I have heard it said that some girls wear their heart on their sleeve. I am fairly certain that this is not true. If it were, I would notice. I notice girls’ sleeves, because I notice their arms. I love arms. I feel that they are perhaps the most under-appreciated piece of female anatomy, followed closely by hands and shoulders. Perhaps they do not get the attention they deserve because they are always in plain view. They are everywhere. No one has given them an aura of mystery by requiring that they be covered by clothing. Like many beautiful things, they go unnoticed because they are not unusual or uncommon. If you take a moment to observe, though, you will find that arms are a wonder of smoothness and symmetry, grace and warmth. They are expressive, sensitive, and often are breathtakingly beautiful. I would like to share with you what I know of arms, and why I love them.
So what is so wonderful about arms? An arm is just a hinged limb, not that different from a leg in its mechanics. Well, a rainbow is nothing more than light refracted in mist, but knowing its physical properties won’t save you from being rendered speechless by its majestic stretch of color, arcing across the sky. An arm is made beautiful by subtle curves of musculature beneath the skin, and by the skin itself. Together, two beautiful arms posed in symmetry can create a loveliness difficult to surpass.
Besides being beautiful, arms are wonderfully touchable. I remember being fascinated by my grandmother’s arms. Her arm muscles were iron bands over her bones from years of hard use. A soft drapery of skin hung from them and swung hypnotically when she moved, much to my delight as a toddler sitting in her lap. In later years, I got on my sister’s nerves more than once when I didn’t resist the urge to play with the skin on her elbows, a temptation difficult to ignore when they were within reach. I had a similar experience in college, when a girlfriend once bid me be still after my absent-minded stroking of her arm had finally built up an unbearable complaint from her arm hair.
I remember very clearly the first time I specifically noticed that a girl had beautiful arms. In my high school Spanish class, I sat a few rows behind the institution’s crown jewel of feminine beauty. A slender girl with brown hair had captured nearly every male eye that touched her, including my own. One day she raised her hand in class. A shutter clicked, and the entire scene was seared into my mind’s eye. The room, the desks, the teacher, the girl, and her outstretched arm were there any time I closed my eyes as if they were burned into my retinas by the sun. I almost felt victimized by the intensity of the impact the image had on me. It didn’t leave until I had drawn it on paper, and even today I can summon the image at will.
Since that experience I have had countless less intense but similar arm encounters. I love hair bands that lose their hold in my presence. I don’t know how many times my heart has nearly stopped at the sight of a girl pursuing an errant ponytail with both hands, elbows pointed skyward. There is perhaps nothing more attractive than a pretty girl with both arms aloft and her hands in her hair. I once joked to a female friend that if I ever become an oppressive dictator, my first law will be that all women of a certain age must go about with their arms over their head and their hands in their hair. It was in fact this pose that made me realize that I had a fascination with arms. I was trying to decide what it was that struck me so forcefully about a girl with her arms aloft. At first I reasoned that it might be simply a basic response to the way breasts are pulled upwards when arms are raised. I soon realized however, that I was affected with equal power when viewing the same movements from behind, which meant it must be the arms alone that distracted me so.
There are many different qualities that can combine to make a beautiful arm. An eye-catching arm is almost always slender and smooth, but beyond that there is a veritable catalog of ways in which they can be lovely. The most common is probably the tanned arm, kissed golden-brown by the sun. Such an arm is possibly best showcased on a blond girl in a white dress, barefoot and outdoors on a hot summer day. If you touch arms like these, you will find they are radiating with heat they have absorbed from the sun.
Girls that freckle rather than tan in the sun are a rare treat, although they usually don’t appreciate their freckles as they should. I compare freckles on arms to mineral impurities in diamonds. The tiny bits of mineral are what give a diamond its distinctive internal fire that differentiates it from lesser stones. A girl with freckled arms should be told that without flecks of color, her diamonds would be cheap and her arms would be unadorned and far less interesting.
Another beautiful arm is ivory white. These are usually found attached to the bare shoulders of fair-skinned girls in evening gowns at a winter dance. If you see a girl like this, take her hand to dance, and you will find that her fingers are pleasantly cool to the touch. If you take a closer look at her arms, you will notice that they are not quite white, but are in fact a very light pink, which may deepen a couple of shades if she notices you looking.
I think there is something about a woman’s arms that is more deeply attractive than just their aesthetic appeal, and I believe it must at least partly be related to maternity. A baby spends a lot of time with female arms for a bed, and a female arm for a pillow. Our first hug came from mother’s arms. I imagine we are aware of her arms before we are even aware of our own. In light of this, it seems only natural that there would be something instinctually appealing about a woman’s arms. There’s something about them that resonates in the soul.
The other major appeal of a woman’s arms is their sensual appeal. I have not mentioned it so far, because I am not writing about a sexual fetish. It cannot be denied, though, that a woman’s arms are a part of her body, and as such play a role in her sexual attractiveness. I recall a movie I watched in which a girl with remarkably lovely arms threw them around the neck of the male protagonist for a passionate kiss. I sank low in my seat, gripping the armrest until my knuckles turned white, hoping that no one in the theatre would notice how deeply affected I was by this scene, which was just a kiss after all. I remember thinking to myself that there might not be any nicer feeling than a girl putting her arms around your neck like that. Indeed, when I began dating my first girlfriend, I found that there was a world of difference between a waist hug and a neck hug. When she put her arms around my neck, my knees weakened, and I could barely stay upright for the pleasure of their close proximity.
When one delves into the sensuality of arms, smell cannot be ignored. You may not think that arms have a distinguishable smell, but that would be because you aren’t thinking of armpits. I am not speaking of unwashed armpit smell, but of the pheromones that are produced under the arm. The armpit is one of a few places on the body that produce sexual pheromones. In ancient times, a Roman lover would carry an apple under their arm to give to their beloved. This was a sensual indulgence, as the pheromones produced under the arm are the same as the pheromones produced on lips, nipples and genitals. Eating such an apple would stand a fair chance of causing sexual arousal in the eater, especially if they had already learned the scent of their lover. It is no wonder that arms around the neck have such strong appeal. The person being embraced is probably also being enveloped by a wave of pheromones stirred by the movement.
Female arms beautiful – aesthetically, maternally, and sensually. This beauty explains why a ballerina poses with her arms arched over her head rather than at her side. This beauty is the reason that I have come to appreciate tank tops the way an astronomer appreciates a cloudless night sky. A girl’s arms can pull you into a soft embrace that makes you forget your problems, your worries, and possibly even your own name. When you see them, touch them, or even smell them, I urge you to appreciate them fully. You will find, as I have, that they can be intensely rewarding.
-J.R. Willett