In any discussion of what women want, no trait gets more attention than social status. Acknowledged as a key female attraction cue, it’s also frequently referred to as social dominance. It’s easy to see why. One need only look around to see that men in positions of leadership and social dominance are highly desired by women. Ogi Ogas, in his bestselling book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire, confirms its universal appeal:
Study after study has demonstrated the erotic appeal of male dominance. Women prefer the voices of dominant men, the scent of dominant men, the movement and gait of dominant men, and the facial features of dominant men…Scientists believe that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex may be responsible for processing cues indicating social status or dominance, and it appears that almost all female brains are susceptible to dominance cues.
Furthermore, social dominance is not conferred by women, it’s awarded by other men in a process of intrasexual competition for dominance and leadership. Men continually compete for dominance in social interactions with one another. The men who achieve the greatest rank among their peers may then display that dominance as a powerful advantage in attracting women for sex.
On the other hand, women associate very masculine faces with negative traits such as coldness and dishonesty. Women also perceive very dominant males as more likely to cheat and divert resources away from the family. This may be of little or no concern to women who prioritize short-term mating. For long-term mating, however, the female is faced with the challenge of optimizing the combination of leadership and provider traits.
Until now, scientists have not understood how humans evolved to prioritize pair-bonding over promiscuity, a critical development that laid the foundation for the modern family. A new study proposes that it’s entirely attributable to female choice. Women evolved to prefer cooperative, emotionally nurturing providers over physically dominant males:
Pair bonding supplanted promiscuity in human evolution when faithful females began choosing good providers as mates, a study finds. Evolutionary biologists have struggled to explain how pair bonding and the nuclear family structure took root in humans, as primate groups typically establish dominance-driven hierarchies that restrict mating privileges to a few high-ranking males.
…Using simple mathematical models, Sergey Gavrilets revealed that the most commonly proposed theories for human pair bonding are biologically unrealistic. Then, incorporating among other factors the evolution of female choice and faithfulness, the researcher devised a model showing how pair bonding can represent a key adaptation underscoring the uniqueness of human evolution.
The author proposes that low-ranked males likely began attracting mates by focusing almost exclusively on becoming the best providers, a strategy which had the added benefits of enhancing female fertility and bolstering the survival of their offspring. Over evolutionary time, the model indicates that all but the highest-ranking males would shift to provisioning females who had evolved a high sense of fidelity. The findings reveal that female choice factored critically in human evolution.
That begs the obvious question – if women have evolved to prefer men who provide both intangible and tangible resources (dads) over less agreeable or nurturing mates (cads), why does research show that women reward dominant displays?
Why do women prefer dominant men?
Since the 1987 landmark study revealing the female preference for dominance in males, scholars have theorized that women would have preferred men most likely to provide them with resources such as food and protection from danger. In addition, the “sexy sons” hypothesis states that women would have been eager to pass along dominant genes to their own offspring.
Sadalla, Kenrick, and Vershure (1987) published evidence indicating that women prefer men who are high in dominance over men who are low in dominance as potential dates (i.e., potential short-term relationship partners) and rate them as more attractive.
It seems likely that Erik von Markovik, aka Mystery, who studied evolutionary psychology to codify Game, would have relied heavily on this study. Since his focus was on short-term rather than long-term mating, this research finding would have proved valuable and highly relevant to his efforts.
However, Snyder, Kirkpatrick, and Barrett (2008) questioned the validity of the original findings. They observed a lack of consensus among scholars regarding what comprises social dominance. They also wondered how female preferences differed for casual sex vs. marriage:
Since [Sadalla et al, 1987], despite numerous studies pointing to limitations of this result, it seems that a simplistic version of their conclusion— that ‘‘women prefer dominant mates’’—has become conventional wisdom in psychology and related fields.
We wish to reopen the analysis of this mate preference phenomenon for scholars of romantic relationships with the following goals.
First, we intend to clarify and reexamine Sadalla and colleagues’ (1987) initial findings. In the pursuit of this goal, we argue that there is a problematic lack of consensus regarding what dominance as a construct is and suggest that subsequent attempts to clarify Sadalla and colleagues’ work (Jensen-Campbell, Graziano, & West, 1995) were insufficient.
Second, we provide evidence suggesting that women’s preferences in regard to status are contingent on several factors, including (a) the distinction between prestige-based and dominance-based status, (b) the social context in which the behavior is observed, and (c) the particular dimension of desirability being assessed.
In their published paper The Dominance Dilemma, they shared results from three studies conducted with female students at UCLA and the College of William and Mary. For the purposes of these studies, they defined dominance as “forced or coerced leadership,” characterized by aggression and other domineering tactics in the pursuit of agentic self-interest. Dominance leads subordinates to submit to a dominant male via intimidation or fear. They tend to maintain greater physical distance from the dominant male and maintain less eye contact.
Conversely, prestige is defined as “freely conferred status” by peers in recognition of special abilities and skills. Peers benefit from association with skilled individuals, as it is more efficient to copy their expertise than engage in trial and error learning. The prestigious individual is honored, revered and praised by subordinates, and “respond[s] with self-deprecation. Prestigious individuals freely offer information and counsel. Because of this free exchange of status for information, prestigious individuals may appear to be more kind, generous, and willing to help than dominant individuals.”
The research by Snyder et al revealed several key findings:
- When given the choice between dominance and prestige, women demonstrate a clear preference for a high-prestige male over a high-dominance male.
- Women prefer low-dominance males for both long-term and short-term mating, but the preference is stronger when seeking a long-term partner.
- Women prefer high prestige partners over low prestige partners, and this preference is also stronger for long-term vs. short-term mating.
- Women find dominant behaviors attractive in the context of athletic competition, but penalize them for both short- and long-term mating.
In this light, distinguishing between dominance and prestige is essential to enhancing our understanding of female sexuality and attraction. Overall, the research suggests that women are not attracted to disagreeable males, i.e. jerks and assholes, they’re attracted to men who earn the respect and admiration of other men, and who display kindness and generosity. The degree to which women penalize dominance vs. prestige is contextual, based on their own mating priorities, i.e. short-term vs. long-term.
It should be noted that dominance and prestige are alternate, but not entirely mutually exclusive, pathways to social status. Ironically, fraternity membership and athletics may connote prestige rather than dominance, even as its members often prioritize casual sex and engage in dominant behaviors, particularly towards women.
Fraternities, which generally advertise themselves as offering both male camaraderie and access to high value females, are presumably selective in identifying males who can uphold or even improve the organization’s reputation. They court these males energetically, even arranging hookups for them in some cases. (In the documentary Spitting Game, one fraternity brother at the University of Georgia explained that girls who have sex with three brothers earn the designation of “Toaster.” High value male pledge targets are directed to Toasters at parties during Rush.)
The school athlete is perhaps best positioned to attract his female classmates, as he is rewarded with prestige for teamwork and excites female interest by displaying dominant behavior on the field.
Unfortunately for women, a male’s having achieved a high level of prestige is no guarantee of agreeable behavior with the opposite sex, particularly before he is fully mature. Indeed, he will be influenced heavily by his peer culture, which tends to prioritize douchiness, i.e. dominance, over “good guy” honesty and self-deprecation.
The implications for women are clear:
- Seek men who have earned prestige from their male peers via their abilities and skills.
- Judge a man by the company he keeps, and how much he is genuinely loved and respected by others.
- Avoid men who tend toward aggressive and controlling tactics, except on the playing field.
- Expect men engaging in casual sex rather than relationships to display more dominance, as it is less penalized in a short-term mating context.
- Men with earned prestige have much higher emotional intelligence than men with self-serving, agentic behaviors. Look for depth of emotional expression in the men you date. The emotions need not be focused on you, but a man should feel strong love and loyalty for the things and people he cares about.
- Graduate from college and date five years older!
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“Conversely, prestige is defined as “freely conferred status” by peers in recognition of special abilities and skills. ”
What about prestige acquired via family position, which after all was an overwhelmingly important factor in many if not most societies for thousands of years?
@david foster
It wasn’t explicitly studied, perhaps because those people are relatively few in number. My own guess is that it depends on what one does with that privilege. For example, don’t know if you’re watching Game of Thrones, but there you see very interesting differences in styles of leadership, though status was granted via family position, e.g. Joffrey vs. Robb Stark.
Living in Boston, I am neighbors with several men who inherited wealth and status (of the Cabot and Lowell variety) but don’t really *do* anything. They come across as rather ineffectual and pitiable. If anything, I think a man of inherited wealth is under more of a microscope than other men, because “to whom much is given, much is expected.”
“When given the choice between dominance and prestige, women demonstrate a clear preference for a high-prestige male over a high-dominance male.”
Hallelujah. This research/ blog post “gets” me. An ex was dumbfounded when I expressed romantic interest after he had pulled his career together, but then chose a nicer guy after he (the ex) started expressing dominant/ jerk traits (which were unnatural for a nerdy guy like himself). He had bought into the whole “high-value girls are loyal to jerks” bull and tried to apply it to me. I really wish it had occurred to me to explain the difference between prestige and dominance.
Unfortunately, the nicer guy, who had prestige potential (artistic, visionary, etc), turned out to be gay. Talk about the Universe having a sense of humor. lol. That didn’t stop me from going for nice guys, though.
“Judge a man by the company he keeps, and how much he is genuinely loved and respected by others.”
Meaning he is going to commit to a woman that other men would respect and want to commit to if they had the opportunity. Unworthy women know who they are, so please don’t attempt to dupe him.
Illustration comment:
AHHH Asshole face!? My eternal nemesis, I will imagine is is drinking a martini with arsenic in it and his smug smile is going to disappear soon enough :p
This study seems to diverge from the discussion of tingle-inducing behaviors.
“This study seems to diverge from the discussion of tingle-inducing behaviors.”
It caters to another class of women who have a shot at reproducing with a dedicated father in the house
So, Susan.
What do we do when the culture we live in is utterly toxic?
Several years back I watched a 1 hour documentary that was dealing with how people choose their partners. The documentary involved many different theories and used a speed-dating session as an experiment; each expert used their knowledge of the people and made predictions, and none of the experts were better than random chance.
An interesting part of this was they included 2 pick-up artists who were well versed in Game and (of course) the pick-up artists predicted that they would be the most highly selected guys among the women; and they were the only two guys at the entire event who weren’t selected by any of the women.
Attraction is a very complicated thing that is based on the dynamics of a particular social circle. The kinds of approaches that work well in a club will likely fail at speed dating primarily because the kinds of women at both events are very different and want substantially different things out of a partner.
Realistically, I think a lot of what gets associated with “dominance” is actually a combination of self-confidence, self-respect and being willing to set boundries. We live in a world where the status of most men is so fragile and men have been beaten down so much that most men only have a veneer of confidence; and when women get a wiff of the insecure man that is underneith they run for the highway.
I think the problem is that prestige and dominance aren’t mutually exclusive, and that a lot of people can’t tell easily between the two unless they think about it. Politics is definitely a prime example. Not only is it prestigious, but often accompanies displays of dominance. There are no shortage of male politicians who get women attracted to them as a result.
Also, you’re expecting people to handle getting prestige well. See the video for Mike Jones’ “Back Then” for an example of handling prestige…less well.
Here’s an unfinished and possibly not-too-coherent thought: perhaps prestige is really only operable in a reasonably stable society or subgroup…stability being needed in order to have identifiable granters of prestige…and in times of chaos, prestige becomes less important and dominance more so.
@david foster
I was thinking the same thing after reading this. In unstable communities (think gang-run neighborhoods and such), dominance certainly prevails. This has some pretty heavy implications for certain cultures, but I’m not going to go there. I suspect that perhaps Obsidian may follow up on this…
A fascinating study that makes sense of the different outcomes we see between short and long term mating strategies. It also explains why men cooperated to build civilizations & why we have been so effective “recently” (past 10,000 years or so…)
The description of prestige makes a huge amount of sense to me. I have never read this before. Bravo Susan, great article! This is why I enjoy reading this blog and others that help my understanding of relationships.
