The sexiest ways to turn somebody on

Want to get your partner in the mood? There are all kinds of little things that you can do to help turn somebody on, from flirty text messages to back massages to doing your very own Magic Mike-esque striptease, but there are also a whole lot of completely non-sexual stimuli which seem to do the trick as well.

In a thread on Reddit, people have been sharing the everyday activities that drive them wild.

"My spouse doing physical labour around the house," one commenter said. "Mow the yard, Jeff. I'll pay you."

Variations on this response were fairly common, with a number of women saying they find nothing hotter than watching a man do domestic chores like washing the dishes (without being asked first).

Being attentive to your partner's needs, and anticipating what will make them happy without them vocalizing it, doesn't have to be about big gestures. As a woman on the thread recalled, one of her favourite memories of a former boyfriend was when he would come over to her place early on Fridays to do tasks around the apartment so that when she got home from a long week at work, she wouldn't have to do them herself.

"It totally turned me on and energized me," she said.

Others focused more on the "physical labour" portion: "Nothing is sexier than my man coming in from putting out hay or cutting the grass or fixing his car," one Redditor said.

The dexterity of manual labour is also a factor when it comes to provoking a proper swoon. "Watching my boyfriend do intricate work with his hands and fingers" was cited by one woman. "Really just makes me think about what else he can do with them."

Another popular turn-on among women was "seeing a man roll his sleeves up." This could well relate to the fantasy of a work-ready man, or maybe instead it's all about the suggestion that work is over and playtime has begun... or some mixture of the two.

Then there's the act of reversing. As in, a car. "Watching my boyfriend drive," was one woman's favourite titillating sight, "including reversing into a spot, where he has his arm across the back of my seat... Jesus take the wheel!" Demonstrating that you're in control and that the person in the passenger seat is safe with you? Yeah, OK. I totally see that.

Other non-sexual turn-ons were a little more cerebral. Several guys said that they get a "heart-on" from hearing "another person talking about their passion or see them as they do it", and "watching someone's face light up with genuine joy when they talk or do something they're passionate about." In this instance, it's possible that passion is infectious, or perhaps the vulnerability involved in opening up about something you care about creates a sense of intimacy between two people.

What a lot of these non-sexual stimuli have in common is that they're predicated on communication and an empathetic understanding of what other people want and need. And if your partner is proving that in random displays of affection, just imagine how they'll show it in the bedroom.