How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? (29 page)
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Authors: David Feldman
Maybe women kicking a leg up while kissing has something to do with most women having to reach up to kiss their love! Most men, being taller, kiss down. The leg up may be an automatic balancing response, and they are probably unaware that they even do it.
Of course, kicking doesn’t bring them straight up; it also moves women forward, as Kelli Zimmerman explains:
Women stand on the tiptoe of one leg while lifting the other so that they can lean forward. Why we don’t just ask the tall men to bend down a little bit is beyond me.
Maybe, Kelli, the reason is that the leg kicking facilitates more than just lip clinching, as David Ryback postulates:
Women…can get their upper bodies closer to the men of their desire by standing on tiptoe and kicking up one leg behind them. If you find this hard to believe, try standing close to a wall. Then lift one leg behind you. You’ll find yourself “hugging” the wall.
We just did. Thanks, David, that’s the closest we’ve come to an intimate relationship in months.
Although all of these explanations make some sense, we have a nagging suspicion there is more to the issue. Lane Chaffin of Temple, Texas, is the only reader who indicated that height is not the only factor in leg kicking. He has never seen a short man kick up his leg when kissing a taller woman,
probably because it would make the man feel weak and the (taller) woman would feel uncomfortable because she would be in a physically awkward position. Maybe the leg kicking started as a woman’s exhibition of trust in her male companion.
Could be. Our informal survey indicates that leg kicking occurs only in public places (a classic place: airports, when loved ones greet one another). And leg kicking is clearly a romantic gesture: If it were merely a convenience to compensate for height differences, why don’t daughters kick up their legs when kissing their fathers good night? Or little kids when kissing their taller grandparents?
We wouldn’t be surprised if the reason why we find leg kicking in public places is that the gesture is used by the woman, usually subconsciously, as a marker, to stake a claim that “this man is mine”—to the world and to other women in particular. Outlandish? Not really. When we see couples strolling down the street, with the man putting his arm over the shoulder of his companion, it is a way of telling the world, “She’s taken.” Yet in the privacy of their own home, husbands and wives seldom walk hand in hand from the dining room to the kitchen to do the dishes after a meal or while taking the garbage outside.
Anyone have any better theories?
Submitted by Jerrod Larson of South Bend, Indiana. Thanks also to Rosemary Lambert of Kanata, Ontario
.
FRUSTABLE 4:
Women generally possess more body fat than men? So why do women tend to feel colder than men in the same environment?
Many readers tackled this Frustable, but we were most impressed with the arguments of two professors, especially because their two discussions complement each other. Dallas Brozik, chair of the department of finance and business law at Marshall University, theorizes why the extra fat might make a woman feel cooler rather than hotter than men in the same room:
The reason that women may feel chilled even with an extra layer of body fat has to do with the body’s attempt to maintain a central core temperature. As the body tries to maintain 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the blood system is used to transfer inner heat to the skin, where it can be radiated away. Heat transfer can only be accomplished through a temperature gradient across a boundary, and the additional layer of fat makes it more difficult for women to rid themselves of excess heat.
At this point the body has two mechanisms it can employ to rid itself of the excess heat. First, it could raise the core temperature to establish the proper temperature gradient with the ambient external temperature. But the body is trying
not
to heat up, so this mechanism is self-defeating. The second mechanism is to sweat so as to bring evaporative cooling into play. The extra layer of fat makes women sweat a little more than men under the same conditions. And when this sweat is evaporated, the nerve cells in the skin feel the chilling effect; hence, women will tend to feel colder than men under similar conditions.
But other physiological forces are at work, deftly explained by Richard Landesman, of the department of zoology at the University of Vermont:
Body temperature is the result of metabolism, and, at rest, the bulk of the heat to warm the body is produced by the liver, heart, brain, endocrine organs, and skeletal muscle. The latter is responsible for about 30 percent of heat production at rest. During exercise, the heat produced by the muscles contributes significantly to body temperature.
There are two temperature regions of the body: the core, whose temperature remains relatively constant; and the shell or surface, whose temperature tends to vary with physical and environmental changes.
There are many mechanisms to raise and lower the temperature of the body: for example, shivering raises the temperature and sweating lowers the temperature. Another way to conserve heat is for the blood vessels in the skin to vasoconstrict, thereby shunting the warm blood to the core of the body. One obvious symptom of vasoconstriction is for the skin to feel cold. Now with that preamble, the answer to the Frustable…
1. As a general rule, men have more muscle mass than do women; therefore, men can maintain their body temperature at rest without feeling as cold as women.
2. Women do have more subcutaneous fat compared to men. This layer serves to give the women body shape as well as to provide a layer of insulation. When it is cool, the blood vessels in the skin vasoconstrict, shunting the warm blood into the core of the body. The skin now feels cool. The layer of insulating fat, while conserving the heat in the core of the body, contributes to the skin remaining cool.
Submitted by David Held of Somerset, New Jersey. Thanks also to Bruce Kershner of Williamsville, New York
.
Complimentary books go to Dallas Brozik of Huntington, West Virginia, and Richard Landesman of Burlington, Vermont
.
FRUSTABLE 5:
Why is the average woman a much better dancer than the average man?
Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Gregory Hines aren’t exactly chopped liver in the dance department, so we know that men
can
dance well. The conundrum is why the average man doesn’t.
Our readers came up with five possible explanations:
1. Girls Practice Dancing More Than Boys
This was by far the most popular theory among
Imponderables
readers. Jody Jamieson Dobbs’s response was typical:
Women start at an early age dancing with their moms, sisters, and friends—they don’t need male partners. Men wouldn’t be caught dead dancing with each other. So females get to practice from a very early age and, let’s face it, practice makes perfect. (I’m an excellent dancer and my husband is an excellent hunter and fisherman.)
Ah, the typical American family: the wife is graceful, while the husband is proficient at protein-gathering.
But why don’t boys dance together…
2. Dancing Is for Sissies
Western culture has deeply conflicting feelings about male dancers. On the one hand, fictional depictions of ballroom dancers, ranging from Fred Astaire to John Travolta to Gene Kelly to Patrick Swayze, invariably portray the male as virile and extremely attractive to women. Yet the general attitude of the average boy has not changed much since Robert Coulson of Hartford City, Indiana, was avoiding the dance floor:
I can’t speak for the current generation, but when I was a boy, dancing was considered “sissy.” I went to a rural school, and I don’t think any male ever learned to dance while I was there. From TV reports, boys today seem willing to learn the more athletic dances, such as break-dancing, but I suspect that ballroom dancing is still considered beneath contempt.
Curiously, though, dancing has often been considered a macho pursuit among diverse working-class subcultures, ranging from the Italians depicted in
Saturday Night Fever
, the spiritual descendants of the kids who danced on “American Bandstand” in the 1950s, to the African-Americans in inner cities, where break-dancing and hip-hop cultures emerged.
Another correspondent, Joseph M. Novak of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, argues that from the earliest ages, boys are touted toward what society deems gender-specific physical activities emphasizing strength and power, such as football and wrestling. Girls, on the other hand, are encouraged to develop grace and beauty, in sports such as gymnastics and arts such as ballet. Novak even argues that the musculature of the two genders might play a factor: “Who do you think is a better dancer, Arnold [Schwarzenegger] or Maria [Shriver]?”
We’re betting on Maria. But we’re still concerned that we haven’t pinned down why dancing is considered a feminine form. Some readers feel the answer is…
3. Dancing Is an Emotional Expression, and Men Don’t Like to Express Their Emotions
Cheryl Stevens’s response speaks for several readers:
Dance is an emotional expression, like any art. Men are not (or were not) encouraged to express their emotions, especially with potential spectators around. Maybe as men are allowed to be more sensitive, they’ll become better dancers.
Cheryl, we’re betting that big bands will come back before men become more sensitive. But we like your point about spectators. Men tend to open up emotionally to a few selected intimate friends, whereas women are more likely to share emotions with acquaintances; therefore, men might be more reluctant to express their emotions (and thus their vulnerability) in public, even through dance.
Still, why would men have no problem expressing emotion in writing or music but stumble upon dance? Perhaps the answer is that while we don’t tend to read the average Joe’s prose or listen to an amateur’s musical stabs, we are constantly subjected, whether at wedding parties or at discos, to the prancing of amateur dancers, many of whom are coerced onto dance floors by their dates or mates. After all, there are plenty of spectacularly graceful
professional
male dancers; maybe the average man would be just as reticent about playing the oboe or reciting his poetry in public.
4. Men Don’t Like to Dance, So They Don’t Do It Well
This may not be the most profound explanation, but it makes some sense. For all the reasons stated above, many men don’t like to dance. LaNue Parnell-Reynolds of Warren, Arkansas, thinks this insight unlocks the Frustable:
You need to watch some
country
dancing! Men are good at what the enjoy. More women than men like ballroom-type dancing.
5. Dancing Seduces Men More Easily than Women
We have no idea if Robin Pearce’s theory is correct, but it was the only answer we received that ties together the many threads we’ve discussed in a way that, well, might bag her an “A” in an anthropology course:
Dancing, like brightly colored clothing and makeup, is a way of visually displaying one’s self to potential mates. Since men are visually oriented, women take greater pains to make themselves attractive [to men], and this includes dancing well; gay men are usually excellent dancers for the same reason [they are also trying to attract men].
Your average straight white American male subconsciously feels that dancing well, like being too concerned with one’s appearance, is not masculine. However, heterosexual men in cultures where visual display is considered appropriate for the male (i.e., Latin, Mediterranean, and black men) both dance well and dress colorfully.
Robin is obviously generalizing about gender and various ethnic and national types, but her notion is fascinating. After all, choreographers and lyricists constantly cast dance as a metaphor for sex. And although it is hard to conjure up any woman being enticed by the fellow performing a lumbering lambada at the disco, it is hard to argue with Pearce that the ultimate, if often subconscious, goal of much social dancing is seduction.
While most men are attracted
by
the dancing of potential mates, it doesn’t necessarily follow that most men are attractive
when they dance
. Maybe the maladroit average male is showing rare good sense in being a wallflower—better not to attract a mate than to lose any chance by flailing around on the dance floor.
