Turning Cartwheels as Sexual Display

[River Ape]

I live close to a park and spend a lot of time there reading -- or sometimes just watching the world go by. The activities of boys and girls tend to be very different. If a ball is being thrown or kicked around, it is generally by boys. If someone is turning cartwheels, it is overwhelmingly likely to be a girl.

The value of ball games to boys is fairly obvious. Aside from learning coordination of limb and eye, they learn to operate as a team -- which will help them when they become hunters and warriors in adult life. Except that doesn’t happen much these days.

But what impels girls to turn cartwheels? Isn’t it fairly obvious that it is a form of sexual display? No one likes to say so, and perhaps this is because some girls like to turn cartwheels at quite a young age and we are shy of suggesting that they are sexually precocious. The proposition that young girls regularly make themselves sexually attractive to men is unacceptable to feminists and considered politically incorrect. Yet a botanist friend of mine who spent time in rural Africa tells me that he used to be embarrassed by girls of nine or ten who would deliberately turn naked cartwheels in front of him and direct gleeful looks in his direction.

The wearing of clothes is a very recent phenomenon, and it is difficult to believe that doing cartwheels was not a means of “showing it all off”. The persistence of cartwheeling is indicative that it confers an evolutionary advantage.

I spent a dozen years of my life in one of Britain’s top university psychology departments, but no longer have access to an academic psychology library, so I cannot state categorically that the literature is devoid of mention of cartwheels as a form of sexual display -- but I certainly have no recollection of ever having stumbled upon the subject. Googling also fails to suggest that the subject has been tackled by psychologists.

I invite the observations and opinions of others on this subject. Is turning cartwheels a universal phenomenon among girls? Ladies: if you turned cartwheels in your youth, where did you feel the impulse came from? How old were you when you first began turning cartwheels? Thinking back, did it give you an almost sexual thrill to turn cartwheels (though you would not have thought in such terms at the time)?

Thank you in advance for your replies.

 

[Oystein]

What? You have to be kidding.

I spent a dozen years of my life in one of Britain’s top university psychology departments, . . .

This is a perfect example of why the general population thinks that gov't and educational facilities are wasting money.

I remember us boys trying to do cartwheels (and the girls trying to show us how). I guarantee you it wasn't sexual.

 

[spidergoat]

Seriously dude. Girls like dancing and gymnastics.

 

[AlexG]

I spent a dozen years of my life in one of Britain’s top university psychology departments,

Being studied no doubt.

 

[Daecon]

Do girls from all cultures do cartwheels, or just in Western cultures where gymnastics is popular?

 

[billvon]

But what impels girls to turn cartwheels? Isn’t it fairly obvious that it is a form of sexual display?

Definitely! Girls who turn cartwheels are displaying their sexual availability; it has nothing to do with play, exercise or culture. We need an expensive study here, because I am certain you are on to something. Perhaps that's why lesbians so often wear combat boots - to subconsciously reduce their odds of success when trying to turn cartwheels, and thus limit their displays to the 'wrong team' so to speak.

The value of ball games to boys is fairly obvious. Aside from learning coordination of limb and eye, they learn to operate as a team -- which will help them when they become hunters and warriors in adult life.

You are underthinking this. What is the favorite ballgame of boys? Baseball. There is clearly phallic symbolism going on here, where each kid tries to wield the largest bat to beat out all the other kids in this subconscious sexual display.

Think back. Didn't you feel a subconscious sexual thrill back when you were fighting over getting the biggest bat during softball practice?

We need a study on this too.

 

[sculptor]

Definitely! Girls who turn cartwheels are displaying their sexual availability; it has nothing to do with play, exercise or culture. We need an expensive study here, because I am certain you are on to something. Perhaps that's why lesbians so often wear combat boots - to subconsciously reduce their odds of success when trying to turn cartwheels, and thus limit their displays to the 'wrong team' so to speak.

You are underthinking this. What is the favorite ballgame of boys? Baseball. There is clearly phallic symbolism going on here, where each kid tries to wield the largest bat to beat out all the other kids in this subconscious sexual display.

Think back. Didn't you feel a subconscious sexual thrill back when you were fighting over getting the biggest bat during softball practice?

We need a study on this too.

LOL

 

[Bells]

I live close to a park and spend a lot of time there reading -- or sometimes just watching the world go by. The activities of boys and girls tend to be very different. If a ball is being thrown or kicked around, it is generally by boys. If someone is turning cartwheels, it is overwhelmingly likely to be a girl.