As was previously mentioned “What do we do when the culture we live in is utterly toxic?”. This is the problem we face now, where the feedback loops and social controls that kept this system in balance are at best wobbly, if not broken…
@david foster
I think that’s important and it’s similar to some thoughts I was having.
Prestige, in a way, seems to be a form of pre-selection based not on women’s desire for a man but on the desire of other men to associate with him. One of my first thoughts was all the back to Sixteen Candles with the classic exchange
But the thing is, it cannot happen in a vacuum. Let’s say, for some reason, mastery of a broad selection of woodwinds can make a woman horny (hey, a guy can dream). Okay, so far so good. But I only get prestige for that if I’m embedded in a social group where:
1. Other men will respect me for that (say, being a session jazz performer).
2. There are women in that social group who see those men respecting me for it.
This explains a lot of how geekiness appeals to women involved in video game culture for example (Hope, am I getting this right?) or how being a quant, and thus making a good bit of change, can appeal to gold digger types.
@Codeazure
It certainly does. It also ties into something Dogsquat and others brought up several threads back: that men will specialize in something to gain status in the male hierarchy. We might not be the top dog but if we do something the top dog needs for success and other men perceive that we gain value and respect.
Which women apparently pick up.
Also, it explains why garnering the respect of other men and gaining a place in the hierarchy is so important to men. Believe me, for most men finding a group where you have a place, even if it’s in the bottom 10%, is much more valuable than being the cool lone wolf. Also, being in the bottom half of a high value group (football team, major bank, in power political party) is better than being in charge of a much less powerful group (golf team, the local Kinkos, a political third party).
Indeed, Prestige is much more acknowledged than dominance; if you express dominance but have nothing to show for, no talent or skill, something to distinguish you from the other men, what’s the point? Women will just move on when they realize you’re more crust than filling.
We sometimes see men who really work hard to acquire prestige in order to be allowed to be dominant since prestigious people get a leg up. This is how you hear of men “upgrading” to a “better ” wife/girlfriend.
I know these two men, friends of friends; one is cute, smart, athletic and nerdy, the other, very educated and knowledgeable but really out of shape though married. Both are always competing for social dominance and prestige, I avoid talking with them for fear of looking stupid. The problem is they don’t know how to talk to other people if not on the dominance through pseudo prestige thing. Handling those qualities also requires measure and moderation.
First, the initial study mentioned (“Study Finds Female Choice Key to Evolutionary Shift to Modern Family”) is not a “study” of anything, really. It’s a mathematical model. You can make mathematical models say whatever you want them to say.
Second, defining social dominance as “forced or coerced leadership” is kind of absurd. Does anyone think that college-aged women at UCLA and William and Mary are going to report that they like “forced or coerced leadership”? That definition sounds like it was made up by someone who doesn’t understand social dominance.
@ms walsh:
Once again, an excellent article, well presented. Of course, theres a few flies in the ointment that we simply must discuss.
But first, a word to ms royale with cheese, since we recently had words over at vsb on a related topic:
Madam, if i may, and with all due respect-your problem isnt as complicated as it sounds. Ive mentioned the solution before over at vsb, and it bears repeating over here:
Rooshv, despite the several areas of strong disagreement ive had with him, said it best; if youre a woman whos having trouble attracting the guys you want, its almost always due to youre not being hot enough; you should spend your free time improving your appearance and lowering your standards.
Comment & reply, invited.
Now, to the topic at hand…
As ive argued, quite persuasvively i might add, both here, vsb and my own blog, black women in particular do not seem to select for intelligence in their men, and now thinking about your post here, they do seem to select more for social dominance-which as you point out is a proxy for short term mating-and which then explains a great deal of what we see in the black community. As per usual, i do not take a “moral” position on any of us; just citing what is.
The problem, ms walsh that we keep coming back to, is that everything you advise simply doesnt work in a deregulated, unfettered sexual market focus on people under 30. The “presitge/emotional intelligence” model you noted above is an excellent case in point-by its definition, longer term pairbonding signals on the part of men are things that come with age, and that are appreciated by women who themselves have more life experience and maturity.
Of course, as you and anyone whos spent any amount of time in the manosphere know, thats cold comfort to so many guys who, essentially have to settle for damaged, or at the very least, used goods. By the time women hit 30, theyve either been divorced w/kids in tow, or have them w/o marriage at all, or failing that, have been out there dating for more than a decade and all that comes with it. Simply put, there just isnt any evidence you or anyone else can provide that proves that the things you write about actually can work for the under 30 set.
If indeed human mating comes down to what women want-and youll get no argument from me there-i think we have more than ample evidence that proves what women overall have chosen…
And, “prestige/emotional intelligence” aint it-at least not at the ages where, as far as most guys are concerned, it counts the most.
A final thought.
A few years back i attended a free concert in nyc’s central park, headlined by raphael siddiq. The place was packed and as is to be expected in nyc, filled to the brim w/ladies. Yet NONE of the guys stepped to them!-and the ladies were clearly putting out all kinds of “come hither” looks and the like. None. Of. The. Brothas. Budged.
Ive given that incident a lot of thought since then; and ive come to the conclusion that what i saw was one of the many unintended, but rarely if ever openly acknowledged, consequences for our new grrl order: that we have literally socialized the agentic quality of men right out of them, and it has had dysgenic effects-now, only the boldest of guys will dare to approach, flouting the possibility of having to run afoul of the law and so forth. The very guys you so often champion, have made the calculation that “the rent is too damn high!” and have decided to pass. Meanwhile, sistas like the ms royale with cheeses of the world, will continue to bemoan the derth of “good men”.
Hmm…
Holla back
O.
@Obsidian
“Meanwhile, sistas like the ms royale with cheeses of the world, will continue to bemoan the derth of “good men”.”
I haven’t bemoaned the dearth of good men. I have stated that technically you can’t make a man marry you, even after giving it the ole college try. I have also said that you can actively filter out cads, which is a practice that I appreciate and use myself.
“you should spend your free time improving your appearance and lowering your standards”
I keep my hair up, get monthly facials, keep my nails done, and wear nice clothes. Short of plastic surgery, I don’t know what else to do, Obsidian, so I’ll just have to live with being hideous. Lowering my standards may require pretending to like a guy I’m not attracted to…do you think the guy would appreciate that?
@ms rwc:
Please read for comprehension; i said, “sistas LIKE ms royale with cheese”-meaning, sistas of your cohort (highly educated, high earning, etc).
If the pic in the avatar is indeed you, then youre at least partially correct: there isnt much to be done. High status, high achieving black men have made it quite clear who they prefer, which tends to be lighter skinned black (or quasi-black) women with more flowing tresses. In that you have neither of these traits, your chances of landing such a brotha are statistically slim id say.
Which is why i quoted roosh.
Would a guy be cool with your pretending to be attracted to him? Do most guys care if a womans faking an orgasm?
Finally: do you agree or disagree with my assertion that black women, as a group (and that includes your cohort btw-not just the hood), does NOT select for intelligence in their men, as a first principle? If not, what evidence can you present otherwise?
Holla back
O.
Men continually compete for dominance in social interactions with one another.
No, depends on the existing hierarchy. Once a hierarchy is established, men usually “know there place” and don’t usually buck the established order too much.
But the biggest problem I have here is the association with “dominance” as nothing but a purely negative trait.
I truly dominant male literally inspires submission in men and women alike. When in the presence of real dominance, the lesser dominant men and women all want to please or gain the favor of a truly dominant male. Read up on the journalists who covered Bill Clinton’s campaigns for President. When he entered a room and spoke, every person present was in utter, rapt attention and hung off his every word – even his ideological opponents. That is true dominance. It’s essence is neither positive or negative, it just is.
Another word for “dominance” that is perhaps less loaded with negative connotations would be CHARISMA.
The negative connotations of the word dominance come with confusing the term with “domineering.”
There is a huge difference between the two.
@Obsidian
“If the pic in the avatar is indeed you, then youre at least partially correct: there isnt much to be done. High status, high achieving black men have made it quite clear who they prefer, which tends to be lighter skinned black (or quasi-black) women with more flowing tresses.”
Just FYI, I don’t date black men exclusively…but of course the “fair-skinned female” ideal operates across different groups. Isn’t that also true for men outside of the “highly educated high achieving” cohort? In spite of that, women who look like me do end up partnered with men of varying races and at different educational/ financial levels. I’m particularly interested in the highly intelligent cohort. But if they are also wired into the pigementocracy, then I’m pretty much screwed all the way around, no?
“Would a guy be cool with your pretending to be attracted to him? Do most guys care if a womans faking an orgasm?”
Interesting answer. I’m interested in hearing from the other male posters, as well, regarding this question.
“Finally: do you agree or disagree with my assertion that black women, as a group (and that includes your cohort btw-not just the hood), does NOT select for intelligence in their men, as a first principle?”
My cohort? I am not only highly educated and high-earning, I am also highly intelligent. My true cohort does select for intelligence first. Women outside of my cohort…they tend to go for the stereotypical tall dark bald Mandingo-in-a-box (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT_rApjhVnU) that does not exist.
@ms rwc:
Whats your iq score?
Second: of course black men generally desire lighter skinned black(ish) women; but again, please read for comprehension: i specifically mentioned high status, high achieving black men, and for good reason-because though i dont know you personally, i do know your demographic quite well, and by everything youve said both here and over at vsb i am failiry certain you would be more interested in the higher end brothas than the lower end ones, all things being equal of course.
That you wouldnt date brothas exclusively doesnt come as any surprise to me either, and thats probably the best route for you, since again, brothas with options have made their preferences quite clear. Ralph richard banks discusses all this in considerable detail in his book “is marriage for black people?”.
So, now you know that im an equal opportunity rabble rouser (recall my recent advice to champ re: jewish/asian women).
Finally: you have not provided any evidence in response to my question about black women (not) selecting for intelligence in their men; you have only provided a singular anecdote, which, even if it were acceptable on that basis doesnt work, given your own admission that you dont date brothas exclusively; so in a way, you dont count. Kinda reminds me of your “observations” of apparently unhappily married women you saw, which led you to the conclusion that women, overall, benefit less from marriage/ltrs than do men. If youre as smart as you say, you should know better than that.
Yes?
Holla back
O.
@Obsidian
“Whats your iq score?”
I never bothered to take an official IQ test as an adult, but as a sixth grader, I tested into pre-algebra. I didn’t go to a prestigious private school or anything, but it was a decent public school in the suburbs. I’ve scored 135-140 on a couple of online tests.
“That you wouldnt date brothas exclusively doesnt come as any surprise to me either, and thats probably the best route for you”
Whatever gets me to an attractive, intelligent, sincere man who loves me.
“since again, brothas with options have made their preferences quite clear.”
Quite.
“So, now you know that im an equal opportunity rabble rouser”
Never doubted that, O. I like to think that there are good intentions buried somewhere underneath…maybe.
“Finally: you have not provided any evidence in response to my question about black women (not) selecting for intelligence in their men; you have only provided a singular anecdote, which, even if it were acceptable on that basis doesnt work, given your own admission that you dont date brothas exclusively; *so in a way, you dont count.*”
Okay. That seals that, I guess. Seems like you have your answer already. I have nothing more to contribute but anecdotes.
“Kinda reminds me of your “observations” of apparently unhappily married women you saw, which led you to the conclusion that women, overall, benefit less from marriage/ltrs than do men. If youre as smart as you say, you should know better than that.”
lol. You should know better than to take a personal snarky assumption as a scientific conclusion on a message board that is mostly humor.
@ms rwc:
If i am guilty of anything, it is taking the byline of “very smart brothas” seriously-along with the crazy notion that black people could actually use the opportunity to discuss vital information, instead of doing online tryouts for comic view.
Go figure.
Anyway, yea, what banks said. I do think theres a small but significant cohort of sistas like yourself who would probably benefit from going the route he suggested. Have you read the book?
As for your remarks about the utility of marriage/ltrs for black women, i wasnt responding to your being snarky; i was responding to your being strident. The topic is a very serious one insofar as the black community is concerned; strond positions require strong evidence to back them up-a very nasty habit we black folk have fallen into btw (not backing up what we say w/evidence, i mean). Thats why i think so very highly of hus. I meant it when i said vsb could learn something from what goes on here.
