# Article about gender stereotypes about sex



## TiggyBlue

When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men | Alternet

It's a pretty interesting read from the social aspects of stereotypes.


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## ConanHub

Very interesting article Tiggy.

I have never, personally, witnessed that women were less sexual or desired sex less than men.
I am speaking not only of personal experiences but from witnessing several years of couples and their interactions. Women seemed faster to pull the trigger, sexually, when splitting up and hooking up than men.

I have had many, close female friends and their "locker room" talk put any I have heard from men to shame.

Their sexual escapades, most of the time, put most men to shame.

Their desire for and willingness to acquire sex seemed more driven and powerful than most of their male counterparts.

They might follow a feminine direction, but that direction is hardcore sexual gratification.

Just my observations.


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## always_alone

Interesting read!

We really do need to stop projecting our stereotypes onto the past.

I mean on one hand, we're saying that women were always just security seeking gate-keepers since the dawn of time, but also blaming them for the entire "fall" of man.

How is that even possible?

And that's just get beginning of the contradictions:

We deny that women even have their own sexuality, and yet still feel the need to lock them into marriage and monogamy so the man can establish paternity?

We say that women who have high numbers can't be trusted and are ****z, but then get pissy when she doesn't act enough like a porn star

We say that men should be dominant, and are the "hunters", but get all upset when she doesn't initiate or show her interest

We can't trust women on GNO's because they're out their to get laid by someone better, but somehow it's only the men who want sex?

And on and on it goes...


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## ConanHub

always_alone said:


> Interesting read!
> 
> We really do need to stop projecting our stereotypes onto the past.
> 
> I mean on one hand, we're saying that women were always just security seeking gate-keepers since the dawn of time, but also blaming them for the entire "fall" of man.
> 
> How is that even possible?
> 
> And that's just get beginning of the contradictions:
> 
> We deny that women even have their own sexuality, and yet still feel the need to lock them into marriage and monogamy so the man can establish paternity?
> 
> We say that women who have high numbers can't be trusted and are ****z, but then get pissy when she doesn't act enough like a porn star
> 
> We say that men should be dominant, and are the "hunters", but get all upset when she doesn't initiate or show her interest
> 
> We can't trust women on GNO's because they're out their to get laid by someone better, but somehow it's only the men who want sex?
> 
> And on and on it goes...


I pretty much agree but I really love monogamy and marriage and Mrs. Conan seems to as well.


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## Buddy400

TiggyBlue said:


> When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men | Alternet
> 
> It's a pretty interesting read from the social aspects of stereotypes.


I've heard from what seem to be reliable sources that only about 25% of women orgasm from PIV. Is this in dispute? If not, what were men doing to give their women orgasms? Manual? Oral (I don't think so, back when baths were few and far between). If women desired sex more than or as much as men, how does this square with the "orgasm gap". Or did women desire sex more because good sex was so rare?

One would have to think that one gender generally desires sex more than the other. With all the differences in biology, evolution and social conditioning, it would be a bizarre coincidence if they were exactly the same.


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## Runs like Dog

....So basically sex is a socio-political statement in women. We knew that already.


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## DoF

ConanHub said:


> Very interesting article Tiggy.
> 
> I have never, personally, witnessed that women were less sexual or desired sex less than men.
> I am speaking not only of personal experiences but from witnessing several years of couples and their interactions. Women seemed faster to pull the trigger, sexually, when splitting up and hooking up than men.
> 
> I have had many, close female friends and their "locker room" talk put any I have heard from men to shame.
> 
> Their sexual escapades, most of the time, put most men to shame.
> 
> Their desire for and willingness to acquire sex seemed more driven and powerful than most of their male counterparts.
> 
> They might follow a feminine direction, but that direction is hardcore sexual gratification.
> 
> Just my observations.



How does the saying go? 

"You know what they say about those that brag."

And those quote ones, those that the ones you worry about the most.


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## WandaJ

I am not buying it. I think that they were simply blamed for men screwing around. Here we are discussing if women should talk to strangers in the waiting area of car dealer, in 21st century. Now imagine woman smiling at the stranger in dark, middle ages - must be a nymph, looking for sex.

Buddy400 has good points there.


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## always_alone

Buddy400 said:


> I've heard from what seem to be reliable sources that only about 25% of women orgasm from PIV. Is this in dispute? If not, what were men doing to give their women orgasms? Manual? Oral (I don't think so, back when baths were few and far between). If women desired sex more than or as much as men, how does this square with the "orgasm gap". Or did women desire sex more because good sex was so rare?


The orgasm gap is very much a product of ignorance and lack of concern about female sexuality. 

Has the whole world always been this ignorant and uncaring. I see no reason to assume so.

Men in the past may very well have been much superior lovers because they were well educated by women who knew themselves, and their sexuality.

Ours is but one box, and although we sometimes imagine that everyone else should fit into it, this is rarely the case.


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## ocotillo

Interesting read, but to approach the question as a, "Stereotype" of murky origin is truly quixotic. Clinical research and papers on this subject would make a stack up to the average person's waist and they really need to be debunked and laid to rest properly.


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## nuclearnightmare

ocotillo said:


> Interesting read, but to approach the question as a, "Stereotype" of murky origin is truly quixotic. Clinical research and papers on this subject would make a stack up to the average person's waist and they really need to be debunked and laid to rest properly.


:iagree:

the article skips around so much; in logical, regional, religious and other respects so much that I found it hard to make much sense of it. Plus I am also skeptical on the Puritans being such a reservoir of wisdom on sex - didn't they believe in witches, and execute them on occassion, up through the end of the 1600s??

and I think its hard to ignore a kind of common sense bottom line on this "debate" - e.g. consider the suffering and tragedy out there of those in sexless marriages. what are the statistics? are husbands the LD partner 50% of the time, wives the other 50%?? or is it skewed toward one gender or the other? in which direction might one guess that it is skewed??
and please, not a value judgement here on the inherent worth of an LD person vs. an HD 
another example, was there ever a search for a drug for men to improve their sex drive? vs one that could improve their physical response. but isn't that exactly what is being sought now for women? a drug to bring their desire back??

so I think such articles are kind of straining themselves to pull out a conclusion that just might not be there...


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## SimplyAmorous

> *nuclearnightmare said:* *so I think such articles are kind of straining themselves to pull out a conclusion that just might not be there..*













Over all (statistically speaking) men have a higher sex drive, think about it more, talk about it more, Joke about it more, want to gaze upon it more.. It's all in how our brains are wired...



















This is making a little fun.... 









...For the life of me, I don't get why the genders want to argue this so much..... of course it's not a black and white thing, I had a WAY Higher drive over my husband a few yrs ago, I felt like I could take on 3 men... he couldn't keep it up ENOUGH..and I was more outward antsy for it than he ever expressed to me [email protected]$... 

But for the 1st 19 yrs..... his was higher than mine.. he whacked it up to 5 times a day in his youth.... Me.. maybe 3 times a week did I feel that need... who is more orgasm driven ? Do us women have wet dreams ? How many men don't masturbate in their youth compared to women ? 

If women's drives are so high, why the aversion to porn.. .I can only speak of my own personal experience here.. when my drive exploded, so did my LUST to look upon the pornographic (it seems women want to shame me, not the men, they "get it" )....and when it slowly came back down to earth, so I also felt this TAMED in me.. ..was this just a coincidence ? 

Our drives go through different phases in our lifetimes depending on our hormones....so maybe it *all evens out* after a while.. this book explains this well.. 



> The Alchemy of Love and Lust  ....Identifies the role our hormones play in the different sexual stages, exploring the age-old concept of chemistry between the sexes and how hormones can determine the course of human relationships.


Why Mid life women (those cougars) are perfectly matched with younger men -(Both are in their sexual prime)...for a season anyway.. just as older man & younger women are more on the same sexual wavelength...but after a time, this would be a horrendous match when she hits Mid life/ can't get enough and he just wants to go to sleep...(his testosterone waning ...been there, done that & can't handle a feisty woman any more).... 

I have a woman friend who has never had an orgasm in her life.. she's almost 50.. are their such men??

Most of my friends complain their men want too much sex...I think my H is the only one who had this complaint about his woman.. but he's still smiling somehow ...women generally are not smiling about it... but feel it's a pain... Except for the woman on TAM of course, the majority are high drivers !

I guess it all depends on the circles one runs with. if your a HOT Guy...you'll have more opportunity and think "just as many women want sex" (like the Samyeagars & ConanHubs here )....cause they are clawing for you, you got the EDGE...... 

But if you're the average Joe... it's certainly not going to seem so.. when these men have to jump through many hoops to get laid trying to keep their women attracted...

The whole religious thing is not going to STOP a testosterone laden mind from wanting to look and drool upon the erotic and take matters into his or her own hands..


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## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> Clinical research and papers on this subject would make a stack up to the average person's waist and they really need to be debunked and laid to rest properly.


Errr, a lot of this has been done already, as much of the past research has been shown to reflect mostly cultural biases, and more recent studies indicate that women and men are quite similar in sex drive, amount they think about sex, kinkiness of fantasy, and so on.

But people prefer to ignore that evidence so that they can keep their cultural and personal biases intact.


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## Buddy400

always_alone said:


> The orgasm gap is very much a product of ignorance and lack of concern about female sexuality.
> 
> Has the whole world always been this ignorant and uncaring. I see no reason to assume so.
> 
> Men in the past may very well have been much superior lovers because they were well educated by women who knew themselves, and their sexuality.


During the 99.9% of human history in which the primary goal was trying to keep from starving to death, I doubt that giving your woman a proper orgasm was all that high on the priority list.


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## TiggyBlue

always_alone said:


> Errr, a lot of this has been done already, as much of the past research has been shown to reflect mostly cultural biases, and more recent studies indicate that women and men are quite similar in sex drive, amount they think about sex, kinkiness of fantasy, and so on.
> 
> But people prefer to ignore that evidence so that they can keep their cultural and personal biases intact.


Very true, I don't think this article really says the past stereotypes where true but It does I believe they are as true/untrue as the present stereotypes. 

Women's testosterone peaks in her early to mid 20's and gradually declines, yet women's sex drive increases late 30's into 40's many times. 
So the testosterone theory is flawed from the get go, if testosterone completely controlled women's sex drive it would be at it's highest in their early 20's which for many isn't true.
Testosterone levels for women in their 40's can be half of what it was in their 20's.


Trying to make testosterone the most main element in both male and female sex drives back up the stereotypes but there is so much contradicting evidence to show it's a BS theory and not a fact.


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## SimplyAmorous

TiggyBlue said:


> Trying to make testosterone the most main element in both male and female sex drives back up the stereotypes but there is so much contradicting evidence to show it's a BS theory and not a fact.


All any of us can do is offer our own personal experiences with it ... Mine, however, does line up with the







theory...


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## Buddy400

SA,

Women like you renew my faith in your gender.

I see so much from women (and about them from men in DWI and Sex In Marriage) and I sometimes just despair about women (I know it's largely an effect of reading too much TAM).

But then you, GettingIt, AlbertaMomOf3 and some others come along and I feel a whole lot better.


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## TiggyBlue

SimplyAmorous said:


> All any of us can do is offer our own personal experiences with it ... Mine, however, does line up with the
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> theory...


I'm not saying a lot of women's don't have higher drives in their 30's or 40's, so considering a woman's testosterone early 40's a lot of times is half what it is in their 20's how does it line up with the testosterone theory? 

If women's sex hormones worked the same as mens (i.e testosterone the main component) your sex drive would have peaked in your early to mid 20's.

You had less testosterone when your sex drive peaked than you did in your 20's (not trying to put you on the spot, just curious about your thought on this).


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## Buddy400

TiggyBlue said:


> Trying to make testosterone the most main element in both male and female sex drives back up the stereotypes but there is so much contradicting evidence to show it's a BS theory and not a fact.


Stereotypes don't develop in a vacuum. There's almost always something valid underneath it. Otherwise why would they exist? Just people making them up to jack around subsequent generations?

Now, it's always important to remember that while stereotypes are usually generally true, they should never be taken as specifically true.


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## ConanHub

SimplyAmorous said:


> All any of us can do is offer our own personal experiences with it ... Mine, however, does line up with the
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> theory...


Loved your male brain! LOL!:rofl:

Here is a thought. The female brain is wired differently but maybe their "sex" region is just as large or larger than the average male but the pathway is a little more complex and less straight forward to reach it.

Whatever combination, appearance, voice timber, mannerisms, conversation patterns, etc.....

The females I have encountered have almost all been very sexual.

Maybe there is some type of chemical pheromone? All I know, is that almost every woman I have ever met is very sexual, turns on relatively easy and is fairly quick to pull the "sex" trigger.

The woman in my family are flat out sexual monsters and freaks of nature!

We are also extremely fertile. My female relatives all joke about something being in the water. They are all prolific reproducers.


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## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> Errr, a lot of this has been done already, as much of the past research has been shown to reflect mostly cultural biases, and more recent studies indicate that women and men are quite similar in sex drive....


Greetings, AA

I've read everything I can lay my hands on authored by male and female academicians alike dating to as recently as 2012. 

I would be in your dept if you could point me to published, peer reviewed papers in support of what you've said above because I very much want it to be true. 

But I would add that if studies in the past have indeed been flawed, it still takes us out of the realm of a stereotype.


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## Faithful Wife

Here you go Ocotillo:

What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire: Daniel Bergner: 9780061906091: Amazon.com: Books

This book hi-lights much of the debunked science along with all references to all new research and the researchers involved AND what they are trying to do (ie: are the researchers just in academia or are they working for big pharma companies, etc.)

It also discusses those studies done where they show women different pictures and ask what turns them on, and find out what the body is saying versus what the women themselves say. 

Part of the disconnect I believe is that while women definitely need and enjoy their O's, some of us want SEX with or without an O...and since most men don't really even consider sex without an O, many of them expect women to feel and act the same way. So since a woman's main objective is different, the woman's must be wrong, skewed, or "not really about sex". 

The book also talks about how scientists are re-thinking the hormone angle, for the reasons Tiggy is talking about.


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## ConanHub

Faithful Wife said:


> Here you go Ocotillo:
> 
> What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire: Daniel Bergner: 9780061906091: Amazon.com: Books
> 
> This book hi-lights much of the debunked science along with all references to all new research and the researchers involved AND what they are trying to do (ie: are the researchers just in academia or are they working for big pharma companies, etc.)
> 
> It also discusses those studies done where they show women different pictures and ask what turns them on, and find out what the body is saying versus what the women themselves say.
> 
> Part of the disconnect I believe is that while women definitely need and enjoy their O's, some of us want SEX with or without an O...and since most men don't really even consider sex without an O, many of them expect women to feel and act the same way.


I know I did not ask for it but thank you anyway. This will be added to my library. It might explain what I have observed as opposed to what I have been told.

One thing that has always puzzled me is the saying that men are more visual. Not going into every detail here and now but I have not found that to be true in experience.


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## Faithful Wife

Conan...you would find that the MMSLP group agrees with YOUR assessment...because when you look like you do, women DO like to look, touch, have sex with, etc. According to them, you are the top 5% who gets all the women. So of course you would not have the same experience as the other 95% of men, who don't look like you. For them, they are positively CERTAIN that men are more visual...because that is what they have experienced.

(note: this is MMSLP and similar with their goofy stats, not me...I'm just repeating what they say)


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## ConanHub

Faithful Wife said:


> Conan...you would find that the MMSLP group agrees with YOUR assessment...because when you look like you do, women DO like to look, touch, have sex with, etc. According to them, you are the top 5% who gets all the women. So of course you would not have the same experience as the other 95% of men, who don't look like you. For them, they are positively CERTAIN that men are more visual...because that is what they have experienced.
> 
> (note: this is MMSLP and similar with their goofy stats, not me...I'm just repeating what they say)


Fair observation.


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## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> Here you go Ocotillo:


Thank you FW. I've got a Kindle copy now. Bergner is a journalist, not a professor, so this did not make it through peer review, but I will definitely read it. 

The problem of gauging what is inside the heads of other people comes down to the limited number of ways a third party can compare.

For example, two women are in a room. Let's call them Sally and Suzy.

Sally says, "My sex drive is higher than Suzy's."

Suzy says, "My sex drive is higher than Sally's."

The only way a third party can assess those claims is to compare Sally and Suzy's behavior and see to what extent the claims align with reality.

Maybe this is the fundamental flaw of studies in the past, but if there is a better way to judge, I would love to read it.


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## SimplyAmorous

TiggyBlue said:


> I'm not saying a lot of women's don't have higher drives in their 30's or 40's, so considering a woman's testosterone early 40's a lot of times is half what it is in their 20's how does it line up with the testosterone theory?
> 
> *If women's sex hormones worked the same as mens (i.e testosterone the main component) your sex drive would have peaked in your early to mid 20's.
> 
> You had a less testosterone when your sex drive peaked than you did in your 20's (not trying to put you on the spot, just curious about your thought on this)*.


You can take any issue, any subject and find any theory you want on a google search.. I am not aware of all you have read, just as you probably haven't read the same things I have read... Honestly.. when it comes to my own GENDER.. I feel bad for many men..

WOMEN ..and our crazy hormones, the fluctuations, none of it makes any sense at all - and it varies so vastly from one women to the next, what is a man supposed to do!! When ConanH said this "but the pathway is a little more complex and less straight forward to reach it."... 

I will surely give a HIGH FIVE to that [email protected]#







maybe add a couple bridges...

I have read numerous articles geared to how women supposedly feel, are sexually...no matter the article, a piece here is true, something over has not a shred of truth to it...(in regards to me).... doesn't even touch my life, or experience.. this for example...


> *Some women say that they don’t want to even think about sex after childbirth*.
> 
> The reasons for that are because of over straining and the drop in the level of hormones. The level of testosterone is significantly decreasing, though it quite quickly comes to normal. The frequency of sex may be reduced by 2-3 times during four months. At the same time, any sex may be followed by pain and dryness in the vagina. *About 70% of women experience these problems during the first six months after childbirth.*


 I was NOT in this 70%... it's what I whined about the most -that I couldn't wait to have sex again, was antsy for it ...

I have read articles on Peri-menopause without even ONE MENTION to the type of experience I had .. in fact it stated our libidos start going down.. WHAT [email protected]#% 

I scoured the internet trying to find something to explain what was happening to me.. this was the best I could find...this little saying...which I have put on here many times over .....(which would contradict with what YOU are saying).. 



> *Balance the seesaw*. When they were first married, the man remembered, he always took the sexual lead, pulling his wife close and whispering his desire to make love. But now, 20 years later, she often makes the first move.
> 
> Again, hormonal changes are bringing the couple into closer balance. Men and women both produce testosterone and estrogen, but the proportion of each changes over the years. The male's shifting levels of estrogen and testosterone may make him more willing to follow than to lead, happy for his wife to set the pace. And as a woman's estrogen declines a*nd her testosterone becomes proportionately greater*, she may become more assertive.


...So I started reading book on hormones.. (interesting subject!).... with further explaining these things so I didn't think I was going B-polar or something...it was a difficult time for me.. if I didn't get it , I would have been a BEAR to live with.

...they should have been in MY BODY for those 8 months.. .. I wasn't on any drugs.. Nothing.. why did this happen.. I have my speculations.. but let me tell you.. My hormones were NOT of *that caliber* , or intensity in my teens...



> *Faithful Wife said*: Part of the disconnect I believe is that while women definitely need and enjoy their O's, some of us want SEX with or without an O...and since most men don't really even consider sex without an O, many of them expect women to feel and act the same way. *So since a woman's main objective is different, the woman's must be wrong, skewed, or "not really about sex*"


 Here is something else I can not relate to, I THINK MORE LIKE A MAN.. I want my O every single time....the women who wouldn't care, I can't relate to them.. that to me is the utopia of getting it on.. . I've always been this way..if he slips before me, I want to pound on him and say 'NO NO, I needed that darn it!"... and I want him to do it again.


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## Faithful Wife

The research within the book was all through peer review, Ocotillo, not the book itself. The book is a collection of the research out there put into on place for the reader to consider.


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## ConanHub

Just loaded it on my phone. Will enjoy the listen today.

Sometimes a good journalist uncovers facts well. We will see.


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## Runs like Dog

Everything I know about women I got from women talking about The Gilmore Girls.


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## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> The research within the book was all through peer review, Ocotillo, not the book itself. The book is a collection of the research out there put into on place for the reader to consider.


--Sorry if I'm coming across as a turd in the punch bowl. 

I've seen authors quoted right here on TAM whose sources said the exact opposite of what they claimed. AA knows what I'm talking about. ))


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## ConanHub

OK. Almost finished with "What do women want?"

It was written in a novel style that would be nice if it were a novel instead of a scientific book on research.

It contained about 1 pound of research with real science and measured results and about 3 pounds of crap.

The author could not resist writing, for most of the book, like it was erotica instead of research.

The actual information was very good and verified my own observations on several issues. 


The conclusions the book draws, not simply from facts but speculation that women may have inherited promiscuous behavior from monkeys, runs from absurd to laughable to tragic.

I still found it worthwhile if painful to endure.

It seriously could have mostly been written by Mach.

Many, if not most, of the observations and conclusions seemed to be carbon echoes of his thought process.

I agree with the actual scientific observations in the book and seem to employ the knowledge of them in my life.

My life does, however, fly totally in the face of the books conclusions about said facts.

According to that book and others, I am an extremely successful male in the sexual arena. Top of the food chain, apex or alpha male. My actual methodology and technique fly directly in stark contradiction to this and other "evolutionary" thinking books.

It referred to monogamy as something that afflicted women like a disease that needed curing.

It sampled women that all had mentally, not physically, induced sexuality problems. It did not sample very healthy women in long term monogamous relationships. Yes they really do exist. I am married to one and there are even some posting here on TAM.

SSHHH! Don't tell the author of this book!

I do seriously agree that culture, crappy science and crappy religious teaching have heavily contributed to the disfunction of the poor women in this book and the larger population that they represent.

The actual facts of this book are great and I do blame a lack of actual/factual sex talk about women to be the problem in many relationships.

Overall, was worth the read. Hopefully more real research keeps being done on human sexuality, male and female to debunk some of the truly false and harming beliefs that have been foisted on an unsuspecting population.


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## Moops

I think men in general have a much a higher sex drive. Some women can maybe compete with men when it comes to libido.

I've noticed that alot of women who frequent these type of forums have a good sex drive but my theory is that women with a low intrest in sex are unlikely to come to these types of forums. Thats why it can _seem_ like women and men desire sex equally much.


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## Faithful Wife

Conan...you may have done too much skimming and not enough reading. Especially if you think it could have been written by Mach.

Example: Mach's system claims that alpha males of all species of primates do all the sex pursuing while the females in his harem wait around looking demure. This book (or rather the actual research that debunks that crap) gives examples of many primates species where the females are the sexual pursuers and have male harems and matriarchal societies. 

Also the book directly points to several researchers who are straight up saying "Evo psyche is nonsense and here's why". Evo psyche is Mach's system. 

And the studies about monogamy killing the sex drive of women (but not men) are well researched by many sources. It is not new at all...it is what everyone knows but many don't want to talk about. Why this occurs is not agreed upon but the fact that it does occur is not only evident around us, it also holds the key to figuring out how to correct that very problem.


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## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> Also the book directly points to several researchers who are straight up saying "Evo psyche is nonsense and here's why". Evo psyche is Mach's system.


I've only just started it, so maybe the book will answer the question for me. 

Without Evolutionary Psychology, or at least some semblance of it, what is the point of trying to puzzle out humanity's primitive roots? I would bet money that Professor Chivers accepts it. 

Maybe the difference here is the ridiculous extremes to which lay writers take it vs. what psychologists actually believe?


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## Faithful Wife

Ocotillo, the monkey studies are always going to happen on everything. It isn't necessarily about Evo psyche just because they got data about sexuality from those studies. The point of them in this book was to show that in the past scientists ignored everything about female sexuality that didn't fit their patriarchal ideas. So in the past the studies about sexually aggressive female primates were white washed. This information is very important for anyone who is interested in human sexuality to know.


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## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> Ocotillo, the monkey studies are always going to happen on everything.


Well yeah, but the monkey studies don't happen arbitrarily; they happen because the consensus opinion in science is that humans, anthropoid apes and other primates share a common ancestor. 

When that idea is applied to study of the mind, especially with regard to the development of complex and interactive brain functions like emotions, cognition, speech, etc., it's evolutionary psychology. There's no other name for it and no relevance of monkey studies in psychology without it. 

I understand some of the nastier and wackier extremes the idea gets taken. I don't believe it explains the whole of the human condition and have railed against some of it myself since day one on TAM. 

A spade is a spade though...


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## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> The orgasm gap is very much a product of ignorance and lack of concern about female sexuality.


This isn't true. There are plenty of women who don't get off period, whether masturbation, toys, oral, piv, you name it. There are many more who find it very difficult to do so... such that the two combined account for a sizeable share of women. That's not a product of male ignorance and lack of concern. You're placing a decidedly female issue at the feet of their male lovers unjustifiably. While many women experience such men, the "orgasm" gap would exist and be significant even if all men were high quality lovers. 

Is there any doubt at all that there are FAR fewer men who never get off or have trouble getting there? They exist, but they are rare in comparison. We do not lay their inability to get off at the feet of poor women lovers.

From what I gather, women unable to orgasm or with difficult orgasms still tend to desire sex all the same regardless, but the orgasm gap isn't "very much a product" of selfish ignorant men.


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## WandaJ

Faithful Wife said:


> And the studies about monogamy killing the sex drive of women (but not men) are well researched by many sources. It is not new at all...it is what everyone knows but many don't want to talk about. Why this occurs is not agreed upon but the fact that it does occur is not only evident around us, it also holds the key to figuring out how to correct that very problem.


Maybe it is not monogamy that kills it, but the routine, lack of effort on the part of the partner? The flirting, the foreplay are forgotten, she is his, so what for? I have many women friends who do not care that much about sex, so if their husbands do take this extra effort, they get disengaged. 

Sex for me is more than just orgasm (although nothing wrong with them!) - now in my 40s I discover I am enjoying the sexual excitement at the same level as orgasm, if not more. I can go through the most of my day feeling sexually aroused, and excited and I am not looking for orgasm because I do not want to give up that perpetual arousal.


----------



## Fozzy

Faithful Wife said:


> And the studies about monogamy killing the sex drive of women (but not men) are well researched by many sources. It is not new at all...it is what everyone knows but many don't want to talk about. Why this occurs is not agreed upon but the fact that it does occur is not only evident around us, it also holds the key to figuring out how to correct that very problem.


I've seen this referred to as "monotogamy"

Monotony + Monogamy


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

Faithful Wife said:


> This book (or rather the actual research that debunks that crap) gives examples of many primates species where the females are the sexual pursuers and have male harems and matriarchal societies.
> 
> Also the book directly points to several researchers who are straight up saying "Evo psyche is nonsense and here's why". Evo psyche is Mach's system.


Curious. These two statements seem contradictory. In the first, it's "look! This is what primates do! We need to rethink our understanding of human sexual psychology." -which is in fact evo psych.

The second paragraph then calls the first nonsense. If you're drawing conclusions about human psychology from the behavior of primates, you're condoning evo psych.

So which is it? Evo Psych is nonsense when you don't like the conclusions drawn from certain observations? Or Evo Psych is great when you like the conclusion drawn from other observations? (ie female pursuers, harems and matriarchal societies mentioned in the first paragraph)

It's all evo psych.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

WandaJ said:


> Maybe it is not monogamy that kills it, but the routine, lack of effort on the part of the partner? The flirting, the foreplay are forgotten, she is his, so what for? I have many women friends who do not care that much about sex, so if their husbands do take this extra effort, they get disengaged.


Strange that it was posted that the same isn't said of men and monogamy. All the same things apply to my mind.

It also flies in the face of research on a number of mammals. A number of studies have been done showing a strong correlation between "new partner" and shorter length of time before male ejaculation. Which is thought to say, "new" is more exciting. Meaning men's sexual interest declines in monogamous relationships as well.

I personally side with monogamy being a late developing trait. Probably related to the necessity of highly organized, cooperative society. Jealousy and promiscuous desire are probably the base traits, existing simultaneously as hypocritical two sides of one "what best ensures the survival of MY genes" coin - for both men and women (ie, try to have everything at once). The more organized social arrangements become, the more likely it would seem some sort of sexual regulation to avoid conflict will be necessary or there will be fighting for mating rights (which, honestly, still occurs to some degree today in the establishment of social hierarchy).

As for who is pursuing who... there's a lot of subjectivity in what I've read of primates. Is circling "pursuing"? Or is it "making oneself available?" Offering if you will. If both qualify as pursuit, then I have no problem with a notion that men and women pursue fairly equally. That said, I tend to apply a more narrow definition of what qualifies as pursuit.


----------



## WandaJ

Just couple of weeks ago there was a story on NPR about monogamistic animals (I think it was focused on birds), and those that do not stay in monogamistic relations. There was one, very clear difference: the price for monogamy was less sex.


----------



## ConanHub

Faithful Wife said:


> Conan...you may have done too much skimming and not enough reading. Especially if you think it could have been written by Mach.
> 
> Example: Mach's system claims that alpha males of all species of primates do all the sex pursuing while the females in his harem wait around looking demure. This book (or rather the actual research that debunks that crap) gives examples of many primates species where the females are the sexual pursuers and have male harems and matriarchal societies.
> 
> Also the book directly points to several researchers who are straight up saying "Evo psyche is nonsense and here's why". Evo psyche is Mach's system.
> 
> And the studies about monogamy killing the sex drive of women (but not men) are well researched by many sources. It is not new at all...it is what everyone knows but many don't want to talk about. Why this occurs is not agreed upon but the fact that it does occur is not only evident around us, it also holds the key to figuring out how to correct that very problem.


I stand corrected. I should have been more specific. I did not skim but had been up for over a day and my thought process was scrambled.

The advice Mach would often give to men experiencing a lack of sex drive from their wives, lined up well with what the book described. 

I loved the actual human trials end experiments, but I wish they would have examined some healthy women in monogamous LTR's.

Wouldn't it make sense to examine some women who were not suffering from this phenomenon?

The clearest conclusion that I can draw from the data is that women need a better understanding of how their minds are responsible for their sexuality. Some of them had to trick themselves, mentally, to be sexually attracted to their husbands.

It seems to me that more training and control of their own perceptions would clear up the lack of drive.

These women are very physically healthy. They can go right out and get revved up for other men. It is absolutely tragic that they can't direct their minds instead.

I loved the experiment where the woman concentrated and, without any physical stimulation, had an orgasm.

Do you think people that have more understanding of how their mind and sexuality work have more successful long term monogamous relationships?

I think it must be a forgone conclusion. I can orgasm by thought alone. It takes me a lot longer than 19 seconds but I have not trained myself.

I think it is fascinating.


----------



## ConanHub

WandaJ said:


> Just couple of weeks ago there was a story on NPR about monogamistic animals (I think it was focused on birds), and those that do not stay in monogamistic relations. There was one, very clear difference: the price for monogamy was less sex.


I have been in a monogamous relationship for 23 years. At the start we had so much sex that nothing else was getting done.

It levelled off to where we could at least get to work.LOL!

Over the years, it has been fairly steady. We hit a little dip when Mrs. Conan went through early onset menopause.

Afterwards I did have to engage her in more conversations and not only up my game emotionally, I had to reestablish my standing as her alpha male.

We are probably more sexually driven for each other than ever before. I can make her wet with a glance, word or touch.

I have to keep myself mostly restrained around her or we would never leave the house and she would be in a wheelchair.


----------



## WandaJ

Great for you. But, as you said, it took work, by both of you at one point. Unfortunately, many couples forget that part.


----------



## vellocet

Faithful Wife said:


> And the studies about monogamy killing the sex drive of women (but not men) are well researched by many sources.


So it is true that there is a food that reduces libido in women.....wedding cake.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> Greetings, AA
> 
> I've read everything I can lay my hands on authored by male and female academicians alike dating to as recently as 2012.
> 
> I would be in your dept if you could point me to published, peer reviewed papers in support of what you've said above because I very much want it to be true.
> 
> But I would add that if studies in the past have indeed been flawed, it still takes us out of the realm of a stereotype.


Can we narrow the field a bit here? Are you referring specifically to studies re physiological arousal to visual stimuli? Other studies?

Let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

Meanwhile, this probably won't meet your academic standards, but it does have an interesting spin:

Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships: Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha, Allyson Johnson, Jonathan Davis, Inc. Brilliance Audio: 9781491512401: Books - Amazon.ca


----------



## Wolf1974

vellocet said:


> So it is true that there is a food that reduces libido in women.....wedding cake.


:rofl:


So glad you're back around lol


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> Well yeah, but the monkey studies don't happen arbitrarily; they happen because the consensus opinion in science is that humans, anthropoid apes and other primates share a common ancestor.
> 
> When that idea is applied to study of the mind, especially with regard to the development of complex and interactive brain functions like emotions, cognition, speech, etc., it's evolutionary psychology. There's no other name for it and no relevance of monkey studies in psychology without it.
> 
> I understand some of the nastier and wackier extremes the idea gets taken. I don't believe it explains the whole of the human condition and have railed against some of it myself since day one on TAM.
> 
> A spade is a spade though...


The problem with evo psych is that it is basically dubious premises followed by a bunch of ad hoc speculation From the assumption that psychological phenomena evolve in the same sorts of ways as physical ones, we spin massive webs of inferences from the sublime to the ridiculous (Women like pink because we used to pick berries!) With nothing at all to back it up.

Evo psych should not, IMHO, be confused with animal behaviour or evolutionary biology. Just because a monkey is involved doesn't make it evo psych.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> This isn't true. There are plenty of women who don't get off period, whether masturbation, toys, oral, piv, you name it. There are many more who find it very difficult to do so... such that the two combined account for a sizeable share of women. That's not a product of male ignorance and lack of concern. You're placing a decidedly female issue at the feet of their male lovers unjustifiably. While many women experience such men, the "orgasm" gap would exist and be significant even if all men were high quality lovers.


Please note that I did *not* put the descriptor "male" in there at all.

I said the orgasm gap is largely a product of ignorance and lack of concern for female sexuality. 

Even in our modern age, many women believe that sex is for men. Even with the Internet and glossy 3d models, many women do not know their own sexuality anatomy, nor how their own reproductive cycle works. They have little insight into their own sexuality, and much of the "information" out there will tell them that their pleasure is unimportant.

It's appalling. It is true that sometimes boys are also shamed for their sexuality, but nowhere near the same scale. Males are much more likely to be encouraged to pursue sex, to look at porn, to know how their bodies work, to expect to see their desires reflected in just about every media image known to human kind...


----------



## JCD

One question:

Will a woman, offered sex by a man, drive 3 hours to have sex with said man?

Will a man, with the same offer, make that drive?

The one who says yes has a stronger sex drive.

We all know the answer to this question.


----------



## TiggyBlue

JCD said:


> One question:
> 
> Will a woman, offered sex by a man, drive 3 hours to have sex with said man?
> 
> Will a man, with the same offer, make that drive?
> 
> The one who says yes has a stronger sex drive.


Depends on the woman and depends on the man really doesn't it?


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> Depends on the woman and depends on the man really doesn't it?


You want to talk about stereotypes. Give me a general answer


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> Please note that I did *not* put the descriptor "male" in there at all.
> 
> I said the orgasm gap is largely a product of ignorance and lack of concern for female sexuality.
> 
> Even in our modern age, many women believe that sex is for men. Even with the Internet and glossy 3d models, many women do not know their own sexuality anatomy, nor how their own reproductive cycle works. They have little insight into their own sexuality, and


Why the disinterest in many women to gain this knowledge? Why don't they care to know more, to understand? All the information is there, so why don't many women have the desire to seek it out?



> *much of the "information" out there will tell them that their pleasure is unimportant.*


See, when I look at popular media, I see a lot of the exact opposite. Men today are given a steady diet of "her pleasure". The sex toy and enhancement industry, which is largely geared towards women, has exploded to the point where things are being openly marketed on television and carried in mainstream stores.



> It's appalling. It is true that sometimes boys are also shamed for their sexuality, but nowhere near the same scale. Males are much more likely to be encouraged to pursue sex, to look at porn, to know how their bodies work, to expect to see their desires reflected in just about every media image known to human kind...


Even the Cosmo articles about the 25 must know moves to blow his mind in bed and keep him coming back for more are at least as much about feeding her sexual ego as they are anything else.


----------



## ScarletBegonias

TiggyBlue said:


> Depends on the woman and depends on the man really doesn't it?


yeah...I'm ashamed to say I've driven 3 hours to have sex with someone before.I had to.He was too good and he certainly wasn't able to come to me at that time. 

Then I married him.


----------



## samyeagar

ScarletBegonias said:


> yeah...I'm ashamed to say I've driven 3 hours to have sex with someone before.I had to.He was too good and he certainly wasn't able to come to me at that time.
> 
> Then I married him.


Funny that...my wife did too


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> Evo psych should not, IMHO, be confused with animal behaviour or evolutionary biology. Just because a monkey is involved doesn't make it evo psych.


I agree. A great deal would depend on the purpose of the study and who does it. If the dentition of humans is being compared to other primates and no other conclusion is drawn other than that we're adapted to eat similar foods, then that is simply evolutionary biology.

When a psychologist does the study and draws conclusions about human sexuality, there's less ambiguity. For example, the first two chapters of the book, _What Do Women Want?_ mention Professor Chivers, a professor of psychology at Queens University. 

Chivers and her associates have speculated in papers that the separation between physical and mental sexual response in women could have evolved at least in part as a protective mechanism in response to male primate behavior. (i.e. That female primates often had no choice about who they mated with and when.)


----------



## Buddy400

always_alone said:


> Even in our modern age, many women believe that sex is for men. Even with the Internet and glossy 3d models, many women do not know their own sexuality anatomy, nor how their own reproductive cycle works. They have little insight into their own sexuality, and much of the "information" out there will tell them that their pleasure is unimportant.


Like samyeager, I look around and see the exact opposite. I get feeling that feminists keep reliving the grievances of the 1960's without noticing that anything has changed.

Yes, 50 years ago, women believed that "sex is for men". That hasn't been the case for at least 20 years.


----------



## Faithful Wife

ocotillo said:


> I agree. A great deal would depend on the purpose of the study and who does it. If the dentition of humans is being compared to other primates and no other conclusion is drawn other than that we're adapted to eat similar foods, then that is simply evolutionary biology.
> 
> When a psychologist does the study and draws conclusions about human sexuality, there's less ambiguity. For example, the first two chapters of the book, _What Do Women Want?_ mention Professor Chivers, a professor of psychology at Queens University.
> 
> Chivers and her associates have speculated in papers that the separation between physical and mental sexual response in women could have evolved at least in part as a protective mechanism in response to male primate behavior. *(i.e. That female primates often had no choice about who they mated with and when.)*


This wasn't in the What Do Women Want? book, right? You are talking about some other studies they had done? I'm asking because there are plenty of female primates who are the ones who do the choosing and most definitely have a choice, and also there are plenty of female primates who are the aggressors and sometimes murder each other.

(little rant here...)

I'm just tired of people spouting the idea that men "want" sex more than women. It is absurd. In no other part of nature do we see this. Both the male and female seem to want sex, but mostly for procreation, except in a few species....but even in those species there's no evidence that the males "want" sex more than the females. Then there's us. We want sex for far more than procreation. But due to the way our history was played out, men wanted to control women and especially control their sexuality. So they wrote up all these laws and rules and created the world of sl*t shaming. Yes, women participated in this by buying into some of these ideas too, but partially this was because for centuries while men were in control, they did nothing to protect their own female counterparts from males who would rape them. In fact, these raped females were now cast out of society. The inequity here (in this history) is appalling. And it painted the picture we're looking at now.

IF WE HAD NOT gone through this type of history...if we had a more equal society from the beginning...if men and women were allowed, as animals are, to simply go out into the world and find the mates they want to have sex with...would there still be this stupid idea that men "want" sex more than women? 

Here's another slant on this...the whole rape thing goes both ways. If a female is stronger or can somehow get away with it, and she has her reasons (whether sexual or based on violence), she will rape a man or a woman, too. This is a HUMAN problem that we all have. The ability to do harm to another. It is something within us that gives us that potential for violence and murder. In our current society, it *appears* that men are far more violent and murderous than women. But I believe that is simply a leftover result of the above history. If history had been laid out differently and women had evolved to have larger stronger bodies, and if we still had this inner murderous spirit that is within us, then women may be the ones filling the maximum security prisons.

Again...no where in nature do we see females who don't "want" sex. They all want sex, the same as males. They just don't want non-consensual sex...the same as males.


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> This wasn't in the What Do Women Want? book, right? You are talking about some other studies they had done?


AFAIK, the paper was based on the same studies on visual stimuli mentioned early on in the book. 

I've not finished the book yet, but am anxious to.


----------



## Buddy400

Faithful Wife said:


> (little rant here...)
> 
> I'm just tired of people spouting the idea that men "want" sex more than women.


But.... ask any 100 people you meet if men or women want sex more and 90 of them will respond "men" (the others will be 9 feminists that think men and women must be exactly the same and 1 frat boy). 

And there's the experiment where an attractive woman asked strange men if they wanted to have sex with her and a very attractive man asked strange women if they wanted to have sex with him.... you know they both didn't get the same results right?

So, what semantic game are we playing here to get to the result of "women want sex just as much as men"?


----------



## Faithful Wife

If you don't understand why that one study you are referring to is part of the same historical issue I posted above, then there's really nothing I can tell you to help you see my point of view.


----------



## FrenchFry

Buddy400 said:


> And there's the experiment where an attractive woman asked strange men if they wanted to have sex with her and a very attractive man asked strange women if they wanted to have sex with him.... you know they both didn't get the same results right?


Something like that still isn't a true reflection of how much women want sex because women generally have other factors (some that FW mentioned) that would stop them from saying yes where men don't have those factors. It still isn't a representation of sex drive.

*remind me not to type while eating, yikes.


----------



## Created2Write

I'm anxious for the day when men will respect women enough to accept that we don't need them to explain our own sexuality to us. If you want a happy, sexually enthusiastic partner, maybe you should stop insisting that you know what we want betterthan we do?


----------



## Faithful Wife

It terrifies some men to consider that's women are just as sexual as men. Oh no! What will we do if we have to believe our daughters and grandmothers are horny as hell?

