Or does it happen naturally? It is definitely an art I can appreciate. I assume not many of you have seen a video of your butt when walking. So, how does it happen? Did you take classes, or your mom or friends gave you some tips? Although I have not spent a great deal of time watching guy butts, I can say that the female butt has very different moves. So, whats the skinny? Did it take a lot of practice, or was it a gift from god?
In my case I took an online course from DeVry. I can’t transfer the credits though.
Not gonna lie, I actually did work on my walk and my stance.
My knees have that thing where they hyper-extend back. My family used to say I stand ‘flicted’. When I got older, I worked on not locking my knees back, mainly because the stance flattens the booty, and I didn’t want that!
Also, big mamas tend to waddle a bit, if we aren’t careful. So I trained my walk very early to avoid the waddle, which is extra important since I love high heels.
Don’t high heels accentuate this movement*?
(Thus leading to questions about who invented high heels and how, culturally, is their use perpetuated…)
[sub]*I get this from a throwaway paragraph in one of Leo Frankowski’s Conrad Stargard books, abut a time-travelling Pole who has ten years to start modern civilization in medieval Poland, or get wiped out by the Mongols… but I digress…[/sub]
Most women are going to have more of a sway in their walk than most men because of their different pelvic structure. The leg bones are actually attached at a slightly different angle because their pelvis is wider. I suppose it’s a beneficial side effect for the continuation of the species that males happen to like this.
Personal situation: When I was younger I was told that I had a rather distinctive walk. I do wear out my shoes unevenly. I was born with one leg turned outward and had corrective shoes of some sort to turn it back in. As a result my feet are parallel but one knee turns inward and I have a kind of little extra twitch to my walk.
Not surprising. For any trait that shows a sexual dimorphism, you’re naturally going to find each sex liking the opposite sex’s form. Most men are attracted to women, a woman’s butt moving in a particular way makes her look more like a woman, thus, most men are attracted to a butt moving that way.
This trait is especially exaggerated in drag queens. See exhibit A Manila Luzon!! Sickening runway looks from Drag Race - YouTube
LOL, I used to teach my friend’s drag queen buddies how to walk in high heels without either camping it up or falling off the damned things. [And I detest wearing the freaking heels, but I do actually know how to walk in them. My mom taught me :p]
Some women have more trouble with high heelsthan others.
Butt did you pass the course?
It is a studied/learned trait- if I am to believe every filmed entertainment in which a man, for the purpose of strategically executing wacky hijinks, must convincingly pass for a woman.
It happens naturally, however it is often exaggerated for the attention it gets. Some more successfully than others.
It’s also I understand potentially dangerous; I’ve read that women are more prone than men to suffering knee injuries in accidents in part because they have a greater tendency to stand with their knees locked, which means things in the knee tend to break rather than flex if the legs are hit.
I have a vague recollection of hearing that they were invented by a French king who wanted to look taller, and who was then imitated by the court. No cite though, might be an urban legend.
cringe:eek:
While my wife is capable of performing this action naturally, she was quite amused to learn that I had put enough thought into explaining the motion: An imaginary horizontal line drawn across the widest point of the hips, swaying back and forth like a boat (or a plane piloted by a drunk pilot, whatever)
The reflective belts that American military folks are required to wear at night so they can be seen more easily (in camo uniforms designed to make them harder to see…), the effect can be more emphasized. Depending on how they adjust the belt, the imaginary line can become an actual line in a variety of bright day-glo reflective colors.
It is a natural difference because of our wider pelvises.
The effect is made much more noticable when wearing high heels, and even heels that will only be half an an inch or so high will already make the effect more visible.
And yes, most girls have had a training/learning session to learn walking in high heels. It’s comparable to guys learning how to tie a tie, or how to shave.
Also, research shows that women exaggerate the hip sway if they want to be extra attractive.
And also that the way they walk adds or detractsfrom their perceived beauty.
I also have noticed this phenomenon.
Mine is presumably anatomically derived. Wide hips, small waist and then relatively thin thighs. Doesn’t help that I have a “high and tight” booty that is mostly yoga muscle.
Sounds like a sneak brag, but I can’t even walk the dog in my neighborhood w/o doing it despite trying to stop it. But guys do seem to think it’s affected by all women to attract attention. A bit of sway/wiggle is likely incorporated by girls around puberty and might not even think it’s a choice after years of doing it.
More squarely built women do seem to be able to hold it in check though.
ETA: It’s positively humiliating at work.
Similar to the reflective belts, a weapon holstered on the hip seems to work much the same for me.
I want these lessons in walking in heels! Where do I sign up???
When I was in high school, I played the part of Viola in Twelfth Night. (Bear with me, this is relevant! I swear!) If you read Twelfth Night, you know that Viola was separated from her brother in a terrible shipwreck tragedy and the only safe way she could move about a foreign country was to pretend to be a boy. She was soon a service boy to the Queen, who fell in love with her, not realizing she was a woman. Hilarity ensued.
My drama teacher was trying to help me act the drag part of the my part, so he spent considerable time teaching me how to “walk like a man.” He explained to me (relevancy alert!) that men’s center or gravity is near their shoulders, which is wider than their hips. Women’s center of gravity is in our hips, which is wider than our shoulders. I had to move the “swagger” from my hips up to my shoulders and learned how to walk forward from my shoulders, so that I looked like a guy as I was moving around on stage.
So basically, my answer to the OP’s question is no. It is not learned behavior. When the hips widen at puberty, the hip swinging thing is caused. But yes, the effect can be exaggerated by high heels, which forces the weight forward on to the balls of the feet and causes the high-heel-wearer to arch the back for better balance. The back arching pops out the T & A, so when the hips swing with an arched back… well, you know what happens.