The ways people look, dress, talk and move provide clues about their sexual performance. Master these skills, read the signals your possible partner doesn’t even know he or she is sending, and you’ll flirt and date with confidence – matching your love styles and making sex better.
It is said that the most crucial period in an encounter between two people is the first four or five minutes. The impressions formed in this time will tend to persist and even be reinforced by later behaviour.
The way we view people, and our own deep-set prejudices about their looks, will also cause us to prejudge their behaviour in bed.
Most of us see good-looking men and women as more desirable. And because they are more likely to elicit a sexual response from us, we assume they will be good in bed.
First impressions
On first contact with other people, we tend to look first at their bodies before we establish eye contact, so what we choose to wear is important. Clothes reveal something of our income, status, occupation and personality. They also tell people how we see ourselves and how we wish to be viewed.
Men have more difficulty than women estimating a potential partner’s personality and possible behaviour in bed. This is because men are less sensitive to a woman’s chameleon-like ability to change her style of clothes and, with them, how she wants to be perceived.
Clothes can be the gauge of someone’s mood, but they provide only a broad guide to how a person will perform in bed. In a recent study of obsession, it was found that obsessively neat dressers, for example, do not necessarily perform badly in bed. As long as they can set the time – and preferably the place, too – they can enjoy sex as much as the next person.
But they do take a long time to arouse and tend to have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude to sex. They are also less likely to indulge in the hugging and kissing that makes for an all-round successful sex life. At the other extreme, the sloppy dressers who look as if they are colour-blind – the girl who always has a ladder in her tights, the man who never has matching socks – usually make up in enthusiasm what they lack in finesse in bed. But they are quick learners.
Body language
For more definite evidence of how someone will perform in bed, however, we need to look at the one thing that cannot lie – body language. Studies in body language revealed that emotions are communicated much more easily by gestures than by words.
When a man and woman prepare for a sexual encounter, even though they may not have said a word about their intentions to each other, their bodies are already making preparations.
Their muscles become slightly tensed. Body sagging disappears and they stand up straighter There is less jowling in their faces and bagging round the eyes. They pull in their stomachs and tighten their leg muscles.
Even their eyes seem brighter, and they may blink more rapidly. Their skins may change; they may blush or go pale. There could even be changes in their body odours, harking back to a more primitive time when smell was a tremendously important sense in human sexual encounters. The breathing can change and quicken and their pulse may race.
Gestures
As these changes take place, they may begin to use certain preening gestures – he may adjust his tie, she may stroke her hair. They then position themselves in such a way as to cut off any intrusion from other people present at the time by facing each other and probably leaning towards each other.
So we can tell from the way two people move, and their unconscious gestures, that they are keen to get to know each other more intimately. But we can go even further and estimate whether they will enjoy sex with each other.
It is well known that most of us choose our partners from within a small, tight circle. They usually live within 16 km of us, come from the same background, have the same education and either work with us or enjoy the same hobby.
We know from assessment of these details about such a person, however unconsciously, that we will probably be compatible. But what about in the bedroom?
The senses
Everyone perceives his or her world with the three basic ‘senses’ of sight, sound and feelings. But in each man and woman, one of those senses is dominant to some degree. Discovering which sense is the most important to a potential partner can tell you a lot about how they are likely to behave as a lover in bed.
Visualisers, as the name implies, react very strongly to visual imagery. They find it hard to express their feelings, so you will usually have to be the one leading the way in lovemaking.
Auditory people
You can distinguish auditory people by their sideways eye movements as they conduct lone private conversations in their head. When seated, they often hold their hand to their head as if they are talking on the telephone, for the same type of reason. They are great talkers in bed, asking how you like it, and telling you how they feel.
Feelings people
Feelings people wear their hearts on their sleeves and are always kissing and hugging their partners.
Within these general types there are lots of other signs to look out for. But don’t be too judgemental – there are always exceptions to the rule!