I think we both know, deep down, the answer to my admittedly rhetorical question; its just that im more than willing to openly speak on what anyone can see w/one good eye. Its what any good rabble rouser does.
Ok, so what do you make of my observations of that concert in nyc etc?
O.
@Obsidian
No I haven’t read Banks’ book, but I’m familiar with the title. It caused some controversy. I’m not very motivated to read it, to be honest.
Re the NYC concert: My best guess would be that the guys were afraid of being cut down by the women. Cutting men down is full contact sport with a lot of women I’ve observed (if I am allowed to share more anectodotal evidence).
And this was right on cue…
“As ive argued, quite persuasvively i might add, both here, vsb and my own blog, black women in particular do not seem to select for intelligence in their men, and now thinking about your post here, they do seem to select more for social dominance-which as you point out is a proxy for short term mating-and which then explains a great deal of what we see in the black community. As per usual, i do not take a “moral” position on any of us; just citing what is.”
@ms rwc:
I hereby grant you anecdotal amnesty; by all means do proceed! Id like very much to hear your views on this “full contact sport” you speak of.
As for the central park concert, like i said above, the ladies were certainly making it known that they wanted the guys to approach. Now, we can debate as to whether the ladies wanted *certain guys* to approach-and that would indeed be a relevant point to consider-but from all i saw, the ladies definitely wanted some attention, and the brothas werent buying.
Another admitted anecdote:
I attended another venue in nyc, this time in soho, an eric roberson show; at one point, HE BEGGED the fellas to step to the ladies. Again, no dice. It was like being back in junior highschool at the big dance where the boys were on one side and the girls were on the other, and never shall the two meet, lol.
I say, that at least part of whats going on here is that feminism worked…too well. It has successfully neutered the very kinds of guys you and other young ladies in this forum claim to be interested, leaving only the most bold guys to step to the ladies in such venues-which brings me to another point, ms rwc:
Please note that both venues featured artists that would be associated with “brainier” black folks: siddiq and roberson. these are also venues where black folk are, on balance, older-at least 30 or so, if not more. Yet, i saw what i saw.
How do you explain it?
Lastly: i think you would enjoy banks’ book-i did, and this is coming from someone who had considerable areas of disagreement with him.
Holla back
O.
Yeah other than trying to make sense of the ‘Cheeseburger chronicles’ here, I’m calling BS on the whole concept here. The UTK study was a computer simulation based on underlying assumptions we know not, using ‘characteristics’ that are evidently neither genetic or even observed epigenetic, hence their ‘fixation’ in any population over time is just largely an academic parlor guessing game. Interesting theoretically, but a plethora of behaviors can easily be selected/imagined for in each and every daily interaction in 1000′s of ‘critical and fundamental’ ways to contribute to this scenario. The study likely accounts for almost none of these variables. The 90% +of the universe’s ‘missing mass’ issue.
How about some contemporary, say singular literary evidence? Like here from a Jezzie: http://jezebel.com/5914608/you-are-not-his-girlfriend-how-to-know-when-youve-been-brod
I’ll Quote: [On a Hawt dude Irby dated but wanted to 'do']: “I read his email and was like, “Yes, want. Dangerous, don’t care. Killer, handsome. Rape and disfigure, still don’t care.” [Also add to that]: “Dudes with [Read:similar] good taste in music seriously could walk me on a fucking leash”.
So in reality? Real life experiences tell us something wildly different day after day, hour upon hour of real life observations. Many women in their prime reproductive years, say 18-28-30 will not ‘key’ on Prestigious males Absent the Dominance signals, and fairly strong and obvious ones at that. And above all? They’ve got particular aesthetic requirements that belie most of their concerns over much beyond the usual hypergamous ones. This is true for many ‘modern’ gals in many advanced modernized westernized societies. Mating or even dating ‘prestigious males’ Absent some real, ongoing and again quite Obvious Status Cues indicating a supposed Superiority of available resources, just is not happening all that often. Or not really often ‘enough’ to engage perhaps 50%+ of the male population. And when you have that many ‘players’ who are essentially locked out or down from the mating games? That’s a lot of ‘wastage’ in the system. And no, that’s observational, no computer simulations required!
So theoretically lots ‘might’ be going on, and there’s plenty of ‘theories’ from various and sundry about why it’s going this way or that. But on the ground observations tell us that the more education women acquire, the pickier they generally get & the longer they’ll likely postpone marriage. And this general observation does indeed spill over to the entire society as a sort of ‘training & media effect’ writ large. If you’re watching much TV? You’re already infected. Ditto for consuming much of the usual print/magazine media. But seemingly for ‘short term mating strategies’? Anything goes, and will go on for a decade most likely for many women. Then they’ll try to ‘sober up’ and if they want some sort of a ‘respectable family life’, they’ll try to start searching for that ‘special Prestigious gift/resource bearing kind & gentle/cooperative’ provider, but likely not much before age 30 or so. Only then might many women begin to imagine reconciling themselves to possibly forgoing the infamous ‘deadly triad of traits’ of attraction for the hypothetical more atypical and more plentiful yes, beta providers. But even these guys better have some serious game, and demonstrate their better than average provider status. And so much more, most likely before the nest is even built or secured. That’s the reality today, of where we’re at. Cheers, ‘VJ’
@ADBG
Opt out of it as best you can, and seek others doing the same. They’re out there. Be a cultural revolutionary.
@Peppermint Panda
Hallelujah, a male has acknowledged this truth.
I agree – I think that self-confidence and self-respect send a message that the male is satisfied with his rank among males. It implies that he is held in high regard. Obviously, most of the time we’re not in a position to know at first meeting whether a man is a beloved leader, intellectual powerhouse, admired for his character, etc. One’s demeanor serves as a sort of shorthand to provide a first impression.
Women can indeed sniff out insecurity, literally I believe.
For me, the major “aha” moment in reading the study was the very clear discrediting of asshole Game, or “chicks dig jerks.” Some chicks may dig some jerks, but it’s not adaptive – we’re not wired to want dominance (as defined here).
Interesting and valid point about “mathematical model”. See, in another field, the global warming “hockey stick” and other models which don’t even predict the past. They’re run up with propaganda in mind, not scientific validity.
You want to publish? Studies involving lots of people are expensive and aggregating others’ studies is time-consuming and might not get you where you want to go. So you “model” reality.
@Todd
Agreed. College frat guys and athletes are an obvious example of young men granted enormous prestige by virtue of their memberships, who often resort to dominant behaviors in social situations. There are many dominant, domineering professional athletes as well.
OTOH, there are good men who exemplify all the ideals of athletic competition and brotherhood without wielding dominance against others.
I actually think that how well a man handles prestige reflects both his age/maturity, as well as his character.
@david foster
Good point. The study refers to previous work done on this, and qualifies its results as applicable to Western, industrialized nations. It’s been demonstrated before that female preference for dominance increases in dangerous and violent societies.
@Herb
It’s going back to the root. Women’s desire for a man is initially derived from his rank among other men. This is what I find interesting about social status – it is conferred by men, not women. Women simply respond to it. They gravitate to the leader. This research distinguishes between the benevolent leadership and dictator styles.
YES! Actually, you get the prestige whether women see it or not, but you get the women when they do see it. As I said above, few of us have the good fortune to make a first impression in the spotlight while basking in the admiration of others. This is where behaviors give us clues – agreeable self-confidence vs. disagreeable conceit, for example.
@Mireille
Interestingly, research on the evolution of narcissism posits that it’s a shortcut to mating for men who are indeed more crust than filling. Since some male ancestors were disagreeable and could not sustain relationships, the Dark Triad traits evolved to allow them to reproduce using a short-term mating strategy. Since those traits are largely heritable, we still see plenty of those men today.
This is probably more true now, than it has ever been. It wasn’t that long ago that children did NOT spend there entire day in age segregated classes, and then, possibly, onto age-segregated sports and clubs.
And, it some societies, you can still see the 13 year old boy wanting to impress the 16 year old boy who is wanting to impress the 19 year old who is looking … you can see how maturity can develop in a situation like this.
Fart jokes will still likely be appreciated from time to time, but outright douchebaggery would be smacked down.
@John Durant
True, but the model is an attempt to explain pair-bonding, since the researchers claim that none of the prevalent theories are biologically feasible. They’ve constructed a model to test the hypothesis that female choice may have played an important role. Frankly, this struck me as stating the obvious, but of course that’s what a lot of social science research does as it attempts to follow the scientific method, which is obviously not possible.
Personally, I think there’s value in asking the questions and constructing hypothetical answers – isn’t that better than everyone just deciding for himself?
LOL, the terms were not used in the research. The methodology involved exposing the students to a variety of vignettes showing different forms of leadership, social dominance, prestige, etc. The women rated the men on attractiveness, desirability as a short-term partner, and desirability as a long-term partner.
Also, I’ve heard many men say that women’s attraction to dominance is proved by the fact that men on Death Row receive love letters. In my experience, there are many men who believe forceful dominance or coercion with women is successful.
“a shortcut to mating for men who are indeed more crust than filling”
aka duping women. Poor babies. But these men should exercise caution because upon discovery of the dupe, some women do cry rape.
There is a reason why men cannot stand playboys…they are worthless to a society.
If you are some pretty little rich girl, you can spend all of your time going to charity events, “balls”, galas, openings, parties and other events. You basically send all of your time getting dressed up and utilizing social skills and judging (a girls all time favorite).
But if you are a pretty little rich guy doing this, you just seem useless. A man trying to plays a girls game.
@Obsidian
Why wouldn’t they? If we’re talking about the way human beings are wired, the potential is there. Culture and age/maturity do indeed play a role, and the pool of suitable mates may be shrinking as a result, but it’s still the best strategy for women to follow.
I don’t think there is an “overall.” I think there are different sub-populations operating according to different constraints and opportunities. In my particular target market – college students – more than 80% of both women and men are not having much sex. Those women are mostly choosing to sit it out.
Agree 100%. Oddly, I just saw a comment somewhere – I can’t remember who or where right now – and it was the same observation you made, but the guy was pleased to see that the men avoided eye contact with the women. He perceived it as men rightly taking back control. That is truly dysgenic, when victory = not connecting with the opposite sex.
Herb, I completely understand that this was not your point, but…there is something so unattractive about guys who get involved in power politics.
I am not talking about some guy that has a hobby horse (i.e. forest maintenance, Gun-Control/2nd-Amendment, etc.), but someone whose interest is political maneuvering. It’s like they have a general interest in being a weasel.
People who choose to enter politics are like people who choose to enter into selling Used Cars. Personally, I have never known anyone CHOOSE to become a Used Car Salesman.
@Obs
OMG! Stop that! That actually sounds racist to me, but I’ll admit this is not something I know anything about. Still, I won’t have you critiquing someone’s appearance here – that’s just rude and harsh.
“Women’s desire for a man is initially derived from his rank among other men”….two things about this:
1)If this is correct, it will play out very differently according to the age structure of society. If (in the Olden Days), an 18-year-old is working and his rank is being determined by his 22-year-old foreman (whose rank is in turn determined by the 29-year-old shop supervisor), the attributes rewarded will be very different from an 18-year-old college student whose rank is determined by others of basically the same age and with no meaningful social responsibilities.
2)What about men who are innovators, who are exceptionally good at what they do but it has not (yet) been recognized…the talented but not-yet-discovered actor, the inventor who hasn’t yet sold his patent, the startup businessman who is still scrounging for his first angel investor? Do they ever succeed with women? (My guess would be that self-confidence is extremely important here; fortunately, they are likely to have it or they wouldn’t have to guts to do what they’re doing)
Sounds pretty “right on.” Socially / Athletic dominance works great for college girls. The “cads” as you call them are validated by other males in social settings and athletics. College Males do not validate one another by grades. Fraternities and more exclusive clubs provide college males with prestige too.
I think as both men and women age, Prestige, financial success win out over dominant behavior for women seeking LT. But, women still want to f*ck the Alpha. I see it all the time. As a mid-40′s married male, I have seen so many divorces caused by a woman having an affair with an Alpha’esque guy while the successful, smart, loyal and mostly, non-socially dominant male is left behind with payments and a broken heart.