Oookaaayy..

The value of ball games to boys is fairly obvious. Aside from learning coordination of limb and eye, they learn to operate as a team -- which will help them when they become hunters and warriors in adult life. Except that doesn’t happen much these days.

Or they are just playing it because they enjoy it and have fun?

But what impels girls to turn cartwheels?

Balance.. Upper body strength.. Mid body strength.. Or like the boys, they do it because it is fun..

Isn’t it fairly obvious that it is a form of sexual display? No one likes to say so, and perhaps this is because some girls like to turn cartwheels at quite a young age and we are shy of suggesting that they are sexually precocious.

Err no. No it is not.

Let me be the first to say this..

If you are spending lots of time in a park and you see girls doing cartwheels and you think it is sexual, then please, please, contact a health professional and tell them of this.

And preferably stop going to the park where young girls are doing cartwheels..

The proposition that young girls regularly make themselves sexually attractive to men is unacceptable to feminists and considered politically incorrect.

Not at all.

It isn't political correctness.

The proposition is offensive because men who go to parks and see young girls and children doing cartwheels and automatically put it down to being sexual are creepy as hell.

Yet a botanist friend of mine who spent time in rural Africa tells me that he used to be embarrassed by girls of nine or ten who would deliberately turn naked cartwheels in front of him and direct gleeful looks in his direction.

You should tell your botanist friend to also see a psychiatric specialist and inform them that young girls living in rural Africa and who are often without clothing, were playing and laughing and showing off in front of a stranger and that stranger saw it as being somewhat sexual...

The wearing of clothes is a very recent phenomenon, and it is difficult to believe that doing cartwheels was not a means of “showing it all off”. The persistence of cartwheeling is indicative that it confers an evolutionary advantage.

You will need to provide evidence that doing cartwheels is sexual to begin with. And that our ancestors were doing cartwheels to attract a mate.

I'll give you a hint.. There is no evidence of this whatsoever.

 

[Kristoffer]

A few words spring to mind. One's "wow", another is "really"?

A sentence also was seen jumping up and down. It said "call Chris Hansen".

 

[origin]

Hmmm, brings to mind the classic song...

Sitting on a park bench,
eye little girls,
with bad intent.

Snot running down his nose,
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
Oh, Aqualung....

 

[iceaura]

When I was a teenager, teenage girls standing up from having been sitting down were engaging in sexual display. Also the ones taking their coats off when coming indoors, and crossing the street at intersections, and turning around from having been walking in one direction.

Although there is a certain nostalgia for those days, I don't think that was what in an adult would be described as sanity.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

The wearing of clothes is a very recent phenomenon . . . .

If you call 70,000 years ago "very recent." This is when DNA analysis tells us that body lice speciated from head lice. Humans were the only mammal who could support a population of body lice. No other species maintained a cozy, safe, covered environment for a parasite that no longer needed to navigate among the hairs.

Homo sapiens have been wearing clothes for roughly half of the time we've been on this planet. That's a very long time.

. . . . it is difficult to believe that doing cartwheels was not a means of “showing it all off”.

Difficult for whom? No one but dirty old men.

The vast majority of adult men are not aroused by prepubescent females unless they are deliberately dressed up like adult women. The triggers are missing, especially the body shape--no breasts, no pelvis.

The persistence of cartwheeling is indicative that it confers an evolutionary advantage.

Like most mammals, immature humans have a lot of excess energy and burn it off by playing. Our young can only perform the movements that their bodies are capable of performing, and cartwheels are one of them. Of course they'd rather fly, but they don't have the physiology for it. They can run, and they do so, most of them spending a lot more time on that activity than adults do.

Suggesting that the average female human child turns cartwheels in order to arouse sexual interest in the adult men who are watching, and also that sane, healthy men are sexually aroused by it, is disgusting, but most importantly it is incorrect.

Humans have the longest maturation cycle of any mammal: roughly 15 years before they are allowed to perform adult tasks without supervision. This obviously requires attention from both parents, and we, like dolphins and a very few other mammals, have a mutation that makes this practical: human females (like dolphin females) are physically capable of intercourse when not in estrus. This helps keep the fathers at home.

Baby whales reach maturity in two years; elephants in five.

