What is the sexiest accent?

It’s definitely not Brummie

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Scouse

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“Exotic” isn’t the obvious word to describe a industrial shipping wasteland in the north-west but there is something incredibly spicy about everything that comes out of Liverpool, especially the way they speak.

It’s a little bit chicken and egg – is the accent sexy? Or does it just conjure up images of incredibly tanned women and brightly dressed men shining like roman candles against the urban grey?

There is something inherently arousing about the audio aesthetic of the Scouse voice and it is probably best summed up by the word “guttural”. You know that ughghgh noise they make at the end of words like “back”? It sounds like a gag reflex.

Yorkshire

If you want a carefree accent, Yorkshire isn’t it – and I’m fine with that. I want to know how grim it is Up North.Lie down on the moors with me and tell me about how your dad may or may not have lost his job down the mines. Do you like The Cribs too? That one song is great. Pull my hair while you hold your kestrel in the other hand. Only wear grey.

Estuary English (Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Sussex, Croydon)

Imagine being the filling in a Tim Sherwood and Alan Pardew sandwich. With extended nasally tones that ooze sex, every moment speaking to someone from the South East feels like pillow talk. “Yes babe, I will shat’ap. No of course there’s no one else, it’s just you darlin’.”

It’s an accent that’s bold, luxurious, and represent the well known fact that Essex people are the best in the sack. These are no two pump chumps or bedroom bores. When they ask what you are saying, you know they’ll take you through every base like its your last night on Earth.

It recalls velour seats in nightclubs, arguments with taxi drivers, Television X’s most aggressive climaxes and spitting in public. Ever boy has fingered a girl with who speaks with an Estuary accent.

West Country

The sun beating down on golden fields, cider sucked up slowly through a straw, taking him by the hand and leading him into the barn, slipping off each other’s braces for a leisurely tumble in a haystack…the West Country accent connotes a loving of a more innocent nature, swinging your bodies into one another like a scythe through corn.

Everyone thinks it’s all Vicky Pollard and Ian Holloway – let their caricaturish tones subside, and think of the voice Sean Astin perfected when he played Samwise in Lord of the Rings. He’ll soothe you as he carts you through the Shire before destroying your Ring.

Northern Irish

Sing to me darlin’, of how it used to be. You can hark back to the good ol’ days and rant about persecution all you want while quoting Brian Friel. I’ll continue to gaze at you with a lust stronger than your Dad’s stomach lining.
It’s not what you’re saying. It’s the way you’re saying it. Your soothing timbre can explode at any point into a high pitched rant I’ll never fully understand. I’ll be forever on edge, slightly petrified, slightly enticed, slightly aroused, a bit like the professor in Jurassic Park. No one looks good in orange anyway.

Southern Irish

Unlike its Northern counterpart, the Southern Irish accent doesn’t strike fear in the heart. There’s nothing dangerous about it, but that doesn’t make it less sexy. Or much less sexy.

The bumbling, warm – yeah, slightly village – mishmash of words is comforting. I might not know what you’re saying, but I know it’s probably lovely. I could probably take you home to my mum.

You probably have ruddy cheeks and a cheerful second cousin called Brendan. Your terrorist connections will probably be distant. You’ll probably be complimentary and cheerful during sex because you’re just so bloody grateful. I’ll lie in a post-coital glow while you tarmac my drive.

Glasgow

Fit you dae’n oer ther? Git yer arse nixt tae meh n croak aboot how ye fancy meh more n celtic wi yer jaw hinging open. Ah ken ah mak ye sweat more n a wee trip tae costa del sol, n ah ken ye telt the truth when yeh barrkd on tha clyde yed die fir meh qwiker thn them poor basterds doon the mines.

Yeh mite be ruff round thi edges, like, bu yer like a lyon’s mane aw grand, pure majestic like, but soft tae tha tuch, wi a grouwl thit maks them feart english basters bolt n maks meh feel lik a fuckin qahueen. Ah ken ah cud fly anywhe as yer burd, risin on the tchoon o yer prowd kil’ed roawr.

Birmingham

There’s nothing quite like listening to the sweet, sweet drones of a Brummie accent to really sooth the soul. Speaking to a Brummie is like playing charades: those never ending vowels keep you on your toes as you try and second guess what they’re actually going to say.

