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When "fashion" = "multiple simultaneous signals of sexual availability" - then it is useful to know that this is happening.
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Speaking partly as an evolutionary psychologist and partly as a cultural observer, there are a number of signals which a significant proportion of sex-seeking men will regard as signals of sexual availability in a woman:
1. A lot of exposed skin; 2. Tight clothing; 3. Tattoos; 4. Piercings (other than ear lobe); 5. Ankle bracelets (except when ethnically traditional); 6. Smoking, drinking alcohol (or taking other drugs); 7. Bleached blond hair; 8. 'Bold' holding of eye contact; 9. Dressing and making-up and behaving as if considerably younger than the true chronological age (which can easily be seen from the back of the hands); 10. Very high heels; 11. Plastic surgery...
The list is not exhaustive. And the reasons why these signals act as signals are various - that is not the point here.
Given that any one of these will probably be interpreted, by a man looking for sex, as a signal of sexual availability: what is going on when so many modern women, including young and attractive women, deploy many of these signals simultaneously?
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Previously, this kind of multiple-signalling was deployed only by those who were selling sex; but now the practice is common, even in the workplace and education; and is nearly ubiquitous in some leisure situations. Even allowing that some women may 'merely' be following fashion, doing what other women do, and are initially unaware that they are sending out these signals; they will nonetheless have much the same effect - perhaps even more powerfully, since gullibility is added to the mix.
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Probably, multiple signals of sexual availability imply (to the male viewer) the high possibility of low-investment, short-termist, no-strings-attached sex - which is something that spontaneously attracts attention (especially, but not only, among men who are looking for low-investment, no-strings-attached sex) - attracts attention in a way that - if not yielded-to - must actively be resisted or trained-out; attention which makes the multi-signalling woman a centre and focus of competition among those men who are actively seeking low-investment, no-strings-attached sex (quite possibly - and this is significant - a centre of attention even when other, younger and more attractive, women are present).
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This attention and competition may be exciting and gratifying in the short term; may indeed be addictive.
Having experienced this - often elicited with effortless ease! - women may be reluctant to give it up, may want more of the same.
Having made herself a focus of attention by multiple sexual signalling; a woman may not only enjoy this but perhaps be able to 'manage' this attention, to her advantage - in
various ways to get compliments, gifts and favours; although the situation can easily get out of hand,
especially when alcohol and anonymity are added to the mix.
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From a man's perspective, or so evolutionary psychology tells us, there are two distinct strategies with respect to partners - long-term highly investing (e.g. marriage, leading to children) and short-term, low-investing (aiming at sex).
There is a probability that if a women signals unambiguously her sexual availability, then a man will (unconsciously, perhaps) put her into the category of short-term, low-investing - and will find himself reluctant ever to risk a long-term high investing relationship with someone he has observed in such blatant sexual signalling or perhaps in even in a context where this kind of signalling is found.
If so, this is one of many ways in which all-out pursuit of short-term pleasure can sabotage a realistic prospect of long-term gratification: firstly by the addictiveness of being desired and pursued, second by the deterrent effect on men who might be suitable long-term marriage partners.
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A further spin on this is when married women, perhaps married women with children, engage in this kind of multiple signalling of sexual availability.
At the very least this is a bad prognostic sign - that even wives and mothers want to send out indiscriminate sexual signals which will (like it or not - and presumably they do like it or else they would not do it?) provoke sexual kinds of attention.
Female sexuality is a potent force in human affairs - but like any powerful weapon its deployment always contains potential risks and potentially incurs costs - both individual and social.
It is as well to be aware of these things; if possible, before it is too late...
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5 comments:
Women will signal their femininity. They want to and men want them to. So if conventional signals of femininity are suppressed because the sexes are a patriarchal plot, you leave no outlet except to signal sexuality. Feminism, like liberalism, creates the bogeyman it claims to be fighting.
I agree with Adam. In places like Russia where femininity has not been repressed, you see much less of most of the things on this list--though you see more high heels and tight dresses than in the West.
The masculinization of Western women forces them to fall back on masculine forms of sexual signalling to accomplish what was once achieved through girlishness and sweetness.
Effective birth control gave women a degree of freedom with sex which historically was unavailable. Even so, the old sexually conservative responses on the part of women were driven by the fear of pregnancy and social reaction. (In the past, signalling sexual interest and hunger by a woman was considered cheap and vulgar.)
So what has changed today, such that many women want to project sexual voraciousness? I get the high that the attention can bring, and that society permits this in large measure without opprobrium, but it is a very quick change, having come to pass in a matter of decades.
The huntress has replaced the virgin maiden, and she shows no signs of reverting back to the old role.
According to feminists - at least those who seem to get their views circulated in the mass media - even when it puts them in harm's way, women have a "right" to send out multiple sexual signals and the more licentious the better. Thus should a sex-seeking wretch respond to what he believes is a promiscuous woman advertising her availability, he risks being accused of rape if the woman has second thoughts in the morning.
When, quite recently, I made this commonplace observation in the hearing of an educated woman, she vehemently defended a woman's liberty to flaunt her sexuality without consequences.
The feminist "slut" parades are a case in point, an atrocious example of the feminist view that women can dress any way they choose, can flirt with men, can deliberately go after married men, yet deny all responsibility for the dreadful consequences that often follow such behaviour. I believe that many cases of adultery can be traced to the wicked behaviour of some women and the dangerously foolish responses of some men to such women. Oh that men would flee from such women just as they would flee from a plague. Provocative dress is dangerous. I heard of a retired detective with 17 years experience who stated that in most cases of sexual assaults against women, provocative, immodest dress was a factor.
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