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A heartthrob can play a useful role in maintaining connection with your sexual self

So if our crushes tell us something about our place in history, what do they say about us as individuals? According to Edinburgh-based relationships therapist Val Sampson, boy-band crushes among young women provide a “good transition to adult sexuality”, prior to actually being ready for a sexual relationship. As we get older, we can use heartthrobs as fantasy to be incorporated into a healthy sex life. “The brain is the sexiest organ in the body,” says Sampson, “and a heartthrob can play a useful role in maintaining connection with your sexual self.”

Many of us fancy men who fit certain tried and true types: hunks; strong, silent types; troubled geniuses; talented crooners. But our libidos can go off-piste in surprising ways. For instance, a recent study from the University of Amsterdam found that many women fancy portly, older, divorced men. Having got the “not-husband-material” types out of their system, the appeal of someone domesticated can be strong.

Then there are the soft spots many women have for the likes of Andrew Marr, Louis Theroux and Michael Palin. When, after the Brexit vote, I posted on Facebook a newfound crush on Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, I was told to “join the queue”.

But there’s still a logic to our lusts. Carney was a figure of calmness and strength in the post-referendum chaos. Theroux and Marr have brains and character: cleverness is hugely attractive to a woman confident in her own intelligence. Paul Hollywood from Bake Off (a guilty pleasure particularly among older women) may look like a silverback, but has a creative, domestic skill. And it’s Gosling’s combination of vulnerability and hidden talent in La La Land that makes him irresistible.

In fact, notes Sampson, the ability to play the piano is a good indicator of crushability in pretty much any man.

Heartthrobs: A History of Women and Desire by Carol Dyhouse is published by Oxford University Press