It is quite comfortable for a lot if guys to think we just want sex sometimes and only for emotional and procreation reasons. Otherwise, if they see us differently they immediately feel we are sl*ts and they don't want to think this because they base their own sexuality on being the only gender who gets a free promiscuity pass. 

Sorry guys. Those days are over.


----------



## always_alone

samyeagar said:


> Even the Cosmo articles about the 25 must know moves to blow his mind in bed and keep him coming back for more are at least as much about feeding her sexual ego as they are anything else.


Changing? Yes. But changed? No. These attitudes are deeply ingrained in our culture and will take time to disappear. 

Cosmo is *not* about female empowerment. No matter what their tagline says. 

Why the disinterest? Because women are fed on steady diets of Cosmo and its ilk, plus all the shaming messages, plus porn, plus all the stupid stereotypes that set us up as gate-keepers who don't care about sex and pleasure, except insofar as it helps us catch and keep a man. When the messages are so strong and consistent, it can be hard to imagine an alternative.


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> It terrifies some men to consider that's women are just as sexual as men. Oh no! What will we do if we have to believe our daughters and grandmothers are horny as hell?


The women on my side of the family *are* horny as hell. 

I wouldn't use the word, "Terrifying" but I would say that limerance, as it has been applied to female sexuality of late is a little unsettling.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Plenty of men are terrified of it, Ocotillo. I'm glad you are not, but I wish you didn't even find it unsettling.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> When a psychologist does the study and draws conclusions about human sexuality, there's less ambiguity. For example, the first two chapters of the book, _What Do Women Want?_ mention Professor Chivers, a professor of psychology at Queens University.
> 
> Chivers and her associates have speculated in papers that the separation between physical and mental sexual response in women could have evolved at least in part as a protective mechanism in response to male primate behavior. (i.e. That female primates often had no choice about who they mated with and when.)


I haven't read this in detail, but it certainly sounds like classic evo psych -- highly speculative and founded on a whole lot of nothing.

From what I've read, female primates display quite a bit of choice about who with and when they mate. For starters.

And while dissociation is a common response to trauma, it strikes me as way farfetched to suppose all of female sexuality as trauma based.


----------



## vellocet

Created2Write said:


> I'm anxious for the day when men will respect women enough to accept that we don't need them to explain our own sexuality to us. If you want a happy, sexually enthusiastic partner, maybe you should stop insisting that you know what we want betterthan we do?


Duly noted.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> And while dissociation is a common response to trauma, it strikes me as way farfetched to suppose all of female sexuality as trauma based.


Yes! -Could not agree more.


----------



## Created2Write

Faithful Wife said:


> It terrifies some men to consider that's women are just as sexual as men. Oh no! What will we do if we have to believe our daughters and grandmothers are horny as hell?


That's easy...WE WILL HAVE SEX! I mean, isn't that what these men want anyway? To have sex? To have _more_ sex? To have _better_ sex? You can't tell someone that they are inherently less sexual than you, and simultaneously want them to match your sexual desire. 



> It is quite comfortable for a lot if guys to think we just want sex sometimes and only for emotional and procreation reasons. Otherwise, if they see us differently they immediately feel we are sl*ts and they don't want to think this because they base their own sexuality on being the only gender who gets a free promiscuity pass.
> 
> Sorry guys. Those days are over.


Yep. And really, I'm not sorry. Because the men who genuinely want healthy sexual relationships will recognize the importance of letting women rule their own sexuality, and then reap the benefits of that. The men who insist that they "know better", and maintain the false stereotype that men want sex more than women, will find themselves celibate and unhappy. 

There are individuals, male and female, who have low sexual desire, but that isn't due to the gender they belong to.


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> I'm glad you are not, but I wish you didn't even find it unsettling.


I think part of it might depend on who is defining the term. Have you read Tennov?


----------



## Faithful Wife

No...but I just now read a bunch of stuff about limerance. I agree limerance makes you want to boink. Is that the point?


----------



## Faithful Wife

From wiki:

The sexual aspect of limerence is not consistent from person to person. Most limerents experience limerent sexuality as a component of romantic interest. Some limerents, however, may actually experience limerence in consequence of hyperarousal. In such cases, limerence may form as a defense mechanism against the limerent object, who is not perceived initially as a romantic ideal, but as a physical threat to the limerent.

Sexual fantasies are distinct from limerent ones. Limerent fantasy is rooted in reality and is intrusive rather than voluntary. Sexual fantasies are under more or less voluntary control and may also involve strangers, imaginary individuals, and situations that could not take place. Limerence elevates body temperature and increases relaxation, a sensation of viewing the world with rose-tinted glasses, becoming more receptive to sexuality, and daydreaming.

People can become aroused by the thought of sexual partners, acts, and situations that are not truly desired, whereas every detail of the limerent fantasy is passionately desired actually to take place. Limerence sometimes increases sexual interest in other partners when the limerent object is unreceptive or unavailable.


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> No...but I just now read a bunch of stuff about limerance. I agree limerance makes you want to boink. Is that the point?


No, what's unsettling is just more Evo-Psych rearing it's head. ---The idea that women have a natural proclivity to fall out of love with their husbands and SO's after certain milestone events in their lives or after a certain amount of time.


----------



## Buddy400

Faithful Wife said:


> If you don't understand why that one study you are referring to is part of the same historical issue I posted above, then there's really nothing I can tell you to help you see my point of view.


I, of course, don't think that one study resolves any issue (or even addresses it in a meaningful way). The issue is that it is common knowledge that men want sex more than women. Everyone jokes about how men think about sex 1000 times a day. I mean, it's *known*. The stereotype of "wedding cake killing sexual desire in women" didn't come out of nowhere. It's based on a real phenomena. Then there's a loss of desire in women after having children. These things are* known*. Even studies that are all about proving that women and men are exactly the same acknowledge this. They may explain it away as being due to this, that and the other thing, but they don't say it isn't true. 

It looks like the game is to acknowledge that men want sex more than women *now*, but explain it all away by saying "it's all based on historical circumstances and it wouldn't be true IF". It's like saying that "of course Romney would have won if society hadn't corrupted people's values". That's speculation (and, no doubt, wrong).

I don't even understand the point of trying to prove that everything is exactly the same for men and women. The surprising result would be if, given biological, evolutionary and cultural issues, they WERE the same.

What's the point? Is it that women are tired of having their sexuality suppressed by the patriarchy? Let me tell you, the patriarchy would LOVE it if their wives wanted just as much sex as they did. Do whatever you want with your sexuality, I don't care. 

I'm not interested in suppressing any woman's sexuality (the more the better). I just don't understand what's to be gained by pretending that reality is something other than what it is. I don't see how that's going to help anybody. How are we going to deal with issues if our biases refuse to let us see what's actually happening. How does it help anything to insist that black is white?

Edit: I think what we're seeing here is a bunch of feminists that, for some reason, think that the goal is for women to be *exactly* the same as men and women who *do* like sex as much as men and are tired of being slvt shamed. As far as being exactly the same; I think that's unlikely and stupid. As far as slvt shaming; hey, I'm against it too. I've never slvt shamed anyone.


----------



## ocotillo

Personal said:


> My great sex life is entirely because of women who rule their own sexuality, I share your sentiments on this issue.


I'll add my voice to that sentiment as well. 

When we talk about comparative sex drive between the genders, we're talking about averages across entire populations and this has *absolutely nothing* to do with people as individuals.

Drawing conclusions about individuals based on group statistics is actually an error in formal logic called the ecological inference fallacy.

These studies are not attempts to rule women or tell them what their sexuality is or is not. Plenty of those involved in them are women themselves and in more recent years, women seem to compose the majority.


----------



## Faithful Wife

My husband "just knows" that women are extremely sexual, many times moreso than men. When this is what you've experienced in your relationships throughout your life, then this is what you know. In fact, he isn't really aware of the whole sexless relationship problem, nor does he understand all the "I've got a headache" and wedding cake jokes, since most women he's been with, including me, are constantly chasing HIM for more sex.

He does not kiss and tell so he does not talk about these issues with other men, however once in awhile a friend of his will start talking about his relationship and then my H might hear a story about a woman who doesn't want to have sex with a guy. He has told me he never knows what to say in that instance, because his only response would be "so why are you with her then, most women do want sex, find one who does."


----------



## JCD

I am a big believer in the 'proof is in the pudding'.

So...men...what is the maximum amount you masturbated in a single day? Had nothing going on, it was raining, you were all alone, maybe Ginger or Mary Ann was on the tube...

I am guessing that most men have 'rubbed out' three or more times per day at least once or twice in their lives.

That is where they invested their time.

So...women...you know who you are...what is the maximum amount of times you have 'rubbed one out' in a day?

Here are a few weasel words which don't work:

"Who has the time?" Essentially, you are prioritizing something over your sex drive. So...you are not like a man.

"Isn't that pathetic?" Um...sex drive is not pathetic. Don't go shaming to get out of the question or possibly consider an uncomfortable answer.

"My sex drive is not like an off/on switch. Things need to just 'gel' properly before I get in the mood." This is essentially a tacit admission that your sex drive is...if you don't like weaker or more seldom, more complex than a man's is. If you are not trying to get off as much as a man, that is ipso facto not having as strong a sex drive.

Because, Created2write: if you don't want us second guessing how you feel about your sex drive, don't go second guessing ours either.

What do we know? A woman who is strongly emotionally bonded to a man (i.e. on the cusp of marriage) WILL drive 3 hours to see her beloved. But that isn't a 'sex drive'. That is a 'love drive' (the two are interrelated)

A man WILL drive 3 hours to someone they are NOT emotionally in love with to have sex...if they are horny enough...if she is hot enough...if he is BORED enough!

Men tend to masturbate much more frequently than women do. 

Is this definitive on the point? No. But it certainly is very suggestive and not on a way that bolsters your point. 'I feel I have a strong sex drive...even if I am not banging every thing with a pulse'. Well...I think however you 'feel' it's demonstrably true that your quibbles are more important than your sex drive (generic statement).

I will happily hear evidence to the contrary.

ETA: Not from FW or AA


----------



## FrenchFry

lolol



> So...women...you know who you are...what is the maximum amount of times you have 'rubbed one out' in a day?


You know those Law and Order marathons that are on all the time? Like all day and night runs? I'll lowball 3 orgasms per episode. I got out of class around 10:00 AM, didn't leave the house until 11:00 PM...15 episodes about? 45 times.


----------



## FrenchFry

Dude when I can't sleep, it's like 6 times before I even think about going to bed. 

If had days off like I did in college, I would be sorely tempted to spend my days with Netflix and Jerry Orbach. 

As it is, my few days off I have, about 3 hours is strictly devoted to getting off and chocolate cake in between.

I'm not alone in this. Some women are blessed with multi-orgasmic ability for a reason and I'm damn sure not going to waste a blessing.


----------



## Created2Write

I'm highly multi-orgasmic. Once I have the first, it's guaranteed that I will have at least two more within minutes. The most I've "rubbed off" in a was more than seven times(I think it was over ten orgasms...after the seventh or eighth I stopped counting and enjoyed the ride), and then jumped my husband when he walked in the door, and then again before bed, and then again the next morning after waking up from a highly sexual dream that made me "rub off" two times before waking my husband up with a BJ. 

I've also snuck out of class to video myself "rubbing off" in the bathroom stall and sending it to my husband. I've sexted with my husband MANY times and "rubbed off" simultaneously. 

JCD, lease don't loop all women together under the same baseless generalizations.


----------



## Buddy400

If one can't understand the difference between averages for large populations and specific individuals, then discussion is hopeless.

"Men are taller than women" is true. Saying that one specific woman is taller than the average man or that Mary is taller than John does not affect the fact that men are, on average, taller than women. 

I just don't know where the strawman argument that men are "uncomfortable with women's sexuality" comes from. Who is saying this? Anyone on TAM? Men would love women to want sex as much as men. We'd get laid more often and be happier. How many men complain that their wives want too much sex? Now, back in the 1950's, men might have been uncomfortable with women as sexual beings but that hasn't been the case in 20 or 30 years. 

I'm guessing that this belief that "men are uncomfortable with women being sexual" comes from the never ending discussion of how much a woman's "number" matters. This is an issue for some men (note how many men here do NOT care about this) not because we don't think women should want sex but because we want to feel special if a woman chooses to have sex with us. Men (and many women) think of men as "getting" sex and women as "giving" sex. A gift given too freely loses it's meaning. It might be better if both sexes saw sex as "giving" or if both saw it as "getting" but that's the issue. Not that women shouldn't want sex.


----------



## samyeagar

Buddy400 said:


> If one can't understand the difference between averages for large populations and specific individuals, then discussion is hopeless.
> 
> "Men are taller than women" is true. Saying that one specific woman is taller than the average man or that Mary is taller than John does not affect the fact that men are, on average, taller than women.
> 
> I just don't know where the strawman argument that men are "uncomfortable with women's sexuality" comes from. Who is saying this? Anyone on TAM? Men would love women to want sex as much as men. We'd get laid more often and be happier. How many men complain that their wives want too much sex? Now, back in the 1950's, men might have been uncomfortable with women as sexual beings but that hasn't been the case in 20 or 30 years.
> 
> I'm guessing that this belief that "men are uncomfortable with women being sexual" comes from the never ending discussion of how much a woman's "number" is matters. This is an issue for some men (note how many men here do NOT care about this) not because we don't think women should want sex but because *we want to feel special if a woman chooses to have sex with us.* Men (and many women) think of men as "getting" sex and women as "giving" sex. A gift given too freely loses it's meaning. It might be better if both sexes saw sex as "giving" or if both saw it as "getting" but that's the issue. Not that women shouldn't want sex.


This is the crux of it I think. When more men begin to realize that there is nothing inherently special about a woman having sex with a man, that it has no intrinsic value, these kinds of debates will become less and less.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Buddy400 said:


> *I just don't know where the strawman argument that men are "uncomfortable with women's sexuality" comes from. Who is saying this?* Anyone on TAM? *Men would love women to want sex as much as men.* We'd get laid more often and be happier. *How many men complain that their wives want too much sex?* Now, back in the 1950's, men might have been uncomfortable with women as sexual beings but that hasn't been the case in 20 or 30 years.


I'm a highly sexual woman, and it is my own direct experience which has clearly shown me that many men are uncomfortable with women's sexuality. When you are highly sexual, you find out immediately that some men are NOT as sexual as you are, and they will literally run from you.

I actually personally know of several relationships where the man complains that the woman wants sex too much.

And as I related earlier, it has been my husband's experience (with lots of partners) that the women he's been with have always wanted more sex than he has (even though he wants plenty).

Since like attracts like, many of my female friends throughout my life have been highly sexual like I have. Every one of them has stories about how their sexuality has been rejected by many of the people around them and they have NOT been encouraged to explore and expand their massive sex drives...oh hell no, they are mostly encouraged to put a f*cking lid on it. So we'd have to get together on our own to discuss how stupid the rest of the world is that they think we shouldn't be as sexual as we are and thumb our nose at them.

What you are calling common knowledge is what I have experienced as a bunch of bullcrap that people spout to each other. A big part of why it is such crap is that it includes the idea about how ALLLLL men are such horndogs. This is so not true. There are so many more men that just aren't that sexual than your common knowledge says. Part of this is because men are shamed if they are NOT highly sexual, so men who aren't learn not to talk about it.


----------



## FrenchFry

I was trying to figure out a correct way to say that. Thanks Samyegar. 

Yes, that entire last paragraph is one of those "factors" that dampens sexual expression from women. I couldn't tell you percentage of people changing their perspective on the "gift" that is sex, but as long as it is one of the current factors, women will lie and suppress and fudge how much they like/want/have sex.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Also...hopefully later tonight I will get a chance to copy or link some of the more hysterical articles I've read that hi-lite the fear men have of women's sexuality.


----------



## Faithful Wife

FrenchFry said:


> I was trying to figure out a correct way to say that. Thanks Samyegar.
> 
> Yes, that entire last paragraph is one of those "factors" that dampens sexual expression from women. I couldn't tell you percentage of people changing their perspective on the "gift" that is sex, but as long as it is one of the current factors, women will lie and suppress and fudge how much they like/want/have sex.


For me, I learned real quick not to suppress how much I liked/wanted sex...instead I would immediately remove anyone from my circle who had those thoughts.


----------



## BradWesley

samyeagar said:


> This is the crux of it I think. When more men begin to realize that there is nothing inherently special about a woman having sex with a man, that it has no intrinsic value, these kinds of debates will become less and less.


Spot on Sam.

As someone who has had sex with well over 100 women, I can attest to that fact


----------



## Created2Write

JCD said:


> I am a big believer in the 'proof is in the pudding'.
> 
> So...men...what is the maximum amount you masturbated in a single day? Had nothing going on, it was raining, you were all alone, maybe Ginger or Mary Ann was on the tube...
> 
> I am guessing that most men have 'rubbed out' three or more times per day at least once or twice in their lives.
> 
> That is where they invested their time.
> 
> So...women...you know who you are...what is the maximum amount of times you have 'rubbed one out' in a day?


As I said before, the most I've "rubbed out" in a day was more than seven times. I've done less, I've done more. I enjoy masturbation a lot. 



> Here are a few weasel words which don't work:
> 
> "Who has the time?" Essentially, you are prioritizing something over your sex drive. So...you are not like a man.


I've never heard any woman use this phrase. Personally, I've _found_ the time to masturbate. Snuck out of class, took an extra long bathroom break at work, feigned sickness...I've even done it in my car in broad daylight. 

As for prioritizing things over my sex drive...well, duh. Men do that too, dude. If you've _ever_ done _anything_ instead of masturbate when you wanted to masturbate, whether it be go to a child's sports game or play or conferences, or go on a date with your wife/SO, or stayed late at work, then you have also put things before your sex drive. Everyone does this sometimes. I may feel like masturbating, but if I'm on a date with my hubby, I'm not going to leave him while I go get myself off in the bathroom. If anything, I'd take him with me. Masturbation isn't the epitome of a person's sex drive, either. So, your entire premise here is faulty. 

Also, no one said that women are "like men." We've only maintained that we want sex as much as men do. We can be different without being less sexual. 



> "Isn't that pathetic?" Um...sex drive is not pathetic. Don't go shaming to get out of the question or possibly consider an uncomfortable answer.


Sex isn't pathetic at all. I've never heard a woman use this phrase, ever. If you have, I highly recommend you change the type of women you hang out with. 



> "My sex drive is not like an off/on switch. Things need to just 'gel' properly before I get in the mood." This is essentially a tacit admission that your sex drive is...if you don't like weaker or more seldom, more complex than a man's is. If you are not trying to get off as much as a man, that is ipso facto not having as strong a sex drive.


Your logic is so faulty, I can't even follow it. Personally, my sex drive isn't like an on/off switch...there is no off switch! It's always on. The older I get, the stronger it becomes. Example: my husband and I went to a bar for drinks over the summer, and I...let's just say "had feelings" for the female bartender. DH was having a blast watching me. He recognized my attraction before I'd even said anything about it, and had fun watching me flirt. It was like a sexual roller coaster that effected me even after we left the bar. I experience highly sexual desires and urges while at school, because one of my teachers is SO attractive to me. He's reserved, somewhat quiet, but he has this...I dunno, quality to him that proves that he has a great sense of humor, he's highly intelligent, and he's a great writer. For two hours every Tuesday and Thursday I battle sexual thoughts and feelings for him that only get stronger with each class. DH teases me all of time, and says one of the reasons I take his classes is cause I have a crush. Hell yeah! I've had dreams about this teacher, I've had fantasies...Point being, my sex drive is never "off". 

I've been in situations when my sexual desires were more subdued(like after my miscarriages), but even then I STILL pursued sex with my husband frequently. Being close and intimate with him helped me battle my depression. 

As for not trying to get off more than a man, I initiate sex at least twice as often as my husband does. I masturbate more than twice as often as my husband does. And my husband isn't low drive. 



> Because, Created2write: if you don't want us second guessing how you feel about your sex drive, don't go second guessing ours either.


When did I second guess anyone's sex drive? :scratchhead: My only point is that men do not understand female sexuality more than we do, and once men stop insisting that they do and allow women to _be_ who they are, men will then reap the benefits. I don't claim to understand men's sexuality better than you do, why do you insist that you understand female sexuality better than I do? 



> What do we know? A woman who is strongly emotionally bonded to a man (i.e. on the cusp of marriage) WILL drive 3 hours to see her beloved. But that isn't a 'sex drive'. That is a 'love drive' (the two are interrelated)


Massive assumption, and wrong. Women have sex with men long before "the cusp of marriage", and I've known many who've driven longer than three hours to have sex with a man they were not emotionally bonded to. I nearly flew across the world to have sex with a guy I'd only, ever, met twice. 



> A man WILL drive 3 hours to someone they are NOT emotionally in love with to have sex...if they are horny enough...if she is hot enough...if he is BORED enough!


I don't like your representation of men or women. The idea that male sexuality is born out of boredom is...well, less than flattering. 



> Men tend to masturbate much more frequently than women do.


Do you have proof of this besides your own ideas? Cause my experience has been that women masturbate just as frequently as men on average, they just might be less vocal about it. Even today it's considered an "unlady-like" thing to do. F--- that. If masturbation makes me unlady-like, then so be it. But I won't be shamed out of my own sexuality. My own brother thinks I'm some kind of slu.t because I masturbate. Even though I'm married, faithful, in love with my husband, and a grown adult, he made it very clear that he thinks it's wrong for me to masturbate. Point being, how men respond to highly sexual women will determine how open other highly sexual women will be about their sexuality. Luckily, I don't give a crap about what other men think of me. 



> Is this definitive on the point? No. But it certainly is very suggestive and not on a way that bolsters your point. 'I feel I have a strong sex drive...even if I am not banging every thing with a pulse'. Well...I think however you 'feel' it's demonstrably true that your quibbles are more important than your sex drive (generic statement).


Have you "banged everything with a pulse?" Because that statement taken literally would include animals and children. While I'm sure it was more of a hyperbolic statement, I think you use exaggerations that don't even apply to your or most other men as an attempt to contradict the idea that women are just as sexual as men. Because, obviously, I haven't and wouldn't have sex with animals or children. But neither would you or most other men. 

That leaves us with this question: what actually determines a high sexual drive? Frequency? Kinkiness? Number of partners? Willingness to have sex with anyone and everyone you meet? All of these are too individualistic to cover with blanket statements. 

Frequency is not a definitive representation of sexual drive. It waxes and wanes due to different experiences and situations. My miscarriages, for instance, did effect the frequency of sex for a time, but they played absolutely no role in my overall sexual desire. I grieved for a period of about six months; during that time sexual frequency between my husband and I would increase and then drop off, then increase, then drop off, etc. as I went through the healing process. But my sexual drive was not changed. Now, it's stronger than it ever was. 

Kinkiness is not a definitive representation of sexual desire, either. I wouldn't call myself a "kinky" person, yet I would call myself highly sexual. I'm not into BDSM, rape fantasies, I'm not much of an exhibitionist...my husband and I haven't even so much as had sex in a public bathroom, yet we're both very sexual in that we want sex constantly, we constantly fondle and touch each other, we send naked pics to each other all of the time...sex is a massive part of our lives. 

Like kinkiness, number of partners doesn't necessarily determine sexual drive either. My husband is my only sexual partner, but I have intense sexual desires. It's tied with my other two highest emotional needs. I can not survive emotionally without sex in my life. Would I have sex with anyone I meet? No. A ninety year-old man is not going to illicit any sexual arousal within me. A thirteen year old boy is also not going to illicit any sexual arousal within me. We all are going to be attracted to different types of people. A penis on its own isn't going to make wet and wild. Would I have sex with someone I found sexually irresistable? Yes.



> I will happily hear evidence to the contrary.
> 
> ETA: Not from FW or AA


So FW and AA don't count in the female population? Wonder why that is....


----------



## Buddy400

samyeagar said:


> This is the crux of it I think. When more men begin to realize that there is nothing inherently special about a woman having sex with a man, that it has no intrinsic value, these kinds of debates will become less and less.


But is that a good thing? That there would be "nothing inherently special about a woman having sex with a man"?

That's an honest question. I'm not so sure that it is. But that's probably where we're heading.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Buddy400 said:


> But is that a good thing? That there would be "nothing inherently special about a woman having sex with a man"?
> 
> That's an honest question. I'm not so sure that it is. But that's probably where we're heading.


This is a fear based question, but you don't see that?


----------



## Created2Write

Buddy400 said:


> If one can't understand the difference between averages for large populations and specific individuals, then discussion is hopeless.
> 
> "Men are taller than women" is true. Saying that one specific woman is taller than the average man or that Mary is taller than John does not affect the fact that men are, on average, taller than women.


But the "average" being discussed here has been proven to be false "on average." The idea that there are men in this world with higher sexual drives than me is one I have no problem with. But to be told that my entire gender doesn't want sex as much as any given individual guy they meet is what I don't agree with, and as it happens, it is the very idea that has been proven to be false. 



> I just don't know where the strawman argument that men are "uncomfortable with women's sexuality" comes from. Who is saying this? Anyone on TAM? Men would love women to want sex as much as men. We'd get laid more often and be happier. How many men complain that their wives want too much sex? Now, back in the 1950's, men might have been uncomfortable with women as sexual beings but that hasn't been the case in 20 or 30 years.


Also not true. The _idea_ that women are sexual beings may be widely voiced, but the actual practice of accepting such an idea is, imo, less common. Many men on this forum and others I've been on share the idea that women can't or don't want sex more than men. Heck, I used to believe it too! The issue isn't that women _don't_ want sex as much as men, the issue is that they do and some men(for whatever reason) truly don't believe it. Even the students in my literature class who are younger than I by at least seven years believe that men are massively more horny than women. This just isn't so. 

Men and women have been equally sexual and sexually curious for many thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian love poems, written by young teenage boys and girls many thousands of years ago, show that even back then in a time when men dominated most of society, women were just as sexual as men were. Ancient Jewish love poems, like those found in the Song of Solomon, confirm that this was true in their culture as well. The Greeks, and then later the Christians and Puritans, came up with the idea that female sexuality was a weakness, something to be repressed, while make sexuality was to be nurtured and developed. 

The reason that I believe men are afraid or uncomfortable with the idea that women want sex as much as men do, is because of the fact that men have dominated the sexual arena for so long. If women, as a gender, want sex as much as men, they will cease to dominate that arena. I don't know why this is seen as a bad thing, as it WILL increase sexual frequency and satisfaction for both genders, but some men seem to want to fight this very strongly. It's their loss, though. 



> I'm guessing that this belief that "men are uncomfortable with women being sexual" comes from the never ending discussion of how much a woman's "number" matters. This is an issue for some men (note how many men here do NOT care about this) not because we don't think women should want sex but because we want to feel special if a woman chooses to have sex with us. Men (and many women) think of men as "getting" sex and women as "giving" sex. A gift given too freely loses it's meaning. It might be better if both sexes saw sex as "giving" or if both saw it as "getting" but that's the issue. Not that women shouldn't want sex.


There are women who want sex to be special, too, yet it's widely accepted for men to have NSA sex. Indeed, some on this forum actually complain that some women want sex to be special while they just want it to be fun. We're told to, either, find a man who doesn't want NSA sex, or to stop placing such value on sex itself. This is a double-standard. It's ok for men to have sex for nothing more than the physical experience even if the woman wants something more special, yet when men then want it to be special, women are expected to oblige. It doesn't work that way.


----------



## BradWesley

Faithful Wife said:


> This is a fear based question, but you don't see that?


Just one of the answers why so many guys here on TAM struggle with understanding women.


----------



## Buddy400

Faithful Wife said:


> This is a fear based question, but you don't see that?


Why is it good that something special becomes ordinary? And what does that have to do with fear.


----------



## ocotillo

Created2Write said:


> Do you have proof of this besides your own ideas? Cause my experience has been that women masturbate just as frequently as men on average, they just might be less vocal about it.


I'm not pointing this out because because I think existing literature is necessarily accurate and true or is in any way the last word. 

I'm just pointing out that the idea itself is not being plucked out of thin air. Here is a sampling of original studies and meta-analysis that report gender differences in masturbation frequency: 

Sigusch & Schmitt, 1973

Arafat & Cotton, 1974

Asayama, 1975

Jones & Barlow, 1990

Bergstom-Whalen & Nielson, 1990

Murphy, 1992

Oliver & Hyde, 1993

Laumann _et al_, 1994

Sipe, 1995

Baumeister _et al_, 2001

Petersen & Hyde, 2010​
To be fair, the gender difference has shrunk over the years and maybe in future studies, it won't even be measurable.


----------



## Created2Write

ocotillo said:


> I'm not pointing this out because because I think existing literature is necessarily accurate and true or is in any way the last word.
> 
> I'm just pointing out that the idea itself is not being plucked out of thin air. Here is a sampling of original studies and meta-analysis that report gender differences in masturbation frequency:
> 
> Sigusch & Schmitt, 1973
> 
> Arafat & Cotton, 1974
> 
> Asayama, 1975
> 
> Jones & Barlow, 1990
> 
> Bergstom-Whalen & Nielson, 1990
> 
> Murphy, 1992
> 
> Oliver & Hyde, 1993
> 
> Laumann _et al_, 1994
> 
> Sipe, 1995
> 
> Baumeister _et al_, 2001
> 
> Petersen & Hyde, 2010​
> To be fair, the gender difference has shrunk over the years and maybe in future studies, it won't even be measurable.


I'd be interested to read those studies, not only for the information they offer, but also to see just how many women were even open with that part of their lives. Keep in mind, even today it is widely considered unacceptable, or rather "unlady-like", for a woman to admit to masturbation. I was never even taught what masturbation was, while my younger brother was. As a young adult who was raised in a sheltered Christian home, I would _never_ have admitted to masturbation even if I practiced it daily. 

If a woman fears slu.t shaming or judgment from those around her, how likely is it that she'd be honest about that part of her life? I've known women my age(mid twenties) who were open with me about their sex lives, but would have outright denied any of it if asked about by the right(or wrong) person. By my experience, females masturbate just as often as males, but aren't nearly as vocal about it.


----------



## Created2Write

Buddy400 said:


> Why is it good that something special becomes ordinary? And what does that have to do with fear.


Why does it have to be either or? Sex can be special without being restricted. To say that sex is "ordinary" doesn't mean that it isn't _also_ special. To say that sex is "special" doesn't mean that it isn't _also_ fun and exciting. So, why is it bad for sex to be more than one thing? 

And it has to do with fear because that is the emotion which seems to drive one general side to this argument. If not fear, what would be the issue?


----------



## Faithful Wife

Buddy400 said:


> Why is it good that something special becomes ordinary? And what does that have to do with fear.


I can see you are being genuine with your questions, but I really can't explain it to you any further than I already have. 

But one thing I will say is that no one is saying that ALL sex is "not special" for either men or women. What has been said is that women will have unattached sex, just as men will, there is really no difference between genders in whether sex is special or not special. For both genders, it can be either.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Created2Write said:


> So FW and AA don't count in the female population? Wonder why that is....


:rofl::rofl:

I'm not sure how he would see it anyway, given that he went out of his way to send me a PM telling me he has me on ignore (Like I would care to know this? Why would I give a f*ck?)

Regardless, I'll answer anything I damn well please.


----------



## ocotillo

Created2Write said:


> I'd be interested to read those studies...


Here's Petersen & Hyde Both professors are female; both strike me as unbiased and thorough, but maybe others would disagree.


----------



## Faithful Wife

It isn't that the scientists are biased, it is that they are sampling women who have been shaped by the society we live in. 

There have been studies done which show women's answers change dramatically when they are able to answer anonymously.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Here's a great book about women's sexuality, for those who are interested in the truth.

My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies: Nancy Friday: 9780704332942: Amazon.com: Books

"When it first appeared, My Secret Garden created a storm of outrage and exhilaration. Women who read it were astonished to find in its pages the hidden content of their own sexual fantasies. More outspoken, graphic, and taboo-shattering than any book before its time, My Secret Garden quickly became the classic study of female sexuality."


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## Buddy400

Faithful Wife said:


> It isn't that the scientists are biased, it is that they are sampling women who have been shaped by the society we live in.
> 
> There have been studies done which show women's answers change dramatically when they are able to answer anonymously.


See, it's a semantics game.

We say "men want sex more than women".

We're talking about actual conditions as they exist today.

It is common knowledge throughout society that this is true. Add Octillos's list of references. Add in the freshmen in created2write's literature class. Add in 99% of relevant references on TV.

They say "men and women want sex exactly the same amount".

They are talking about something other than real life. They're talking about an imaginary land in which society has not denied female sexuality. Not only is this land imaginary, it's not even certain that if past conditions were as they'd have hoped that the result would have been what they claim.

It's as if I was looking at a blue wall and someone insisted that it was red. I'd go crazy wondering how we could possibly be looking at the same wall. Finally it becomes apparent that they're saying that if society hadn't discriminated against certain colors in the past, the wall would have been painted red. What's the point of that exercise?

I think that IRL men want sex more than women. I'd be perfectly happy living in a world where men and women want sex exactly the same. It just drives me crazy when people tell me that blue is red.


----------



## Created2Write

Faithful Wife said:


> :rofl::rofl:
> 
> I'm not sure how he would see it anyway, given that he went out of his way to send me a PM telling me he has me on ignore (Like I would care to know this? Why would I give a f*ck?)
> 
> Regardless, I'll answer anything I damn well please.


It sounded to me like, "The women who contradict my opinions aren't allowed to answer", but maybe I misunderstood.


----------



## Created2Write

Buddy400 said:


> See, it's a semantics game.
> 
> We say "men want sex more than women".
> 
> We're talking about actual conditions as they exist today.
> 
> It is common knowledge throughout society that this is true. Add Octillos's list of references. Add in the freshmen in created2write's literature class. Add in 99% of relevant references on TV.


Repeating that "this is true"(that men want sex more than women) isn't going to make it true, Buddy. Because it's _not_ true. Men and women may approach sex differently, but actual desire is not dictated by gender. I, personally, have spoken to _some_ women who really don't enjoy or desire sex that much, but even in my limited experience, these women have been rare. My virgin friends and I talked _endlessly_ about sex as young adults, how curious we were about it, what it would be like, and how badly we wanted to have sex, and these were girls my age across many different denomination of the _Christian_ faith. 

I can say with absolute certainty that we would never have admitted to these conversations with any guy we knew. If a woman doesn't feel comfortable or safe when asked about sexual desire, it's my guess that she won't be answering those questions truthfully. Slu.t shaming, and the very notion that men want sex more is going to effect the way women see their own sexuality. I remember when my sexual desires first invaded my body...I thought I was abnormal for having sex dreams before ever having sex; I thought I was weird for being curious about the naked body of a man; I thought I was weird for becoming completely aroused just from watching a man and a woman kiss on the lips for a couple of seconds. I would go from unaroused to total arousal within sixty seconds, _without any physical stimulation whatsoever on any part of my body_. I thought there was something wrong with me because of the statement I had heard my whole life that men want sex more. I would never have admitted to those feelings while I thought I was strange. 

What men say to women about their(women's) sexuality is going to effect what women say about themselves. If you continue to insist that men want sex more than women(as men have done for a very long time), you will continue to have women who repress their sexuality and won't even open with you, their husbands. If you can accept that we understand ourselves well enough to identify what our sexual desires are, you will find healthier, happier women who feel free to express their sexual side with you. 



> They say "men and women want sex exactly the same amount".


Please note we're not saying that _every_ woman wants sex exactly the same amount as _every_ man. We're saying that you can't put every woman in the same box. We aren't saying that women want sex more than men, and we're only asking that the same respect be shown to us. 



> They are talking about something other than real life. They're talking about an imaginary land in which society has not denied female sexuality. Not only is this land imaginary, it's not even certain that if past conditions were as they'd have hoped that the result would have been what they claim.


You're not even listening now. We're saying the opposite of this, that society _has_ shaped female sexuality and that we're trying to come out from under society's blanket. Society shouldn't be defining our sexuality, _we_ should. Society doesn't know us better than we know ourselves. THAT Is what we're saying and, for some reason, that is unacceptable for you and others. For some reason the idea that women should be able to control and determine their own sexuality is terrifying. 



> It's as if I was looking at a blue wall and someone insisted that it was red. I'd go crazy wondering how we could possibly be looking at the same wall. Finally it becomes apparent that they're saying that if society hadn't discriminated against certain colors in the past, the wall would have been painted red. What's the point of that exercise?


Really? You're comparing colors and walls, which have no brains, desires, or personalities, with human effing beings that _do_? A color doesn't know that it's a color; red doesn't know the difference between itself and blue, so society has no influence over it whatsoever. A color wouldn't know it was being discriminated against. _We_ do. So yes, if MEN(because men have dominated society for the majority of history) hadn't villainized female sexuality and repressed women as much as they did, I absolutely believe that things would be different today. Just like if certain cultures and viewed other cultures as less than them, slavery may well have been avoided. To say otherwise is pure ignorance. 



> I think that IRL men want sex more than women. I'd be perfectly happy living in a world where men and women want sex exactly the same.


Then why are you resisting that world as much as you are? 



> It just drives me crazy when people tell me that blue is red.


No one is telling you that blue is red. You're the one telling us that we're not the way we know we are. You're the one insisting that things are different than they actually are, and your viewpoint is precisely the reason women have been sexually repressed and judged.


----------



## Created2Write

ocotillo said:


> Here's Petersen & Hyde Both professors are female; both strike me as unbiased and thorough, but maybe others would disagree.


I didn't read the whole things as it was quite lengthy, but one thing that struck me most was the conclusion that the differences in gender with regards to sexuality _had_ decreased quite a bit, which states that men and women are more alike sexually than previous studies showed, and even this one is a number of years old. I still hesitate to entirely accept the results, because I feel that their sampling was rather small. And, like FW said, women have shown that they give much more honest answers if the studies are anonymous. I used to have the links to some of those studies, but I've lost them. If I find them again I'll post them here. 

Thank you for posting this, though. It shows that, as the years go by, the differences between the genders with regards to sex _does_ consistently decrease. I feel that this, more than anything, proves that the safer women feel when discussing sex, the more honest they will be.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



Faithful Wife said:


> Plenty of men are terrified of it, Ocotillo. I'm glad you are not, but I wish you didn't even find it unsettling.


Terrified? Hell I capitalize on it all of the time. 

Some might call it taking advantage, I like to think of it as empowerment.


----------



## Buddy400

Created2Write said:


> Then why are you resisting that world as much as you are?


I'm not resisting that world.

I'm resisting a world in which people say things that, on their face, are not true and expect others to agree with them.


----------



## JCD

Created2Write said:


> Also, no one said that women are "like men." We've only maintained that we want sex as much as men do. We can be different without being less sexual.
> .
> .
> .
> So FW and AA don't count in the female population? Wonder why that is....


I don't have time to answer fully. I am prioritizing work over TAM (not a choice I WANT to make, one I HAVE to make)

I offered data points. Here is another one:











Seems _in general_ men masturbate more than women by at least 10% if not more.

Here is from that same survey:



> Depending on your own self-pleasuring habits, the titillating facts will either shock or mildly interest you.* Regarding the highest-frequency masturbators, 5% of women ages 25-29 engage in solo sessions more than 4 times a week, while 20.1% of men do. *The gap closes in for those who reported masturbating multiple times a month, with 21.5% of women ages 25-29 and 25.4% of men in that same age group. (Ed note: Please note how closely the 4x per week number and that several times per month number are. It is suggestive) But the disparity generally remains the same throughout our lives, with women coming in at least 10-15 percentage points behind men in each category. Another stat: The older we get, the more likely we are to report not masturbating at all, ever (and that’s true for both men and women).



Hey, maybe guys wanking one out is because they are not actually DOING it like a lady can! 

But you don't get to say "I don't like how you are phrasing the questions. You are giving me a number of apples and I want to talk oranges" Okay...talk oranges. I mentioned masturbation, which is sex. From your description, you represent 5% of women. I represented (in that age group) 20% of men. I will leave the math to you.

But if you want to talk 'oranges' (or whatever evidence you have that you have a) a strong sex drive, and b) that you are typical) actually GIVE me an orange. I cannot 'know' how strong sex influences your life. I know how strongly sex has influenced MY life. But we can pick at the edges and maybe parse out some data. Quick stereotype: which gender is currently more expected to do something stupid for sex? Do we refute that? Is it refutable? These are good questions.

For reasons which do not concern you, FW and AA are both on my 'ignore' list. I do not think it is fair to have one sided conversations and I would not see their responses anyway. I don't mind strong women. I don't mind opinionated women. I don't mind arguing with women. I find their tactics in arguing something I will not inflict upon myself. I do not want to go to banned camp.


----------



## Created2Write

Buddy400 said:


> I'm not resisting that world.
> 
> I'm resisting a world in which people say things that, on their face, are not true and expect others to agree with them.


So you think the women here are lying? 

Yet another reason why women _still_ feel repressed and frustrated. 

I'd also love it if you responded to the rest of my post.


----------



## ocotillo

Created2Write said:


> It shows that, as the years go by, the differences between the genders with regards to sex _does_ consistently decrease. I feel that this, more than anything, proves that the safer women feel when discussing sex, the more honest they will be.


Yes, the Janet Hyde in this article is the same Janet Hyde who co-wrote the 1993 article along with Mary Oliver.

So there's no rivalry here or any bias that would result from that. Existing work is not being attacked; it's simply being revised.


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## JCD

One last thing: If my very Christian parents had found the male me masturbating (and I won't even go into what my punishment was for a frigging Sport's Illustrated Swimsuit edition was!), I would hardly have been covered in roses and accolades by my parents.

That being said: I find it a cheap tactic to say 'prove that men are more sexual' but then, if such proof is offered, by rates of masturbation or number of times per day that men think of sex more than women think of sex, it is suddenly palmed off as 'but women were constantly taught to suppress their sexuality so the data can't be right'.

That leads nowhere.


----------



## Created2Write

JCD said:


> I don't have time to answer fully. I am prioritizing work over TAM (not a choice I WANT to make, one I HAVE to make)
> 
> I offered data points. Here is another one:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seems _in general_ men masturbate more than women by at least 10% if not more.


Year of that survey? Where was it conducted? How large were the samples? Who was surveyed? These are essential facts that could determine the outcome of the results. 



