Why are long legs seen as beautiful?

I think that it is a matter of proportion. But I think we’ve skewed our perceptions by focusing on “thin” (as in model thin), and long legs help to create the perception of thinness.

uhm, i’ve seen some not so cute long legs. i am actually going to rant because i’ve seen this a lot.

i don’t know how many you watch the hills or have even heard of it but there’s a girl named whitney port [ link ] and her legs are really long but they resemble toothpicks but everyone on this gossip site i read raves and wishes they had her legs but they make me ill just looking at them.

quite frankly, i don’t care if your legs are short, average or long but they need to have some shape to them.

I wonder if this preference might have grown out of classical dance? Weren’t the great dancers taken as the ideals of masculine and feminine physique long before the fashion and entertainment industries became the arbitrators of beauty? In dance, long legs are a decided aesthetic asset.

I would prefer medium to long legs…but not too long, I would feel intimidated =p. Probably because they would be closer to my height, which I would want.

Hmmm….well in my estimation long legs tend to lead up to a tight butt. Over the years I’ve done much non-scientific research and have come to the conclusion that, in general, people with long legs seem to have a tighter butt. Now that does not mean that shorter legged people don’t have nice butts. They do. But, the butt always looks better if shorter legged people wear higher heels. The lesbo trio I run with concludes that longer legs or wearing higher heels causes the person to have to tighten their ass for better balance and thusly appears to have a tighter (nicer?) butt. I have a friend, Jane, that is 5’1. She is not heavy but her butt looks a little bigger in proportion to the rest of her body. Put her in heels and her butt looks in perfect proportion. Ok, it might be TMI but here goes: Jane got naked and we took a picture of her from behind flat-footed. Nice butt. Then she put on 3 inch heels and took a picture. Incredibly nice butt. The pictures prove it. Then I stripped down (I’m about 5’6 or so and not heavy and have fairly long legs) and the took a picture flat-footed and in heels. Some difference but not a marked difference in butt appearance. Long legs/heels make even a good butt a little tighter and a little heavier/round butt much tighter.

And, for you guys, yes we did have a pillow fight after our research.

Beauty has always been on the eye of the beholder. Short, long, skinny or fat folks will always get together because that’s where it’s at.

@harp, I agree. The preference for long legs probably kicked off in the dance halls and burlesque and really moved into the masses when movies came along. Almost all of the early movies had a dance sequence, and most female stars did some kind of a dance, often skimpily dressed (for the time). Showing more leg was the titilation of the time for many years..

Media manipulates our perceptions on so many levels that we seldom notice the manipulation any more.

Any legs that can take you where you want to go – long, short, one or two – they’re all good in my book! For the record, I have four, short legs and am very sexy. It’s all how you carry yourself! :0)

Hey, just to be clear, short legs does not mean you aren’t sexy. I think long legs are seen as beautiful because of what I mentioned above. Short legs can be equally hot but in different ways. BTW, my departed partner (to Florida, not the great beyond) is 5’3 and is incredibly sexy. As is Jane, the one I mention above.

They are beautiful to me when I can’t reach things!

Are these beautiful?

As a woman of five foot, three and a half, I don’t think there is anything wrong with short legs. :0)

scamp, shriek!

Does anyone remember the scene in ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ where Burt Reynolds is critiquing Sally Fields legs? As I recall she is peeling off the wedding dress as they are racing down the road in that Trans Am? He tells her she has short legs and she has them up on the dash, saying, “These are fine legs, there is nothing wrong with these legs!”.

@scamp: Ew! Ew! Ew!

I think it has something to do with our idea of how human legs are supposed to look like. Legs are supposed to be muscular and long so that humans could walk across the savana more efficiently. So muscular = good = survival. skinny = malnourished = not good survival. fat = hard to walk in a savana = not good survival. Then, the lenght comes in in accordance with phi (1:1.618), which is the golden ratio for growth. I would look into phi a lot more in order to answer this question to its fullest, but frankly, I don’t want to.

Donald Duck!

i do like long legs and i think men enjoy this because it causes the eyes to gaze upward, knowing full well there is more to enjoy.

it’s like this: short driving trips are errands and things that just have to get done out of necessity.

long driving trips are scenic and once you get where you’re going, you’re finally there and very satisfied.

long legs are a lot like “seeing a lot” with great expectations. they can’t be too skinny though.

