I’m not sure if anyone has suggested that women don’t care about aesthetics but it certainly wasn’t me.
All we’re saying is that status (not “security” per se) is a major attractor for women.
“Why don’t teenage girls go nuts for Warren Buffett?”
Well, why do they go nuts for the star of Harry Potter, when there are no doubt equally good-looking guys at just about every high school? The answer is, because he has high status among their peer group, and the answer to the first question is that Warren Buffett does not. However, I’m sure Warren does much better among adult women.
“Why don’t women have calendars of the wal-mart heirs?” Because a calendar only conveys aesthetics, what’s the point of having a calendar of someone who’s attractive mainly because of his status?
Finally Bill Gates is an ugly, rich geek. His wealth will certainly help him with many women, but overall, his particular persona and reason for being famous isn’t sufficiently “alpha-male”.
Nonetheless, do you doubt that he could get far more attractive women than if he were broke, and not well-known? Why is this? Is it a conscious decision by women, the same conscious decision that women the world over seem to make all the time? Or, shock-horror, could there be an instinctive component here?
I can totally relate to that. The reason I avoid getting into such situations is not because I feel the need to take sex “seriously” all the time, or because I need to have an emotional commitment or because I’m not attracted on a casual basis or because I have a low sex drive, but primarily because I’m concerned that the guy might harm me.
Women are generally far more scared of strange men than men are of strange women, and statistically speaking, we have some reason to be. I really don’t think you can draw conclusions about male and female sex drives, on the basis of comparing casual mating behavior, without taking that important fact into account.
Especially when you consider the similarities in, say, adultery patterns among male and female co-workers, I remain dubious about the hypothesis that women just are nowhere near as interested in casual sex as men are. Maybe somewhat less interested, sure, but my speculation is that the fear factor accounts for a lot more of the difference than most guys realize.
Where do you even get off being this dismissive? Are you really trying to tell me that I don’t know my own body, apparently because even after more than a decade of sexual experience I’m still too young to have any idea what my own sexuality is like? And that you- who has never been a woman for even a day of his life- somehow knows better?
Why don’t you just pat me on the head, tell me it’s cute that I like sex, but I’ll grow out of it when I finally become a real woman?
In Bill’s defense, I will surmise that his controlling, monopolist instincts, as personified by Microsoft, would make him more than alpha enough for any woman who instinctively seeks that sort of thing.
Must …resist… temptation… to share anecdotes regarding female sex drive. I found an interesting article on the topic that summarizes various research findings. The source is WebMD, and the article is Sex Drive: How Do Men and Women Compare?. Some highlights:
In short, it appears that on average, men want more sex, have simpler needs and mechanisms of arousal, and are more likely to be satisfied by a sexual encounter. Clearly averages only provide an indication: it is perfectly possible for individuals to fall well outside of this pattern.
Social and peer pressures constrain women who want sexual gratification much more so than men looking for the same thing. And according to the statistics, sexual gratification is much more accessible to men than it is to women - so it is not surprising to see men more frequently engaged in the activity of trying to get laid.
On the other hand I must point out that the sexual response of the female body has considerably higher potential than male sexual response - multiple orgasms, for example, are much more common in females than males; and the duration of the female orgasm is on average much longer than that of the male. Plus, though most men think of themselves as studs, the simple fact of the matter is that in the average sexual encounter men tend to climax well before their female partners have achieved orgasm, which leads to a culture in which the female orgasm is de-emphasized and not considered as important as other factors in a relationship (conclusions with which, when talking about sex, I strongly disagree).
Leaving aside the discussion from evolutionary psychology (that women need some sort of filter on their sexuality because the result of any sexual encounter can end up being a massive investment) and the issue of safety (which is a very real concern to almost any woman who gives a strange man a chance), and acknowledging the above differences in sex drive, I would **speculate **that men are conditioned to seek more sex because, very simply, it works out pretty well for them. Women may benefit from being more selective, on a purely sexual basis, because it can allow them to weed out the ineffectual applicants and secure a partner who can actually satisfy them - either for the duration of the encounter or a longer relationship.