> Hey, maybe guys wanking one out is because they are not actually DOING it like a lady can!


??? 



> But you don't get to say "I don't like how you are phrasing the questions. You are giving me a number of apples and I want to talk oranges" Okay...talk oranges. I mentioned masturbation, which is sex.


Masturbation, by definition, _isn't_ sex. It's one aspect of sexual expression. 



> From your description, you represent 5% of women. I represented (in that age group) 20% of men. I will leave the math to you.


This assumes that I accept the numbers being given, which I don't. There's too much information not being given. I, personally, enjoy masturbation. A Catholic friend of mine doesn't masturbate _at all_, because she believes that it's wrong, yet she has a very healthy sex drive and can do twice a day every day. You keep wanting to define sex in the terms that best suits your opinion, but it doesn't work that way. Sex is both specific and ambiguous simultaneously. 



> But if you want to talk 'oranges' (or whatever evidence you have that you have a) a strong sex drive, and b) that you are typical) actually GIVE me an orange. I cannot 'know' how strong sex influences your life. I know how strongly sex has influenced MY life. But we can pick at the edges and maybe parse out some data. Quick stereotype: which gender is currently more expected to do something stupid for sex? Do we refute that?


I refute it, absolutely, and yes it _is_ refutable. I've known men and women, both, who did stupid things for sex. That's my experience, so of course I'm going to refute it. If we're talking about stereotypes, _others_ might say that they think men are more likely to do stupid things for sex, but that's just more proof that society has far too much influence over what people accept and believe. It also doesn't exactly flatter the male sex, but nor does it mean that men want it more. If anything it only says that men are made stupid because of sex, something I don't believe. 

**Edited to add: I've given many examples of how important sex is in my life. I can't survive emotionally without sex. Your stereotype doesn't change that. 



> For reasons which do not concern you, FW and AA are both on my 'ignore' list.


Of course they are. I'm not surprised at all. 



> I do not think it is fair to have one sided conversations and I would not see their responses anyway.


**Edit to add: I thought you were referring to me when I first posted these responses. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I, personally, have never found FW or AA to have one-sided discussions. Merely that they are passionate and have strong opinions. 




> I don't mind strong women. I don't mind opinionated women. I don't mind arguing with women.


Clearly you do. The least you could do is own up to it. 



> I find their tactics in arguing something I will not inflict upon myself. I do not want to go to banned camp.


**Edit to add: Again, here I thought you were referring to me. That was my my mistake. My apologies.


----------



## ConanHub

JCD said:


> One last thing: If my very Christian parents had found the male me masturbating (and I won't even go into what my punishment was for a frigging Sport's Illustrated Swimsuit edition was!), I would hardly have been covered in roses and accolades by my parent
> That being said: I find it a cheap tactic to say 'prove that men are more sexual' but then, if such proof is offered, by rates of masturbation or number of times per day that men think of sex more than women think of sex, it is suddenly palmed off as 'but women were constantly taught to suppress their sexuality so the data can't be right'.
> 
> That leads nowhere.


Women have maybe always been more susceptible to deceit based upon social acceptance.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Created2Write

JCD said:


> One last thing: If my very Christian parents had found the male me masturbating (and I won't even go into what my punishment was for a frigging Sport's Illustrated Swimsuit edition was!), I would hardly have been covered in roses and accolades by my parents.


That being said: I find it a cheap tactic to say 'prove that men are more sexual' but then, if such proof is offered, by rates of masturbation or number of times per day that men think of sex more than women think of sex, it is suddenly palmed off as 'but women were constantly taught to suppress their sexuality so the data can't be right'.

That leads nowhere.[/QUOTE]

1. It's not a cheap tactic to take facts of history that _have been proven_ to have effected society's outlook on sex, and use those facts to prove that women have been sexually repressed. It is a historically proven fact that male sexuality has been given top priority through the ages, while female sexuality has not only been used and abused, but also seen as a weakness that caused men to stumble. Women were punished by law if they were suspected of being unfaithful to their husbands(to the point that their children could be taken away from them), while it was more than acceptable for a man to cheat over and over and over again. A woman who was curious about sex or enjoyed it was considered "unchaste" and undesirable. These facts shaped our modern society, and in turn, society has shaped female sexuality. That's not a tactic, it's the truth. 

2. To say that it leads nowhere is to assert that we can learn absolutely nothing from the mistakes of the past. If this were true, slavery might still be practiced today. The whole point of examining the past is to try and _learn from it_, and create a _better_ world for our children. Because people in the 1800's questioned slavery, _all races_ are now seen as equals and given, by law, equal rights as everyone else. Yet, we still deal with racism in this country, do we not? Granted, it's much less than it's been in past generations, but it's not yet entirely done away with. If we followed your line of thinking, we would leave things as they currently are because, apparently, the past has nothing to offer us. I can not, and will not, agree with that at all. But on my own, I can accomplish very little. Racism is only as rare as it is because _society as a whole_ changed its outlook. Sexuality in this country will not improve until _society as a whole_ begins to dispel the stereotypes that have been touted for generations. If it insists on making the same mistakes of the past, it will continue to face such unhappy and unsuccessful marriages and sexual relationships. 

Each one of us has to decide what we want society to be, and then do our best to be the best influence we can.


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## ConanHub

I am definitely in the camp of women being as sexual as men but I am curious about how crappy info on female drive has affected individuals?

Created gave a good example of how she thought something was wrong with her when she got aroused from seeing a kiss.

Any other examples?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## BradWesley

ConanHub said:


> Women have maybe always been more susceptible to deceit based upon social acceptance.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


As opposed to guys with heavy hair growth on the palms of their hands


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## Buddy400

Created2Write said:


> So you think the women here are lying?


No. I think that they do not represent a scientific sample set.



Created2Write said:


> I'd also love it if you responded to the rest of my post.


Well, I could (and I'm often tempted to give it a go). But I usually manage to keep myself from wasting my time. 

You Fisk a document, dispute every point and think that's all you have to do "win". You also say things like "so you think people here are lying" instead of "how do you reconcile that with what the women here are saying?". It's tiring. 

There's no point. For example, I mentioned "generalities" and you respond with "I and my friends don't agree" or "that's not MY experience". You don't understand the difference between data and anecdotes. And, if you don't understand that, there's no point discussing anything with you. By the way, AA and FW do the same thing and it's useless talking with them as well. 

I'm content to let my comments stand next to yours and let the audience decide.


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## ConanHub

Buddy no need to get so rude. Data has been provided on both sides. I am convinced women are as sexual as men. You aren't. I like real life examples as well as research results.

I could write my own book of a lifetime of experiences supporting high female drive. You obviously can't.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## ConanHub

I don't always agree with AA or FW but I have found them to be wonderful to talk to and mostly USEFUL.

That remark was uncalled for.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Faithful Wife

ConanHub said:


> I am definitely in the camp of women being as sexual as men but I am curious about how crappy info on female drive has affected individuals?
> 
> Created gave a good example of how she thought something was wrong with her when she got aroused from seeing a kiss.
> 
> Any other examples?
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


What always affected me growing up, was seeing various representations of men going ga-ga for a woman, or being so overwhelmed with lust he turns into a wolf. Yet, I felt the same feelings in my body...I was ga-ga for women and felt constant arousal to the point of tearing up about it and a few times, I almost threw up.

There was no representation of a really horny woman anywhere...until I started stealing porn mags...and even there, the only time I would see what I felt was a "real" representation of how I felt, were in some of the comics. There were some which showed women MB'ing (one which I could draw today from memory) and getting off or just being shown as if she's "going wild" with lust. FINALLY, I thought! Pictures of real women!


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## Faithful Wife

ConanHub said:


> I don't always agree with AA or FW but I have found them to be wonderful to talk to and mostly USEFUL.
> 
> That remark was uncalled for.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Don't worry about it Conan. I'm hardly insulted, considering the source.


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## Faithful Wife

Here's an example...Conan.

I don't know why this says banned commercial, because I saw this commercial and several others when I was a kid. Must have been banned after I saw them. Sorry about the first 20 seconds of "something weird video" in the beginning.

Anyway...this gorgeous woman made my blood boil, just like it does to the men. In the end when she meets up with "her man", I wanted to see them have sex, not just kiss. I used to run to my room and MB after seeing this commercial.

It was very obvious to me though, that the woman is being pursued sexually by men in the commercial. There were no examples of women being lusty and pursuing...which to me was just stupid and I knew deep inside that I was not the only female who felt raging chick wood all the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88DOMJ11q2M


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## ConanHub

Thanks FW. Must have been pretty confusing to make you feel sick sometimes and I am sure the lack of information really helped when it came to making decisions about sex later as well. 

I have found uninformed decisions to be sometimes hazardous.

It hit me on the opposite end. I was totally caught off guard when I nice girl I liked talked to me about having sex. She was not a virgin and I was.

Blew my world up! My image of her was wrecked but she was a nice girl, I just had erroneous information. That happened a lot until I let a really bad girl just have her way with me. She was fun but not too nice in a good way.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Created2Write

Buddy, I'm not trying to "win" anything. I offer my experience as the _opposite view_ of the studies being given, since my experience has differed drastically from the studies. Also, the studies that have been presented which aim to prove that men want sex more are significantly lacking in vital information that could shed light on _why_ the studies came up with the results that they did. Without that information it's impossible to tell whether or not the study was bias, and scientifically speaking, you're _supposed_ to question those types of studies. 

The studies that have been presented which were more objective show drastic _de_creases in the gaps between the genders when it comes to sexual desire, sexual frequency, number of partners, and overall sexual expression. At the very least this proves that women want sex more today than they did(or admitted to) in generations past. Even those studies don't definitively prove that men actually want sex more than women, just that men feel more comfortable discussing their sexual desires. 

There's nothing biological that sets women up to naturally want sex less than men, as both of the sexes contain sexual hormones. We just have different sexual hormones. Ours is estrogen. Yours is testosterone. But even those hormones only contribute to a certain amount of sexual desire. Some men who have healthy testosterone levels have low sexual desire, yet another man who also has healthy testosterone levels can have a sexual drive that is through the roof. 

You look at individual statements that I make to pick them apart, rather than look at my overall message: *there is no blanket statement that can be applied to either gender with regards to sex*. What is true for one person may not be true for the next. This is also why it's so difficult and complicated when attempting to gauge what proves a high sexual drive. Even if I were to believe that men masturbated more than women(which I don't), masturbation is merely one aspect of sexual expression. Fantasizing is merely one aspect of sexual expression. Oral sex, intercourse, role play, flirting, erotica, frequency, positions...all aspects of sexual expression that, given individuals and their lifestyles, can all mean and be different things. There is no one-size fits all, and the reason you face such passionate hostility in this is for the very fact that we(meaning the women here) are fighting against the one-size being applied to us. Even if you aren't referring to us, by calling us the exception to the rule(as you have done) you're essentially saying that our experience and who we are isn't worth being noted or considered. You're dismissing us based on nothing more than the bias of your opinion, and the faulty statistics that support that opinion. 

If you _say_ you wish women wanted sex as much as men(which you have), why do you fight so hard against the idea that we do? Earlier you claimed that it was because you think myself, and FW and AA and others, live in a fantasy land...but why is that? Because society says so. I'd be willing to bet that the moment society accepts that men and women both want sex, you'll change your opinion.


----------



## Faithful Wife

ConanHub said:


> Thanks FW. Must have been pretty confusing to make you feel sick sometimes and I am sure the lack of information really helped when it came to making decisions about sex later as well.
> 
> I have found uninformed decisions to be sometimes hazardous.
> 
> It hit me on the opposite end. I was totally caught off guard when I nice girl I liked talked to me about having sex. She was not a virgin and I was.
> 
> Blew my world up! My image of her was wrecked but she was a nice girl, I just had erroneous information. That happened a lot until I let a really bad girl just have her way with me. She was fun but not too nice in a good way.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Yes, I scared off quite a few young men and women myself in this way back then.

But some of the fun ones played doctor with me.


----------



## Anon Pink

FrenchFry said:


> Dude when I can't sleep, it's like 6 times before I even think about going to bed.
> 
> If had days off like I did in college, I would be sorely tempted to spend my days with Netflix and Jerry Orbach.
> 
> As it is, my few days off I have, about 3 hours is strictly devoted to getting off and chocolate cake in between.
> 
> I'm not alone in this. *Some women are blessed with multi-orgasmic ability for a reason and I'm damn sure not going to waste a blessing*.



Love this soooo damn much....as I sit at here waiting for my H who has forbidden me from rubbing one out until he gets home...

Didn't have anything additional to add, but when I saw this...I just hadda give an amen sister!


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## Anon Pink

FrenchFry's quote, not wasting the blessing of being multiorgasmic, FairthfulWife's term 'Chick Wood', and now Personal's quote, "And some with closed minds wonder why they encounter closed legs."

:rofl:

Damn this thread has been delightful!


----------



## Created2Write

They are some good phrases! I really liked Personal's about closed legs. Made me laugh out loud!


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## ConanHub

Personal said:


> And some with closed minds wonder why they encounter closed legs.


LOVE IT! LOL! I recently found out my little wife takes care of herself, something I had always wondered about, and it gave me an immediate rise. I think it is healthy and a huge turn on. She won't let me watch though because if I am around she wants me.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## always_alone

ConanHub said:


> Women have maybe always been more susceptible to deceit based upon social acceptance.


It's a two-way street. Women tend to underestimate their numbers, frequencies, and fantasies because of shame, embarrassment and pressure to live up to societal expectations. Men tend to overestimate for much the same reasons.

This difference alone is enough to account for statistical differences seen in many of the studies.

Let's not forget that the primary methodology to determine these statistical generalizations are perception surveys. And perception survey results are always a function of, not just a person's willingness to tell the truth, but the quality of their self awareness.

Both are pretty suspect.


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## ConanHub

always_alone said:


> It's a two-way street. Women tend to underestimate their numbers, frequencies, and fantasies because of shame, embarrassment and pressure to live up to societal expectations. Men tend to overestimate for much the same reasons.
> 
> This difference alone is enough to account for statistical differences seen in many of the studies.
> 
> Let's not forget that the primary methodology to determine these statistical generalizations are perception surveys. And perception survey results are always a function of, not just a person's willingness to tell the truth, but the quality of their self awareness.
> 
> Both are pretty suspect.


Agree.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## always_alone

Buddy400 said:


> There's no point. For example, I mentioned "generalities" and you respond with "I and my friends don't agree"or "that's not MY experience". You don't understand the difference between data and anecdotes. And, if you don't understand that, there's no point discussing anything with you. By the way, AA and FW do the same thing and it's useless talking with them as well.
> 
> I'm content to let my comments stand next to yours and let the audience decide.


FTR, I quite understand the difference between anecdote and data.

What you cite as "common knowledge" may very well be common, but it ain't knowledge. The data that supports your conclusions is heavily skewed by cultural biases and methodological challenges. 

Once upon a time, everyone *knew* that the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it. To say otherwise was to be laughed at, called a heretic, or worse. I mean it's so obviously true, isn't it? Just go outside in the morning and watch the sun rise, travel across the sky, and set on the other side. Of course it revolves around the earth! Anyone who would say otherwise must be an idiot.

All of which is really just a long-winded way of saying, dig deeper, man. The surface appearance is often deceiving, and you have to try to get at the principles underneath to truly understand what is going on.


----------



## Faithful Wife

I had said I would post this example of men fearing women's sexuality. This is from the book What Do Women Want? I wish I could find the article the author is talking about with the cover picture. He is discussing the various female desire drugs that have been tried and researched in the past decade or two. One drug called bremelanotide seemed to have promise in upping female desire, very much so in some women. But then they had another problem to worry about:


"The signs for Bremelanotide were spectacular. A major magazine put the drug on its cover with an illustrator’s vision of midtown Manhattan. Taxis had screeched to a halt. An orgy raged on hoods and windshields, on the roofs of buses, on the pavement of a traffic island.

In the initial phases with Bremelanotide, after seeing the randiness of the female rats (in research trials), the euphoric reports pouring in from women, and the orgy on the magazine cover, company officials got frightened even as they were overjoyed. At meetings, Pfaus remembered, they anticipated that the drug might be too effective for the FDA, that the cover image of women splayed feverishly on cement, their legs hooked around strangers, would haunt the agency and scare it off. 

There was no telling whether the FDA would have raised the specter of sexual mayhem had the application reached a conclusive review, but the company huddled with researchers like Pfaus to ask if there were any data to suggest to the agency that the chemical’s impact would be “selective,” that Bremelanotide-sniffing wives and daughters wouldn’t “want to go off and do the football team.” 

This resonated with what Goldstein recounted from his involvement with Flibanserin. In Flibanserin’s trials, he hadn’t taken his usual outsider’s role, interviewing women, dispensing medication. He’d been hired as an advisor by the corporation that owned the molecule; he’d been in on strategy sessions. “When you’re going to the FDA with this kind of drug, there’s the sense that you want your effects to be good but not too good,” he said. Too good hadn’t turned out to be Flibanserin’s problem, but, he explained, *“There was a lot of discussion about it by the experts in the room, the need to show that you’re not turning women into nymphomaniacs. There’s a bias, a bias against— a fear of creating the sexually aggressive woman . There’s this idea of societal breakdown.”*

Bergner, Daniel (2013-06-04). What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (p. 179). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.


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## Faithful Wife

This is a fascinating article about male sex escorts in Australia (where it is legal), and a lot of musing about female sexuality in connection with it. The author also ends up talking about the book What Do Women Want? for a little bit. This is an opinion piece, but it does hint that we could soon have a new area to study in conjunction with female sexuality: the use of male prostitutes by female johns.

Male escorts and female sexuality – Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore – Aeon


----------



## JCD

ConanHub said:


> Women have maybe always been more susceptible to deceit based upon social acceptance.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_




I am sure you thought that was pithy and insightful. However, I am not getting your meaning at all.


----------



## JCD

Since she called me out, knowing I can't see what she said, I will thread jack a bit about net-iquette (or at least as I define it)



> I'm not sure how he would see it anyway, given that he went out of his way to send me a PM telling me he has me on ignore (Like I would care to know this? Why would I give a f*ck?)
> 
> Regardless, I'll answer anything I damn well please.


I decided to save you time and effort from responding to my posts.

Additionally, I was telling you that if you decided to attack me, you would KNOW it would be the moral equivalent of smacking someone in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

Seemed the right thing to do at the time.


----------



## JCD

Created2Write said:


> 1. It's not a cheap tactic to take facts of history that _have been proven_ to have effected society's outlook on sex, and use those facts to prove that women have been sexually repressed. It is a historically proven fact that male sexuality has been given top priority through the ages, while female sexuality has not only been used and abused, but also seen as a weakness that caused men to stumble. Women were punished by law if they were suspected of being unfaithful to their husbands(to the point that their children could be taken away from them), while it was more than acceptable for a man to cheat over and over and over again. A woman who was curious about sex or enjoyed it was considered "unchaste" and undesirable. These facts shaped our modern society, and in turn, society has shaped female sexuality. That's not a tactic, it's the truth.
> 
> 2. To say that it leads nowhere is to assert that we can learn absolutely nothing from the mistakes of the past. If this were true, slavery might still be practiced today. The whole point of examining the past is to try and _learn from it_, and create a _better_ world for our children. Because people in the 1800's questioned slavery, _all races_ are now seen as equals and given, by law, equal rights as everyone else. Yet, we still deal with racism in this country, do we not? Granted, it's much less than it's been in past generations, but it's not yet entirely done away with. If we followed your line of thinking, we would leave things as they currently are because, apparently, the past has nothing to offer us. I can not, and will not, agree with that at all. But on my own, I can accomplish very little. Racism is only as rare as it is because _society as a whole_ changed its outlook. Sexuality in this country will not improve until _society as a whole_ begins to dispel the stereotypes that have been touted for generations. If it insists on making the same mistakes of the past, it will continue to face such unhappy and unsuccessful marriages and sexual relationships.
> 
> Each one of us has to decide what we want society to be, and then do our best to be the best influence we can.



You know...none of this addresses the critical point. I don't challenge that this happened. 

I am challenging how that is *selectively* being used.

For example: French Fry gave us her personal assessment of self love.

And I got to say WOW :smthumbup:, that is a lot of Jerry Orbach!

I didn't call her a liar. I didn't dismiss her as a freak (though personal experience is not the same as all women. That five percent...)

Inside my head, I start to see if this bit of data fits into my prior assumptions. No? Maybe I have something wrong. Maybe she is not typical. Maybe she IS typical and I need to investigate matters further. (research research) Huh...a womans magazine says men masturbate more than women...but it is calling on women to masturbate more. So women are a lot closer to men than I thought...but there is a significant disparity. Almost as many men jerk off 4 times a week as a few times a month...but it is quite the contrary with women. Which suggests that *this one aspect of sexual expression* women IN GENERAL, seem to be lagging.

Has a study of 6000 people. Do I believe 6000 people or do I believe Created's personal experiences? Well, I can believe BOTH.

So then there is 'Why Women Have Sex', a book written by...dum dum dum...women about women. Guess what? Thundering orgasms are not near the top of the list. Do I believe them or do I believe Created? I can still believe both, particularly since she is speaking of personal anecdotes, not, you know...data!

Okay, then there is 'Tempted Women' which explores female infidelity (lots of hot air in CWI so I decided to listen to what women were saying about themselves and *believing them.*) The broad strokes of these multiple anecdotes was that something was broken in their marriages and they were 'paying sexual coin' for their emotional needs. But on the other hand, some were being denied sex at home. Complexities. Contradictions. Hmm!

Should I believe all THESE women, or...but you get the picture.

Stalin gave this famous order regarding Stalingrad: Not One Step Back. This means that anything which might cause a step back in personal philosophy must be destroyed and discredited instead of added to the wealth of information. 

Some posters are notorious for arguing that way.







Other strenuous supporters of women's rights like Scarlet Begonias, Anon Pink, and Miss Taken, are willing to concede points or even to agree to disagree on gray areas. SOME (OMG!) actually profess uncertainty at times! These brash and outspoken women I respect!

Which brings us to using the 'excuse' (???) of history to discredit any study which does not go your way. Maybe...maybe not. But if we buy that excuse ALL data, *even stuff you like* is all wrong. Which leads us nowhere to explore this issue except screaming personal anecdotes and stereotypes at one another.


Which brings up another quote: John Maynard Keynes, challenged one day on how he flipped his position, said this "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"

So I listen to what all those women in the books and the studies tell me...and I listen to French Fry and Created and Anon Pink. Maybe I don't know everything about women...

...maybe they don't know everything either.


----------



## TiggyBlue

Faithful Wife said:


> Here's another slant on this...the whole rape thing goes both ways. If a female is stronger or can somehow get away with it, and she has her reasons (whether sexual or based on violence), she will rape a man or a woman, too. This is a HUMAN problem that we all have. The ability to do harm to another. It is something within us that gives us that potential for violence and murder. In our current society, it *appears* that men are far more violent and murderous than women. But I believe that is simply a leftover result of the above history. If history had been laid out differently and women had evolved to have larger stronger bodies, and if we still had this inner murderous spirit that is within us, then women may be the ones filling the maximum security prisons.


Sexual Relations Between Elite White Women and Enslaved Men in the Antebellum South: A Socio-Historical Analysis - Student Pulse

Might not be physically stronger but they had a stronger social position.


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> Sexual Relations Between Elite White Women and Enslaved Men in the Antebellum South: A Socio-Historical Analysis - Student Pulse
> 
> Might not be physically stronger but they had a stronger social position.


That is an interesting point.

One thing that's missing is when we discuss how controlling, short sighted and censorious all these historical men were and are...well...somehow women never seem to want to claim equality on that front


----------



## always_alone

TiggyBlue said:


> Sexual Relations Between Elite White Women and Enslaved Men in the Antebellum South: A Socio-Historical Analysis - Student Pulse
> 
> Might not be physically stronger but they had a stronger social position.


Not even a stronger social position is required. 

For example: http://www.ejhs.org/volume5/deviancetonormal.htm

People so want to believe that women can't rape men, or that women are always sitting around not liking sex while men will indiscrimately do anything and everything to get some. But it just ain't so.


----------



## Deejo

In these matters, I think we have some very intelligent people making some very salient points.

But ... I do, and shall always think that at some level, we virtually always carry some level or degree of bias into these little forays. And that bias is going to be largely shaped by our experience.

I feel like I'm in a unique position, because I've been on both sides. Were I to have engaged in this discussion a decade ago, you could throw all of the numbers and data at me you could come up with. There is simply no way you could sell me on the idea that in a LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP, that women want sex as much as men do. Even on the notion of women simply being generally as sexual as men ... I didn't believe it. Why I always felt I had to sell the idea, or be respectful, gentle, caring ... etc.

Today?

I'm dating on the back end of 40. MANY of the women I have been involved with have higher libidos than I do, and they are game for anything. They WANT sex. And they go after it.

Overwhelmingly in contrast to when I dated as a young man, the women I engage with are highly sexual ... highly ... sexual. Quite plainly, I didn't think women this sexually aggressive existed outside the scope of Dear Penthouse, which I always imagined was made up anyway.

Little doubt in my mind that we shape that dynamic over the course of time, for the better or worse.

But my baseline experience has been pretty simple. 

Women dig getting laid. And it certainly isn't about landing a man. It's about them. And all the better if they can build a meaningful relationship around it.

I will say, that I do get a little weary that the sexual plight of western women TODAY, is still some male conspiracy.

If it is, there are plenty of double X chromosome co-conspirators.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Fully agree that both genders have created what we see today. A lot of education is happening right now that will lift this divide, Deejo. You have had your education. Others will have theirs. Eventually saying things like "men are pigs" or "women don't want sex as much as men" will both be outdated stereo types and not common knowledge.


----------



## ConanHub

TiggyBlue said:


> Sexual Relations Between Elite White Women and Enslaved Men in the Antebellum South: A Socio-Historical Analysis - Student Pulse
> 
> Might not be physically stronger but they had a stronger social position.


Great article! My family almost directly descends from Robert E. Lee on my grandmothers side.

My grandmother had white skin, her sister did not. 

Also, all the women in my family are HD to the extreme.

The women in my family also taught me and the other kids about sex, the men taught me how to work and shoot and keep my word.


----------



## Faithful Wife

JCD said:


> That is an interesting point.
> 
> One thing that's missing is when we discuss how controlling, short sighted and censorious all these historical men were and are...well...*somehow women never seem to want to claim equality on that front*


I'm glad you enjoyed my point...since I'm the one Tiggy is replying to, and I'm the one who brought up how rape is a human problem and both men and women are guilty of it in my post # 61.


----------



## JCD

Deejo said:


> In these matters, I think we have some very intelligent people making some very salient points.
> 
> But ... I do, and shall always think that at some level, we virtually always carry some level or degree of bias into these little forays. And that bias is going to be largely shaped by our experience.


Of course. For every 'Created' we meet or hear about, we also hear about a girlfriend or a friends' girlfriend who just wasn't that interested.

But it's also kind of fruitless to discuss. *It has been asserted by some women (and probably believed by more) * that 'well, sex is very important to me, so I MUST be just as sexual as a man.' But short of attaching our brains to 'importance-o-meters' and comparing Created to Buddy, how do we *know* that it is more, less, or equal?

We can nibble at the edges with studies. But studies aren't perfect. Hopefully they give us SOME picture. But if we are looking at studies, just dismissing ones you don't like is not very useful or honest.





> I feel like I'm in a unique position, because I've been on both sides. Were I to have engaged in this discussion a decade ago, you could throw all of the numbers and data at me you could come up with. There is simply no way you could sell me on the idea that in a LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP, that women want sex as much as men do. Even on the notion of women simply being generally as sexual as men ... I didn't believe it. Why I always felt I had to sell the idea, or be respectful, gentle, caring ... etc.
> 
> Today?
> 
> I'm dating on the back end of 40. MANY of the women I have been involved with have higher libidos than I do, and they are game for anything. They WANT sex. And they go after it.


I believe everything you say...AND...I have a wife whose libido has increased while mine has not. So that is another data point.

There are other factors:

Market competition.

Incredible comfort with one's body and a 'not give a sh!t attitude any more

'The Last Train' phenomena. This is from a woman's round table discussion (I can't find it because on youtube though I am searching like crazy because, like Chappelle said, some things are never believed unless sung by a white woman) Essentially, dating is like catching a train. When you are young, it's like grabbing a train in NYC at noon: another train is right around the corner. 

After a certain age...it's like catching a train at 11 pm. Is there another train coming? Makes you more likely to 'hop on board'. (And yes, men can be just as desperate.)


Overwhelmingly in contrast to when I dated as a young man, the women I engage with are highly sexual ... highly ... sexual. Quite plainly, I didn't think women this sexually aggressive existed outside the scope of Dear Penthouse, which I always imagined was made up anyway.





> I will say, that I do get a little weary that the sexual plight of western women TODAY, is still some male conspiracy.


:iagree:

There isn't a whole lot of 'plight' left.


----------



## ConanHub

Faithful Wife said:


> Here's an example...Conan.
> 
> I don't know why this says banned commercial, because I saw this commercial and several others when I was a kid. Must have been banned after I saw them. Sorry about the first 20 seconds of "something weird video" in the beginning.
> 
> Anyway...this gorgeous woman made my blood boil, just like it does to the men. In the end when she meets up with "her man", I wanted to see them have sex, not just kiss. I used to run to my room and MB after seeing this commercial.
> 
> It was very obvious to me though, that the woman is being pursued sexually by men in the commercial. There were no examples of women being lusty and pursuing...which to me was just stupid and I knew deep inside that I was not the only female who felt raging chick wood all the time.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88DOMJ11q2M


Pretty HOT!:smthumbup:


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> I will say, that I do get a little weary that the sexual plight of western women TODAY, is still some male conspiracy.
> 
> If it is, there are plenty of double X chromosome co-conspirators.


It's kinda hilarious that a phenomena that is described as "societal" or "cultural" or "ingrained" is read by so many as "male conspiracy".

Errrrrr.....really? 

Let's get real here. Describing a society as patriarchal is an observation of how power is distributed. There is no dispute around it. 

Observing the many ways that women's sexuality is treated as a threat may be more contentious, but it's not like there isn't a mountain of literature that shows that women's sexuality *is* held to a double-standard, one that tells them their sexuality is a huge problem that needs to be suppressed. Yes, TODAY. 

Is it everywhere and everyone? Clearly not. And is changing over time. But it's still prevalent.

Pointing this out should hardly raise an eyebrow, let alone be comparable to screaming "male conspiracy".


----------



## FrenchFry

> Created and French Fry say 'well, sex is very important to me, so I MUST be just as sexual as a man.' But short of attaching our brains to 'importance-o-meters' and comparing Created to Buddy, how do we do that?


Hold the phone. I didn't say this.

You asked a specific question. I quoted it--I answered it. It's better to ask what I mean by than ascribing meaning to a very straightforward answer to what I assumed was a straightforward question.


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## JCD

FrenchFry said:


> Hold the phone. I didn't say this.
> 
> You asked a specific question. I quoted it--I answered it. It's better to ask what I mean by than ascribing meaning to a very straightforward answer to what I assumed was a straightforward question.


Absolutely true and I will edit out the offending bit. Does this satisfy you if accompanied by an apology?

Is sex important to you? Do you think you are at least as sexual as a man?


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> It's kinda hilarious that a phenomena that is described as "societal" or "cultural" or "ingrained" is read by so many as "male conspiracy".
> 
> Errrrrr.....really?


I think it probably depends on what one reads. You can find the idea of implicit conspiracy even in scholarly sources.


----------



## norajane

Richie Cunningham was always going to "find his thrill on Blueberry Hill" and Fonzie had girl after girl in his apartment while Joanie was told to be a good girl, and good girls don't. There are girls you marry, and girls you..don't. The boys had to go to Chicago to find the bad girls, or ship them in, but they married the good Milwaukee girls who "didn't".

Thus, I learned that girls being sexual was wrong and I should not be wanting sex, while boys were _supposed _to want and go after sex.

Girls having sex on tv are often "punished" with pregnancies or pregnancy scares. Brenda Walsh was even given a breast cancer scare after her first time. But her twin brother Brandon was ignored by his parents when he had sex with his visiting girlfriend in the room right next to his parents, and continued to be the golden boy while having sex with all the many other girls after that. Brenda was pretty much disowned by her father for having a sexual relationship with her one boyfriend.

Is it so different now? Alicia Florick keeps asking her teen daughter if she's a "good girl" - actual quote. While Zach, her teen aged son was told to use condoms, and not questioned otherwise about being a "good boy"?

Yes, it seems silly to take our sex education from pop culture, but there it is, everywhere. As a girl, it's actually hard not to feel as though there is something wrong with you for wanting sex, so you repress it to the best of your ability so you aren't deemed a "bad girl" or "sl*t" or "*****" who will end up used, soiled, humiliated and shunned because the boys (good and bad) will pass you over for a "good girl" who didn't.

How did that Knack song go...

_Good girls don't
Good girls don't
Good girls don't, but I do..._

Teen boy fantasy song, but again, the chorus is what sticks in the mind.

I'm just saying the messaging isn't changing much as long as value judgments are placed on girls and women for wanting and having sex.

My two cents.


----------



## ConanHub

I think a lot more pressure needs to be put on men for irresponsible sexual behavior. I agree with a lot more open conversation and education about female sex drive but I also agree with looking down on not behaving irresponsibly.

I always talked with my sons about sex and the repercussions, emotional attachment, pregnancy, stds, etc....

I also instilled in them a sense of responsibility towards the women in their lives, to care for them and honor/respect/defend/protect them.

I taught them not to ever use another human being, that sex was serious and not really a casual thing at all.

I taught them self worth, that they deserved to be respected and honored as well.

My youngest son was having sex with his GF. He was 15 when he met her and the relationship went a little over 3 years, she was 18 when they met.

I talked with my son about being responsible and that anyone having sex better be prepared for the possibility of children because, let's face it, that is where everyone comes from.

He would not admit to it so I let it rest until I found a pregnancy test in his room.

I had a talk with both of them separately. I was gentle but firm with his GF and I was very hard on my son.

I did not write it off as boys being boys but really let him have it about how having sex with his GF was his responsibility and if he was not prepared for the repercussions, he was not, that he better stop. I told him that she deserved to be loved in every aspect of her life, not just in bed and that if he was unable to love her in more ways than the sexual, he better slow down.

I think girls need more honest input about their beautiful sex drive and how to navigate, boys need to know too.

I also think more pressure needs to be brought against boys.

I am not against "**** shaming" a guy.


----------



## ocotillo

ConanHub said:


> I think a lot more pressure needs to be put on men for irresponsible sexual behavior.


The first time I met my future FIL, he was installing a long trigger in a Mark IV, Series 70. The message wasn't lost on me, (I only look stupid...) and that is also a trope that is ubiquitous in pop culture. 

The lady's comments about sexual shaming on these threads are informative and illuminating and I don't disagree with their perspective even a little bit. (How could I?)

The only counter observation I would offer is that sexual exploration as young man is not a happy, carefree romp with society cheering you on. --Or at least it hasn't always been. You could easily wind up on the receiving end of bars of soap in socks, or worse.


----------



## ConanHub

ocotillo said:


> The first time I met my future FIL, he was installing a long trigger in a Mark IV, Series 70. The message wasn't lost on me, (I only look stupid...) and that is also a trope that is ubiquitous in pop culture.
> 
> The lady's comments about sexual shaming on these threads are informative and illuminating and I don't disagree with their perspective even a little bit. (How could I?)
> 
> The only counter observation I would offer is that sexual exploration as young man is not a happy, carefree romp with society cheering you on. --Or at least it hasn't always been. You could easily wind up on the receiving end of bars of soap in socks, or worse.


Good story. That is a little reality but many pop culture messages are that there are no real repercussions for crappy sexual behaviors.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> I think it probably depends on what one reads. You can find the idea of implicit conspiracy even in scholarly sources.


Yes, you are probably right. Academics are not immune to biases or letting theoretical assumptions colour their analyses.

The literature I'm nodding at, though, investigates alleged sexual double standards that deems men's sexuality acceptable and women's sexuality as something to be suppressed, and finds that it is widely held.

Where is the implicit conspiracy in this? 

Indeed, tbh, I'm curious where you see any conspiracy at all. I have, for example, seen some argue that men had vested interest in controlling women's sexuality in order to assure paternity and their lineage. Is this conspiracy theory?

Or, perhaps when it is argued that our representations of sexuality cater almost exclusively to male sexuality?

Just where does the conspiracy rear its ugly head?


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> Just where does the conspiracy rear its ugly head?


AA,

I think it surfaces in the male privilege and male envy hypotheses which both hold that men in general intuitively grasp the alleged benefits of suppressing female sexuality and seek to preserve the status quo.

I believe _White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account Of Coming To See Correspondences Through Work In Women's Studies_ (McIntosh, 1988) is a good example of the former and that _Essentialism vs. Social Constructionism In The Study Of Human Sexuality_ (Hyde & DeLamater, 1997) is an example of the latter.


----------



## Buddy400

Deejo said:


> I'm dating on the back end of 40. MANY of the women I have been involved with have higher libidos than I do, and they are game for anything. They WANT sex. And they go after it.
> 
> Overwhelmingly in contrast to when I dated as a young man, the women I engage with are highly sexual ... highly ... sexual. Quite plainly, I didn't think women this sexually aggressive existed outside the scope of Dear Penthouse, which I always imagined was made up anyway.


How do you square this experience (which I'm sure is valid) with the experience of men in sexless marriages here on TAM (yes, I know that there are women in sexless marriages as well)? Also, there are the legions of men I know and hear about in near sexless marriages. My situation of having a wife that wants sex as much as I do (referred to only indirectly and obliquely) seems to raise the eyebrows of most middle aged married men I know. 

Random chance?

Just two completely different samples that are on the opposite ends of the bell curve? 

Women in a dating situation as opposed to 10+ years of marriage? 

Long term married men getting fat and complacent vs. single men who still try?

What's your guess?


----------



## JCD

Personal,

I agree with a good bit of what you say. Heck, the 'cheating' phenomena probably indicates something was broken in the marriage and guys would like to put it all down to selfishness (women too frankly)

I have one caveat. You ascribe all the blame on hapless clueless men who 'don't know how to take care of business'. (Relationship business, not just sex, and I'll ignore the gratuitous chest thumping).

There are TWO people in a relationship. And let's talk 'equality'. A woman might be just as bad 'taking care of business', women have a roller coaster of hormonal changes men don't deal with (speaking more child bearing and menopause than the mens) and maybe, whether their husbands know how to 'take care of business', she might STILL not want sex because...because.

This is way to complicated an issue to slam one gender...including males. That being said, there are probably trends we can discover.


----------



## TiggyBlue

Personal said:


> You don't square it, because the issue isn't as simple as women have a lower sex drive than men do.


:iagree:
Stereotype definition : a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

A oversimplification of something so complex does no one any favors and only focusing on the studies that "proves" these stereotypes are true while ignoring all the studies that conflict stereotypes just leads to a lazy diagnoses IMO.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> AA,
> 
> I think it surfaces in the male privilege and male envy hypotheses which both hold that men in general intuitively grasp the alleged benefits of suppressing female sexuality and seek to preserve the status quo.
> 
> I believe _White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account Of Coming To See Correspondences Through Work In Women's Studies_ (McIntosh, 1988) is a good example of the former and that _Essentialism vs. Social Constructionism In The Study Of Human Sexuality_ (Hyde & DeLamater, 1997) is an example of the latter.


Okay, the first one I get. The author does not engage in any sort of economic analysis, which is a pretty major oversight when theorizing about privilege. A glaring gap indeed, which does rather give the impression of casting blame on a gender rather than inviting introspection.

This article strikes me as pretty typical of that 80s era feminism that was so full of rage and pointing fingers. Lots of men were traumatized by that, and understandably so, IMHO. 

Re the second article:. Maybe you can explain this one to me, as it seems a fairly straightforward call for a bio-cultural approach. Where's the male envy? :scratchhead:

It can't just be the sympathetic reading of social constructionism, can it?
Because, really, social constructionism has nothing whatsoever to do with conspiracies.


----------



## always_alone

Personal said:


> As to trends I agree there's merit in looking at them yet some of what we think is so, tends to still be driven by erroneous and not applicable Victorian era thinking.


Exactly! Many of our beliefs about gender roles really are just Victorian-era hangovers. Darwin himself imported a bunch of these assumptions into his research, just as anthropologists and missionaries read them into other cultures.


----------



## SimplyAmorous

This is a recurring thought I have had over the past 5 yrs... and reading here has intensified these feelings, this thankfulness.. .. I am sooo happy to be a woman!!... .

One of the reasons I say this is..because of Men's sex drives !.... Reading all the hoops some men have to go through to get sex from their wives.. I really really really feel for them..

If I was a man, I think I'd be wholly frustrated.. they say they want Romance, the Nice Guy, then they get bored with him.. they say they want kids.. then they are overwhelmed, stressed, too tired... what goes 1st .. .. And God Forbid if he whines , that makes him an unsympathetic monster , he should be thinking about HER & not putting pressure on her...'

If the man doesn't do enough around the house....what goes.. the sex life.. who has more headaches.. MEN [email protected]#

If the man says the wrong thing, he'd be put in the dog house before she'd want him again! 

Women are more Receptive over men, "the slow cookers" if you will.... so if they don't want it, they are going to fuss..

If they breast feed, it destroys their libido...if they take birth control it can slow it down too...some can't stand being touched while pregnant (though some need it more -that was me)...

The hormonal changes , PMS, does she want the orgasm or doesn't she....what men have to wade through in regards to some of us... God Help them!

Just happy to be a woman who loves it.... cause I think being on this side of the fence, makes my life much easier, its there for the taking... (not that all can say this, but statistically speaking ,I believe this to be true).

I think this is much more common scenario in bedrooms all over the globe.. 










However saying this, in no way , diminishes the fact that a HUGE amount of women LOVE & ENJOY sex...of course we do! but men are surely easier to please, quicker to rise... sometimes all they need is a look...we are just A LOT more complicated !


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> Re the second article:. Maybe you can explain this one to me, as it seems a fairly straightforward call for a bio-cultural approach. Where's the male envy? :scratchhead:


Apologies, AA. My wife had come home; I was doing dinner and the wine had started to flow when I replied yesterday.

