“Sexy” isn’t signaling—it’s a characteristic that people (usually) try to signal, more or less successfully. “I’m sexy” basically means “You want me” : note the difference in subjects :-)
Pretty much the same thing. Regardless of an, um, widespread misunderstanding :-D sexy behavior does NOT signal either promiscuity or sexual availability. It signals “I want you to desire me” and being desired is a generally advantageous position to be in.
If a man succeeds in signaling a high sexuality to a women, the woman might still treat him as a creep. Especially if there no established trust, signal really high amounts of sexuality doesn’t result in “You want me”.
In my own interactions with professional dancers there are plenty of situations where the woman succeeds in signaling a high amount of sexyness. I however know that I”m dancing with a professional dancer who going to sent that signal to a lot of guys so she doesn’t enter my mental category of potential mates.
I think people frequently go wrong when the confuse impression of characteristics with goals.
For a reasonable definition of sexy, the term refers to letting a woman feel sexual tension. If you talk about social interactions it’s useful to have a word that refers to making another person feel sexual tension.
Of course you can define beautiful, attractive and sexy all the same way. Then you get a one dimensional model where Bob wants Alice with utility rating X. I don’t think that’s model is very useful to understanding how humans behave in mating situations.
I define it as “arousing sexual interest and desire in people of appropriate gender and culture”. Note that this is quite different from “beautiful” and is a narrow subset of “attractive”.
the term refers to letting a woman feel sexual tension.
“Tension” generally implies conflict or some sort of a counterforce.
“Tension” generally implies conflict or some sort of a counterforce.
Testosterone which is commonly associated with sexiness in males is about dominance. It has something to do with power that does create tension.
Of course a woman can decide to have sex with shy a guy because he’s nice and she thinks that he’s intelligent or otherwise a good match. Given that there are shy guys who do have sex that’s certainly happening in reality.
Does that mean that the behavior of that guy deserves the label “sexy”? I don’t think he’s commonly given that label.
There also words like sensual and empathic. A guy can get layed by being very empathic and just making woman that feel really great by interacting with him in a sensual way. I think it’s useful to separate that mentally from the kind of behavior that comes from testosterone that commonly get’s called sexy.
If you read an exciting thriller you are also feeling tension even when you aren’t in conflict with the book or there some counterforce. Building up tension and then releasing it is a way for human to feel pleasure.
Sexy is a quite broad word that probably used by different people in different ways. I think for most people it about what they feel when looking at the person. Those feeling where set up by evolution over large time frames.
Evolution doesn’t really care about whether you get a fun intercourse partner.
But it’s not only evolution. It also has a lot to do with culture. Culture also doesn’t care about whether you get a fun intercourse partner. People who watch a lot of TV get taught that certain characteristics are sexy.
For myself I would guess that most of my cultural imprint regarding what I find sexy comes from dancing interactions.
If a woman moves in a way that suggests that she doesn’t dance well, that will reduce her sex appeal to me more than it probably does with the average male.
Being sexy signals health, youth, and fertility. This is quite well supported by evidence and discussed in many books and articles.
I would agree with what Lumifer says below, but I think sexy can be signalling when many people are involved: look at the sexy people I hang out with. Being with sexy people brings high status because it’s high status.
How would you define the word “sexy” in terms of signaling?
“Sexy” isn’t signaling—it’s a characteristic that people (usually) try to signal, more or less successfully. “I’m sexy” basically means “You want me” : note the difference in subjects :-)
Would it change for particular behavior, e.g. clothes, dancing/gestures, language?
Pretty much the same thing. Regardless of an, um, widespread misunderstanding :-D sexy behavior does NOT signal either promiscuity or sexual availability. It signals “I want you to desire me” and being desired is a generally advantageous position to be in.
If a man succeeds in signaling a high sexuality to a women, the woman might still treat him as a creep. Especially if there no established trust, signal really high amounts of sexuality doesn’t result in “You want me”.
In my own interactions with professional dancers there are plenty of situations where the woman succeeds in signaling a high amount of sexyness. I however know that I”m dancing with a professional dancer who going to sent that signal to a lot of guys so she doesn’t enter my mental category of potential mates.
I think people frequently go wrong when the confuse impression of characteristics with goals.
In which case he failed to signal “sexy” and (a common failure mode) signaled “creepy” instead.
It depends on how you define the term.
For a reasonable definition of sexy, the term refers to letting a woman feel sexual tension. If you talk about social interactions it’s useful to have a word that refers to making another person feel sexual tension.
Of course you can define beautiful, attractive and sexy all the same way. Then you get a one dimensional model where Bob wants Alice with utility rating X. I don’t think that’s model is very useful to understanding how humans behave in mating situations.
I define it as “arousing sexual interest and desire in people of appropriate gender and culture”. Note that this is quite different from “beautiful” and is a narrow subset of “attractive”.
“Tension” generally implies conflict or some sort of a counterforce.
Testosterone which is commonly associated with sexiness in males is about dominance. It has something to do with power that does create tension.
Of course a woman can decide to have sex with shy a guy because he’s nice and she thinks that he’s intelligent or otherwise a good match. Given that there are shy guys who do have sex that’s certainly happening in reality.
Does that mean that the behavior of that guy deserves the label “sexy”? I don’t think he’s commonly given that label.
There also words like sensual and empathic. A guy can get layed by being very empathic and just making woman that feel really great by interacting with him in a sensual way. I think it’s useful to separate that mentally from the kind of behavior that comes from testosterone that commonly get’s called sexy.
If you read an exciting thriller you are also feeling tension even when you aren’t in conflict with the book or there some counterforce. Building up tension and then releasing it is a way for human to feel pleasure.
Sexy is a quite broad word that probably used by different people in different ways. I think for most people it about what they feel when looking at the person. Those feeling where set up by evolution over large time frames.
Evolution doesn’t really care about whether you get a fun intercourse partner.
But it’s not only evolution. It also has a lot to do with culture. Culture also doesn’t care about whether you get a fun intercourse partner. People who watch a lot of TV get taught that certain characteristics are sexy.
For myself I would guess that most of my cultural imprint regarding what I find sexy comes from dancing interactions. If a woman moves in a way that suggests that she doesn’t dance well, that will reduce her sex appeal to me more than it probably does with the average male.
Being sexy signals health, youth, and fertility. This is quite well supported by evidence and discussed in many books and articles.
I would agree with what Lumifer says below, but I think sexy can be signalling when many people are involved: look at the sexy people I hang out with. Being with sexy people brings high status because it’s high status.
I think you confuse the label “sexy” with the label “attractive”. As far as my reading goes few articles use the term sexy.