Yep, and that was the part of the post that I had the least confidence in. Not that I think Bill Gates does exude “alpha-male”, but that it’s at least debatable.
So scratch that part of the post. My responses to ITR Champion are:
re Bill Gates: Do you doubt he could pull more attractive women than if he were broke? Why is that?
re Warren Buffett and teenagers: Warren is not high-status among that demographic. But status is no doubt important to teenage girls because they go nuts over famous guys in a way totally out of proportion to the response of young men to famous women.
re the Mal-mart heirs: why buy a calendar of someone whose appeal is non-visual (status)?
I don’t think anyone is insisting that some women don’t choose their ‘mates’ based on things other than physical appearance. But it does seem that in this thread that has been almost discounted – we’re talking sex drive, and suddenly Bill Gates is relevant?
I think that women who pair up with rich, ugly men are not doing it because they ‘lust’ after them, per se, but because they are looking for security and all those things. I don’t think that the motivations there are the ‘sex drive’ at all, really. But that could just be my prejudice.
‘Status’ may be a turn-on for some, but I think that that ‘status’ is more about the ‘alpha-male’ persona that any factual basis about wealth and so on. Thus the difference between enjoying looking at/contemplating sex with Hugh Jackman and not so much enjoying looking at/contemplating sex with Bill Gates. And then there are the head-scratchers, like my friend who insisted she swooned for Gil Grissom. Don’t ask me to explain that one!
I think that alone is worth discussion, especially in America, where 4 out of 5 women use hormonal birth control at some point in their lives, with evidence that this can affect both sex drive and mate selection. This in addition to a variety of other meds taken by bothe men and women, especially for depression (including Valium, which ‘was never tested in randomized clinical trials with female subjects, although 2 million women per year consume this drug’).
Look, you are the one who made this about you and made it personal. Not me. You are the one citing yourself as the only valid example and ignoring that the immense majority of women across the ages and across the world do not conform to that.
No I have never been a woman but, how many women have you slept with? I was having sex with women before you were born and, not being entirely stupid, have learnt a thing or two. I have had sex and relationships with a few women and I have learnt many things. I have even learnt that women, like men, do not always even totally understand themselves and that sometimes someone outside can understand better what is going on.
But even if I was a virgin hermit I only have to look at biology of species, at the history of cultures, to realize men and women are very different in very basic ways.
I am not being dismissive of you. I just think you are mistaken. You are mistaken when you think you are representative of all women. You are mistaken with regards to the extent of your knowledge. I am not being dismissive. I am just telling you that I think you are mistaken and that I think I know why.
I had this exact discussion with my father when I was about your age and I defended exactly what you are saying now. Because that is what my generation was told. My father had a different opinion but he did not argue. He did, as he sometimes did, “write that down and sign it”, implying he would put it away and show it to me in some years.
I am not dismissing you at all but I am telling you my opinion that you still have a lot to learn, even about yourself, and you should recognize that. You can’t really believe you know all you will ever know in life.
I have seen many women change as they grew. Women who said they would never want children suddenly change their minds and decide having a child was their #1 priority in life. I have seen a lot more than you have only because I am older.
We say in Spanish that the Devil knows more because of how old he is than because he is the Devil.
So, don’t take it personally. You made it personal by talking about yourself. I have no interest in making it personal. I know enough about you to know you are brave and have many good qualities but it would be good if you could recognise that you will still learn a lot over the coming decades. Surely you understand that.
If you want to convince me you will have to show me other evidence than just your word that you are such way and most women are like you. If most women are like you then you do not need to set yourself as an example so we can keep this impersonal and you do not need to feel like I am attacking you personally. I am not.
If a woman did agree to have sex with Bill Gates in exchange for money, it would probably be because she wanted the money. If she did it for social status, it would probably be because she wanted the social status. But neither situation would prove that the woman had sex because of an innate drive to trade sex for money or status, nor that she is innately turned on by money or status. A woman (or man) might work a certain job, or drive a certain car, or eat in a certain restaurant for status, but obviously no one is genetically programmed to do those things. The decision on whether to have sex is not based solely on sexual feelings, not for women or for men. That’s the main point that I’ve been driving at throughout the entire thread.
