What turns you on?

I'll give you one guess...

Confidence is key. Not to be confused with arrogance. Inquisitive, adventurous. General stuff.

Physically, I appreciate most body types that reflect a somewhat healthy lifestyle. Good hygiene. Sucker for a girl next door type, but variety is the spice of life...

I'm gonna reply first because I'm bored.

Personality wise I like it when a guy is patient and easy going, and shows interest in me as a person and is a good conversationalist.

Physically I like hairy men, big hands and feet. I'm also attracted to red haired and blonde men, as well as men who shave their head. Something sexy about it 😇

Perhaps a slightly non-normative answer...As a bi/pan person, I think my interest boils down to curious people. If you are genuinely curious about the world and other people, I am probably going to find some level of attraction to you (be it friendly, romantic, or sexual). Curiosity is a necessity for empathy and kindness, so it's usually a great indicator. Plus if you're curious about everything you will probably take the time to get to know me (or whomever); it means you probably care about others at some level. Surely you could argue for exceptions to this, just like how other qualities of attraction could easily be spoiled by another poor characteristic.

Most other things are secondary to me. For example some people say that confidence is key to attraction...well oftentimes a struggle between humility and lack of confidence can be equally as attractive (to me). If you're not a confident person but have a deep quiet curiosity for a broad collection of topics, that's still pretty attractive to me!

On a more physical level, I find general qualities of health attractive (pretty basic I know). Tall and strong people are hot, as are small and healthily lean people. People with a little more weight, but therein inherently strong, are attractive. Tough hairy skin or soft/smooth/gentle skin, on either masculine or feminine people, are both sexy in their own ways. A developed chest (boobs, pecs, or both) is sexy to me. Gender bending peeps are also super attractive to me, nonbinary and nonconforming alike. Blends of personality, presentations, and physical features are just chef's kiss, and people who know themselves and are unapologetically authentic about it are just lovely. People who take care of their hair (including those who are bald) are hot. Piercings and tattoos (when tastefully executed) are super hot. I could go on but I think that gives a good depiction of my tastes. :)

Visually I'm just a fan of the feminine form. Regardless of whether a woman is slim or on the thicker side, or musculature. Those S curves just drive me crazy. Personality wise, she can be whomever in the streets but I'm realizing I like a freak in the sheets.

Submission. I'm not too picky about the form, but when a woman gives something up to make me happy, I'm really happy. Sometimes that's waking up a little before me to wake me up with a blowjob. Sometimes it's bringing me a lit cigar, a glass of whiskey, and some boobs to enjoy. Sometimes it's anal, or bondage.

I dated someone recently who would send a voice message with whatever I told her to say, within five minutes of me sending a text. That was great.

Real estate.

Nothing hotter than huge... tracts of land.

You've received quite a few thoughtful and well constructed responses already so I don't know that I feel the need to add in my two cents for the first part of the question, but I will at least try to add some context for the second part.

Like a lot of places on the internet that involve sex, the ratio of men to women is extraordinarily uneven. I've seen numerous women delete their accounts because of the amount of attention they've received after posting(in a similar vein deleting content is not easy due to the way federation works). The community of men posting content(aside from just genitalia shots) tends to not receive very much attention and a small number of dedicated users drive most of the interaction.

Even this thread alone has received more responses than the vast majority of all threads on the instance. I don't mean this in a confrontational manner, but as someone who has been around since this instances inception I guarantee that if this same topic was not posted by an objectively attractive women it would be lucky to only have received a quarter of the attention it has. I will concede though that this is in no small part due to your genuine and thoughtful responses.

A lot of topics also need a large population of users to survive in a general space. To use one of your examples, to find a satisfactory partner for a niche RP topic will likely not be successful. If people don't find what they're looking for, they will stop looking. This critical mass of users is just not here yet, if it ever will be.

The community on Lemmy overall is also very techy and chronically online(even worse than Reddit) - a crowd that is not typically associated with high levels of charisma and rhetoric or social skills in general. The overall Lemmy community is also small enough that basically every post reach the Reddit equivalent of "all" or "hot" for those that have NSFW enabled and in general people have not been as nice and as open-minded as a sex positive space requires. The mods do good work, but they are only human.

Things have gotten better over the past year, but it's not quite there yet. I would like to say that I appreciate you Beth and the wonderful discussion you've provoked ☺️

Cool question. As for me I'm not really attracted by physical attributes.

Personality wise I get turned on by curiousity, adventurousness, and intelligence. I've given in entirely to my sapiosexuality :P

Physically I mostly enjoy healthy bodies of any variety, I'm a sucker for a strong core, although mostly because it lends itself to more interesting sex. Attraction wise I do enjoy a smile, that concentrated look of doing something they enjoy, and/or being out of their mind horny.

So for me, pictures work best when there's a story, a relation, a doing. BDSM has a strong tradition of providing that in pictures, at least through power imbalance if not settings, clothing, toys, and breathless looks.

