“Duck face” or “duck lips” is a photographic pose, which is well known on profile pictures in social networks. Lips are pressed together as in a pout and often with simultaneously sucked in cheeks. The pose is most often seen as an attempt to appear alluring, but also as a self-deprecating, ironic gesture making fun of the pose. It may be associated with sympathy, attractiveness, friendliness or stupidity.
(Sarah Miller, "Duck Hunting on the Internet.” The New York Times. May 25, 2011.)
I am not a fan of the “duck face.” I see so many beautiful women on Facebook posting selfies with this pose. To me, the pouty expression looks so fake and unnatural that any intended attractiveness is compromised by the forced exaggeration.
Still, the phenomenon became so popular that Oxford Dictionaries Online added the definition of the expression in 2014 …
duck face (n.): (informal) an exaggerated pouting expression in which the lips are thrust outwards, typically made by a person posing for a photograph.
Some sources claim the trend of making duck lips in selfies began in Japan around 1998, where it is known as ahiru-guchi (アヒル口, “duck mouth”). Patrick W. Galbraith, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, says, "The pose draws attention to itself, hence all the talk about it in the media. So it is not meant to be 'natural' like a pouty face, but unnatural, almost a parody of traditionally defined beauty that is both funny and cute."
Any pose, such as “duck face” is a bodily falsehood, a natural response to the unnaturalness of a camera click that bears no necessary reference to a person's actual subjective state. We all pose for photos. And, we all – to a certain extent – distort our natural looks in posed photos. However, it is evident that many women believe their aggressive duck lips make them look more sexually attractive.
In fact, in animal communication studies of capuchin monkeys, the "duck face" term has been used synonymously with "protruded lip face,” which females exhibit in the proceptive phase before mating.
(Dorothy M. Fragaszy, et al. The Complete Capuchin: The Biology of the Genus Cebus. 2004).)
In 2010, OKCupid, a U.S.-based, internationally operating online dating website, reported the facial expression that elicited the most messages among its female users was the “flirty, pursed-lips expression commonly known as the 'duck face.'" As long as women were looking directly at the camera, a flirty duck face was even more enticing than a smile.
Even men who made a duck face while looking at the camera did about as well as men who simply smiled.
Then, in 2015, a group of scientists analyzed 123 selfies taken from Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter, and had each person whose picture was analyzed complete a personality questionnaire. The researchers noted whether the person pictured was doing things like making a duck face or looking at the camera.
Results showed that those who made a duck face were more likely to be neurotic, which means they tend to be anxious and moody.
The researchers also asked 107 Chinese university students to look at the Sina Weibo photos and draw inferences about the people's personalities.
As it turns out, the students assumed that those making a duck face were less conscientious, or less organized and hardworking – though the researchers didn't find any evidence of that link.
(Shana Lebowitz. “Here's what people really think when you make a 'duck face' in your selfie.” Insider. July 10, 2016.)
Sociologist Jenny Davis believes “duckfacing” women contort the face into a caricature of femininity. She says, “We see a tension, then, between the felt need for proper feminine bodily performance, and the devaluation of those who engage in this performance.”
Davis explains …
“The Duckface is therefore both a product and a site of feminine control. It is forged through standards of beauty, made all the more relevant in an era of photographic disclosure, and then punished for its inauthenticity, for its effortful display of that which is supposed to be effortless.
“The Duckfacing woman becomes a conspicuous symbol of how sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny work upon the body. However, instead of confronting sexism, patriarchy, or misogyny, we confront the symbol in its own right. We punish the woman who contorts her face, admonish her for showing us, through her pouty lips and artificially protruding cheekbones, what a controlled body looks like.”
(Jenny Davis. “Causes and Consequences of the Duckface.” Cyborgology. May 13, 2014.)
Exactly why an attractive female would contort her beautiful face with duck lips and display such a selfie on social media is unclear to me. I guess she knows what she is doing … or does she? Sex appeal, joking, neurotic behavior, or just plain clueless and following pop culture – perhaps any one contortion is a combination of many factors.
The lips have been a point of attraction seemingly forever. For countless centuries, women have painted their lips red to enhance their appeal, with this practice dating back as far as the Ancient Egyptians who commonly used red lipstick and rouge to enhance their attractiveness. Thus, the history of “the pout” is well-documented.
According to one study conducted at Manchester University in England, a woman’s lips are the most attractive part of her body, especially if she’s wearing red lipstick. Scientists found that in the ten seconds after meeting a lady for the first time, the average chap will spend more than half his time gazing at her mouth.
Research reveled that full lips were deemed to be the most attractive feature, but the appeal of thin lips increased by more than 40 per cent once make-up had been applied.
Dr Geoff Beattie, who led the study, said: “This study proves that lips represent one of the most sensual aspects of a woman’s body and play a critical role in human sexual attraction. Full and red lips combined deliver the perfect pout to achieve male fixation, but women who simply wear lipstick – regardless of their lip type – secure significantly greater levels of attraction than those who do not.
(Staff. “The lips have it: Research shows men are drawn to a woman's pout more than any other facial feature.” Daily Mail. November 25, 2010.)
Lips, themselves, are drawing more attention than ever. A growing number of women are using lip augmentation to get a perfect pout. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the demand for lip procedures is growing faster than that for breast augmentation. The ASPS highlighted an increase of 50% in lip augmentations for 18 to 55-plus-year-olds between 2000 and 2016.
Board-certified plastic surgeon Z. Paul Lorenc, M.D., F.A.C.S., says he’s seeing a growing number of young people coming in to request lip augmentation. “Twenty years ago, most of my patients were women over 65,” he said. “Now there’s a huge spectrum from late teens to women in their 60s and beyond.”
Young and old are buying into the idea that a woman who has large lips, suggesting a strong mating potential, with average length and width ratios will always be more attractive than a woman with narrow lips and average length and width ratios. Add this to the facial golden ratio for the social media generation.
So, in conclusion, what do I know about attractiveness and modern definitions of beauty? Evidently, very little. I don't even understand why so many beautiful young women get tattoos all over their lovely bodies. To me, all of this permanent modification is troubling. (I have young granddaughters I hope will never ink their bodies or augment their lips – they are beautiful just the way they are.)
But …
They are your lips, ladies. Augment them, inject them with hyaluronic acid, paint them red, and pucker them up. And, no matter what I say, feel free to duck face away. It's your right to chose the pose you feel best portrays your desired depiction.
Like the speaker in Theodore Roethke's poem, I fully understand that as a male, I am but a “poor rake coming behind her for her pretty sake.” When her “full lips pursed to play it light and loose,” I am clueless to the mystique of feminine attraction.
I Knew a Woman
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).
How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).
– Theodore Roethke, "I Knew a Woman" from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (1954)
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