@Harp: That’s an interesting connection. Ballet is concerned with lengthening the limbs. Pointe shoes were developed to make the leg look longer than it is and allow dancers to appear to float over the stage gracefully.

I think it’s psychological, also. I’m not a big Freud reader, but from what I’ve studied, any body part of a woman can be fetishized. Legs are overtly sexual (since they end at a sexual goldmine), but can also be a representation of a woman’s missing phallus. As with penises, longer is often considered better.
I’m not saying I agree with any of this. Just throwing it out there.

@Scamp: They’re gorgeous. Not kidding… I love spiders.

A long legs;It is the mark of confident.If the woman know haw to use them then it is realy major of prettyness.I mean when she is walking closer in then a butter start to leek all ower the place.

um, pathfinder, that’s not butter…

Harpy!

then a butter start to leek alll owver the place…f’n priceless

Im not sure why long legs are desirable. Im 5’10, and Im fifteen, so I oubviously have long legs. I dont really like being tall though its hard to dress up because tall people in my opinion look more dressed up. For example some people my age who are really short and petite wear dresses and they look so casual, if I wore the same dress I would look like I was going some where really fancy. Its not that great being tall.

@desiree: you are model height, so its great being tall

i’m actually only 5’2 and i’m more legs than torso

According to Dr. David Carrier biologist at the University of Utah, short legged men are better fighters in hand to hand combat. Carrier concludes that “with short legs, your center of mass is closer to the ground. It’s going to make you more stable so that you can’t be knocked off your feet as easily. And with short legs, you have greater leverage as you grapple with your opponent”. He claims humans were short-legged for a long time, since it advantaged men when they fought other men in hand to hand combat. When humans developed weapons, the advantage shifted. Running became essential to win weapon-based fights, so longer legged men were favored.

Since long-legs are disadvantageous in hand to hand combat, they are seen as feminine while their converse is seen as masculine. Viren Swami et al. of the University of Liverpool found that longer leg-to-body ratio was considered attractive in women (leggy women) whereas a shorter leg-to-body ratio was considered attractive in men (gorilla legged men).

Toy makers know proportionately long legs look more feminine. Just look at your local toy isle to see that this is relationship is built into our evolutionary psyche. Boy action figures have proportionately short legs. Girl dolls have proportionately long legs.

@tinyvamp Yes I once read that 5’10 is the ideal model height in a magazine. Don’t get me wrong I do like being tall, but I would rather be 5’8 or 5’9. I can’t wear heels, and I tower over most guys, which is a complete deal-breaker for me. My mum is 5’2 also and I was taller than her by grade 6, I think you are lucky though.

I’m only 5” 1½, and I’m pretty much all legs. My arms touch a little below my hips, because of my short torso! Personally, I’d say more proportion is just easier to deal with. I tend to shy away from mid-rise jeans, because they’ll end up at my belly button(as if they were high-rise)
_ . I also look like a complete illusion, because from far away I’ll appear 5“6ish to the eye, then someone will walk up to me and tower over me. Anyway, to each there own!

Not sure how old this thread is but my wife has extremely long and shapely legs. They’ve been professionally photographed and they create quite the stir when she wears a skirt to the point that she has to wear pants to stay low key. I think my attraction, can’t speak for the others, has to do with the fact that she is in a rare class that few other women are in with actual length. They are 42” but the tone and shape are breathtaking. A woman can do almost anything to enhance her beauty including more tone legs but length only a few have and that makes it desirable. I was extremely intimidated when we dated but I’m fortunate that she is also a wonderful person who happens to have what many consider the best legs they’ve ever seen when they see them for the first time.

To add to the above, my wife has long calves that are unusually (in a positive way)well defined. It’s the kind if definition you would typically see in shorter legs as we’ve been told, which makes them desirable because THat degree of definition is rare in longer legs. Even more rare, she doesn’t work out but only does stretches. She doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about but she’s learned that her legs can intimidate so she always refers to them upfront to make prople feel at ease, especially women. Once they see that she is a normal person and has flaws, even being geeky, they can get passed the legs. It helps that she has a brain. :)