Show me your beak
September 20, 2006 | 12:00am
As eagerly anticipated as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was, here comes the fourth part of our "Body Language" series – where your jiggling thighs just don’t know how to lie.
Reluctantly, I will cut short what would have been a riveting 20-part body language series (where even your bellybutton lint would not have been spared) because of the social catastrophe that is taking place. Imaginary reports have reached me that women have faked rigor mortis in bars fearing that they may unwittingly transmit body language signals to men who behave like they should have been neutered at birth. Meanwhile, men have begun to interpret the slightest gesture by a woman, like breathing, as a sign that she is in desperate need of his genetic material.
However, I do not like to waste my extensive research from books like Men Fake Foreplay and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex (yes, they both actually exist), so allow me to unveil the rest of the female courtship signals that leave men unintelligible (at least more than we already are). But before that, a caveat: despite being more kapalmuks than your average detained PCGG executive, I have not field-tested the veracity of these female body language claims in bars and strip joints because I fear rejection, public humiliation and, most importantly, permanent bodily harm. Instead, I wanted to experiment with these courtship signals in an atmosphere free from embarrassment. So I tried them out on my Yaya at home. The results were more effective than I would like to admit.
If it ain’t broke, then you’re in luck (a.k.a. Limp Wrist): When a woman is walking or sitting down while sporting a limp wrist, this attracts the attention of alpha males because it is a "submission signal" (This is not to be mistaken as the submission signal used in the Ultimate Fighting Championships). This gesture is similar to the way that a bird feigns a damaged wing to distract prey away from her nest. Behavioral theorists claim that a limp wrist is attractive to Martians because it makes them feel as if they can dominate the "hapless" Venusians. But, as men who were initially attracted to limp-wristed women and are now joyfully incarcerated by them can attest to, the operative words here are "as if." Talk about being limp.
Click-O-Meter: Plus five clicks if a woman approaches you with a limp wrist. Minus 10 clicks when you find out that her wrist wasn’t limp, it was broken. Minus 20 clicks if she plans to break her wrist against the punching bag that is your face because you just tried the classic pickup line on her ("Nice shoes…"). Minus 35 clicks if a man approaches you with a limp wrist (unless that’s your thing).
I touch myself (a.k.a. I Touch Myself) (Duh). Because men have the sensitivity of petroleum executives during oil spills when it comes to picking up flirting cues from women, nature needed to evolve women’s bodies into "sexual signaling" systems that would attract a man’s attention (otherwise men might have made beer kegs their life-long partners). So when women flirt with beer-loving men, they often instinctively play up their "anatomical" differences – such as crossing their legs to make them appear smaller or keeping their arms close to their body. However, the gesture that turns men’s knees to the consistency of taho is when a woman draws attention to supple, feminine parts of her body, such as the neck, cleavage, inner wrists and thighs, through self-touching.
According to The Definitive Book of Body Language, our minds unconsciously act out our bodies’ secret desires through self-touching (something a lot of men have become conscious of since the onset of puberty). Thus, when a woman slowly and tantalizingly strokes her thigh, neck or throat, it might possibly be that she is imagining what it might feel like if the man was initiating the touch. When a man receives such a flirting cue, he will also imagine her touch when he gets back home.
Click-O-Meter: Plus five clicks if she starts touching herself on publicly acceptable body parts. Plus 25 clicks if she starts touching another woman. Minus 35 clicks if she leaves the bar with that woman. Minus 50 clicks if you think you can touch yourself as well while she does it.
Cuts like a knife (a.k.a. A Woman Unsheathes Her Bladed Weapon). When a woman takes out a jewelry-encrusted balisong from her purse or she wields her butter knife with the surgical precision of a manunuli or she reveals a blade hidden underneath her stiletto heel or if she displays her serrated fingernails that can cut through well-done steak – this is not body language at all. This is a warning sign to make yourself scarcer than former agriculture undersecretaries or else she will dismember you and feed your extremities to her dogs. Run as fast as your scrawny chicken legs can take you.
Click-O-Meter: What click-click are you talking about!? I said run, fool, run!!
The next combination of female courtship signals are apparently the most potent forms of flirting that have been perfected over millions of years of men being stabbed in the gut with sharpened objects. If a woman performs this sequence of gestures on you, your Click-O-Meter will simply break in half. And what have behavioral scientists termed these most crucial gestures that are designed to preserve reproduction as we know it? It is called preening. Preening. I don’t know about you, but I have never used that word in casual conversation. In fact, I have never used the word in conversation at all. However, the word itself does sound pretty suggestive ("Hey babe, you wanna preen me? That’s right Yaya, I’m talking to you."). So I checked out the dictionary, and the primary definition was to smooth or clean your feathers with your beak. The most potent flirting forms known to man were named after erotic bird gestures. I have never known birds to be such erotic creatures, but of course I have never dated any birds. However, even in Disney cartoons I have never heard Donald excitedly proclaim, "I saw Daisy preening herself." (But if Donald did get excited over Daisy, it would be much ado about nothing once this exhibitionist duck finally realizes that he has been drawn without genitalia). Sigh, these behavioral scientists should get out to bars more often and get stabbed in the gut instead of cooping themselves in labs to study animal porn. But as usual, I digress.
