A LARGE number of women I know married educationally “below” them (ie, they have college or graduate degrees, spouses don’t)—this, of course, is from a women’s perspective.  From the guy’s point of view, they married up.

Still don’t know what it means.

Wow, even for pop evopsych this is a whole bag of stupid. Women aren’t interested in having strong, healthy babies? William Pollack apparently subscribes to the Aristotelian view that babies are germinated by men, and women are simply vessels who contribute nothing to the baby other than a place to grow it.

Amanda wrote:

So men are pickier about looks because they, unlike women, need healthy offspring, and women are pickier.

I think the point, from an evolutionary psychology standpoint, is that while men are looking to have “fit” offspring, women are looking for someone who will care for whatever offspring they have.

Make of it what you will.

It seems, continuing from this logic, like a woman with a good job, education, etc… will have an easier time keeping a mate who is lower on the socio-economic scale because of financial interdependence in relationships, and so can rely on that person to provide care for the offspring.

Of course, this all stems from some fundamental premises in evolutionary psychology that a person could dismiss.

Um, it’s about how women tend to be accurate judges of how the rest of society will rate them on the physical attractiveness scale and how they don’t try for men deemed better-looking on average than they are.

Per my own anecdata:  I find that I have a habit of developing crushes on men I know are way out of my league*, attractiveness-wise.  Of course, I rarely “follow through”.  On the other hand, I’m aware that these mega-hot d00ds are aware that the onus is on them to initiate something with me, so why should I make a fool out of my pretty average-looking self by making a move on someone like that?  If he was really interested, he’d probably do something about it. 

So, yes, evopsych bullshit officially disproven.  If women had evolved to date men less attractive than us, we probably wouldn’t even be interested in ultra-attractive men.  Male beauty would be about as enticing as male ability at chess or golf.

*with women, I find it totally different—the women I’m attracted to are all over the map, ‘traditional beauty standard’ wise.

Evo psych is like commercial fortune telling - you can take pretty much any observable trait and translate it to mean whatever you feel like. For instance, you could take “sometimes people wear hats” and use it to prove “the world would be a better place if I ate ice cream every day”. I leave the details as an exercise to the reader.

A LARGE number of women I know married educationally “below” them (ie, they have college or graduate degrees, spouses don’t)—this, of course, is from a women’s perspective.

Yeah, I see this quite a bit.  Older, more successful women dating young dumb guys.  I can name a couple female co-workers who have gone that route, just for starters.

That said, guys are historically the “aggressors” in a relationship.  The girl puts herself out and flirts.  The guy picks the ones he likes and pursues.  Girls typically don’t have such a pro-active say in what guy they get.  They can fish until a cute one comes their way, basically setting a threshold and waiting for someone to cross it.  (That’s not to say a girl can’t be more pro-active any more than a guy can’t just sit back and let the ladies fall over him, but its the SOP for my generation).

What’s more, appearance is extremely subjective.  I have arguments all the time with friends over which Cosmo cover girl or MTV hottie is better looking.  Blonde versus Brunette versus Red Head (red head always wins) or skinny versus more voluptous (stick girls have no boobs!!!)  The idea that guys go after the “hottest” girl implies that we’re all running on a singular sliding scale.  It’s an incredibly simplistic take on physical appearance and just not one that sees much play in modern dating.

Men aim out of their league for no other reason than “Why not?”  Rejection rates are high no matter the relative physical attractiveness of the parties so there’s no reason not to aim for the stars.  The most effective male strategy if you’re just looking for a bar hook-up is start at the top and work your way down.

Oh, and there’s an obvious reason that online dating (especially gauging men’s behavior via initiating contact on a dating site) isn’t a great measure of social phenomena in an “evolutionary” sense.

On most dating websites, initiating contact is pretty risk-free.  There’s a slight sting if you send someone who seems perfect for you a message and get no response, but it’s not like getting rejected face to face.  I think that, in general, people on dating websites probably initiate more contact than people “IRL” do, because there’s almost no risk of rejection.  Especially in terms of initiating contact with someone “out of your league”.  I get propositions online from men I would never in a million years go out with, or even speak to of my own volition.  Even men who obviously have nothing in common with me and/or fall wildly outside what I say I’m looking for.

Of course, if you look at, say, Goodall’s work on chimps or pretty much any other animal behaviorist’s work on social animals, you see that offspring survival is not so much dependent on the physical beauty of the mother as it is on the mother’s place in the local social order. So a male increases his chances of healthy offspring by mating with power (which tends to correlate with health, but that’s not primary).

Of course, in modern humans the official standards of what’s beautiful (heroin chic, anyone?) have very little to do with ability to bear healthy children and raise them safely to childbearing age, so we kinda know the ev psych version bullshit. But it does suggest another thing, namely that men (the stereotype, not necessarily the individuals) rank themselves and each other by the desirability/rarity value of their sex partners.

I read about a similar experiment done in a college about 30 or 40 years ago, with similar results: People tend to date at their own level of attractiveness. It seems like a lot of psychology consists of codifying/quantifying common-sense observations.

men who feel entitled to date out of their league, physical attractiveness-wise.

Isn’t everyone entitled to do so?

Men aim out of their league for no other reason than “Why not?” Rejection rates are high no matter the relative physical attractiveness of the parties so there’s no reason not to aim for the stars.  The most effective male strategy if you’re just looking for a bar hook-up is start at the top and work your way down.

Here’s a tip - women have eyes. Some of them also have self-respect. If they see you “working your way down”, you may lose some points with them.

My wife’s pretty attractive, but so am I. I have other men blowing me kisses more often than she does.

Make of that what you will.

It seems like a lot of psychology consists of codifying/quantifying common-sense observations.

Off-topic, but just from a scientific standpoint, common sense isn’t knowledge.  Aristotle had an okay thing assuming we could reason our way to knowledge, but Sir Francis Bacon had the better idea.  Also, it’s not about codifying or quantifying anything, and instead about making predictions.

I’ve always wondered why men have any standards at all. I mean, all they have to contribute is their semen, and there’s plenty of that to go around. So fro man evolutionary point of view, why have “leagues” or “standards”? And it make sense not to. Suppose you live in an environment that favors slim athletic women. The weather ight shift the next couple of years and that pudgier woman has a little extra fat and an odd metabolic quirk that allows her to subsist on two types of nuts, lichens, and mammoth bladders would be a good hedge against a three year drought. And what about that crone? She might still be fertile and she’s had five kids survive over the last twenty years. She’s got to have some tricks up her sleeve to pull that off and her 20yo son is a pretty badass hunter who always gives her a nice chunk of mammoth liver. Her daughter is 12, better keep an eye on her too.

And why not have some gay sex while we’re at it? A guy might get a slab of the mammoth from a guy you’d been blowin’, and a little groping at the groin between two women might ease transactions between bags of nuts and tubers.

I don’t see how evo-psych can come up with anything but polymorphous perversity.

So, why are there “leagues” of women. Don’t read the lad mag articles to find the answers: LOOK AT THE ADS. Clothes, Cars, Booze, and other luxury items. Whatever we once were, women have in some cases become something like property, and are at least an important status symbol. Get the right looking woman and you show your peers you are a success.

aside from the working their way down bit, I agree with Josh. When I was dating I was often in the role of initiator, when doing so I would get rejected most of the time, romantically but made a lot of good friends, that I simply didnt care if someone was out of my league or not, it was worth trying. Course it helps having women and men to -pick- from, why limit your options?

