Just What Is Sexy? : One Person’s Valentino Is Another’s Rin Tin Tin

Brad Pitt is everywhere.

On the cover of People, anointed “The Sexiest Man Alive!” Sporting tight leopard-skin jeans in the pages of Vanity Fair (which purports to explain “Why Brad Pitt Is Hollywood’s Ultimate Sex Symbol”). He’s even on the cover of Newsweek.

I don’t get it.

He’s got squinty eyes and mangy facial hair. In some interviews he mumbles like a postmodernist James Dean and chain-smokes. He’s skinny.

My wife thinks Brad Pitt is gorgeous. She says I am crazy. And jealous.

(But then, Pittophiles tend to feel strongly. Take gay singer Melissa Etheridge, who told Vanity Fair that after she and some lesbian friends saw Pitt in a swimming pool, “We all agreed he could change a woman’s mind.”)

Sexiness is like that. One person’s Valentino is another’s Rin Tin Tin.

It’s a dialectic that drives water-cooler debates the world over--and has office workers arguing over who is sexier in summer shorts: the Sparkletts man, the FedEx man or the UPS man.

What is sexy, anyway? How many kinds of sexy are there? Let us count the ways.

Cute Sexy

This is the classic, obvious appeal of certified hunks (John F. Kennedy Jr.) or beauties (Cindy Crawford). Sheer pulchritude, with a dash of killer charisma, do the trick for these people. Blame it on good bone structure and nice teeth.

Seductively Sexy

Like Cute Sexy, only turbo-charged. SS’s who sizzle include Naomi Campbell, Antonio Banderas, Janet Jackson and Madeleine Stowe. And let’s not forget Linda Fiorentino, whose role in “The Last Seduction” says it all.

Sunnily Sexy

Happy and uncomplicated. Christie Brinkley. Elle MacPherson. And introducing Daniela, who graces the cover of Sports Illustrated’s new swimsuit issue.

Suave Sexy

Peter Jennings comes to mind. That well-tailored combination of smooth, Continental self-assurance and impeccable good manners makes your average American look like a bumpkin.

Cool Sexy

This has less to do with appearance than attitude.

It’s definitely a rock ‘n’ roll thing. Keith Richards--he of the tangled hair, perpetual cigarette and deeply lined visage--is an avatar of the form. Singers Courtney Love and Michael Stipe likewise define the genre for the post-Watergate generation.

Smart Sexy

This comes in three sub-categories: Neurotic (Woody Allen), Tortured (Leonard Cohen) and Just Geniuses (Marilyn vos Savant). They attract people with their intellectual prowess and disarming self-disclosure.

Rugged Sexy

Always a cinema staple, ruggedly sexy types tend to appeal to men and women alike. Men identify with them and women want to be with them. Screen heroes Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes and Mel Gibson are archetypes. These men for all seasons handle gunplay and foreplay with equal aplomb.

Powerful Sexy

If power were really the ultimate aphrodisiac, Newt Gingrich might be asked to pose for Playgirl. Thankfully, this hasn’t happened.

Still, those who qualify as Powerful Sexy know that proximity to power is an attraction (does the name Bill Clinton ring a bell?). With the GOP ascendancy, Gov. Pete Wilson (often described as “boyish”) and New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman are looking mighty fine, although Democratic HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros is still a potent political heartthrob.

Royal Sexy

Princess Diana brings movie-star beauty and an aura of heartbreak to the monarchy. And Prince Charles, despite jug ears and a lamentable excess of self-pity, wears Saville Row suits and Scottish kilts with a certain elan.

But the Windsors are frumps compared to the Grimaldis of Monaco. Playboy Prince Albert and his sisters, Caroline and Stephanie, have made fertile tabloid fodder ever since they hit puberty.

Hairless Sexy

They have turned a liability into an asset. Just ask Patrick Stewart, who brought such personal magnetism to Starfleet (although Klingons, who have what euphemistically used to be called “high foreheads,” aren’t bad). Hairlessness also works for Lou Gossett Jr. and Michael Jordan.

Senior Sexy

Paul Newman leads the pack. He makes turning 70 look easy (and Katharine Hepburn does the same for 80). We might also salute Lena Horne, mustachioed cowboy actor Richard Farnsworth and the gracefully aging Sean Connery.

Sensitive Sexy

Jimmy Smits is a leading contender in this department. Not that he isn’t also good looking, but Smits projects an emotional depth lacking in, say, your average “Studs” contestant. Winona Ryder, whose eyes are deep wells of soulfulness, has a lock on sensitivity in the female division.

Funny Sexy

To be Funny Sexy is to embrace a contradiction. One must manage to be at once silly and attractive.

Meg Ryan does this well: She can be beautiful, vulnerable and very amusing--and wonderfully appealing. Her sometime screen partner Tom Hanks, without being classically handsome, also has the hang of it, which made him a plausible love interest in “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Sounding Sexy

This is a tough feat to pull off, because the effect occurs almost entirely in the listener’s imagination.

This is the only conceivable category where you might hear James Earl Jones and Tom Jones mentioned in the same breath. But make room for Michael Dorn (Worf on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), smooth-as-silk Sally Kellerman, Gloria Estefan and Barry White. Special mention goes to Sade, whose sighing, sultry voice soothes and seduces.

Sullenly Sexy

Kate Moss, celebrated and reviled for looking like a starved child, in the long run will be remembered for her pout. She makes being a highly paid model look so depressing--yet interesting. Is it a coincidence that sullen Moss love interest Johnny Depp is seldom photographed cracking a smile?

Weird Sexy

Manic energy propels the likes of MTV’s Kennedy and Dennis Hopper, who have earned hard-core followings.

In his muted fashion, Anthony Hopkins (that’s Sir Anthony Hopkins to you) has elevated his finely calibrated facial twitches to an art form.

Chunky Sexy

Conventional thinking to the contrary, 4% body fat is not a prerequisite for sexiness.

Even before she shed dozens of pounds, the camera loved Ricki Lake. And actor Dennis Franz has never let excess adipose tissue crimp his style, as his soul-and-butt-baring performance on “NYPD Blue” demonstrates.

Tough Sexy

Here we find the sexy and tough (Van Damme), the tough and sexy (Stallone, Schwarzenegger ) and the mostly tough, sometimes sexy (Steven Segal). They offer a stoked-up caricature of masculinity, but it works for some people.

Androgynous Sexy

Little Richard, David Bowie, Keanu Reeves, “Pat” and k.d. lang have mined their respective brands of crossover appeal.

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What do all these personalities have in common?

It might be said that they all display an edge, a faint whiff of unpredictability that makes them interesting. Maybe that, more than anything, is the essence of sexiness.

So have we finally arrived at an explanation for the phenomenal appeal of Mr. Pitt and his leopard skin trousers?

Na-a-a-h.

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They’ve Got THE LOOK

BEAUTIFUL: Cindy Crawford

POWERFUL: Henry Cisneros

HAIRLESS: Patrick Stewart

SEDUCTIVE: Janet Jackson