Super wan-tu-tri (and por) (a.k.a. Head Toss, Hair Flip, Laugh and Head Tilt). A man will find out if a woman finds him more interesting than watching her toenail paint dry if anything he says turns out to be gut-busting funny such as "I think the Charter change is a genuine people’s initiative." (Hmm, that might not be fair, since anybody would laugh out their intestines if they heard that). If a man belches out anything that closely resembles wit, these are the step-by-step indications to find out if you are more interesting than colored toenails:
Steps 1 and 2. The woman tosses her head back and flicks her hair over the shoulders away from her face like she is auditioning for a shampoo commercial. Or she will seductively push her hair away from her face while throwing the man a fleeting come-hither look.
Step 3. The woman laughs. And the more boisterous her laughter, the better. If she bows her head, retreats behind her palms and then stifles a laugh like a kolehiyala, you haven’t gotten her kiliti just yet. But if she cackles like a tsismis columnist dishing out a Sunday scoop, then you know you’re blind item material.
Step 4. The woman tilts her head to the side. Tilting the head to one side is an indication that there is reciprocated interest and that she will not knife you in the gut for now. As an added bonus, men should try tilting their head and see if the woman tilts her head in the same direction. If they tilt their head even slightly, you know that she is considering you to be the debtor of all her future credit card purchases.
So for my four readers who have been following my Pogi columns as closely as Pinoy Dream Academy, here is a summation on female body language: If a woman crosses, uncrosses and entwines her legs, dangles her shoe from her foot, exposes her wrists, adjusts her clothes, exposes her armpits, fondles a wineglass, lets you molest her handbag, undulates her hips, glances over you from over her shoulder, wets her lips and pouts with her mouth slightly open, presents her limp wrist, touches herself permissibly, tosses her head back, swooshes her hair from side to side, laughs heartily, tilts her head and then cleans herself with her beak, then you know that she is flirting with you. It is either that or she is having a seizure.
For comments, suggestions or you want to be preened, e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.com. Click on to the following: Please come and watch me make a fool of myself (more than usual) as I battle it out with fellow media DJs STAR columnist JR Isaac, Karla Alindahao, Bea Constantino and Tals Diaz at the Motorola iDJ Search Launch Party at Teatrino Promenade Greenhills on September 23 (Saturday) 9 p.m. If you think my DJ-ing skills are piss-poor pathetic, you can always donate money to the "RJ Learns to Rock Foundation." If booty-shaking ain’t your thang because you’re too damn stiff, Yoga Manila will hold a one-day workshop on September 25 with Lawrence Biscontini, an expert on Shakti, which combines Yoga, T’ai Chi and Pilates. There will be an Alabang class at 10 a.m. and a Makati class at 6:30 p.m. Please contact yogamanilatalabang@gmail.com or text 0920-6486536.
Reluctantly, I will cut short what would have been a riveting 20-part body language series (where even your bellybutton lint would not have been spared) because of the social catastrophe that is taking place. Imaginary reports have reached me that women have faked rigor mortis in bars fearing that they may unwittingly transmit body language signals to men who behave like they should have been neutered at birth. Meanwhile, men have begun to interpret the slightest gesture by a woman, like breathing, as a sign that she is in desperate need of his genetic material.
However, I do not like to waste my extensive research from books like Men Fake Foreplay and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex (yes, they both actually exist), so allow me to unveil the rest of the female courtship signals that leave men unintelligible (at least more than we already are). But before that, a caveat: despite being more kapalmuks than your average detained PCGG executive, I have not field-tested the veracity of these female body language claims in bars and strip joints because I fear rejection, public humiliation and, most importantly, permanent bodily harm. Instead, I wanted to experiment with these courtship signals in an atmosphere free from embarrassment. So I tried them out on my Yaya at home. The results were more effective than I would like to admit.
If it ain’t broke, then you’re in luck (a.k.a. Limp Wrist): When a woman is walking or sitting down while sporting a limp wrist, this attracts the attention of alpha males because it is a "submission signal" (This is not to be mistaken as the submission signal used in the Ultimate Fighting Championships). This gesture is similar to the way that a bird feigns a damaged wing to distract prey away from her nest. Behavioral theorists claim that a limp wrist is attractive to Martians because it makes them feel as if they can dominate the "hapless" Venusians. But, as men who were initially attracted to limp-wristed women and are now joyfully incarcerated by them can attest to, the operative words here are "as if." Talk about being limp.
Click-O-Meter: Plus five clicks if a woman approaches you with a limp wrist. Minus 10 clicks when you find out that her wrist wasn’t limp, it was broken. Minus 20 clicks if she plans to break her wrist against the punching bag that is your face because you just tried the classic pickup line on her ("Nice shoes…"). Minus 35 clicks if a man approaches you with a limp wrist (unless that’s your thing).