Perhaps its privilege, perhaps it has some little thing to do with the way I, and perhaps most men, are wired, I think its mostly socialization but heck, I just don’t know.

Captain-
  Another take on why men take more risks is because it doesnt matter, you don’t matter.It’s the underbelly of that reward you might reap, even if you fail spectacularly it doesnt matter because you don’t really matter. I believe its called male disposability though I hate using that term as many MRA’s have adopted it, its an interesting part of the male risk-taking thing, at least to me.

“men who feel entitled to date out of their league, physical attractiveness-wise.”

Isn’t everyone entitled to do so?

Well, speaking as a homely woman, no, I’ve never seriously gotten the impression from our culture that I am entitled to that.

I’ve always dated “out of my league” because I’m a pretty butt-ugly guy.  That said, one thing that frustrates my wife to no end is her complete inability to pigeonhole my proclivities in women.  The reason for this is there really are no consistent criteria for me.  At least none of the usual male stereotypes fit me very well when it comes to that issue.

I don’t know why she wants to feel like she has a handle on that but there it is anyway.

I tend to think the whole subject is ridiculous, at least as far as my own views go, but I do realize I’m a bit odd in that respect.

No other comment on the story other than to say thanks to Amanda for posting an interesting commentary on an equally interesting article.

I’m in agreement with the Quaker in the Basement.  Who the fuck made up these leagues?  If I see a desirable woman who isn’t apparently with someone, I might approach her no matter her social strata, educational level, familial background, complexion, bra size, waist-to-hip ratio, symmetry, body mass index, lipstick choice or non choice, address, race, shoe size, or fecundity.  If I see someone I would like to introduce myself to, I’ll either work up the courage or I won’t.  And I’ll blame any non-approach on my own cowardice long before any league ratings would enter the picture.

And I sure as fuck hope women feel the same way.  I know damn well I’m being judged everytime I’m in public (mostly as “standing in the way of the other choices” I assume,) but I’d be saddened to learn that someone considers herself beneath me and won’t approach me because of fear that I’ll be haughty and scoff at her.  Which isn’t to say that would never happen.  I’ve been an asshole, been turned down by many assholes, and come to the conclusion that most of humanity is composed of assholes, but I keep trying to meet someone who with me will overlook our assholery and piss all the single people off with our mutual happiness.  I call it the Seinfeld Outlook: that show had a bunch of people who are fun to watch, but you wouldn’t be able to love a single, self-absorbed one of them, though they’re still trying and so will I.

Off-topic, but just from a scientific standpoint, common sense isn’t knowledge. 

But common sense can be a pretty good way to come up with a hypothesis. The normal evo psych idea is that women will apply different standards to their sex partners and their mates, I think this is perfectly good as a hypothesis but it’s not knowledge until you actually test the idea.

This article is pretty silly but it doesn’t seem to say much of anything really. It offers some half-baked explanations but none of them are given particular weight.

The first bit that’s quoted is telling. The first paragraph does oddly describe the evo explanation of what men are looking for while completely ignoring the question of women’s standards but the quote from the psychologist that follows sounds like common sense and mostly contradicts the first paragraph. Also he’s a clinical psychologist who writes mostly about boys and men’s psychology and AFAICT has no connection to evo psych.

So I think it’s fair to characterize the article as fluffy, silly bullshit but not really as one of “these evo articles”.

The problem with a lot of this Evo Psych shit is that the a-holes who spew it know a little about the Psych part and jack all about the Evo part.  If you know anything about Behavioral Ecology (from which this nonsense all starts) this whole premise makes very little sense when compared to most other animals.  Primates are a little harder to nail down, but in most species that aren’t polyandrous (one female to many males) it’s the exact opposite of what this says.  Anyone ever seen a bird?  Ever?  Which gender is the one that risks its life (literally) to get mate by being flashy and “sexy”?  Males.  It is a little different in that case because the male often doesn’t stay around so all the females worry about is getting a decent set of genes, but the principal is the same across the board.  The male doesn’t just want a healthy mate, he wants one that seems like it will be a good provider.  The female is the one doing the child-rearing after all.  One of my favorite adaptationist explanations for male displays is called the “sexy sons hypothesis.”  It basically states that females choose “sexy” mates because then the odds that their sons will also be sexy will be higher.  And then they have a better chance of getting a mate.  Circle logic in evolution.  It’s fricking awesome.  And totally flies in the face of this stupid article.

Wait, wait - does that mean I’m being unrealistic holding out for Scarlett?

mmmmm… i had a professor last year who was totally chauvinistic. Mormon. wife, 5 kids, he was all of 34. he has a brand new Ph.D.
so does his stay-at-home-wfire.

why? because he claims that he married her for her brains because he wants SMART SONS. and the only apparant way for him to be SURE he married a smart woman with good genes (because gods forbid he TALK to her!) was to marry a woman with a master’s or a Ph.D.

i still sometimes shudder when i think about him.

So, why are there “leagues” of women. Don’t read the lad mag articles to find the answers: LOOK AT THE ADS. Clothes, Cars, Booze, and other luxury items. Whatever we once were, women have in some cases become something like property, and are at least an important status symbol. Get the right looking woman and you show your peers you are a success.

Bacopa, you nailed it.  The most desired women are those who are the most unlikely.  That is, the most genetically freakish and/or most willing to starve and torture themselves into the shape of whatever the latest arbitrary standard is.  To be a trophy wife or girlfriend is akin to being the latest style of Rolex watch.  It’s not about how much the man enjoys fucking the woman; it’s about how much he relishes the thought of his buddies imagining him fucking her.

The Plebe:

One of my favorite adaptationist explanations for male displays is called the “sexy sons hypothesis.” It basically states that females choose “sexy” mates because then the odds that their sons will also be sexy will be higher. And then they have a better chance of getting a mate. Circle logic in evolution. It’s fricking awesome. And totally flies in the face of this stupid article.

Well, yes. It’s been pretty well established that sexual selection (whence flamboyantly plumed male birds, among other things, including, possibly, human hairlessness) is both completely random and completely nonsensical. In other words, it’s pointless to try to predict or explain how individuals choose mates, because there isn’t any logic to it to begin with, and even if there were, it’d still differ wildly from population to population and individual to individual.

Sexual selection is the pop culture market of evolution.

I blame this almost entirely on social emphasis on women’s looks and social emphasis on men’s actual personalities.

I’ve dated a couple dudes who were not very conventionally attractive whose “league” I was “out of.” One of these guys continues to surprise me by tearing apart the looks of women he dates (we’re broken up now, thank the Lord above). He acknowledges that he’s fat, but refuses to date fat women, because he says it’s “like two beached whales making out.” He’s a computer science grad student (not much money, not much coolness capital), but he has dated strippers and women eight years younger than he is (that was me).

Because when he looks for potential dates, he looks for women who are conventionally attractive because all of society is taught that women are objects for looking good. And when women look for dates with men, they are much more likely to look for personality, because all of society is taught that men are humans with actual depth.