If a woman truly wanted to, and had the physical constitution for it, she could engage in a sexual marathon equivalent to the one attributed to Valeria Messalina in the 1st century. It's hypothesized that men either envy this ability; fear it; or both and as a result seek to control and suppress it.

Hyde and DeLamater flesh that idea out in the book, _Understanding Human Sexuality_, published in the same year as the paper:

"In prehistoric human societies, the powerful sex drive of women created havoc---not to mention making the men feel insecure---and therefore societies instituted restrictions on female sexuality to bring it more in line with male sexuality." (p. 360)​
Although Hyde and DeLamater appear to be sympathetic to it, they do not actually agree with or endorse that idea; they're only citing it as a line of thought. The relevance of the paper I mentioned to that thinking is only that they would consider it a social construction.

Authors that actually agreed with that thinking, like the late Mary Jane Sherfey, have stated it in angry terms where the idea of conspiracy is pretty clear.


----------



## Deejo

TiggyBlue said:


> :iagree:
> Stereotype definition : a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.


And you left out the most imortant bit ... they usually exist for a reason.










Courtesy of SimplyAmorous


----------



## Deejo

Buddy400 said:


> How do you square this experience (which I'm sure is valid) with the experience of men in sexless marriages here on TAM (yes, I know that there are women in sexless marriages as well)? Also, there are the legions of men I know and hear about in near sexless marriages. My situation of having a wife that wants sex as much as I do (referred to only indirectly and obliquely) seems to raise the eyebrows of most middle aged married men I know.
> 
> Random chance?


Logistics and experience. For all of the hooplah we like to wrap around relationships, I have come to accept that they really aren't very complex at all. At any given moment, you are either building up, or breaking down your relationship. Break it down enough, (and I'm not ascribing blame to either partner or gender) and the relationship becomes irrecoverable. At which point we wrap almost ANY reason valid or otherwise to leave, or pursue another relationship ... and sex.

I have plenty of male friends who are in sexless relationships. Some of them are at peace with it. Others not so much. Some reconcile that their spouses NEVER had a very high libido. 

Men remain in sexless relationships because they are either committed to their marriage and family, and value those commitments over sex, or ... they are complacent, or, they fear the repercussions, financially, socially, emotionally, of leaving a sexless marriage.

I left. Rediscovered my own sexuality ... and started having sex, with other women that wanted to have sex.

And here's my personal honest and awareness piece ... so did my ex. Without question, the dissolution of her marriage gave her pause to think about her own sexuality, which I believe she rediscovered too.

Our sample sizes are vastly different. Hers is 2. Mine is ... more than 2.





Buddy400 said:


> Just two completely different samples that are on the opposite ends of the bell curve?
> 
> Women in a dating situation as opposed to 10+ years of marriage?
> 
> Long term married men getting fat and complacent vs. single men who still try?
> 
> What's your guess?


Honest exchange with my ex from Friday; she asked if I would take the kids Sunday afternoon, so that she could spend some time with her partner, who rarely has weekends off. This was in the context of my asking if she would be willing to swap our weekends altogether, so that I would be on the same parenting schedule as my partner. Ex and I have a very positive and needless to say, flexible relationship.

She said these words to me: "I don't mean to over-share, but if I learned anything from our marriage it's that you have to set aside time to just be together."

I smiled and agreed, of course, and said that I believed those were very wise words.

In short, we need need to be able to accept that most difficult of truths, regardless of gender.

The fact that our partners aren't having sex with us, does not mean they don't want sex.

Dynamics are a powerful thing ... to create ... and to break free from.


----------



## Deejo

norajane said:


> Is it so different now? Alicia Florick keeps asking her teen daughter if she's a "good girl" - actual quote. While Zach, her teen aged son was told to use condoms, and not questioned otherwise about being a "good boy"?
> 
> Yes, it seems silly to take our sex education from pop culture, but there it is, everywhere. As a girl, it's actually hard not to feel as though there is something wrong with you for wanting sex, so you repress it to the best of your ability so you aren't deemed a "bad girl" or "sl*t" or "*****" who will end up used, soiled, humiliated and shunned because the boys (good and bad) will pass you over for a "good girl" who didn't.
> 
> How did that Knack song go...
> 
> _Good girls don't
> Good girls don't
> Good girls don't, but I do..._
> 
> Teen boy fantasy song, but again, the chorus is what sticks in the mind.
> 
> I'm just saying the messaging isn't changing much as long as value judgments are placed on girls and women for wanting and having sex.
> 
> My two cents.


And per your own sample from the Good Wife, who is delivering the messaging to our daughters?

I remember that song by the Knack ... over 30 years ago.

Listened to any songs by Rihanna or Ke$ha lately?


----------



## TiggyBlue

Deejo said:


> And you left out the most imortant bit ... they usually exist for a reason.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Courtesy of SimplyAmorous


Funny enough that wasn't in the definition


----------



## ocotillo

Personal said:


> My guess is, men do themselves no favours when they lump women into a gender bag and ascribe what they do in their relationships to....


Could not agree more. This is an interesting subject if one has an academic interest in human sexuality in addition to whatever personal interest they have.

But (IMHO) the two should never, ever be mixed.


----------



## Created2Write

Personal said:


> I'm a man, yet I'm not saying men want more sex than women. On the other hand though, I will happily say that some men want more sex than some women like some women want more sex than some men.
> 
> I will also say that of the many women I have been with, all I have ever encountered was highly sexual beings who either matched my high drive or in numerous instances far exceeded it.
> 
> As to conditions as they exist today as in our current modern era, I have been pursued and bedded by lots of women. Throughout my life I have seldom pursued women, yet I have enjoyed so much great sex with women that I have easily turned sex down. In my experience if women weren't highly sexual, it is likely I would have enjoyed a lot less sex than I have.
> 
> 
> 
> You keep talking about common knowledge yet I have never experienced what you say is common.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually they are talking about real life and their real experience, which you still continue to deny.
> 
> 
> 
> You have both women and men from their own experience telling you that women want sex as men do, yet you continue to discount that reality.
> 
> The sad thing is although you say you would be happy to live in a world were women want sex, you wilfully choose to ignore that world in which it already exists. Seriously if you really want that, open your mind and find different people. At the end of the day, if a man insists that women don't want sex, they'll very likely find exactly what they expect to find.
> 
> I wish you knew how easy and normal sex is anytime, between men and women who don't think like you.


YES!


----------



## Created2Write

JCD said:


> You know...none of this addresses the critical point. I don't challenge that this happened.
> 
> I am challenging how that is *selectively* being used.
> 
> For example: French Fry gave us her personal assessment of self love.
> 
> And I got to say WOW :smthumbup:, that is a lot of Jerry Orbach!
> 
> I didn't call her a liar. I didn't dismiss her as a freak (though personal experience is not the same as all women. That five percent...)
> 
> Inside my head, I start to see if this bit of data fits into my prior assumptions. No? Maybe I have something wrong. Maybe she is not typical. Maybe she IS typical and I need to investigate matters further. (research research) Huh...a womans magazine says men masturbate more than women...but it is calling on women to masturbate more. So women are a lot closer to men than I thought...but there is a significant disparity. Almost as many men jerk off 4 times a week as a few times a month...but it is quite the contrary with women. Which suggests that *this one aspect of sexual expression* women IN GENERAL, seem to be lagging.


What was the size of that study? Where was it conducted? When was it conducted? Who conducted the survey? Who was surveyed? This information is vital to understand _why_ the results were what they were. Just because a survey says that "more men masturbate than women", doesn't mean that this is the reality. 



> Has a study of 6000 people. Do I believe 6000 people or do I believe Created's personal experiences? Well, I can believe BOTH.


_Only_ six-thousand people? Do you realize how small a sample size of the population that is? Just in this country alone, that's a fraction of a single percent, and you're basing your generalization of billions of people on it? 



> So then there is 'Why Women Have Sex', a book written by...dum dum dum...women about women. Guess what? Thundering orgasms are not near the top of the list. Do I believe them or do I believe Created? I can still believe both, particularly since she is speaking of personal anecdotes, not, you know...data!


You're missing the point. I, myself, am one person. Obviously on my own I don't disprove anything. *But*, when you have multiple people, both men and women, saying that their experience is in direct contrast with the results of a study, it's only common sense to re-examine that study. Look at when it was conducted, where it was conducted, whether or not there was a control or room for error, who was surveyed...these things can determine the validity of the entire study. 6,000 people is such a small sampling to use to apply stereotypes on billions of other people not surveyed. The results could be plus or minus 20%, which is a MASSIVE difference in results. 

Also, just because women conduct the survey doesn't mean it's unbiased. I've known women who touted the stereotype that men want sex more so that they didn't have to deliver sex in their marriages. 



> Okay, then there is 'Tempted Women' which explores female infidelity (lots of hot air in CWI so I decided to listen to what women were saying about themselves and *believing them.*) The broad strokes of these multiple anecdotes was that something was broken in their marriages and they were 'paying sexual coin' for their emotional needs. But on the other hand, some were being denied sex at home. Complexities. Contradictions. Hmm!
> 
> Should I believe all THESE women, or...but you get the picture.


....Not even sure what your point is here. 



> Stalin gave this famous order regarding Stalingrad: Not One Step Back. This means that anything which might cause a step back in personal philosophy must be destroyed and discredited instead of added to the wealth of information.
> 
> Some posters are notorious for arguing that way.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Other strenuous supporters of women's rights like Scarlet Begonias, Anon Pink, and Miss Taken, are willing to concede points or even to agree to disagree on gray areas. SOME (OMG!) actually profess uncertainty at times! These brash and outspoken women I respect!


Okay?



> Which brings us to using the 'excuse' (???) of history to discredit any study which does not go your way. Maybe...maybe not. But if we buy that excuse ALL data, *even stuff you like* is all wrong. Which leads us nowhere to explore this issue except screaming personal anecdotes and stereotypes at one another.


You're still not listening. It's not about discrediting all "data", it's about deciding whether or not the data is sufficiently accurate enough to define an entire gender. Unless the survey examines many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals, the accuracy of the results are not going to be that high. The more people surveyed, the more accurate results. The less people surveyed, the greater the room for error. You want any and every survey that proves your opinion to be immediately accepted at face value, but you and I both know that that's bad science. 

I include personal anecdotes as a representation for why I don't jump to accept stereotypes. If my experience is contrary to these surveys, it would be irresponsible of me _not_ to question these surveys. Now, if I were to be shown a survey that had a large enough sample group to represent the *majority of women*, and those results showed that women wanted sex less than men on average, I would be more inclined to accept that data. But such a survey has yet to be presented. 



> Which brings up another quote: John Maynard Keynes, challenged one day on how he flipped his position, said this "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
> 
> So I listen to what all those women in the books and the studies tell me...and I listen to French Fry and Created and Anon Pink. Maybe I don't know everything about women...
> 
> ...maybe they don't know everything either.


I never claimed to know everything. I'm only saying that, just because a survey showed x, doesn't mean the survey is accurate. That's all.


----------



## Created2Write

JCD said:


> Of course. For every 'Created' we meet or hear about, we also hear about a girlfriend or a friends' girlfriend who just wasn't that interested.


Precisely why I've never said that _every_ woman wants sex as much as _every_ guy. That would be a blanket statement, and my point has been that you can't apply blanket statements to entire genders with regards to sexuality.



> But it's also kind of fruitless to discuss. *It has been asserted by some women (and probably believed by more) * that 'well, sex is very important to me, so I MUST be just as sexual as a man.' But short of attaching our brains to 'importance-o-meters' and comparing Created to Buddy, how do we *know* that it is more, less, or equal?


It's not fruitless at all. If a woman's sexual experience with men has proven that she has been just as sexual as the men she's been with, she's going to believe that she is just as sexual as those men. If her experience is that those men wanted sex more than she did, she will believe that those men wanted it more. 



> We can nibble at the edges with studies. But studies aren't perfect. Hopefully they give us SOME picture. But if we are looking at studies, just dismissing ones you don't like is not very useful or honest.


1. "Nibbling at the edges" is supposed to represent the majority? That doesn't even cover the _average_, which is what these surveys are supposed to cover. 

2. You're right that the studies aren't perfect. It's exactly that fact that requires a greater survey size. The smaller the survey size, the less accurate the survey is in this case. So it's not about dismissing surveys because I don't like them, it's about not agreeing with how the study was conducted. This is about faulty science. 



> I believe everything you say...AND...I have a wife whose libido has increased while mine has not. So that is another data point.
> 
> There are other factors:
> 
> Market competition.
> 
> Incredible comfort with one's body and a 'not give a sh!t attitude any more
> 
> 'The Last Train' phenomena. This is from a woman's round table discussion (I can't find it because on youtube though I am searching like crazy because, like Chappelle said, some things are never believed unless sung by a white woman) Essentially, dating is like catching a train. When you are young, it's like grabbing a train in NYC at noon: another train is right around the corner.
> 
> After a certain age...it's like catching a train at 11 pm. Is there another train coming? Makes you more likely to 'hop on board'. (And yes, men can be just as desperate.)
> 
> Overwhelmingly in contrast to when I dated as a young man, the women I engage with are highly sexual ... highly ... sexual. Quite plainly, I didn't think women this sexually aggressive existed outside the scope of Dear Penthouse, which I always imagined was made up anyway.
> 
> :iagree:
> 
> There isn't a whole lot of 'plight' left.


Even by your experience then, you should realize that you can't cover an entire gender with a blanket statement.


----------



## Created2Write

JCD said:


> Absolutely true and I will edit out the offending bit. Does this satisfy you if accompanied by an apology?
> 
> Is sex important to you? Do you think you are at least as sexual as a man?


Yes, sex is very important to me. I wouldn't stay in a relationship where I wasn't being satisfied sexually. Sex is a massively important emotional and physical need for me, and as I get older, it gets even more important. And yes, I believe that I am as sexual as a man.


----------



## Created2Write

Deejo said:


> And you left out the most imortant bit ... they usually exist for a reason.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Courtesy of SimplyAmorous


You left out that they're not always _good_ or _accurate_ reasons.


----------



## samyeagar

Created2Write said:


> _Only_ *six-thousand people? Do you realize how small a sample size of the population that is? Just in this country alone, that's a fraction of a single percent, and you're basing your generalization of billions of people on it? *.


Actually, 6,000 people is a pretty large sample size and can easily yield a +/- 5% or less margin of error.


----------



## Created2Write

samyeagar said:


> Actually, 6,000 people is a pretty large sample size and can easily yield a +/- 5% or less margin of error.


I'm taking math right now, we've just learned about percentages, and I find this VERY hard to believe. Assuming there were only 1 billion people in the world, 6,000 people would only be 0.0006% of the population. We have _billions_ of people in this world. The math does not add up to me.


----------



## samyeagar

Created2Write said:


> I'm taking math right now, we've just learned about percentages, and I find this VERY hard to believe. Assuming there were only 1 billion people in this country, 6,000 people would only be 0.0006% of the population. We have _billions_ of people in this country. The math does not add up to me.


Research statistics, sample sizes, confidence level, standard deviations, and all of that, and you will see that 6000 is a huge sample size that statistically could yield a +/- 1% moe.

While my primary education focus was meteorology, I also have a degree in math with an emphasis on sociopolitical geography, which is pretty much nothing but statistics.


----------



## Created2Write

I mean no disrespect here, Sam, but that still seems like a very small sample size which is meant to represent the average over billions of people in dozens of countries and cultures. I can't help being skeptical there. For me, anyway, it's not nearly a large enough sample size. 

I also have an issue, given the fact that surveys and statistics _can_ and often _are_ skewed from the beginning, and later are proven to have faulty results, especially in studies like this which are based on nothing more than what people _say_. And again, _who_ is surveyed can determine results as well, which is another reason I can't accept the presented surveys at face value. So, all in all, I'm skeptical.


----------



## samyeagar

Created2Write said:


> I mean no disrespect here, Sam, but that still seems like a very small sample size which is meant to represent the average over billions of people in dozens of countries and cultures. I can't help being skeptical there. For me, anyway, it's not nearly a large enough sample size.
> 
> I also have an issue, given the fact that surveys and statistics _can_ and often _are_ skewed from the beginning, and later are proven to have faulty results, especially in studies like this which are based on nothing more than what people _say_. And again, _who_ is surveyed can determine results as well, which is another reason I can't accept the presented surveys at face value. So, all in all, I'm skeptical.


I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but the sample size of 6000 is almost too big to yield the most valid results.

You do raise some good questions though regarding things that can skew the results, but that has nothing to do with the actual mathematics of it, which is very sound.

The best results would be achieved from as close to a homogeneous population as possible, which would preclude lumping populations cross culture. For instance, lumping United States culture and Iranian culture into one population would be bad methodology, but lumping United States and Canada would be more valid, but taking each individual country and culture as it's own entity would be the most valid.


----------



## ConanHub

I am still having trouble believing a study that draws conclusions that I have never witnessed.

I am 43 and have travelled through most of the U.S. and 2 provinces of Canada.

I have never seen a generally smaller sex drive in women anywhere.

They are just more feminine than men in their approach.

If something is so obviously common, why is it so hard for me to find anywhere?

I am not just talking about women in relation to me, I observe women and their very sexually aggressive nature with their SO and men in general.

Most of them seem to have a more refined "game" than men.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



Created2Write said:


> I mean no disrespect here, Sam, but that still seems like a very small sample size which is meant to represent the average over billions of people in dozens of countries and cultures. I can't help being skeptical there. For me, anyway, it's not nearly a large enough sample size.


Ah, so you're a sample size queen? Typical. We show our samples and women point and giggle.


----------



## ConanHub

Deejo said:


> Ah, so you're a sample size queen? Typical. We show are samples and women point and giggle.


I am too tired to laugh as hard as I just did!:rofl:


----------



## ocotillo

One of the reasons I put a little bit more stock in the peer reviewed stuff is because of how much the authors (Usually professors) potentially stand to lose. 

Associates with different or opposing viewpoints are often invited to critique the paper prior to publication and take their best shot at knocking it down. Statistical analysis are typically performed by a graduate student or even another professor in the mathematics department and not by the author themselves. The paper will be proofread and the references checked multiple times.

Of course this doesn't mean that mistakes never happen, but a glaring error can literally end a career.


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> Funny enough that wasn't in the definition


In our hyper egalitarian society, if can't get someone to admit that a basic truth of men generally having greater upper body strength, anything fuzzier is going to be stridently denied.

This is because some truths are uncomfortable.


----------



## TiggyBlue

JCD said:


> In our hyper egalitarian society, i*f can't get someone to admit that a basic truth of men generally having greater upper body strength, anything fuzzier is going to be stridently denied.*
> 
> This is because some truths are uncomfortable.


Who's denied this :scratchhead:


----------



## JCD

Created2Write said:


> I mean no disrespect here, Sam, but that still seems like a very small sample size which is meant to represent the average over billions of people in dozens of countries and cultures. I can't help being skeptical there. For me, anyway, it's not nearly a large enough sample size.
> 
> I also have an issue, given the fact that surveys and statistics _can_ and often _are_ skewed from the beginning, and later are proven to have faulty results, especially in studies like this which are based on nothing more than what people _say_. And again, _who_ is surveyed can determine results as well, which is another reason I can't accept the presented surveys at face value. So, all in all, I'm skeptical.


Created, 

First, I am only interested in discussing American women. I believe this was an American survey. Trying to cypher out the sexual proclivities of the Urdu aren't to interesting to me since I don't live with them.

Second, go to your teacher and ask what a significant sample size is. I am not sure you actually know. I would also prefer a larger sample size. Not to be blunt, but you are saying to me 'ignore this 6000 person survey and believe me and the much smaller sample size of TAM and my girlfriends who are disputing this.' How much sense does that make?

Third: you don't like that survey? Find another! Show me wrong! Data is data. But I think it more likely that you will find a small but significant difference between the libidos of the sexes.

You are acting like I cherry picked the worst survey instead of grabbing the first one I saw. And the first one I saw 'slightly' bolsters my case and not yours.


Edited to add:

This is from the Huff Post about this survey.



> That's just a tiny sampling of the data being unveiled Monday in what the researchers say is the largest, most comprehensive national survey of Americans' sexual behavior since 1994.
> 
> Filling 130 pages of a special issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the study offers detailed findings on how often Americans have sex, with whom, and how they respond. In all, 5,865 people, ranging in age from 14 to 94, participated in the survey.


I now need to read their other findings because the portion I cited just dealt with masturbation.

I did not cite this last bit to 'prove you wrong.' I wanted to find the most comprehensive sex survey for my own edification. It just turns out to be the one I initially cited.


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> Who's denied this :scratchhead:


I have met many women who literally grit their teeth over this fact. They hate that the world is so unfair to allow this to be true.


----------



## always_alone

samyeagar said:


> I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but the sample size of 6000 is almost too big to yield the most valid results.
> 
> You do raise some good questions though regarding things that can skew the results, but that has nothing to do with the actual mathematics of it, which is very sound.
> 
> The best results would be achieved from as close to a homogeneous population as possible, which would preclude lumping populations cross culture. For instance, lumping United States culture and Iranian culture into one population would be bad methodology, but lumping United States and Canada would be more valid, but taking each individual country and culture as it's own entity would be the most valid.


Size is big, but sampling and methodology make all of the difference. Some of those questions raised by C2W are fundamental.

If the population is too homogenous, then you have a skewed sample, and results will only apply to those that fit the demographics, and could not be applied to "women" across the board. If you want to make generalizations to that population, you need a good cross section.

Plus the methodology is perception surveys which are notoriously sketchy. Poorly framed questions will virtually guarantee that you get whatever results you want, not to mention problems with self awareness and honesty.

Statistical surveys in this field are a mug's game, IMHO. Your math may achieve statistical significance, but this doesn't mean that the findings are at all important or demonstrating what they purport to.


----------



## wmn1

SimplyAmorous said:


> This is a recurring thought I have had over the past 5 yrs... and reading here has intensified these feelings, this thankfulness.. .. I am sooo happy to be a woman!!... .
> 
> One of the reasons I say this is..because of Men's sex drives !.... Reading all the hoops some men have to go through to get sex from their wives.. I really really really feel for them..
> 
> If I was a man, I think I'd be wholly frustrated.. they say they want Romance, the Nice Guy, then they get bored with him.. they say they want kids.. then they are overwhelmed, stressed, too tired... what goes 1st .. .. And God Forbid if he whines , that makes him an unsympathetic monster , he should be thinking about HER & not putting pressure on her...'
> 
> If the man doesn't do enough around the house....what goes.. the sex life.. who has more headaches.. MEN [email protected]#
> 
> If the man says the wrong thing, he'd be put in the dog house before she'd want him again!
> 
> Women are more Receptive over men, "the slow cookers" if you will.... so if they don't want it, they are going to fuss..
> 
> If they breast feed, it destroys their libido...if they take birth control it can slow it down too...some can't stand being touched while pregnant (though some need it more -that was me)...
> 
> The hormonal changes , PMS, does she want the orgasm or doesn't she....what men have to wade through in regards to some of us... God Help them!
> 
> Just happy to be a woman who loves it.... cause I think being on this side of the fence, makes my life much easier, its there for the taking... (not that all can say this, but statistically speaking ,I believe this to be true).
> 
> I think this is much more common scenario in bedrooms all over the globe..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> However saying this, in no way , diminishes the fact that a HUGE amount of women LOVE & ENJOY sex...of course we do! but men are surely easier to please, quicker to rise... sometimes all they need is a look...we are just A LOT more complicated !



well put


----------



## wmn1

Created2Write said:


> What was the size of that study? Where was it conducted? When was it conducted? Who conducted the survey? Who was surveyed? This information is vital to understand _why_ the results were what they were. Just because a survey says that "more men masturbate than women", doesn't mean that this is the reality.
> 
> 
> 
> _Only_ six-thousand people? Do you realize how small a sample size of the population that is? Just in this country alone, that's a fraction of a single percent, and you're basing your generalization of billions of people on it?
> 
> 
> 
> You're missing the point. I, myself, am one person. Obviously on my own I don't disprove anything. *But*, when you have multiple people, both men and women, saying that their experience is in direct contrast with the results of a study, it's only common sense to re-examine that study. Look at when it was conducted, where it was conducted, whether or not there was a control or room for error, who was surveyed...these things can determine the validity of the entire study. 6,000 people is such a small sampling to use to apply stereotypes on billions of other people not surveyed. The results could be plus or minus 20%, which is a MASSIVE difference in results.
> 
> Also, just because women conduct the survey doesn't mean it's unbiased. I've known women who touted the stereotype that men want sex more so that they didn't have to deliver sex in their marriages.
> 
> 
> 
> ....Not even sure what your point is here.
> 
> 
> 
> Okay?
> 
> 
> 
> You're still not listening. It's not about discrediting all "data", it's about deciding whether or not the data is sufficiently accurate enough to define an entire gender. Unless the survey examines many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals, the accuracy of the results are not going to be that high. The more people surveyed, the more accurate results. The less people surveyed, the greater the room for error. You want any and every survey that proves your opinion to be immediately accepted at face value, but you and I both know that that's bad science.
> 
> I include personal anecdotes as a representation for why I don't jump to accept stereotypes. If my experience is contrary to these surveys, it would be irresponsible of me _not_ to question these surveys. Now, if I were to be shown a survey that had a large enough sample group to represent the *majority of women*, and those results showed that women wanted sex less than men on average, I would be more inclined to accept that data. But such a survey has yet to be presented.
> 
> 
> 
> I never claimed to know everything. I'm only saying that, just because a survey showed x, doesn't mean the survey is accurate. That's all.



Then show a survey which incorporates more than 6000 people and maybe you'll have a point


----------



## wmn1

Created2Write said:


> I'm taking math right now, we've just learned about percentages, and I find this VERY hard to believe. Assuming there were only 1 billion people in the world, 6,000 people would only be 0.0006% of the population. We have _billions_ of people in this world. The math does not add up to me.


most surveys include only a couple hundred people, including political ones. 

How about this... we send a survey out to everyone in the world, then we'll determine what is accurate ?????????

Not sure what the survey showed. All I am contesting is the expanse on which you think a survey should be based on ......


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> Authors that actually agreed with that thinking, like the late Mary Jane Sherfey, have stated it in angry terms where the idea of conspiracy is pretty clear.


Thanks for clarification! 

Of course, there had to be someone calling it a conspiracy. But, IMHO, to do so is to assume overt intentionality that's pretty unlikely across so many generations and cultures.

Personally, I think it has more to do with people acting on deeply held beliefs and desires than it does with conspiract. But, part of the problem is that these issues are very difficult to talk about without being misunderstood. How does one point out inequitable distributions of power, and the intentional machinations of those who have the power to keep it, without making it sound a bit like a conspiracy?

More specifically: how does one talk about deliberate attempts to quash women's sexuality through history without it sounding like a plot?


----------



## always_alone

FTR, no one is disputing that there are some studies that find differences in rates of masturbation or frequency of desire.

What we are disputing is the meaning and significance of those findings.

Even conceding that yes, in fact, American men in 2012 claim to masturbate more than women, I would still want to question what we can infer about male and female sexuality from that singular descriptive statistic.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



always_alone said:


> Thanks for clarification!
> 
> Of course, there had to be someone calling it a conspiracy. But, IMHO, to do so is to assume overt intentionality that's pretty unlikely across so many generations and cultures.
> 
> Personally, I think it has more to do with people acting on deeply held beliefs and desires than it does with conspiract. But, part of the problem is that these issues are very difficult to talk about without being misunderstood. How does one point out inequitable distributions of power, and the intentional machinations of those who have the power to keep it, without making it sound a bit like a conspiracy?
> 
> More specifically: how does one talk about deliberate attempts to quash women's sexuality through history without it sounding like a plot?


We could just make it an Internet meme instead? 

Would we care to argue that men are going to behave in a more overt fashion then women when pursuing 

Would that not factor into the bias and perception that men 'want sex more' than women do?


----------



## JCD

JCD said:


> I have met many women who literally grit their teeth over this fact. They hate that the world is so unfair to allow this to be true.





ConanHub said:


> I am still having trouble believing a study that draws conclusions that I have never witnessed.
> 
> I am 43 and have travelled through most of the U.S. and 2 provinces of Canada.
> 
> I have never seen a generally smaller sex drive in women anywhere.
> 
> They are just more feminine than men in their approach.
> 
> If something is so obviously common, why is it so hard for me to find anywhere?
> 
> I am not just talking about women in relation to me, I observe women and their very sexually aggressive nature with their SO and men in general.
> 
> Most of them seem to have a more refined "game" than men.


If a woman makes a pass that a man does not see, does it exist?

If a tree falls in the woods....

And if, as you consistently claim, you are irresistible to women, do you perhaps understand you experience is not universal?

If you are the only man seeing all this pent up feminine aggression, that says something about you.

If the women, who feel this way, are not so blatant that the majority of OTHER MEN see it...well...they seem to prefer discretion to actually getting laid.

That is a market signal too.




Deejo said:


> We could just make it an Internet meme instead?
> 
> Would we care to argue that men are going to behave in a more overt fashion then women when pursuing
> 
> Would that not factor into the bias and perception that men 'want sex more' than women do?


Exactly.


----------



## Faithful Wife

I'd like to state for the record that I've seen pics of Deejo, Personal and samyeager....and I believe all three of them when they are telling me they have experienced their share of aggressively sexual women. And I'm not saying they are all three the typical stud-bro-dude or whatever. But each of them clearly have the thing that makes women feel sexual around them.


----------



## ConanHub

I actually think I am kind of funny looking but I am primal. 

A lot of men are scared of me or want to be my friend.

A lot of women seem attracted.

Do a lot of women like tough or hard men?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Deejo

I'm more of a heroic, English dandy, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. 

But ...


----------



## SimplyAmorous

ConanHub said:


> I actually think I am kind of funny looking but I am primal.
> 
> A lot of men are scared of me or want to be my friend.
> 
> A lot of women seem attracted.
> 
> *Do a lot of women like tough or hard men?*
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I prefer the soft romantics...but I can be aggressive (in a good way..well most of the time -I am not a Joy when I am pi$$ed)... so we're an opposites attracting couple..... but I am a softie too..if not, he would have thrown me back!...

My H is not a tough hard man.. , he is very approachable, very considerate...a true Family Guy...would save the last cookie for his kids, sacrifice for his family/ me... I do so love & respect those things.. 

My Mother was attracted to Bad Boys (I suppose one can't seem to help this about themselves though)..... I saw where that got her in life.... No thank you.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> We could just make it an Internet meme instead?
> 
> Would we care to argue that men are going to behave in a more overt fashion then women when pursuing
> 
> Would that not factor into the bias and perception that men 'want sex more' than women do?


Lots of things will factor into that perception, but I was thinking very specifically of the literature mentioned by ocotillo (which is about the history of women's sexuality, and he various ways it has been quashed), and then social constructionism more generally, as it is all about analyzing power and mainstream discourse.

Why is it, for example, that men are more overt than women when pursuing?

I actually don't think they always are, but it's still interesting to me to look under the surface. Always.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> Size is big, but sampling and methodology make all of the difference. Some of those questions raised by C2W are fundamental.
> 
> *If the population is too homogenous, then you have a skewed sample, and results will only apply to those that fit the demographics, and could not be applied to "women" across the board. If you want to make generalizations to that population, you need a good cross section.*
> 
> Plus the methodology is perception surveys which are notoriously sketchy. Poorly framed questions will virtually guarantee that you get whatever results you want, not to mention problems with self awareness and honesty.
> 
> Statistical surveys in this field are a mug's game, IMHO. Your math may achieve statistical significance, but this doesn't mean that the findings are at all important or demonstrating what they purport to.


This really gets into the nuances of methodology, especially with social statistics.

The more variables that can be eliminated, in other words, the more homogeneous the population, note, not the sample size, but the population, the more valid the findings will be. We are also talking about random sampling, and not selective sampling among the population. This is why it is important to limit the population being analyzed to things that are similar such as governmental type, social structure, etc.

This is also why you see the surveys limited by age, income, things like that...to make the population more homogeneous. It isn't as valid to compare 18 year old poor women with 45 year old wealthy women.


----------



## JCD

samyeagar said:


> This really gets into the nuances of methodology, especially with social statistics.
> 
> The more variables that can be eliminated, in other words, the more homogeneous the population, note, not the sample size, but the population, the more valid the findings will be. We are also talking about random sampling, and not selective sampling among the population. This is why it is important to limit the population being analyzed to things that are similar such as governmental type, social structure, etc.
> 
> This is also why you see the surveys limited by age, income, things like that...to make the population more homogeneous. It isn't as valid to compare 18 year old poor women with 45 year old wealthy women.



It is 14-84 group of men and women, but it only tries to get data on American sexual practices, and not the entire globe.

Hey, I never said the study is perfect. I said it suggested one thing: that masturbation rates in general are lower among women than men.

BUT...it is certainly a more relevant data point than personal anecdote.


----------



## ConanHub

SimplyAmorous said:


> I prefer the soft romantics...but I can be aggressive (in a good way..well most of the time -I am not a Joy when I am pi$$ed)... so we're an opposites attracting couple..... but I am a softie too..if not, he would have thrown me back!...
> 
> My H is not a tough hard man.. , he is very approachable, very considerate...a true Family Guy...would save the last cookie for his kids, sacrifice for his family/ me... I do so love & respect those things..
> 
> My Mother was attracted to Bad Boys (I suppose one can't seem to help this about themselves though)..... I saw where that got her in life.... No thank you.


LOL! I didn't say mean or A-hole. My family has always been first. I was talking about first impressions and attraction.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## samyeagar

JCD said:


> I offered data points. Here is another one:





JCD said:


> It is 14-84 group of men and women, but it only tries to get data on American sexual practices, and not the entire globe.
> 
> Hey, I never said the study is perfect. I said it suggested one thing: that masturbation rates in general are lower among women than men.
> 
> BUT...it is certainly a more relevant data point than personal anecdote.


If this is what you are referring to, notice that it IS in fact broken down into more homogeneous groups by age allowing for a more direct comparison and transparency in numbers.


----------



## JCD

samyeagar said:


> If this is what you are referring to, notice that it IS in fact broken down into more homogeneous groups by age allowing for a more direct comparison and transparency in numbers.


True. And there is a minimum of a ten point swing in every age group.

Honestly, I thought the numbers would have a much higher difference (and in some ages, it is a 22 point swing). So it actually did surprise me.

I am still looking for a place where they have the entire set of articles available to look through.


----------



## samyeagar

There are only two age groups, 25-29, and 50-59 where the numbers are very close to being within a standard 5% margin of error, so statistically speaking, those two groups could be considered equal.

I do have to question the title of the chart however. I am not sure that the question "Have you ever..." is what the data is actually showing as opposed to "Do you..."


----------



## JCD

Tiggy Blue,

Did you consider the ramifications of citing the original article?

I mean, one of the perennial discussions on TAM is the 'female number game' where men treat a woman who likes a lot of sex and a lot of variety as a questionable monogamy partner.

Now you cite this. Saying historically, everyone always felt that women were 'sexually unreliable'...not sure what you were trying to accomplish here.


----------



## SimplyAmorous

ConanHub said:


> LOL! I didn't say mean or A-hole. My family has always been first. I was talking about first impressions and attraction.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


 I don't know.. I don't care how good looking someone is.... it's so much more, screw 1st impressions.. what are those worth?

IF their character & history is shady, mean spirited in any way.. it gives off clanging gongs in my head...warning/ warning.... that's just how I roll...how someone lives & treats others is what shines *for me*...if I'd desire to know more.. something to get excited about.... 

You often speak how you would beat people up, you sound "primal, alpha"..you do go on about this.. I would likely view someone sideways who had that type of vibe.. I wouldn't trust it at all... at least not WHO you used to be.. (it's good you have changed though, been redeemed !)

Eye candy is one thing. knowing what is good for you is another thing entirely ... I am not one who is attracted to Alpha vibes as much as Beta (in a good way) and of course, looks play a role here....


----------



## Fozzy

So I just brought myself up to speed on this thread because I'm really bored at work today.

10 pages of arguing the scientific sample size to prove who wanks it more?


Continue, please.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> More specifically: how does one talk about deliberate attempts to quash women's sexuality through history without it sounding like a plot?


These are just my thoughts, but I would guess that a lot hinges on what one posits the degree of suppression is and what the motivations and mechanisms for it are. 

Did the male elders of aboriginal tribes sit down one day and say, "Hey! Let's divide the tribe up into four moieties and make it a strict rule that marriages must take place across moiety lines. Anybody who breaks this rule will be banished.."?

I think it's probably more likely that tribes practicing some form of genetic hygiene were simply healthier and more successful than those that did not and customs built up and evolved over time without much in the way of advance planning. 

So I think authors that use the promiscuous mating behavior of female bonobos as a starting point are just as out to lunch in their own way as those who believe that once upon a time, "Alpha males" banged anyone and everyone they wanted while females cowered in fear and "Beta males" slunk off and lived solitary lives. Sure an anthropologist could probably point to pockets of both behaviors, but I doubt if either extreme is genetically viable over the long term. 

It's a poor sort of conspiracy that suppresses and restricts the conspirators as much as the intended victims, so when we talk about *deliberate* suppression of female sexuality, I think we probably should exclude customs with fairly obvious biological explanations that affect men too and concentrate on suppression above and beyond that. 

That double standards exist is undeniable. They're all around us. But I don't think there is a consensus on the motivation. There's male control theories. (i.e. fear, envy, certainty of paternity, inheritance, etc.) There's female control theories. (i.e. In the absence of economic and political power, sex became a valuable commodity) And there are hybrids between the two.

The mechanism is even more unclear. A lot of it strikes me as, "Folk wisdom" that just refuses to die rather than a message that is being spread with a clear goal in mind.


----------



## SimplyAmorous

Fozzy said:


> So I just brought myself up to speed on this thread because I'm really bored at work today.
> 
> 10 pages of arguing the scientific sample size to prove who wanks it more?
> 
> Continue, please.


 What does this information prove or do for anyone, anyway.. we're all different, seek someone like minded on sex.. I get annoyed with all the data suggesting just cause a woman isn't sleeping around in her youth , she must not like sex.. I say BULL sh**.. this doesn't prove anything.. one has to figure her values in there...she could be doing a whole of masturbating.. while she waits for someone special and worthy.. 

While some others may be banging all over the place to win the guy.. . every single situation is different.. what motivates us.. why we do what we do.. .. so just find someone compatible with who you are, hope to hell they are authentic about it... guess with women, that could change though, after the baby comes...But it seems many disagree with me on that too... oh well.

And *ConanHub,* back to your original asking *"Do a lot of women like tough or hard men?"*.. what I left out in my posts was......For me.. I tend to associate TOUGH and HARD MEN with being MORE "*emotionally unavailable*"... one could say this is a generalization too..but it is what it is... 

I think we all have some generalizations (can we admit it)... and we can be wrong about others many times too.. ..


----------



## ConanHub

SimplyAmorous said:


> I don't know.. I don't care how good looking someone is.... it's so much more, screw 1st impressions.. what are those worth?
> 
> IF their character & history is shady, mean spirited in any way.. it gives off clanging gongs in my head...warning/ warning.... that's just how I roll...how someone lives & treats others is what shines *for me*...if I'd desire to know more.. something to get excited about....
> 
> You often speak how you would beat people up, you sound "primal, alpha"..you do go on about this.. I would likely view someone sideways who had that type of vibe.. I wouldn't trust it at all... at least not WHO you used to be.. (it's good you have changed though, been redeemed !)
> 
> Eye candy is one thing. knowing what is good for you is another thing entirely ... I am not one who is attracted to Alpha vibes as much as Beta (in a good way) and of course, looks play a role here....


I think a misunderstanding has taken place. I didn't just beat "people" up. I never once started a fight. I was attacked first or I was defending someone else, usually a girl.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## ConanHub

P.S. I don't try to scare men. A lot of them just get an idea. Most think I am ex military or a cop. I have had soldiers start talking in their lingo to me assuming I had seen service. 

When I am talking about hard or tough, it is like John Wayne or special forces hard. I am pretty nice to people and usually popular at social gatherings.

I don't walk around like an ogre.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## samyeagar

SimplyAmorous said:


> What does this information prove or do for anyone, anyway.. we're all different, seek someone like minded on sex.. I get annoyed with all the data suggesting just cause a woman isn't sleeping around in her youth , she must not like sex.. I say BULL sh**.. this doesn't prove anything.. one has to figure her values in there...she could be doing a whole of masturbating.. while she waits for someone special and worthy..
> 
> While some others may be banging all over the place to win the guy.. . every single situation is different.. what motivates us.. why we do what we do.. .. so just find someone compatible with who you are, hope to hell they are authentic about it... guess with women, that could change though, after the baby comes...But it seems many disagree with me on that too... oh well.
> 
> And *ConanHub,* back to your original asking *"Do a lot of women like tough or hard men?"*.. what I left out in my posts was......For me.. I tend to associate TOUGH and HARD MEN with being MORE "*emotionally unavailable*"... one could say this is a generalization too..but it is what it is...
> 
> I think we all have some generalizations (can we admit it)... and we can be wrong about others many times too.. ..


Generalizations are fine, and are often useful, but most, in fact, almost all people dreadfully misuse and misapply them from time to time. People tend to become very sensitive, and defensive when they do not fit the generalization.

Generalizations are all about the numbers, and when it comes to relationships, it's all a numbers game. Generalizations are useful if one is looking for something specific, a specific characteristic, but that does not in any way apply to a specific individual.

An example...if I am looking for a girl, any girl, who is going to put out quickly, would I be better off looking at 10am in church on Sunday, or 1am at the bar the night before? I could certainly find what I am looking for at either place, but I imagine, statistically, I am MORE likely to find it at the bar. This is a generalization.

If I am wanting to find a woman who thinks I am sexy as hell, and wants to jump my bones, I am more likely to find her in the general population if I am physically fit, gainfully employed, well groomed, than if I was fat, unemployed, living in my mothers basement. Again, not saying that there aren't women who would find my fat assed self sexy, but again, generally speaking, I am more likely to find her if I am fit.