Attraction is something the LTR must always maintain.
@manwhoreextraordinaire
You’re getting hung up on semantics. The reason the researchers did the studies was the utter confusion around the term dominance. When you ask women if they like dominant men, some picture a charismatic charmer, others a wife beater. In order to understand female attraction triggers, it is important to break down what we mean when we say “dominance.” For the purposes of the study, the researchers described different types of men. Some displayed kindness and generosity, others controlled people via intimidation or manipulation. Females responded very differently to each type.
Charismatic individuals can display dominance, prestige, or both. I actually thought of Bill Clinton when writing this post – his social status is entirely derived from prestige. His style is anything but agentic and self-interested. That doesn’t mean he has not failed tests of character (ahem), but he has earned respect while displaying enormous warmth and generosity. I’m not a Clinton fan, but he’s a poster child for prestige over dominance.
Susan, please, speed dating is not a great way to understand female attraction triggers. I am not arguing that club rats have the last say on what female attraction triggers are, but let’s not get carried away.
“That begs the obvious question – if women have evolved to prefer men who provide both intangible and tangible resources (dads) over less agreeable or nurturing mates (cads), why does research show that women reward dominant displays? ”
This wouldn’t make sense unless women were actually rewarding the males displaying dominance with reproductive opportunities, and then using the “dads” to ensure those off-spring reached maturity and were able to pass along the same tendencies to their off-spring. This makes perfect sense from what I have seen in my life. I know that I have several children – of course the “Dad” has no idea. Women are doing what best ensures the survivability of their offspring, while still providing reproductive opportunities to dominant males. They have been doing it for as long as humans have been around, and will continue to do so.
This is why I am a strong advocate of genetic testing – never take responsibility for any child till you’ve verified it is actually yours. If you don’t take that simple precaution, you deserve what you get for being stupid.
Are those hypothetical answers really better than men reporting what they see in “the field”?
Again, I am not saying that Roissy and Roosh have the last say on what is actually happening, but statistics are at their best when they help describe what is actually happening.
So, for instance, people will say that Statistics can say anything you want them to, which is true. But, think about baseball: various nerds have spent the last 3 decades devising newer and newer stats to help evaluate what is actually happening. And, some of those newer stats have proven to be better than others.
My point is this: these studies prove most helpful when they help us understand that which we are hoping to understand.
So, if some study went about trying to understand why the average person marries (in a culture where fewer and fewer people are getting married, getting married after their sexual prime, and still maintaining a pretty damn high divorce rate), that would only be so helpful to a bunch of men who are interesting in getting with (i.e. banging, dating, marrying, whatever) the hottest girls at their most fertile.
That is, we don’t really care all that much about why some overweight person married some unattractive person. Girls don’t watch TMZ and read Us magazine to find out who that Cinematographer is dating.
So, it is not that these studies are complete crap, I don’t think that is the case at all. But, “field” reports are still very, very helpful…and definitely more helpful than “hypothetical” answers.
He also never won a majority of votes in either presidential election, could not get anything passed in the first half of his first term which had a Democratic President and a Democratic majority in Congress, and, basically, oversaw a loss of Democratic power in each major election from 1994 to 2000.
I am not saying he wasn’t “alpha”, I’m just sayin’.
Re: dominance, prestige, and competition. An interesting bubble of very gentle and humble, Mr. Nice Guy behavior can co-exist within a larger study of violent and aggressive activity.
For an immediate example: a top MMA gym that produces truly dangerous unarmed fighters will often have a culture that emphasizes control and humility as much as it does athleticism and technical ability. IME, the reason for this is to prevent injuries, resentments, and irrational escalations of aggression that can break out at any time when dealing with a subject as potentially destructive to body and ego as fight training is.
Given the subject matter they are trying to master, the fighters have to come up with psychological pressure-relief valves to prevent serious problems from developing. One good habit, usually enforced at least informally, is to avoid bragging about having a good day in which you dominated your training partner. Instead, the victor will usually shrug and say something like, “I got lucky on that one” or “you were so close to getting out of that submission; I probably won’t ever be able to put that on you again.” The loser will usually respond by complimenting the winner. The positive atmosphere is maintained: both guys can train hard in a dangerous combative sport, day after day, but remain friends and help each other to get better.
Perhaps this forms a kind of behavioral paradox: in order to learn to become truly (literally) dominant over other men, a man will probably have to go to train at one or more of the places that have experience in the development of uberdominant men. However, the places that conduct this type of training will need a range of high-quality training partners who are willing to stick around and support one another, which in turn means that a culture of cooperation, compromise, and humility may be critical. Thus, the men most capable of total, foot-to-ass dominance may have been simultaneously developing a deep (if tacit) understanding of subtle ego dynamics, management of emotional conflicts, and ways to cooperate and get along with other people in stressful, emotionally-charged situations.
Furthermore, social dominance is not conferred by women, it’s awarded by other men in a process of intrasexual competition for dominance and leadership. Men continually compete for dominance in social interactions with one another. The men who achieve the greatest rank among their peers may then display that dominance as a powerful advantage in attracting women for sex.
Now that is interesting! Particularly the idea that it is men who award soicial dominance to other men.
Since I arrived in the ‘sphere, it’s been my theory that women want a guy who can exert enough dominance over the environment so that he manipulate it into providing resources for her and their kids. I have maintained that women who crave dominant men, particularly the young and naive, often mistake dominance over them as an indication of dominance over the environment (confusing sizzle with steak, as I have referred to it in the past). I have also suggested, before became disenchanted with the nomenclature, that “betas” tend to be steak, while alpha thugs tend to be sizzle.
This research confirms my thesis. “Prestige,” the respect conferred on men by other men as a reward for having a combination of alpha and beta traits (leadership paried with the ability to mentor and build consensus), is more attractive to women than thuggish dominance.
On a personal note, it also explains why after 25 together, I still get a kick out of watching a$$holes being deflated by one sickly smile from my husband.
AHHH Asshole face!? My eternal nemesis, I will imagine is is drinking a martini with arsenic in it and his smug smile is going to disappear soon enough :p
LOL. I see great minds are thinking alike this morning. But, who needs arsenic? As I said, one look from my husband can wipe that smirk right off another guy’s face. My younger son competes in the junior division.
”Agree 100%. Oddly, I just saw a comment somewhere – I can’t remember who or where right now – and it was the same observation you made, but the guy was pleased to see that the men avoided eye contact with the women. He perceived it as men rightly taking back control. That is truly dysgenic, when victory = not connecting with the opposite sex.”
That would be me. I made the comment on another thread. Don’t quite remember the thread’s name. Anyway.
It is quite the win for Men because, by rejecting what nature intended us to do, we free ourselves from a lifetime of child-support, alimony, stds that will not go away(most of the guys I know who are sexually active don’t do it with women who broadcast any slut vibe by they are all suffering from herpes and HPV) and we open ourselves to an endless ocean of possibilities.
I am not saying that there aren’t women out there who are worthy of commitment. Sure, I’ve met a few who were blessed with good looks, intelligence, chastity and capacity to be loyal to their men… But women of great moral fiber and who are at the same time not owners of a Loch Ness Monster face, and aren’t sexually promiscuous/or had several sexual partners are nearly extinct.
Besides, it is so awesome to be in my late 20′s, to have far more money than most of the men who dedicated themselves to very profitable careers, because the money they earn is spent on the family. I don’t have anything like that. I inherited my parents and my grandparents etc farms, houses and lands. I don’t pay rent – I rent the houses and invest the money in properties.
My wealth will amass itself with each passing year and with no one to spend it on(relationships, dating, escort services etc etc) I will be quite rich. My financial independence will allow me to dedicate myself to what I believe will grant me my Immortality; the arts.
I will paint and paint and paint until I’ve surpassed the greatest of the Masters.
I can’t come out and say that every man will be as lucky as me, as I was to inherit my family’s possessions, but I have met many young men who aren’t interested in becoming high-status seekers or wealthy, and they’re extremely content with the state of their lives.
Most of these guys, the vast majority of the men who weren’t given genetic godhood(height, muscles, Brad Pitt face etc) will not bother with women. Sometimes I even watch average AND attractive women approach these guys and ask stuff like, ” is this the bus stop to x place” while 1 minute before reaching the bus stop they were on the phone with their sisters saying that they’ve reached the bus stop and were now waiting for the bus.
They had the schedule memorized and more than that. They went up to these guys who weren’t anything special to look at, average dudes, some even below average(below average height) and they smiled to them, whole mouth smile, touching their arms and such…
Only to be completely ignored… It was as if there was nowhere there, the sound coming out from the young women’s(average to attractive women) was a figment of an imagination that was elected to be ignored by the Beta males.
The women stood shocked, not knowing how to react to what was considered impossible by the men who weren’t forced to grow up within feminism.
I, and an incredibly high number of men who are of my age or younger than me are unknowingly joining the ranks of the Herb-men from Japan. Me, I’m doing it because I’m smart. The rest of them are doing it due to a lack of developing taste for female attention and sex. After a lifetime of eating noodles you really cannot find a pleasurable flavor to fish; like a decent-looking friend of mine who had his first kiss, first sex at the age of 30 and didn’t like it all.
This might seem like we’re dooming our species to extinction. Doubtful. The men who are smart(millennial-generation men) are very satisfied with porn and with their imagination.Video gaming satisfies our need for white knight behavior, saving the princess, transmuting one self from low status male to social dominant Colossus by saving the World, like Cloud Strife did in Final Fantasy VII.
Most of us aren’t interested in having children either. They seem to be too troublesome. The boys are too addicted to female attention and the girls are mini-entitled princesses.
Women benefit vastly from the abandonment of society by the beta male. The path is clear for the Alpha male to be had. Women will have their fun with the men they really want and most men will not be destroyed by hyperygamy as there won’t be any bigger, better deal for the woman to go after.
Stds will be arranged to be only possible within a small circle(Alphas and women), the majority of men will be sexually healthy. Low hours of work, one of the major reinforcements for the men who are seeking to go their own way, will be possible, which will result in many more hours of leisure.
We’ll live much longer.
We won’t have to work jobs we hate to put food on the table for a family. We won’t have to worry about, are we making the women happy, are they in love with us. We won’t be compared to their ex-partners. We won’t be accused of false rape report. We won’t be forced to be a ”man”, pony up those responsibilities.
We won’t be one of those dudes who has to wait in the supermarket some 5 hours because his wife wants to make sure they have everything they need.
The list goes on and on and on, but I gotta run; I have a ”date” with the Dragon Queen from A Game of Thrones. She’ll give me everything I want by indulging my imagination and I won’t have to pay one dime for it.
Only by denying the biological imperatives Nature has cursed the beta male with, can he rise above commonality and become truly free like the Buddha and the Jesus Christ’s of dedication to Mankind.
“This study seems to diverge from the discussion of tingle-inducing behaviors.”
Au contraire, mon frere. This is what loads of us tingle for.
Pleas, Susan, don’t censor Obs and RWC. You can learn more about the dynamics between the sexes from a black man and a black woman speaking candidly to each other than from just about any other source.
The African-American community being kind of a canary in a coal mine as it were.
Let’s say, for some reason, mastery of a broad selection of woodwinds can make a woman horny (hey, a guy can dream).
If you pick the right cohort of women, it actually does.
Just wanted to add that, after being treated as the invisible man from my teens to my mid 20′s has given me greater control over the vastly higher testosterone men have. Last month, a woman and her family moved to my building. The family is comprised of a grandmother, a granddaughter, and a daughter. The father of the granddaughter is in jail. The grandfather of the child is dead, died 5 years ago of cancer.
The child’s niece is 18 years old. Tall, with a rather attractive body language. She’s naturally blonde, with a greatly slim figure that is not skinny nor indicative of artificial augmentation; she has a naturally bust chest, and the facial definitions of a Scandinavian barbie doll.
She could easily be a top model would it not be for the abundance of very attractive women in my area/it’s a high-quality Colleges area.