So much of attraction happens on a subconscious level.  Yeah, there’s the way people look and their personality, etc.  But I think that “animal” attraction often comes from scent.

Social Economic Status plays a huge role:  I went from middle-class housewife mother with 2 children to welfare mom in the space of a couple of months because of the dissolution of my marriage.  (I chose to leave - he was physically abusive).  It was a price I knew I had to pay for my freedom and believe me it was worth it.  But my point:  we were in a small town and I sort of knew all the men by sight and reputation.  When my status dropped like a rock, there were lots of them interested in me, and those were the guys who I was pretty sure would be unable to land a woman who wasn’t “desperate” and they perceived me as desperate.  It came as a surprise to them that I was not desperate enough to be with them!  Other, higher ranking guys (e.g., older married men) started seeking an extramarital relationship.  I scoffed at them too, for figuring they could buy me by taking me out for dinner somewhere out of town and…  Ordinarily worthwhile single guys on the lookout for a partner looked down on single mothers because they had enough social capital to go for a woman without “baggage”.  My pool of possible dates looked like a losers’ convention.

I feel bad as I read Margaret’s post above. I had nearly the exact same experience years as a man. I got out of it but it was hellish and took years of work. The biggest help: earning power or $$$. Funny as I started making more I went from unattractive to attractive baggage and all. Talk about teaching me a life lesson wow.

It really hit me one night when I noticed that attractive corporate women with great educations started hitting me up. I was confused then I did the math, anyway the good news is that if you work yourself out of it soon enough you get your choices back. Good luck

While I don’t disagree with Lauren O that society places a greater emphasis on women’s looks than men’s, it’s still true that good-looking, smart or accomplished men are more successful than ugly, smart or accomplished men. There’s a reason why there haven’t been a lot of short presidents (suck on that John McCain).

I think it’s fair to say that anyone will find a physically attractive mate more appealing than an ugly one with equivalent intellect and accomplishments.

I think the interesting question is why are women more willing to date less attractive men than men are willing to date less attractive women. From my personal experience, I can’t think of a single couple where a less attractive yet smart or accomplished woman dated a relatively more attractive man. I can however cite numerous examples of the opposite.

I don’t think this is so much a case of women not dating out of their league so much as women selecting potential mates on more substantive grounds than just appearance. Women are making less shallow judgments.

Again my personal anecdotal evidence is that this is true. I have slept with women whose political views make me nauseous and yet I can’t think of any of my female friends who have done the same.

But why? I read about one possible answer in an interesting book called “Why Sex is Fun” by Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs and Steel). While the book doesn’t attempt to make any definitive claims it does question the unique aspects of human sexuality as compared to other species (eg. sex without pregnancy is a rarity in the animal world) and looks at some Evolutionary Psychology theories that try to answer those questions.

One of the most interesting theories in the book is the possible correlation between sexual behaviors and levels of partner involvement in child rearing.

In species where females spend a greater proportion of their time rearing children than males there is higher incidence of polygyny (males coupling with multiple female partners) and greater levels of female selectiveness in choosing mates.

In species that are closest to sharing equivalent levels of involvement (eg. swans), there are the highest levels of single partner monogamy.

In species where the males play the larger role (eg. sea horses - males inseminate the eggs and then store them in their pouch during gestation), there is a higher incidence of polyandry (females coupling with multiple male partners.

For a human male, successfully impregnating a female is a low investment event - a little energy in courtship, some semen and in theory that’s it. He can take off and immediately (well not immediately) impregnate another. It pays not to be as choosy.

Now let’s compare that to a human female’s experience. A pregnancy is a 9 month commitment and a healthy child birth requires years of dedication.

Given that the personal investment for a woman is much higher than a man’s, it stands to reason that women owes it to herself to be more choosy. She’s going to have a higher set of criteria. Appearance is a factor but it’s just one of many.

This speaks directly to the pretty male bird phenomenon. A longer portion of a baby bird’s gestation happens in an egg - a self-contained, nutrient filled shelter that can be cared for equally well by a male or female. For birds with flamboyant males, there tends to be a higher level of male involvement in child rearing - in many cases the female lays the eggs and then leaves them exclusively in the male’s care.

Of course it’s a theory. I would agree with many of the commenters that societal pressures are a huge factor in how we express our sexuality. Furthermore that we don’t have to remain subject to evolutionary psychology. Evolution makes you crave fats and sugars and yet we don’t all gorge ourselves silly on them.

Mind can triumph over matter. Still it sounded plausible when I read it.

I have told any and all future mates that when I have children I will be picking someone with genes that will combat the bad of mine (ie. perfect vision, height, good teeth, general good health etc.). Marriage is about love. Procreation is about popping out the best possible gene combo and then rearing product in best enviroment possible. I have learned a lot from my “pop em out uncontrolled” cousins and my mother who read a lot and I mean a lot of books on how to give your kid the best possible start in life.

Anything less than perfect isn’t for me. That includes any possible fetal defects I might produce.

I R not picky on looks. But I do have preferences.

In species where females spend a greater proportion of their time rearing children than males there is higher incidence of polygyny (males coupling with multiple female partners) and greater levels of female selectiveness in choosing mates.

In species where the males play the larger role (eg. sea horses - males inseminate the eggs and then store them in their pouch during gestation), there is a higher incidence of polyandry (females coupling with multiple male partners.

The funny thing, though, is that if you look at the primates we’re actually related to, and not swans and sea horses, it turns out that they all do pretty much whatever (especially chimps and bonobos, which we’re most closely related to).  Males have multiple partners.  Females have multiple partners.  Some chimps/bonobos have a stable mate they return to more than just the once.  LOTS of sex happens for social reasons rather than reproductive ones (including a healthy level of same-sex sexuality). 

It also turns out, if you DNA test the chimp/bonobo offspring, that just because a male is “dominant” within the group doesn’t mean that he’ll be more reproductively successful.  Apparently females prefer a mate who acts physically affectionate towards them and shares food.  More stable and “chilled out” chimps who are kind of over the whole alpha male leader of the pack thing also tend to father more chimp offspring.

I really enjoyed Guns, Germs, and Steel, as well as Collapse, but I remember having to read parts of Why Sex Is Fun in college and thinking it was really stupid.  Or at least extremely beside the point.

From my experience, women are so conditioned that they HAVE to have a man, any man, that they stop being picky very early into their dating career.  I can’t tell you how many of my female friends have said that they don’t care who he is, they just want to be married by the time they are 28 or 29 or whatever their cutoff for being socially acceptable is.  They think I’m crazy that I haven’t settled for whatever dude comes my way.

On the subject of women making the first move:  I used to do that.  I’m very straightforward, very frank, and I know how to get what I want.  I used to make the first move.  Then I found that very soon into the relationship, the guy was usually resentful and moody about the fact that I am a “take the handlebars” kind of girl.  I’ve stopped asking guys out, 1) because…well, the choices are slim here and 2) the guys that I ask out tend to resent it later, so I figure if he wants me, he’ll ask me and I leave it at that.  I don’t take their numbers, I only give mine, and I forget about it.

