In Spain, especially, among European countries, the
walk very notably gives expression to the hips and buttocks. The spine is
in Spain very curved, producing what is termed _ensellure_, or
saddle-back--a characteristic which gives great flexibility to the back
and prominence to the gluteal regions, sometimes slightly simulating
steatopygia. The vibratory movement naturally produced by walking and
sometimes artificially heightened thus becomes a trait of sexual beauty.
Outside of Europe such vibration of the flanks and buttocks is more
frankly displayed and cultivated as a sexual allurement. The Papuans are
said to admire this vibratory movement of the buttocks in their women.
Young girls are practiced in it by their mothers for hours at a time as
soon as they have reached the age of 7 or 8, and the Papuan maiden walks
thus whenever she is in the presence of men, subsiding into a simpler gait
when no men are present. In some parts of tropical Africa the women walk
in this fashion. It is also known to the Egyptians, and by the Arabs is
called _ghung_.[146] As Mantegazza remarks, the essentially feminine
character of this gait makes it a method of sexual allurement.
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