Not only is she without a boyfriend, she doesn’t have FWB’s, no one calls her to hook-up(she’s always complaining about her lack of sexual life) and she has more than one occasion displayed sexual interest in me.
She’s 1 minute away from me as we speak. All I had to do was to get up from the chair, hit on the door, and ask her if she has some milk to spare. She knows that I have social status ie, I have a college degree and I’m getting a post-graduation degree, whereas the majority of the young men here dropped out from college and spend their time getting high on weed and playing video games.
She has also noticed – I was having a 4 hour conversation with a friend of mine on the subject of women, sexual attraction, hypergamy, and social dominance – right in front of our building.
She knows I periodically travel to other Countries to visit friends, evaluate possible acquisitions and for fun(no, not sex turism, lol).
I am a vastly better dressed than most men. I don’t use pants that fall below my butt. I don’t use a baseball cap. I don’t walk like an Ape. I have at all times perfect posture. Immaculate personal grooming; always clean-shaved, shaving my face 3 times a day and more if needed. My hair is always shinny. I change my clothes 2 times a day.
In a word, I like to please myself and I take great pleasure in my personal image.
Her niece, the child without a father took a liking to me. She’s clearly in need of a male presence in her life. She’s ruddy, wild, doesn’t know how to behave. Her two female mentors don’t really know how to instill discipline in to a child.
This little girl stares at me, imitates what I do, doesn’t go home like her grandmother instructed to, choosing to stay really close to me and my friend and do the uttermost to call my attention. I’ve ignored her many times before but she still insists on having me pay attention to her.
The interest this kid has in me has also shown to her aunt that I could possibly be a great dad, sparking her interest even more, but can you believe how emotionally stuttered she was, when I take one of my friends to visit my house, she’s at the door waiting for me to open it, which I do, but at the same time I make it clear that her being there made absolutely no difference in my demeanor?
I approach the door, she sees me. Begins to violently blush. Pupils dilate. Her nipples become erect. Her body is slightly shaking. The entirety of her body language is emanating mating call signals, all of it directed at my body. It was also somewhat around the end of the month, she was probably ovulating.
I enter the building. Do not hold the door. It hits her in her face. I keep on going. My friend asked me why I won’t tap that(the young woman),” she’s hot, man.”
Indeed she is.
I don’t want to get burned.
And if the loser, upon being asked by a third party how it went, responds, “Yeah, he is just being modest. I have a lot of work I need to do. I give up my back too easily.” The victor will think that much more of him.
Self-awareness, hard work, honesty…this is the kind of guy I want on my side.
It’s really nice how you’re trying to remove “asshole” from the equation Susan, and indeed it would be great if the whole wide world was made up of smiles and sunshine. But it isn’t and these studies are nonsense.
As someone pointed out, the first “study” is a model, it’s a hypothetical possibility at best. In this case the “conclusion” that women were responsible for the establishment of committed monogamy as a result of their mate selection is laughably belied by the fact that women, under fewer social constraints than ever, are now choosing the biggest assholes and douchebags in sight. If you don’t believe the entire manosphere on that point, go ask Tucker Max or any frat boy on your nearest college campus.
Of course, you mean women choosing for long term relationships, and to that any man should say, “who cares?”, because only a fool is going to wife up a girl who spent her prime slutting around.
The second study is pure dissimulation. It presents a false dichotomy between threatening, unlikeable asshole and talented push-over. Guys who are good with women are likeable assholes. That point has been made again and again. That’s what women go for, and turning likeable asshole into unlikeable asshole or into likeable pushover and presenting the two as the only options is just fucking stupid.
Okay, before I comment on anything I have to come to the defense of my profession. Sure, I can make a mathematical model say anything, but I can’t make a good mathematical model do that.
First, mathematical models extend well beyond the large scale computer simulations that most people associate with them. Newton’s laws of motion constitute a mathematical model as doe Maxwell’s equations of light. In fact, the harder the science the more likely the majority of the theoretical work is building mathematical models that both explain know facts and predict possible new observations.
The test, for me, is how many times does the model have to be updated to calibrate the past. If I build a model of interest rates, for example (since that’s one of the biggest things I’m involved in writing) in 2000 and it is predictive through 2008 but in 2009 I have to re-calibrate it to fit 2008 it’s a much better model than one written in 2000 and re-calibrated in 2002 to account for 2001 and in 2003 to account for 2002 and so on. Both failed, but one failed at a signficant point where the data changed radically (similar to an object entering a large gravitational field would require modification to a model of motion built in the absence of large gravitational fields) while the other simply failed on day to day calculations.
As was pointed out above the motive behind the model can affect that. Quants write economic models (in defiance of Hayek, which is something I keep in mind every day at work) and if we screw up the company loses money and we lose our jobs (if you say, “they don’t lose money because the bank gets bailed out” I won’t argue except to point out that doesn’t secure the job of the quant writing the model, just the CEO who hired him). If the goal is to publish in a scientific journal fitting current prejudice is the indicator of success. Which group would build my “good until 2008″ model and which one would build my “good until the end of the year” model is left as an exercise to the leader.
@David Foster
That’s actually a really interesting question – how has male intrasexual competition changed over time, and how does it vary within societies?
Agreed, if anything men like this have outsized self-confidence. I think it’s partly how they’re made, but they’ve probably been innovating, displaying talent and determination from a young age. Even at a young age, my guess is that most of those types had a talent or trait they excelled at.
@Ramble
It’s not that I’m extolling the value of studying speed dating, but I welcome broadening the sample beyond nightspots.
@Susan Walsh #31
In most areas of life people generalize their successes far beyond what can really be justified, and many men who are successful in the pick-up game are making assumptions about women that are not supported.
Being that “slutty” women (for lack of a better term) are likely going to clubs several days a week and dressing to maximize their attention, while relationship-material women are only going to the clubs a few times a month (if that) and are often dressing more modestly, the kinds of women these guys are approaching are disproportionately going to be the “slutty” women. On top of that, with how game is internalized, when these guys fail with 80% of their approachs (and probably 99% of the time with relationship minded women) they assume it is because of lack of being “alpha” enough; so when 20% of the women respond in a positive way they don’t think it is because these women are different, they assume it is because they have done something right.
Essentially, it would be remarkably difficult to convince someone who believes they’re 100% responsible for the outcome of an encounter and is highly successful (as measured on a per-night rather than per encounter basis) that their understanding is limited and their assumptions can not be generalized.
@mulechewingbriars:
Thanks, man. I certainly see where ms walsh is coming from, but her attempting to silence me or anyone else when it comes to the brutal truths of evopsych wont do her or anyone else any good. Even ms rwc has acknowledged what i said was true, and lets face it:
Ms walsh herself knows what im saying is true, for the most part. The problem is, that shes very pensive about openly speaking on what she and anyone, regardless of color, can clearly see with one good working eye.
Think about it: whens the last time you saw a high status black man w/a noticeably darker skinned black woman? Ok, lets all recognize barack obama-but after that, who else?
To ask the question, is to more or less answer it.
It is a documented fact that lighter skinned black women tend to “marry better” ie, higher status black men then do their darker skinned sistas. It is what it is, and dont think for one minute that black women arent aware of this-they are. Spend some time going through the vsb archives and see for yourself.
Most people would agree that kanye west is a high status, high achieving black male. ALL of the women hes been romantically associated with, are noticeably light skinned. At present hes carrying a torch for a woman whos been married and divorced twice, and whose very name has become synonymous with the words “sex tape”-yet, that doesnt prevent west from seeking kim kardashian out.
But why doesnt he get with someone like say, india aire? After all they share a number of things in common-at least as much as alicia keys and swizz beats(!). Aire is a grammy award nominated singer/songwriter who just about everybody recognizes is highly talented. Ill wait while you get me documentend sources of brothas pining away for her-again, you can start with the archives of vsb, which is written by two black men. Personally, ive never seen panama or champ even mention aire, let alone pine away for her and that again goes to prove my point.
Want another example? The williams sisters. Theyve dominated the tennis court for more than a decade-do either of them have high status, household-name brothas on their arms-like say, beyonce does? To ask the question is to answer it-in fact, the younger williams sister, serena, was just in the news talking about how she was throwing in the towel on dating. No dis to her, but i think we all know why its been so toughgoing for her.
In his book “is marriage for white people?”, ralph richard banks devotes entire chapters to skin color and hair texture-which in american life slots you on the beauty hierarchy, if youre female. Simply put, the darker/kinkier your hair, the lower down on the totem pole you are to black men who matter. Ms rwc is riht-she can most certainly get with a brotha-itll just be as a said, one wholl most likely not have as high status as she would have liked. Given her relative youth, education and earning, it will be very hard for her to accept such a blatant step down, hence at least in part why she dates nonblack guys. We know from evopsych/buss, that women who are like her desire more of the same from the men they date-which is why i basically gave her my blessing on going the banks route. Getting with a white guy may be the best possible option for her, because-please forgive me-it doesnt look likely that she will be able to compete on the metrics that high status black men have made clear they want and desire in black women. Theres a reason why brazil has an entire subculture built up around american black men going there to vacation-puerto rico too. In fact theres an entire porn series devoted to this topic-do some googling around.
Nothing im saying here is in anyway new; at least not to black folk-it just sounds harsh which explains ms walshs comments.
But that doesnt make it any less true. Bsides its hard to see her chastise anyone for simply pointing out the fact that short(er) men get passed over all the time by the more desirable ladies. Such is life and those guys are expted to either suck it up or sit it out-either way, its highly unlikely any of us will see a ms walsh bemoaning this to say nothing of chastising anyone who dared to openly speak on and recognize it.
More in a sec…
O.
@Ramble
I agree that field reports, or anecdotal evidence, is useful and informative. As always, it is important to consider the source. Just as I acknowledge that my focus groups represent some but not all women, I think we need to recognize that a single man approaching 50 may not actually have his fingers on the pulse of the SMP. Or that a 30-something guy scoring most of his lays (by choice) outside the U.S. may not be the foremost authority on American college women. And of course, none of us can attest to the validity of these FRs. I’ve been struck more than once by the unlikeliness of some anecdotes I’ve read – they just didn’t have the ring of truth or sound like genuine interactions.
I know for a fact that some of the males giving FRs online are really, really not what they purport to be.
@Ramble
Recently I posted a Helen Fisher video where she describes him as being very high estrogen, haha.
Pleas, Susan, don’t censor Obs and RWC. You can learn more about the dynamics between the sexes from a black man and a black woman speaking candidly to each other than from just about any other source.
The African-American community being kind of a canary in a coal mine as it were.
—-
I have no idea why that conversation is even taking place on this blog. Just saying.
@Bastiat Blogger
I recently heard Eric Greitens speak at a college commencement. A Duke grad, Rhodes scholar and Navy SEAL, he was all about humility, caring for his fellow SEALs, and overcoming personal adversity and doubt by focusing on the good of the group. He was the epitome of prestige over dominance. A great humanitarian, he now dedicates his life to getting vets into positions of community activism. His wife won the jackpot. (She is no slouch herself: a Stanford alum, Marshall scholar, and PhD candidate at Harvard.)
This, I completely agree with.
Those hidden videos (granted, I have seen fewer than a dozen…although, I don’t go looking for them) can be a real treasure.
@J
The problem is that cohort of women is both broadly dispersed and generally older.
The key issue with men (not women but men) acting on this study is just that. It’s a way to sit out until you’re thirty or make a splash in a broader distributed group. While the Internet age has helped on the later (it revolutionalized S&M dating both for good and bad) it hasn’t helped on the first.
As our culture extends adolescence into people’s late 20s and encourages age segregation (odd, something I wrote about harming D&D’s culture a few years back) what constitutes prestige earning actives will converge with asshole activities. I think that’s something to which you allude when you state “women who crave dominant men, particularly the young and naive, often mistake dominance over them as an indication of dominance over the environment “. A similar activity occurs with undirected teenage boys. I suspect Obs will tell me multiple generations without active fathers mean a lot of poor black men never quit being teenagers in some ways.
For women this is good advice if they can regulate themselves because it helps them identify men getting prestige for useful reasons before their peers do. Want to land a man who is going to be an 8 or 9 at 40 when you’re 20 and even then only a 6? This is great advice because you’re getting the early shots.
