Are your eyes popping? Are you feeling a tad uncomfortable? Are you thinking, “Oh my God”? We are. It’s that time of year again, when Calvin Klein unveils its version of male sexiness – sorry, underwear campaign – and this time the footballer Freddie Ljungberg has made way for the actor Djimon Hounsou. The picture you see opposite, soon to grace billboards up and down the country, is designed to get the pulses of both men and women racing. According to Calvin Klein, the campaign is “aspirational and rather kind on the eye”.

But, far from getting all steamed up, we actually think it’s rather scary. The forced pose he has taken, while, no doubt, skidding about in a slick of body oil; the vast expanse of dense, muscled thigh thrust towards the camera; the crotch bandaged into its elastic noose – none of it does anything for us other than provoke a faint feeling of nausea.

For gay men, maybe it’s great. And for the minority of women who actually enjoyed watching the Chippendales in the 1980s and 1990s, it may be fun, too, but round our way the reaction has been: “Ewww!”

The sad thing is, Hounsou is not just a hot guy, but an interesting one (and taken, unfortunately, by Kimora Lee Simmons). He comes from Cotonou, in Benin, the West African country that was the gateway to slavery and the cradle of voodoo. Aged 13, he emigrated to Paris, where life delivered him a raw deal – in his darkest hours he slept under bridges, scavenging in bins – until, when he was 22, Thierry Mugler plucked him from nowhere to be a model. Now 43, he’s a big-league actor, with films such as Amistad, Gladiator, In America and Blood Diamond to his name. He is the only black African to have received an Oscar nomination – but oil him up and stick him in some nut-huggers, and he looks like just another male model (collective term: “a bulge”).

Seeing as it is women who buy most men’s underwear, I wonder who Calvin Klein is trying to please with this stuff. Given half a chance, a lot of women would find Hounsou extraordinarily sexy – sexy being that mercurial mix of clever, confident, interesting, funny, good-looking and doing something funny with your eyes when you look at us. Not just an objectified slab of meat.

Women want their men to be a bundle of qualities: the slightly porky, kitten-carrying fireman wins it over the poofy-looking hunk in pants every time; the greying-at-the-temples, life-saving surgeon over a rippling chest that looks like man boobs; the haggard, junkie rock star over the buff, gym-honed tanorexic.

Power is far more alluring than a fleshy hunk. Bill Clinton is a gun for hire these days – why don’t the people at Calvin Klein stick him in their scanties?

THE BOYS YOU CANT HELP BUT FANCY

Calum Best

He may be the cheesiest thing to hit the West End since Dirty Dancing, but there’s something about those lazy blue eyes, that lounge-around body and the playboy reputation that makes us fear that we just couldn’t say no to a bit of Best.

Matt Damon

Matt Damon is Jason Bourne, and Jason Bourne is God. He’s more mysterious than Bond, more real than Batman, and more complex than Bruce Willis. We want to be rescued by him, before trying to soothe his pain. Oh Jason, we can help you remember ...

Johnny Borrell

Move over, Kirsten. We want to swoon in this bad-boy rocker’s mosh pit, and snuggle up in his sweaty T-shirt. The sneer, the lithe body, the tight white jeans that let us peek at his pocket rocket, those endearingly English teeth – it all makes Borrell a modern-day Mick.

Zach Braff

He may look a little strange, in a kooky kind of way, but his brooding mind and GSOH make Braff the thinking woman’s crumpet. Well, that and the hotshot career, toned body, and puppy-dog eyes.

Kelly Slater

Hotness doesn’t come in a more obvious form than the surfer, and the surfer doesn’t get much hotter than Slater – just ask Cameron, Pammy and Gisele. An unadulterated love god, Slater fulfils all our Point Break fantasies.

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