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"  This whole rigmarole started with Eliot Spitzer. When the New York governor was caught paying for a call girl, I went a little crazy. I&amp;#039;d had a slight crush on him\u2014not because of his rock-solid politics, though that helped, but because I&amp;#039;d seen him in person once while I was reporting a story and he radiated sexuality. I couldn&amp;#039;t take my eyes off him. Thereafter I felt a special kinship; the only politician I&amp;#039;ve ever loved. I took his betrayal to heart. I projected all my confused feelings onto my baffled husband, demanding he explain why Spitzer had done it, as though my spouse were the criminal. I was anxious, unstable. But also, strangely (or not), I thought about sex constantly, behaved like a cat on a hot tin roof, and said things in bed like: &amp;quot;I want to be your Silda and your Ashley.&amp;quot; I hoped he would read my mind and role-play Governor and Whore with me. I was too shy to ask. Ashley Alexandra Dupr\u00E9, the prostitute Spitzer was known to have been with, was a source of endless fascination: When he saw her in the room, was he overjoyed? Did he instantly get an erection? She was curvy, but were her proportions so right? What, what, what did it feel like to be a hot tomato, a head-turner, a...a...a sexy girl? (Eliot, if you&amp;#039;re reading this, I beg you to call me and explain! Please.)  A few months later, I was reminded again of the Spitzer episode. I mentioned to my editor that I found the women on the American Olympic 4 x 400-meter relay team so hot that I&amp;#039;d been tempted to cover my husband&amp;#039;s eyes. She found this response bizarre. She couldn&amp;#039;t fathom why I would have this impulse to blinder him. &amp;quot;You mean you don&amp;#039;t get jealous?&amp;quot; I asked, in my own state of disbelief. &amp;quot;No, I don&amp;#039;t get it. I believe men compartmentalize. Why would an athlete on TV threaten my marriage?&amp;quot; I always thought jealousy was a normal facet of the female condition. Suddenly, through her eyes, I saw myself as the odd one. I put the question to myself as an anthropologist might: Why should it bother me if my husband is checking out a woman that I&amp;#039;m totally checking out, too? It&amp;#039;s not exactly that I think she would affect my relationship...right now. But over time, might his exposure to these sex bombs wear away his desire for the reasonably attractive but basically average me? This seemed rational; what I couldn&amp;#039;t fathom is why it wouldn&amp;#039;t bother my boss. &amp;quot;I know!&amp;quot; I blurted, &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s because you&amp;#039;re hot, so you don&amp;#039;t understand how it feels to not be capable of getting that kind of attention!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I totally don&amp;#039;t buy this,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I dare you, just for one day, to put on a tight pencil skirt, heels, and a form-fitting top, cinch your waist with an Ala\u00EFa belt, and just walk somewhere crowded, with some men around, and see what happens.&amp;quot; I took her up on the dare\u2014and not because I don&amp;#039;t like to say no. There was something here for me that felt niggling, like a sore tooth, something I&amp;#039;d been circling since Spitzer, and maybe earlier. Perhaps my whole life.  I&amp;#039;m a connoisseur of women\u2014I&amp;#039;ve stared at them with a strange, embarrassing intensity since I was a child. Ages ago, I read a Leonard Michaels short story about some cad who&amp;#039;s taking full advantage of the opportunities presented by the sexual revolution. I&amp;#039;ve forgotten it almost entirely, with the exception of one passage that sticks in my head still. In it, the cad muses about young women&amp;#039;s legs in miniskirts, their impossibly long, impossibly thin legs. Their availability makes monogamy impossible for him. I wanted, piercingly, to have a man feel that way about my body\u2014to be a woman who makes monogamy untenable for a man. And I&amp;#039;ve wanted to know what it would feel like for myself\u2014to touch it and dress it. This is an amorphous sensation Germans might have a long word for. An inchoate feeling of longing and desire overcomes me when I see a woman with some genetic attribute that I will never have: firm breasts, long thighs with an indent above the knee, narrow calves. A narrow rib cage. Bony, right-angle shoulders. A heart-shaped bum, or a bum like that of a girlfriend of a guy I used to work with. Of her, the other men in the office said: &amp;quot;You could crack a walnut with her ass.