I think the error here isn’t that you picked the wrong motivation, but that you assumed that there is any motivation at all.
A woman’s center of gravity is in the hips, walking is a pendulum-like motion which requires some amount of side-to-side motion as center of balance shifts. The more purposeful and energetic the gait, the more side-to-side motion is required to maintain speed/balance. For men, with a higher center of gravity, the side-to-side is in the shoulders. But a non-depressed man isn’t shimmying their shoulders because they unconsciously enjoy their own virility and sexiness.
It think you’re attributing emotional motivations to a mechanical necessity of how people walk. Now granted, hip swinging CAN be exaggerated for effect, but if you’re using it as an assay for depression, you’ll generally be looking at typical energetic hip swinging rather than atypical seductive hip swinging.
I’m not saying its distasteful to find that gait attractive, it is a secondary sexual characteristic after all and thus indicates fertility/post-puberty. But yeah, the assumption of motivation/intention is a point of frustration when I run into it because I literally have no way to ambulate without men thinking there is some conscious or unconscious sexuality-based subtext. And it’s not by any means an uncommon assumption, maybe 75% of men over 25 make this assumption.
I have a pear shaped body, so my center of gravity is low even for a woman. As a matter of fat vs. muscle distribution, it is most like saying I grew breasts because I unconsciously feel feminine and sexual. Feelings just don’t have anything to do with fat distribution.
I think the error here isn’t that you picked the wrong motivation, but that you assumed that there is any motivation at all.
A woman’s center of gravity is in the hips, walking is a pendulum-like motion which requires some amount of side-to-side motion as center of balance shifts. The more purposeful and energetic the gait, the more side-to-side motion is required to maintain speed/balance. For men, with a higher center of gravity, the side-to-side is in the shoulders. But a non-depressed man isn’t shimmying their shoulders because they unconsciously enjoy their own virility and sexiness.
It think you’re attributing emotional motivations to a mechanical necessity of how people walk. Now granted, hip swinging CAN be exaggerated for effect, but if you’re using it as an assay for depression, you’ll generally be looking at typical energetic hip swinging rather than atypical seductive hip swinging.
I’m not saying its distasteful to find that gait attractive, it is a secondary sexual characteristic after all and thus indicates fertility/post-puberty. But yeah, the assumption of motivation/intention is a point of frustration when I run into it because I literally have no way to ambulate without men thinking there is some conscious or unconscious sexuality-based subtext. And it’s not by any means an uncommon assumption, maybe 75% of men over 25 make this assumption.
I have a pear shaped body, so my center of gravity is low even for a woman. As a matter of fat vs. muscle distribution, it is most like saying I grew breasts because I unconsciously feel feminine and sexual. Feelings just don’t have anything to do with fat distribution.