Now, if I am wanting a specific woman, generalizations fly out the window, and if I try and apply them, I am doing it incorrectly, because I have reduced my population size to one, with a sample size of one and statistically, things are now absolutes, and by definition, not a generalization at all. She is who she is, and it is no longer a numbers game.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> These are just my thoughts, but I would guess that a lot hinges on what one posits the degree of suppression is and what the motivations and mechanisms for it are.
> 
> Did the male elders of aboriginal tribes sit down one day and say, "Hey! Let's divide the tribe up into four moieties and make it a strict rule that marriages must take place across moiety lines. Anybody who breaks this rule will be banished.."?
> 
> I think it's probably more likely that tribes practicing some form of genetic hygiene were simply healthier and more successful than those that did not and customs built up and evolved over time without much in the way of advance planning.


I don't disagree, but am also thinking about practices that would seemingly have very little to do with genetic health: female circumcision, foot-binding, burkas, and so on.

I also remain unconvinced that societies evolve in quite the same way species do. Yes, they do have to survive to pass on their genes, and surely some mating customs are designed to prevent inbreeding, but there are lots and lots of social mores and customs around sex that have little to do with pregnancy, let alone genetic health.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> I don't disagree, but am also thinking about practices that would seemingly have very little to do with genetic health: female circumcision, foot-binding, burkas, and so on.
> 
> I also remain unconvinced that societies evolve in quite the same way species do. Yes, they do have to survive to pass on their genes, and surely some mating customs are designed to prevent inbreeding, but *there are lots and lots of social mores and customs around sex that have little to do with pregnancy, let alone genetic health*.


Look at the religious texts and teachings for some good examples...


----------



## Buddy400

samyeagar said:


> Generalizations are fine, and are often useful, but most, in fact, almost all people dreadfully misuse and misapply them from time to time. People tend to become very sensitive, and defensive when they do not fit the generalization.
> 
> Generalizations are all about the numbers, and when it comes to relationships, it's all a numbers game. Generalizations are useful if one is looking for something specific, a specific characteristic, but that does not in any way apply to a specific individual.
> 
> An example...if I am looking for a girl, any girl, who is going to put out quickly, would I be better off looking at 10am in church on Sunday, or 1am at the bar the night before? I could certainly find what I am looking for at either place, but I imagine, statistically, I am MORE likely to find it at the bar. This is a generalization.
> 
> If I am wanting to find a woman who thinks I am sexy as hell, and wants to jump my bones, I am more likely to find her in the general population if I am physically fit, gainfully employed, well groomed, than if I was fat, unemployed, living in my mothers basement. Again, not saying that there aren't women who would find my fat assed self sexy, but again, generally speaking, I am more likely to find her if I am fit.
> 
> Now, if I am wanting a specific woman, generalizations fly out the window, and if I try and apply them, I am doing it incorrectly, because I have reduced my population size to one, with a sample size of one and statistically, things are now absolutes, and by definition, not a generalization at all. She is who she is, and it is no longer a numbers game.


Exactly. Generalizations are very helpful when used correctly and are very non-helpful when they are used incorrectly (as you demonstrate above).

But, some people are never going to be able to deal with the fact that generalizations are useful. Never. Ever. "You shouldn't pay attention to stereotypes about lions. This one may not want to eat you." 

The problem with generalizations is HOW they're used. Not that they exist. 

I was watching the election returns and my wife was driven nuts by the fact that some races would be declared with 5% of the vote in (and in some cases where the actual vote was going 2-1 against the person they called the race for!). She was sure that wasn't right. To her credit, when I pointed out that the calls were correct 99.8% of the time, she figured out that it was just something the details of which she didn't understand. That's a good attitude to have. I'd like to see more of that attitude on this thread.


----------



## always_alone

samyeagar said:


> This really gets into the nuances of methodology, especially with social statistics.
> 
> The more variables that can be eliminated, in other words, the more homogeneous the population, note, not the sample size, but the population, the more valid the findings will be. We are also talking about random sampling, and not selective sampling among the population. This is why it is important to limit the population being analyzed to things that are similar such as governmental type, social structure, etc.
> 
> This is also why you see the surveys limited by age, income, things like that...to make the population more homogeneous. It isn't as valid to compare 18 year old poor women with 45 year old wealthy women.


Yes, my bad, that was sloppy of me.

What I was trying to get at was that it is a pretty big assumption to suggest that "women" across culture and history comprise a homogenous group.

And that how we select the sample and frame the questions will have a huge impact on the results we see.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> Yes, my bad, that was sloppy of me.
> 
> What I was trying to get at was that it is a pretty big assumption to suggest that "women" across culture and history comprise a homogenous group.
> 
> And that how we select the sample and frame the questions will have a huge impact on the results we see.


Once things start to go cross culture, and time period, the population becomes so non-homogeneous as to make any valid statistical analysis based on sampling very difficult, if not impossible.


----------



## always_alone

I thought the whole point of the OP and this thread was to acknowledge the existence of generalizations and then open up debate as to just how useful they are

I find it quite fascinating that views of women's sexuality have likely shifted 180 degrees, from seeing her as more sexual, passion-driven temptress to the disinterested gate-keeper, blocking all access.

And equally fascinating how unpalatable it seems to be to even consider that this time and this place and this study isn't the definitive answer from which we should draw conclusions about all men and all women for all time and culture.


----------



## TiggyBlue

JCD said:


> Tiggy Blue,
> 
> Did you consider the ramifications of citing the original article?


Not really, has there been any ramifications?



> I mean, one of the perennial discussions on TAM is the 'female number game' where men treat a woman who likes a lot of sex and a lot of variety as a questionable monogamy partner.
> 
> Now you cite this. Saying historically, everyone always felt that women were 'sexually unreliable'..


Posting this article didn't have anything to do with the 'female number game' threads (like you said it's one of the perennial discussions on TAM, I don't see how thread is really linked to that topic).



> not sure what you were trying to accomplish here.





always_alone said:


> *I thought the whole point of the OP and this thread was to acknowledge the existence of generalizations and then open up debate as to just how useful they are.*
> 
> I find it quite fascinating that views of women's sexuality have likely shifted 180 degrees, from seeing her as more sexual, passion-driven temptress to the disinterested gate-keeper, blocking all access.
> *
> And equally fascinating how unpalatable it seems to be to even consider that this time and this place and this study isn't the definitive answer from which we should draw conclusions about all men and all women for all time and culture*.


Always alone is pretty much accurate. Why is this culture (whatever culture you live in) at this time down to nature and not nurture (or other factors such as diet, health ect)?
Also does such fixed generalizations on the traits of a whole gender cause more confusion than clarity?

Wasn't really trying to accomplish anything, there isn't really anything to accomplish.


----------



## Faithful Wife

samyeagar said:


> Once things start to go cross culture, and time period, the population becomes so non-homogeneous as to make any valid statistical analysis based on sampling very difficult, if not impossible.


And it becomes even more troublesome when things start to go cross species and we are now examining animals to figure ourselves out.


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> And it becomes even more troublesome when things start to go cross species and we are now examining animals to figure ourselves out.


Seriously! Pecking orders from chickens, male need for sexual novelty from rats, harems from herd animals ... But all selectively chosen.

I mean, why not males wearing pretty colors like birds and fish, or caring for young like penguins, or pair-bonding like gibbons?


----------



## Faithful Wife

That's why it doesn't make any sense to study other species and then declare "men want sex more than women". What other species in on earth is this true for? None.

The reality is that both genders of all species want sex. That doesn't mean we are "exactly the same" as each other...nor does it mean you can measure this by masturbation surveys.

We're born with our natural desires, higher and lower for some of us, but this is distributed across the population in both men and women. We clearly have more going on sexually than most animals (since we do it for much more than procreation and we do it about 1000 times per pregnancy and animals are more like 15 times per pregnancy), so that fact alone should make it clear that animal studies aren't going to help describe us sexually. 

The only time I cite animal studies are when they fly in the face of evo-psyche crap...just to offer up the obvious examples that show the patriarchal fairy tale is crapola.

The younger generation will overthrow those ideas. Younger people are no longer willing to be shamed by adults who know nothing about sexuality. They are laughing at the old ideas and doing what they want and they know they have every right to because it is natural and good to be a sexual person.


----------



## WandaJ

Here is interesting, short read on the sex in seemingly prudish Victoria area. Apparently they enjoyed sex, and women's sexual pleasure was high on the list:

Those Victorians Weren’t So Prudish « The Dish


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> Not really, has there been any ramifications?



None I expected you to acknowledge.




> Always alone is pretty much accurate. Why is this culture (whatever culture you live in) at this time down to nature and not nurture (or other factors such as diet, health ect)?
> Also does such fixed generalizations on the traits of a whole gender cause more confusion than clarity?
> 
> Wasn't really trying to accomplish anything, there isn't really anything to accomplish.


I recall reading that article. The nub of it was that women were sexually unreliable. That their nether regions controlled many of their choices and without constant male supervision, they were likely to bed anything that turned their heads.

This compared to the supposed myth of 'undersexed' women of today who need to be cozened into having any sex at all which the article tries to build up.

Except...I'm sorry if you can't see it, but the whole 'male issue' with a woman with large numbers of partners IS the exact same fear/concern from yesteryear: that a woman who gives off market signals of liking lots of sex is no different from how ALL women were looked at in the past according to this article. 

There is absolutely no difference except that men today concede that this is not a gender wide comparison. SOME women are not like that. Maybe most. But many men want to avoid the women who do sleep around a lot.

Which is progress in the stereotypes to some degree.

By putting forward the argument that women can be just as stupid as men are about sex seems to strongly undercut the argument that numbers are totally irrelevant as a market signal.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



Faithful Wife said:


> That's why it doesn't make any sense to study other species and then declare "men want sex more than women". What other species in on earth is this true for? None.


Tell that to the male praying mantis and tarantulas who get eaten for wanting to get laid.


----------



## ocotillo

There's a funny story that's circulated among engineering types about a young VP at Arco, who looked at the payroll of a refinery and noticed an inordinate amount of boiler operators making an inordinate amount of money.

He decided to trim this very obvious excess by letting them all go and outsourcing building maintenance. Boiler operators are in charge of heating equipment, right?

Wrong. They were actually the technicians operating the miles and miles of equipment that cracks the petroleum molecule. Letting them all go at once prevented a proper shutdown and damage to the refinery was catastrophic. 

Similarly, an executive at ABC was walking the back lot on a Saturday and noticed a very shabby looking wooden set coated in dust and cobwebs and falling apart. He was so angry that cutting it up and throwing it away wasn't good enough. He ordered it burned on the spot as a lesson to his lazy warehouse employees.

It turned out that the set was from a television show called, Dark Shadows, which had become wildly popular. --And the set was needed for filming on Monday, which is why it was being moved.

My only quibble on this thread is that a question can be simplified to the point where there is an implicit assumption of stupidity on the part of some pretty intelligent people who've spent most of their professional lives studying it. In this case, we're talking about full blown professors of psychology; many of them female.

--And that's all I have to say about that.


----------



## Faithful Wife

I really have no problem insulting said intelligent people ocotillo. People can be highly intelligent and simultaneously believe things that are not true.


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> I really have no problem insulting said intelligent people ocotillo. People can be highly intelligent and simultaneously believe things that are not true.


People can also earn advanced degrees and spend their lives studying something, without being particularly intelligent or good at it.

I agree with ocotillo that we shouldn't assume stupidity, but we should also call it out when we see it.


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> I really have no problem insulting said intelligent people ocotillo. People can be highly intelligent and simultaneously believe things that are not true.


I'm pretty damn critical myself and don't have a problem with that if I think I can make a solid case for it. 

I wouldn't be honest though if I simplified their position, imputed wrong motives to them, misrepresented their evidence etc.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not talking about anyone on this thread.


----------



## Faithful Wife

And Deejo your point about male animals who die in pursuit of sex...why not mention what female mammals go through in child rearing and how complications can kill both mother and child? Talk about sexual risk taking!


----------



## Deejo

Sounds like a great reason to NOT pursue sex, wouldn't you say?


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> ...why not mention what female mammals go through in child rearing and how complications can kill both mother and child? Talk about sexual risk taking!


I don't know if this helps or not, but its mentioned in papers on cultural suppression of female sexuality. From what I've read, nobody writes it off completely, but nobody seems to thinks it's a major suppressive force either.


----------



## Faithful Wife

And yet those female mammals DO go out of their way to get pregnant even considering the risks. Just like the male spider and insect you mentioned.


----------



## Deejo

Which is why we have evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and observe the behaviors of other species. 

For all of our contrasts, and categories, here is what I know;

Female h.sapiens don't like being categorized, particularly when it comes to sex.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Deejo I only brought up a counter example to yours. Sorry but I do not agree that we "need" Evo psyche. I do not believe it proves anything nor is it helpful. I'm not sure why you couldn't just acknowledge my example as valid to the point you made and instead try to twist it into "this is why we need Evo psyche". 

I'd love to hear any concrete example of anything constructive that has been proven by any bit of Evo psyche. Anyone?


----------



## TheCuriousWife

vellocet said:


> So it is true that there is a food that reduces libido in women.....wedding cake.


I didn't get to eat any of my wedding cake. I guess that is my problem.


----------



## ocotillo

Faithful Wife said:


> I'd love to hear any concrete example of anything constructive that has been proven by any bit of Evo psyche. Anyone?


Proof in the scientific sense? I'm stumped. 

Like organic evolution itself, it's more an attempt to explain why things are the way they are than a discipline whose theories can be confirmed by direct observation.

If evolutionary psychologists want to say that greater brain plasticity in humans and other primates is because we are so complex socially and our young go through such a long period of learning before they can function as adults, I'm okay with that.

If they want to say that human breasts became a point of sexual interest because evolution of the breast had to go hand in hand with recession of a snout, then I'd say that makes a certain kind of sense. 

But I'd agree with you and AA. A lot of it strikes me as twaddle and malarkey


----------



## Faithful Wife

ocotillo said:


> Proof in the scientific sense? I'm stumped.
> 
> Like organic evolution itself, it's more an attempt to explain why things are the way they are than a discipline whose theories can be confirmed by direct observation.
> 
> If evolutionary psychologists want to say that greater brain plasticity in humans and other primates is because we are so complex socially and our young go through such a long period of learning before they can function as adults, I'm okay with that.
> 
> If they want to say that human breasts became a point of sexual interest because evolution of the breast had to go hand in hand with recession of a snout, then I'd say that makes a certain kind of sense.
> 
> But I'd agree with you and AA. A lot of it strikes me as twaddle and malarkey


I haven't heard one thing that is beneficial to anyone come from evo-pysche. I'm glad it provides jobs for some people, but that's the best I can come up with as far as benefits.


----------



## ConanHub

Faithful Wife said:


> Deejo I only brought up a counter example to yours. Sorry but I do not agree that we "need" Evo psyche. I do not believe it proves anything nor is it helpful. I'm not sure why you couldn't just acknowledge my example as valid to the point you made and instead try to twist it into "this is why we need Evo psyche".
> 
> I'd love to hear any concrete example of anything constructive that has been proven by any bit of Evo psyche. Anyone?


I had never even heard of evo psyche before TAM but have managed to help many men and women by simply observing them and doing research on actual humans with no theory involved at all.

I believe researching living humans does the most good. Theories are interesting but results rock.


----------



## Deejo

You have made your position on Evo psych very clear in the past. I'm cool with that.

Many folks equate Evo psych with pick up. I don't believe they are synonymous. 

"The Science of Sex" on Discovery Channel, virtually all of the program can be seen on YouTube; is based in Evo psych. To deny that there are sexual qualifiers based upon physical attractiveness, access to resources (wealth), social value ( artist, musician, athlete, celebrity) or utility, (strength, skills, dominance) for either sex, just seems like arguing flat Earth, theory to me.

Especially as I've experienced my own transition.

Do I buy into all of it? No, I don't. 
But based upon my own personal discovery of just how wonderfully and incredibly sexual, women can be, I just don't think there is much denying that what makes someone sexual ... is not a unique set of ephemeral gifts and attributes. In fact they are quite formulaic.

And I don't think that's a bad thing for either gender.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Deejo said:


> "The Science of Sex" on Discovery Channel, virtually all of the program can be seen on YouTube; is based in Evo psych. To deny that there are sexual qualifiers based upon physical attractiveness, access to resources (wealth), social value ( artist, musician, athlete, celebrity) or utility, (strength, skills, dominance) for either sex, just seems like arguing flat Earth, theory to me.




There is literally no way to definitively say that we EVOLVED to deliberately choose mates this way. EVOLUTION itself is not something that is just all laid out for us nicely with a cherry on top in some neat package where it is plain to see how we are the perfection nature had in mind for our species.

I'm done with your insults, however. "Like arguing flat earth?" You can bite me on that one, ban me or whatever, but I'm sick of it. I do not insult you, even when we disagree.


----------



## Deejo

Wasn't trying to insult you. Have no intention of banning you.

Biting is always optional.


I do apologize. Offense was not my intent.


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> There is literally no way to definitively say that we EVOLVED to deliberately choose mates this way. EVOLUTION itself is not something that is just all laid out for us nicely with a cherry on top in some neat package where it is plain to see how we are the perfection nature had in mind for our species.


Yes! A lot of people seem to forget that evolution is about species, not individuals. It is random mutations, some of which happen to survive, and some of which don't. There is no purpose, and no ideal. Some things just happen to survive because they haven't died out yet. Duck-billed platypus, anyone?

And while broadly speaking we might be able to say that physical attractiveness, resources, and utility play a role in mating strategies, what role they play and how that looks will be different in different societies, without any loss or gain in overall "adaptiveness". 

Neither societies nor individuals become more "fit" because they wear rings around their necks, gourds on their penises, lead-based make-up, or favour Rubenesque or rail-thin body types. For every rationale for a gender-based stereotype, there is usually an equally compelling rationale for its exact opposite. See, for example, arguments about why Cuckolding fantasies "evolved" vs territorial posessiveness.


----------



## heartsbeating

TheCuriousWife said:


> I didn't get to eat any of my wedding cake. I guess that is my problem.


Wait, what? ...We could have had... cake?!

*slaps forehead*


----------



## TiggyBlue

JCD said:


> None I expected you to acknowledge.


Honestly don't know what you mean.



> *
> Except...I'm sorry if you can't see it, but the whole 'male issue' with a woman with large numbers of partners IS the exact same fear/concern from yesteryear: that a woman who gives off market signals of liking lots of sex is no different from ho*w ALL women were looked at in the past according to this article.
> 
> There is absolutely no difference except that men today concede that this is not a gender wide comparison. SOME women are not like that. Maybe most.


I have been talking about the females sex drive and how the whole 'women want less sex than men' generalization hasn't been around since the dawn of time, not the concerns men have about woman who likes a lot of sex. 



> But many men want to avoid the women who do sleep around a lot..


Really irreverent to anything I've said on this thread. 
It's a totally separate topic IMO


----------



## heartsbeating

norajane said:


> Yes, it seems silly to take our sex education from pop culture, but there it is, everywhere. As a girl, it's actually hard not to feel as though there is something wrong with you for wanting sex, so you repress it to the best of your ability so you aren't deemed a "bad girl" or "sl*t" or "*****" who will end up used, soiled, humiliated and shunned because the boys (good and bad) will pass you over for a "good girl" who didn't.


I'm not disagreeing with you around the messaging. And I only got to page 2 of the article before delving into the thread. I personally wouldn't claim whether or not I was more or less sexual, than a man, or another woman. I simply know that I'm sexual for _me_. I likely became more aware of it though when I was younger and friends made comment to me with positive acceptance. I largely took messaging around sex from pop music and interpreted in a positive way. Such as (what I took to be) a love song with the celebratory lyric of 

_She don't blush 'cos she's so damn free_

And let's face it, Catwoman wasn't shy with her flirtation for Batman. FW - thank you for sharing that cartoon commercial as I enjoy those types of personal insights! Growing up, I also viewed sexual attraction (of both men and women) to largely be about presence. Of body language and sensuality and the fun and freedom that could be had.

Currently I have a headache and not in the mood.... for online debating. I'll leave my post there. Nora piqued my attention with the pop culture references.


----------



## ConanHub

I have not found evolution to even be a practical "theory" and it is still a theory. Basing so much weight on a theory is unwise in my view.

I have read Darwin, he was a myopic bigot and sexist that compared the intelligence of women and anyone with dark skin to that of animals.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> I have been talking about the females sex drive and how the whole 'women want less sex than men' generalization hasn't been around since the dawn of time, not the concerns men have about woman who likes a lot of sex.
> 
> 
> 
> Really irreverent to anything I've said on this thread.
> It's a totally separate topic IMO


Hmm.

The article spoke about women both having a strong sex drive and *being irresponsible with that same sex drive*, as opposed to male 'control' (as they hypocritically went to any number of cat houses, catamites and stuck porn on their vases)

So, avoiding the issue that they are demonstrably wrong on male 'control', this is also selectively picking what you like out of that dialogue.

You are attempting to bolster the idea of 'strong female sex drive' by citing our forefathers.

It is like a prior discussion I had with Always Alone. I recall asking a question about the methodology of rape statistics and she just about tore my head off, essentially stating this was excusing rape. Now that she sees a study she doesn't like...well...damned if methodology just didn't pop up! Odd. A cynical person might have some theories on that.

Which goes to selective use of quotes, stats and polls.

So...were our forefathers correct on female sex drive but incorrect on if the women were sexually irresponsible? If they were incorrect on the second part, why should I believe they were correct on the first part?

As I said, this is a can of worms...if you look at the full quotes and not just what you'd like.


*The same forefathers that believed in four humors, a geo-centric universe, spontaneous generation and punctuated their conversational frustrations with women with the crack of a belt. THOSE forefathers. Certainly much more reputable than peer reviewed psychological studies and polls where they actually believed that women were not subhuman intellects.


----------



## TiggyBlue

JCD said:


> You are attempting to bolster the idea of 'strong female sex drive' by citing our forefathers.


I wasn't attempting that at all, merely saying that there were past generalizations that society as valid are different than they 
now, so what makes the present generalizations and stereotypes any more valid than past ones.
I didn't cite the article as a attempt to bolster the idea of 'strong female sex drive', just that it wasn't always societies view that women had a weaker sex drive.




> So...were our forefathers correct on female sex drive but incorrect on if the women were sexually irresponsible? If they were incorrect on the second part, why should I believe they were correct on the first part?


I didn't cite the article as proof of anything, just saying it's interesting how generalizations and stereotypes have changed.




> As I said, this is a can of worms...if you look at the full quotes and not just what you'd like.


Do you mean on posts in this thread, my responses to you or the article itself, I'm not sure what you're talking about here?




> *The same forefathers that believed in four humors, a geo-centric universe, spontaneous generation and punctuated their conversational frustrations with women with the crack of a belt. THOSE forefathers. Certainly much more reputable than peer reviewed psychological studies and polls where they actually believed that women were not subhuman intellects.


Again, I didn't start this thread to use generalizations of the past as a attempt validate anything about female sex drives.


----------



## TiggyBlue

Deejo said:


> Tell that to the male praying mantis and tarantulas who get eaten for wanting to get laid.





Faithful Wife said:


> And yet those female mammals DO go out of their way to get pregnant even considering the risks. Just like the male spider and insect you mentioned.





Deejo said:


> Sounds like a great reason to NOT pursue sex, wouldn't you say?



Couldn't that be applied to both, they both take are driven to get laid even though there's consequences and risks. 
Why is the male praying mantis a example that "men want more sex" in other species but the female mammals a reason to not pursue sex (even though the female mammals are still trying to breed)?
They can both be a example of wanting to get laid or a great reason not to pursue sex.


----------



## JCD

TiggyBlue said:


> I wasn't attempting that at all, merely saying that there were past generalizations that society as valid are different than they
> now, so what makes the present generalizations and stereotypes any more valid than past ones.
> I didn't cite the article as a attempt to bolster the idea of 'strong female sex drive', just that it wasn't always societies view that women had a weaker sex drive.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't cite the article as proof of anything, just saying it's interesting how generalizations and stereotypes have changed.
> 
> 
> 
> Again, I didn't start this thread to use generalizations of the past as a attempt validate anything about female sex drives.



So do you think the past thoughts are more valid, less valid or equally valid?

Do you think that the thoughts of some wise Greek men (who were horribly sexist) is more or less likely to be correct than that of how people try to ferret out 'truth' today.

For example, if I ASK women if porn is arousing, they would generally tell me no.

When we actually shoved probes into people and had them watch porn, we found out that it was 'yes'.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but there have been 'thousands of years of sexual suppression'. I am supposed to buy that this affects polling on masturbation but not on the core sex drive of women?

So yes, I think that today's generalizations have a likelihood of being more accurate, particularly in light of the amount of study we actually do on the subject.

How much stinky finger do you think Aristotle engaged in to come to his conclusions about female sex drive?


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



TiggyBlue said:


> Couldn't that be applied to both, they both take are driven to get laid even though there's consequences and risks.
> Why is the male praying mantis a example that "men want more sex" in other species but the female mammals a reason to not pursue sex (even though the female mammals are still trying to breed)?
> They can both be a example of wanting to get laid or a great reason not to pursue sex.


Evolutionary biology. Testosterone. Males are driven to pursue sex for procreation. Males have the hormone in excess.

Progesterone. Females are driven to pursue sex for procreation. Females have the hormone in excess.

We've used our big brains to refine sex, and it's pursuit into an art and social expression outside the scope of 'birthin' babies'.

Do we want to challenge ALL of the socio-sexual stereotypes? 

Men are naturally and equally nurturing as women?

Women approach men for sex at the same rate? 

I have conceded that a woman's desire to have sex may be just as powerful as a man's. But I most certainly don't believe it manifests or is expressed in the same fashion as men.

I do think the landscape has, and will continue to change. Some folks will continue celebrating that change, others will rail against it.

I say that as a man who's partner looked him in the eye last night, kissed him, then said "You're gonna get f%*ked, a lot."

I think she means it.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> If they want to say that human breasts became a point of sexual interest because evolution of the breast had to go hand in hand with recession of a snout, then I'd say that makes a certain kind of sense.


So, I was thinking about this one more, and that it doesn't really make much sense at all. Granted, I don't know the full reasoning behind it, and so maybe I'm missing something, but on the face of it, it doesn't hold up.

Consider dogs and cats, who feed pretty much the same way, even thought snout length differs considerably. And then compare with a goat, which will have quite a large udder, even though the snout is quite long. Horses do have longer snouts and smaller udders (is it called an udder on a horse?), but still larger than that of most if not all monkeys.

And then, of course, there's the point that feeding doesn't have a whole lot to do with sexual interest.


----------



## always_alone

JCD said:


> Hmm.
> It is like a prior discussion I had with Always Alone. I recall asking a question about the methodology of rape statistics and she just about tore my head off, essentially stating this was excusing rape. Now that she sees a study she doesn't like...well...damned if methodology just didn't pop up! Odd. A cynical person might have some theories on that.


For the record, I did not rip into you for asking a question about methodology, I did so because of your adamant assertions that the statistics were all just a bunch of hooey designed to create a problem that doesn't exist.

If you want to talk methodology, I'll be the first to admit that gathering accurate rape stats is nigh impossible.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> Do we want to challenge ALL of the socio-sexual stereotypes?
> 
> Men are naturally and equally nurturing as women?
> 
> Women approach men for sex at the same rate?


Sure. Why not? 

Take number 1. Are men nurturing?

When I see a daddy within an infant in his arms and a gleam in his eye, I would say yes. When he takes them on outings, introduces them to new skills, chuckles at their goofiness, defends them, pushes them to do better, corrects them, I see nurturing.

Or what about the doctor who devotes his life to caring for the ill, the vet who looks after small animals, the priest who ministers to the people in his community. These are all traditionally male roles. Do you think they are not nurturing?

What about the hero who rushes in a burning building to save a child, or who leaps out of his car to help the old woman who fell down in front of him, or devotes his life to the care of his family. Is he not nurturing?

Now take number 2: do women approach men for sex
What about the woman who dolls herself up, reads every magazine about how to appeal to men to make herself desirable, and then goes out on the town to meet men. Makes eye contact with them, flirts, goes out of her way to "accidentally" bump into him. Is she not approaching men for sex?

What about the ones who contact men on dating sites, or go to meet and greets, or singles events. Or the ones who outright ask men out, or invite them to events, or drop hotel keys into pockets, or write phone numbers onto napkins, or offer a few innuendos and hints. 

Do you really think these women aren't approaching men for sex?


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> Sure. Why not?
> 
> Take number 1. Are men nurturing?
> 
> When I see a daddy within an infant in his arms and a gleam in his eye, I would say yes. When he takes them on outings, introduces them to new skills, chuckles at their goofiness, defends them, pushes them to do better, corrects them, I see nurturing.
> 
> Or what about the doctor who devotes his life to caring for the ill, the vet who looks after small animals, the priest who ministers to the people in his community. These are all traditionally male roles. Do you think they are not nurturing?
> 
> What about the hero who rushes in a burning building to save a child, or who leaps out of his car to help the old woman who fell down in front of him, or devotes his life to the care of his family. Is he not nurturing?
> 
> *Now take number 2: do women approach men for sex
> What about the woman who dolls herself up, reads every magazine about how to appeal to men to make herself desirable, and then goes out on the town to meet men. Makes eye contact with them, flirts, goes out of her way to "accidentally" bump into him. Is she not approaching men for sex?*
> 
> What about the ones who contact men on dating sites, or go to meet and greets, or singles events. Or the ones who outright ask men out, or invite them to events, or drop hotel keys into pockets, or write phone numbers onto napkins, or offer a few innuendos and hints.
> 
> Do you really think these women aren't approaching men for sex?


Nope. She just being friendly and wanting to feel good about herself for herself  Has nothing to do with wanting sex...except when it does.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



always_alone said:


> Do you really think these women aren't approaching men for sex?


If they are, they're going about it all wrong.

Sounds like you are equating a woman making herself sexually available, as being the same thing as actively selecting a man and approaching him for sex.

Intent may be the same. Execution is completely different.


----------



## TiggyBlue

Deejo said:


> Evolutionary biology. Testosterone. Males are driven to pursue sex for procreation. Males have the hormone in excess.
> 
> Progesterone. Females are driven to pursue sex for procreation. Females have the hormone in excess.


That answer makes no sense to me, you just pointed out two hormones :scratchhead:




> We've used our big brains to refine sex, and it's pursuit into an art and social expression outside the scope of 'birthin' babies'.


I think it's safe sex isn't purely for procreation in humans (same with dolphins, bonobos ect). We're not the only species to have sex for reasons other than reproduction.



> Do we want to challenge ALL of the socio-sexual stereotypes?


Yh why not.


----------



## Faithful Wife

So ONLY the execution of how sex is approached matters when determining which gender "wants" sex more? 

Sigh...it just keeps getting more and more specific about HOW it is determined that "men want sex more". No matter how many ways we can show women do want sex as much as men, there is a man answering "no, that doesn't count". As if the men are the ones who decide what counts in determining this idea. Really?

It is simply ridiculous. In all of nature, both genders of all species WANT SEX and neither gender wants it MORE. And there is literally nothing that refutes this, no matter what any man thinks to the contrary. But I can see why it is still more comfortable for men to think women don't want sex as much as they do. I'm sorry, but they are wrong.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



TiggyBlue said:


> That answer makes no sense to me, you just pointed out two hormones :scratchhead:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it's safe sex isn't purely for procreation in humans (same with dolphins, bonobos ect). We're not the only species to have sex for reasons other than reproduction.
> 
> 
> 
> Yh why not.


So, the sexual hormones that drive us to have sex despite the possibility of sexual violence, aggression, risk of death, infant and maternal mortality, don't make sense to you?

Cripes ... I'm agreeing with you. I feel like the ladies rather enjoy being contrary.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



Faithful Wife said:


> So ONLY the execution of how sex is approached matters when determining which gender "wants" sex more?
> 
> Sigh...it just keeps getting more and more specific about HOW it is determined that "men want sex more". No matter how many ways we can show women do want sex as much as men, there is a man answering "no, that doesn't count". As if the men are the ones who decide what counts in determining this idea. Really?
> 
> It is simply ridiculous. In all of nature, both genders of all species WANT SEX and neither gender wants it MORE. And there is literally nothing that refutes this, no matter what any man thinks to the contrary. But I can see why it is still more comfortable for men to think women don't want sex as much as they do. I'm sorry, but they are wrong.


No. No nonononono.

...No.

Goal may be the same. Intent may be the same. How it manifests and is executed is different. Not better or worse; more powerful or weaker.

Just different. 

I keep thinking we're on common ground and then ... a response pops up that makes me wonder if anyone actually wants to be on common ground.


----------



## TiggyBlue

Deejo said:


> So, the sexual hormones that drive us to have sex despite the possibility of sexual violence, aggression, risk of death, infant and maternal mortality, don't make sense to you?


Hormones make sense, but it didn't make sense using them as a answer for why the male prey mantis is so desperate to get laid they will have their head bit of but when FW said about risks female mammals take you responded with 'sounds like a good reason NOT to pursue sex'.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



TiggyBlue said:


> Hormones make sense, but it didn't make sense using them as a answer for why the male prey mantis is so desperate to get laid they will have their head bit of but when FW said about risks female mammals take you responded with 'sounds like a good reason NOT to pursue sex'.


Exactly. Which means there is a driver.

Obviously I'm not doing a very good job of expressing my position. 

Or ...

 http://youtu.be/y6hx1nXe41A


----------



## TiggyBlue

By the way Deejo sorry if that came across as a bit snarky, wasn't trying to be.


----------



## Deejo

TiggyBlue said:


> By the way Deejo sorry if that came across as a bit snarky, wasn't trying to be.


I'm not the guy you ever need to apologize to for being snarky.

I'm still trying to decide who I'm being serious with and who I'm bantering with.

All I can say is once you start realizing how overtly sexual some women can be, it's nigh impossible to want to go back to someone who wants to play coy about sex or make you jump through hoops to get it.


----------



## ocotillo

TiggyBlue said:


> ...merely saying that there were past generalizations that society as valid are different than they now, so what makes the present generalizations and stereotypes any more valid than past ones.


Tiggy,

There is a toxic little sect of Christianity in America that preaches against transfusion medicine and their argumentation has never been terribly honest. Here's a typical example:

"For centuries bloodletting was a popular medical practice. Bleeding, it was believed, drew off bad blood and helped the sick person to recover....The pendulum has now swung so that blood is transfused into patients as though this were a cure."

Note that nothing has been said that is factually incorrect. However a sympathetic reader will come away with the impression that the shift in attitude is basically a cyclical phenomenon comparable to other social trends that go in and out of vogue. No real differentiation is made between the _reasons_ behind beliefs then vs. beliefs now, which is very misleading.

Faithful Wife and Always Alone have been honest on this thread by suggesting cultural reasons for why clinical studies in the last fifty years or so _appear_ to show that men on average expend more resources in the pursuit of sex; don't keep vows of celibacy as well as women do; experience spontaneous sexual arousal more frequently; consume more sexual oriented entertainment; write books on fixing sexless marriages in greater numbers; are more prone to end their lives after the loss of sexual organs or function, etc., etc.

I respect that, which is one of the reasons it's enjoyable to talk with them. It's tough to respect Ms. Goldstein's article because it is cloaked in a known tool of dishonest persuasion.


----------



## JCD

ocotillo said:


> Faithful Wife and Always Alone have been honest on this thread by suggesting cultural reasons for why clinical studies in the last fifty years or so _appear_ to show that men on average expend more resources in the pursuit of sex; don't keep vows of celibacy as well as women do; experience spontaneous sexual arousal more frequently; consume more sexual oriented entertainment; write books on fixing sexless marriages in greater numbers; are more prone to end their lives after the loss of sexual organs or function, etc., etc.


Please tell me how one can tell the difference between a 'lowered sexual interest' shown by women in these studies caused by sexual suppression compared to...you know...women ACTUALLY having a natural lower sexual interest? 

Because that presumes a correlation which may not apply _scientifically._


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> So, I was thinking about this one more, and that it doesn't really make much sense at all. Granted, I don't know the full reasoning behind it, and so maybe I'm missing something, but on the face of it, it doesn't hold up.


The thinking is that the nose of human infants is extremely susceptible to obstruction from even small amounts of pressure, whereas the noses of other species with breasts in the same location and who similarly cradle their young are larger. A baby gorilla for example has wide, flaring nostrils that are set back slightly from the mouth. So the prominence of the human breast in comparison to other primates is believed to serve a purpose by receding away from the infant's nose at a sharper angle. 

--Of course there's more assumptions here than you can shake a stick at, especially when one tries to tie this to sexual attraction.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> Cripes ... I'm agreeing with you. I feel like the ladies rather enjoy being contrary.


Oh, yes, absolutely. Contrary is my middle name. Or was that snarky?

I have lots of middle names. Most of them obnoxious, it would seem.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> Oh, yes, absolutely. Contrary is my middle name. Or was that snarky?
> 
> I have lots of middle names. Most of them obnoxious, it would seem.


I expect contrary from you. It's part of our 'thing'. It's equal parts snark and fondness ... at least on my side.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> If they are, they're going about it all wrong.
> 
> Sounds like you are equating a woman making herself sexually available, as being the same thing as actively selecting a man and approaching him for sex.
> 
> Intent may be the same. Execution is completely different.


All wrong? Last I heard women were pretty darn successful at getting themselves laid. 

Yes, execution is different because there are all sorts of social constructs, norms, expectations, values, beliefs, you name it, that inform our behaviours.

For example, don't forget that we women have to adjust for all of those men who are put off by sexual women, and who can't stand the idea that we might have had sex before we met them. Not to mention safety precautions and such.

As far as I can tell, no one is disagreeing that men and women will often do different things, just debating the meaning and significance of it all.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> All wrong? Last I heard women were pretty darn successful at getting themselves laid.
> 
> Yes, execution is different because there are all sorts of social constructs, norms, expectations, values, beliefs, you name it, that inform our behaviours.
> 
> Indeed, no one is disagreeing that men and women will often do different things, just debating the meaning and significance of it all.


I like to think of it as active or hunting predation versus opportunistic or ambush predation. Outcome is the same. Either way, somebody's getting eaten.


----------



## JCD

Nothing reeks of sexual suppression like women's magazines


----------



## ocotillo

JCD said:


> Please tell me how one can tell the difference between a 'lowered sexual interest' shown by women in these studies caused by sexual suppression compared to...you know...women ACTUALLY having a natural lower sexual interest?
> 
> Because that presumes a correlation which may not apply _scientifically._


Psychologists are open and honest about the fact that they can't really get inside people's heads. All they can do is observe and compare behavior, and more than most, they understand that culture shapes behavior.

So concluding that differences in behavior are primarily organic in nature might be every bit as difficult a leap to make. 

I would say to compare the 1993 paper, Gender Differences In Sexuality: A Meta-Analysis. by Mary Oliver and Janet Hyde with the 2010 paper, A Meta-Analytic Review of Research on Gender Differences in Sexuality 1993 - 2007 by Jennifer Petersen and the same Janet Hyde. Measurable gaps in sexual behavior do seem to be closing.


----------



## JCD

ocotillo said:


> Psychologists are open and honest about the fact that they can't really get inside people's heads. All they can do is observe and compare behavior, and more than most, they understand that culture shapes behavior.
> 
> So concluding that differences in behavior are primarily organic in nature might be every bit as difficult a leap to make.
> 
> I would say to compare the 1993 paper, Gender Differences In Sexuality: A Meta-Analysis. by Mary Oliver and Janet Hyde with the 2010 paper, A Meta-Analytic Review of Research on Gender Differences in Sexuality 1993 - 2007 by Jennifer Petersen and the same Janet Hyde. Measurable gaps in sexual behavior do seem to be closing.


And where are these?

ETA: If you think I am going to pay $23.90 for these, you are crazy.

Abstract:



> We analyzed gender differences in 30 reported sexual behaviors and attitudes for *834 individual samples *uncovered in literature searches and 7 large national data sets. In support of evolutionary psychology, results from both the individual studies and the large data sets indicated that men reported slightly more sexual experience and more permissive attitudes than women for most of the variables. However, as predicted by the gender similarities hypothesis, most gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors were small. Exceptions were masturbation incidence, pornography use, casual sex, and attitudes toward casual sex, which all yielded medium effect sizes in which male participants reported more sexual behavior or permissive attitudes than female participants. Most effect sizes reported in the current study were comparable to those reported in Oliver and Hyde’s study. In support of cognitive social learning theory, year of publication moderated the magnitude of effect sizes, with *gender differences for some aspects of sexuality increasing over time and others decreasing.* As predicted by social structural theory, nations and ethnic groups with greater gender equity had smaller gender differences for *some *reported sexual behaviors than nations and ethnic groups with less gender equity. Gender differences decreased with age of the sample for some sexual behaviors and attitudes.


Lot of caveats.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Nothing reeks of women WANTING SEX as much as women's magazines.


----------



## ocotillo

JCD said:


> And where are these?





ocotillo said:


> Here's Petersen & Hyde


The older paper is probably not available for free, but there's some explanation of it in this one.


----------



## always_alone

Please, do not get me started on women's magazines. They are the worst when it comes to objectification of women and reinforcemnt of terrible stereotypes, not to mention feeding and capitalizing on women's poor body image.

Blech, phooey.


----------



## Faithful Wife

That's totally true Always...yet it is also true that women DO want sex and information on sex but since the main thing offered to women is that crap at the checkout stand. Between no information and Cosmo, a lot of women will go ahead and grab Cosmo. 

Why? Because they WANT SEX!!!


----------



## vellocet

JCD said:


>



Uh oh, you've gone and done it now.


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> That's totally true Always...yet it is also true that women DO want sex and information on sex but since the main thing offered to women is that crap at the checkout stand. Between no information and Cosmo, a lot of women will go ahead and grab Cosmo.
> 
> Why? Because they WANT SEX!!!


Oh, yes I know. More's the pity as Cosmo is well know for offering terrible advice on sex. There's an entire blog or column devoted to how asinine it is.


----------



## Faithful Wife

always_alone said:


> Oh, yes I know. More's the pity as Cosmo is well know for offering terrible advice on sex. There's an entire blog or column devoted to how asinine it is.


There's good sex information out there for people who want to search for it...and more and more people are! Yay! It is a shame Cosmo isn't better at sex advice since they have such a wide reach. But for a lot of people, bad advice is better than no advice since at least you get some sense that sex is something people want to do with each other from the covers of Cosmo.


----------



## ConanHub

Faithful Wife said:


> That's totally true Always...yet it is also true that women DO want sex and information on sex but since the main thing offered to women is that crap at the checkout stand. Between no information and Cosmo, a lot of women will go ahead and grab Cosmo.
> 
> Why? Because they WANT SEX!!!