Seems to me that guys, on the books, want us to make the first move, but when we do, they don’t realize that that also means we are brimming with confidence and are strong and secure in ourselves and when they figure THAT out, they tend to get bitchy.  At least the guys around here.  They’re so used to those desperate females that will do anything to keep a man, even put up with mediocre relationships and the bullshit drinking with the boys every weekend night and whatnot that they can’t even put on a good face for a month.  I’d rather do without, which tends to piss them off, too.

Speedbudget, it sounds like those guys weren’t worth your attention, and your attention wasn’t what made them worthless.  It also sounds like you’re mostly okay with being single.  But I wouldn’t be passive if you want to get with someone, and say “Fuck off!” to anyone who considers that to be acting desperate.  Maybe your local dating culture says women shouldn’t want, but that doesn’t mean you can’t, does it?

You almost sound like the female version of an MRA: a woman who decides to miserably cling to sexual stereotypes because dating is sooooo harrrrrrd.  If that’s true, then I’m disappointed in you, and I don’t even know you.

Good luck with that, but better luck if you let go of that.

Ugh. I can’t stand it when ‘scientists’ butcher evolution.

Also, that article totally ignores the fact that there are simply more hot women in existence (in America, can’t vouch for the rest of the world) than men. So yeah, some girls gotta settle.

“Evo psych is like commercial fortune telling - you can take pretty much any observable trait and translate it to mean whatever you feel like.”

THIS.  It’s the new astrology. 

I hate these discussions, because they’re about as useful as debating angels dancing on pinheads. Human beings are not only driven in mating by the need to reproduce healthy offspring but by a whole host of complicating social factors, some of them contradictory. This is the side effect of gaining self-consciousness, building civilizations, and all that fun stuff.

Monogomy, polygyny, polyandry, and polymorphous perversity are all strategies that can be successful reproductively speaking, and humans have employed them all at different times. The current dominance of patriarchal heterosexual monogomy as the ideal (if not the practice) has lots and lots to do with human hierarchy and politics and not really much to do with biology, in my opinion. Otherwise, having to police the margins and worrying about those who don’t comply would not be much of an issue. Many people mate in ways that follow the approved patterns.  Many others don’t. Many do both at different times in their lives. None of it is set in stone or clearly the “natural” way that we “evolved” to be. We evolved to survive and reproduce. The how is mostly up to us.

I don’t know, Jon, I sort of see Speedbudget’s point, here.  It’s part of why I’ve decided that if I’m attracted to a guy way out of my league, I’ll let him make the first move so as to avoid particularly humiliating rejection.  One of the traditional social rules is that men do the asking.  While obviously we feminists want to transform those rules, we have to acknowledge that they exist right now and affect our lives.

Though my direct advice to Speedbudget would be that if a guy freaks because you were confident enough to ask him out (even down the road), he’s not the right guy for you.  Regardless of who asks who out.

Personally, I like being asked out, and sometimes get annoyed at men who want me to make every move.  Mainly because I feel like women get pegged with a lot of the social work of a relationship, so omg, PLEASE can you do SOMETHING here?

The current dominance of patriarchal heterosexual monogomy as the ideal (if not the practice) has lots and lots to do with human hierarchy and politics and not really much to do with biology, in my opinion. Otherwise, having to police the margins and worrying about those who don’t comply would not be much of an issue.

YES.

This is the bottom line.  If you could analyze the mating behavior of humans in the same way you can swans and seahorses, there would be one and only one way that people COULD mate.  You wouldn’t see all these social rules about what is acceptable and what is deviant.  You don’t see gorillas and baboons writing anti-gay marriage legislation or slipping “thou shalt have as many wives as humanly possible” into scriptures.  They just do what their biology tells them to do.

I read the “Caveman Mystique” by Martha McCaughey recently, I would say that it attempts to rectify evopsych theories and feminism. I don’t know if I would say that it is successful but it’s a good read.

There are really two evopsych theories on male mating tendencies. There’s the one discussed in this article, men are justified to be shallow cads because they are picky, making an investment in their future offspring. The second is men are justified to be cheaters because they are not picky and it doesn’t matter how great their current partner is, they have to spread their seed.

Wanting to have it all comes to mind.

And that’s the main problem, it’s become a long line of justifying different (bad) behaviours.

Well, perhaps some men have been encouraged by this picture:

http://l.yimg.com/img.tv.yahoo.com/tv/us/img/site/71/94/0000037194_20070116145541.jpg

You and I can both see her point, but you also can see the point of the MRAs and those miserably sad people sitting on the sidelines of life too.  They all have points, but luckily most of them have hair or hats to hide them.

Happiness and all those good things that come with it rarely come up like angry hornets and sting you: you have to shake some trees to make that happen.  Humiliating rejection is always a risk.  I’ve made stupid-sounding loser-ish advances, and some of them worked.  I’ve also been called closeted, desperate, creepy, mysterious, an asshole, presumptuous, hedonistic, a drunk, too boring, out of shape, too interested in exercise, a loser, a weirdo, a guy who’s just looking for a rebound, a guy just looking for childcare, and whatever number of things I haven’t heard about in the last two years since my marriage went into the toilet.  And that is what makes the humiliation of rejection quite easy to handle in perspective: which matters more, rejection by some woman I barely know or rejection by someone I was with for thirteen years?  I’ve been judged unworthy by better people than those who barely know me, and even my ex’s rejection is lessened by the fact that she turned out to be an ass.

I say the hell with the courtship rituals.  Feel free to ask.  Reject or eject as necessary.  Repeat as needed.  In other words, you are responsible for finding your own damn happiness.  And again, who forms these leagues?  What happens when they don’t make the first move?  If the supposed rules hold you back, why follow them?  Ah, yes… the humiliation.  Risk it or don’t, but don’t blame those who don’t ask you out for the fact that you don’t have a date when you’re unwilling to ask someone out yourself.  Blame society, acknowledge your feminism, but fuck your individualism.  Sounds like a lifetime of happiness awaits.

you also can see the point of the MRAs and those miserably sad people sitting on the sidelines of life too.

No, I think they’re misogynist imbeciles.  Please don’t put words in my mouth.

And I hardly think it’s in the style of “sad people sitting on the sidelines of life”  to decide to not have to take on all the work of every social interaction, ever.

I recently had an interaction with this guy.  I was interested.  I thought he was interested. He knew I was interested.  We flirted back and forth.  He called a few times, but never actually went through with, like, proposing coffee or a drink or anything datelike.  I decided not to go through the trouble of asking him out, because I could tell it would be kind of like having a relationship with myself.  I would do all the asking.  I would make all the plans.  I would remember the birthdays and buy the theatre tickets and decide what movie we would rent.  And the kicker was that I knew that he’d probably resent me for “wearing the pants” or “being a nag”, even though he couldn’t even sack up and ASK ME OUT just that one time.

I have had that relationship too many times already.  It’s part of why I generally prefer to date women, and like a guy to show a little initiative.  Though of course I will make a move if I feel like it, or if I think it’s warranted.

Seriously, being single for a few months while you find someone who is worth your time is not a sad-sack thing to do.

