Dancing Skills Essential for 19th Century Sexual Success
The BBC analysed the dating practices at typical 19th century Balls this week and revealed that being good at dancing was absolutely essential for avoiding ‘social disaster’ and being left on the shelf.
“The ability to dance was key to romantic success and the movements of the dance mimicked the to and fro of courtship,” Amanda Vickery, professor of early modern history at Queen Mary, University of London told the BBC “Clumsiness was sexual suicide.” (BBC)
Her assessment matched that of contemporary British psychologist Peter Lovatt who in 2009 published a report the phenomenon of ‘Dad dancing’ based on research he carried out on the dancing techniques of 14,000 people.
Noticing that men aged between 35 and 60 ‘typically attempt complex moves with limited co-ordination’, Dr Lovatt suggested they could be subconsciously discouraging nubile 18 year-olds.
“The message their dancing sends out is ‘stay away, I’m not fertile’,” he told the Daily Telegraph, “It’s like an apple that is going brown,” he added, “You want a fresh green one instead.”
The psychology behind successful romance was also analysed by Scottish psychology school The Face Research Lab several years ago, who discovered that looking at someone directly increases a person’s attractiveness.
“Faces that were looking directly at the viewer were judged more attractive than faces with averted gaze,” study chief Dr Claire Conway told the Proceedings of the Royal Society magazine.
“This shows that people prefer faces that appear to like them and that attraction is not simply about physical beauty, she added.
http://faceresearch.org/students/integration (Staring & Intimidation: “People are quicker to classify angry faces as looking angry when they are shown with direct gaze than when they are shown with averted gaze. By contrast, people are quicker to classify fearful faces as looking scared when they are shown with averted gaze than when they are shown with direct gaze . . .”)
Jonty Skrufff: https://twitter.com/djjontyskrufff
