TDD: Poker players wear sunglasses so as not to give away their secrets. Eyes are the windows to the soul, and Anna has pulled down the shades. Nothing will be revealed until SHE IS READY.

TDD: Even after the shades come off, her hair is a curtain, a shield. Or possibly an electric fence. Proceed with caution.

TDD: Her shoulders are relaxed, yet her arms are held close to the body; she plays her cards close to the vest; keeps us guessing: Which white blonde actress will be on Vogue next? Dave has shown her the sole of his shoe, a grave offense, but she laughs with ease, because he is merely a pawn in her chess game of fashion and publicity. A pawn!

TDD: In this serene moment, it's quite obvious by the way her mouth is slightly turned up at the corners that Anna is thinking of Roger Federer.

TDD: See that glint in her eye? She'd like you to know that despite everything you have read about women's magazines and self-esteem, anorexia is not an epidemic! Obesity is. And The September Issue opens Friday.

TDD: Fascinating. You read about it in books, but never get a chance to observe it in the field! Open mouth, head cocked, eyebrows raised, shoulders down… This is the kind of haughty delight one sees only in the incredibly rich.

TDD: Uh-oh. There must be someone over a size 6 in her sightline. Bad news.

TDD: Kidding! What is this, Minnesota?

TDD: But seriously, there's something amiss. Are there BLACK people in the theater or something?

TDD: Because that's cool! Especially if it's Michelle Obama! Or Oprah, post-crash-diet!

TDD: Right about here you can tell that Anna's patience is wearing thin. Her smile is tight and unnatural; her eyes narrowed. She may have to lie when asked about the recession.

TDD: She's trying to appear convincing while talking about how you don't need an expensive gown — just some $20 lipstick. But there's fatigue in her eyes and even the thought of some low-budget cosmetic touching her face has made her left eye kind of want to twitch a little. She's had to widen it to keep from developing a nervous tic.

TDD: She's like, "Shit. What was I saying?"

TDD: Oh yes. "People in Minnesota look like little houses."

TDD: Err…

TDD: What I mean is, The September Issue opens Friday!

TDD: She's convinced she's been a charming guest. She's relaxed around most men, because she knows she weighs less than they do and will look thin next to them.

TDD: And when the interview is over, the electric fence separates her from the world once again.

Earlier: Body Language Expert: Twilight Stars In Love
Body Language "Expert" Weighs In On Brad & Angie

TDD: Robert pretends not to care as his ONE TRUE LOVE, Kristen, leans in to his rival, the Buff Werewolf. His arms are crossed: He's Pissed. But also protecting himself. His heart. New Moon swoon! His shoulders lean away from Kristen, because he's angry that she is hurting him. But his hips remain close — magnetically attracted to her. Kristen nonchalantly looks out and away from Robert, avoiding eye contact. She's sort of giving him the finger, and giggling about it. The girl just doesn't give a fuck. She bares her tattooed belly and has her sunglasses ready, in case she needs to split. Meanwhile, the Buff Werewolf keeps his hands near his fly, indicating that he's prepared to have intercourse with her at a moment's notice.
(Click "Full Size" to enlarge)

TDD: This is what is known in body-language speak as "mirroring." When you're attracted to someone, you may find yourself mirroring — copying — their body language. Like if they're out to dinner, and they lean in over the table, you'll lean in, too. Or if you're talking on a sofa, he'll put his arm up on the back of the sofa, and you'll put your arm up, too. And then you gaze into each others' eyes, and talk about how majestic the earth must have looked before civilization, and then he kisses you, and you move into the bedroom, and one thing leads to another, and you think, this is it, he's so perfect, and I've always thought an orthodontist would be a good match, and you think maybe you'll get like, a little cabin somewhere, with a lawn and a shabby chic bedroom, and one of those faux French chippy white painted kitchens, and then he never calls, and you spend the next three nights watching old movies and shaking your head at your cat, telling her how dumb she is for being needy, when you're really talking to yourself, and then you eat some Butter Pecan and pretend none of it ever happened.
(Click "Full Size" to enlarge)

TDD: Eye contact! Kristen is making eye contact with Robert. The reports of their chemistry cannot be denied. You can feel the heat, the tension, the passion, the desire. I think his hand is trying to wipe away some drool? Poor Buff Werewolf, caught in the middle of an electricity storm!
(Click "Full Size" to enlarge)

TDD: At this point the looks are so intimate, so penetrative, that Buff Werewolf must nervously laugh and close his eyes. His mouth is pulled into a grimace of pain: He's excluded from the… Can I say "eyefuckfest"? Well... Hmm. Nevermind. He's excluded from the sensual ocular copulation Kristen and Robert are having right in front of him. Robert's enjoying it so much he's becoming quite flushed. Every hair on his body is quivering at the sight of her, and even his pinky finger is erect and swollen with desire and yearning…
(Click "Full Size" to enlarge)

TDD: It's over. The thrill is gone. Kristen's eyes are dead and devoid of emotion. Her crossed arms speak volumes: She is not happy. But why does Robert have a smirk on his face? He has one hand in his pocket, but where is his other hand? And where is the Buff Werewolf's hand? This tale has taken a twist!

