What's happened to music's sex appeal?

Victim of a nefarious ex, Tulisa (martyr, figurehead of female empowerment, etc.) is enjoying auspicious career developments in the wake of her sex tape. The Contostavlos PR team either have the easiest job in the world or they're working very hard and covering their bases; I'm talking, of course, of the former N-Dubz star being voted FHM's sexiest woman.

The Camden-born screecher tops a peculiar list that offers a worrying insight into the sexual appetites of the nation. Fortunately, our culture is no longer dependent on the testosterone that granted lad mags (and Chris Evans) such prominence, but the top 100 list still gets national coverage, and the selections are baffling. Tulisa being the cream of this rotten crop is strange - the truly offensive aspect of the sex tape scandal was her pink velour trackie, yet the voting public has bewildered the rest of us by taking to Tulisa's new glam image to the point of having erased all memories of the N-Dubz-era Chav Queen look. Our curiosity is consolidated by the timing of the poll's results, with the sexy coronation neatly coinciding with this week's Tulisa single release. 

Tulisa's not that attractive (how did we get here from last year's victor Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), but her lofty presence is not the compilation's only blemish. What are we to make of Britney Spears, in at number 59? It would appear that UK men are able to disassociate personality from appearance, yet this still doesn't account for Spears. In 2012, people do not lust after her. Maybe our male voters are in fact fantasising and fetishising a bygone era, channeling their yearning for a more chauvinistic time, when Britney Spears was genuinely desirable, into a list.

Elsewhere, Jessie J. And Cher Lloyd. Those of you paying attention will have noticed a correlation. In spite of sex appeal, the gauging of which being the whole the point of the feature, the list in fact lauds the most tabloid-friendly celebs. Why else Cher Lloyd? Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj or Taylor Momsen? Familiar names to celebrate press teams and not beauty.

More sinister still is the involvement of The Saturdays, or at least three of them. Nice to see Una is still considered sexy having been pregnant for the majority of the last 12 months, and we won't quibble over the other two - people fancy Frankie and David Gandy fancied Mollie - but what are we to make of the band's two black members being overlooked? It's all very strange.