I’m sorry you have had to handle all the social aspects of many relationships but that wasn’t what was being discussed, “who asks who out?” was.  And I don’t think being single for months or even years is sad-sacky unless you are at the same time pining for a specific someone to ask you out.  Your experience with the kinda-sorta-friendish-but-he’s-not-asking guy sounds like you were both mutually in blah, so it’s probably good you didn’t ask him out.  And I don’t think things would have magically been better if he asked you out, either.  I’ve also been there, not done that, and good riddance to such things.  Flirting is fun, but it’s got to lead somewhere or it just becomes creepy, boring, or some weird combination of the two.

Also, even misogynistic imbeciles have points.  On their heads.  Feel free to acknowledge them and laugh derisively.

I’m sorry you have had to handle all the social aspects of many relationships but that wasn’t what was being discussed, “who asks who out?” was.

Yes, and women are human beings who get to have feelings and baggage and opinions of how we want our relationships to work out. 

Which means that after you date your 5th guy who has issues showing any interest or affection, and refuses to take any active role in the relationship, you get kind of sick of guys who are obviously into you but can’t work up the chutzpah to ask you out.

Which isn’t to say that men should ask women out as a rule, but that I’m not always comfortable taking on that role, because of past experience. with men who won’t take initiative.  I don’t assume that any guy who likes me is just waiting for me to ask him out.  I assume that if I’ve had 5flirtatious conversations with you, we’ve talked on the phone, and we know that we like each other, you should be up to saying the words, “hey, what are you doing Friday night?”  If I get the sense that you really can’t handle doing that, I’m going to continue to enjoy my Friday nights alone until I meet someone slightly less spineless.

Jon,

No offense intended, but your posts sort of scream “male privilege”. Saying, “hey I ask girls out all the time and sometimes it works, so why don’t you ask guys out” ignores the fact of life that SpeedBudget already pointed out - that guys regularly resent the fact that you asked them out and it ruins the relationship later down the road.

Sure, some guys just don’t like independent women and can’t handle it. And they aren’t worth dating. But there’s a lot of social conditioning out there that plays into this as well. I’ve noticed that guys a lot of times think they want something (like a girl who takes initiative) but then later starts to resent that, and feel that society doesn’t value them anymore now that they aren’t alpha male. They want none of the rejection risks, but they don’t want to be considered a “girl” either.

The point being, you calling SB a “sad-sack” for noticing a fact of society and working around it the best she can, and justifying your post because, hey, it works for MEN, is pure male privilege - she’s not a man, thus it does NOT work for her.

(Off topic and WTMI, I’m sure, but guys are this way with sex, too - every guy I have EVER slept with lamented loudly and longly that their last girlfriend wasn’t very interested in initiating sex and that girls in general don’t like sex as much as they do… and then after they saw how often I want it, they are flattered and thrilled… until four months later when they are tired and less flattered because they realize it’s not them, it’s me… and then two months after that when they feel totally emasculated because, gawdammit, the MAN is supposed to be the initiator. Be careful what you wish for, is all I can say.)

And, Opo, ever time we do a relationship thread on here, you start convincing me to try girls instead. Your experiences with men are eerily similar to mine, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, I think it’s still a capital crime in Texas to be bi, so I may be stuck. Ugh.

It’s been a while since my animal behavior class in undergrad. In some species females must be pickier because they invest more time and energy into the offspring. It’s just a function of females in those species being able to have significantly fewer offspring than the males. But I don’t really see human males having significantly more offspring than human females. Well, except for the Mormon child-raping cults and sultans with 1000 concubines. But since those are the exception and populations, not individuals, do the evolving, I’m not sure how well this hypothesis applies to humans.

<quote>So yeah, some girls gotta settle.</quote>

For each other? :-D

What? Just sayin’...

For the record, I’ve never asked a guy out because I’ve never had to. I was hella cute in my youth.(QED?) Though I’ve dated at or above my own general attractiveness level, I’ve mostly dated below, in men. I think this has more to do with hanging with the geeks than any other factor.

I’ve been a little more aggressive with women, but not much - I’m fairly reserved by nature. Most of the women I’ve dated would be “within range”, though one of my most ardent pre-marriage loves was definitely not - she was, and is, a wonderful person.

Unsurprisingly, my wife - who was briefly a model - is definitely an outgoing woman - who will ask anyone out. (Well, not anymore.) She’s also the person who makes me smile; she’s intelligent, well-educated, etc. A real catch. (Which brings me back to the original proposal… fwiw, anyway, I realize it wouldn’t work for everyone.)

Also - and most guys I’ve talked to agree with me - I think there are more pretty women in the world because in general women are prettier than men.

The problem with any theory that says that women will be attracted to men who are good providers or men who will be sexually faithful to them or men who will take care of their children is that, in the ancestral environment, MEN DIDN’T DO THAT.

In hunter/gatherer societies, women do almost all the child care of infants. Men might play with infants but that’s about it. Women do this work communally, so all adult women (and many of the girls) are involved with taking care of everyone’s babies. Women also gather food for the entire tribe, and bring in about 80% of the tribe’s food. Men hunt for the other 20% (which is the tastier portion, so men get a lot of kudos for doing this, but it’s still only 20% of the tribe’s caloric intake), and protect the tribe from other men and from predators.

Now, in this environment it *is* more valuable for men to take risks and more valuable for women to take fewer; women have children to worry about and it’s the women’s job to provide the stable food supply for everyone, while men are unencumbered by children, do the higher risk work that is less vital to survival (the tribe won’t *starve* if they don’t get meat, though they won’t be happy), and are less individually important anyway (children needing *so* much care, the loss of a woman from the supply of child carers is a lot more significant than the loss of a man from the supply of hunters.) But there is *no* sense in which a woman needs to care if the man is a good provider (he won’t be providing to her personally; he works with a group to bring in meat for everyone), if he’s faithful (because she doesn’t need him to be a provider), or to “stick around” because his contribution to child care is minimal. And there is no sense in which the man needs to care if the woman is faithful (he doesn’t need to provide for her and he doesn’t do enough child care to care whose kid is whose), but it would be important that she have qualities worth passing on to children and that she be good at caring for children.

So sexual selection *might* have logically made men greater risk takers and women more nurturing, but it wouldn’t have had anything to do with women choosing ugly men to sleep with.

Status, however, is an important secondary factor here. Among chimps, and among all humans, sleeping with a person confers some of their status on you. So women should pursue men with higher status, which in a hunter/gatherer environment would be men who are very good at hunting, men who are very good at tracking, men who are very good at getting all the *other* men to work together, men who have a highly respectable status in some other way such as being the shaman, etc. And men should pursue women with higher status, which in a hunter/gatherer environment might be the women who are best at finding food, best with caring for the little ones, or best with corralling the other women to get work done, or have status in another way such as being a shaman, etc. In other words, the people who are best at their jobs or have rare and highly valuable jobs are the high-status ones that everyone wants to sleep with. Add in sexual selection for attractiveness (where attractiveness *may* code for health of a child… thus infertile women are no longer attractive, but middle-aged women who still look healthy and young *are*), and so now everyone wants to sleep with attractive people, people with high-status jobs, or both.