And don’t say a Brummie doesn’t know how to romance you – we’ve got more canals than Venice and you can get a pretty good deal at Wolves these days.

Received Pronunciation

As soon as the first elongated vowel escapes from between their perfect teeth, you have a complete picture of the Received Pronunciation speaker.

Raised in Oxbridge, graduated to London. Christmas in St Lucia, Easter in Zermatt, weekends in Florence. They’ll cackle about their superior life and magnificent upbringing: the one you couldn’t have. You’ll forever be outside the luxurious orgies going on in Tuscan villas as peals of privileged laughter echo off the inherited walls.

The real reason this accent is sexier than yours is because you could never hope to have it. It says “you can’t afford expensive dinners and fine wine served in oversized glasses. But I can.”

Edinburgh

Trapped in the middle of a tumultuous, roaring war nothing flushes the blood quicker to the heart and tingles the nerve endings more than the soft “rr” and precise intonation borne from the lips of a “No” voter.

Their voice echoes with an expansive vocabulary and turn of phrase that harks back to a brave, wild heritage without the inbreeding. The lilting tone pulls you into their whisky-tinged mouth and the gravelly tones play chase down their fiery throat like lovers racing up Arthur’s Seat.

Sex is a naked, animal desire in their presence, stripped by their blazing cursing and soaking in the deep heat of their honesty, engulfed in the alpha grip of that masculine lullaby.

Euro babe

Jarvis Cocker really had it right in Common People: he was enchanted by the girl who came from Greece (she had a thirst for knowledge) because of her seductive accent.

The Euro babe of indeterminate origin obviously has the sexiest voice: like a turbo-charged version of the Oxbridge Londoner, they’re unattainably mysterious and their lives are a checklist of luxury. 

They have family everywhere from Portugal to Poland, Spain to San Marino, elegantly robbing your heart with deliciously mispronounced words. They’ll sibilantly charm you with stories about impossibly cool nights in Berlin clubs, Croatian festivals and nights spent with a Monacan princess in an Andorran casino.

Stopping to pose for the Tatler bystander photographer, clutching a flute of Moët, their husky sound will be forever ringing in your ears, even though they’ll drift away like the fag smoke dissipating from their mauve-tinted Sobranie.

Manc

You know what’s hot right now? The nineties. And you know what sums up the 90s – Mancunian accents. Actually no, not Mancunian, just Mank. Because that’s what’s so sexy about the Manc accent – it’s guttural and grungy and just a bit manky.

Listening to a Mank accent conjures up images of Liam Gallagher growls and shiny shell-suits that you can slip right off. Everything said in a Mank accent sounds like “I just don’t give a fuck”.

It’s slightly aggressive, but not in a bad way, in a proud way that says “I’d probably start a fight in a dole queue – and WIN”. Let’s go to Knebworth together and you can purr in my ear about City and United and whatever else matters up there as you feed me Greggs pasties. Give it me.

East Midlands

You’re not 19 forever? In the East Midlands, you’ll find you are. These people never grow up. With a youthful exuberance you only get from fingering round the back of a bike shed, because they still do that there, you must have a heart of ice to resist “ay up me duck”.

If Angelina Jolie thinks it’s worth imitating, then who are you to question this? It’s grey, water resistant, immovable. They’ll be your Sunday lover, the one you curl up with on the sofa and drink tea with while the roast is in the oven. Its appeal lies in its security. Never mind the butterflies in your stomach for Northern Ireland, they won’t keep you warm through the winter.

Welsh

From a nation where all the men are fly-halves and the women are classical singers emerges a myriad of long vowel sounds and consonant combos you just don’t get anywhere else.

Whether it’s the way Eddie Butler says French names like “Aurelien Rougerie” or the sing-song tones of Alex Jones on The One Show distracting you from how dead her eyes are, the Welsh accent runs like a river, just like your juices will be when it meets your ears. There’s only one thing to do when you hear it – cover yourself in cotton wool and hope ewe get lucky.

Geordie

Wey aye pet those Geordies are canny good folk like. Everyone’s reet down to earth and and just up for getting fuckin’ mortal. If you wanna tash on after a night on the toon, then you just go ahead. A true Geordie lad’ll even treat you to a proper kebab and a sniff on their fake tan. Our Chezza knows, Ant and Dec know, Gazza knows. Sorted.