The Definitive Book of Body Language (47 page)

The stem of the wineglass suggesting things that may yet come

An interested woman will gradually expose the smooth, soft underside skin of her wrists to the potential male partner and will increase the rate she flashes her wrists as her interest grows. The wrist area has long been considered one of the highly erotic areas of the female body because it is one of the more delicate skin areas; it's uncertain whether this is a learned behavior or is innate, but it certainly operates on an unconscious level. The palms are also usually made visible to the man while she's speaking. Women who smoke cigarettes find this wrist-palm exposure simple to do while smoking by simply holding the palm up beside the shoulder. The Exposed Wrist and Head-Toss gestures are often mimicked by homosexual males who want to take on a feminine appearance.

Exposing the soft underside of the wrists is a powerful attraction signal

Women put perfume on the underside of the wrist believing it has something to do with the wrist pulse distributing the perfume. But its real purpose is to thrust the wrist forward toward a potential partner. The perfume simply draws attention to the woman and lets the man see her underwrists.

The Raised Shoulder is self-mimicry of the rounded female breasts. With partially drooped eyelids, the woman holds the man's gaze just long enough for him to notice, then she quickly looks away. This action produces the feeling of peeping in the woman who does it and being peeped at by the man who receives it.

Raising the shoulder highlights the femaleness of roundness and curves

For childbearing reasons, women have wider hips than men and have a wider crotch gap between the legs. This means that when a woman walks she has an accentuated roll that highlights her pelvic region. Men can't walk like this, so it becomes a powerful sex difference signal. It also explains why few women are good runners, because their wider hips make their legs splay out to the side when they run. Rolling of the hips is one of the subtle female courtship gestures that has been used for centuries in advertising to sell goods and services. Women who see these advertisements have the desire to be like the model depicted, which results in an increased awareness of the product being promoted.

Wiggling when you walk highlights the differences between men and women

Medical evidence shows that a woman in excellent health and most capable of successfully bearing children has a waist-to-hips ratio of 70 percent; that is, her waist is 70 percent the size of her hips. This gives her what's known as an hourglass figure. Throughout recorded history this is the body ratio that has proved the most dramatic male attention-grabber. Men begin to lose interest when the ratio exceeds 80 percent and, for most men, the greater or lesser the ratio, the less attentive he will be. He completely loses interest when her ratio reaches 100 percent but still maintains a level of interest even when it drops below 70 percent, but 70 percent still remains the perfect ratio for reproductive success. The way a woman highlights this ratio is simple—she simply tilts her pelvis when she stands.

Professor Devendra Singh, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas, studied the physical attractiveness of Miss America beauty contestants and
Playboy
centerfolds over a period of fifty years and found that the hips-to-waist ratio that holds the greatest appeal for men is between 67 percent and 80 percent.

Kylie Minogue with a cocktail of the things all men love— long hair, neck display, 70 percent hips-to-waist ratio, open wet mouth, pouting, drooping eyelids, protruding breasts and rounded buttocks, self-touching, and Hand-on-Hip gestures

Professor Singh conducted a test using images of women who were underweight, overweight, and of average weight and showed them to groups of men who were asked to rate them in terms of their attractiveness. Women of average weight with a hips-to-waist ratio of around 70 percent were found to be the most alluring. In the overweight and underweight groups, the women with the narrowest waist got the vote. The experiment's remarkable finding was that men gave the 70 percent hips-to-waist ratio the highest rating even when the woman's weight was quite heavy. This means a woman can be physically larger but will still turn male heads if she has this ratio.

Most men have never seen the contents of a woman's handbag and studies show that most men are afraid even to touch her handbag, let alone open it. A woman's handbag is a personal item that's treated by her almost as if it's an extension of her body and so it becomes a strong signal of intimacy when she puts it close to a man. If she finds him particularly attractive, she may slowly fondle and caress her handbag. She can ask him
to pass the handbag or to even retrieve something from it. Placing the handbag near him so he can see it or touch it is a strong signal she's interested; keeping it away from him indicates emotional distance.

Placing her handbag close to a man is a sign of acceptance

One leg is tucked under the other and points to the person she finds the most interesting. This is a relaxed position, which also takes the formality out of a conversation and gives the opportunity for a fleeting exposure of the thighs.

Pointing her knee at the most interesting person

Dangling the shoe on the end of the foot also indicates a relaxed attitude and has the phallic effect of thrusting the foot in and out of the shoe. This action unsettles many men without them knowing what is happening.

The shoe gives a clue