great grandchild to paint a masterpiece of highlights and shadows on your face. You can tease your hair and spend five hours on it and be prepared to curse out anyone with the innocent-but-fatal urge to touch it.

You can change your name to resemble a soft drink. Careful though, because while “Pepsi Morales” is always sexy, and “Sprite Querubim” is definitely cute, I find “Mountain Dew Gonzales” to be kind of hit or miss.

You can also have a nickname that suggests sex (like “Bangs” or “Bends”), food (“Peaches”), or a reference to a cute cartoon character (“Buttercup”). You can go for uber sexy and do a trifecta (“Milky White”).

I know a girl who seemed hotter after changing her name from “Edna” to “Sparrow” — a noble attempt, to be sure, but I thought that as long as she was going to name herself after a bird, she would have done much better if she went with “Swallow.” But that’s just my male chauvinist opinion.

However, while these little tricks do make you a little sexier, I can guaran-effing-tee that they are not worth the effort that you put in (with the possible exception of the “Swallow” name change).

Who am I to guarantee, you say? After all, I am no scientist. I do not read, subscribe, or contribute to beauty bibles like Vogue and Allure. To this ignoramus, Bobbi Brown sounds more like a wife beater than a beauty resource. I have not studied fashion, and the only models I know are the plastic airplanes that are put together with glue and spray paint.

So who am I to tell you what is sexy? Well, I know what I like. I am a man. I am the target market, damn it, so heed my words!

Sometime ago I was at a low-budget Bikini Open. In all likelihood, I was probably not supposed to be there, but there I was, like a moth to a flame, drawn to the collection of meat wrapped in wet T-shirts. It was supposed to be a spectacle for the testicles. An “asstronomical event,” with more tent poles in sight than you would find at a Boy Scout Jamboree. Women came onstage to display more T&A than an Internet FAQ. Well, they didn’t exactly “come onstage,” but you get the point.

In theory, the sheer amount of sexy I was being bombarded with should have made brain function impossible. As a heterosexual man, I was supposed to be reduced to a drooling heap — cross-eyed and bow-legged and grunting unintelligibly like an orc.

But something was not right. Not only was I still fully functional, I was having a heated debate with my companion about the finer points of playing a healer-class in a World of Warcraft Guild. How could I talk about a video game in the middle of all this? What was missing?

Strangely, but obviously, sexy was missing. I wasn’t picking up “The Vibe.” Half-naked vibe: check. Slutty vibe: check. Will-take-money-for-favors vibe: check. Will-agree-to-a-threesome vibe: check.

If I did pick up the sexy vibe that night, it was not onstage. At this Bikini Open, the fully-clad women in the crowd were sexier than the scantily-clad lingerie models under the spotlight.

How were they sexier?

To answer that question — to tell you how to be sexier — I can only help you figure out when you are sexiest, so let me introduce you to Three Sexy Friends…

(And just so this information actually gets through to you, imagine that instead of me — an anonymous and average member of the much-maligned male gender — these words are being spoken by Pitt, Clooney and Ramsey. I can assure you that what works for me works for them.)

Movement is your friend!

Pop Quiz: On the monitor to the left we have a high-res photo of an almost naked Miss Universe runner-up, and on the monitor to the right we have a blurry video of a slightly-clothed probinsyana gyrating to the tune of Careless Whisper. So which monitor do the guys crowd around?

A dancing woman is sexy — not because it can turn into a striptease at any moment (although that is a nice carrot to dangle), but because it is a woman using her body to enjoy herself.

Back at the Bikini Open, the women onstage were not sexy because they were not enjoying themselves. They were not sexy because they were too preoccupied with trying to project “sexy.” I found the lady with the headset who was busy directing the show to be a lot sexier.

Have you heard of The Accidental Vixen? She is sexiest when she is too busy to think about being sexy.