For men at 20 trying to get a date, not so much. At least not in this day and age. We leave kids by themselves which is part of what broke assortive mating (as Susan loves to point out, adult guidance played a big role in its success).
Because the internet, at times, can feel very White-centric.
And the social dynamics of people descended from Sub-Saharan Africans can be very different from those descended from (North) Western Europeans and South East Asians.
Correction:
His new wife won the jackpot.
He’s divorced.
“Also, I’ve heard many men say that women’s attraction to dominance is proved by the fact that men on Death Row receive love letters. In my experience, there are many men who believe forceful dominance or coercion with women is successful.”
Susan. Note you say that men “believe” that forceful dominance…is successful. Is it possible they’ve seen/done it so they believe? Or do they just believe? Big, huge, major difference.
.
It must be understood and cannot be overstated that everything im saying here is fully backed up by the researches of prof david buss; moreover, as mulechewingbriars has pointed out-and as ms walsh herself has freely admitted several times on this blog-black america truly is the canary in the coalmine that is america. We can test all manner of evopsych theories there, with some very interesting results.
My question-”do black women select for intelligence in their men?”-is one such example. I think we all know or at the least, sense what that answer is; but again, youre not supposed to notice because if you do, youll be tarred/feathered for being “racist”-and if youre lucky youll get a twofer-”sexists/misogynist” too! Of course such a response is meant to deflect any real analysis of the question; it hurts too much for some people to simply recognize the truth. But it wont change the truth anymore than ms walshs attempts to silence me will change what high rolling brothas want in their women.
Going to her response to my post last night-again, at the risk of being redundant, the problem here is that she has failed to provide evidence that the “beta strategy” actually is a viable one for MEN UNDER 30. In fact it anything she agrees with me that it isnt-which means that in a very real sense, these guys WILL be settling. Now, we dont make that much of a big deal out of that as a society because of, i think, our collective sexual psychology; men do indeed have a lower sexual threshold than do women, and so we expect men to settle more than women. Moreover, most men in any societ failed to mate and society chugged along; so our psychology really doesnt focus much on the (male) losers of the sexual sweepstakes.
By its very definition, the beta strategy is such that it comes second to the alpha one-which means that it will appeal to either older women, or second tier women (think of what i said earlier in relation to black women); the most desirable women simply wont be a factor here, as they, like buss has said in his books, will be able to demand whatever their going “price” is-and the beta strategy clearly aint it.
This is what ms walsh has failed to take into account in her mentioning of mystery: please recall the subtitle of his work “the mystery method”-
HOW TO GET BEAUTIFUL WOMEN INTO YOUR BED.
Theres a reason why mysterys system doesnt go below a 6 on the scale. And again, this is wholly consistent with all that buss has said: for all but the most desirable mates of either sex, everyone else has to get in where they fit in-that means settle for what they can get. Part of the problem the beta guys have, aside from their being hardwired to want the dimes too, is that the more middling to below average gals-like the lena dunhams of the world-have an artificially inflated smv, in part because they can get sexual validation from guys who are at least a point higher on the scale. Only when theyve been pumped and dumped will they consider mr beta. To date, ms walsh has failed to give any guy here an alternate strategy as to how to appeal to the hotties thats better than what mystery has come up with. Until she or someone else does, its highly unlikely most guys will want to go that route.
More in a sec…
O.
@Mule
I don’t want to censor anyone, and I’m sure RWC can take care of herself, but yikes, that was a bit harsh. I give anyone who puts up a pic a lot of credit.
J.
““This study seems to diverge from the discussion of tingle-inducing behaviors.”
Au contraire, mon frere. This is what loads of us tingle for.”
Au contraire, ma soeur. Two items: First, the entire tingle-inducing discussion dismissed such things. I referenced a late relative of mine whose funeral was attended by, among others, seventy-five of his closest friends from the SEAL and related communities. I discussed what was said about him–which I would pay gold to have said about me except you don’t get there with gold–and was told that such things do not a tingle induce and men should recall that what they think is great does not impress women. Doqsquat on his blog said…women want what they want and what men think is great and women should want women don’t want and men ought to “get it”.
IOW, that thread actively dismissed what qualities men prize in men as TI (new acronym). IOW, men-awarded prestige doesn’t work.
YMMV, but the point is this discussion is quite different from the other one, no matter that YMMV.
Secondly, repetitively, the geocentric system was a mathematical model.
“@ms rwc:
I hereby grant you anecdotal amnesty; by all means do proceed! Id like very much to hear your views on this “full contact sport” you speak of.”
Lol. I’m sure you would, and not only for your own “education,” but for everyone else to see as well.
@Susan
No need for alarm regarding pigmentocracy. It is typical and predictable. I’ve gotten used to it (to the point that now, no one can bait me into an Internet flame war over it). I’ve even had some darker men peer closely at my hair and cheerily announce that I must have Native American in my family. After they run out of Kim Kardasians and Halle Berry’s maybe I’ll finally get a date to the prom!
Susan, I am familiar with Eric from a couple of similar background reference points and mutual friends, although I do not know him on a personal level. From what I have heard, I would hazard the guess that he has an interest in a political career.
Ramble, re: “…I give up my back too much”, etc. Exactly, man, you know the deal. There is a Bro Code for these things.
For whatever it is worth: when I asked my female undergrad students to be more specific in what they considered attractive about dangerous or “badass” men, we ended up with a couple of dozen items listed on the board. I then dutifully went to the next step and forced pair-wise competitions until we came down to four that really were the most prized (by far). In order of popularity, the four finalists were:
1. Strength & Conditioning
2. MMA
3. Extreme outdoor adventures (dangerous game hunting was #1; big-wave surfing and mountaineering were also mentioned)
4. Tactical shooting
@Modernguy
Look to your name and then consider the highlighted part.
Those social constraints were enforced by women back in the day. Why did they start?
Because this is behavior that isn’t even pre-modern it is pre-neolithic.
Modern women can behave as they do not only because social constraints are loosened but because the very environmental factors that drove the creation of those constraints is gone.
Does that mean women created them? No, I’m not asserting that. What I am asserting is comparing women without social constraint now to women without social constraint on the savannah of Africa 1,000,000 years ago to today isn’t very insightful.
@Susan
Uhm, hello? Given I did very little clubbing and most of that in punk and goth clubs and most of that to actually just dance I’d say I’m outside the nightspot sample.
@modernguy
May I ask your qualifications for judging UCLA an institution engaging in nonsensical research? Whose observations do you believe deserve more credit? Did you even read the post? Are you aware that Game itself is based on research like this?
I am well aware that there are plenty of assholes in the world, I write about them frequently
This is an exception fallacy. Not to mention confirmation bias.
With only 2% of male college students getting to 10 partners in college (including oral) you’re guilty of drawing conclusions from exceptions to the rule.
@Susan
I’d argue any single person is closer to it than someone married several decades. His view might be narrower (his own experience) than yours with the focus groups and it will skew to different age groups but he’s still in the trenches.
@ms walsh:
Going back to my nyc anecdotes, again it cant be overstated-i was in very large venues, in a city where the (particularly black) male to female ratio is documented, where the performers appealed to a more upscale and older crowd (goodle raphael siddiq and eric roberson) and where the ladies were dying for the fellas to approach-and got nothing. I am saying to you and everyone else reading along, that weve created an environment where the very guys youre championing are saying that “the rents too damned high!”-and are voting with their feet. The costs of being the wrong guy when stepping to a gal, are very real; you could be tossed out of the venue, catch a beatdown or get locked up. No, guys arent gonna try to suss out the NAWALTs in the room-theyll simply say it aint worth it and call it a day. Keep in mind now, im giving you realtime field reports FROM NEW YORK CITY.
Btw, if you happen to be an alpha in such an environment you can pretty much write your own ticket. One lady-a very good looking one i might add-blatantly hit on me right in ms brown sugahs presence, showing me a full view of her naughty bits right there in broad daylight in central park as siddiq did his thing. Without even trying i mustve chatted up about half a dozen ladies, just making small talk. Aside from the guys already there w/their ladies, all the single guys didnt say a word.
Make the connection-nyc attracts lots of single women regardless of color-even amanda marcotte lives there, and i think thats a very important aspect of this discussion-and its because nyc is one of the most women friendly places on the planet.
But it does have its drawbacks. Especially if youre a not terribly agentic guy.
Holla back
O.
@Obs
What we call settle today is what we call assortive mating here. After all, everyone wants a 10, even the 1s. Taking a 9 is technically settling even if it is more realistic. The past 30+ years have created a couple of generations of women who don’t want to settle and feel entitled to act out if they do.
PUAs are just a generation of men saying, “fine, we won’t either and instead of settling we’ll just P&D.”
Women cannot demand the right to complain if they are expected to settle in an era of sexual equality and then expect men to just “man up”.
Obs -
It isn’t just African-American women who don’t select for intelligence, it is women in general, with the exception being, as you pointed out, Jewish women and Asian women, both of whose cultures have a higher-than-usual appreciation for raw cerebral horsepower.
As far as the high-ranking brothers selecting the light-bright-almost-white, I wonder if this is the case in Africa or other societies where the white man is no longer on the top of the totem pole. I remember an Ethiopian woman looking down her [coal-black, narrow] nose at American black men because of the large amount of white genetic material they carried. She dated very dark-skinned American black men, Michael Jordan type guys, but, like Iman who she resembled, she married a white man.
Any man who would prefer Kim Kardashian over Alek Wek, Rutina Wesley or India Aire would have me scratching my head. If my [half-cholo] son brought any of those women home, I’d be beside myself.
I don’t understand the whole School Daze syndrome, but I have seen it in action among my daughter’s friends. Her dark-skinned friends do better with Mediterranean boys.
@Royale W. Cheese
Pretty much 80% of men regardless of race hear you.
I was actually at the huge UFC 100 event in Vegas with backstage passes, including the “Fashion Show” (long boring story as to how I got them). Anyway, I one of the girls I was hanging with was really into MMA to the point of doing some training herself (she barely weighed 100 lbs) and I am convinced that she simply liked being around the aggressive guys and really liked “training” with them (“OMG, you have pinned me down yet again.”)
@ Susan
The pigmentocracy in the Afro-Amaerican community is pretty much like the “hot blonde” ideal that self identified white people may be more intimately familiar with. There are tons of “exceptions,” but in an argument, the “gentlemen prefer blondes/ mulattoes” conclusion will always be argued the strongest. However, when you look around at the diversity of couples in your own back yard, the trend, no matter how well argued, doesn’t really matter.
Where Obsidian gets it wrong is when he takes these broad trends and applies them heavy-handedly to my individual situation. Sure, what typical men do may contribute to a few experiences I’ve had, but they fall short of explaining some specific, unique interactions that actually matter to me. But this does not matter to Obsidian. I don’t bother to debate much with him (I reply most of the time, not debate), because any story I share will be dismissed as an unimportant exception. He is very predictable…or consistent and reliable…pick your adjective. lol.
“1. Strength & Conditioning
2. MMA
3. Extreme outdoor adventures (dangerous game hunting was #1; big-wave surfing and mountaineering were also mentioned)
4. Tactical shooting”
Hmm. Would a soldier do? If he was sufficiently a self-referential blowhard, perhaps?
@Obsidian
I just wanted to comment on why guys fail with a “Beta Strategy” …
It is my belief that two factors are driving these guys’ behaviours which are not really based in success in a modern dating envionment; romantic comedy movies and being taught traditional values in how to treat women.
Romantic comedies involve highly attractive men who (often) have high status jobs, great personalities, and are remarkably confident who go to extreme lengths to worship women. They are fantasies that are marketed towards the 80% of women who don’t stand a chance with these kind of men and are not worshiped by any man. Attracting a woman using this kind of fantasy based strategy for the average guy will be no more successful than an obese woman using trying to attract a man using a playbook based on porno.
“I’d like some hot sausage with my pizza”
“Sorry, it looks like you have already had enough sausage. Can I get paid now?”
