There must have been a lot of slow time at the office for plastic surgeon Fahd Benslimane, M.D., to have spent 12 years researching what makes women’s legs attractive. The main ingredient, he decided, turns out to be straight bones.
Legs with bones that run in a straight line from the top of the thigh through to the knee joint and ankle, with nips and curves at the knee and calf, were the most beautiful, because they combine fragility with strength, he decided. “As soon as the column departs from the straight axis, it deviates from our perception of beauty, ” he said. He added that some curves are necessary for sexiness. Benslimane, who runs his own private clinic in Morocco, published his research in the Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Journal.
In his analysis he studied photographs of models and athletes as well as Greek statues, Barbie dolls and sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, to work out what types of legs were considered to be the most attractive in the western world. His analysis held that on the inside of the leg the calf needs to have a short but well-defined convex curve. The best legs also have a short concave curve which descends into the ankle and a much longer and smoother convex curve on the outside. Finally, the curves on the inside and the outside of the legs should not be symmetrical.
Mark Soldin, of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons, added that high heels make women with good legs even more attractive because the heel elevation heightens their curves. As he explained in the news release, “The elevation of the heel enhances the convexity of the upper calf muscles, while making the ankle region appear even thinner, more fragile and feminine.”