Also, more commonly here, exhibitionists enjoying themselves ;)

Male here. Visually, I like a lot of things so it's hard for me to narrow it down to just a few things. Happy to list my tastes if interested though. Personality is the better question. It breaks down into three things: chemistry, appreciation for fun, and curiosity.

Chemistry - It's not a personality trait but it is so important. Chemistry matters and if it's not there, nothing else matters.

Appreciation for Fun - I am not the most fun person in the world (in bed I'm probably more fun than out of bed) but I do like someone who can let themselves go a bit and have fun, in and out of bed.

Curiosity - I consider myself relatively adventurous in bed but haven't done a lot of the things that turn me on. So someone who is curious and would explore my curiosity is incredibly appealing.

Lots of good, general, and philosophical answers on this thread. I'll take it a little more at face value and and tell you what physically and sexually gets me going in a woman:

Visually, I am into curvy women. Not really overweight or anything, but a woman with an hourglass figure, c cups or above and wide hips, just do it for me. What people would generally call milfy types. Being natural is important for me. I have yet to see a set of fake boobs or a heavily operated or botoxed face that do something for me. That may sound very narrow and specific but that is my ideal type. Of course it is all a spectrum and there are some wide deviations from that, where I find myself getting turned on.

Personality wise - where it comes to sex - I like a good amount of confidence. Women who know what they want and like and are not afraid to ask for it. I don't think I could ever be happy with a submissive woman or somebody who isn't interested in exploring or living out their sexuality.

Hi Beth.

Honestly, its tricky to boil down preferences like this. Personality wise, I feel like people who enjoy talking about their interests but also knowing about mine? I think there's a lot of folks who are ashamed, or just don't know how to express, what they do in their free time, and tend to say "nothing" when asked about it, instead of talking about browsing online, reading, playing games, posting, even going on a walk or doing chores. Really, anything that you might have done can be a good conversation point. Though knowing about boundaries and not pushing conversations every day, or every time, cuz people have their own schedules and moods to deal with.

Obviously, respect is a must, so being talked down, patronized, mocked or anything of the type is a major turn off, if not an outright deal breaker. I've been with people who'd belittle my hobbies, and I just don't have time for that type anymore.

Now physically, that's a toughie. In general, I'm not really into skinny people or muscular men - though buff women are a major plus. Curvier folks tend to catch my eye. I also feel that I have some contrasts between genders - I have higher preference for taller, muscular, energetic women, and shorter, meekier, average men. Also short hair on women and long on men are great - I don't know why more guys don't let their hair grow. But the opposites are not real dealbreakers.

Of course, it all gets much more mixed up when you add up transfolks, and really, that's for the best, but also makes it much more complicated to detail. I guess I just like a lot in people.

On kinky details, I have a preference for pubic hair, especially on pussies, tan lines, leashes, general sub/dom play with plenty of aftercare and cuddles.

And how come we don’t have more active users interested in sharing nsfw pictures, roleplaying and just other stuff? So much potential but still not many users?

For nsfw pictures, IIRC there's quite a few in the gonewild and similar communities. I'm not particularly interested in those so I can't point out specific examples. Roleplaying, I can imagine that takes quite effort to moderate, plus you need to have a good amount of people interested on it in the first place. I still go to DPP on Reddit whenever I feel the urge to cook up some smut tales together.

Genuinely? Honestly?

Real human connection is far more potent than anything else to me. The one time i got close enough to brush the feeling was fucking indescribable.

I love when I catch people checking out my girl. Of course it's hotter when other men do it, but everybody is welcome haha

I'm into exhibition. Shareing pics/stroking. But also voyeurism

I'm a pan non-binary AMAB and I like femboys and anything BDSM.

I share pictures sometimes, but not because I enjoy swapping pictures or anything. It's more of a way to get feedback/affirmation. I don't think I would enjoy another long-distance relationship with just swapping pics. Some people do, and I don't judge. Text-based roleplay is interesting, but I think sites like Umbra have absorbed that community.

Why aren't you interested in sharing nsfw pictures Bef

The biggest thing a women can do to turn me on is make me feel desired and wanted. It can be a simple compliment like "I love seeing you in that shirt". Or something more overt like pulling her panties to the side because she doesnt want to waste time taking them off.

I guess mostly it’s personality in reality. I love a woman with a big hearty laugh who’s having fun and a little bit of mischief. But I’m guessing everyone one wants to hear about the physical parts as, let’s be honest, that’s more fun! Personally I’ve always been interested in bigger girls. To me there’s this wonderful thing about a wide bottom on a girl. When she’s laying face down and ass up and there’s so much to grab and kiss and everything else. And as a hairy chested guy I can’t tell you how much I love big tits. There isn’t any better feeling then as she sits over me dragging her nipple through my chest hair.