Dating in the modern world can be a minefield of mixed messages. Sorry ladies, but we’re about to bust another Man Myth, and this one’s a doozy: Guys are not as into your collarbones as their poetry would suggest.
We know what you’re thinking: What about that one poetry class you took in college?! Nearly all the boys’ poems mentioned beads of sweat glistening on girls’ collarbones or wanting to run their tongue along their female friends’ clavicles. At times it seemed they couldn’t wax poetic about anything else besides our rib-adjacent, neck-stabilizing body bones! But new polls show that men aren’t actually turned on by those bony protrusions on your upper chest. In fact, they couldn’t care less about them.
What gives?
“Collarbones are an artsy way of alluding to your boobs,” says one male college professor who wishes to remain anonymous. “Obviously. Because your boobs are there, too.”
“What do I find sexy in a woman?” asks Sam Jackson, 29. “Her brain. Her heart. Then probably her face. Then her legs. Collarbones are way at the bottom of the list, like, after feet but before her nail beds.”
He adds, “I just want a girl who’s skinny enough that we can see her bones, but big enough that she still has boobs mixed in.”
For many women who, like this writer, have assumed that all boys grow up jerking it to clavicle porn ever since she attended a particularly male-dominated open mic at her local bookstore, this news may come as a bit of a shock. If not collarbones, then what? I searched my mind for other poetry references. The small of my back? The nape of my neck? No. In fact, the same study found that most men don’t even know what the word “nape” means—they’ve just heard other male poets say it.
So ladies, it’s time we reevaluate how much stock we put in men’s poems. It turns out, even those sensitive T.S Eliot fans still only care about the T and A. You can stop worrying about cutout placement on your high-necked blouses, and start worrying about all the traditionally hot parts of you that could be hotter.