&amp;quot; Of course, I&amp;#039;m deeply grateful for my healthy body\u2014I have two legs that work and no illnesses that I know of. This longing for the other&amp;#039;s body occupies a different mental compartment. Yes, the other. For me, the hot one is a different species.  I&amp;#039;m almost 38; I&amp;#039;ve never, never felt like a sexy woman. From the second I hit puberty, I had figure flaws\u2014cellulite, short legs, big feet, too-long hips, breasts too far apart. I sometimes concocted racy outfits to call attention to what I did have, but that didn&amp;#039;t make teen guys murmur about me the way they did my best friend. She was a sexy girl (not coincidental, surely, that I was so drawn to her?). Yes, on rare occasions a guy would choose me over her\u2014but that was after they got to know us.  When I put together ensembles now, they have to have a sentimental, narrative, or strange element; they are constructions, developed over years following fashion, based on my emotional state, my body, what I consider to be the right kind of trendy\u2014I answer to my own codes, and sex appeal is rarely in the equation. This makeover dare hit at the very heart of what I realized was a philosophical impasse. I don&amp;#039;t believe you can procure &amp;quot;I must have sex with her!&amp;quot; attention by adopting certain clothing signifiers. I believe that you actually have to have maybe not all, but at least a few over-the-top sexy attributes. You know who these women are: Maybe they&amp;#039;re flat-chested, but they have perfect, naturally tanned, elegant, crazily long legs, and thick hair. Or they have a tiny waist, rosebud mouth, and small chin. Perhaps my editor was actually saying that she thinks I do have those attributes and just don&amp;#039;t show them off right. But in my worldview, if I had those things, it wouldn&amp;#039;t matter what I wore, I&amp;#039;d already be turning heads. Also: Maybe sexxxy girls instinctively choose the men-maddening clothes precisely because they are sexxxy\u2014it&amp;#039;s a paradoxxx! But there was a part of me that wanted to put my theory to the test: Could I know the feeling of the sexy girl? Could I make men feel about me as I imagined (and the &amp;quot;as I imagined&amp;quot; is key) they did about her? At my age, this could be my last chance to find out. As I was already lacking the genes, certainly the situation wouldn&amp;#039;t improve with time. First, I had to do some research to hone my man-friendly outfits. I consulted Jena Pincott&amp;#039;s Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? Bodies, Behavior, and Brains\u2014The Science Behind Sex, Love &amp;amp;amp; Attraction. Science verified some assumptions. Overwhelmingly, Western men seem to prefer a low waist-to-hip ratio and large breasts. &amp;quot;The hourglass figure is unique to a woman in her peak reproductive years, and often vanishes after her first baby,&amp;quot; Pincott writes. Pincott also cites studies that confirm men statistically prefer proportionately long legs. High heels cheat this, and they also increase your chances of walking like a baboon in heat, bum out, with a wiggle and sway, which also attracts men. (Like to like, dear monkeys.) Healthy, full hair, worn down, also draws more lust. So: high heels, waist emphasis, free-form hair. Then I asked a bunch of my straight friends&amp;#039; male mates what they found sexy. Prepare yourselves! &amp;quot;The fundamental of a woman looking sexy is having the right attitude,&amp;quot; one man reported. &amp;quot;She should be up for it, fun-loving, intellectual, curious, fast-moving, and loose. Stress isn&amp;#039;t sexy. She should take some time off, get drunk, smoke weed with her girlfriends, join a gym. She should schedule three sessions in a week with a personal trainer; even a week will create the right attitude; meditate on why she wants to look sexy; watch 9\u00BD Weeks high; buy some expensive lotion; throw out all her old underwear; read something romantic like Consuelo by George Sand.