I touch myself (a.k.a. I Touch Myself) (Duh). Because men have the sensitivity of petroleum executives during oil spills when it comes to picking up flirting cues from women, nature needed to evolve women’s bodies into "sexual signaling" systems that would attract a man’s attention (otherwise men might have made beer kegs their life-long partners). So when women flirt with beer-loving men, they often instinctively play up their "anatomical" differences – such as crossing their legs to make them appear smaller or keeping their arms close to their body. However, the gesture that turns men’s knees to the consistency of taho is when a woman draws attention to supple, feminine parts of her body, such as the neck, cleavage, inner wrists and thighs, through self-touching.
According to The Definitive Book of Body Language, our minds unconsciously act out our bodies’ secret desires through self-touching (something a lot of men have become conscious of since the onset of puberty). Thus, when a woman slowly and tantalizingly strokes her thigh, neck or throat, it might possibly be that she is imagining what it might feel like if the man was initiating the touch. When a man receives such a flirting cue, he will also imagine her touch when he gets back home.
Click-O-Meter: Plus five clicks if she starts touching herself on publicly acceptable body parts. Plus 25 clicks if she starts touching another woman. Minus 35 clicks if she leaves the bar with that woman. Minus 50 clicks if you think you can touch yourself as well while she does it.
Cuts like a knife (a.k.a. A Woman Unsheathes Her Bladed Weapon). When a woman takes out a jewelry-encrusted balisong from her purse or she wields her butter knife with the surgical precision of a manunuli or she reveals a blade hidden underneath her stiletto heel or if she displays her serrated fingernails that can cut through well-done steak – this is not body language at all. This is a warning sign to make yourself scarcer than former agriculture undersecretaries or else she will dismember you and feed your extremities to her dogs. Run as fast as your scrawny chicken legs can take you.
Click-O-Meter: What click-click are you talking about!? I said run, fool, run!!
The next combination of female courtship signals are apparently the most potent forms of flirting that have been perfected over millions of years of men being stabbed in the gut with sharpened objects. If a woman performs this sequence of gestures on you, your Click-O-Meter will simply break in half. And what have behavioral scientists termed these most crucial gestures that are designed to preserve reproduction as we know it? It is called preening. Preening. I don’t know about you, but I have never used that word in casual conversation. In fact, I have never used the word in conversation at all. However, the word itself does sound pretty suggestive ("Hey babe, you wanna preen me? That’s right Yaya, I’m talking to you."). So I checked out the dictionary, and the primary definition was to smooth or clean your feathers with your beak. The most potent flirting forms known to man were named after erotic bird gestures. I have never known birds to be such erotic creatures, but of course I have never dated any birds. However, even in Disney cartoons I have never heard Donald excitedly proclaim, "I saw Daisy preening herself." (But if Donald did get excited over Daisy, it would be much ado about nothing once this exhibitionist duck finally realizes that he has been drawn without genitalia). Sigh, these behavioral scientists should get out to bars more often and get stabbed in the gut instead of cooping themselves in labs to study animal porn. But as usual, I digress.
Super wan-tu-tri (and por) (a.k.a. Head Toss, Hair Flip, Laugh and Head Tilt). A man will find out if a woman finds him more interesting than watching her toenail paint dry if anything he says turns out to be gut-busting funny such as "I think the Charter change is a genuine people’s initiative." (Hmm, that might not be fair, since anybody would laugh out their intestines if they heard that). If a man belches out anything that closely resembles wit, these are the step-by-step indications to find out if you are more interesting than colored toenails:
Steps 1 and 2. The woman tosses her head back and flicks her hair over the shoulders away from her face like she is auditioning for a shampoo commercial. Or she will seductively push her hair away from her face while throwing the man a fleeting come-hither look.
Step 3. The woman laughs. And the more boisterous her laughter, the better. If she bows her head, retreats behind her palms and then stifles a laugh like a kolehiyala, you haven’t gotten her kiliti just yet. But if she cackles like a tsismis columnist dishing out a Sunday scoop, then you know you’re blind item material.
Step 4. The woman tilts her head to the side. Tilting the head to one side is an indication that there is reciprocated interest and that she will not knife you in the gut for now. As an added bonus, men should try tilting their head and see if the woman tilts her head in the same direction. If they tilt their head even slightly, you know that she is considering you to be the debtor of all her future credit card purchases.
So for my four readers who have been following my Pogi columns as closely as Pinoy Dream Academy, here is a summation on female body language: If a woman crosses, uncrosses and entwines her legs, dangles her shoe from her foot, exposes her wrists, adjusts her clothes, exposes her armpits, fondles a wineglass, lets you molest her handbag, undulates her hips, glances over you from over her shoulder, wets her lips and pouts with her mouth slightly open, presents her limp wrist, touches herself permissibly, tosses her head back, swooshes her hair from side to side, laughs heartily, tilts her head and then cleans herself with her beak, then you know that she is flirting with you. It is either that or she is having a seizure.
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