Body Language of Skirt Hike
Cue: Skirt Hike.
Synonym(s): Hiking The Skirt, Pulling Up The Skirt, Lifting The Skirt.
Description: The “skirt hike” happens by fingering and playing with the bottom ridge of the skirt. Other times, the skirt hike happens in a more pronounced way by grabbing the bottom of the skirt and pulling it up slightly to reveal more leg.
In One Sentence: The skirt hike is a subconscious nonverbal cue signaling sexual interest.
How To Use it: Women can use the skirt hike to tantalize potential male suitors. Normally this cue happens subconsciously as a woman plays with the material at the bottom of her short skirt. She may also slightly raise it. However, this can be done on purpose as well. Raising the skirt to show a little more leg while making eye contact should be enough to arouse the curiosity of men of interest. The cue is potent while standing, but it can also be done while sitting. If you see that an undesirable man notices the cues, simply shove the skirt back down while avoiding eye contact.
Context: Dating.
Verbal Translation: “This skirt is really getting in the way of my attractiveness, and way too long to attract the attention of the boys, so I’m going to pull it up a little bit and see who notices. Hopefully someone cute or else I’m going to push it back down in a hurry.”
Variant: See Symbolic Stripping or Removing Clothing.
Cue In Action: a) Newly single, Debbie was with her friends casually enjoying a drink at the bar. One hand clasping her drink, the other dangled loosely to her side while fiddling with the bottom of her skirt. Just then, she noticed a sweaty, awkward man, staring at her. She quickly brought her hand up, grabbed her straw, turned her back toward him and huddled in with her friends. b) Later in the evening Debbie had met a man named Dave. She and he had been carrying on for some time. Dave, an expert on body language, noticed that she was casually playing with the riffled edge of her skirt and would pull it up a bit at a time and then drop it and smooth it back down. He took this as a strong message of coy interest and availability.
Meaning and/or Motivation: The skirt hike is an interesting body language cue because it happens completely subconsciously with usually no awareness at all. It is so subtle though that only those looking specifically for it will actually see it. This motion is usually done toward a man of interest and followed by eye contact, but other times, happens as advertisement of the woman’s availability, generally – an open for business sign, so to speak. If she catches someone else notice this gesture that she isn’t interested in, however, she will quickly force the skirt back down and break eye contact.
Cue Cluster: It is possible that the skirt hike cue happen independent of other cues as a general broadcast signal directed to the room. It may also be anchored to a specific person through eye contact coupled with submissive cues such as eyes cast downward, batting eyelashes, laughing and giggling, touching the hand, forearm or other areas, head lowered or bowed, neck titled to the side, smiling, grooming either the self or person of interest, playing with the hair or hair tossing, and so forth.
Body Language Category: Amplifier, Courtship display, Indicators of sexual interest (IOsI), Intention movements, Leaked or involuntary body language, Microgestures, Tie signals.
Resources:
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