Move that groovy thang!

This article is the third in a series on the video What's The Problem With Nudity?

Clothes shaped our culture and identity from the moment we started we using them to hide our nakedness. But this has caused a problem unique to humans. All the important elements needed for sexual attraction in primates of a same species are hidden by clothing in humans.

In other primates, the female signals her fertility and her willingness to mate through striking visual signs on her posterior. In humans, clothing would conceal such signs, if they were still used. Even women in cultures where nudity is the norm do not display their fertility in this way.

Dr. Kerri Johnson, a researcher at the UCLA, created a test to see how we can tell men from women despite clothing which conceals obvious signs like genitals and breasts. First, she noted that women generally have an hourglass shape, while men have a more tubular shape. The ratio between waist and hips is another factor taken into account. Also, women tend to have a lateral hip sway, back and forth, and somewhat up and down. Men tend to have a shoulder swagger.

Participants were shown present computer screen of silhouettes walking. The silhouettes aren’t really dressed or naked. The participants were asked to determine if the walking figures were male or female. There was no “correct” answer. Researchers simply wanted to see what parts of the moving figures were looked at by the participants to make their determination. They did this with special goggles designed to show how the participant’s eyes moved.

It was found that both genders let their eyes roam freely around the upper torso and the hips, and seemed to assess hips-to-waist ratio, as well as how they moved. (A similar test was tried with two of the documentary volunteers, a woman and a man. Instead of using figures on a computer, they were asked to watch other volunteers either standing still or in motion. The woman allowed her eyes to roam freely from the shoulders to the hips. But the man, perhaps fearing how the results could be interpreted, kept his gaze on the people’s faces.)

The researchers also looked at how men might be able to detect fertility in women. Nobody really knows yet, but several studies suggest that there is a kind of sixth sense that allows men, even strangers, to subconsciously detect signs of fertility and ovulation in women. Dr. Johnson says that according to one study, exotic dancers received more generous tips during days of greatest fertility. One possibility would be changes in a woman’s body odour, which would make them appear more attractive on days of high fertility.

This body odour clue brings us to the question left hanging in the posting of this series: Why do we still have pubic hair? It is believed that these hairs are used for scent communication. Bacteria in pubic hair feed off hormones in the sweat, producing a scent odour that can either cause or increase attraction. If this is true, pubic hair has become the secret weapon of sexual attraction in humans.

The documentary does not say explicitly why we have armpit hair. Although it may play a similar role to that of pubic hair in sexual attraction, it is also possible that the hair is there simply to react with sweat and provide lubrication for the arms. Pubic hair would play a similar role for the lower limbs.