The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

SUBMISSIVE TELLS
them so that they don't invade the public space and
impose themselves on other people. The other feature
involves keeping the knees together and/or crossing the
legs, either at the thigh or at the ankles. These postures are
the antithesis of 'open legged' postures, where the genitals
are put on display. With the knees together and the legs
crossed, the genitals are symbolically placed out of sight
and out of bounds, and other people are prevented, again
symbolically, from getting between the person's legs. The
other important function of crossing the legs and keeping
them close together is that this increases the amount of
'auto-contact' - that is, the extent that the body is in
contact with itself. When people feel threatened, as they
tend to do when they're being submissive, they often feel
the need to reassure themselves by increasing autocontact.
Again, this is not something that people
consciously decide to do. Most of the time it happens
without them being aware of what they're doing and why
they're doing it.
Self-comforting Tells
When we're talking to someone in a position of authority
we tend to assume that our own actions, rather than those
of the other person, are being judged, and this makes us
feel self-conscious and insecure. There are several ways
that we cope with these feelings. One is by engaging in
auto-contact actions where we touch, hold or stroke ourselves.
These self-comforting gestures serve to reassure us
- just as they do when someone else touches, holds or
strokes us. In this sense auto-contact actions are really
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