We’ve all made mistakes when it comes to dating and sex; accordingly, I’m sure every single one of us has at least one story about how something we tried to do to come off as “sexy” backfired horribly. Reddit sure does, and thanks to an AskReddit thread posted yesterday entitled “Reddit: What’s the unsexiest thing you’ve ever seen someone do in order to appear sexy?”, we’ve got a whole wealth of sexy versus unsexy knowledge at our fingertips.
One thing to bear in mind is that this is Reddit we’re talking about here. Reddit, with its primarily straight male demographic, has a lot of strong feelings about how women should or should not look; as such, there’s a lot of negativity in the thread that’s just not helpful (you know what’s not sexy, Reddit? Body shaming. So, y’know, let’s just not do that. Ever.). Once you sift through all the dross, though, there’s just a tiny bit of gold waiting for you. Here are 10 things to avoid, as they pretty much never turn out the way you think they will:
1. Displaying an Unusual Talent
Some unusual talents really are sexy. Farting cigarette smoke, however? Not so much.
2. Pulling a Flashdance
That only works if you happen to be Jennifer Beals, and even then, it’s a risky move. At least hank_moo_d later confirmed that they didn’t make fun of her for it; after all, she was only 13.
3. Touching Without Permission
I mean, any touching without permission is unacceptable — but biting a stranger’s arse? Who the hell does that?!
4. Getting an Ill-Advised Hairstyle
F*ck you, 1998, indeed.
5. Being a Road Hog
At least lazarus870 seems to have realized later on that driving like a maniac just makes you look like a tool.
6. This:
This should go without saying.
7. Not Playing to Your Strengths
I, too, am in this boat. Maybe we should start a club, somenamestaken.
8. Sexy Eating
There are situations in which sexy eating probably does work, but there are loads of examples in this thread where it doesn’t. VivianDivine said it best as to why it so frequently doesn’t work, though. Shit that works in movies pretty much never works in real life.
9. “Performing” Sexy
As of this writing, this is the top-rated comment in the entire thread. In tearitupnowthrowitaway’s defense, it sounds like s/he was young and inexperienced at the time, so at least it was a learning experience.
10. The Catch-All
Pretty much all of the responses here fall under the heading of “trying too hard.” The exact definition of “trying too hard” is specific to each person, though, so to put a more positive spin on it, I would argue that the road to success is just doing you.
Images: Giphy
