Body Language of Lip Biting or Biting The Lip
Cue: Lip Biting or Biting The Lip
Synonym(s): Biting The Lip.
Description: Lightly biting the top or bottom lip with the teeth suddenly and in response to a particular stimuli or habitually and chronically.
In One Sentence: Lip biting is a sign of self restraint.
How To Use it: Women in dating can use the signal to show men that they are holding back “negative” or rather, naughty, sexually thoughts. When done properly with eye contact the signal is unmistakable. To send an even more powerful message, women should cast their eyes to the rest of the man’s body as this signals a desire for more than just friendship.
You might use lip biting in regular context to signal that you are holding back your tongue. This shows nonverbal disagreement without the risk of having to actually speak out.
Avoid chronic lip biting and chewing as this will tell others that you are self harming due to insecurity or anxiety.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “I’m biting my lip to hold myself back because I feel that if I stop biting, my lips might be free to say something I will regret.”
Variant: As the lip bite indicates that thoughts are being held back, a woman may use it in a dating context to signal that she is holding back naughty sexual thoughts. It is particularly salient when combined with eye contact or eyes dropping to his torso, genitals, or rump. See Lip Chewing or Chewing The Lips.
Cue In Action: She was biting her lip when her boyfriend bought her some really nice flowers, but ones of which she had previously experienced an allergic reaction.
Meaning and/or Motivation: Biting the mouth indicates hidden insecurity, anxiety, embarrassment, vulnerability and a lack of self confidence. It’s main cause, however, is that an idea is being held back – “by the skin of their teeth.” It’s where the saying goes “biting one’s lip” when voicing their opinion is what someone truly desires.
However, when someone bites their lip, they feel that their idea will not be well received or they don’t feel confident enough to stand up to challenges that might raise. Other times a person bites their lip because they are carrying a negative thought they don’t want to share.
When lip biting is done chronically, it can signal persistent underlying negative feelings. In this case, lip biting is in effort to calm and pacify through energy displacement and by offering them a source of control over their pain. It is a milder version of self cutting where high anxiety individuals will use knives to scare themselves because they feel their internal world is beyond their control.
Biting the lip has also been commonly associated with female sexual seduction where the lip is bitten while observing an attractive man. The roots are similar to what is mentioned above, that is, a restraint mechanism, where the woman holds herself back from acting on her sexual impulses.
Cue Cluster: Alongside lip biting expect to see eyes averted, head down, body turned away or loose trying to blend in, hands in the pockets or hidden under a table, neck scratching or holding the back of the neck in restraint.
Body Language Category: Aggressive body language, Courtship display, Clenching and gripping, Indicators of sexual interest (IOsI), Masked emotions, Micromessaging, Nervous body language, Pacifying body language, Stressful body language, Worry body language.
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