The traditional values one is (probably) less obvious. I suspect that throughout most of western history women were expected to make rational decisions about who they were going to marry; and love was something that would develop over time. Demonstrating that you’re a nice guy, you will not beat her, you’re generous and tolerant, and countless other qualities are (likely) going to result in her choosing you. This is no longer true, and a man has to attract a woman before he has to demonstrate that he is relationship material; and this means that the qualities that men are being taught to demonstrate are the wrong ones.
May I ask your qualifications for judging UCLA an institution engaging in nonsensical research? Whose observations do you believe deserve more credit? Did you even read the post? Are you aware that Game itself is based on research like this?
I’m a nobel laureate who’s been to the moon. Does that make it better? Anyone with a brain can see what these studies are. The first is a model, it takes an assumption and models the outcome. The second presents a false dichotomy.
This is an exception fallacy. Not to mention confirmation bias.
So who’s word are we supposed to take on it? Herbs who’ve wifed up former sluts and are hanging on to their sexless marriages with “emotional support”? Virgin college nerds? Let’s look at the guys who are actually successful with women.
Back after my usual weekend break, so I only skimmed the comments here.
On dominance vs. prestige, most of us “common folks” aren’t going become or to get with somebody who’s super high up on the prestige factor, so dominance is still what works to a large degree. I fully intend to have our son learn some game, not dark game, but light game like what my husband does. He is also going to teach our kid martial arts, shooting, sports, outdoor adventures, camping, tool use, etc.
About black women who look like Royal W Cheese, I knew a few real life examples of such women married to nerdy white men. But that was a self-selected circle, since all of the guys worked in IT and played D&D and poker together. The wives weren’t light-skinned Beyonce lookalikes, but they were definitely college-educated and had high IQs.
“Women evolved to prefer cooperative, emotionally nurturing providers over physically dominant males”
Hmmm…. I disagree.
It’s not that women evolved. Its about women making a choice. Like you said before, it could be a choice about short-term dating over long-term dating.
In the past with her status with her family’s resources and without birth control or abortion or a career, women had no choice. Every decision with who she selected for dating was a long-term mating choice.
The issue of dominance is a modern concept. To say it is a evolution ignores the impact of feminism in the 20th century.
Susan, I just realized my attitude sucked in that comment. My apologies. (There was no need to add that condescending “please”).
The problem is that cohort of women is both broadly dispersed and generally older.
Really? I have high hopes for my sons falling into the music cliques in college. My DH is a multi-instrumentalist and that always served him well with women.
“Herbs who’ve wifed up former sluts and are hanging on to their sexless marriages with “emotional support”? ”
Can we really find another term for loser guys.
I’m getting hit from PUAs all the way to Star Trek.
@J
What you just saw from ms rwc is, with all due respect, the big problem with black america today. Instead of proceeding from the latest of what data has to offer as a first principle towards making crucial decisions, we instead fallback on subjective, emotive opinion and conjecture. She is right-i dont care to do such things. I am interested in getting results and to do that i need the most accurate information with which to make that happen.
Everything ive said here today can be directly traced back to primary sources; none-NONE-of what ms rwc has said can be similarly traced. This is vitally important; one would expect more from a woman with an estimated iq of 140.
Ms walsh and others here, know me; and i think they would agree that im not prone to attempting to make arguments based on very narrow, if even accurate parameters.
The fact that the most people hair coloring is blone or some variation thereof, undercuts everything ms rwc has said on that score; the fact that black women in particular, spends about half a trillion dollars a year on “yaki” hair extensions and the like, is a testament of their resolve to respond to what black men have indicated they want most in women. That ms rwc couldnt even be bothered to read a book that very well speaks directly to her own situation, just goes to show how deep the aversion of actually being informed on things that matter (or should matter) to black america really is.
Lasty, @mulechewingbriars: yes, yes, modern day africa is very much the same in this regard; indeed skin bleaching, hair extensions and the like exceed black americas. Steve sailer has discussed this on his blog and gives his reasons as to why it is; google his name, ghana and black women to find out more.
O.
Au contraire, ma soeur.
You can rationalize around this all you want, but I’m honestly telling you that I identify with study as something that explains my own sexual behavior, and I have a quarter century relationship with a “prestigious” as opposed to dominant man to prove it. Susan, I imagine, has something similar–indeed I think most of the maried women on the blog do.
@Obsidian
“But it wont change the truth anymore than ms walshs attempts to silence me will change *what high rolling brothas want in their women.*”
Does anyone have any data on the correlation between “high rolling brothas” and IQ? Obsidian, if I read correctly, you’ve made the assertion that my preference is for the high roller, but if they do not represent the majority of highly intelligent men, then that assertion would be false.
I guess it’s a question of who you want to attract. Prior to meeting DH, I dated a symphony musician for ages. I would have married him had he asked. (He incidentally has never married, but I see him around occasionally. He has offered free lessons to one of my sons, but it’s too weird to take him up on it.) DH played in a university orchestra. There ae social circles that revolve around serious music.
I’ve never dated a rocker BTW, but I’ll confess to being one teen rocker’s second biggest fan.
@ms hope:
Your comments are most interesting; i for one would like very much to examine to what extent your hubby has game, and if he is able to clearly distinguish dark game from “light” game. Perhaps you can explain a bit?
As for you comments about the “rwcs” you personally knew-thank you, youve just validated everything banks said in his book “is marriage for white people?”. I think you would enjoy it.
@herb:
As a former turntablist let me tell you, it definitely gets the gals. Nuff said.
@modernguy: bodyblow!-lets see how ms walsh will respond (if she can…)…
@peppermintpanda: i think youre broadly accurate but i think you would like my post on game where i focus on traditional gentlemanly types like sidney poitier and cary grant. Just google my name and the words “makashi game”…
O.
@Obsidian
“The fact that the most people hair coloring is blone or some variation thereof, undercuts everything ms rwc has said on that score; ”
A quick Google search suggests that many reports estimate that only 2% of the world’s population is naturally blonde. If you don’t believe reports, then a simple text book Mendelian genetic cross will illustrate how recessive traits are masked by dominant ones. Hair color, while a multi locus trait, is expressed from a set of alleles where darker pigment is dominant. The less likely occurrence if two recessive alleles is required for penetrance of a recessive trait (e.g., blonde).
I don’t understand how blonde preference is much different from the Afro-American situation, in the way you described it. A lot of women bleach their hair. A lot of black women buy straight/ curly hair.
About the leader of nerds phenomenon: it is not as simple as being “dominant” when it comes to herding nerds. Nerdy people pay great attention to ability, skill and intelligence, and will not follow someone who’s coercive, aggressive, controlling incompetent and merely can bark orders.
Maybe this is a part of the prestige factor, but with nerds it’s more about mutual interest and who wants to put in the work/time, because it takes a lot of work and time to lead in nerdy activities. Also, leading smart, opinionated people who are just doing something for fun, not real mony rewards, is very different from being a boss at work.
Being able/skilled/excellent doesn’t automatically result in prestige either. Prestige implies some kind of wider fame or recognition, and not everybody wants to self-promote or likes being in the spotlight, and generally these accolades and recognitions build on top of previous ones. Coming from an introverted female perspective here, a lot of introverted men have trouble because of this. As a female, looks are enough to get me in the door. A male has to display and demonstrate.
My husband is on the border between introvert and extrovert, only slightly leaning toward introversion. He is smart, but also confident in his own abilities. He told his boss at work that he was interested in a management position very quickly, and he has an aura of “benevolent leadership” about him which makes it so that other people tend to defer to him, and for most it’s a subconscious process. I was aware of this, and I was drawn/attracted to him because of it. That is the “x-factor” which a lot of other nerdy guys are missing when it comes to opposite sex attraction.
@ms rwc:
Very good question. Let me ask you this: i just mentioned a number of fairly high status black men:
Raphael siddiq
Eric roberson
Kanye west
Would you consider these brothas to be intelligent per your liking-and if so/not, why?
O.
@ms rwc:
Very good question. Let me ask you this: i just mentioned a number of fairly high status black men:
Raphael siddiq
Eric roberson
Kanye west
Would you consider these brothas to be intelligent per your liking-and if so/not, why?
O.
PS: @mulechewingbriars: please note that the realife michael jordan married a black woman who looked a far cry from iman-which again, just goes to validate my point…
@Obs
I don’t bemoan it because I don’t see it happen. I’m well aware that many women on dating sites specify a tall height, but in my experience, the smaller guys do fine. In fact, some of the more notorious college players of my acquaintance are 5’8″ or under. I’ve theorized why before – they compensate with attitude/self-confidence, but I don’t know why it is. It would be very interesting to see data re sexual partners and how it correlates to height.
Here’s a true statement: In four years of focus groups meetings, I have heard women express a preference for tall men – but only from women 5’10″ and over.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying it doesn’t mesh with my experience. When I do talk about it, it’s usually to say the above and I get shot down by the guys. *shrugs* I don’t have a dog in the fight.
Royale–
FWIW, I sympathize with your plight. I can’t speak to the race issue, but I know from personal experience how an IQ in your range narrows the pool of possible mates. It ain’t easy….
Also, FWIW, I think you have a knock-out smile and an open and friendly overall mien that is attractive.
he has an aura of “benevolent leadership” about him which makes it so that other people tend to defer to him, and for most it’s a subconscious process. I was aware of this, and I was drawn/attracted to him because of it. That is the “x-factor” which a lot of other nerdy guys are missing when it comes to opposite sex attraction.
I can relate!
@Herb
I am sympathetic to the plight of young males. I think the solution lies in correcting the Pluralistic Ignorance around hookup culture, and finding ways to bring the majority of males and females together, something that is currently not happening. I haven’t cracked the code on that, but I’m convinced that raising awareness is the first step. So that’s where my efforts are focused at present.
I have heard women express a preference for tall men – but only from women 5’10″ and over.
I’m petite. I prefer a man to be taller than I am, but that’s easy. My DH is on the short side of average.
I wouldn’t want a man who was shorter than I am, but, outside the circus, that’s hard to find.
@Richard Aubrey
I think that many people mistakenly generalize from high-profile incidents. Jeffrey Dahmer gets marriage proposals, and suddenly a blogger is writing about women getting wet for serial killers. Women date, marry and stay married to abusive men, and some people conclude that women like to be abused. When we talk about female or male sexuality, we can (or should) only speak in general terms about what we know about the majority. And in the case of sexual behavior, we only know what they tell us. It’s far from an exact science, but it’s better than massive confirmation bias.
In a very real sense, there are many men who are invested in believing the worst about female nature. Why? Perhaps they were unlucky (or unwise) in their choice of mate. Perhaps there’s an element of revenge for not having succeeded in attracting a mate. Perhaps their anger at an inequitable legal system makes it impossible to tolerate female company. Whatever the reasons, I have found that they are often emotionally invested in a specific conclusion, and that is the enemy of truth, IMO.
I’m not interested in fitting the facts to a specific outcome. Many have accused me of being unfair to players and cads, and denying their inherent attractions. I’m not cherry picking studies here – I can hardly keep up with the release of journal articles around mating. I will happily report (and have) on any study that shows what women or men want, whether or not it fits someone else’s agenda. My only agenda is to understand it, so that I can help others understand it and plan accordingly.
@SW
Yeah – since I stand all of 5’0″ (no typo) I did have a dog in this fight, and I’m intensely curious.
Since I’ve been married – twice – to two beautiful women and dated a few others, I no longer worry about it.
But I certainly did in my 20s. Lord knows how much alcohol I consumed. You can bet that I noticed women like “tall” men (and to me, 5’6″ was tall), and I bemoaned the fact for a lot of years. Uselessly. Unlike losing a few pounds or learning dance, there was nothing to be done.
I don’t have advice about the things you can’t change, except maybe to not obsess over it. That does no good. So I did things that I like to do for the fun of it, which included three degrees (hum… a little dominance at work. Hum!), a couple of black belts (my first wife was rather impressed when I gave her a love-tap on the cheek – with my foot
) and a rock ‘n roll band (hey, I just like to play guitar!).
What’s really funny is that I’m not really particularly good at any of those things. I just enjoyed doing them. As a side effect, I met a few interesting people.