&amp;quot; Then he got more specific: &amp;quot;Healthy hair, probably with highlights; trendy makeup; clingy, low-cut Italian top from one of those slightly romantic, minimalist brands like Alberta Ferretti or Bottega Veneta; nice statement piece of jewelry; this season&amp;#039;s high boots; Calvin Klein underwear; something sporty and white is all-American sexy.&amp;quot; Phew! Some men wanted a woman to dress up; many wanted her dressed down. &amp;quot;The right skirt on the right woman gives the illusion of access,&amp;quot; one explained.  In the end, with such diverging views (though none terribly surprising: tank and jeans, high boots, just-rolled-out-of-bed summer dresses, tasteful Catholic schoolgirl, boobies...), I went with an expert. I called Adam Rapoport, a GQ  editor, who assured me that the men on staff have many, many discussions about how to present women in their magazine, but the basic tenets are: simple and revealing. Extrapolating for real life, he suggested &amp;quot;a V-neck sweater with nothing underneath, in the fall; and tight jeans.&amp;quot; Do the jeans have to be of the moment?  &amp;quot;Do you think the average man on a Friday night cares if they are the `right&amp;#039; jeans? Obviously not, as long as they&amp;#039;re tight and the sweater hugs her breasts nicely,&amp;quot; he said. A sure bet in the office is a tight, to-the-knee pencil skirt and heels. &amp;quot;Any time you wear heels, no guy is going to complain,&amp;quot; he emphasized. In the magazine, they favor red, white, or black women&amp;#039;s clothes. (This confirmed my theory that men are like babies, who can only process black and white lines. Men can only get women&amp;#039;s fashion if it&amp;#039;s black and white, or maybe gray.) Rapoport also stressed natural-looking makeup. But one of the first things I did to pull my new look together was get eyelash extensions from the master, Soul Lee of Shu Uemera, at Barneys. I needed something to put me in the mood. Upkeep is foreign to me, and one of the things I always notice in sexy women is that they tend to upkeep instinctively: regular haircuts, new underwear, and long lashes. I can&amp;#039;t make my rib cage narrow, but lash extensions, as far as beauty aids go, look fairly natural.  I put on my first outfit, provided by the ELLE fashion team. Pencil skirt, simple heels, tight, white button-down top with a push-up bra, hair down. On the subway during rush hour, I got no looks. (But I was watching so hard to see if people were watching me that I noticed how beaten down everyone was, and it made me sad.) On the streets I also got almost nothing. Maybe, maybe I turned a head or two I wouldn&amp;#039;t have otherwise. When I walked by the middle-aged Ecuadoran men standing outside the taxi service on Brooklyn&amp;#039;s Fifth Avenue, I definitely got ogled, but not on Manhattan&amp;#039;s Fifth Avenue. I&amp;#039;d like to think it&amp;#039;s because people are too busy, but once I saw Gisele walking down the street and it was like a live-action enactment of Tex Avery&amp;#039;s wolf, with men&amp;#039;s tongues hanging and eyes popping out. She gleamed. Oh, God, the power. I want it. I don&amp;#039;t want it. Another thing I&amp;#039;ve always believed about va-va-voomers is that their bodies respond differently to clothes. They aren&amp;#039;t always skinny skinny, but they are taut, without cellulite or drooping breasts or too-long waists. They can wear tight things because they don&amp;#039;t shift and chafe. In loose, transparent dresses, there&amp;#039;s nothing distressing to hide, and their wide, flat shoulders keep the frocks from falling off. On me, everything tugged and rode up; I grew increasingly unkempt. (I can handle heels well, but after a few hours, they irk me.) My &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; lipstick never went on right after the virgin application. I intended to wear the uniform for four days straight, but I could only bear to do short shifts. Thankfully, at the end of this torturous week, I had one breakthrough moment. I went out to dinner with three female friends. I wore tight jeans; a snug, V-neck cashmere sweater, showing cleavage molded by a U-plunge bra; and Michael Kors stilettos.  