LADIES! Behold the splendour of the nude male form: a miracle of sculpted sinew, striding confidently across the sand or stretching out before you in ever-uncoiling glory.

On second thought, perhaps you'd prefer not to. So say scientists at the frontiers of research on the eternal question of what women find erotic, the latest answer to which seems to be: not naked guys, or at least not merely naked guys.

Mischa Barton and Olivia Wilde's kiss in The OC inspired the film Bi The Way.

"For heterosexual women," researcher Dr Meredith Chivers says in a new documentary about bisexuality called Bi the Way, which was shown at the NewFest film festival in New York, "looking at a naked man walking on the beach is about as exciting as looking at landscapes."

Dr Chivers, a research fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto, says she has data to support this.