As for the claim that teenage girls “go nuts over famous guys in a way totally out of proportion to the response of young men to famous women”, I question it. Seems to me that both genders are attracted to famous members of the opposite gender, but what does that prove? If teenage girls are attracted to Justin Timberlake or boys to Cindy Crawford, it’s probably because those people are physically attractive. Once a certain number of teens are attracted to that individual, peer pressure starts creating attraction in more and more of them.
Of course the decision to have sex is conscious. Fine.
But sexual feelings are partly based on status for women, that’s the point I have been driving at. Frankly it’s so obvious that this is the case, I’m somewhat in disbelief that we’re even discussing it.
Everywhere I’ve worked, for example, a significant proportion of women have fancied the boss. They’ll never say “Oh, it’s a conscious decision to be with someone high status…”, instead they’ll say something like “I know he’s not great looking, but there’s just something about him…”.
I’m not complaining. What I find attractive in women is largely superficial and instinctive (but of course I try to experience relationships based on friendship as well as instinctive attraction).
Are you honestly trying to say that the levels of attraction to famous figures is equal between men and women? :dubious:
So…there are girl groups where thousands of guys show up and start feinting and freaking out like girls do for the Beatles or the Backstreet Boys or Timberlake or whatever?
Even hot girl groups like Girls Aloud have more female fans than male.
I think most guys are like me in this respect: I can look at famous women and think “Wow, she’s hot” but I’m no more attracted to them than I would be to an equivalently attractive woman that I may pass on the street.
Why does (did?) Playboy have celebrities pose, out of altruism?
Why do men have naked pictures of Jessica Alba on their cell phones? Why did men download the (gak) Paris Hilton sex tapes in droves?
Men and women are attracted to celebrities. Celebrities, especially entertainment celebrities, tend to be physically attractive. Women are perhaps more interested in celebrities in general, and are the ones buying gossip mags and the like. For many groups of women, from teenagers to middle-aged, a significant part of their conversations with other women about celebrities and their antics. ‘Celebrity culture’ and the boy-band hysteria that goes along with it are certainly a female phenomenon, but I don’t think that is the same thing at all as what we’ve been discussing. you say yourself this extends to girl groups (Spice Girls, &c). It’s not (primarily) a sexual thing, I don’t think.
But to claim men aren’t as attracted to celebrities as women are is bizarre. What makes you think that a woman will necessarily find Brad Pitt hotter than the guy who looks like Brad Pitt who works at the coffee shop? A hot guy is a hot guy. Note: I’m not saying that the barista and Brad have an equal shot at going to bed with any random woman. Again, I’m just talking about attraction.
Remember we are talking about sex. I think the difference is the response you would get from a male or a female for a sexual proposition.
A woman can be a fan of a singer or actor but if that actor came over and said “come to my room, I wanna fuck you” almost all women would freak out and decline. Whereas a male would start unzipping his pants right there and then. Those are the typical responses.
There was some foreign actor some years ago. Maybe Italian, with long blonde hair. He went by a single name like mario or something. Anyway, he had done many covers for those cheap novels for women where the guy with his shirt open and showing his chest is rescuing the woman and holding her in his arms. Romantic novels like that which, BTW, men and women do NOT read in equal numbers, I wonder why. At any rate, the guy was in America enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame and enjoying having all these strange women crazy about meeting him. Except that word soon got around that the guy was propositioning the women and they all pretty much rejected him and very soon he had a terrible reputation that he would proposition pretty much any woman who came close to him. Does anybody remember who I’m talking about? It seems he never got laid in spite of his fame.
Now imagine a female star propositioning guys. How many do you think would reject her? How many do you think would say “I’m not that kind of man!”?
To me it is just so obvious that the two sexes respond so differently that I cannot understand how some people can miss all the evidence.
And saying “I’m a woman and I have a huge sex drive” entirely misses the point because yes, I have never been a woman but you have never been a man and you have no idea of what the male’s sex drive is like in quantity and in quality. So I can always say “mine is bigger and better than yours” and you have no way of proving otherwise.