I was embarrassed in front of my friends, who are cool girls, bitchy and scary in the best possible way. Usually I would dress to win their compliments, not contempt, as this clich\u00E9 outfit would have were they not forewarned. They are also unambiguously hot. But none of them, in support of my trial, dressed in body-conscious clothes or wore makeup, and they were really kind about my outfit (coupled-up hot women can afford to be magnanimous). When we sat down at the table, the waiter definitely\u2014and this was confirmed by witnesses\u2014singled me out with a long, intentional stare and said, &amp;quot;How are you tonight? Can I tell you about the specials?&amp;quot; Then he tossed menus to the others with barely a glance. A little thrill rushed through me! This was the power. I was the one presenting myself for him, and he recognized it and responded appropriately. I was having the sexy woman&amp;#039;s silent exchange! Could this be what it&amp;#039;s like for her...all the time?! I started to want more\u2014but sadly, the cute indie men who were just my age, probably desperate new fathers, barely looked at me. Sigh. As I was leaving the house that night, I didn&amp;#039;t tell my husband about my sex-appeal makeover. He looked at me and said, &amp;quot;You look good.&amp;quot; And then\u2014and I&amp;#039;m pretty sure this was unprecedented in our marriage\u2014he said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re just going out with Valerie and Leanne and Dierdre, right? What are you guys doing? You&amp;#039;re not going to meet strange men, are you?&amp;quot; He sounded\u2014joy!\u2014possessive. But more frequently than power, in these clothes I experienced fear and shame. When I got in a taxi, I had an anxious knot in my stomach. I always worry about my vulnerability with a strange man in a car, but with makeup and cleavage, it&amp;#039;s much worse. I grew up in a complicated time for female sexuality: The &amp;#039;70s disco queen, the &amp;#039;50s housewife, the Victorian suffragette, and the &amp;#039;60s revolutionary were all tangled up. It was also the era when rape officially came out of the closet. Were you ashamed, or were you proud? Were you careful, or did you flaunt it? When I was little my mom and I were driving through downtown Oakland, California, when I caught sight of a beautiful woman standing on the corner, wearing high boots, a gold chain belt, and a leotard. Nothing else. My five-year-old mind was blown. I wanted to know all about her. My mother told me, without judgment in her voice (what a testament to her open-mindedness), that she was a prostitute. Why was she wearing those amazing clothes? Why did she look so pretty? My mother explained that she dressed like that so men would stop and talk to her.  As soon as I got home, I went into my dress-up box and put on my version of a prostitute&amp;#039;s look, then I stood at the end of the driveway. A friend wandered by and said scornfully, &amp;quot;What are you doing?&amp;quot; With pride I said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a prostitute!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s gross!&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;Your mom lets you?&amp;quot; I never did it again, though I stared longingly at them out the car window, and my mom discussed their outfits with me\u2014prostitutes in 1970s Oakland? Those were some good looks, seriously! Shortly after that, the mother of another friend on my block was raped walking to her car in a parking lot. There was so much I didn&amp;#039;t understand\u2014but a little part of me began to hate and fear men. Pincott, the Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? author, discusses a study conducted at Queen&amp;#039;s University in Canada. Examining women&amp;#039;s gaits during different parts of their cycle revealed that ovulating women had, contrary to expectation, a more inhibited walk. While other studies have found that women unconsciously wear more revealing clothes during ovulation, this study suggests a go-away message gets sent. The scientist who ran the study, Pincott writes, theorized that in cave days, it was &amp;quot;in a woman&amp;#039;s best interest to have babies with chosen partners rather than a stranger...who caught a glimpse of her from afar and forced himself on her.&amp;quot; So maybe ambivalence is evolutionarily built in.  