This is where you can see how patriarchy has deformed human behavior. By bringing women and their children under the individual control of a single man, the man is forced to care about the faithfulness of the woman, which requires him to do things like limit her status by limiting her ability to meet other men, choose women who are more docile and controllable, etc. The woman is forced to care about the man’s ability to provide and his faithfulness, because she has been shut out of providing for herself and she has lost the resource of a large group of women to help her raise her kids. This forces men to look for women *solely* on the basis of attractiveness and youth, which makes young women, ironically, higher-status than old ones… a totally ridiculous notion in a species with intelligence and long life. And it forces women to avoid caring about attractiveness in men nearly as much as they want to.

The good thing is that we haven’t had patriarchy long enough for it to significantly affect our evolution. So as feminism takes stronger hold in society, men *and* women will revert to our evolutionary state, which is for both men and women to care about both attractiveness and having a high-status job. This increases the pool of available mates for both sexes; both men and women can be *either* attractive, high status, or both.

I think pretty much any discussion of this topic is doomed to become a clash of anecdotes, because there’s probably far more variation within genders than there is between genders.  And so people make their mind up based upon what they’ve experienced, which could easily be based upon an unrepresentative sample.

Like me, for example: I’ve been preemptively rejected by more women than I’ve ever asked out, let alone went on dates with.  “Preemptive rejection” = when you’re sitting in a bar, minding your own business, and someone you’ve never seen before approaches you to let you know that, if you were thinking of asking them out, you’d better forget it, because they’re too good for you.  (When it happens to me, the woman in question is usually part of a bachelorette party, for some reason.  Another reason to oppose mixed-sex marriage, I guess.)  This is “normal” behavior in my (small and highly unrepresentative) world, but nobody would consider this “normal” in the broader picture of gender relations.  (I once received a preemptive rejection while I was out with a friend; I still vividly picture the look on her face whenever I encounter the word “flabbergasted”.)

Women do this work communally, so all adult women (and many of the girls) are involved with taking care of everyone’s babies. Women also gather food for the entire tribe, and bring in about 80% of the tribe’s food. Men hunt for the other 20% (which is the tastier portion, so men get a lot of kudos for doing this, but it’s still only 20% of the tribe’s caloric intake), and protect the tribe from other men and from predators.

It was when I realized this (via my anthropology major) that I stopped being all liberal-feminist/Ms. Magazine psyched about OMG Careerwomen, Supermom, Having It All, Yay!

“Having It All” is by no means a feminist concept.  In fact in a lot of ways it’s rooted in the most ancient forms of patriarchy.  I don’t want to have it all, I want what I want.  And I want any dude in my life to be supportive of that, just like I would be supportive of him having what he wanted.  Same if my partner were female.

A higher percentage of men in Austin are good looking than back home, I’ve noticed, and I think it’s because women in the evil urban liberal elite areas are just pickier because they’re not as dependent on men.  So when men have the same pressures to have to pony up with the good looks, suddenly a lot more get good looking.

Can I get a hell yeah/Amen/whatever?!

I also think that culturally, women’s bodies are sexualized way more than men’s, and it is much more likely for women to be reduced solely to their body parts.  It always strikes me how both men’s and women’s magazines are filled with semi-nude beautiful women.  Women are so used to looking at other women’s bodies as sexual objects that it makes sense that we develop an attraction to them ourselves even if we are heterosexual, and perhaps that’s also why we’re more likely to think that women’s bodies are aesthetically more pleasing to the eye than men’s.

perhaps that’s also why we’re more likely to think that women’s bodies are aesthetically more pleasing to the eye than men’s

See, I always hear this, and I wonder who these hetero women are who don’t like the way men look, or who find women more physically attractive than men.  I just don’t get it.  I like the way men look.  I think they’re hot.  Even seeing my naked husband (who, while adorable, is no Brad Pitt) just makes me all giggly.

This whole “finding a partner” thing is a giant pain in the ass.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

I guess what I’m getting at is that the premise of the post…

men who feel entitled to date out of their league, physical attractiveness-wise

...smacks of the most heinous kind of lookism. As soon as you accept the notion that there are discernable “leagues” of physical attractiveness, that’s lookism by definition, isn’t it?

And I must say that without “dating out of my league,” my life would have been far poorer. I would never have found Mrs. Quaker.

Mnemosyne, that wasn’t what I meant, and I didn’t say that hetero women are not attracted to men’s bodies.  But culturally (in America, anyway) everyone is socialized to think of sex when they see a pair of tits.  Women can’t breastfeed in public without offending someone’s tender sensibilities, which wouldn’t be the case if their bodies weren’t merely seen in their sexual capacity.  I don’t believe that there are numerically more “attractive” women than there are men as someone said upthread, I believe that we are socialized to look at women in a different way than we look at men.

“men who feel entitled to date out of their league, physical attractiveness-wise” smacks of the most heinous kind of lookism.

Yes, this.

At best it’s poorly worded, intended to target the sort of man who feels he’s entitled to the attention, affection, and body of a woman he desires, with no consideration to whether he’s desirable to her.

But if that’s what it was aiming for, it’s tone deaf.  There’s all sorts of other cultural narratives getting dragged in here, such as the idea that pretty people are only supposed to date other pretty people, and ugly people—well, they aren’t supposed to date at all, but if they must it’s incumbent upon them to know that the pretties are “out of their league” and not inconvenience them.

Amanda,

I guess the point I failed to make is I think it’s wrong to assume that evolutionary psychology is all bullshit or those who work in the field are all assholes and that it doesn’t have any value in trying to better understand human behavior.

Many of the arguments being traded back and forth here begin to sound somewhat akin to the nature vs. nurture debate and most people in psychology will agree that both factors are in play.

I think evo-psych can provide some answers about some possible motivations for some human behaviors. It doesn’t, nor could it, provide irrefutable arguments about why men and women have different criteria (even that is an assumption) for the selection of sexual partners.

That the patriarchy exists and that is a system that has repressed women is unassailable. However it wasn’t programmed in by god or the FSM - or at least there is no evidence to suggest so. It evolved and developed over time and I think that was in part (!) due to gene strategies of the type that evo-psych people are most interested in.

One of the most curious oddities about the human animal (and I believe we are unique in this regard) is that neither male nor female knows definitively if they are fertile. Many animals will engage in sexual behavior that doesn’t result in pregnancy but as far as I know, we are the only ones that do so blindly. This in itself is thought to be an evolutionary strategy designed to rebalance parental investment and keep men around.

Interesting - yes. Does it provide irrefutable biological motivations for the social instituyion of marriage - possibly on some level, but definitively? No.

I guess the real problem is that some people look at the work of evo-psych people and say “aha - this explains everything”. They then use it as the wobbly foundation for a moronically simplistic article they can pop into the life section of a newspaper. “Evo-psych explains why men say they’ll call when they know they probably won’t”, blah-blah-blah.

Then, since smarter people can poke this full of holes they then say “aha - evo-psych is bullshit because it doesn’t actually explain everything”. And on and on it goes.

Human sexual behavior is a complex many-layered thing and because it is in constant flux I don’t know if it is actually possible to ever completely explain it. But in our attempts to understand ourselves and hopefully create a better society, I think it is foolish not to consider that there may be many factors in play of which, evo-psych is but one.

