I really can’t think of a clearer way to explain this thread idea than the subject line. I’m sure every person listed will be the subject of disagreement, but that’s kind of the point.
I’ll start with Cobie Smulders from How I Met Your Mother. Quite lovely, but not even a little sexy. I don’t know why; she just doesn’t do it for me.
Next?
It’s funny - I agree with you about Smulders as Robin Sherbatsky; however, as Maria Hill she was positively smoking. Maybe it’s the hair.
No, she wasn’t sexy to me in Avengers either. Gwyneth Paltrow was smoking, though.
Completely agree with both of you; Cobie Smulders just doesn’t do it for me. (Allyson Hannigan, on the other hand…)
I would add a young Elizabeth II to your list. Very very pretty, in a classically English way; but definitely not a sexpot.
You guys need to check your pulses-she is my type to a T (esp. with the short hair).
I’ve heard of Nicole Kidman being described this way, but as a straight female I wouldn’t be able to accurately gauge her sexiness. I do think she’s beautiful in a very stiff and cold way though (if that makes sense) which could make her “unsexy.”
I’m assuming she’s supposed to look sexy in this picture.
Cate Blanchet
Tilda Swinton
Hilary Swank
I know this will infuriate Skald, but since I’m on the Short List, I’ll be the one to say it: Natalie Portman. She’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful, but just not sexy. Even when she tries overtly sexy - *especially *when she tries overtly sexy - I just literally squirm in discomfort. I want to find a shawl and cover her with it and bring her hot chocolate and a teddy bear to cuddle.
Gulp. <blush>
Well… uh… yeah.
I ‘suppose’.
re: Cobie Smulders
She’s got a man’s chin & cheekbones, but women’s lips. Throw out the unnaturally colored contacts and ditch the make up, add a little five o’çlock shadow, and you’ve got Tom Cruise. I prefer the short hair.
Ha, don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a beautiful woman, it’s just hard to find a picture in which she looks genuinely happy (I think looking like one is enjoying oneself contributes a lot to sexiness), but maybe she’s just a reserved person.
I know I brought her up, but I don’t see any of that. I think she has a very pretty face and quite nice legs; I’d ever call her beautiful. But she does not incite sexual desire in me the way that Alyson Hannigan (who is not nearly as pretty) does. To use a term from her show, she’s the sexless inkeeper.
I think I myself once charactertized Portman as, at best, only mildly hot (though incredibly beautiful), so I shan’t unleash the bees on whoever I am using as your scapegoat this month.
Hilary Swank, by contrast, is the very opposite of what I had in mind for this thread. She has a face that is just shy of homely, but is quite hot overall.
In Kidman’s case, I think it’s the role. In To Die For, she was made of sex, but in The Golden Compass my only thought was, “My god, I’m glad there’s no reason for her to take her clothes off in this role.”
Yes, I agree with Skald’s assessment of Ms. Kidman.
Let’s pop back in time a few decades and take a look at Barbara Bain.
She was quite beautiful, but not really sexy.
For the youth-impaired people, Ms. Bain was in Mission: Impossible and Space 1999 among other shows. Back in the 20th century.
she’s German actually and has a classic German face, best indicator is her nose and to a lesser degree cheeks. She in no way has a classic English/British face.
and there is no way a majority of men in this country would prefer , either on the sexy or beautiful scale, Allyson over Cobie
Hillary Swank isn’t sexy?
if you saw her like this in a Victoria’s Secret commercial she’d fit right in. (now go and tell me VS models aren’t sexy)
Naah. But as Robin Sparkles…
…what?
But seriously, Smulders as Sherbatsky was hot. Hannigan OTOH, has never been hot.
But I agree about Kidman, and I think Uma Thurman belongs as well.
Really. Huh. Taste, there is no accounting. 
I’ve been trying to think of men to add, and for some reason that’s harder for me.
Ryan Reynolds, for me, but I know he’s a sex symbol, so I’m in the minority.
Will Farrell, while not quite what I’d call “beautiful,” even for a male application of the term, is the unsexiest handsome man in the universe.
“Sexy but not handsome/beautiful” is a much easier list.
January Jones?
I’m a straight woman, so maybe not the right audience, but “so very pretty but completely unsexy” is exactly how I describe her. Maybe it’s just the soulless icy Betty Draper character, though. I haven’t seen her in anything else (except for her disastrous SNL appearance. That was painful)
Audrey Hepburn. She’s really, really beautiful. Or she was. I suppose she’s probably less attractive at the moment. But I wouldn’t say she’s sexy. She’s like art.
Isn’t she more Scots than German? She seems to have a lovely British complexion.
As a completely heterosexual man, every man falls into this category for me.
Now among women, I would disagree with the OP about Smulders. I think she’s sexy.
I would have agreed about Portman for a long time. I just never really got the attraction. But somehow this changed in the last couple of years and I now think Portman is very sexy. I don’t know if it’s my tastes that changed or if there was some subtle change in her appearance that caused her to “click” for me. Or maybe it’s that she started doing nude scenes.
Jessica Biel is somebody who still doesn’t work for me. I know a lot of people think she’s amazingly hot but I don’t see it.
You think all men are beautiful?
