I wanted to discuss sex appeal and why it matters. First, what is sex appeal?
Sex appeal is what attracts character X to the opposite gender.
I know you're going scream, "whut about" and fill in some niche sexual dynamic. You do you, my friend. I'm talking about the generalities here.
Why does it matter?
If you are trying to sell your story, and you are trying to sell your story, you need to appeal to the reader. You are trying to, at the very least, get the reader to spend his or her time on your story. To do this, you should try to make your MC someone that the reader will enjoy reading about. People enjoy reading about sexy people, even if those people never have sex.
So what is sexy?
Here's where I have been finding problems lately and what made me want to post this. For some reason, I'm seeing women being written as being sexy, but they are being written to be sexy to other women (and no, not in a GL story) and guys being written to be sexy to other men, when it's not a BL story. It is almost always a problem of the author not understanding what is sexy. So, Let me explain.
Men generally find the following sexy: Good Looking, Nice Personality, Low Body count
That's about it.
Now, some men might find sexy to be a high body count, but actually, I think you will find that actually, such men are attracted to the PERSONALITY that would produce a high body count, but they would prefer if they caught her really earily so she didn't have a body count yet. Is this universal? No. But it's the basics.
Now, when writing, there is only so much you can do as far as "good looking", because this is text. You basically describe her once, and that's about all you need. We're good after that. Personality is the most important factor. What is important? Actually, that's the hard part. Men like a Wide range of personalities as 'sexy'. Innocent. Violent, mothering, you name it. A good rule of thumb is a guy usually falls in love with his mother.
So how does this help you, the writer?
Pick whatever personality you are going with, and stick to your guns. Actions are what guys look at most, not words. What your MC female does is her personality. Is she loyal? Does she lie? Is she super horny, but only for one guy? Is she pushy except when it matters then lets her BF be in charge? Whatever it is, pick your niche personality and stick to it, because some guys will fall for it, others won't. You can't appeal to everyone.
There is no perfect woman. Just perfect Women.
The phrase, "You are perfect for me." isn't just BS. Guys say that because they do honestly come to believe there is a "perfect woman, for HIM." What is the most popular female type? Damned if I know, but if you figure it out, let me know. All I can suggest is, stick to your guns, whatever personality to give her.
Women are Way more complicated.
You hear that women want the Nice guy, but go after the bad boy. Truth is, it isn't one or the other. They want BOTH. They want the bad boy who IS a nice guy. It's two different metrics. The Bad Boy spectrum is typically based on appearance and masculinity. How tough he is. Is power, dominance, all that dark triad shit.
Women like peaceful men, not harmless men.
A harmless man isn't a threat to anyone. A peaceful man is a threat to everyone, but chooses not to be violent.
Maybe it's evolution, but women love it when they know their guy can and will kick everyone else's ass. Yes, it can be terrifying to know your boyfriend is extremely violent, but if he;s only violent when you are threatened, then hey, it's all good.
On the other spectrum we have the nice guy. This is based on how much the guy gives the girl (either money or time/attention) and how well he cleans up. How presentable he is in public. I knew a guy in college, rather fat, I mean, morbidly fat. However, he was always clean. He had excellent taste in clothes, and he had a lot of money. He also was very confident and rather commanding. He was moderately high on the bad boy scale, but was very high on the nice guy scale.
He had quite a few girlfriends.
Yes, appearance is important, but only on the bad boy scale. On the Nice guy scale, culture, wealth, self-esteem, personalty, nice taste, and a willingness to spend time and money on your partner can get you rather far.
So you wind up with:
Low Nice Low Bad guys being men who every woman ignores.
You have High Bad, low nice, or your average biker that your daughter sleeps with a few times then dumps, then hooks back up with in a few months when she gets bored.
You have your friendzoned fool who is High Nice, low bad. He's someone the girl talks to but will never sleep with.
Then you get high Bad, High Nice who is basically... Prince Charming.
No. Really.
Look at any Otome game. The ML is a Prince or High level Noble with Good Looks. He's usually good with a sword, more than a little dangerous, often very commanding and takes control. He's a bit wild, but "SHE" managed to tame him so that he's A High Value Guy who Is Dangerous but spends all his time/money/attention on one person, the FL.
Of course that doesn't happen in real life. A prince charming these days has so many women throwing themselves at him that he usually has one main girl and a half dozen side pieces, but we're talking about fantasy and wish fufillment.
So how do you make a sexy male lead.
Well, this is often why you see MLs as handsome, socially akward, and secretly powerful. He is a diamond in the rough who just needs the right girl to find him and polish him up. He's either secretly a prince, or he's actually secretly a very powerful magic user, or swordsman, or demon slayer. He's rough around the edges and usually violent, but he keeps it under control around "HER".
This is often why people get annoyed with MLs with harems. They have the violent, the handsome, the masculinity, but they aren't giving all their attention to one ML. Even to other men, they can sense this is a no-no. Yes, some men want to go, "I want lots'o'woman!" but the truth is, we know that isn't "sexy". We know women aren't turned off by the multiple partners, but the fact he isn't giving 100% to one person. There are women willing to put up with it. Often you'll find women who would rather share a "perfect man", over settling for a man who gives them 100% of his attention. 20% of perfect is better than 100% of average.
However, in a story, that doesn't sell.
TL/DR: Physical Attributes, masculinity, culture/how well they clean up, and wealth/time/attention are the four aspects that make a ML sexy to women.
Yes, there are many other factors, but I'm talking about the base factors here.
The problem is when a woman tries to write a woman who is sexy to men, sometimes she writes the woman like she would find a MAN to be sexy. She writes her FL as High on the Bad Girl scale and High on the Nice Girl scale, not knowing that for men, they are the same scale. To women, there are Bad & Nice men, but there are no Bad & Nice girls to men. A bad girl and a nice girl are opposites to most men. You can't be both. When they write both in the same FL, it isn't appealing (unless it's GL, then go for it.)
Conversely, this is often why I find so many MLs written by men to be so god damn shallow. They make them "BAD Boys" or "NICE guys", but they are never a mix of the two, and as such, such MLs are often flat, one dimensional, and frankly, annoying to everyone. They assume it's one or the other, so the character feels... off.
Anyrate, just something that I noticed for the umpteenth time and it's been annoying me.