Maria Sharapova is sexy for this reason: again, the possibility of seeing her undies when she chases after a drop shot is a nice plus, but the beauty — the sexy — is in the way she commands her body. Her single-minded passion makes her put her whole body into motion to do something she loves: diving after some balls.

This is The Super Secret Law of The Venus Williams/Mick Jagger Effect: while designer skirts and leather pants can augment it, sexy really comes from all-out intensity and focus.

Meet Sexy: She uses her body with intensity, and she shows me that she enjoys its power. She doesn’t just lay there, she moves with me. And she lets me know she is loving every movement. This brings us to...

Joy is your friend!

Is it any wonder, then, that a man’s first order of business when speaking to a woman is to make her laugh? The phone number comes later; we must first make you at least crack a smile.

Sexy smiles at me. She shows me that she loves who she is and where she is. When Sexy laughs, she laughs heartily, and says “Yes” with genuine ecstasy.

She shows me what brings her joy, and what she is passionate about.

Sometimes I think I see Sexy — not in the clothing or body type or in the way she appears, but in the way she carries herself. The closer I get, the more I think I can see it. I might see it in the depth of the pools in her eyes. In the way she pins her hair behind her ears. In the tossing of her head. In the cheese dip at the corner of her mouth.

I see Sexy in her complete lack of self-consciousness. The closer I get, I see it less and less, but I realize I can hear it more — the sound of her voice, her speech pattern, her witty remarks, her side comments, her train of thought, the way she breathes.

As I get even closer, I begin to feel her.

Sexy is fearless, and her spirit is adventurous. When I ask her if she’ll climb a mountain with me, she might say “Sod it, let’s climb two — and when we get to the top of that second peak, it better have a waterfall so I can to jump off it!”

Sexy is self-confident. She moves the way she pleases — knowing what she wants, and knowing she’s right to want it — not having to worry about what she looks like.

When she is trying to get what she wants — whether she is rock climbing, solving a math problem, or trying to have an orgasm — Sexy is intense.

I know a woman who, as she talks about the things that bring her joy and tries to make a point, loads every word with so much passion that it takes everything I have just to stop my body from jumping hers — because that would get in the way of her uber-sexy way of talking.

But I will jump her at some point. It cannot be helped.

Contact is your friend!

Whether she is dancing and enjoying the movement of her own body, or speaking passionately about the things that move her, Sexy makes contact. She begins by looking at me. She shoots that fierce, intense, passionate joyful energy from her eyes and uses it like a laser beam to cut through my hypothalamus into my nucleus accumbens.

Sexy establishes contact, and then dares to close the gap, to get to where she really resides. She knows that what is sexiest to a man is the way she feels. Not just the way she feels when I’m feeling her.

I mean the way she is feeling.

In other words: she lets me touch her, so I know how she feels. And she touches me… so I know how she feels. When she puts her hand on my knee. When she twirls my fingertips. When her thigh brushes up against mine. When she leans on me for no apparent reason — so close I can smell her shampoo — too close to see her.

All I can do is feel Sexy: how she feels me, how she feels herself, how she loves and enjoys her body and wants to share it with me, trusting me to love it. How she loves and enjoys my body, allowing me to trust her completely with it. I love being with her, next to her, on her, in her, around her — Sexy makes me come so close that it is impossible to see her. She disappears so I close my eyes to feel her and I cannot let go — even after the sun rises on a Saturday morning and there is a doubleheader on ESPN.

Seriously. God bless you if you know what I’m talking about, because you’ll understand why we close our eyes and turn out the lights.

If you are a woman looking in the mirror and wondering how to be sexier, you won’t find the answer with your eyes. Stop wasting your time trying to show me sexy, because I cannot see sexy. Move your whole body with passion and joy, and make as much contact as possible!

And if you still don’t get it, here’s a tip: if I’m looking at a bikini-clad woman onstage, one thing’s for certain: she’s over there, I’m over here.

I can’t feel that. That’s not sexy.