Here's a shocker. Recent research shows that many straight men often fail to impress women when we take to the dance floor. Check out the story and video here.
Researchers studied the freestyle dancing techniques commonly deployed by hapless men in nightclubs, to determine which were most likely to impress female onlookers.
Among their findings they concluded that exaggerated "dad" dancing...was the least attractive.
Another style unlikely to win a woman's heart was "the shuffle", where self-conscious males shift from foot to foot accompanied with the occasional uncomfortable hand-wring.
Highly-co-ordinated and complex dance moves, such as the point-and-shake moves employed by Travolta's character Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, were deemed the most attractive.
I started to give these guys credit for at least being thorough, and then I read the following paragraph:
Dr Lovatt, who was a professional dancer before he went into academia, filmed 15 short video clips of himself performing different dance moves and blurred out his physical features so that only his movements were visible. He showed the videos to 55 women and asked them to rate how masculine, dominant and attractive each dance move was.
Woop! Woop! Credibility Alert! Talk about a vanity project!
I can just imagine this guy screening his dance clips like an optometrist tests lens combinations. 55 poor women strapped to an exam chair as he asks, "sexier now?... or sexier now?... OK... sexier now... or sexier now?... that may or may not be me, by the way... but it's sexy, right?"
Just because the Travolta-point-and-shake got one middle-aged Brit high marks in a rigged experiment does not make that move a guaranteed success, however. I'm not sure 20-year-old girls of any nationality are buying what he's selling.
Forget the research, this is a no-brainer. Of course women (and gay men) are attracted to guys who can dance in a capable and controlled way. Because (duh!) those skills are probably directly correlated to other, ahem, skills which may be necessary as the evening progresses. It's primal.
A few of us are completely hopeless, of course. But maybe straight guys have been too cautious and reserved in this regard. We might have better luck, as a team, if we loosened up a little. But let's not let gay guys off the hook here either. Have you seen all the "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" YouTube videos out there? Let's all try capable AND controlled for a while, shall we?
--Straight Guy
2 comments:
LOVE the commentary..."Is it sexier now? How about now?" From the female perspective, I'll say this: If anybody's gonna dance, the worst look is the self-conscious one, don't you think? I love it when a guy has no problem making me laugh at his expense...show me a combo of Big Bird meets Walk Like an Egyptian (and maybe twirl me around somewhere in between) and you're golden.
What about women that insist their men (spouse, boyfriend, prospective) dance and then are mortified at his performance? No means no - if a man says he doesn't want to/ can't dance, believe him. He has his reasons.
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