Males and females tend to be mutually attracted for excellent reasons having to do with survival of the species, so we have no particular reason to ask why. But the question of “how” is something else. As far as humans are concerned, the popular notion that males can improve their chances by becoming tall, rich, handsome, daring, generous and/or highly attentive is clearly fallacious, as may be seen in any singles bar, where these qualities are at a discount.
In fact, specialists in cross-gender bonding tell me that beyond bathing occasionally and using a good brand of after-shave there’s not much a male can do to beat the competition, since females are not required to have reasons for their decisions. For women, on the other hand, the task is simpler: outstanding beauty, a shape somewhat slimmer than the Venus de Milo and a carefully suppressed intellect are all that is necessary to attract every male in town. The ability to cook like mom and to earn her own living are secondary characteristics to be disclosed after the fish is hooked and landed.
While investigating the influence of shape, I took to standing just inside the entrance of establishments where the sexes mingled and watched the eye movements of males as they came in and surveyed the crowd. Invariably, they first distinguished females from males by determining whether a hemline was present or not (this was in the days when such a distinction was possible). From the hemline, wherever that might be in the contemporary fashion cycle, the gaze descended to the ankle, then slowly rose to the pectoral region with occasional stops on the way and only finally scanned the most brightly colored region above the neck.
This finding was so clearly contradictory to the claims of the cosmetics industry that employed me that I hired a genuine researcher to impart scientific legitimacy to the inquiry. In my laboratory, he set up a special chair in which he placed a succession of male college students. A thin pencil of light directed at one eyeball was reflected onto a screen so as to show precisely where the eye was focused. He then projected onto the screen a series of life-sized images of models, alternately draped and undraped, and filmed the progression of the light spot. The results completely confirmed my original observations.
No one could explain why legs proved more attractive to males than other points of interest so cunningly emphasized by the fashion industry, but my research became widely known when I published the results in the Journal of Comparative Anatomy. Since then, hemlines have risen inexorably and females seeking a mate have taken to paying such good attention to their pins that the ugliest girl now has a set that any model might envy.
Understandably, I didn’t get to keep my job, so my only compensation for this momentous discovery has been the joy it brings to those males in their declining years who are now allowed only to look but not touch.
