Body Language of Dressing Sexy
Cue: Dressing Sexy
Synonym(s): Sexy Dress, Provocative Dress, Short Skirts, Tight Jeans, Revealing Dress, Cleavage Display, Overt Dress, Slutty Dress.
Description: A primarily female cue where women dress provocatively with short skirts, tight jeans or shirts, low-cut blouse and/or, high heels. Men may also dress sexy, with similar underlying meaning, but it is not as salient.
In One Sentence: Dressing sexy is universally perceived by others as a signal of health, virility, and a want to be desired.
How To Use it: The use of sexy dress is one which should be used cautiously. Sexy dress can be used by either men or women to gain sexual attention from others. Dressing sexy for men and women, however, differs. Women have more liberty in their sexy dress, but men and women both share common features. When dressing sexy, aim to emphasis the features that best showcase your strongest features. Men should show their masculinity with displays of abs, chest, biceps broad shoulders or buttocks. This can be done with a tight shirt or even shirtless as well as with a well fitted suit. Women can dress sexy by showing their legs, breasts and buttocks. A tight fitting top, low cut blouse, short skirt, heels and so forth are ways which women can draw eyes to their bodies.
Note that the use of sexy dress is entirely option, and can often create issues with objectification. To draw attention to parts of the sexual body is to reduce one’s self to parts. As long as one is aware of how one is perceived, then dressing sexy can be used to accomplish desired goals. No matter how one dresses, it is very important to understand that one is nearly always in charge of how one is perceived. If one does not wish to be objectified then one should hide visual sexuality and instead emphasis other more abstract qualities including intelligence, kindness and personality. As nonverbal signals are strong, and people being what they are, they will always reduce people to their lowest common denominator.
Research shows that dressing sexy is highly frowned upon in business settings as it often reduces perceptions of competence. However, dressing sexy might lead to better treatment and higher tips in low ranking service jobs.
Sexy dress is known to produce benevolent sexism where men and women are willing to perform services in order to be near a sexy counterpart.
Finally, dressing sexy can also create issues with same-sex competitors who will be quick to dismiss your sexiness as they seek to diminish your sexual power over them and their significant others.
Context: a) Dating b) Business c) General (alternative explanation)
Verbal Translation: a) “I’m sexually receptive and am searching for sexual invitation.” b) “I’m sexual in nature and looking for favours and chivalry from men in the workplace and for men, due to my high attractiveness, to do the work for me or treat me favourably.” c) “I feel comfortable in sexy clothing as it suits my style and personality even though I don’t consciously want additional sexual attention otherwise.”
Variant: See Unkept or Dowdiness.
Cue In Action: a) She was in a great mood, full of energy. As she searched through her clothing, she tried to match her mood to her attire. Overlooking dumpy sweatpants and lose sweatshirt, she chose instead a short fitting skirt and heels with a low cut blouse. She was nearing ovulation, but her sexual cycle never crossed her mind, she was just following her emotions. b) She tried to dress professionally, but her look tended to arouse attraction from other men. This frequently got her trouble with the boss as it distracted the clients as well as the other employees. The women became quite catty and talked behind her back. The men, on the other hand, either did extra favours for her, didn’t take her skill-set seriously, or did their best to remain professional despite her dress.
Meaning and/or Motivation: Dressing sexy is not a sexual invitation by itself, but it does give us clues to the intensions and attitudes present. In most cases, overt cleavage, short skirts and heavy make-up tell us that women are available and sexually receptive.
Women who dress sexily all the time appear might make sexy attire a non-cue, but one must still wonder why they are motivated to dress overtly on a more frequent and often inappropriate context. Often times the overtly dressed baseline tells us that women seek male favours and male chivalry. This often goes hand-in-hand with flirty behaviour and casual sexual suggestions.
If, on the other hand, we notice extra dressiness, or extra frills or “ornamentation” we know that a woman is probably feeling sexually receptive. Conversely if we see a lack of dressiness, we know that a woman is particularly down and unreceptive. The research supports this. Women, at around the time of ovulation, will display more sexually. They will break out their high heels, tend to dance more, talk more suggestively, and even walk differently near ovulation.
While women might not be aware of the reason for dressing provocatively. Most women are aware of the signals they give off to men, and therefore shouldn’t be surprised to receive additional attention when they show more skin. From a prowling male perspective therefore, it would pay back in dividends to make note of which women dress provocatively and deviate from their baseline and which women wear more frills and glitz. Tight jeans, elaborate decoration and short skirts, not only signal sexuality, but also interest in sex.
Other times, when women travel in groups, they may be influenced by the decisions of others and therefore dress to fit in, despite their underlying mood. We see this often when groups of women travel to a bar together and dress provocatively to fit into their clique. In these instances, it is important to watch for cues in cluster to determine if women are in fact sexually receptive as indicated by their attire.
Cue Cluster: Dressing sexy, when it is matched to a woman’s sexual cycle will be accompanied by other sexual cues such as grooming, hair tossing, legs uncrossed and re-crossed, neck and wrist exposure, desire for proximity to men, leaning inward, licking the lips, batting the eyes, the parade, exaggeration of the hips by pushing them out, pushing the chest out be keeping the back arched, and so forth.
Body Language Category: Adornments, Amplifier, Arousal, Courtship displays, Indicators of sexual interest (IOsI).
Resources:
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