A couple years ago, when CNN Entertainment correspondent Shanon Cook was nine months pregnant, a man was polite to her in a grocery store. The obvious conclusion from this story is that this dude wanted to GET. IT. IN.

Today, Cook posted a column briefly examining the science behind male attraction to pregnancy (though the overarching tone was definitely more "Love your bodies, ladies – confidence is sexy.")

Here are the five best lines from that column, in order of appearance:

1. On the aforementioned polite man, whom Cook describes as in his early 40s, clean-shaven, and dressed in a sharp grey suit. He approached her in the produce section and asked normal questions, like "How far along are you?" "Boy or girl?" etc.:

"There was something behind his charming smile, his lingering and the urgent look in his eyes.
This dude thought I was hot."

2. A flagrant disregard for the hook element of fly-fishing:

I was taken aback when one of my single guy friends once told me having sex with a pregnant woman was high up on his bucket list. What, like climbing Everest and going fly-fishing naked?

3. Magic pheromones:

Perhaps, [neuropsychiatrist Dr. Louann Brizendine] suggests, there was something "pheromonal" going on while I was in the grocery store that day. (She notes, though, there's no evidence that pheromones could work so quickly on humans in such a situation.) [emphasis added]

4. The Scarlet Letter Effect:

"When you're very pregnant there is this undeniable evidence you have had sex with a man," Brizendine says. "And that can be titillating. It's like wearing a billboard sign on your body: "I! Had! Sex!"

5. On missing the pregnant version of herself:

I'll think of her next time I'm pinching avocados in the supermarket, and perhaps pinch myself to stand a little straighter, smile a little more and wink at no one in particular.

The most interesting element of the post (apart from the bit about winking at no one in particular – whaaaat is that about?) is a throwaway paragraph, tucked near the end of the piece, that mentions a 2011 study on pregnancy fetishism published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The study suggested that older siblings, regardless of sex, who witnessed their mother pregnant and lactating when they were between 1.5 and 5 years of age were more likely than other children to manifest feelings of sexual attraction toward pregnant women as adults.

It's also worth noting that the piece is peppered with self-effacing lines that are either fishing hard for compliments (the deadliest catch) or show that Cook has no idea what she looks like.

For instance, she describes her appearance in a video that accompanies the story as puffy-faced, saggy-chested, and outfitted with "two —no, three—" chins. A glance at the video, which finds Cook speaking to Annie Lennox about her holiday album Christmas Cornucopia—that's fun—reveals that Cook, in fact, looks lovely.

So, maybe the secret to getting a guy's attention isn't being pregnant – it's being hot in the first place.

Science.

[Image via Getty]