Men rape. Probably it is the most basic instinct and has to be curbed with tons of education. How many women have this irrepressible urge that they just have to be fucked right here and now and will resort to violence if necessary?
Again, the evidence is just overwhelming that our sex drives are radically different in their nature.
Do you mean Fabio? I never heard the stories you relate, that’s funny though!
I certainly agree that the sex drives are different. You mention romance novels, which women read and men don’t. Women read them because they are (for some reason, as I am not a reader) turned on by their stories and, depending on the sort of romance novel, by the sexual scenarios described. Men are turned on more visually, by watching porn for example. Some women watch porn, but probably different porn. Of course there are exceptions, but I think there’s a lot of evidence that points to this being a major difference of our relatively sexually-liberated society.
I think that one of the major disconnects is exemplified by your Fabio story. Women were attracted to Fabio, which to me means at least they were turned on by him. But that doesn’t mean, even if they wanted to, that they would be willing to have sex with him. As you say, I suspect for a female celeb and a male fan the situation would be different. But untangling why we have these different priorities is difficult.
I do agree though that the frequency of male sex-related thought is innately greater. From an evolutionary perspective, that makes a great deal of sense. But I do get the feeling that men feel that if the female sex drive is overcome by other ‘drives’ that means the drive isn’t there, and that really isn’t the case.
I would certainly expect a woman to be more attracted to Teh Brad Pitt than some guy who happens to resemble him.
What makes me think this? Well, more observations I guess, but they do all fit into a coherent picture.
I’ll give you another anecdote.
My brother was recently on a very famous reality TV show (I don’t want to name it because I don’t want to identify him).
I went out with him a couple of times after the show, and I’ve never seen anything like it: it was like a spell had been cast on the woman of the world. They’d swarm around him, and put it this way: they weren’t just asking for his autograph…
My point simply being: becoming famous has made it child’s play for him to pull women. Now, find me a woman for whom being famous has made it easier to pull guys. “Guys never wanted to sleep with me before I was famous…” – it’ll never happen.
(for the record, I’m not saying my brother had no success with women prior to fame, just that it made a big difference).
How does the Fabio incident sailor related fit into your view?
Also, I think the part I’ve quoted is the important part. If a guy is already attractive, than the exposure of being famous will only help – and I think that you’ve not really backed up your assertion that it’s not true for female celebrities. A female friend of mine became what might be called ‘an unlikely sex symbol’ through media exposure, much in the same way as your brother – but she didn’t court the attention.
You are underestimating our society’s general obsession with fame, I think. It’s a different issue than sex drive.
Authority figures and celebrities in general, of both sexes, tend to garner more sexual attention than similar-looking people in ordinary life. For instance, are Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter really so much hotter than hundreds of thousands of other good-looking fortysomething women? I doubt it, but because they’re high-status celebrities, many males seem to regard them as practically sex goddesses.
For another instance, female teachers know (from reading teaching evaluations, for example) that their status as highly visible authority figures makes young males more sexually aware of them than they would be of, say, a similarly ordinary-looking middle-aged woman whom they happened to pass on the street.
Does this mean that the male sex drive depends on women’s status? Not really, IMHO: it just means that people in highly visible or powerful positions get more attention in general, and so they end up getting more sexual attention too.
No. What’s overwhelmingly apparent is that men and women in our society have radically different patterns of behavior when it comes to sex (although I think that even there, the differences are less radical than you’re trying to argue).
Patterns of behavior are a tangled mix of instinctive drives and cultural practices. You can’t rely on an anecdote about a horndog model and a reference to rape statistics to constitute “overwheming evidence” about differences specifically in instinctive sex drives.
You all may find this thread interesting. It’s about married women who go out to bars looking for NSA sex, and men who aren’t quite sure what to do, both situations that never happen according to this thread.
That’s him. He would be waiting in the green room to appear on a show and proposition the women making him up and things like that. The times I’ve read about him or seen him he seemed like a real life version of Borat. He had no idea that he was supposed to be acting like he really was a big shot and had to appear dignified. He did not know dignified, he just wanted to get laid.
Even if you are Hugh Grant, if you want “instant gratification” with no strings attached yo gotta pay $20. Just like in town.