Our children keep behaving like children for many years, just burning off energy and generating all the endorphins that keep them happy in this strange, scary civilization. Meanwhile the adults are doing our job of protecting them. "It takes a whole village..." Of course we'll protect them from pedophiles who are aroused by cartwheels.

I cannot state categorically that the literature is devoid of mention of cartwheels as a form of sexual display -- but I certainly have no recollection of ever having stumbled upon the subject. Googling also fails to suggest that the subject has been tackled by psychologists.

Little boys do cartwheels too (to the extent that any American children of either gender are actually playing outside instead of doing all of their recreation on a computer screen). That's probably all the psychologists had to consider before dismissing the whole tacky idea.

We have no way of knowing who's reading the discussions on SciForums. You would be well advised to keep these ideas to yourself. In the meantime, please make an appointment with a Jungian analyst who is not an M.D. and has no authority to refer you to anyone.

A word to the wise!

Fraggle Rocker
Moderator
Linguistics, Arts & Culture

 

[River Ape]

I felt that my OP was quite long enough and hoped that readers would gather that I was not especially addressing the here and now. I am concerned with human characteristics that have been present through the eons, and with their function.

Now Oystein may at sometime have done a cartwheel, but surely there is no doubt that turning cartwheels is girls stuff and not boys stuff. You might say that among boys it is not selected for as a preferred form of exercise. Much childhood behaviour is rehearsal, and at (say) seven years old a girl who turns cartwheels is getting in some practice and not trying to ensnare a seven year old boy (who probably has little interest in girls anyway).

spidergoat points out that girls like dancing and gymnastics. People of both sexes in many cultures enjoy many forms of dancing. Gymnastics in its modern form (no longer a reference to exercising in the nude) is difficult to interpret on a cross-cultural basis. But turning cartwheels in a very particular, even peculiar, form of exercise. It has to come from some deep impulse which girls have but boys do not share. The point is not that most cartwheeling is done from a motive of sexual attraction but that it derives from its own deep impulse -- and that that impulse serves the function of sexual attraction. Please re-read the last sentence until you grasp its meaning.

For many thousands of years, many tribal peoples have worn some form of simple skirt, supported by a waistband, which provides sexual modesty only as long as gravity operates in its normal direction, i.e. towards the feet. The inversion of the human removes such modesty.

Most YouTube videos of cartwheeling feature adolescent girls. This is no accident. It is as a girl approaches child-bearing age that nature (evolution) prefers her to acquire a sexual partner (or partners). This has not been a problem in most tribal societies. Christian missionaries, of course, have preferred otherwise.

Thank you, Daecon, who asks whether girls of all cultures do cartwheels. It could be enlightening to learn. Contributions, especially from females, from far flung parts of the world might add to our understanding of the phenomenon. Meanwhile, those who do not accept my thesis would do well to develop a convincing explanation of their own for the female impulse to turn cartwheels.

 

[Kristoffer]

I did cartwheels. I'm male.

Boom, proof your idea isn't very well thought out.

 

[Oystein]

Someone already hinted at it but I'll just say it right out: You're a dirty old pervert. I bet you have to register whenever you move, don't you?

I guess folks should be on the lookout for a 70-year old man at the park displaying WAY too much interest in the little girls playing.

 

[sideshowbob]

When I was a teenager, teenage girls standing up from having been sitting down were engaging in sexual display. Also the ones taking their coats off when coming indoors, and crossing the street at intersections, and turning around from having been walking in one direction.

That was my first thought when I read the OP. EVERYTHING females do is sexual display - at least to males it is.

 

[billvon]

I felt that my OP was quite long enough and hoped that readers would gather that I was not especially addressing the here and now.

OK but you haven't answered the very important questions about male sexual displays using sporting equipment.

If you played baseball in your youth, where did you feel the impulse came from? How old were you when you first began handling bats? Thinking back, did it give you an almost sexual thrill to fight with your friends to get your hands on the largest bat - or was the thrill more subconscious?

 

[origin]

Most YouTube videos of cartwheeling feature adolescent girls.

You watch Youtube videos of adolescent girls doing cartwheels!?! Eeewwww.... I think you should just shut up and cut your losses.

 

[Oystein]

Googling also fails to suggest that the subject has been tackled by psychologists.

That's because no respected psychologist is going to waste their time and energy on such an asinine conjecture as you have proposed here.

I can't believe you posted this crap on a science forum.

 

[paddoboy]

I can't believe you posted this crap on a science forum.

Go check out some of the stuff in cesspool or even pseudoscience!