Ack, sorry about the endless italics. I wanted to go back and fix the tags, but the board wouldn’t let me edit my own message.
MR
In reply to Tymp, I’m going to have to elad by apologizing for not knowing how to quote; I’ll go by numbered points and quote as best I can.
- In response to my observation that people think about sex all the time, you replied - in sarcasm - that you didn’t realize people were “so simple.”
People aren’t simple, at all, actually. The human mind is remarkably complex, and much of its workings are beyond the control of the owner. Just the brain functions that allow you to understand speech are remarkably complex (and unconscious.) The fact that people have sex on their minds all the time doesn’t simplify them, it complicates them. At the same time that you’re working on the Fleegerman file, your brain’s processing a hundred other things - and sex is a prominent one. It’s not that everyone’s consciously concentrating on boffing each other every waking monet; it’s simply that we unconsciously make judgements based on sexual attraction on an ongoing basis.
There’s no so thing as a person who can mentally switch themselves from Lust Dog to No Sex Mode. Sexual attraction is an ongoing mental process, like every other process the brain is running at any given time. For that matter, hunger’s an ongoing mental process.
- As to your response to Maeglin’s account, if your response was merely to the attitude of one guy, I’m not sure the account was really specific enough to say what the guy was saying - if HE consciously treated someone differently because she was cute, or if he was admitting what he thought the reason for the general office behaviour was.
That said, I’ll say it again; most behaviour based on looks is unconscious. It has nothing to do with any “attitude” at all, insofar as that word is usually used. And nobody’s suggested women (or men) should only be treated in accordance with their looks.
Cureiously enough, you seem to agree with Maeglin and I when you state that when you see an attractive woman, your “basest urge” is to mate with her, but you consciously choose to behave differently. Well, of course; you’re repeating, perhaps inadvertently, exactly what I have already said:
“It’s instinctive and part of our makeup. It doesn’t excuse shallow or ignorant behaviour any more than our aggressive instincts excuse punching out everyone who irritates us…”
Where I think we disagree, or are talking at cross purposes, is that you seem (and I may misunderstand here) to be asserting that people do, or should, be capable of completely ignoring that part of their emotions when dealing with others in non-sexual contexts. That’s impossible; sexual motivation unconsciously affects us, all the time. It’s not “bad” any more than it’s “bad” we get tired or confused or can’t remember phone numbers.
As to your comments about how “Tarting yourself up” is sometimes undesirable, “tarting up” wasn’t mentioned in my comments, so I don’t see the relevance. My comments were around beauty affects the beholder. I don’t think people are very good-looking tarted up anyway.
you then ask:
“I wonder about this quote, though, how much do looks enter into a person’s behavior? Are not these decent people, of which you and I are so fond, capable of recognizing appearance as being irrelevant during non-sexual activities?”
Of course they are - but again, most behaviour is unconscious. You will make decisions, and do every day, based on a variety of instinctive factors that you’ll either never take note of or will elaborately rationalize, even if it’s something as insignificant as smiling a fraction of a second longer when you catch the eye of someone attractive. Fair people will never promote one person over another based on looks - but over time, were you to assemble a good data sample and test properly, fair people, including you and I, will show a tendency towards promoting better looking people. The old cliche that to get ahead a man has to be tall and have good hair has been shown again and again to have a fair amount of truth to it.
As to the account of the creepy donut guy - and yeah, he seemed kind of creepy - your comment about needing therapy was general:
“If you or someone you know has serious difficulty thinking of something other than sex throughout the course of his normal dealings with other people, I would suggest talk therapy in order to address some self-esteem issues.”
Thinking about sex is not, to my mind, indicative of a lack of self-esteem; it’s a normal part of being a human being. And yes, we all think about it all the time.
(Looking about suspiciously.)
I’m beginning to suspect that one or more of you is Mark Serlin in disguise, judging from the length of repeated posts.
Come on! Fess up!
You don’t want the PIT! You think it is bad here, it gets 10 times worse there and the ravings can wax lunatic in context. Homicidal in fact.
Let me tell you something, you knucklehead. I’m only 24, but I’ve been out with my share of women. And if any of them said half of the lame-brained things that you’re “sharing” with us, I’d have ditched them after the first date.
Personality does count, and while some people might not be as easy on the eyes as you claim to be, they’ve got character in spades, something that you have an appalling lack of. And it means a lot.
In other words, let me put it into one sentence/paragraph for you:
You are an arm-piece.
Most things have an up and down side. While the opposite sex may give you perks for being attractive, the same sex can develop a deep seated hatred for you. I have seen it time and time again.
My first wife got flown out to playboy for a photo shoot (she didn’t get in) but she was that good looking. Of course, she never had to develop any kind of personality. Nor did she have to make any money or be interesting. HEr life has been, I am sure, pretty great so far. But I wouldn’t want to be her at 40. The guys who like an arm piece, don’t like them to be too old.