I have to agree here. The desire and desperation of women to not just get sex but to be good at it is evident in that such mind numbingly stupid magazines have a successful market.


----------



## ConanHub

Sorry. Being a man for a moment.

I find Kim's fuller figure to be far more attractive than the skinny model on the bottom.

I, in no way, think Kim is attractive in character but very much physically.

The model on the bottom is pretty as well but does less to raise my pulse.

Man moment over.


----------



## Created2Write

always_alone said:


> Size is big, but sampling and methodology make all of the difference. Some of those questions raised by C2W are fundamental.
> 
> If the population is too homogenous, then you have a skewed sample, and results will only apply to those that fit the demographics, and could not be applied to "women" across the board. If you want to make generalizations to that population, you need a good cross section.
> 
> Plus the methodology is perception surveys which are notoriously sketchy. Poorly framed questions will virtually guarantee that you get whatever results you want, not to mention problems with self awareness and honesty.
> 
> Statistical surveys in this field are a mug's game, IMHO. Your math may achieve statistical significance, but this doesn't mean that the findings are at all important or demonstrating what they purport to.


PRECISELY. 

"How often do you masturbate?" and "Do you masturbate every other day?" are ENTIRELY different questions, with entirely different connotations. The former leaves the question open for the woman to answer without feeling weird, while the second puts a limit on what she can answer....either yes or no. And were the men asked the same questions?


----------



## Created2Write

Deejo said:


> You have made your position on Evo psych very clear in the past. I'm cool with that.
> 
> Many folks equate Evo psych with pick up. I don't believe they are synonymous.
> 
> "The Science of Sex" on Discovery Channel, virtually all of the program can be seen on YouTube; is based in Evo psych. To deny that there are sexual qualifiers based upon physical attractiveness, access to resources (wealth), social value ( artist, musician, athlete, celebrity) or utility, (strength, skills, dominance) for either sex, just seems like arguing flat Earth, theory to me.
> 
> Especially as I've experienced my own transition.
> 
> Do I buy into all of it? No, I don't.
> But based upon my own personal discovery of just how wonderfully and incredibly sexual, women can be, I just don't think there is much denying that what makes someone sexual ... is not a unique set of ephemeral gifts and attributes. In fact they are quite formulaic.
> 
> And I don't think that's a bad thing for either gender.


This rubs me the wrong way on so many levels because it implies, if not outright states, that any man, who follows this supposed "formula" will get a woman to be sexually attracted to him. Knowing many lesbian and bi-sexual women in my life, as well as heterosexual women who were very sexually aware, I can say with confidence that this is just no so. As much as men want to believe that women are "generally" attracted to the same type of man, it IS NOT true. Sure, there will be women who are attracted to the same type of guy, but to say that, at a gender, we will be attracted to guys A, B, and C because we're just wired that way is naive and ignorant. 

Perhaps that's not what you meant. I hope it isn't.


----------



## Created2Write

Faithful Wife said:


> That's totally true Always...yet it is also true that women DO want sex and information on sex but since the main thing offered to women is that crap at the checkout stand. Between no information and Cosmo, a lot of women will go ahead and grab Cosmo.
> 
> Why? Because they WANT SEX!!!


OH my goodness, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've picked up Cosmo for sexual advice(especially when I first became sexually active) and, even as a recent virgin, I was like, "What? Really? This is all I'm given as far as sexual advice goes?" Nothing inspires sexual confidence than a nice old jab at your self-esteem. 

After three articles which were all the same("Blow jobs! Men love blow jobs! Give him blow jobs and you'll 'blow' his mind!"...........DUH), I decided to do my own thing. But it was a massive disappointment to me that, as a young woman without any idea of where to go for sexual tips, I was left to just figure it out. LAME. I mean, talk about setting someone up for failure.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

On "formula", I get that nobody likes the idea that women are not 100% unique little flowers of personal preference. Especially when someone like me says it. So maybe you'll believe Maya Angelou when she says it: "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."

The notion that you have so little preference in common with other women that there can be no general predictions of what any given woman is likely to find attractive is absurd - you're not *that* different. There are differences, but they are heavily outnumbered by the commonalities. Women's preference for wealth/success for example. It's so well known that myth busters even did a show on it (confirmed). It's been shown in study after study, that even women who claim to have no preference for wealth, have a preference for wealth. Thus, a guy who improves his financial situation has improved his attractiveness. The same goes for things as simple as standing up straight, grooming, and improving one's conversational skills. We can discuss why these things are more attractive, whether evo psych or whatever, but they are true. There are things a man can do to be more attractive than otherwise to virtually any woman, which is to say, formula exists to an extent.

On women's sexual desire, it blows my mind that this is a constant discussion over the two years I've been reading this forum. Yes, the vast majority of women want sex at least as much as men. Perhaps we'd be better served discussing why/how so many men come to think women don't, and why men aren't similarly misrepresented by women. My take is that women are more likely to be absolutely consumed by a myriad other responsibilities that never really end, often to the point of selflessness, that many simply don't have the luxury of truly free time to be thinking about sex. Similar to a man who is consumed by his work, but the work day never ends. Another thought is that the difference lies in that perhaps women tend to have more conditions that must be met in order to want, or more accurately... actually *have* sex. ie - she's waiting to see what his commitment level is, or she's waiting to avoid being perceived as easy, etc. Conditions men don't tend to worry with.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> I get that you hate the idea that women are not 100% unique little flowers of personal preference. Especially when someone like me says it. So maybe you'll believe Maya Angelou when she says it: "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."
> 
> The notion that you have so little preference in common with other women that there can be no general predictions of what any given women is likely to find attractive is naïve. There are differences, but they are heavily outnumbered by the similarities.


Oh brother 

Maya Angelou was referring to *humans*, not just women. Are you saying the formula will apply across genders too?

Not sure where all these condescending references to "unique little flowers" come from, but when objecting to the notion of a formula, no one is pretending that humans don't share certain needs (food, shelter, affection, sex, etc.) *Obviously* people have a lot in common. What they are objecting to is the idea that we are all attracted to the same things or respond in the same ways.

If you and Deejo have hit upon a successful "formula", then I submit that essentially you are only interested in certain types of women, with a certain type of outlook, and of course actually attracted to you. If you think you can apply this formula across the board without facing any rejection or women who just simply aren't into you, then you are deluding yourself.

For example, some might think that all it takes to get a man interested is to offer him some sex. Guess what? They don't all respond the same way!


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> Oh brother
> 
> Maya Angelou was referring to *humans*, not just women. Are you saying the formula will apply across genders too?


Different formula, but yes, a formula. Though even there, I'd say men and women have more things in common in terms of what they want from each other than differences. So the playbook for appealing to a human has more in common with appealing to a man (or woman) than differences. Trustworthiness, reliability, etc. Traits not specific or especially more common to one gender over the other.



always_alone said:


> Not sure where all these condescending references to "unique little flowers" come from, but when objecting to the notion of a formula, no one is pretending that humans don't share certain needs (food, shelter, affection, sex, etc.) *Obviously* people have a lot in common. What they are objecting to is the idea that we are all attracted to the same things or respond in the same ways.


The line was purposeful, to kind of mock the extreme objection to such simple things. Where is the woman who prefers a slouching, poorly groomed, broke, inattentive, non-communicative man? No matter who you are or how uniquely specific your preferences, I believe you have more in common with your fellow woman among those preferences than you have differences.

The only thing people like myself, and I suspect Deej, are saying, is that a man is wise to recognize these commonalities if he wants to be more attractive to women. It leads to greater interest and more success dating. That can be nefarious, or benign. He may want to get attention from more women, or simply up his chances with a given woman.



always_alone said:


> If you and Deejo have hit upon a successful "formula", then I submit that essentially you are only interested in certain types of women, with a certain type of outlook, and of course actually attracted to you. If you think you can apply this formula across the board without facing any rejection or women who just simply aren't into you, then you are deluding yourself.
> 
> For example, some might think that all it takes to get a man interested is to offer him some sex. Guess what? They don't all respond the same way!


There's always rejection. Just because I'm more attractive doing X than I was doing Y, does not mean that I - sum of all things - am suddenly enough of what she wants, even if I adapted to commonalities that do in fact apply to her. Her standards may be higher still and I might be eliminated on the basis of a trait women don't have much agreement over. The point is not that you always get everyone. The point is that you have better chances/outcomes than you had before, particularly in the touch and go cases (which are the majority). In many circumstances (most as far as I'm concerned), attraction is not a simple boolean value known at the get go. Just because she finds me physically attractive, doesn't mean she'll date me, much less sleep with me. Similarly, just because she's not hot for my body, doesn't mean she won't date me or sleep with me. There is a lot of room for "negotiation" if you will. Certain behaviors and traits of a man can make him more or less attractive and significantly influence the outcome. That guy who was so hot until he started talking. Or the guy who wasn't, until he started talking. There is a LOT of shared preference to be acknowledged. Doing so doesn't mean Joe Dirt will suddenly be able to hookup with Miss America, but it often makes a difference at the margins at the very least.

Deej and I have experienced the difference in adopting certain ways of being over others, and it is day and night. There is even huge overlap in these more attractive qualities and "self-improvement" advice outside of a sexual context.

It's not a certain "type" of woman that it works on either, because most of such behaviors/traits are based on observed commonalities in female preference. Perhaps you can find a woman who prefers a slouching man, or one who can't maintain eye contact, etc... but they would be "uncommon", and I don't think anyone would argue with that.

The flower jab isn't me being a big meanie, it's that you all seem to want to think you're so uncommon that nothing applies to you. It's simply absurd. Of course it does. Just as it does men. Applying these things doesn't mean you will get any man, but they do improve your chances and make a significant difference, getting additional attention/interest and opportunity you otherwise didn't have.


----------



## Trickster

always_alone said:


> Oh brother
> 
> Maya Angelou was referring to *humans*, not just women. Are you saying the formula will apply across genders too?
> 
> Not sure where all these condescending references to "unique little flowers" come from, but when objecting to the notion of a formula, no one is pretending that humans don't share certain needs (food, shelter, affection, sex, etc.) *Obviously* people have a lot in common. What they are objecting to is the idea that we are all attracted to the same things or respond in the same ways.
> 
> If you and Deejo have hit upon a successful "formula", then I submit that essentially you are only interested in certain types of women, with a certain type of outlook, and of course actually attracted to you. If you think you can apply this formula across the board without facing any rejection or women who just simply aren't into you, then you are deluding yourself.
> 
> For example, some might think that all it takes to get a man interested is to offer him some sex. Guess what? They don't all respond the same way!


There is a morning radio show where I live called the second date update..

On a recent show, the man wanted to know why the woman wasn't returning his call for a second date. So, the radio show makes the call...

He definitely had the money, Lots of it, he had the looks, body (muscles athleticism), education, confidence, he was nice, he was respectful to the waiter...The whole package, except she said he was boring. That was her deciding factor. 

She didn't want a second date because he was boring...


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> For example, some might think that all it takes to get a man interested is to offer him some sex. Guess what? They don't all respond the same way!


Didn't really repy to this, but I can't say I'm all that familiar with the male playbook. Have you tried just offering sex?

A blunt offer of sex probably wouldn't work on me. That would just seem odd. A bunch of tasteful or fun sexual innuendo and sexually suggestive behavior though? Well, if she has any shot with me at all (which is to say, other factors are within an acceptable range, even if I wasn't really interested), she probably just upped her odds of getting/holding my attention. I'd say sexuality is definitely something many women leverage in order to get a man's attention... and I suspect they do so because it works.

Well, maybe not just my suspicion. Studies show that women show more skin and behave more sexually aggressive at the most fertile point of their cycle, when they're most interested in finding a mate. It's probably not a coincidence that they trot out their sexuality. It probably works fairly consistently.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> The flower jab isn't me being a big meanie, it's that you all seem to want to think you're so uncommon that nothing applies to you. It's simply absurd. Of course it does. Just as it does men. Applying these things doesn't mean you will get any man, but they do improve your chances and make a significant difference, getting additional attention/interest and opportunity you otherwise didn't have.


The flower jab was about as condescending as it gets, and entirely misses the point of the objections to the idea of a "formula"

As you know a formula is where you combine certain elements in proper proportions, and presto, you always get the same results.
But people are *not* formulaic.

Are there similarities? Yes. Will some hypothetical person who is a loser on every measure of social acceptability in the current cultural climate have difficulty finding a mate? No doubt. But none of this provides any evidence whatsoever that there is some sort of formula for attraction.

There are guys who remain unimpressed with the hottest celebrities because "she does nothing for me". Some think Kim Kardashian or Christina Hendricks is extra hot; others prefer Cindy Crawford or Lucy Liu. Some can't get enough of the slvtty look, and others deem that as something to be used and tossed in the trash. Some guys say that bimbo is an utter turnoff and others won't go for anything but.

What formula would you recommend for us women to be attractive to men?

ETA: oh, I see you just answered my question before I even asked it. Yes, showing lots of skin will draw some guys, particularly those hoping for an easy lay. It will likely turn off those guys who would be inclined to judge you a slvt for dressing that way.


----------



## Fozzy

dvlsadvc8 said:


> perhaps we'd be better served discussing why/how so many men come to think women don't, and why *men aren't similarly misrepresented by women*.


orly??


----------



## Deejo

Created2Write said:


> This rubs me the wrong way on so many levels because it implies, if not outright states, that any man, who follows this supposed "formula" will get a woman to be sexually attracted to him. Knowing many lesbian and bi-sexual women in my life, as well as heterosexual women who were very sexually aware, I can say with confidence that this is just no so. As much as men want to believe that women are "generally" attracted to the same type of man, it IS NOT true. Sure, there will be women who are attracted to the same type of guy, but to say that, at a gender, we will be attracted to guys A, B, and C because we're just wired that way is naive and ignorant.
> 
> Perhaps that's not what you meant. I hope it isn't.


Certainly wasn't saying what you interpreted from it.

Have you seen the program? Researchers from all over the world. Hard to label all of them as 'quacks'.

All I'm saying is that there is wiring, in both sexes. Does anyone really want to argue that point is false?

Attraction isn't an accident or happenstance. It's primal. It's fundamental. We are wired to be attracted to one other ... regardless of sexual orientation. There are traits or conditions that can impact that attractiveness. Fostering those conditions or traits is likely to produce the outcome both parties invariably want from a union; sex.

Do you believe other women are attracted to your husband? Why, why not?


----------



## Faithful Wife

Deejo said:


> Attraction isn't an accident or happenstance. It's primal. It's fundamental. We are wired to be attracted to one other ... *regardless of sexual orientation*. There are traits or conditions that can impact that attractiveness. Fostering those conditions or traits is likely to produce the outcome both parties invariably want from a union; sex.


:scratchhead:

Not sure where you are getting this. Many homosexual men have shown consistently that they are not sexually attracted to women, even when hooked up to boner-o-meters.

When science can explain this phenomenon as if it is natural (because it is) and stop having to resort to "sex is for making babies, therefore these men are lying" then I'll pay more attention. When there is a model that includes all sexual orientations and can show how everyone fits in to this grand evolutionary scheme that is theorized about, I'll be happy to read allllll about it. Until then? Just ignoring a huge section of the population (gays, intersexed people, bi-sexual people, asexual people) and only trying to figure out why men like women's hips so much and nothing else...I'll pass on that.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> If you and Deejo have hit upon a successful "formula", then I submit that essentially you are only interested in certain types of women, with a certain type of outlook, and of course actually attracted to you. If you think you can apply this formula across the board without facing any rejection or women who just simply aren't into you, then you are deluding yourself.


Sometimes I imagine you read my posts and hear nails on a chalkboard.

The 'formula' is for me. Not women. And it is indeed for a certain type of woman. They type that will honor, love, and respect me. 

Same as I will do for her.

Have had plenty of rejection. I like the 'discovery' phase. That's where you get to see how much the two of you are in alignment. And if very aligned, sex is usually sure to follow in due time.

But if not in alignment, all it means to me is that we aren't suited. No reflection on either of us as individuals. I still want to be in a sexual relationship, presuming she does too ... just not with me.

But going out into the trenches, meeting people and taking risks, when we strip away all of the social niceties is still to determine whether or not sex is going to become part of the equation of any given relationship.


----------



## Deejo

Faithful Wife said:


> :scratchhead:
> 
> Not sure where you are getting this. Many homosexual men have shown consistently that they are not sexually attracted to women, even when hooked up to boner-o-meters.
> 
> When science can explain this phenomenon as if it is natural (because it is) and stop having to resort to "sex is for making babies, therefore these men are lying" then I'll pay more attention. When there is a model that includes all sexual orientations and can show how everyone fits in to this grand evolutionary scheme that is theorized about, I'll be happy to read allllll about it. Until then? Just ignoring a huge section of the population (gays, intersexed people, bi-sexual people, asexual people) and only trying to figure out why men like women's hips so much and nothing else...I'll pass on that.


I'm saying even LGBT people have criteria for attraction.


----------



## Faithful Wife

But same sex attraction is not described by Evo-psyche....so why should I or anyone consider those Evo-psyche theories of attraction when they cannot use the same model for everyone?


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> All I'm saying is that there is wiring, in both sexes. Does anyone really want to argue that point is false?
> 
> Attraction isn't an accident or happenstance. It's primal. It's fundamental. We are wired to be attracted to one other ... regardless of sexual orientation. There are traits or conditions that can impact that attractiveness. Fostering those conditions or traits is likely to produce the outcome both parties invariably want from a union; sex.


Yes, absolutely, we are all wired. Both sexes. Sex is primal.

I even agree that there are traits and conditions that can impact this attractiveness.

What I don't see is how this leads to a formula. Wiring or no, we are individuals psychologically, and this plays a huge role in what and who we respond to. As evidenced by the sheer and amazing diversity in sexual attraction, desire, proclivity.

We are all human, we have a lot in common. But even something as basic as a sex drive is not common to all. Some men and women have a very strong one; some men and women have none at all.

And those traits and conditions that foster (or repel) attraction are seemingly infinite in variety.

So what is the formula again?


----------



## Faithful Wife

I really think the only formula they have found is the one that shows "yep, if you are raised culturally to think x, y, z is the sexiest type of person, you will most likely agree with the culture you were born into".

We don't tend to find tribal people as sexy as we find our own closer to home people who resemble our parents and other care takers. The tribal people, no doubt, feel the same about us.


----------



## samyeagar

Faithful Wife said:


> I really think the only formula they have found is the one that shows "yep, *if you are raised culturally to think x, y, z is the sexiest type of person, you will most likely agree with the culture you were born into*".
> 
> We don't tend to find tribal people as sexy as we find our own closer to home people who resemble our parents and other care takers. The tribal people, no doubt, feel the same about us.


And in practical terms, that's really all that matters.

In the cases of social formulas, they are not equivalent to mathematical ones. You don't get the same result each and every time, nor is there an expectation that you will. There will always be outliers that don't fit. The outliers are already discounted as a base assumption.

The formula being discussed, at it's most basic level, is suggesting that a rock star is more likely to get more panties wet than the khaki wearing IT guy. That speaks to no individual preference.


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> We don't tend to find tribal people as sexy as we find our own closer to home people who resemble our parents and other care takers. The tribal people, no doubt, feel the same about us.


Indeed, some enterprising researchers have gone to some tribes and actually asked them what they thought, and turns out what you say is true.

And one needn't go too far into the back woods to get this information. Italy, for example, is far enough


----------



## always_alone

samyeagar said:


> And in practical terms, that's really all that matters.
> 
> In the cases of social formulas, they are not equivalent to mathematical ones. You don't get the same result each and every time, nor is there an expectation that you will. There will always be outliers that don't fit. The outliers are already discounted as a base assumption.


So says you. But can we talk about these outliers for a second or two?

I'm guessing about 2% of the population are lesbians, and about 15% are gay men. That totals 17%, with no overlap.

I don't know the stats for other variations, but there are clearly some people who are completely asexual, some people who have very particular body type fetishes, some people who will not respond sexually to status symbols like fame and wealth, and on and on it goes.

So, let me ask you: why assume the distribution of sexual attraction is normal? And why do you suppose these outliers are insignificant, not worth talking about when we talk about sexual attraction? All in all, there is an awful lot of them.

Now it's true that the Ramones decided to start a band because they thought it would help them pick up girls. And no doubt that did work for them. But for every woman who is drawn by the spotlight, there is another who shrugs and walks away, with zero interest in playing groupie or putting up with "lead singer syndrome".


----------



## ocotillo

I'm not sure where I fall on this, but for someone my age, mental images of listener reactions to the Beatles come to mind.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> So says you. But can we talk about these outliers for a second or two?
> 
> I'm guessing about 2% of the population are lesbians, and about 15% are gay men. That totals 17%, with no overlap.
> 
> I don't know the stats for other variations, but there are clearly some people who are completely asexual, some people who have very particular body type fetishes, some people who will not respond sexually to status symbols like fame and wealth, and on and on it goes.
> 
> So, let me ask you: why assume the distribution of sexual attraction is normal? And why do you suppose these outliers are insignificant, not worth talking about when we talk about sexual attraction? All in all, there is an awful lot of them.
> 
> Now it's true that the Ramones decided to start a band because they thought it would help them pick up girls. And no doubt that did work for them. But for every woman who is drawn by the spotlight, there is another who shrugs and walks away, with zero interest in playing groupie or putting up with "lead singer syndrome".


As it apples to the "formula" ie men peaking women sexual attraction, gay men not only aren't outliers, they aren't even part of the targeted population of women. The vast majority of the targeted population of women are heterosexual, and yes, pulling numbers out of my ass here, if a full 20% of women are either lesbian or asexual, while a significant number, they are still outliers in that no "formula" will apply. That still leaves a large majority that a "formula" COULD apply to.

As far as your one to one about rock stars vs the IT guy...I totally disagree because you mischaracterized what I said. I said that the rock star would be more likely to get the panties wet...nothing about the women wanting a relationship or playing groupie, or hell, even having a one night stand...just eliciting that raw sexual response. Even our very own SimplyA's motor gets cranked by some of the rock stars, but not a chance in hell she'd act on it.


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



Faithful Wife said:


> I really think the only formula they have found is the one that shows "yep, if you are raised culturally to think x, y, z is the sexiest type of person, you will most likely agree with the culture you were born into".
> 
> We don't tend to find tribal people as sexy as we find our own closer to home people who resemble our parents and other care takers. The tribal people, no doubt, feel the same about us.


For the tribe to remain a tribe,, I'm presuming the men and women are having sex with one another. We can further presume that there are members of the tribe that possess resources, or skills that make them highly desirable as partners. 

Will confess, I have no idea where our disagreement lies at this point.


----------



## samyeagar

Deejo said:


> For the tribe to remain a tribe,, I'm presuming the men and women are having sex with one another. We can further presume that there are members of the tribe that possess resources, or skills that make them highly desirable as partners.
> 
> Will confess, I have no idea where our disagreement lies at this point.


I think she's suggesting that the tribes women in Sub-Saharan Africa might not be so swayed by your Aglo demigodhood.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> I'm not sure where I fall on this, but for someone my age, mental images of listener reactions to the Beatles come to mind.


Funny, as I was thinking of the very same phenomenon when I was typing my response.

There is little doubt that this was a sexual response, and millions of young women idolize them. No doubt.

But a couple of thoughts:
1) At that time, girls had pretty much zero outlet for their sexual energy, and this was one place they could express it freely and without repercussions.

2) It is not the *musician* that evokes the response, as much as it is the *music*. Music too is very primal, and very sexual, and speaks to the core of ourselves. Music can evoke a sexual response even in the absence of the musician.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> Will confess, I have no idea where our disagreement lies at this point.


Speaking for myself only: I just want to know what the damn formula is.


----------



## Faithful Wife

What I'm saying and what Always is saying is that these "formulas" are really NOT about NATURE and EVOLUTION. That's why to look at them through the lens of evo-crap and trying to call it SCIENCE is bullcrap.

Deejo, you keep wanting to wander back around to the topic in a "but the formula does work, therefore isn't there SOME validity to evo-psyche" and I'm saying "NO, evo-psyche is the study of cultural bias in sexual selection, period". 

If you could or would separate your formula idea AWAY from evolution or science and just call it a social experiment that ONLY covers straight people who aren't outliers, I'd say we were in agreement.

Otherwise...if I'm going to pay attention to anything called SCIENCE that supposedly describes what ALL humans have EVOLVED to be attracted to, then I'm going to need to see a model that includes homosexuality, bi-sexuality and asexuality. But there isn't such a model, because evo-psyche doesn't recognize those outliers as part of NATURE.

As long as this is so, any research from that angle is total bullcrap.

When you keep pointing back to "but it works, how do you explain that the formula works" it just keeps making me wonder why you keep going there. YES, it works on STRAIGHT PEOPLE IN OUR CULTURE. The fact that there's no model for outliers should be all anyone needs to know that this is not a model of nature but of convenience to the researchers.


----------



## Faithful Wife

always_alone said:


> Funny, as I was thinking of the very same phenomenon when I was typing my response.
> 
> There is little doubt that this was a sexual response, and millions of young women idolize them. No doubt.
> 
> But a couple of thoughts:
> 1) At that time, girls had pretty much zero outlet for their sexual energy, and this was one place they could express it freely and without repercussions.
> 
> 2) It is not the *musician* that evokes the response, as much as it is the *music*. Music too is very primal, and very sexual, and speaks to the core of ourselves. Music can evoke a sexual response even in the absence of the musician.


Don't forget mob mentality happens the same way. This wasn't that far from that.


----------



## samyeagar

Faithful Wife said:


> What I'm saying and what Always is saying is that these "formulas" are really NOT about NATURE and EVOLUTION. That's why to look at them through the lens of evo-crap and trying to call it SCIENCE is bullcrap.
> 
> Deejo, you keep wanting to wander back around to the topic in a "but the formula does work, therefore isn't there SOME validity to evo-psyche" and I'm saying "NO, evo-psyche is the study of cultural bias in sexual selection, period".
> 
> If you could or would separate your formula idea AWAY from evolution or science and just call it a social experiment that ONLY covers straight people who aren't outliers, I'd say we were in agreement.
> 
> Otherwise...if I'm going to pay attention to anything called SCIENCE that supposedly describes what ALL humans have EVOLVED to be attracted to, then I'm going to need to see a model that includes homosexuality, bi-sexuality and asexuality. But there isn't such a model, because evo-psyche doesn't recognize those outliers as part of NATURE.
> 
> As long as this is so, any research from that angle is total bullcrap.
> 
> When you keep pointing back to "but it works, how do you explain that the formula works" it just keeps making me wonder why you keep going there. *YES, it works on STRAIGHT PEOPLE IN OUR CULTURE.* The fact that there's no model for outliers should be all anyone needs to know that this is not a model of nature but of convenience to the researchers.


Exactly! And there are different formulas for different subsets of the human species. I was working on the premise that that differentiation was self evident.


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> You keep pointing back to "but it works, how do you explain that the formula works" it just keeps making me wonder why you keep going there. YES, it works on STRAIGHT PEOPLE IN OUR CULTURE. The fact that there's no model for outliers should be all anyone needs to know that this is not a model of nature but of convenience to the researchers.


I agree with most of what you are saying, but am much less convinced than you are that the formula works.

Don't get me wrong, I believe Deejo when he says he has more success with women than before, and that appealing to cultural signals of desirability can and will improve desirability.

I do not believe that a musician will automatically get more panties wet than an IT guy. Depends on a lot of other factors. And even with all other things being equal (eg same guy), it depends on the psychology and proclivity of the woman in question.

Like SA, there are guys I find attractive that I wouldn't touch with a 10-ft pole. Unlike SA, the pics she posts as examples are not in the slightest appealing to me. We have different tastes.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> I agree with most of what you are saying, but am much less convinced than you are that the formula works.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I believe Deejo when he says he has more success with women than before, and that appealing to cultural signals of desirability can and will improve desirability.
> 
> I do not believe that a musician will automatically get more panties wet than an IT guy. Depends on a lot of other factors. *And even with all other things being equal (eg same guy), it depends on the psychology and proclivity of the woman in question.*
> 
> Like SA, there are guys I find attractive that I wouldn't touch with a 10-ft pole. Unlike SA, the pics she posts as examples are not in the slightest appealing to me. We have different tastes.


This right here is a point I have made...the "formula" applies in the general, but not the specific. The formula changes and becomes more tailored as one narrows the population it applies to. If I am trying to peak sexual response in the subset of all heterosexual women in my culture in general, you'd better bet I'd rather be a rock star than the IT guy. If I narrow that down to the biker chick subset of all hetero women in my culture, I'm going to be a rock star with long hair, wears leather, and has tattoos...funny, that sounds like an awful lot of the rock stars anyway who draw attention from across the entire demographic, but I digress. If I am trying to peak sexual response in a specific individual woman, then I had better learn her specific, individual formula.


----------



## always_alone

samyeagar said:


> If I am trying to peak sexual response in the subset of all heterosexual women in my culture in general, you'd better bet I'd rather be a rock star than the IT guy. If I narrow that down to the biker chick subset of all hetero women in my culture, I'm going to be a rock star with long hair, wears leather, and has tattoos...funny, that sounds like an awful lot of the rock stars anyway who draw attention from across the entire demographic, but I digress.


Doesn't that at all depend on who you are trying to attract?

And who are these rock stars that appeal across every demographic? Justin Bieber? Mick Jagger? Eminem? Ozzy Osborne? Prince?

Not doubt they all have appeal to some, but across the board?


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> The flower jab was about as condescending as it gets, and entirely misses the point of the objections to the idea of a "formula"


Well, if someone believes everyone is so unique that no commonalities apply, then I believe they're a flower. Take it how you will. I find the notion ridiculous and expressed it so.



always_alone said:


> As you know a formula is where you combine certain elements in proper proportions, and presto, you always get the same results.
> But people are *not* formulaic.


That's unfortunately not what research has shown. A guy presented with money is judged less attractive than when he's presented with money. Same elements, one adjusted variable. Clearly adjusting that variable has influence on virtually all women (so says repeated study).

The same applies to many other variables. Now, with or without money he may not pass the threshold for a given woman to be attracted to him, as a result of other factors, but regardless - he was consistently more attractive with money than he was without. Reliable. Formulaic. Your objection is simply over the fact that there are other variables whose values are unreliable in predicting attraction. I'm ok with that. I'm saying there are fewer of those "differences" than there are common, reliable, predictably attractive traits.



always_alone said:


> What formula would you recommend for us women to be attractive to men?
> 
> ETA: oh, I see you just answered my question before I even asked it. Yes, showing lots of skin will draw some guys, particularly those hoping for an easy lay. It will likely turn off those guys who would be inclined to judge you a slvt for dressing that way.


Funny, I don't associate showing skin with being easy. It's not my suggestion - it's what research says women actually do when they're most interested in attracting a man (some knowingly, others unknowingly). In keeping with the commonality theme, many of the traits men will find attractive are the same traits women find attractive in men: stand up straight, be confident. Show enthusiasm and distinctive personality (oddly, showing any personality is better than appearing dull). Positivity.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

Fozzy said:


> orly??


Are we? I don't see a pattern of women claiming men have weak sex drives.

I'm sure we're misrepresented in other ways, but I was referring to this one.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> *Doesn't that at all depend on who you are trying to attract?*
> 
> And who are these rock stars that appeal across every demographic? Justin Bieber? Mick Jagger? Eminem? Ozzy Osborne? Prince?
> 
> Not doubt they all have appeal to some, but across the board?


I did kind of say that, yes.

As far as which rock star for broad appeal? I'd be Adam Levine over Jake from State Farm any day of the week. The funny thing is, in their primes, each and every one you listed there had broad reaching sexual appeal.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

Faithful Wife said:


> :scratchhead:
> 
> Not sure where you are getting this. Many homosexual men have shown consistently that they are not sexually attracted to women, even when hooked up to boner-o-meters.
> 
> When science can explain this phenomenon as if it is natural (because it is) and stop having to resort to "sex is for making babies, therefore these men are lying" then I'll pay more attention. When there is a model that includes all sexual orientations and can show how everyone fits in to this grand evolutionary scheme that is theorized about, I'll be happy to read allllll about it. Until then? Just ignoring a huge section of the population (gays, intersexed people, bi-sexual people, asexual people) and only trying to figure out why men like women's hips so much and nothing else...I'll pass on that.


Hasn't science already begun cracking that nut? My understanding is that homosexual attraction has been linked to differences in the brain. Particularly the amygdala - where we believe sexual desire originates. While it's an area of ongoing study, last I read, sexual preference can be predicted from PET and MRI scans with about 95% accuracy.

There have been a number of studies with such observations:

Symmetry Of Homosexual Brain Resembles That Of Opposite Sex, Swedish Study Finds -- ScienceDaily

New Theory Says Sexual Orientation Determined by Brain Hemisphere Dominance | Advocate.com

PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between ****- and heterosexual subjects

These studies are the basis for arguments that being gay is not a choice, but a real biological trait - a hard-wired trait if you will.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

Faithful Wife said:


> But same sex attraction is not described by Evo-psyche....so why should I or anyone consider those Evo-psyche theories of attraction when they cannot use the same model for everyone?


Apples and oranges. In applying evo-psych, knowing male or female brain is important. Current research indicates that homosexuals have certain brain characteristics in common with the opposite sex. Therefore evo-psych works just fine. The homosexual simply inherited certain brain functions of the opposite sex.

It really doesn't surprise me much. After all, we all start out female, until a certain switch is thrown and male-specific changes take place. The science would seem to point to that switch as being less than perfect.

Either we accept this as evolutionary hard-wiring, or we actually believe homosexuality is a choice. I side with the former.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> Well, if someone believes everyone is so unique that no commonalities apply, then I believe they're a flower. Take it how you will. I find the notion ridiculous and expressed it so.


As I said: no one is saying no commonalities exist. Only that people aren't formulaic. So you are misrepresenting the point, and then insulting people for it. We call that a straw man plus ad hominem in logic.

I'd like to see this research you're talking about how attractive wealth is. I definitely have no trouble believing that some find money to be a sexual kickstart, I don't believe it applies across the board.

Woman swept away by the poor boy and ditching her rich husband in the process is a pretty common trope as well.


----------



## always_alone

samyeagar said:


> As far as which rock star for broad appeal? I'd be Adam Levine over Jake from State Farm any day of the week. The funny thing is, in their primes, each and every one you listed there had broad reaching sexual appeal.


You have to be kidding me. Seriously?

Clearly we have a very different understanding of what counts as a "commonality" and "broad reaching appeal"


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> Yes, absolutely, we are all wired. Both sexes. Sex is primal.
> 
> I even agree that there are traits and conditions that can impact this attractiveness.
> 
> What I don't see is how this leads to a formula. Wiring or no, we are individuals psychologically, and this plays a huge role in what and who we respond to. As evidenced by the sheer and amazing diversity in sexual attraction, desire, proclivity.


If you agree with the notion of "hard-wired" elements of attraction, you can't avoid there being a degree of formula to attraction. I readily admit we don't have all the information, and to a degree of variance in preference, but then, neither I nor Deej has said that if I do x, y and z I can get EVERY woman. The notion is that x, y and z are more attractive to every woman than otherwise. Even without a unique preference, she may simply have better options that more closely meet those hard-wired elements.

The real disagreement here, is to the degree to which these hard-wired elements have influence vs unique individual differences (perhaps even nature vs nurture).

The notion of "formula" is simply acknowledging the extensive commonalities (the hard-wiring?), and doing so necessarily improves one's attractiveness, even if one is still not attractive enough for some individual.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> These studies are the basis for arguments that being gay is not a choice, but a real biological trait - a hard-wired trait if you will.


I have no problem with the idea that sexual orientation is part of our wiring, but let's not forget that this doesn't define specifically who we are attracted to. In the gay community, eg, some good for twinks, some for bears.

Tastes differ.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> If you agree with the notion of "hard-wired" elements of attraction, you can't avoid there being a degree of formula to attraction.


Wrong. Because there is this funny little phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, which basically means that our wiring can be altered based on our environment, beliefs, behaviours, attitudes, emotions.

Neurologists even do not try to pretend that there is no individual variation in the structure and function of our neurons.


----------



## samyeagar

I am not sure how to word it to keep things from going back to the individual because again, the formula is not addressing or even being applied to any individual at all.

A simple example of the formula...if I am trying to use a naked picture of myself to elicit a sexual response in women as a whole...having an erection would be more likely to achieve that than if I was flaccid. Of course there will be some women, asexual and lesbian for sure, and even some women who are very hetero and sexual, that neither picture would have much affect on, but I am not interested in any individual woman in particular. If I was, it is still more likely than not to be more appealing being erect, however it would better serve me to find out her individual preferences so I could make a formula specific to her.


----------



## Deejo

samyeagar said:


> I think she's suggesting that the tribes women in Sub-Saharan Africa might not be so swayed by your Aglo demigodhood.


Still don't see what all of the fuss is about.

Whether I drive a Bugati, have broad shoulders, can recite Chaucer, play a mean guitar solo, or have many fat goats ... 

There are cues in any given social structure that factor into determining who and what is attractive, and who I want to have sex with, or who will want to have sex with me. Again, does anyone really want to argue that demonstrating social value is a trigger for sexual attraction?

Hell I knew that even before I bought into self improvement for a better sex life.

Cultural and socio-sexual triggers, cues, and expressions are window dressing. The window ... still remains the biological urge to have sex, whether you choose to reproduce as a result or not.

I feel like we've meandered into weird territory again. Shocking, that.


----------



## samyeagar

Deejo said:


> Still don't see what all of the fuss is about.
> 
> Whether I drive a Bugati, have broad shoulders, can recite Chaucer, play a mean guitar solo, or have many fat goats ...
> 
> There are cues in any given social structure that factor into determining who and what is attractive, and who I want to have sex with, or who will want to have sex with me. Again, does anyone really want to argue that demonstrating social value is a trigger for sexual attraction?
> 
> Hell I knew that even before I bought into self improvement for a better sex life.
> 
> Cultural and socio-sexual triggers, cues, and expressions are window dressing. The window ... still remains the biological urge to have sex, whether you choose to reproduce as a result or not.
> 
> I feel like we've meandered into weird territory again. Shocking, that.


It seems to me that people are arguing past each other. Some are arguing from the perspective of specific individuals, and others are arguing from the group perspective.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> As I said: no one is saying no commonalities exist. Only that people aren't formulaic. So you are misrepresenting the point, and then insulting people for it. We call that a straw man plus ad hominem in logic.


If there are commonalities, then people are necessarily formulaic. If women are more attracted to men who wear red shirts, then any given man who wears a red shirt is more attractive than when he's not wearing a red shirt. If women are attracted to money, then any given man is more attractive with money than without. That there are differences of opinion on other traits does not change the fact that these men are more attractive taking advantage of the commonality than not doing so.

If women have more in common than differences, then a better part of an individual's attraction is going to be influenced by the commonalities than the differences. It's another way of saying there is a set of base traits desired by virtually all women (which really states the obvious, given the female brain is attracted to men - and some set of traits defines man). Another way to say it, is that in the formula of attraction, there are many constants. A man who adapts to the constants, will be more attractive regardless of how he fares on the remaining variables. Doing otherwise is just a crapshoot of chance. For example, once upon a time I tended to appear unhappy, annoyed and unwelcoming - hostile. I sent these signals unknowingly through body language - where I stood, how I stood, folded arms, lack of expressiveness, lack of eye contact. I looked like I didn't want to talk, and so few conversations were had. These are simple social faux pas that apply to men and women and you can find them in virtually any book on socializing. This is an example of getting it wrong on the constants. A woman may have thought I was cute, but was turned off by the way I carried myself. I can say definitively that adjusting that behavior, and others like it - none of which define who I am - and were for the large part unintentional... make a significant difference in virtually all social settings.



always_alone said:


> I'd like to see this research you're talking about how attractive wealth is. I definitely have no trouble believing that some find money to be a sexual kickstart, I don't believe it applies across the board.
> 
> Woman swept away by the poor boy and ditching her rich husband in the process is a pretty common trope as well.


I have no doubt that both can be true. But it is not: Rich > everything the poor boy can bring to the table. Rather, it's just a weighing of unlike things against each other. The poor boy, as attractive as he was, would be even more attractive if he had money. Wealth isn't a trump card for every other trait, but it is a high value card. The constant is that women find wealth attractive, so for the poor boy to be more attractive than the rich man, he must have far exceeded the rich man on some other factors of attraction so as to outweigh wealth.

Here's just a couple links plucked from google on the wealth thing, but its impossible to cite everything I've read on the subject - there are tons of these. It has been shown again and again to apply across the board. Why shouldn't it? All things being equal, having money is better than not having it, no? Makes sense. Yet, when the same studies are done on men, our preferences show little to no correlation to her wealth. But wealth is shown to be one of the top correlations with attraction for females.

https://ideas.repec.org/p/clu/wpaper/1011-06.html

Men attracted to beauty, women to money: study

Women more attracted to men in expensive cars - Telegraph

But really, it's something shown over and over. Sometimes its rating men's attractiveness from pictures with fake career labels (all men do great when they're labeled, "doctor"; lol). Other times it takes the form of a dating game with canned introductions that include name, age, and a fake career. The women are then asked who they found most attractive, who they'd go on a date with, etc. Money is a lock.

Other times wealth is being compared against a number of factors. Wealth/status most often shows the greatest correlation with attractiveness. Women are quizzed before hand to admit their preferences, and money is virtually always given low priority, but their choices reveal this is deception. It's argued that the deception is likely to guard against the social stigma attached to "gold digging".

Earning more is the number one way for a man to improve his attractiveness even as his physical attractiveness falls. Per the first link, the University of Columbia found that a 10 percent increase in body mass index over the male average can be overcome by a 3 percent increase in income above male average. Money is obviously significantly more important to women than BMI. 

It's a thing. Nobody likes to admit it, maybe some don't recognize it, but it's a real thing. Like I said, even myth busters featured it on a show. It was entertaining, and their tests matched the body of existing research. Myth confirmed.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> Wrong. Because there is this funny little phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, which basically means that our wiring can be altered based on our environment, beliefs, behaviours, attitudes, emotions.
> 
> Neurologists even do not try to pretend that there is no individual variation in the structure and function of our neurons.


