The Ultimate Body Language Book

their legs as a dominance display as it puts the genitals out for everyone to see. This is one of the
gestures that makes use of the exercise of imagining people fully nude. What would you think of a
guest that sat down in your favourite chair and tossed his leg over the arm rest? Would you think him
any less belligerent if he had done it at his own house? The leg over the chair is as overt a leg spread
message as you will get.
The degree to which leg spreading happens is important in both sexes. Spreading is positively
correlated with dominance display. That is the greater the leg spread, the greater is the dominance
display. The legs cocked, so to speak, at shoulder width while seated, is comfortable and natural even
for both sexes, but once the legs break that distance, appear much less covert. Once the legs meet their
maximum angle, it is as if the genitals are yelling at the top of their lungs through a loudspeaker
begging to be noticed! Legs in the figure four where one ankle is raise and placed on top of the knee
opposite is an abbreviated leg cross which is less dominant. We cover this later in the chapter. The legs
can also be cross tightly with the legs nearly parallel or with the leg over the knee. This is a reserved
posture and shows a respectful, polite and proper attitude.
In a standing position, legs spread at or slightly beyond shoulder width signals dominance in a more
acceptable way. In fact, having the legs uncrossed while standing is the most appropriate way to stand
since it appears open, accepting and confident. Crossing at the ankles, as we will see later, shows a
reserved mind and is therefore a closed posture. We must be careful with reading leg information since
most everyone has a preferred way to cross them, but if we watching their movement across time and
across context we can pattern specific people. We should never assume that any and all signals,
especially leg crossing, has universal meaning across all people.