5 Tips to Increase Sex Appeal
Sex appeal is our quality of being attractive to others. A significant myth surrounding the subject is that boosting one's sex appeal means that others will find you sexually attractive.
Seduction is likely to occur when one has high sex appeal, but that does not necessarily translate to romance or sexual acts being on the menu; it just means that you can appear to others as persuasive, affable, intelligent, generous, and confident.
Regardless, having higher sex appeal can lead to more opportunities, new friends, and more dates. It's not just for single people either; married partners should cultivate sex appeal as a way to reignite passion in their relationship. Building sex appeal is not always easy, as there is no clear blueprint for developing the ultimate pinnacle of sexiness. Regardless, this article will examine the research and hopefully provide you with a sense of either where to get started or which strengths you may already have on which you can capitalize.
Tip 1: Accentuate your best features
While symmetry is something that both men and women look for in finding an attractive mate, most of us are not perfect. Symmetry, particularly in the face, is surprisingly uncommon. Regardless, the more symmetrical you are with regard to your facial features, the more attractive you are toward the opposite and same-sex. While this is often outside of many people's control, there are other options.
You can provide the illusion of facial symmetry by utilizing makeup products; however, this can be costly and time-consuming as finding the ideal products is often a trial and error-ridden endeavor. In addition, the beauty industry can often market its products in a way that diminishes self-worth among consumers by over-emphasizing imperfection as being not only undesirable but unnatural. If this is the route that you take, proceed with caution. I won't discuss cosmetic surgery too much as it is in many cases impractical, and one's interest (unless that have experienced a significant plight of bacterial infection, burns, or other forms of disfigurement) has larger implications for body dysmorphia.
Instead, I recommend accentuating features that you like about yourself. It's easy to focus on what you dislike and wish were different about yourself, so why not try something a little more challenging. Identify the areas of your body where you have experienced the luck of the draw in the genetic lottery and emphasize them more.
Like your lips? Wear lipstick or chapstick. Got a nice set of pearly whites? Smile more often, and be sure to attend your semi-annual dental cleaning. Broad shoulders? Try a tailored look with shirts and jackets. Do others compliment your eyes? Try contact lenses, glasses frames that compliment the shape of your face, or mascara or eye shadow.
Tip #2 Get creative
Uniqueness is often seen as a desirable trait from people across the spectrum. After all, if you're unique, you are certainly not dull.
One of the ways you can be more unique is by challenging your sense of openness to experience. Openness to experience is a personality trait from the Big 5 Personality index associated with intellectual curiosity, creativity, and having an overall broader set of interests.
In challenging your openness to experience, I would first admit that you do not know and have not tried everything. If you're low in openness to experience, the chances are you prefer not to try new things because you claim to know already what you like. I suspect that underlying this perspective is a subconscious fear of the unknown. The unknown is the domicile of anxiety. Feeling anxious is generally undesirable, but if you do not allow yourself to feel anxious, you sacrifice the value of enrichment and courage.
Consider trying a new restaurant (or different cuisine for that matter), taking on a new hobby or activity, learning a new skill, or reading a book or publication outside of your lexicon. Maybe you'll like it, or maybe you will detest it. Maybe you will look foolish initially, or maybe you're a natural. Or maybe, just maybe, you will surprise yourself and others by having an exciting tale to tell about the experience you pushed yourself to undertake.
Tip #3 Stay active
Regardless of body type, physique, mobility, etc., it is crucial to stay active. Thirty minutes of moderate to intense exercise at least three days a week is linked to increased mood, lower levels of depression and anxiety, increased energy levels, higher cognitive functioning, weight reduction, improved sleep, and a higher libido. At a bare minimum (assuming you don't have a disability that would prevent you from doing so), you should be walking at least thirty minutes a day (you can break this up into three ten-minute walks) in order to feel the impact of these effects.
Getting bored? Increase the intensity of your activity. Go for longer or more walks, switch things up at the gym. Add more weight, push yourself harder, have an attainable goal with regard to fitness, and strive toward its completion.
Tip #4 Try to see the bright side of things
If you haven't been able to tell already, a lot of what makes you attractive to others is the elevation of your mood. Granted, life isn't always hunky-dory. We all have the occasional bad day, encounter tragedy, or feel like we have bitten off more than we can chew.
It's perfectly alright to probe the depths of your sadness; however, staring into the abyss and arriving at a place of hopelessness will likely send the more positive people in your life fleeing in search of self-preservation.
Needless to say, hopelessness will attract hopelessness. Depressed people tend to subscribe to ideologies and connect with people who bemoan the same societal discontents, often proposing unviable or too idealistic (therefore destined to fail) solutions.
Seeing through your sadness, trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel, channeling a sense of realistic optimism signals courage, perseverance, willpower, and gumption, all of which others will find powerfully attractive.
Befriend darkness but don't be swallowed by it. Don't avoid sadness but don't allow it to become an incontrovertible dogma. Try to see the bright side of things despite the fact that you have and will indeed experience suffering.
Tip #5 Fix your posture
If you are slouched in your body posture, you may want to pay better attention to the thoughts that you may be having. Do you perceive yourself as meek or assertive? Sad or happy? Weak or strong?
Oftentimes the way we position our body is a reflection of how we view ourselves or a situation. Body language is equally a part of sex appeal as the other tips listed prior.
If you stand up straight, fixing your posture, you will likely be perceived as confident, dominant, having integrity, and possessing a positive sense of well-being. In addition, standing up straight reduces self-focus and increases rate of speech.
While you may not notice the effects of changing this habit effective immediately, it is perhaps the most attainable from this list, and I recommend it the most as I suspect it will help with the other tips listed in this article.
References
Cooper, Stephanie L. Ph.D. (2020). Promoting physical activity for mental well-being, ACSM's health & fitness Journal: Volume 24, Issue 3, 12-16 doi: 10.1249/FIT.000000000000056
Lai, J., Ding, D., Chen, X., & Li, S. (2021). Can Sexual Appeal, Beauty, or Virtue Increase the Opportunity for a Woman to Be Selected as a Spouse? The Mediating Role of Human Uniqueness. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 698712. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.698712
Nair, S., Sagar, M., Sollers, J., 3rd, Consedine, N., & Broadbent, E. (2015). Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Health psychology: official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 34(6), 632–641. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000146
Sharma, A., Madaan, V., & Petty, F. D. (2006). Exercise for mental health. Primary care companion to the Journal of clinical psychiatry, 8(2), 106. https://doi.org/10.4088/pcc.v08n0208a