[Images via Getty.]

Twilight Lovers Robert Pattinson And Kristen Stewart And Their 'Incredible Chemistry' [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Body Language "Expert" Weighs In On Brad & Angie

"The simple act of holding a drink displays a lot more about us than we realise - or might want to divulge, Wilson says, "When you're in a crowded bar, often all you have to go on is body language. To a large extent, it's an unconscious thing and just reflects the person you are and the type of social relationships you have." In other words: look! It's just one more thing you have to worry about when you're out drinking. Not only are people silently judging you on your clothes, your hair, your choice of drink, and your conversational skills, they're judging you on the way you hold your bloody glass as well. Oh joy! Oh bliss!

Wilson divides his glass-holders into eight distinct personality types: The Flirt, The Playboy, The Ice Queen, The Wallflower, The Fun Lover, Jack-the-Lad (douchebag frat guy) and The Browbeater. And yes, each "type" is just as annoying and stereotypical as it sounds.

The Flirt, Wilson argues, will "may position it over her cleavage so as to draw attention to her attributes," while the ice-queen "drinks from a wine glass, or a short glass, which is held firmly in a barrier position across the body so as to deter intimate approaches. It is usually a waste of time approaching this woman; she may be ready with a castrating put-down." Or maybe she just doesn't want to talk to YOU in particular? Ever think of that, Glass-Man?

Men have their own equally as annoying glass-holding stereotypes to fit into: the Playboy "uses his, usually long, glass or bottle as a phallic prop, playing with it suggestively," while the Browbeater, "usually male, he prefers large glasses, or bottles, which he uses as symbolic weapons, firmly grasped, and gesticulating in a threatening, 'in the face' kind of way." So essentially for men, I guess, bottles are penises that hold liquor.

All of Wilson's glass-holding types come across as fairly unpleasant people, and one wonders how legit this study is, considering that people may just take on a different stance due to certain environmental factors and influences. Someone may be in "Flirt" mode one second and "Ice Queen" mode the next, depending on who is making the advances. Someone may come across as a Wallflower while holding their first drink but a Playboy by the time they get their hands on their fourth or fifth.

Wilson seems to have missed out on a few glass personality types as well. What of the Scorpion Bowl sharer? Or the person who insists upon drinking out of the tiny stirring straw? Or the Shot Drinker? Or the Weekend Blogger, who holds her straw with her chin whilst balancing a glass of chocolate milk on her chest and typing at the same time?

What say you commenters? Is this glass-holding nonsense legit? Or just another unnecessary thing to worry about?

'Glass Hold' Reveals Personality [BBC]

Perhaps Orbach's best ideas concern the ways we have come to look at our bodies. She tells Deborah Solomon at the Times,

What I am seeing is franticness about having to get a body. I wish we could treat our bodies as the place we live from, rather than regard it as a place to be worked on, as though it were a disagreeable old kitchen in need of renovation and update.

The idea of the body as a home to cherish, or at least to accept, flaws and all, seems radical, and, sadly, difficult to achieve. In the New York Press, Orbach offers some cultural reasons why it's so hard for us to think of our bodies as simply "the place we live":

[O]ur bodies have become a site for consumer activity. There are industries that are suggesting that our products should be our bodies. So we've got plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery. You've got a diet industry that's telling us to transform our bodies all the time even though if dieting really works, we would only have to do it one time. So dieting works on our failure.

This idea of the body as product, something that you invest in and that pays off with praise and sexual attention, is all over women's magazines. Sometimes it's subtext and sometimes, as in a recent Marie Claire piece about getting plastic surgery to save your job, it's just plain text. Orbach seems spot-on so far, but things get a little weirder when she talks to the Daily Beast. She says,

When I wrote Fifi [Fat Is a Feminist Issue], I saw mental problems or social issues being acted out on the body, but I now think that every act of cutting, every eating problem or extreme surgical procedure can be seen as the body attempting to let its presence and the difficulties around it be known.

