The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease [90]
Differences Between Men and Women
When women smoke they will often hold the cigarette high, with their wrist bent back in a wrist display gesture, leaving the front of the body open. When men smoke they keep their wrist straight to avoid looking effeminate and drop their smoking hand down below chest level after they puff, keeping the front of the body protected at all times.
Twice as many women smoke as men and both sexes take the same number of puffs per cigarette, but men hold the smoke in their lungs longer, making them more susceptible to lung cancer than women.
Women use the cigarette as a social display
to open the body and display the wrist; men close their
bodies when they smoke and prefer secretive holds
Men will often use the Pinch Hold when smoking, especially if they are trying to be secretive, keeping the cigarette hidden inside the palm. This gesture is commonly used in the movies by actors who play tough guys or who are acting sneaky or suspicious.
Smoking as a Sexual Display
Films and media advertising have always portrayed smoking as sexy. Smoking is another opportunity to emphasize our sex differences: It allows a woman to use wrist displays (we'll discuss this in Chapter 15) and open her body to a man and it allows the cigarette to be used like a small phallus being seductively sucked between her lips. A man can highlight his masculinity by holding the cigarette secretively and seductively. Previous generations used a seductive smoking ritual as an acceptable form of courtship, with a man offering to light a woman's cigarette while she touched his hand and held his gaze longer than usual as she thanked him. In many places today, however, smoking is as popular as a fart in a spacesuit, so the smoking courtship ritual is virtually dead. The key to the perceived female sexual attraction behind smoking is the submissive attitude it implies; in other words, it carries the subtle message that a woman who smokes can be persuaded to do things that are not in her best interests. While blowing smoke in a person's face is unacceptable everywhere, in Syria it's seen as a sexual invitation when a man does it to a woman!
How to Spot a Positive or Negative Decision
Whether a person has a positive or negative attitude toward his circumstances is revealed by the direction in which his smoke is exhaled, whether it's up or down. We are assuming here that the smoker is not blowing the smoke upward to avoid offending others and that he could have blown the smoke in either direction. A person who is feeling positive, superior, or confident about what he sees or hears will blow the smoke in an upward direction most of the time. Conversely, a person in a negative, secretive, or suspicious frame of mind will blow the smoke down most of the time. Blowing down and from the corner of the mouth indicates an even more negative or secretive attitude.
Smoke blown up: confident, superior, positive;
smoke blown down: negative, secretive, suspicious
In films, the leader of a motorcycle gang or criminal syndicate is usually portrayed as a tough, aggressive man who, as he smokes, tilts his head back sharply and with controlled precision blows the smoke toward the ceiling to demonstrate his superiority to the rest of the gang. In contrast, Humphrey Bogart was often cast as a gangster or tough guy who held his cigarette inverted in his hand and blew the smoke down from the corner of his mouth as he planned a jailbreak or other devious