Courtship Displays and Attraction Signalsprofessor Devendra Singh, an evo-
lutionary psychologist at the
University of Texas, studied the
physical attractiveness of Miss
America beauty contestants and
Playboy centrefolds over a period
of 50 years and found that the
hips-to-waist ratio that holds the
greatest appeal for men is between
67% and 80%.
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% were found to be
the most alluring. In the over-
weight and underweight groups,
Kylie Minogue with a cocktail
of the things all men love —
long hair, neck display, 70%
hips-to-waist ratio, open wet
mouth, pouting, drooping
eyelids, protruding breasts and
rounded buttocks, self-touch-
ing and Hand-on-Hip gestures
the women with the narrowest
waist got the vote. The experiment's remarkable finding was
that men gave the 70% 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.- Handbag in Close Proximity
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.