Unraveling The Mysteries Of Sex Appeal

Women seem to perpetually date the same type of guy and there are a few good reasons for that.

An article in the May issue of Cosmopolitan magazine called the "Secrets of Sexual Attraction" explains why women are drawn to certain guys.

Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Kate White talked with The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen about the mysteries of sex appeal.

"Well, as those women indicated, there's no universal formula or magical formula," White said. "But we do connect on certain levels — physical, psychological — and there could be childhood factors, biological factors. Lots of different things going on."

There are four major types of attraction, according to Cosmopolitan: Instant attraction, opposites attract, the power of scent and slow-burn love.

Instant Attraction: "There's a theory that the crushes we develop when we're first starting to have sexual feelings leave a long-lasting imprint, so they are then triggered later on," White said. "When you find yourself attracted to preppy guys with blue eyes or Johnny Depp because he was your crush, it really has to do with those early crushes.

"Also, similarities ... we are hard-wired to like people from the same background as us, same educational level. It's almost as if we have an internal sense of our own hottie level. When you're in the room, you go to the guy or the girl you feel is at your level."

Opposites Attract: "With personality, we are often drawn to people who seem the opposite of us," White said. "It's almost as if we're trying to balance out what we lack. So if we're introverted, we're drawn to that guy who's the life of the party; we see that all the time. Or if we're very, you know, type A person, we may be drawn to a guy who is a little bit more zen-like — going to take us down a couple notches."

The Power of Scent: "Well, it's not a scent we can actually smell, but we give off pheromones," White said. "They signal our reproductive potential. Other people pick them up from us and vice versa. You may find yourself attracted to a guy. You have no clue why. It's because on some level, you like his smell, his scent, his pheromones."

Slow-Burn Love: "Slow-burn love is when all of a sudden you find yourself attracted — maybe after many years — to a guy who you were friends with," White said. "And it could be — it's not that you've changed so much in what you like, but it could be that he's become more your type. Maybe he just sort of grew up suddenly. Some life change happened for him. When you sense that new thing, it really triggered some nice dopamine in your brain and you like what you see and you want to take it a step farther."

What women — and men, for that matter — are attracted to in partners is often determined by things they cannot control. White said one's relationship with the opposite sex parent influences what he or she looks for in a lover.

"If our dad was incredibly nurturing to us, we're going to be drawn to a guy like that, possibly," she said. "The bad thing is if you had a dysfunctional relationship with that opposite sex parent, your father's cold and distant, you may be drawn to that kind of guy, hoping to fix it. But the nice thing is, a lot of women, after a certain amount of self-awareness and their girlfriends telling them 'get out of that pattern,' they can break it."