Waiting at a traffic light the other day, I watched a young attractive girl in a pair of short-shorts crossing the street. Two young men were also crossing, in the opposite direction, and when they passed each other, the two young men stopped in the middle of the road, turned around, and continued watching the girl’s rear end as she walked further away from them. The guys stood there, stunned, unable to move, as if some otherworldly force had hijacked their brains. They finally snapped out of their trance when the traffic light changed and honking car horns warned them that they were about to be run over.

I thought about ancient cave men and wondered how many of them were trampled to death by wooly mammoths because they turned their heads in the wrong direction and lingered a little too long to stare at a beautiful cave woman running by in nothing but a skimpy leather thong.

Could the ability of men to be so easily distracted by women explain the widening gap in today’s sex ratio between men and women? Studies have shown that, in fact, more baby boys are born than baby girls – a ratio of 107 boys to every 100 girls. But as we get older, the gap grows, so that by age 65 the sex ratio is 132 women to 100 men. By the age of 85, the ratio is 206 women to 100 men. That’s a lot of distracted men getting trampled by wild beasts, run over by cars, tripping down subway steps and slamming into walls.

I did a little research on this fascinating statistic and found that, up until the 17^th century, the male to female ratio was about equal. So, what happened in the 17th century that changed all that? Coincidentally, there was a pretty severe wardrobe change to a woman’s dress bodice at that time. The European woman’s 16^th century wardrobe revealed nothing about her anatomy or her sexuality.

Think of those Queen Elizabeth type portraits showing a flat-chested bodice and yards of ruffle wrapped around the neck and climbing up the back of the head.

By the 17^th century, women’s fashion had changed quite dramatically. The new century tore open a woman’s bodice to reveal two plump breasts hiding underneath all that fabric. Bosoms were put on display in open necked dresses, some of which revealed the entire breast – nipple and all.

A lot of men, no doubt, were walking into walls and falling off their horses. Thus began the widening gap in the male to female ratio, which has continued through our modern day.

Now, this is something you young gals might consider when dressing to go out. If you want your men to survive with you into old age, you might want to dress more modestly – offer up less distraction in an effort to increase the male survival rate for your future. When I was young, I never took this into consideration because the idea of ever appealing to an 85-year-old man was quite a repulsive thought. But, some day, when I’m in the old age home and all of us gals are fighting over the few remaining male dance partners, I’m going to wish I had worn more turtlenecks and longer skirts when I was young.

Who knows how many young men got run over by a car, while watching me cross the street in a pair of short-shorts?