So, if 19 out of 20 western women say they are attracted to a confident, fit, funny, and gainfully employed man, but one says she prefers shy, socially awkward, over-weight men, that there is no measurable data, trending or representation as a result?


Because whether we are talking about the Masai or 16th century France, there ARE going to be cultural equivalents of social value, what is desirable, and what is not.

I just don't see how arguing that they are different based on different cultures means the hardwiring doesn't exist because it isn't uniform across populations or cultures. Especially given that I thought we had already agreed, it is hardwired.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> Funny, as I was thinking of the very same phenomenon when I was typing my response.
> 
> There is little doubt that this was a sexual response, and millions of young women idolize them. No doubt.
> 
> But a couple of thoughts:
> 1) At that time, girls had pretty much zero outlet for their sexual energy, and this was one place they could express it freely and without repercussions.
> 
> 2) It is not the *musician* that evokes the response, as much as it is the *music*. Music too is very primal, and very sexual, and speaks to the core of ourselves. Music can evoke a sexual response even in the absence of the musician.


You don't have to limit this phenomenon to musicians. It applies to all the stereotypes. When I started racing motorcycles you'd have thought word got out that I had an 8" D***. The college football quarterback has groupies. It's not the music. It's the status. You have a differentiating skill, talent, or mystique that is valued. It's not the result of restricted sexual energy, it still happens today in the same degree in spite of significantly less restriction.

Then there is a synergy of conformity. When everyone else is crazy about something, you're more likely to be crazy about it too. Men and women alike.


----------



## TiggyBlue

How the heck does it always come back to this discussion lol


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> Wrong. Because there is this funny little phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, which basically means that our wiring can be altered based on our environment, beliefs, behaviours, attitudes, emotions.
> 
> Neurologists even do not try to pretend that there is no individual variation in the structure and function of our neurons.


So, someone can make you gay? Can you even will yourself to be gay?

I really didn't take you for one of the people who would support the argument that one can become gay. Reminds me of arguments by people who claim exposure to "gay culture" will make our children gay, or that homosexuality is a choice.

If you're gay, can the gay be taught away? (oh dear.)

I'll grant you some plasticity of the brain, but short of long term child abuse and significant psychological trauma - I'm sorry... nobody is going to change the base elements of attraction between the sexes.

You're really overreaching with neuroplasticity on this one. All to avoid the sense that there is any predictive quality? No one I've ever read believes that everything is dictated by nurture. I think you just don't want there to be any part formula or constants. Like others I've had this discussion with, you probably feel it takes away from your sense of self-determinism; or that you're super special and all your preferences are super unique (the flower), or maybe feeling that you can avoid manipulation and it's about control? 

Everything I've read in psychology appears to indicate that we're not as unique as we like to think we are, and our conscious selves aren't even driving the bus to the degree that we like to believe.


----------



## Deejo

TiggyBlue said:


> How the heck does it always come back to this discussion lol


I didn't do it. I swear ...


----------



## Deejo

I'd like to point out that always and Faithful made this about dudes and gay people ... not me 

I was perfectly happy discussing women who love sex, and those wonderful libido's of theirs.

Let me know if you would like an aisle clean up, or leave our little detour.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> .
> 
> I just don't see how arguing that they are different based on different cultures means the hardwiring doesn't exist because it isn't uniform across populations or cultures. Especially given that I thought we had already agreed, it is hardwired.


What I am saying is that you are overstating the commonalities and the significance of wiring.

Let me put it this way:

I get that if I looked like Kate Upton (or whoever), and oozed sexuality, I would probably have more men hitting on me. Grand. Now let me take this message to heart.

Should I get a boob augmentation to appeal to all those guys who just love big boobs, or a reduction to appeal to all those who find a smaller cup size more attractive? Or maybe just leave them the way they are for those guys who don't care and are focused on my butt, legs, and face? 

Should I be sure to watch my weight carefully and workout regularly for the guys who like an athletic woman? Or allow myself a few cupcakes here and there for a curvier, more cushion for the pushin' experience?

Should I bleach my hair blonde, as we all know blondes have more fun? Or maybe go red for that exotic look? What about those guys who are drawn to brunettes?

Should I be an Asian woman, whould I go for that eye surgery to make them rounder, or is it common enough for guys to be drawn to Asian women? Don't want to be at a disadvantage after all.

As for the face, I get that I absolutely must wear make-up, except for appealing those rare outliers who prefer a cleaner look, and I'm guessing that Tammy Faye Baker is a non-starter. But should I go for the natural look, or a more sculpted one?

Is it worth my time and money to have long, extravagantly decorated nails?

What about dress? Will jeans be okay, or do I need to wear a dress? Always high heels, or is it acceptably attractive to wear workboots and be able to do manual labour? What about those guys who are drawn to princesses? What about those guys who are turned off by them?

I get that as a woman, nothing besides my looks matter, so I won't bother getting into useless fluff issues like whether I should keep studying or dumb myself down. 

So tell me, what's my formula? I've always wanted to be attractive.


----------



## ConanHub

This conversation has become gay.


----------



## always_alone

TiggyBlue said:


> How the heck does it always come back to this discussion lol


Oops sorry Tiggy. I figured it was all on the theme of gender stereotypes, but if you want me to shut up I will.


----------



## NobodySpecial

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> You don't have to limit this phenomenon to musicians. It applies to all the stereotypes. When I started racing motorcycles you'd have thought word got out that I had an 8" D***. The college football quarterback has groupies. It's not the music. It's the status.


If I were a guy, I would not want a woman who was attracted to that.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> So, someone can make you gay? Can you even will yourself to be gay?
> 
> I really didn't take you for one of the people who would support the argument that one can become gay. Reminds me of arguments by people who claim exposure to "gay culture" will make our children gay, or that homosexuality is a choice.


Again, you are misunderstanding me, and so maybe I'm not very clear.

I said flat out that I have no problem acknowledging that sexual orientation is hardwired, and for the record am completely opposed to those programs and attitudes that you mentioned. They are nothing more than bigotry.

What I am saying is that we are individual in who and what we are attracted to. Gay men may all be attracted to men, but they are attracted to different types of men. There is no formula that will guarantee you attractiveness.


----------



## always_alone

NobodySpecial said:


> If I were a guy, I would not want a woman who was attracted to that.


I also think it's a mistake to confuse attraction to wealth and status as *sexual* attraction. Those pretty young things going after the geezer aren't there because they are sexually interested; they just want to be written into the will.

And a lot of groupies are just using sex as a currency to obtain other advantages.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> Again, you are misunderstanding me, and so maybe I'm not very clear.
> 
> I said flat out that I have no problem acknowledging that sexual orientation is hardwired, and for the record am completely opposed to those programs and attitudes that you mentioned. They are nothing more than bigotry.
> 
> What I am saying is that we are individual in who and what we are attracted to. Gay men may all be attracted to men, but they are attracted to different types of men. *There is no formula that will guarantee you attractiveness*.


Nobody has said there is. Not even hinted at a guarantee. I am not sure where you got that idea from?

What HAS been said is that it boils down to a numbers game, and there are indeed certain traits, bit they physical, mental, social, economic, that if one has them, they will be more attractive across a wider spectrum of women than if they didn't have them.


----------



## samyeagar

always_alone said:


> I also think it's a mistake to confuse attraction to wealth and status as *sexual* attraction. Those pretty young things going after the geezer aren't there because they are sexually interested; they just want to be written into the will.
> 
> *And a lot of groupies are just using sex as a currency to obtain other advantages*.


Of course they are, and the rock star is gladly trading those perceived advantages for the sex they desire. Win, win.


----------



## NobodySpecial

always_alone said:


> I also think it's a mistake to confuse attraction to wealth and status as *sexual* attraction. Those pretty young things going after the geezer aren't there because they are sexually interested; they just want to be written into the will.
> 
> And a lot of groupies are just using sex as a currency to obtain other advantages.


Given that this is a board about MARRIAGE I think one thing that might be interesting to comment on is that what maybe attractive for an initial romp, or a short term thing, is not going to necessarily maintain attraction for the long haul. Sorry if that has already been covered. Yah when I look at... what's the actor's name.... the guy who plays Thor, I think Yum.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> If I were a guy, I would not want a woman who was attracted to that.


Status?


----------



## NobodySpecial

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> Status?


Yup.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> I get that as a woman, nothing besides my looks matter, so I won't bother getting into useless fluff issues like whether I should keep studying or dumb myself down.
> 
> So tell me, what's my formula? I've always wanted to be attractive.


Just because looks tend to be high on our scale, doesn't mean there are no other factors. One of the links I sent you also revealed men have an attraction preference for educated women... so clearly not a fluff issue.

But clearly, you should try to look your best if you're concerned with maximizing your attractiveness. Whether that means getting cosmetic surgery or not is your call. My personal opinion is that it's not worth surgery. You don't see me getting hair plugs. 

Staying fit, dressing well and being personable aren't really rocket science. After looks, I'd say the next thing that attracts me is energy... enthusiasm. Who wants to date eeyore? Then intelligence. So we're already two-thirds non-physical.


----------



## NobodySpecial

^^ My 2 cents. If you have a receding hair line, shave it all. Bald is hot.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> Yup.


Why?


----------



## NobodySpecial

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> Why?


Because it is external to ME. I would want someone who was hot for ME, not my car, not my job, not my wallet. I mean really, can I say what I would want if I were a man? I guess not. But it seems to me that the most important sex organ is the brain. If they don't connect, the funky is not that funky. But if you (one ... sounds awkward) just want to get any kind of laid, maybe this would be great.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> ^^ My 2 cents. If you have a receding hair line, shave it all. Bald is hot.


That was my play, but it is a minority preference even now. Fortunately better with age as so many other men started losing their hair too. My hair started receding at 14, so I shaved it by 18. It wasn't really, really bad, but receding hair or even a shaved head at 18 sucks. People assume you're in the military (which would come soon after), or that you're a skinhead.

Several of those I've dated admitted to having had reservations about my head when I was younger. Far fewer as I've aged. If it remained as negative a trait as it was as a teen, I might have considered getting something done.

Now, I just roll like Lex Luthor. The purple shirt/vest is my Lex Luthor Halloween pic. My friends and I all went out as comic book villains, and the ladies as superheroes.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> What I am saying is that you are overstating the commonalities and the significance of wiring.
> 
> Let me put it this way:
> 
> I get that if I looked like....


I think you raise a good question and I honestly don't know the answer, so I'm not trying to be dogmatic. For any given trait you've listed you will get the attention of a few. Formulas, (If I understand them correctly) are about combining and accentuating your best qualities in the most advantageous way you can.

I think I was about 17 or so the first time I noticed a woman staring at my hands in public. Okay, not all women like hands, but a few certainly seem to and that's a good reason for a man's hands to be well kept.

Not too long after that, I saw a man speaking extemporaneously at a social event. He was very good at it and I literally saw shivers go down the spines of a few women in the audience. Okay, not all women like eloquent speeches, but a few certainly seemed to and that's a good reason for a man not to be shy and tongue-tied in public.

Does this make any sense at all, or am I just babbling?


----------



## NobodySpecial

We don't do skin heads in NE. They just don't happen.


----------



## NobodySpecial

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> That was my play, but it is a minority preference even now. Fortunately better with age as so many other men started losing their hair too. My hair started receding at 14, so I shaved it by 18. It wasn't really, really bad, but receding hair or even a shaved head at 18 sucks. People assume you're in the military (which would come soon after), or that you're a skinhead.
> 
> Several of those I've dated admitted to having had reservations about my head when I was younger. Far fewer as I've aged. If it remained as negative a trait as it was as a teen, I might have considered getting something done.
> 
> Now, I just roll like Lex Luthor. The purple shirt/vest is my Lex Luthor Halloween pic. My friends and I all went out as comic book villains, and the ladies as superheroes.


Wait. Is that you? You are super young. Or is my lack of pop culture showing? Cuz I am ... like... old.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> Because it is external to ME. I would want someone who was hot for ME, not my car, not my job, not my wallet. I mean really, can I say what I would want if I were a man? I guess not. But it seems to me that the most important sex organ is the brain. If they don't connect, the funky is not that funky. But if you (one ... sounds awkward) just want to get any kind of laid, maybe this would be great.


Oh, I don't know. I think men tend to evaluate themselves and other men on their accomplishments (a la status). Our identity is very much attached to it. Car, wallet etc are just symbols of success... derived from what we do. I think most of us take great pride in what we do and judge ourselves on it. Can't say I've had the conversation, but that's my intuition on it. My identity and even sense of worth to a degree is very much wrapped up in all the things I do.

It's a little nuanced, but I don't think a woman is really in it for the car even though it appears that way on the surface. It's that the car signals his ambition - his unwillingness to settle for less, his desire to work and excel. The man who goes and gets what he wants.

More than the actual material, it's a sign that the guy has his sh*t together. I can't rip a woman for wanting that. It makes sense to me.


----------



## NobodySpecial

^^ Maybe I am one of those outliers that I keep hearing about. But the fact that my husband DOESN'T judge himself this ways is one of the things I love. He judges himself on character and integrity. It can be tough because who can live up to that kind of pressure. But that is where his focus lies. I love that.


----------



## NobodySpecial

Oh and to take that one step further, I actively seek to limit esteem based on accomplishment with my kids. Not the phoney baloney everyone is a winner bull****. But a real honest sense that their selves are awesome. This opens the door to really seeing failure as a learning opp. The accomplishment highs and lows are less daunting when they see their worth in terms of their character.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> Wait. Is that you? You are super young. Or is my lack of pop culture showing? Cuz I am ... like... old.


ha... I'm creeping up on 40! With the exception of my hair, I probably only look young because I'm slim.


----------



## NobodySpecial

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> ha... I'm creeping up on 40! With the exception of my hair, I probably only look young because I'm slim.


Creeping up on 40. Must be nice.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> ^^ Maybe I am one of those outliers that I keep hearing about. But the fact that my husband DOESN'T judge himself this ways is one of the things I love. He judges himself on character and integrity. It can be tough because who can live up to that kind of pressure. But that is where his focus lies. I love that.


Yeah, I'm not judging either as good or bad. Just that I think men wrap themselves up a good deal in their accomplishments. I tend to thrive under pressure. Expectations can be tough when you fall short, but they keep me striving and ambitious - so you just get back up and have another go.

The thing about character and integrity is that they aren't big show-ers. I know status-symbols (ie motorcycle racing or my car) have played a part in getting the attention of some women - both good and bad. But I'm not entirely sure how a man goes about getting a woman's attention with character and integrity.

Reminds me of Chris Rock criticizing those who congratulate men who take care of their kids. Aren't you supposed to do that? Aren't you supposed to have character and integrity? I get it in the sense that many don't have it, and hell I know I've failed at critical moments, but still... the notion of praising doing what you're supposed to do always struck me funny.

(warning, it's Chris Rock... lot's of cursing and n-word)
I Take Care Of My Kids - YouTube


----------



## NobodySpecial

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> Yeah, I'm not judging either as good or bad. Just that I think men wrap themselves up a good deal in their accomplishments. I tend to thrive under pressure. Expectations can be tough when you fall short, but they keep me striving and ambitious - so you just get back up and have another go.
> 
> The thing about character and integrity is that they aren't big show-ers. I know status-symbols (ie motorcycle racing or my car) have played a part in getting the attention of some women - both good and bad. But I'm not entirely sure how a man goes about getting a woman's attention with character and integrity.


I guess it comes down to what you want. My husband is a damned fine looking man. And sure, 25 years ago, that was appealing. It does not hurt today. But it does not a keeper make.



> Reminds me of Chris Rock criticizing those who congratulate men who take care of their kids. Aren't you supposed to do that? Aren't you supposed to have character and integrity?


Well, right? Still so many of us don't. You see all the time here talking about "men" and "women". Sorry I don't care what gender that person you are talking about is. S/he he is a JERK. It is not a gender thing. If you marry a selfish ahole, then a selfish ahole is what you get.




> I get it in the sense that many don't have it,


You know, I could have read on. I didn't.



> and hell I know I've failed at critical moments, but still... the notion of praising doing what you're supposed to do always struck me funny.
> 
> (warning, it's Chris Rock... lot's of cursing and n-word)
> I Take Care Of My Kids - YouTube


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> Creeping up on 40. Must be nice.


lol not so much. I gather it doesn't get better.


----------



## ocotillo

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> lol not so much. I gather it doesn't get better.


It doesn't


----------



## NobodySpecial

ocotillo said:


> It doesn't


Puh. I am pushing 50. I still get carded. I told someone my age at work recently. She was aghast. I am smarter, sexier and more clued in than ever before. Bring it.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> What I am saying is that you are overstating the commonalities and the significance of wiring.
> 
> Let me put it this way:
> 
> I get that if I looked like Kate Upton (or whoever), and oozed sexuality, I would probably have more men hitting on me. Grand. Now let me take this message to heart.
> 
> Should I get a boob augmentation to appeal to all those guys who just love big boobs, or a reduction to appeal to all those who find a smaller cup size more attractive? Or maybe just leave them the way they are for those guys who don't care and are focused on my butt, legs, and face?
> 
> Should I be sure to watch my weight carefully and workout regularly for the guys who like an athletic woman? Or allow myself a few cupcakes here and there for a curvier, more cushion for the pushin' experience?
> 
> Should I bleach my hair blonde, as we all know blondes have more fun? Or maybe go red for that exotic look? What about those guys who are drawn to brunettes?
> 
> Should I be an Asian woman, whould I go for that eye surgery to make them rounder, or is it common enough for guys to be drawn to Asian women? Don't want to be at a disadvantage after all.
> 
> As for the face, I get that I absolutely must wear make-up, except for appealing those rare outliers who prefer a cleaner look, and I'm guessing that Tammy Faye Baker is a non-starter. But should I go for the natural look, or a more sculpted one?
> 
> Is it worth my time and money to have long, extravagantly decorated nails?
> 
> What about dress? Will jeans be okay, or do I need to wear a dress? Always high heels, or is it acceptably attractive to wear workboots and be able to do manual labour? What about those guys who are drawn to princesses? What about those guys who are turned off by them?
> 
> I get that as a woman, nothing besides my looks matter, so I won't bother getting into useless fluff issues like whether I should keep studying or dumb myself down.
> 
> So tell me, what's my formula? I've always wanted to be attractive.


Maybe, just maybe this is where we are tripping up?

I understand that there can be some indignance about being broken down into parts, objectified, categorized or believing that man only want you for your t!ts and ass. 

But that certainly isn't where I was coming from, or what the conversation was/is about. At least not from my perspective.

I'm guessing we're going all the way back to this quote on pg. 17?



Deejo said:


> Do I buy into all of it? No, I don't.
> But based upon my own personal discovery of just how wonderfully and incredibly sexual, women can be, I just don't think there is much denying that what makes someone sexual ... is not a unique set of ephemeral gifts and attributes. In fact they are quite formulaic.
> 
> And I don't think that's a bad thing for either gender.



I absolutely believe sexuality is formulaic. That doesn't mean there is just one formula. Hell what I describe as my transition doesn't have anything even to do with changing the way I look, other than trying to keep my waist at or below 34". I'm the exact same guy I was 10, even 20 years ago. But I have certainly changed the way I behave, and a LOT of that has to do with how I view women ... particularly when it comes to sex.

If you are a woman and you want a formula for increasing your sexuality? Hell you don't need a boob job, I bet a woman who simply knew how to flirt or interact would be as successful if not more than a set of Kate Upton boobs. 

I have no problem with individual preferences either. I'll take Caity Lotz over Kate Upton any day of the week. 

My sexual attraction, your sexual attraction may be individual. But ... as most folks here have been saying, it is more likely than not, that what we find sexual or attractive, more than likely overlaps with others than is different or unique.

And I don't have a problem with that ... is basically what I was trying to express. But somehow we ended up off on a very far ranging tangent.

I believe we are geared to pursue, have sex, and make babies. Doesn't mean we have to, doesn't mean everyone wants to ... but it is the mean. It is the standard. Take that standard away and biologically we become a dead end.

Which is why culturally, I don't understand the desire to paint women as lacking in the same sexual motivation as men.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> I guess it comes down to what you want. My husband is a damned fine looking man. And sure, 25 years ago, that was appealing. It does not hurt today. But it does not a keeper make.
> 
> 
> Well, right? Still so many of us don't. You see all the time here talking about "men" and "women". Sorry I don't care what gender that person you are talking about is. S/he he is a JERK. It is not a gender thing. If you marry a selfish ahole, then a selfish ahole is what you get.


I agree. I'm well aware of my own failings in that regard. But even so, I can't conceive of how anyone goes about being attracted to character and integrity. It's rather an active process of rejecting on the basis of evidence of lack of character. I don't think women go "omg he didn't lie to me, he's so hot". His not lying is expected, and it's only when he is shown to be lying that drives a significant response.

After years of being with someone, one can say that character and integrity were really important - but that's more like appreciate than attraction... and I'm not sure how one says character and integrity *attracted* them. Do you follow what I'm trying to say or am I over thinking it? 

Even a liar is telling the truth most of the time, and I think one is generally believed to have character and integrity until proven otherwise.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

NobodySpecial said:


> Puh. I am pushing 50. I still get carded. I told someone my age at work recently. She was aghast. I am smarter, sexier and more clued in than ever before. Bring it.


There ya go. This attitude is attractive. :smthumbup:


----------



## ocotillo

NobodySpecial said:


> Puh. I am pushing 50. I still get carded.


Wow! I'm impressed.


----------



## ConanHub

I still get carded but only if I get lots of sleep and shave.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> I think you raise a good question and I honestly don't know the answer, so I'm not trying to be dogmatic. For any given trait you've listed you will get the attention of a few. Formulas, (If I understand them correctly) are about combining and accentuating your best qualities in the most advantageous way you can.


I think formula is the word I'm tripping on. Yes, some women love hands. Yes some women love eloquent speeches. But it doesn't mean that having bumpy hands or not being a big talker necessarily makes you less attractive. 

A smooth talker, for example, can be a big turn off.

A formula to me is a very specific thing: mix 2 parts of a with one part of b and 3 parts of course, and you get the same fabulous result every time. Or plug in your variables, and churn out a consistent solution every time.

My only point is that these things are different for different people, and sometimes others seem to be agreeing with me --and then they go back to saying there is some sort of formula. To me these things just don't go together.

But maybe I'm the one babbling.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> If you are a woman and you want a formula for increasing your sexuality? Hell you don't need a boob job, I bet a woman who simply knew how to flirt or interact would be as successful if not more than a set of Kate Upton boobs.


Oh, well I'm doomed then. A boob job I can purchase, but personality doesn't come at any price.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> But even so, I can't conceive of how anyone goes about being attracted to character and integrity.


Character is freaking hot! Some faces have so much depth, so much character etched into them, I can't even imagine how you can miss it. It is in the whole look, stance, vibe of the person. Give me character over some bland pretty boy, "perfect" ideal features any day. 

See, to me, formula is distinctly *un*attractive.

Integrity is harder, I'll give you that, because it is not obvious on the surface. And it isn't enough to simply not lie. It is to not lie when telling the truth will cost you, but you do it anyway because it's the right thing to do. It is so rare and precious, so overlooked and undervalued. And just so beautiful to witness, I feel privileged when I catch that rare glimpse.

Integrity will always get a second look from me.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> It's not the result of restricted sexual energy, it still happens today in the same degree in spite of significantly less restriction.


Nowhere near to the same degree. The Beatles refuse to play any more live shows because they couldn't stand the screaming. They were being drowned out by it. No captain of the football team or motorcycle racer has ever seen anything even remotely close.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> Which is why culturally, I don't understand the desire to paint women as lacking in the same sexual motivation as men.


The desire to paint women as lacking in sexual motivation comes from the exact same place as all these other "truths" on this thread: gender stereotypes about sex.

"Women aren't interested in sex" comes from the exact same place as "women are attracted to security and wealth". Indeed, the two assertions are rooted in exactly the same bs theories and crap empirical research.

And yet one can be challenged. Why not the other?

The way I see it both are wrong for exactly the same reasons: Yes, they are true for certain groups under certain artificial circumstances, but when you look at the broader picture, they cannot be applied across the board.

Stereotypes make it seem like things are much truer than they really are. I still think you underestimate the differences and the outliers.

But I am totally spinning my wheels now, so ...


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> Should I bleach my hair blonde, as we all know blondes have more fun?


As a brunette who tried being blonde, I don't recommend it. Turns out the myth was wrong! *gasp* I realize you aren't really asking the question though. Blonde was something I'd wanted to try since being a teen so as a 30-something, I finally did. Sitting at the salon once a month, having chemicals put on my hair, and costing a fair bit of money to boot, isn't my idea of fun. Each to their own. My husband didn't hide the fact that he likes my healthy, brunette hair but understood that I was curious. Once the novelty wore off, I realized it wasn't my best look but it's just hair and I gave it a try. The shiny, brunette hair is back to stay. 

I'm one that likes wearing make-up. Heels, lingerie, yes I embrace these things too. I'm also keen to get back to the gym to lift weights as well. I find it empowering, is great for stress, I feel healthier, and yes, I think strong, healthy women look hot. 

Except for the bleaching of my hair, because I'm far more suited as a brunette, some of these things are indeed related to feeling sexually attractive however I'm not the type that warrants obvious attention - it's for how I feel within myself. And sure, I know my husband finds some of these things sexually attractive too. I also know that it's more the intention behind these actions that he's more interested in. Heck, we didn't even know what one another looked like before we met. We were drawn to each other through voices/personality and flirtation first off. 

I like to look nice and make no apologies for that. What looking nice means can vary on a given day, whether jeans, sneakers and a sweater, or a wrap dress. I'm aware of how I hold myself with different outfits. How I'm feeling doesn't just stem from how I externally present but at times, there is a relationship between my mood and how I've decided to present to the world. 

We all have preferences cultivated through popular culture and our own experiences of what is sexually attractive to us on a physical level. For relationships, there's a combination of the physical and mental/emotional that maketh the sexy.


----------



## heartsbeating

I dug the mention of music in this thread... and agree with always. Music itself can touch and stir something deep inside us - the celebration, the vulnerability, the stillness and joy. 


I was driving with the windows down, listening to this and it had me feeling all mhm, yeah. 
Jack White - I'm Shakin


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> I think formula is the word I'm tripping on. Yes, some women love hands. Yes some women love eloquent speeches. But it doesn't mean that having bumpy hands or not being a big talker necessarily makes you less attractive.
> 
> A smooth talker, for example, can be a big turn off.
> 
> A formula to me is a very specific thing: mix 2 parts of a with one part of b and 3 parts of course, and you get the same fabulous result every time. Or plug in your variables, and churn out a consistent solution every time.
> 
> My only point is that these things are different for different people, and sometimes others seem to be agreeing with me --and then they go back to saying there is some sort of formula. To me these things just don't go together.
> 
> But maybe I'm the one babbling.


Mind if I babble along with you? Although I may well be getting extremely side-tracked here. ...Squirrel! ....Bear with me, but commercial pop songs indeed follow a formula to sell. And, it works for the masses. Heck, I'm not immune to it. 

Then we have musicians who are less likely to follow (or even actively resist) a formula and instead come from a place of artistic expression and authenticity and without the machine behind them, often there's a smaller audience as a result. On occasion, the two can intertwine and/or cross over to different audiences.

In the culture I've been raised in, I think there are several 'formulas' that we've been sold as to what entices attraction amongst us. Maybe some avoid this all together, while others tap into elements. What's the intention behind it all? 

I've read thoughts that I've not felt aligned with but my perception of deejo and dvls is this - their intention resides with who they want to be for themselves and not necessarily what they can 'gain' from another. At least, that's the way I read them. I think on some level, we all know what has broad appeal and either refuse that or tap into some elements and it contributes to our social skills.


----------



## always_alone

heartsbeating said:


> As a brunette who tried being blonde, I don't recommend it. Turns out the myth was wrong! *gasp*


I was a bleach blonde at one point, and I did get quite a bit of male attention for it. But it was the sort of attention no one really wants: cat calls, sleazy come-ons, lots of guys assuming I was a ditz and a ****. In short, a bunch of people flinging their stereotypes at me.

If that's what they call "more fun", they can have it.


----------



## always_alone

heartsbeating said:


> I've read thoughts that I've not felt aligned with but my perception of deejo and dvls is this - their intention resides with who they want to be for themselves and not necessarily what they can 'gain' from another. At least, that's the way I read them. I think on some level, we all know what has broad appeal and either refuse that or tap into some elements and it contributes to our social skills.


I have no issues with self-improvement. I respect it!

And whenever they talk about things like being healthy, taking care of oneself, not being a total douche, I even agree with them. These basic social niceties, if ignored, will probably make you less attractive.

But I see this as a human thing, not a gender thing. It's once they start flinging the gender stereotypes around, and act as though only the tiniest percentage escapes them, is when I start disagreeing.

Formulaic things like pop music may have large audiences but they are flash in the pan, in one day out the next. Niche genres that are beyond that box may appeal to a smaller audience, but when you start counting up how many niches there are, the numbers are not trivial.

Justin Bieber for example had huge appeal among the prepubescent set, and made millions. Jazz has a much, much smaller audience. But if you add up all the people who couldn't care less about Justin Bieber and preferred jazz, classical, world, folk, and other niche genres, all of a sudden Justin seems a whole lot less impressive.

Deejo and Dvl's are only interested in a very narrow demographic. Which is fine, of course, their choice. But they both seem to think that demographic is representative of all women everywhere, which I find a bit ridiculous.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> Justin Bieber for example had huge appeal among the prepubescent set, and made millions. Jazz has a much, much smaller audience. But if you add up all the people who couldn't care less about Justin Bieber and preferred jazz, classical, world, folk, and other niche genres, all of a sudden Justin seems a whole lot less impressive.


Would you agree that music, because of its power can be crafted in subtle and not so subtle ways to have a sexual appeal? The lyrics can range from mildly suggestive to overtly sexual. The artist may dress, dance or just move in certain ways on stage. One thing I've noticed with female artists, is that their breathing is sometimes accentuated in the recording rather than being masked out. It's a pretty obvious sexual innuendo when you listen for it, but how many people consciously do?

I know that as a 14 year old, I did not fully understand why Bobbie Gentry's song, Ode to Billie Joe was getting under my skin.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> Would you agree that music, because of its power can be crafted in subtle and not so subtle ways to have a sexual appeal?


Yes, absolutely. Did I not say this explicitly in another post? :scratchhead:

A lot of music is very sexual. And it doesn't even need lyrics or dancing or breathiness to be so; it's often right there in in the rhythm.

Drums alone can be ultra sexy.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> Yes, absolutely. Did I not say this explicitly in another post? :scratchhead:


Yes you did. Most explicitly. I even clicked the, 'Like' button 

I think perhaps I've misunderstood where you were going with the contrast between people like Bieber who is far more a stage performer than a musician or composer vs. musical genres like Jazz and Classical where the emphasis seems to be weighted in exactly the opposite direction.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> Yes you did. Most explicitly. I even clicked the, 'Like' button
> 
> I think perhaps I've misunderstood where you were going with the contrast between people like Bieber who is far more a stage performer than a musician or composer vs. musical genres like Jazz and Classical where the emphasis seems to be weighted in exactly the opposite direction.


Yes, to be sure. I am reluctant to even put "Bieber" and "musician" in the same sentence.

But what I was getting at was simply an analogy. Just because something, pop music or a pretty face, is popular in the mainstream doesn't mean that it necessarily has sufficiently broad appeal to count as a standard by which the rest can be judged. Or a mean on a normal bell curve, with only a tiny amount of outliers on the tails.

Who even says the distribution is normal at all?

Take another example. Of any rock band, the Rolling Stones probably have pretty broad appeal, and no doubt Mick Jagger, even today, has no shortage of groupies willing to have sex with him. But ask women on the street, and you'll probably find that most of them think he is way too old and/or butt ugly, not to mention narcissistic a$$.

So maybe being a famous musician ups his attractiveness quotient, but not enough to sway what I'm betting to be the majority of women.

Of course, if groupie is the demographic you're chasing, you're golden.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> But what I was getting at was simply an analogy....


Okay, I see now. Thank you.

I've tried very hard, but I'm still not real good at seeing things from the opposite perspective.

I would say that Paul McCartney, for example had/has a style and a charm about him that Mick Jagger never had and at 70+, never will have. Both men had musical talent, but that was only one facet of their appeal.

Between the two, I would say that the Beatles were much better at directing the sexual energy their music released back towards themselves. Even today, the pictures are quite striking.


----------



## Faithful Wife

I saw an interview with Ringo once where he said that there were plenty of young boys screaming at them, too...and yes, they understood these boys were gay.


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> Formulaic things like pop music may have large audiences but they are flash in the pan, in one day out the next. Niche genres that are beyond that box may appeal to a smaller audience, but when you start counting up how many niches there are, the numbers are not trivial.


I agree with this.

Although I don't consider formulas (or patterns may be a more suited word), as flash in the pan simply because there is mass appeal attached. 

My train of thought is that we, as a society, are sold patterns. Perhaps to keep a certain group dominant, because there's profit to be made, and to keep institutions nourished. Not that I'm cynical or anything. Is this where I place a winky emoticon?

Funny thing is, once we make up various groups of niches - those of us who like jazz, those of us who like alternative rock etc. within those niches, patterns can be formed too. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with this from here. 

Yeah, some women love and want sex.


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> But what I was getting at was simply an analogy. Just because something, pop music or a pretty face, is popular in the mainstream doesn't mean that it necessarily has sufficiently broad appeal to count as a standard by which the rest can be judged. Or a mean on a normal bell curve, with only a tiny amount of outliers on the tails.


Well, unless you buy into what's been sold and following the mainstream without question.


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> Deejo and Dvl's are only interested in a very narrow demographic. Which is fine, of course, their choice. But they both seem to think that demographic is representative of all women everywhere, which I find a bit ridiculous.


Maybe I've not paid close enough attention but I wouldn't know what Deejo and Dvls' demographic included and thought it was more what they have found works for them - the changes they have brought about and how that has resulted in a different outcome in their lives. 

I do think there's certain patterns whereby the outcome can be largely predictable.


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> Drums alone can be ultra sexy.


oh, absolutely agree!


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



heartsbeating said:


> Maybe I've not paid close enough attention but I wouldn't know what Deejo and Dvls' demographic included and thought it was more what they have found works for them - the changes they have brought about and how that has resulted in a different outcome in their lives.
> 
> I do think there's certain patterns whereby the outcome can be largely predictable.


Which was really the only point I was ever trying to make. Apparently my 'demographic' is women who really dig sex. Whom according to this thread, is most women. 

Which of course means ... Deejo appeals to most women. 

The logic is flawless.


----------



## heartsbeating

Deejo said:


> Which was really the only point I was ever trying to make. Apparently my 'demographic' is women who really dig sex. Whom according to this thread, is most women.
> 
> Which of course means ... Deejo appeals to most women.
> 
> The logic is flawless.


oh beHAVE!


----------



## ConanHub

Deejo said:


> Which was really the only point I was ever trying to make. Apparently my 'demographic' is women who really dig sex. Whom according to this thread, is most women.
> 
> Which of course means ... Deejo appeals to most women.
> 
> The logic is flawless.


Can't argue with logic you scoundrel!&#55357;&#56833;
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Deejo

heartsbeating said:


> oh beHAVE!


----------



## heartsbeating




----------



## heartsbeating

Sorry TiggyBlue... it's hard to resist a .gif


----------



## TiggyBlue

I'm always up for a gif off lol


----------



## always_alone

But is anyone going to tell me what these predictable patterns and outcomes are? Or are you all just going to taunt me?

Should I be reading Cosmo and taking notes from Kim Kardashian?


----------



## Faithful Wife

Always, I think the formulas and patterns are the ones that have already been discussed ad naseaum.

You know, men like a .7 hip to waist ratio. Women like a golden triangle. Men like anyone with said hip ratio, women like men with money more than others but less than men with golden ratios unless the money exceeds X amount. Women can be teased and played into wanting sex with any guy though if he knows all those correct limbic system punch codes, those are part of the formulas so many men have put so much time and effort into finding out so they can write books like MMSL and The Game. Because their whole point is "these things will work on most women therefore your chances of getting laid are higher on average if you use these formulas".


----------



## always_alone

Faithful Wife said:


> Always, I think the formulas and patterns are the ones that have already been discussed ad naseaum.


Yeah, that's what I thought. 

I was just hoping to cash in on some of this predictability ...


----------



## ChristianGrey

Anyone who claims to understand women is a pretender, if not an outright liar.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> Should I be reading Cosmo and taking notes from Kim Kardashian?


Well, she did break the internet.

And here's the thing. 

Let's say ... crazy as it may sound, that you DID decide to emulate Kim Kardashian.

Yes, seriously.

Makeup, hair, clothing, and some magical workout that gave you her boobs and hips.
Do you think the net impact would be more men taking a sexual interest in you, or fewer men taking a sexual interest in you?

We can leave out that neither you nor I find her attractive.


Clinical studies or no, this isn't rocket surgery people.

You know what's sexy?

Sex.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Deejo said:


> Clinical studies or no, this isn't rocket surgery people.


Right. It is the same principals that women use to get money and gifts out of men in exchange for the hope of sex (and usually not actually having sex, because a gal doesn't need to lock herself down with just one when so many are willing to shell out). It is the same principals which cause women to get bored with nice guys and cheat on them (it's right there laid out for you in MMSL). It's the same principals which cause women to turn their heads at tall, buff dudes, but not short bald dudes (but if the short bald dude has a fat wallet, she'll be happy to spend some time with him, until she gets bored). It's not rocket surgery (Deejo's term, I like it), it's right here all around us, every day. Especially at TAM. You can even test it by taking surveys and putting research dollars into it. It is all very simple.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> I think formula is the word I'm tripping on. Yes, some women love hands. Yes some women love eloquent speeches. But it doesn't mean that having bumpy hands or not being a big talker necessarily makes you less attractive.
> 
> A smooth talker, for example, can be a big turn off.
> 
> A formula to me is a very specific thing: mix 2 parts of a with one part of b and 3 parts of course, and you get the same fabulous result every time. Or plug in your variables, and churn out a consistent solution every time.
> 
> My only point is that these things are different for different people, and sometimes others seem to be agreeing with me --and then they go back to saying there is some sort of formula. To me these things just don't go together.
> 
> But maybe I'm the one babbling.


It all depends on how common the preference is. Some things are safe bets. It's safe to say that even toned, blemish free, youthful skin is most attractive. Even as we age, it is those with fewer marks and lines in comparison to their like age peers that people tend to prefer. You might think of such age-related things as attractive "character", but only in comparison to like age peers. Sean Connery for example has weathered nicely, but judging skin, he's just not as attractive as say, David Beckham.

Skin quality is one of those preferences we're hard wired for by evolution. So too is whiteness of the eyes. There may of course be an extreme minority that prefers warted, discolored, wrinkly skin and yellowed eyes, but they are so few as to not really matter to the "formula". They're insignificant.

If by use of the word formula, you're seeking mathematical certainty... success in every conceivable case, then yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to formula in the layman's sense, such as diversified investment being a key element of the *formula* for success and wealth. Conceivably, your investments could still go bad - it's just unlikely.

There are basic rules of attraction that apply to the vast majority. There is formula. "Everyone" likes a nice set of pearly white teeth.


----------



## NobodySpecial

See this whole conversation is baffling to me. Why would anyone seek to achieve so little from each other?


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> Nowhere near to the same degree. The Beatles refuse to play any more live shows because they couldn't stand the screaming. They were being drowned out by it. No captain of the football team or motorcycle racer has ever seen anything even remotely close.


The New Kids on the Block still tour, and sell out most places they go. 30-something year old women in attendance acting like teenage girls. Those women aren't going nuts because these guys are actually hot today. They go nuts because of the status attached to fond childhood memories. It's all about the status. 

Beatles, monkeys, NKOTB, Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Justin Beiber etc etc... Same sh*t, different decade. The beatles were just breaking ground. The beatles are all on record as admitting they were practically invisible to women before hitting it big.

You don't really see that in men's response to women, or at least, to that degree. Sure, we might like the current celeb hotty, but I'd argue we'd be just as attracted to her without her celebrity (airbrushing and movie magic excepted). All of the members of the boy bands above? Most of them are likely invisible to most women if not for the status. Sure, a few are good looking guys, but I doubt even their no status selves would get the attention from women that an unknown Mila Cunis or Megan Fox would still get from men. Conjecture on my part... but I know several guys who the girls I know say are good looking, but these guys claim to receive little female interest. Hell, I'm regularly told I'm quite attractive - some have even said so on this forum - but I don't get a lot of unsolicited interest (that is, someone appearing to show interest where my looks are the only available info). In contrast, women rarely say the same. The women my friends and I collectively judge as most attractive are the most likely to say they are regularly hit on, even bothered by men doing so. It's hilarious, because these women will say things like, "It sucks, because you have to be a b*tch. You have to be careful who you even smile at." That says to me that men will read virtually anything as "interest", and yet, most I know report little interest - even those I'm told are good looking. 

But back to status, honestly, none of my guy friends really care what she does... we're status agnostic. Waitress? Lawyer? Doesn't really matter. She's just as hot either way. The same does not hold for women of men.

I can't really help but conclude that "being something" holds greater weight for women than it does for men. Is there something you think I'm misreading?


----------



## Deejo

NobodySpecial said:


> See this whole conversation is baffling to me. Why would anyone seek to achieve so little from each other?


So little what?

I keep trying to circle back to where Tiggy started the thread; the pervasive belief that men want sex or are way more sexual than women.

And we have overwhelmingly heard that this is incorrect.

15 years ago if you were to tell me that some women pursue men for nothing more than sex, I would have felt compelled to disagree and uphold the notion that women were 'above' that kind of behavior.

Now? I can tell you based upon lots of conversations, and no small measure of personal experience that indeed, sometimes women don't care about whether or not you can meet their deepest needs ... or even hold a half interesting conversation, they just want you. And they make no secret of it.

I don't know how ready folks are to _celebrate_ that kind of openness.

Still feels like we want women to be sexual, but not too sexual ...

Talk about your mixed messages.

But as far as what makes us want sex with a particular partner of either gender?

There's going to be something, whether it's big brains, big heart, big boobs or a toned butt.

Don't know why that should be a source of disagreement?