When I discuss my makeover with my best friend\u2014who, like my boss, finds my jealousy over unattainable women bizarre\u2014I share my theory, that I never get that sort of attention so that&amp;#039;s why it feels so threatening, so other. She says, &amp;quot;Okay, maybe not, but you have to factor in to this that you&amp;#039;re scary as hell!&amp;quot;  I am. Though I maintain that sexy women can be scary and get away with it in a way I can&amp;#039;t, I&amp;#039;ll admit it probably doesn&amp;#039;t increase my come-hither potential. On some level, giving the &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t bother looking&amp;quot; vibe to men by preferring sometimes weird, rarely tight clothes says: This is not for you; I want to talk to that woman over there who is also wearing an interesting skirt. I want the power to get male attention, but I want him to be the man of my choice. As much as I might fantasize about the sexy girl&amp;#039;s attributes\u2014I definitely want those\u2014the thought of eliciting attention from men in a bar or on the street makes my skin crawl.  I&amp;#039;ve never had a relationship with a guy who pursued me. I set my sights on who I wanted, I did my market research, and sometimes I wore sexy clothes at the beginning because I know all men, however original, are all the same. But I made sure that the ensembles were quirky-sexy. Breaking through to my husband-to-be required special wool winter hot pants, with tights, in below-zero conditions, for instance. But even if I try on sexy, a man has to see me there too. One thing Rapoport told me is that the reason women are presented in GQ in easy-to-understand, revealing clothes\u2014and this, I&amp;#039;m pretty sure, extends to all men&amp;#039;s magazines\u2014is to telegraph to the reader: &amp;quot;These women are in your court; you&amp;#039;re in the driver&amp;#039;s seat.&amp;quot; Nothing, nothing I wear will ever suggest to an onlooking man, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re in the driver&amp;#039;s seat.&amp;quot; My simple test &amp;quot;sexy outfits&amp;quot; were complicit in men&amp;#039;s denial of emotional complexity\u2014the &amp;quot;don&amp;#039;t be so complicated, chill out!&amp;quot; male paradigm. Any man who looks at me in my own clothes gets it instantly; there is no way I am ever going to &amp;quot;chill out,&amp;quot; and he&amp;#039;s going to have to want me anyway or, even better, like me because of that. In 1929, Joan Riviere, a Kleinian analyst, wrote a paper called &amp;quot;Womanliness as Masquerade.&amp;quot; This is a must-read for any woman curious about her own relationship to her feminine wiles. In the essay, Riviere discusses a case of a proto-superwoman, a successful wife, homemaker, and professional. It&amp;#039;s in the latter arena that her neurosis surfaces. She gives strong propagandist lectures, but afterward she compulsively flirts with the men around her, soliciting their sexual advances. Riviere speculates that what&amp;#039;s happening for this patient is an overidentification with her father. Each time she lectures well in a man&amp;#039;s world, she&amp;#039;s castrating the father figure by stealing his role. She compensates unconsciously by becoming sexually submissive\u2014the behavioral equivalent of sexy clothes.  Riviere goes further: &amp;quot;Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it\u2014much as a thief will turn out his pockets and ask to be searched to prove that he has not the stolen goods. The reader may now ask...where I draw the line between genuine womanliness and the `masquerade.&amp;#039; My suggestion is not, however, that there is any such difference; whether radical or superficial. They are the same thing.&amp;quot; Whoa. I bring this up to my friends at dinner. &amp;quot;Maybe sexiness, as our society defines it, is all just compensatory?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Hell, yes!&amp;quot; Dierdre responds. &amp;quot;In an all-female society, who is putting on this shit?!&amp;quot; Where do I stand at the end of all this? Yes, I believe a little bit more that you can fake sexiness, but I also think that if it doesn&amp;#039;t come naturally, you shouldn&amp;#039;t bother. It&amp;#039;s funny that the only part of this process that made me feel genuinely sexier was the eyelash extensions. My husband confessed he found them weird and artificial. All my girlfriends loved them. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a9543/i-want-you-to-want-me-282314/>