What makes a man so hot he is known not just as an actor or a rock star but as a sex symbol? One is tempted to say: a steady taciturn gaze and a square jaw, but Justin Timberlake is anything but flinty. Another assumption might be that sex comes by the pound…of beefcake. But how does that explain the snake hips and bare chests of Johnny Depp, Michael Hutchence and Jonathan Rhys Myers?

The term hunk seems a bit dated once we have seen the likes of 80s action heroes such as Travolta and Willis go to serious seed. But that has not stopped Hollywood trying to bulk up certain actors bulking up the bodies of Hugh Jackman and Orlando Bloom.

And that is the compelling mystery of the thoroughly male sex bomb. We want them even if we don’t like them (Robbie Williams), we look at them even if we want to look away (Antonio Banderas) and we especially want them if they seem a tiny bit seedy (Colin Farrell) or smug (George Clooney) or just plain, dark, moody, difficult, hostile (Clive Owens, Sean Penn, Daniel Craig).