Posted January 14, 2014 by Julian O'Dea in Uncategorized. Tagged: Evolutionary Psychology, Females, society. 3 Comments

… or at least that is the theory.

Historically, at times when women wore long dresses, they tended to show a lot of decolletage (bosom).

(“Elizabeth Bennet”, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.)

More recently, girls in miniskirts would often cover well up top.

There is a general rule of human female behaviour, supposedly, that women maintain a constant total amount of skin exposure, whatever their style of dress. (Although it has also been suggested that the amount will vary for the individual woman depending on the state of her ovulatory cycle, with more skin being shown at ovulation.)

I was amused to see that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, hosting the recent Golden Globe awards, showed this principle rather well. Bare shoulders OR deep cleavage. But not both. They maintained a roughly constant amount of exposed flesh and transmitted a carefully controlled level of sexuality. They also balanced each other visually.

Arguably they are both showing more flesh here, but the cleavage is not as deep as in the above shots.

So, is there such a general rule? Do women maintain a constant amount of bare skin, just varying which parts they leave bare and which they cover up?