It’s kind of a story trope that when people who aren’t necessarily in any kind of a (current) relationship with each other share a hazardous or emotionally wrenching experience the woman will spontaneously want to have sex or will be receptive to having sex. The common scenario in these setups is where the man rescues or protects the woman from some hazardous situation or they both have some kind of harrowing narrow escape.
I’ve never done a real life heroic “rescue” of a woman other than maybe lending money a few times, helping them move on short notice, or using my trailer to pick up their kid in the middle of the night when their motorcycle broke down in the middle of nowhere and I never got any sex offered for these good deeds.
Does this trope of White Knight action / shared hazardous experience scenario = spontaneous female sexual receptivity have any basis in real world behavior?
It makes sense to me that it would. Both because (A) shared hazardous experience makes a woman feel connected to a man, and feeling connected makes her more sexually receptive; and (B) hazardous experience causes physical arousal (e.g. increased pulse rate) which makes a woman more sexually receptive.
That said, I’m sure the phenomenon isn’t as common or reliable in real life as in movies and novels.
I have known some very dangerous women in my life who would intentionally solicit remarks or confrontations with rough people in the hopes of having her date come to her rescue. If he comes to her rescue their is a good chance he gets laid if he can still walk afterward.
I was rescued from certain death in the desert when my car broke down in the middle of a burning hot day. I rode back to town in the front seat of the tow truck with my hero, who stunk to high heaven. We did not have sex.
Hmm, maybe the reason is that he did not share the hazardous experience with me. If he had, it’s possible his adrenalin rush could have released pheromones that overpowered his body odor. There still wouldn’t have been any sex, though.
Misattribution of arousal, was tested in a very famous experiment by Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron. The results would indicate that it is possible. Surreal has linked to a PDF of the study for those that want more than a summary.
I’ve certainly become friends with people after shared ordeals (nothing interesting, unfortunately), so it seems that if the ordeal was worse and I was sexier then this could certainly happen.
