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The Ultimate Body Language Book

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one’s self back” as one might do to a wily cat or dog by grabbing them by the scruff of the neck. In this<br />

case, though, we are doing it to ourselves. While not a full blown emotional displacement posture it<br />

does serve to alleviate the negative sensation we have. Like taking medicine fixes illnesses, and an itch<br />

fixes a scratch a gesture treats and underlying emotion. Not until we allow ourselves the opportunity to<br />

do the gesture can we treat our underlying emotion. This is what makes gestures and postures in body<br />

language so predictive of emotional roots. <strong>The</strong>y are connected.<br />

Touching the back of the neck is not the same as touching any other part of the neck such as the side,<br />

which can be used as a filler gesture to pause for thought, or the front which can be used to show sexual<br />

interest in a dating context. Scratching the back of the neck, rather, is a primitive gesture, that is a<br />

response to arrector pili muscles in the scruff that our body uses to make our hair stand on end. <strong>The</strong><br />

arrector pili are a microscopic band of muscle tissue that connects hair follicles to the skin. When<br />

stimulated, the muscles contract and cause the hair to turn upward and perpendicular to the skin<br />

surface, or stand on end. While the purpose of the muscles in humans is vestigial, meaning they are an<br />

evolutionary throwaway, they were once used to trap air next to the skin to help keep the body warm.<br />

Other uses are for display and competition to make the body appear larger and more threatening. You<br />

have probably seen a domestic cat put its hair up when challenged by another cat. In porcupines, the<br />

muscles contract to bring the quills up as a defense. As a defense, and for heat retention for people, the<br />

purpose of the arrector pili is laughable at best, but our bodies still react to cold and fear, even<br />

aggression by stimulating the muscles. A cold chill down the spin and “goose bumps” or “goose pimps”<br />

is a reference to the same thing. When we reach for our scruff, we are showing an evolutionary<br />

throwaway to a time when our hair would have stood on end!<br />

Neck touching can be a positive signal when it’s done in the right context – here neck exposure shows<br />

comfort and attraction.<br />

Neck touches are therefore, connected with negative thinkers and restraint. To discover the true<br />

meaning of the gesture, we need to look at this cue in context accompanied whatever other cues are<br />

present. For example, let’s imagine two men in a bar, one of which is yelling and swearing promising to<br />

send him to the next county, while the other, much larger and more muscular wearing an official MMA<br />

(mixed martial arts) attire, keeps his distance holding his arm to his neck. What is the MMA fighter<br />

doing here, is he thinking negative thoughts, or holding himself back from using his fighting skills to

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