Mnemosyne, that wasn’t what I meant, and I didn’t say that hetero women are not attracted to men’s bodies.  But culturally (in America, anyway) everyone is socialized to think of sex when they see a pair of tits.

I think it’s worse than that—I think women are socialized to not admit to finding male bodies attractive.  The female standard of beauty is set, so it’s safe for a woman to say another one is attractive, but a woman saying that a man is physically attractive is threatening.  It’s turning a man into a sexual object when women are the only allowable sexual objects.  Not only that, but objectifying the man puts the woman into a position of power over him:  she can pass judgment on his attractiveness, and that’s not allowed.  Only men are allowed to set the parameters for what’s attractive.

However it wasn’t programmed in by god or the FSM - or at least there is no evidence to suggest so. It evolved and developed over time and I think that was in part (!) due to gene strategies of the type that evo-psych people are most interested in.

How so?  IIRC, most anthropologists feel that patriarchy didn’t really come into play until humans started herding animals and staying on farms and that was only about, what, 50K years ago?  I don’t think that’s enough time for significant genetic changes to happen.

50K years would be plenty of time for “significant” genetic changes to occur - depends on “significant”, of course -  but I think Mnemosyne’s time scale is off and it is more like 15K years. The more relevent point in terms of the bs that is evo psych is we have very little idea of what life was like for our ancestors and as a result most of these theories say a whole lot more about our current cultural biases.

That sounds to me to be a description less of how good people can look then of how much they can appear to be in a particular socio-economic and cultural class.  “Nice clothes (and) nice hair” sounds a lot more like you are judging by appearance what a particular individual does for a living than whether he is particularly attractive or not

That you don’t think someone who doesn’t make a lot of money or have a white-collar job can take care about their appearance reveals more about your own class biases than about Amanda’s.

That sounds to me to be a description less of how good people can look then of how much they can appear to be in a particular socio-economic and cultural class.

Dana: conventional beauty standards are absolutely tied to class (and to race).  That was the case long before anyone uttered the term “metrosexual.”

a lot of men who would move up the scale with nice clothes, nice hair and a gym membership don’t have to bother.

This idea—that the unattractive folks just need better clothes and/or hygiene—always bugs me a bit.  It’s the flip side to the “men aren’t beautiful” narrative; the idea is that no particular man is that much uglier either, so all it takes is a decent makeover to make him relatively attractive.  And it’s utter bullshit.

Maybe the genetic changes happened before the patriarchy came into play?  I don’t want to portray it as a desirable thing, but if you had to organize your culture around masculine traits (physical power, mostly) for survival and success in a physically dangerous world, wouldn’t a patriarchy almost naturally result?  (Most of the great female leaders in history seem to have succeeded based on their ability to command men militarily, because except for isolated examples it was men who did the fighting.)  And now that those qualities are not necessary for survival (any woman can pull a trigger or push a button as easily as any man, plus despite how it looks we have less constant internecine/tribal warfare now), the playing-field doesn’t wind up tilted in patriarchy’s favor.  Maybe it’s only inertia, custom and the self-interest of those in power that keeps the patriarchy going.

How does that relate to flagrant looksism?  I dunno, but it’s there.  Speaking strictly for myself, I would find it hard to carry on a long-term relationship with someone I didn’t find physically attractive.  And since the kind of person I find physically attractive would almost certainly not be attracted to me, I just don’t bother trying.  I imagine that for these men TFA was discussing, it’s not so much that men all feel entitled to have Jessica Simpson as a wife (though some jerks may indeed believe that), as that it would be really really sweet to sleep next to someone like that every night.  It’s a fantasy, and we all want to make our fantasies reality.  But what do I know.  I’m a single man who doesn’t play the games, and maybe the real world is different from how I see it.

Mnemosyne,

I never studied anthropology or feminism so I’ll just take it as a given that what we know today as the patriarchy arose with animal husbandry and farming.

But humans and human societies are products of evolution - we are to some degree influenced by our genes and their own evolving strategies for reproduction.

It is quite possible that a successful genetic strategy that began a million years ago could have had some impact on a social construct that began only 50,000 years ago. That doesn’t mean it’s the cause but it might suggest that it is an influence or an evolutionary pressure.

Also, I think it is true that social constructs like the patriarchy, collective government or morality are themselves subject to forces akin to evolution. Successful systems dominate and eventually replace the less successful ones.

That the patriarchy emerged as the dominant social construct across many societies is not an accident. That it is becoming an increasingly outmoded one is also, in part, a reflection of changing priorities and pressures from our environment. As slowly as society has changed one can not deny its progress (cue Virginia Slims tag).

The really interesting thing, in my opinion, is that to an ever increasing degree, it seems as if we are able to self define environmental pressures instead of being purely subject to them. Is that where evolution has been taking us all along or are we changing the rules of the game?

Again my point is only that there is some value in looking at potential genetic pressures on culture, society and human behaviour.

that the unattractive folks just need better clothes and/or hygiene—always bugs me a bit.

If you ever travel to the rural American Heartland, , you will know exactly what Amanda is talking about.  Land of women who get up at 5 in the morning to do their hair and “put on their face”, and men who think dressing up means wearing a t-shirt with no swear words on it and the pair of cowboy boots that is younger than their high-school age child. 

My mother and I once took my stepfather shopping at a Banana Republic.  He pronounced everything in the store “gay”.  You would have thought we’d dragged him into the International Male outlet or Ye Olde Drag Queen Supply Shoppe.  And, no, his roots are not by any means working class.

Well, yeah.  Everyone knows slobs who clean up well.  The problem comes when folks imply that that’s all there is to attractiveness, with the corollary that looks privilege is legit, since if you’re not good-looking must be your own damn fault.

While I’d agree that clothes/hygiene aren’t everything in terms of looks, I don’t think that’s what’s being implied here.  Within the context of the “more pretty women than men” argument, it makes a ton of sense.  It also seems like people are confusing better clothing with more expensive (or more stylish) clothing.  Attractive clothes doesn’t have to be about classism; buying the jeans that fit correctly and a tshirt in a flattering color makes a huge difference.

This is the sort of confused thinking that dominates these evo psych articles

Amen to that.  “Men like X because a million years ago. . . ”  It’s so stupid.

“Men like X because a million years ago…” isn’t so bad on its own, and is probably true in some cases. The bigger problem is that they so often follow it up with, “...and therefore men liking X is natural and right and impossible to change, so if you wimminfolk don’t like it, then too bad for you! Now get in the kitchen and make me a mammoth sammich with a side order of polygyny!”

So while men go for women “out of their league” with regards to physically attractive mates, women don’t go for (and get) men “way out of their league” with regards to financial resources?

Riiiight.

Nice afterthought hidden in the fine print, though: “Maybe not make as much or anything, but have a comparable amount of spending cash.”

Um, that kind of says it all.

Might I suggest a few venues for conducting some field research to help verify the extent of that caveat?

The problem comes when folks imply that that’s all there is to attractiveness,

Honestly, that’s ultimately all there really is to attractiveness.  That and an attitude adjustment/personality makeover, maybe. 

In my opinion (and I can’t speak for anyone else in this thread or Amanda), nobody is really ugly.  99% of the way someone looks, especially in the context of dating and sexual attraction, not something more esoteric like becoming a fashion model, is how they carry themselves and how well they clean up.  Which can be anything from grooming to dress sense to overall health. 