She also says that, "the body's problems are forcing themselves into consciousness and they may be undermining our feelings of safety." It's an interestingly holistic point of view, but it's strange to think of plastic surgery as something the body does to itself — unless Orbach sees low self-esteem as coming from the body. Of course, it's artificial to completely separate our brains from our bodies, but it's also hard to imagine cultural messages working directly on our thighs. Maybe we're being reductive, but when it comes to all the bad feelings men and women have about fat, age, height, and shape, we still blame brains.

Her Beautiful Mind [New York Times]
What Drives Us To Hate Our Bodies? [New York Press]
Size Doesn't Matter [Daily Beast]

Of course, this begs the question: is winking ever appropriate in anyone of either sex? Not really. Winking tends to be ridiculous by nature: patronizing, conspiratorial, bizarre, old-man roguish. In many cultures, winking is regarded as offensive or obscene; in ours, it's merely odd. But even then, it's generally a masculine purview — albeit an undesirable one.

Sarah Palin's infamous winks are a cautionary tale: the gesture managed to seem flirtatious, childish, dowdy and unprofessional all at once — to say nothing of culturally problematic. Her behavior made us think about winking and just why her co-option of the gesture was so shocking: it became clear that winking is probably one of the least serious gestures in the world. For one thing, winking deliberately disrupts the all-important eye contact that is crucial to communication; seems inherently untrustworthy; and, since not everyone can do it well, there's the ever present risk of tic-or-wink confusion. Winking, for all its conspiratorial overtones, is inherently divisive: it places the winker in a position of secret-sharer; the wink-ee, by contrast, has no say in whether or not he wants to be in on the joke. As such, it's somehow embarrassing for both parties.

If I had to hazard some armchair anthropology on why it's particularly problematic in women, I'd guess it has at least something to do with the fact that the gesture contorts the face in defiance of all notions of beauty, and there is something discomfiting about injecting deliberate distortion into everyday interaction. Then too, women are perhaps less free, given centuries of ingrained suspicion of our inherent moral fiber, to even suggest any notion of dishonesty, lack of openness, or complicity. To say nothing of the fact that as a naked come-on it's hardly going to win any points for traditional demureness.

That said, when done well — ie, not in a political debate — winking can be a valuable, just because so few people do it. One of my friends — a friendly, open person — regularly winks, not at men, but at other women. The gesture is odd, sure, but also strangely friendly and disarming. The same quality that renders man-on-woman winking knowing and creepy can, when used between peers, feel somehow intimate and conspiratorial — there is, after all, always some joke to share between like minds. Without wishing to overburden anyone with personal information, it should be said that I have been known, on occasion, to wink in instances of romantic intimacy — which is always unexpected. I also enjoy occasionally winking at too-cool-for-school types in aggressively hip situations. In a weird way, the very corniness of the gesture and the minor willingness to make oneself ridiculous is a means of seizing benign control of a situation.

Then, of course, you've got the Miraculous Winking Jesus, "who winks so that God would forgive us of our sins." And I really don't have anything to say about that.

Miraculous Winking Jesus [WinkingJesus.com]
Sarah Palin's wink will offend in India and China [Los Angeles Times]
CNN Comapres Winking Sarah Palin to Betty Boop [The Raw Story]

I should say, the article is very instructive — I mean, how else would you possibly know that your "man" is protective (chest-puller), emotionally detached (spooning), needy (head in lap) or takes instruction well, like an arm-wrapper? And once you know, of course, you can set about correcting and improving him — jerking him forcibly into a more sensitive position next time you lie down to watch a movie. Don't relax your guard for a moment! Why enjoy uncomplicated intimacy when you can mine every facet of your man's behavior for flaws?

Of course, we totally get that it can't be fun to come up with this stuff month after month — and it's pretty harmless on its own. But besides being complete balderdash, it does seem like the cumulative effect of this kind of stuff is to strip spontaneity from every facet of a relationship, reducing the day-to-day pleasures of intimacy to a punchline on a Sex and the City episode. And seriously, aren't there enough real problems and complications and mysteries in a relationship without having to invent new ones? I foresee, in the coming days, several 15-year-old girls seriously questioning their "men's" emotional commitment based on how he holds her while they watch Batman on his mom's couch.

What His Cuddling Body Language Reveals [Cosmopolitan]

Earlier: Once More With Feeling: Ladymags Generate Anxiety Over Orgasm Faces

He says: "What should I mix with the vodka? OJ, or my cell phone?"






















He says: "I think I found the alien mind-control device."

























He says: "I'm auditioning for the STD pamphlet at your gyno."






















He says: "I just pooped on your counter."

























Your turn, readers! What does this guy say?

[Cosmopolitan]