At first I thought this was fairly straight-forward dynamic when it came to men and fell under two categories:

1) The crossed arms across the breasts suggests a defensive or annoyed reaction to letcha know to stop looking.

2) The crossed arms underneath the breasts, which I'd thought was a not too subtle way of encouraging, ah, public scrutiny.

But then, writing in cafes as I do, there are monkey wrenches everywhere with this interpretation.

For instance, I've seen young women frowning or looking miffed or pouty but performing the under breast technique with this or that bloke. Alternatively, hopelessly grinning ladies will gleefully bubble and engage in the across breast technique. True, this just might fall under the 'cock tease' approach so favored by the mainstream, but it still makes one wonder.

So what exactly is this little talked about bit of body language? Indeed, when can a man know the proper appreciation to pay to decolletage? I'd (wrongly) thought at one time that such a gesture was considered rude or in bad taste on the part of men. Considering the 2-sizes-too-small blouses and uncomfortably tight bra movement in fashion, though, it would seem some women appreciate the attention their endowments attract.

Along those lines, here's something else I've noticed:

I'll look at a woman briefly, we'll sometimes make eye contact, and a few minutes after she puts on her sweater/tie-around/thingy. I've seen this happen enough times to figure this is probably some kind of put-off gesture, but still: what the fuck does it exactly mean?

I'm from the school of thought that you can dress to accentuate or downplay yourself...and if a tight shirt and nipples rule the day, it seems very odd that I should get a look for taking notice of such a thing. And I mean notice, not oggle. I'm not a horrid looking gent after all, so I'd say I hardly warrant a sweater or a cross-breast gesture.

Perhaps its too bad we don't come equipped with giant neon signs plastered to our head, which can blink "Look!" or "Gah!" like crosswalk signals. At the least, we should have some sort of flirtation mechanism in-between the completely blatant or painfully subtle rituals we western wankers torture ourselves with.

In any case, the vagueries of sexual conduct are...vague.

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