This is why those makeover-themed reality shows are so inherently fascinating.  Because the only thing that really separates me from… er… whatever celebrity reference won’t make me sound either out of touch or overly into that stuff, is the fact that she has a trainer, a stylist, a $500 haircut and a pile of designer freebies, and I don’t. 

You see, I’m the guy who wears jeans (that fit, Emaloo) and work shirts and work boots, because that’s pretty much what I need to wear.  The people I see the most dress similarly, and they look just fine to me.

You get to feel that way because you’re a man.  No women, regardless of class, gets to share in that.  I have a somewhat physical job that requires me to wear mainly sneakers, jeans, and hoodies to work.  That’s what most of my coworkers and a lot of my friends wear, too.  But then I also know that that’s not “all I need”, and that it’s a good thing to dress up a little sometimes, even if it’s not absolutely necessary (even if it just means stylish jeans with a nice cut, clean and relatively new sneakers, and a hoodie that isn’t faded and stained). 

I will never understand why “make no effort at anything at all, ever, on pain of someone thinking you’re gay” is a Great Masculine Virtue Of Our Time.

<<I think it’s worse than that—I think women are socialized to not admit to finding male bodies attractive.  The female standard of beauty is set, so it’s safe for a woman to say another one is attractive, but a woman saying that a man is physically attractive is threatening.  It’s turning a man into a sexual object when women are the only allowable sexual objects.  Not only that, but objectifying the man puts the woman into a position of power over him:  she can pass judgment on his attractiveness, and that’s not allowed.  Only men are allowed to set the parameters for what’s attractive.>>

Mnemosyne, I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I am unusual in this regard…I have absolutely no qualms about finding the male form attractive; however, I often find other women to be embarrassed (at the very least) or offended when I mention a man’s physical qualities.  I’m sure part of my ability to look at men from a purely physical point of view is due to my work in photography, but I have always been able to do so, more or less, my entire life.

I am also one of those TOTALLY UNHEARD OF “somewhat attractive” women who date “model good-looking” men on a regular basis.  I am always amazed when people say that this NEVER HAPPENS.  The funny thing is, I actually DO look for personality above attractiveness.

So my best friend was watching The Stepford Wives with a male friend, and at the end, he said something about how stupid it was that you were supposed to believe that these men didn’t want beautiful, accomplished wives who made a lot of money, he’d love to meet a woman like that.

And my friend says to him “sure, you say that now. But when I introduce you to one of my beautiful, accomplished friends, you say ‘we just don’t click’ or ‘she’s sort of aggressive, isn’t she,’ or any of a dozen other excuses for ‘I’m intimidated.’”

Faye said to me:

“No offense intended, but your posts sort of scream “male privilege”. Saying, “hey I ask girls out all the time and sometimes it works, so why don’t you ask guys out” ignores the fact of life that SpeedBudget already pointed out - that guys regularly resent the fact that you asked them out and it ruins the relationship later down the road.”

Any man who resents being asked out is a loser.  I can’t think of any other way to describe that.  If his ego must be stroked that much, tell him to stick to phone sex and fundamentalist child brides or something equally pliable.  Either he can’t handle the (traditionally woman’s) position of having to deny someone’s advance, can’t imagine life outside of strict norms, can’t come up with or state the real reason to break up (the truth is not always the stated reason, folks,) or some other stuff is at work.  I’d also argue that anything that emerges months later in a relationship probably has very little to do with how it started, and a lot to do with the fact that the two probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.  Potential relationships can be killed off very quickly and by a lot of things, but the runaway number one thing that keeps two people apart is that neither one asks the other out.

Plus I honestly don’t see the cause and effect there: woman asks man out, the two start a relationship, the relationship doesn’t work.  It could just as easily be: man asks woman out, the two start a relationship, the relationship doesn’t work.  Heck, that’s how it happens most of the time.  Since most relationships follow the second example, and since most relationships fail in the end, then isn’t it about time to try the first example?  It’s only logical, right?

We men are often slow on the uptake, but I bet we’ll adapt.  You are welcome to borrow or flat out take our male privilege to ask people out, since apparently we aren’t using it often enough anyhow (not that rights exist in a zero-sum universe anyhow.)  And again, don’t blame traditional values for holding you back if you aren’t willing to use the rights you’re supposedly fighting for.  If feminism is about the right to do nothing more than bitch, then there will be neither progress nor even a compelling reason for it.

The evidence (bones, middens) is pretty strong that we’ve had at least one adaptation to agriculture and settled life and cooked food—our jaws got smaller. Not a lot smaller, but they changed quickly for a skeletal trait.

The explanation I like is that big baby heads are so dangerous in childbirth that the selection against them is very strong. Note that our brains must do us a lot of good, if they’re worth difficult births at 9 months!

clew

one theory holds that we are neotenous apes, basically, we’re smarter because we have a prolonged childhood, so to speak.

Neoteny in humans can be seen in different aspects. It can be compared with other great ape species, between the sexes and between individuals. Some examples include:

  * A chimpanzee completes brain growth at about 1 year of life while a human doesn’t fully complete growth until about 23, also at birth a human has only 32% of the brain size it will eventually have.[citation needed]
  * the flatness of the human face compared to other primates
  * late arrival of the teeth

Also - and most guys I’ve talked to agree with me - I think there are more pretty women in the world because in general women are prettier than men.

The fact that women are socially required to spend time, money and effort on clothes, makeup, hair, etc. before they are allowed to go out in public sort of disproves that.

If we were truly that pretty, we wouldn’t need to augment/camoflague our looks.

The fact that women are socially required to spend time, money and effort on clothes, makeup, hair, etc. before they are allowed to go out in public sort of disproves that.<i>

<i>If we were truly that pretty, we wouldn’t need to augment/camoflague our looks.

In my opinion, most women don’t need all that stuff; sometimes it even detracts.

You think men aren’t also “socially required” to do that?  No, we don’t have to buy nice shirts, ties, suits, after shave/colognes, expensive haircuts, or designer jeans.  Not at all.

But not remove all hair except for the scalp and eyebrows, often using hot wax, chemical and physical depilatories that can burn/irritate the skin; keep skin smooth and exfoliated; dye/curl/straighten your hair; paint your nails, eyes, lips, cheeks; hide freckles, blemishes, skin blotches; wear shoes that can damage your knees and feet.

The list goes on. 

And don’t say guys don’t notice these things.  They notice.  They make a point of informing us when we don’t adhere to these standards.

But my earlier point was, if we’re so darn beautiful, why are we supposed cover ourselves with paint and powder?

I support going Dutch!!

But I’m interested in knowing what generation Zifnab25 belongs to…
The girl puts herself out and flirts.  The guy picks the ones he likes and pursues.  Girls typically don’t have such a pro-active say in what guy they get.  They can fish until a cute one comes their way, basically setting a threshold and waiting for someone to cross it.  (That’s not to say a girl can’t be more pro-active any more than a guy can’t just sit back and let the ladies fall over him, but its the SOP for my generation).

...‘cause my experience is just the opposite. I’m a late gen-X.