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> The desire to paint women as lacking in sexual motivation comes from the exact same place as all these other "truths" on this thread: gender stereotypes about sex.
> 
> "Women aren't interested in sex" comes from the exact same place as "women are attracted to security and wealth". Indeed, the two assertions are rooted in exactly the same bs theories and crap empirical research.
> 
> And yet one can be challenged. Why not the other?
> 
> The way I see it both are wrong for exactly the same reasons: Yes, they are true for certain groups under certain artificial circumstances, but when you look at the broader picture, they cannot be applied across the board.
> 
> Stereotypes make it seem like things are much truer than they really are. I still think you underestimate the differences and the outliers.
> 
> But I am totally spinning my wheels now, so ...


Why do you again argue against the wealth/status preference in spite of evidence? Women's preference for wealth/status is as close to fact as you're going to find in behavioral sciences. Nearly all women find a man more attractive if he is presented as having a career associated with wealth/status. This is repeatedly demonstrated fact. Yes, apply it across the board. The research shows VERY few exceptions. Even women who claimed to not be influenced by money, were proven to be influenced by money.

The argument of some that women aren't interested in sex doesn't have such support. Research seems to indicate that women want sex about as much as men (which I find strange, given the link between testosterone and sex drive). Yet many men still perceive a difference in sexual interest between the sexes. My personal theory is that it has to do with the conditions required prior to sex (not proven), social stigmas (proven), and there is some evidence that women are more selective than men - the notion that a minority of men elicit sexual desire from women, while the rest do not (at least to such an obvious degree) - thereby creating the appearance of lesser desire from a average male point of reference (ie - not the minority share of males getting the majority of interest). Or perhaps it's simply the result of men pursing sex based on appearance, while women being more reluctant to pursue sex based soley on appearance.

I don't really know, but a whole lot of men agree with this notion that women aren't as sexually interested. Just to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, is it all imagined? Where do you think this notion comes from?

My own experience has been of women not really preferring detached sex, but most still sleeping with me on the first date. Hard to describe, but there's usually a good indication that they want the whole serious relationship thing. ONS are rare. FWBs are rare. I'm perfectly happy however sex comes, and that's what I gather from most of my friends. The majority of females appear to rule out sex in preference for other conditions, but once those conditions are met, hold on for the ride - by then, I might even judge them to be a bit more sexual than I am.

My only long term example turned out to be a dud after about 6 years though.


----------



## Deejo

Faithful Wife said:


> Right. It is the same principals that women use to get money and gifts out of men in exchange for the hope of sex (and usually not actually having sex, because a gal doesn't need to lock herself down with just one when so many are willing to shell out). It is the same principals which cause women to get bored with nice guys and cheat on them (it's right there laid out for you in MMSL). It's the same principals which cause women to turn their heads at tall, buff dudes, but not short bald dudes (but if the short bald dude has a fat wallet, she'll be happy to spend some time with him, until she gets bored). It's not rocket surgery (Deejo's term, I like it), it's right here all around us, every day. Especially at TAM. You can even test it by taking surveys and putting research dollars into it. It is all very simple.


If I didn't know you better, I might think that your post drips with mockery and sarcasm.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Not at all Deejo...as you and I both know...all of those things I said are true and measurable, right alongside the fact that Kim Kardashian is a mega-hottie due to her waist hip ratio, lips, eyes, hair, etc. Very simple formula. And it is the same formula for all of us. There's no one who escapes it, it is biological, proven, formulaic, and most of all....SCIENCE!!!!


----------



## ocotillo

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> Beatles, monkeys, NKOTB, Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Justin Beiber etc etc... Same sh*t, different decade.


Beiber seems to be suffering somewhat from "Macaulay Culkin" syndrome. (i.e. Charming boy morphs into not so charming man.) 

The Beatles were on the cusp of a cultural shift and that's a part of their appeal that's probably not reproducible. People were literally pulling their cars over to the side of the road and stopping when they heard their music for the first time.


----------



## NobodySpecial

Deejo said:


> So little what?
> 
> I keep trying to circle back to where Tiggy started the thread; the pervasive belief that men want sex or are way more sexual than women.
> 
> And we have overwhelmingly heard that this is incorrect.
> 
> 15 years ago if you were to tell me that some women pursue men for nothing more than sex, I would have felt compelled to disagree and uphold the notion that women were 'above' that kind of behavior.
> 
> Now? I can tell you based upon lots of conversations, and no small measure of personal experience that indeed, sometimes women don't care about whether or not you can meet their deepest needs ... or even hold a half interesting conversation, they just want you. And they make no secret of it.
> 
> I don't know how ready folks are to _celebrate_ that kind of openness.
> 
> *Still feels like we want women to be sexual, but not too sexual ...*
> 
> Talk about your mixed messages.
> 
> But as far as what makes us want sex with a particular partner of either gender?
> 
> There's going to be something, whether it's big brains, big heart, big boobs or a toned butt.
> 
> Don't know why that should be a source of disagreement?


I am not really disagreeing. I was replying to FW. I do find things like The Game to be confusing. You get what you seek. And for the gents on here who think women want money or status, and pursue that, well that is what you are going to get. And I cannot see why anyone would want that.

Do I seek the same thing I think you do? A culture where women are allowed to be sexual. **** yah.


----------



## Deejo

NobodySpecial said:


> I am not really disagreeing. I was replying to FW. I do find things like The Game to be confusing. You get what you seek. And for the gents on here who think women want money or status, and pursue that, well that is what you are going to get. And I cannot see why anyone would want that.
> 
> Do I seek the same thing I think you do? A culture where women are allowed to be sexual. **** yah.


----------



## heartsbeating

Faithful Wife said:


> Not at all Deejo...as you and I both know...all of those things I said are true and measurable, right alongside the fact that Kim Kardashian is a mega-hottie due to her waist hip ratio, lips, eyes, hair, etc. Very simple formula. *And it is the same formula for all of us. There's no one who escapes it, it is biological, proven, formulaic, and most of all....SCIENCE!!!!*


I get that you're being flippant with this comment. And always_alone, I can't say I disagree with your thoughts, simply that I do think there are patterns - granted perhaps manufactured patterns that are marketed well enough to sell. Do we need to buy into it? Not at all. Do stereotypes need to be challenged? Absolutely.

Dvls please don't compare NKOTB to The Beatles. Goodness me. I've known some women who have found status or 'title' as something to be attracted to, regardless whether they had status themselves or not. I've known some women who couldn't give two hoots about that. Myself included. I consider it narrow-minded to assume this to be a sweeping truth however it may be truth enough to a particular group that that's important to. But then is the point of the 'title' to gain that attraction from others / external validation or simply as that's how you wish to live your life. If it's important to you, for whatever reason, maybe the adulation is a contributing factor. Title or status is one thing. Work ethic, drive, passion, growth is another. That, to me is attractive. Sometimes they happen to go hand-in-hand with the title. 

As for large concerts, the appeal to me (and I'm not the boy-band type) is the music. The performance, being drawn into that world for a few hours, there's a magic about it. It's almost like pausing your life and being submerged into the experience of music. My preference would be small gigs though. I've seen some amazing musicians at small venues. No screaming, usually not much in the way of lights and effects and glitzy outfits... just music and stage presence. And I'm absolutely drawn in to that. It can feel replenishing.

Don't we begin to experience patterns of behavior to an extent that actually helps us? Someone may have a certain personality type and while they are individual, we may have experienced elements of those traits from someone else - and we learn from what we've experienced before. Either how to interact with them that is aligned with who we are or whether we may or may not be aligned with them, with one another?


----------



## always_alone

NobodySpecial said:


> See this whole conversation is baffling to me. Why would anyone seek to achieve so little from each other?


Because predictability means you can always get what you want...

...as long as what you want is predictability


----------



## always_alone

heartsbeating said:


> As for large concerts, the appeal to me (and I'm not the boy-band type) is the music. The performance, being drawn into that world for a few hours, there's a magic about it. It's almost like pausing your life and being submerged into the experience of music.


Well, and that's just it. Being at a show, getting into the music, dancing, cheering the performers...yeah sure sometimes the women are hot for the performers, but not necessarily. They're just there for a good time because good music is awesome.

(And those boy bands? *shudder*)


----------



## heartsbeating

always_alone said:


> Well, and that's just it. Being at a show, getting into the music, dancing, cheering the performers...yeah sure sometimes the women are hot for the performers, but not necessarily. They're just there for a good time because good music is awesome.
> 
> (And those boy bands? *shudder*)


Amen.


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> And here's the thing.
> 
> Let's say ... crazy as it may sound, that you DID decide to emulate Kim Kardashian.
> 
> Yes, seriously.
> 
> Makeup, hair, clothing, and some magical workout that gave you her boobs and hips.
> Do you think the net impact would be more men taking a sexual interest in you, or fewer men taking a sexual interest in you?


More, of course! She is perfect: .7 hip waist ratio, even toned clear skin, pearly white teeth, lustrous hair, clear eyes, happy to wear the sexiest clothes. How could anyone possibly not find her super sexually desirable?


----------



## always_alone

Personal said:


> To be honest and considering this kind of thing is extraordinarily subjective. Kim Kardashian does absolutely nothing for me at all, I really do not find her sexually desirable.


How is that possible? She hits all the marks!

You must be one of those crazy outliers, whose opinion shouldn't be taken seriously.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> How could anyone possibly not find her super sexually desirable?


When words start coming out of her mouth?


----------



## richardsharpe

Good evening all
The question of how attractive someone is is really complicated. There is static physical attraction - and even that has both a "sexy" and "beautiful" component. There is an active part from how someone moves, smiles etc. There is a big contribution from personality, behavior, dress, occupation, etc.

Then there is the question how attractive someone is for what activities:

Sex? A date? A week together? A long term relationship? 

Then there is the issue of someone being attractive not because you personally find them attractive, but because your friends will and you want to show off your new BF/GF - the person is essentially a status symbol.


BTW: Kim Kardashian does nothing for me. I have several female friends that *I* consider more attractive.


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> When words start coming out of her mouth?





richardsharpe said:


> Good evening all
> BTW: Kim Kardashian does nothing for me. I have several female friends that *I* consider more attractive.


More outliers, I see.

Aaack, I'm surrounded!


----------



## always_alone

Personal said:


> She does nothing for lots of men, I don't think she hits many marks at all.


She hits all those ones so far said to be "universals" and "constants".

So what's your take on the formulas?


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> More outliers, I see.


I'd respond that there's more to the formula than physical appearance alone. A nasty personality or nothing between the ears can ruin it for a woman or a man. An otherwise beautiful woman with a horrible grating voice is a pretty common comedic element.


----------



## Deejo

There is a difference between acknowledging someone is attractive, and finding them attractive.

First woman to ever take my breath away was Audrey Hepburn. 

But I'm very happy we can agree with no sarcasm whatsoever, that Kim Kardashian is hot ... and if either of us looked like her, we'd be hot too.

And if we evaluate the initial source of her fame, we can also conclude she likes sex.

No wonder all the world loves Kim Kardashian.


----------



## ConanHub

O.K. aa, I think Kim is physically attractive. Take that you outliers!&#55357;&#56833;
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> No wonder all the world loves Kim Kardashian.


Well, yes, Deejo, and you should too because she is right there squarely in your stated demographic. 

And yet ...

What does it even mean to say someone is attractive, but that you're not attracted?

Perhaps that stereotypes and idealizations are not terribly helpful or accurate when talking about what is attractive?

We can draw stick figures,show photos, all sorts of strategies for isolating the variables. But in the end, we're attracted to people, not collections of variables. At least, IMHO.


----------



## always_alone

ConanHub said:


> O.K. aa, I think Kim is physically attractive. Take that you outliers!��


Considering that she regularly makes "hottest women alive" lists, there had to be at least one guy here who wasn't an outlier.

(Actually, it's your fault that I picked Kim in the first place, a comment you made on another thread.)


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> What does it even mean to say someone is attractive, but that you're not attracted?


Deejo mentioned Audrey Hepburn. To, me, she seemed to have a fragile quality about her that is not my cup of tea. (Probably explains why I married a true daughter of the Vikings.)

But the moment I quit thinking that Audrey Hepburn was attractive will likely be the moment I no longer have pulse. Of course she was attractive. 



always_alone said:


> We can draw stick figures,show photos, all sorts of strategies for isolating the variables. But in the end, we're attracted to people, not collections of variables. At least, IMHO.


Maybe I'm looking at it too simplistically. I don't disagree about the variables, but they seem to be expressed as endless variations of a common theme.


----------



## vellocet

richardsharpe said:


> BTW: Kim Kardashian does nothing for me. I have several female friends that *I* consider more attractive.


:iagree:

I don't care how attractive she is, I wouldn't touch her with a 10 foot pole.


----------



## vellocet

always_alone said:


> Considering that she regularly makes "hottest women alive" lists, there had to be at least one guy here who wasn't an outlier.
> 
> (Actually, it's your fault that I picked Kim in the first place, a comment you made on another thread.)


The only type of guy that would date a woman like her is a guy that only thinks with his Richard


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



always_alone said:


> Well, yes, Deejo, and you should too because she is right there squarely in your stated demographic.
> 
> And yet ...
> 
> What does it even mean to say someone is attractive, but that you're not attracted?
> 
> Perhaps that stereotypes and idealizations are not terribly helpful or accurate when talking about what is attractive?
> 
> We can draw stick figures,show photos, all sorts of strategies for isolating the variables. But in the end, we're attracted to people, not collections of variables. At least, IMHO.


And here I thought we had reached consensus. 

*Duck face pout*


----------



## vellocet

Oh god, don't get me started on those duckface selfies.


----------



## vellocet

always_alone said:


> What does it even mean to say someone is attractive, but that you're not attracted?


That they may have what is considered attractive looks, but their character and behaviors make them ugly as f***


----------



## Deejo

*Re: Re: Article about gender stereotypes about sex*



vellocet said:


> Oh god, don't get me started on those duckface selfies.


Here's mine ...


----------



## vellocet

:lol:

That looks more like the "I farted and crapped my pants" look.


----------



## ConanHub

vellocet said:


> The only type of guy that would date a woman like her is a guy that only thinks with his Richard


Brother, that is why I said physically attractive. She truly grosses me out!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## ConanHub

always_alone said:


> Considering that she regularly makes "hottest women alive" lists, there had to be at least one guy here who wasn't an outlier.
> 
> (Actually, it's your fault that I picked Kim in the first place, a comment you made on another thread.)


Yeah, I figured as much. I thought it was this thread?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## always_alone

ConanHub said:


> Yeah, I figured as much. I thought it was this thread?


Oh, you're right! Heh. Lost track.


----------



## ConanHub

always_alone said:


> Oh, you're right! Heh. Lost track.


LOL!&#55357;&#56842;
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> But the moment I quit thinking that Audrey Hepburn was attractive will likely be the moment I no longer have pulse. Of course she was attractive.


And so maybe it's partly a question of how we define attractive. So, for example, while I can see that those underwear models and GQ types have fit bodies and good looking features, I don't find that look attractive for the most part. Not my cup of tea, so to speak.

I wouldn't say they were attractive, and I wouldn't worry about my pulse or my womanhood because of that judgment. For me "attractive" means who I am actually drawn to, and that person may or may not fit stereotypical norms.

Then again, I am often rather appalled by just how many men here will boast about how happily they will bang someone that they actually think is garbage. And so maybe that is where they get the idea they are more sexual....


----------



## always_alone

Deejo said:


> Here's mine ...


And here's mine:


----------



## ConanHub

FWI. I would not bang garbage. I find Kim attractive physically but would not date her.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Fozzy

vellocet said:


> :lol:
> 
> That looks more like the "I farted and crapped my pants" look.


Shart attack!


----------



## Cletus

always_alone said:


> Then again, I am often rather appalled by just how many men here will boast about how happily they will bang someone that they actually think is garbage. And so maybe that is where they get the idea they are more sexual....


So what do you think it means if not that they are more sexual?


----------



## ConanHub

Cletus said:


> So what do you think it means if not that they are more sexual?


Desperate. Some women bang hot looking garbage as well.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Cletus

ConanHub said:


> Desperate. Some women bang hot looking garbage as well.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Always alluded indirectly to this being a more common male trait, so desperation alone doesn't answer the question, unless way more men then women are desperate, which still brings us right back around to my question.


----------



## ConanHub

Cletus said:


> Always alluded indirectly to this being a more common male trait, so desperation alone doesn't answer the question, unless way more men then women are desperate, which still brings us right back around to my question.


False assumption. There are many, seriously desperate women out there. They might just be a little more ashamed of what they let crawl on top of them.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Cletus

ConanHub said:


> False assumption. There are many, seriously desperate women out there. They might just be a little more ashamed of what they let crawl on top of them.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Then the assumption isn't false. I just like my "more men are pigs" statements to be more direct, if that's what it was.


----------



## always_alone

Cletus said:


> Then the assumption isn't false. I just like my "more men are pigs" statements to be more direct, if that's what it was.


That's not what I was saying. Just that bragging about banging and tossing out the garbage is a bit (okay, a lot!) appalling. And I have never seen a woman do this, at least not that I can recall.

To me it doesn't say "more sexual," it says "no respect or concern for others -- or even oneself, for that matter". It also screams double standard and emotionally stunted.


----------



## Deejo

always_alone said:


> And here's mine:


You have very thoughtful and introspective eyes.


----------



## Fozzy

always_alone said:


> That's not what I was saying. Just that bragging about banging and tossing out the garbage is a bit (okay, a lot!) appalling. And I have never seen a woman do this, at least not that I can recall.
> 
> To me it doesn't say "more sexual," it says "no respect or concern for others -- or even oneself, for that matter". It also screams double standard and emotionally stunted.


I will say that I have definitely heard guys talk like this--with like-minded guys. They seem to run in packs.

I also have never heard a woman speak like this, however I'm seldom invited to those conversations.


----------



## vellocet

always_alone said:


> And here's mine:




I'd hit that.


----------



## ConanHub

vellocet said:


> I'd hit that.


You da man!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Cletus

always_alone said:


> That's not what I was saying. Just that bragging about banging and tossing out the garbage is a bit (okay, a lot!) appalling. And I have never seen a woman do this, at least not that I can recall.
> 
> To me it doesn't say "more sexual," it says "no respect or concern for others -- or even oneself, for that matter". It also screams double standard and emotionally stunted.


Sounds like a long winded definition of the word PIG to me. And guess what? I agree. When it comes to sex, men (collectively, with no statement about any individual) are more piggish.

Own it, girl, especially when it's real. 

But it IS sexual, in a feeding-at-the-trough kind of way, and it's less likely to be done by women. Therefore, does it not also imply some level of "more" sexualization for these men? I mean, if you'll nail anything in a skirt, it seems you me you're more sexual than I am, for a morally neutral definition of the term. Not liking their expression of sexuality doesn't allow me to redefine it away.


----------



## always_alone

Cletus said:


> Sounds like a long winded definition of the word PIG to me. And guess what? I agree. When it comes to sex, men (collectively, with no statement about any individual) are more piggish.
> 
> Own it, girl, especially when it's real.


If you insist (but only if you insist), I'll accept piggish.

But I still reject more sexual. Why?

Because there is nothing inherently more sexual about "nailing" someone you don't respect than having sex with someone you do.

Why would you assume that piggish (your word, not mine) men are actually having more sex than anyone else? Maybe, as Conan said, they are just more desperate. Or maybe they are emotionally stunted, and so while they might get some opportunities to stick their **** into a hole, ultimately it's just crappy and unfulfilling sex.

I have to say, whenever I hear a guy bragging about using women and tossing them out like garbage, the very last thing I'd expect is that they have a decent sex life. Indeed, quite the reverse.


----------



## ConanHub

Cletus said:


> Sounds like a long winded definition of the word PIG to me. And guess what? I agree. When it comes to sex, men (collectively, with no statement about any individual) are more piggish.
> 
> Own it, girl, especially when it's real.
> 
> But it IS sexual, in a feeding-at-the-trough kind of way, and it's less likely to be done by women. Therefore, does it not also imply some level of "more" sexualization for these men? I mean, if you'll nail anything in a skirt, it seems you me you're more sexual than I am, for a morally neutral definition of the term. Not liking their expression of sexuality doesn't allow me to redefine it away.


I think women feed at the "trough" just as much but are less brazen or open about it. A certain group of men are louder about it.

Same concept of how women usually downplay there partner number and men either don't hide it or actually embellish on the high side.

Actual sex partners of a lot of women are pretty darn high.


----------



## Cletus

always_alone said:


> If you insist (but only if you insist), I'll accept piggish.
> 
> But I still reject more sexual. Why?
> 
> Because there is nothing inherently more sexual about "nailing" someone you don't respect than having sex with someone you do.


We have to define our terms, I suppose. 

Sexual doesn't require partnered sex. Sexual is thinking about sex, pursuing sex, jerking off, and a host of other things, including chasing down the next strange at the bar. I'm willing to hypothesize that these men are more sexual than most by that standard. I would not presume that they have more frequent or better partnered sex lives. If that's what you're measuring, I have nothing to add.


----------



## always_alone

Cletus said:


> We have to define our terms, I suppose.
> 
> Sexual doesn't require partnered sex. Sexual is thinking about sex, pursuing sex, jerking off, and a host of other things, including chasing down the next strange at the bar. I'm willing to hypothesize that these men are more sexual than most by that standard.


Again, why assume this?

It's not like piggish men are the only ones wanking and fantasizing, and whatever else. Rates are similar between the genders, and vary quite widely within.

Please tell me you don't really believe there's some direct correlation between being disrespectful and sexual. Cuz, ugh!


----------



## TiggyBlue

ConanHub said:


> I think women feed at the "trough" just as much but are less brazen or open about it. A certain group of men are louder about it.


A "bit of rough" comes to mind lol


----------



## vellocet

always_alone said:


> If you insist (but only if you insist), I'll accept piggish.


Oh, we kind of figured you would


----------



## ocotillo

vellocet said:


> Oh, we kind of figured you would


Well you gotta admit that when some men say it and others get offended by it, then it's probably every bit as confusing to women as some of the things they do are confusing to us.


----------



## vellocet

ocotillo said:


> Well you gotta admit that when *some men* say it and others get offended by it, then it's probably every bit as confusing to women as some of the things they do are confusing to us.


Agreed, but I bolded the key words for ya.


----------



## TiggyBlue

vellocet said:


> Oh, we kind of figured you would


Couldn't resist taking a dig?


----------



## vellocet

TiggyBlue said:


> Couldn't resist taking a dig?


You could say the same to her.....for almost everything she posts. But you won't


----------



## TiggyBlue

vellocet said:


> You could say the same to her.....for almost everything she posts. But you won't


I'll take that as a no.


----------



## vellocet

TiggyBlue said:


> I'll take that as a no.


Take it as you wish.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> But I still reject more sexual. Why?
> 
> Because there is nothing inherently more sexual about "nailing" someone you don't respect than having sex with someone you do.


This "more sexual" concept causes me some trouble. On the one hand, most women I've known are at least as sexual as I am when their conditions for having sex are met. However, I have trouble thinking of a person with more barriers to sex as being equally sexual in comparison to a person with few barriers to sex.

You've characterized a person with low standards for sex as being desperate, but is that anything other than an ad hominem or attempt to negatively cast? The sex is obviously more important than the standards for such a person, regardless of how negatively you feel about their doing so.

To my thinking, "more sexual" indicates a more aggressive pursuit of, and prioritization of SEX itself. Given two people, one with low standards whose highest priority is sex, and another with high standards whose highest priority is personality compatibility... isn't it obvious, however distasteful to you, that the former is "more sexual" than the latter? That is, the one who wanted sex more than anything else?

That's one of the things that makes me twitch in these discussions comparing the sexuality of the genders. If women typically have say, 100 conditions that must be met prior to their being willing to have sex, while men have say 10 conditions... I really struggle to understand how women can be considered equally sexual overall. From my perspective, they're equally sexual *once their conditions are met* - but that they demand more conditions seems to indicate higher priority placed on things other than sex. It makes sense that if you want something bad enough, you'd have fewer voluntary barriers to getting it. You decry this as desperate, but is it really anything other than a prioritization of wants? How can we not characterize the person holding sex as higher priority as "more sexual"? Given the additional conditions required, perhaps it's more accurate to say the capacity for sexual desire is equal.

It's a scoping problem. 

In the wider scope, I'd argue men are typically more "desperate" for sex. They have fewer conditions that must be met to want to have it and they give it greater priority. Only in the more narrow scope of already having conditions met can I say women are equally sexual. It's like a person who loves popcorn and seeks it regularly vs a person who loves popcorn when they go to the movies, but doesn't have it otherwise. Isn't it fair to say the former is more of a popcorn lover than the latter, even though they both want it to the same degree at the movies? Would the latter take such hostility to being called less of a popcorn lover as women take to being regarded as less sexual for having more conditions that must be met in order to want sex? I think not. It's just that "more sexual", and "less sexual" are emotionally charged, and I think women tend to take the narrow scope in viewing the question... that doesn't consider the conditions/barriers. This doesn't make sense to me. This means a hypothetical person with standards so high they never actually have sex, would be thought to be "as sexual" as anyone else, because they "would be" if they could meet all their conditions. I think the conditions matter.

Help me out there.


----------



## TiggyBlue

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> That's one of the things that makes me twitch in these discussions comparing the sexuality of the genders.


:iagree:
I don't thinks it's comparable, I don't think it's comparable within the genders sometimes.





> It's like a person who loves popcorn and seeks it regularly vs a person who loves popcorn when they go to the movies, but doesn't have it otherwise.


I disagree with that analogy, sex for women holds greater risks (pregnancy ect).
IMO it's two people love popcorn,one can eat it in abundance without really having to worry about getting ill from it but the other knows that a small percentage is laced with poison (they don't know which bags of popcorn are laced, however that know if they happen to eat one of the laced bags things could potentially go very bad for them).




> sn't it fair to say the former is more of a popcorn lover than the latter, even though they both want it to the same degree at the movies?


In that situation it would be fair, however in the second analogy isn't it easy for the someone who doesn't have to worry about there popcorn being laced to say they love popcorn more than the person who has to take into consideration that there popcorn might be laced with poison (yes they are more eager to eat whatever popcorn they can get their hands on, but the possible consequences of eating popcorn aren't as severe).




> Would the latter take such hostility to being called less of a popcorn lover as women take to being regarded as less sexual for having more conditions that must be met in order to want sex? I think not.


In the case of the popcorn lover who doesn't have to worry about popcorn being poisoned saying 'I obviously love/crave popcorn more than you, I eat it more' to the other person who loves popcorn but has to take into consideration they could end up eating poisoned popcorn, yh It could cause some hostility.


----------



## Cletus

TiggyBlue said:


> IMO it's two people love popcorn,one can eat it in abundance without really having to worry about getting ill from it but the other knows that a small percentage is laced with poison (they don't know which bags of popcorn are laced, however that know if they happen to eat one of the laced bags things could potentially go very bad for them).


Most moviegoers like fresh, hot, aromatic buttered popcorn. 

What about the group who will eat three day stale popcorn found between the seats from the previous movie because (almost) any popcorn is better than no popcorn at all?

Someone who is serious about having plenty of pregnancy free sex merely needs to get on the pill or use a condom properly. Disinterest in doing even these simple tasks indicates relative disinterest in having unencumbered sex.


----------



## Faithful Wife

They still can't get pregnant from that, even if they can get sick. And the chance of getting sick isn't that high, either. Dogs eat stuff like that all the time. A little dirt usually can't make you sick.


----------



## Cletus

Faithful Wife said:


> They still can't get pregnant from that, even if they can get sick. And the chance of getting sick isn't that high, either. Dogs eat stuff like that all the time. A little dirt usually can't make you sick.


Right. And in 2014 in the US, no one who wishes not too need get pregnant from sex (to a very high probability). If fear of pregnancy is still to great, there are a multitude of alternatives to penetrative sex.

Pregnancy is realistically not a barrier to sex.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Cletus said:


> Pregnancy is realistically not a barrier to sex.


:lol:

So says a person who cannot get pregnant.


----------



## Cletus

Faithful Wife said:


> :lol:
> 
> So says a person who cannot get pregnant.


Really? That's the defense you're going with? Forget about Norplant, oral contraceptives, properly used condoms, oral sex, hand jobs, dry humping, vibrators, and a very long list of ways to have sex that don't involve even the tiniest risk of pregnancy, and make fun of the sperm donor. Hell, of the dozens of ways in which two or more people can be sexual together, only ONE carries the risk of pregnancy. 

You need a new hobby.


----------



## Faithful Wife

Wow. So much for spirited debate. Thanks.


----------



## Cletus

Faithful Wife said:


> Wow. So much for spirited debate. Thanks.


What exactly are you trying to say? Did I err somewhere?


----------



## TiggyBlue

Pregnancy is one example (remember I said ect).
I'm 5'4, going to a random place with a guy I just met who is 6' will on the whole could be riskier than vice versa. 
Waiting awhile and spending time trying to suss him out a bit for before going to a remote place with him doesn't say anything about how sexual I am, it just says if he's a bit of a psycho I'm on the back foot so would rather wait and hopefully lower the odds of that happening.
However knowing plenty of girls who have gone off with random guys that issue doesn't carry the same weight with every female.


----------



## Cletus

TiggyBlue said:


> However knowing plenty of girls who have gone off with random guys that issue doesn't carry the same weight with every female.


You're right, it doesn't. Willingness to put oneself at risk for sex is a dimension (among many, of course) of sexuality that researchers measure. It DOES say something about your sexuality, and on that one measure, other women might be more sexual than you.


----------



## TiggyBlue

Cletus said:


> You're right, it doesn't. Willingness to put oneself at risk for sex is a dimension (among many, of course) of sexuality that researchers measure. It DOES say something about your sexuality, and on that one measure, other women might be more sexual than you.


True, but if I desire much higher frequency of sex with fwb/partners/one night stands with people I know, have done much more kinky things (threesomes, BDSM ect) then some of the girls who will have sex with a complete stranger the doesn't that say on other measures I might be more sexual than them?
It could say they're more sexual, it could also say they're more wreckless.


----------



## Cletus

TiggyBlue said:


> True, but if I desire much higher frequency of sex with fwb/partners/one night stands with people I know, have done much more kinky things (threesomes, BDSM ect) then some of the girls who will have sex with a complete stranger the doesn't that say on other measures I might be more sexual than them?


I agree completely. It's only one measure of sexuality, but it IS a measure.


----------



## SimplyAmorous

Well here is our winner for the MOST SEXUAL WOMAN EVER...

Meet the Woman Who's on a Quest to Have Sex with 100,000 Men | VICE | United States



> Ania Lewiska recently embarked on the noble quest to break the world record for the largest number of sexual partners in history. The fact that no such record even exists for her to break doesn't appear to bother the 21-year-old from Poland, who is aiming optimistically—and potentially absurdly—high, setting her desired target at 100,000 men.


----------



## Deejo

It's important to have goals ...


----------



## SimplyAmorous

Deejo said:


> It's important to have goals ...


Her FB cover photo is ...







...

and I guess she has a boyfriend.. spoken about here at 1:00 ...he's not too happy about it.. .. Woman Wants To Sleep With 100,000 Men - Ania Lisewska 

Falling in line with the discussion here...I'm with this comment on You tube...


> Why can't she set a world record by having 100,000 times sex with her boyfriend? *Is someone really sexual just because they want to have sex with different partners?* Its interesting to me that she is that sexual. I wonder how many times a day does she do it with her boyfriend?"


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> Help me out there.


Your post is so full of assumptions, it's difficult to know where to begin.

For starters, I have no idea what you mean about women having more "conditions for wanting sex". This may be your experience, but it is absolutely not mine.

And again: why assume that the person who is rooting around on the theater floor for stale popcorn crumbs is more sexual than the person who has high-tech air-popper, with endless kilos of corn just waiting to be popped in the comfort of their own home?

It just doesn't make sense.


----------



## always_alone

Cletus said:


> It's only one measure of sexuality, but it IS a measure.


Yes, but is it a good measure?

Fact of the matter is that the risks faced by each gender are not at all equal, and so the comparable in any meaningful way.

A woman scraping the bottom of the barrel in the way that you seem to think most (all?) men will easily do stands a pretty good chance of finding herself buried in the backwoods of some freak's pig farm.


----------



## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> Your post is so full of assumptions, it's difficult to know where to begin.
> 
> For starters, I have no idea what you mean about women having more "conditions for wanting sex". This may be your experience, but it is absolutely not mine.
> 
> And again: why assume that the person who is rooting around on the theater floor for stale popcorn crumbs is more sexual than the person who has high-tech air-popper, with endless kilos of corn just waiting to be popped in the comfort of their own home?
> 
> It just doesn't make sense.


Condition: "high-tech air-popper in the comfort of their own home" => "relationship, love and all the trappings"

That's exactly what I mean by conditions for wanting (or rather, having) sex. Not saying this applies to every single woman, just that I sense men as generally having fewer conditions than women. We don't need the high-tech air-popper in order to have popcorn, if you will.

Here's another analogy. I own a Porsche. Most of the people I've met who own them are enthusiasts. Those enthusiasts fall into two distinct types: car enthusiasts who own Porsches and Porsche enthusiasts. The car enthusiast loves cars, and the Porsche is simply an example of a fine car. The Porsche enthusiast on the other hand, is in love with owning a Porsche, but is not particularly a lover of cars. The latter derives their enthusiasm from the condition: that the car is a Porsche. The former has no such condition, they love cars in general, regardless of what they could own. Because of higher conditions required for enthusiasm, there is no way I can consider the Porsche-specific enthusiast as much of a car enthusiast.

The car enthusiast is the very sexual person or the popcorn lover - the Porsche or High-tech popper is only a premium example within a larger range of desire for a thing. The Porsche enthusiast is analogous to the person who is very sexual, or likes popcorn, only when a more conditions are met (that the car is a Porsche, or the popcorn is "high-tech air-popped"). Conditions required before you will do a thing are effectively voluntary barriers. So the person who voluntarily has fewer barriers would seem to me to be the one placing higher priority on the object of desire or action.

I think the conditions - the number of obstacles one must overcome - matter if we're going to classify "more or less" of some characteristic. It doesn't make sense to you that a more sexual person would require fewer conditions be met in order to have sex?

A lover of all wine, to my thinking is more of a wine lover than a person who only loves fine wine. Is that explanation of what I mean by conditions more clear?

Perhaps you believe most women have fewer conditions than I do. The two being discussed are security and pregnancy, but in my experience, these are only the tip of the iceberg. Then follows things like "he'll think I'm easy or won't take me seriously if I have sex with him already". I can't say I've ever heard a guy express any such reservation about sex with a woman. That argues for pursuit of relationship (condition for having sex) being higher priority than it is for men, and higher priority than sex. So how can we say the person having sex as a lower priority, is equally as sexual as the person for whom it is higher priority (fewer conditions)?

It's not wine loving, it's loving a specific type of wine. It's not car loving, it's loving a specific type of car. It's not sex loving, it's loving sex with a more specific right person/relationship... etc. To my thinking, the generalist - the one who likes the thing period, and requires fewer conditions be met - is the greater enthusiast. I'm not giving it any positive or negative connotation, just as a matter of fact. The person who likes all popcorn seems to be a greater enthusiast than the person who only likes high tech air popped popcorn: cars, popcorn, sex... whatever.


----------



## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> This may be your experience, but it is absolutely not mine.


I think you've put your finger on one of the biggest challenges in these conversations. -The gazillion different perspectives we all have.

In my age group and location, a man very likely will not even get a second date if he does not have at least one house paid off. -Strange but true. 

On the other hand, men in my age group and location enter the dating scene in full knowledge of the fact that it could develop into an economic disaster. --That's still better than loneliness. So in this respect there is an eerie similarity to what DvlsAdvc8 has said about the hurdle being set higher.


----------



## always_alone

DvlsAdvc8 said:


> A lover of all wine, to my thinking is more of a wine lover than a person who only loves fine wine. Is that explanation of what I mean by conditions more clear?


I think you have it ass-backwards here. A true wine lover will only drink the best. Friends of mine who are connoisseurs will not touch plonk. But I can guarantee you that they drink more wine than anyone else, more frequently, under more conditions, and with gusto. 

It makes no sense at all to say that because someone is a wino who will drink everything from cooking sherry to lysol, they are more into wine than someone who has a cellar full of the finest.

Having standards does not make someone less interested, less dedicated, less frequent, or lesser in any way.

You wouldn't tell dude that he wasn't a real biker because he'll only drive a Harley, would you?


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## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> So in this respect there is an eerie similarity to what DvlsAdvc8 has said about the hurdle being set higher.


How so? You think women won't sacrifice everything or take huge risks for relationships (of all kinds)?

And do you really think that women are the only ones with standards? Because that's what Dvl's seems to be saying, and frankly, there's a whole lot of men, some of them right here on TAM, with a whole set of actual standards. It's not like it's some totally alien far-out concept that a man might choose not to stick it into whatever available hole.


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## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> How so? You think women won't sacrifice everything or take huge risks for relationships (of all kinds)?


Across entire populations, I couldn't even begin to say, AA. 

TAM has helped me to realize just how much I'm aging and becoming out of touch. I would very much like to think that things are changing and you are right here.

In my demographic though, female standards are unbelievably high and the answer to your question is a resounding, "No" with a fist brought down on the rostrum for emphasis.


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## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> In my demographic though, female standards are unbelievably high and the answer to your question is a resounding, "No" with a fist brought down on the rostrum for emphasis.


So are you saying that there's a whole bunch of lonely and sexless women in your demographic?

There are plenty, I suppose, that will refuse to lower their standards no matter what. But on the other hand, I've seen plenty of women in their 50s and 60s, and maybe even older, with their impossibly young rent-a-studs. Especially in touristy locales.


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## ocotillo

always_alone said:


> So are you saying that there's a whole bunch of lonely and sexless women in your demographic?


Not directly, but I agree that it is an unavoidable corollary.

What can I say here? This is *not* what I want reality to be and not in my youthful naivete how I imagined it would be.

The effects of menopause can be wildly different from one woman to another, but one of the more common effects seems to be a further waning of desire.



always_alone said:


> But on the other hand, I've seen plenty of women in their 50s and 60s, and maybe even older, with their impossibly young rent-a-studs. Especially in touristy locales.


I've seen that too, AA. I live in an area where Hollywood types often retire to. The woman who owns the hair salon my wife goes to was a siren in the original _Star Trek_, for example.

I don't think "Rent-a-stud" is the norm for men anymore than, "Trophy wife" is for women though..


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## always_alone

ocotillo said:


> I don't think "Rent-a-stud" is the norm for men anymore than, "Trophy wife" is for women though..


Oh agreed. It was just an example from the opposite extreme. An illustration that it's not just the times, but the personalities involved.

Waning of sexual desire with age is common, no doubt, but it isn't exactly gender specific.


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## DvlsAdvc8

always_alone said:


> I think you have it ass-backwards here. A true wine lover will only drink the best. Friends of mine who are connoisseurs will not touch plonk. But I can guarantee you that they drink more wine than anyone else, more frequently, under more conditions, and with gusto.
> 
> It makes no sense at all to say that because someone is a wino who will drink everything from cooking sherry to lysol, they are more into wine than someone who has a cellar full of the finest.


I see why you'd say this, but it makes perfect sense once you realize its a question of general vs specific. If there were no fine wine available, the "connoisseur" is simply never going to have wine? So the person who never has wine, because no fine wine is available, loves wine as much as the person who loves fine wine just as much, but loves wine in general so much that they'll have the best wine they can get regardless of what's available. Can you see the difference I'm getting at?



always_alone said:


> Having standards does not make someone less interested, less dedicated, less frequent, or lesser in any way.


Only when you HAVE the premium example available. If you don't, you don't have anything at all. If you'll only have sex with under perfect conditions, you're not much interested in sex as you are in the conditions. The car enthusiast who only likes Porsches, vs the car enthusiast who likes all sorts of things about all sorts of cars, and doesn't need "premium" to bring about his enthusiasm.



always_alone said:


> You wouldn't tell dude that he wasn't a real biker because he'll only drive a Harley, would you?


Absolutely I would. He's not a motorcycle enthusiast to the same degree if he's only a Harley enthusiast. He's just another brand poser. If there were no Harely's anymore, he's not a biker anymore. The "real biker" (your term for what I describe as "enthusiast") won't go without a bike for long, regardless of what's available. Just like a member of my car club was no longer a member of the club after he wrecked his Porsche. The value was solely based on the egoism of having the specific "best", "premium" etc.

The two can only be said to be remotely equal when the one with higher conditions has their conditions met. Lower conditions indicate that the thing is more valuable than the higher conditions.

Analogous to the wine example, I am a car enthusiast. I own a Porsche as a premium example - because I can, just as a wine enthusiast might prefer a fine wine. However, if no fine wine is available for an extensive period of time, will the connoisseur simply not drink wine? If I can't afford a Porsche, I will certainly be enthusiastic about another car I have access to. Because I'm more enthusiastic about cars than the Porsche-specific enthusiast... a la, the enthusiast whose enthusiasm *depends* upon the higher standard - without which, they have no enthusiasm for the thing at all.

If your standard means not having something at all because you don't have the premium set by the standard, then I say to you that your standard is more important than actually having the object of desire, thus your desire for that thing, is less than someone who will more quickly accept a lower standard to get it. If you love wine, you don't willingly go without it for extensive periods because there are no fine wines available.

Women regularly do so in regards to sex. I know several women who have been sexless for 6+ months for lack of the "right guy". None of them are really sweating it. I know several guys who have been sexless for such a length of time and its not voluntarily, and they're all quite vocally unhappy about it. It's not a matter of no Porsche's being available, it's a matter of no cars being available. I've been out with them. They're average looking guys and they're going after the shallow end of the female pool and still coming up empty. Even with dramatically lower standards, they're still eager to drive almost anything, where as the women won't drive anything unless it's a Porsche.

I can't see how the two could be thought to have equal driving enthusiasm in that larger, general scope. A determination of a thing's value is what you would give up for it. I think it is clear that men will give up on significantly more of their preferences than women if its the difference between having or not having sex. Do you agree? If so doesn't that speak to the different value of sex between the genders? If we have the same amount of money and I give up $10k for a thing, and you'll only give $5k... don't I value that thing more than you do? When we speak generically about who values sex more, I think you have to go with men, they'll give up more to have it. Else, what is your basis for valuation to consider them equal?


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