The real reason men like high heels

IT might make women think twice before putting on high heels for a date.

Men find the shoes attractive not because they are glamorous or give the illusion of longer legs but because they make a woman arch her back – which is a signal that she is ready for sex, a study suggests.

Previous research has shown men are most attracted to women with a back curving exactly 45 degrees above the top of her bottom.

The new study, led by Dr David Lewis at Murdoch University in Australia and published in the journal Frontiers In Psychology, states that an arched back in high heels may communicate information about a woman’s ‘openness to mating advances’.

In many animals, arching of the lower back signals a tendency to engage in behaviour which instigates sex.

The researchers showed photos of women wearing heels or flats to a group of men, but with their feet and heads cropped off. They found that men fancy women in heels even when they cannot see the shoes.

They said the findings could therefore not be explained by ‘an association between high-heeled footwear and perceptions of women’s sexuality, a media-constructed preference for high-heeled shoes, or any other reason that men might have a preference for the shoes themselves’.

The authors say celebrities may deliberately arch their backs to look better.