Nothing comes without something to balance it out a bit.
The following quotes are all from PRISM02.
All together now!
One of these things is not like the others…
FIRST THE WOMEN:
40-ish… 48
Adventurer… Has had more partners than you ever will
Athletic… Flat-chested
Average looking… Ugly
Beautiful… Pathological liar
Contagious Smile… Bring your penicillin
Educated… College dropout
Emotionally Secure… Medicated
Feminist… Fat; ball buster
Free spirit… Substance user
Friendship first… Trying to live down reputation as slut
Fun… Annoying
Gentle… Comatose
Good Listener… Borderline Autistic
New-Age… All body hair, all the time
Old-fashioned… Lights out, missionary position only
Open-minded… Desperate
Outgoing… Loud
Passionate… Loud
Poet… Depressive financially insecure
Professional… Real Witch
Redhead… Shops the Clairol section
Reubenesque… Grossly Fat
Romantic… Looks better by candle light
Voluptuous… Very Fat
Weight proportional to height… Hugely Fat
Wants Soulmate… One step away from stalking
Widow… Nagged first husband to death
Young at heart… Toothless crone
THE MALE SIDE OF THE LIST:
40-ish… 52 and looking for 25-yr-old
Athletic… Sits on the couch and watches ESPN
Average looking… Unusual hair growth on ears, nose, & back
Educated… Will always treat you like an idiot
Free Spirit… Sleeps with your sister
Friendship first… As long as friendship involves nudity
Fun… Good with a remote and a six pack
Good looking… Arrogant
Honest… Pathological Liar
Huggable… Overweight, more body hair than a bear
Like to cuddle… Insecure, overly dependent
Mature… Until you get to know him
Open-minded…Wants to sleep with your sister but she’s not
interested
Physically fit… I spend a lot of time in front of mirror admiring myself
Poet… Has written on a bathroom stall
Spiritual… Once went to church with his grandmother on Easter Sunday
Stable… Occasional stalker, but never arrested
Thoughtful… Says “Please” when demanding a beer
lindsay wrote:
I like to make a distinction between what a man looks for in a mate and what a man looks for in a sex partner. They are not necessarily the same thing.
A man’s mate is the woman he shares his resources with for a large span of time, to ensure that the children they raise together have a good chance of survival. A man’s sex partners (note the plural) are the women he wants to impregnate because they’d make good breeding stock and have a better chance of getting pregnant with viable offspring at all. I’m not saying a man actually thinks like this, consciously or even unconsciously. I’m saying this is the underlying evolutionary biological motivation for these desires.
Note that the difference between a good mate and a good lay for a woman is even more pronounced than it is for a man (hence the traditional dichotomy between what women “want in a mate” and what they actually end up going to bed with most of the time). Note also that, obviously, my discussion here is limited to heterosexuals.
Well, yeah, but he’s not gonna just come out and say so. 
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever as to what either of those two sentences mean.
Earlier in this thread, lindsay wrote:
Later, jubei2k responded to a different passage lindsay wrote by saying:
Um, jubei2k, I’d hardly say that lindsay ever claimed to be easy on the eyes. Sounds like somebody here jumped to an unjustified conclusion.
Well, tracer, I would be inclined to agree with you, were it not for this lindsay quote:
Or this one:
Or this one:
So when she says:
…she’s pretty much just backtracking. Obviously she at least has a nice chest.
In my experience, most of the guys that I find instantly attractive aren’t always the ones i go for in the end.
Take, for example, this one guy I met about a year ago. He’s gorgeous, dresses well, and I like him at first. After about a week [or less] of getting to know him, I think he’s not attractive and don’t want to be around him due to his obnoxious behavior.
Otoh, most guys I end up being attracted to for mates and sometimes end up dating start out as friends, and I don’t think about their attractiveness at first. I’m fairly outgoing and make friends easily due to what some friends describe as a “charismatic personality.” This does not mean I am ugly or attractive [I am neutral on the subject of whether I’m attractive or not; I got used to the way I look, and wouldn’t want to change it]; that all depends on what the person looking likes in a woman.
With the nature of attraction issue, all cultures take some form of what is considered to be a good breeding partner’s features and emphasize at least one. Some take large hips, large breasts, small feet [no clue how that one works,it’s just a feature that is feminine I guess], etc. When I look for an ideal mate, there isn’t a standard exactly, it’s more of what the overall picture looks like.
Attractiveness can be a plus, and some take advantage of it without trying to make their characters appealing also, but it can’t get a person everywhere. Nature dictates that the most adaptable will survive, and that’s how it is normally. Plenty of people are successful without the use of looks because they were able to adapt and change and take advantage of what was around them.
Drain Bead wrote:
D’OH!
Hmmm … that one could be construed to mean that the guy didn’t consider her attractive until lindsay aggressively flashed him (i.e. he interpreted this to mean he’d get an easy lay), but yes, it could also mean that lindsay has a nice pair of assets.