And like I said, I married two of them and dated a few between marriages. I still can’t believe how good looking they were.
@Susan
I’m not sure correcting PI is sufficient. It is necessary but not sufficient.
The reason I don’t think that will fix it is, as you have admitted, while only 20% of men and women are slutting it up the distributions are different. It’s mostly the top 20% of men but a broader spectrum of women.
Correcting PI won’t change facts on the ground which are:
1. Women gravitate toward dominant men
2. Women will punch above their weight short term while having “fun”
What is broken is we’ve age segregated society. In Hymowitz’s article on manning up she argued that men used to have gates they had to get through to move from boy to men. Who did she thing provided those gates? Boys became men by gaining the acceptance of men as a man. This indicates age unity. A great media example of this is Grand Torino.
Hymowizt also argues girls become women by bleeding. If that’s all it takes to be a “woman” is it any surprise most women make bad choices.
Until we revive the idea that becoming an adult is governed by adults and not by your peers the core issues will remain.
Jeffrey Dahmer gets marriage proposals, and suddenly a blogger is writing about women getting wet for serial killers.
So what does it mean that Amanda Knox and Lori Bembenek also got marriage proposals?
@Obs
I’m loath to switch gears into alpha/beta nomenclature here, as I believe it muddies the waters, but I will respond to your comment in kind.
May I remind you that I am not advising males? I am not suggesting a beta strategy for males. I am suggesting that women under 30 value beta traits and reward them, in combination with alpha traits. Contrary to your claim that this cannot work, I have seen it work in many cases. I have also seen numerous men with pure “alpha”, i.e. dominance traits, flounder with women. They tend to get ONSs, try for harems, and generally run asshole Game, which means that they are largely irrelevant to the women I’m addressing (or should be).
Most women are second tier women, and most of the men complaining are second tier men. Mystery’s good intentions notwithstanding, most men will not get super hot babes into their beds. A dose of reality from both sexes is essential. I’ve heard men say here that because they are a 3, and cannot feign attraction for a female 3, they prefer to GTOW. That’s fine – it’s honest, at least. I agree that many women have an inflated notion of their own SMV and for that I recommend the school of hard knocks. As you say, improve the product, lower the price, or find a niche market. It is a shame if so many women are learning the hard (and slow) way – another bad deal for young guys. Maybe men should start shaming manwhores for pumping and dumping their would-be wives.
@Obsidian
“Very good question. Let me ask you this: i just mentioned a number of fairly high status black men: Raphael siddiq, Eric roberson, Kanye west
Would you consider these brothas to be intelligent per your liking-and if so/not, why?”
I don’t really have enough information about them to go on. Kanye’s very public life doesn’t convince me that he harbors the type of intelligence I’m attracted to. I’m very turned on by the intelligence of Barack Obama.
Ok time to jump back in here.
@ms walsh: madam-with all due respect-i know youre not going to do what you just did-and disregard what reams of academic data, which includes buss’, has to say about female preference for male height, just because YOU dont hear much about it? And since i know youve read buss, you know as well as i do about men and how they derogate each other?
You know, ive found that a big huge problem in discussing these things with women is their aversion to anything that sounds “ugly”especially if it paints them as a group, in a bad light. You got on me for saying something that is observably true wrt ms rwc, but you go on to poo poo what i said about short(er) men getting the shaft by the ladies on the open dating market. I see them both as the same thing-each party failing to have something a clear majority of the opposite sex has indicated they desire most. I think women have a very difficult time being told ugly truths, especially about themselves-and the clear preference for height-along with what can only be rightly called blatant out and out hypocrisy for denigrating the desires of men-lie at the root of this aversion.
Its a fascinating topic for further study and discussion.
@ ms j, @ms hope:
Like i said earlier-the problem here is that the betas are just as attracted to the hotties as any other guy; the problem is that he lacks what they most desire, and thus must settle for the second tier ladies. I think a big part of the discussion that gets left out is this-settling for someone is one thing; but being (sexually) attracted to them is something else. I think this becomes doubly problematic due to the fact that men overall have lower sexual standards when it comes to women vs the other way around; hence why both men and women adopt a kind of “suck it up!” stance wrt lots of the defacto loser guys of the smp.
Also: do dis ms j, but what you think of ms rwc is irrelevant; its what men think that will carry the day. And like i said, high status black men have made their preferences quite clear.
O.
@Royale
Do black women have a preference re pigment? Or does this only go one way? My knowledge of this issue is admittedly based on reading alone, but a common theme in literature is that light skin, e.g. “high yellow” was a mark of status for either sex among blacks. (That term was still in use less than 100 years ago!) This is obviously related to consensual and non-consensual sex during the era of slavery, and as such must be a very loaded topic among descendants of slaves.
@Bastiat Blogger
I’m sure that’s what everyone at the commencement address assumed. Tufts referred to him as “the best commencement speaker you’ve never heard of” but I suspect that’s about to change. William Bennet reported on his speech for CNN. Greitens is a very well spoken and impressive man.
@Herb
I was not referring to you specifically with the nightspot comment. It’s just that the ‘sphere takes much of its truth from that arena, and I personally think it’s limiting.
@J
Plenty of fucked up people out there?
I’ve heard men say here that because they are a 3, and cannot feign attraction for a female 3, they prefer to GTOW. That’s fine – it’s honest, at least.
It’s not fine; it’s tragic. The happiest marriage I know is between two 3s.
@J
Thanks. That’s very sweet and made me smile even more. Any self-deprecating comments upthread were tongue-in-cheek.
@ms rwc:
Google & wikipedia is your friend.
Also, i think your response may speak more to personal preference than actual assessment of intelligence; i think its fair to say that siddiq is highly intelligent for example; he just applied to the world of music.
As for the hair thing…
My bad, im typing from my phone; what i meant to say was that blonde or variations thereof is the most popular hair dye color for women; this again is consistent with evopsych principles. Men are drawn to sexual variety/novelty so this makes perfect sense.
Lastly-and i truly hope ms hope (pardon the pun) etc are reading along-but the worst kind of nerd to be, is a black (male!) one. This is because unlike in the jewish or asian or even more generally white communities, there is no appreciable cultural outlet or market for a black nerdy male: sistas-and this includes even the socalled “awkward black girls” (who herself has seemed to be heading in the direction banks discussed per his book-getting with a white boy) dont (sexually) desire such a guy, and trust me, such guys are keenly (& bitterly) aware of this.
yet another reason why i say-without fear of contradiction or rebuke-that overall, black women do not select for intelligence in their men…
O.
@Susan
I didn’t think you were.
My broader point was single people have better direct knowledge. A married 30 year old who got married at 20 is more out of touch in many ways than the single 50 year old. He will also be more in touch (more single friends) in some ways.
He also went through, I believe, the most expensive divorce in history (at that time).
I am sure she “earned” all $150 million.
J.
“Au contraire, ma soeur.
You can rationalize around this all you want, but I’m honestly telling you that I identify with study as something that explains my own sexual behavior, and I have a quarter century relationship with a “prestigious” as opposed to dominant man to prove it. Susan, I imagine, has something similar–indeed I think most of the maried women on the blog do.”
I’m not talking about you nor am I rationalizing anything. I’m talking about the divergence between this work and the earlier thread. Which actually exists. It’s on Susan’s thread. You can look it up. There’s a divergence.
And what I’ve said is part of what was said on that thread.
Your first comment regarding this said “we”. Now it’s you singular.
Your situation is fine for you.
We weren’t talking about you.
.
When I was told about the “realities of the sexual market,” I was under age of 11, pre-puberty. My mother and other female relatives admonished me to keep my demeanor feminine, not act like a boy, be quiet, stay skinny, be a virgin, and not be ugly. They told me that my skin was too dark, my build was too thick, and my face wasn’t pretty enough for me to be a beauty, so I needed to adjust my expectations. Also, they said that guys need to be 1.8 meters or taller (about 6 feet) to be good-looking. They really drilled in these messages, because I still remember them clearly.
So the idea that women are not telling the “harsh and ugly” truth is culturally dependent. Asian women are stereotyped as being extremely sharp and critical, and the Tiger Mom personality is quite common from what I have seen and experienced. If it isn’t about looks, then it’s about academic achievement. I remember going to other Asian kids’ homes and having their mothers heap compliments on me, and asking their own kids “Why can’t you be more like her?” They also try to stay young-looking as long as possible, avoid the sun like the plague to stay pale, and generally “maintain face” in public.
For what it’s worth, the men I dated have ranged from 5’10 to 6’4, and my husband is 6′, so yeah I have a thing for tall men.
I’m petite. I prefer a man to be taller than I am, but that’s easy. My DH is on the short side of average.
I had a friend that is around 5′ 2″ and she used to boast about this tall guy she was seeing when I met him I though he was short he was 5′ 6″ and I’m 5′ 8″ IME women don’t have an specific height beyond “at least 3 inches taller than me” I read that short women reproduce in greater numbers than tall ones, maybe because of that, YMMV.
Susan, how many of those girls expressed an interest in douche bags?
And, how many of those girls had at least one douche bag notched on their bed post?
Most girls simply view it as, “the guy needs to be taller than me”, which can often translate to a very strong tingle for guys in the 6’2 to 6’4 range. But, like you said, the average guy getting married is of average height.
Still, ‘Tall Dark and Handsome’ didn’t come from nowhere.
I had to look that one up. I am guessing that put’s me below your IQ range.
@Herb
I’ll agree with that. Then again, I’m not providing field reports, I’m aggregating them. Which is obviously not in the trenches, but safely snuggled away, waiting for the reports to come rolling in.
@ms rwc:
Since you mentioned obama, please allow me to ask you:
If he had married say, a woman who looked more like spike lees wife instead of michelle, would your assessment of him change? Would you still had voted for him?
For the white folks reading along, it has been speculated that since black women makeup a clear majority of black voters had obama had a white or darn near white wife instead of a noticeably “sista” looing one in michelle, that he would not have gotten as many votes from the black electorate. I personally think this is accurate based on all the data and information-and that includes anecdotal-that we have from/about black women in general.
Moreover we have to keep in mind that obama had not “arrived” at the time he met michelle; what i said about high status black men was in the context of selecting who they truly desire *after* achieving their success. Of course, like so many things obama, we may never know for sure, the left and the right of things on that score…
O.
@Peppermint Panda
Great observation.
For sure, Herb, for sure.
And for all I hear in the ‘sphere about how men love that demure girl, Bambi was a documented slut and Amanda Knox either had that vibe or was simply painted like that in the media.
@modernguy
I respectfully suggest that you find guys IRL who have what you want and learn from them. Some of the personalities online offering instruction are men with a poor track record of their own. Several have admitted their wives are not attracted to them, or that they have to keep their wives suspicious to keep them interested. Others have vented in frustration about their lack of success with women – it’s the women’s fault, naturally. If you can’t see behind the curtain, you have no idea what’s really going on. Even paying only superficial attention, I’ve realized that it makes no sense to seek wisdom from unsuccessful men. They trade in dominance, not having achieved prestige.
Susan, it is important to remember (or learn) that a big part of the older female experience was to organize parties, hoedowns and get-togethers where young people would be in attendance.
The mother organizing the party would guilt and brow beat her daughter to attend and then imply to the other mothers how great it would be if her “discriminating” son would attend (i.e. I think that your son is great, and, since he is discriminating*, he should invite his friends).
Also, the mother of the daughter could “flirt” with that young single man in an attempt to come to her party. She could do this because,
1. She is much older than he is.
2. She is married (with children)
3. She can’t lose. She is not looking to bed him and everyone knows that. She is trying to get him near her daughter and her daughter’s friends. And, her daughter has complete plausible deniability because there is the really good chance that she never wanted her mother to throw this party in the first place.
Everyone wins.
The older women get to throw the party and show off their taste. The younger girls get to play dress up. The young men get a chance at tail. And the older fathers get together on their own to play poker and feel out the fathers of the sons (or vice versa).
Now we send girls off to college to NOT learn a skill and brag about how much they can drink.
========================
* Being “discriminating” was once considered a very good thing. It still is, but now we are jumping through hoops to find new ways t express that simply thought. Political Correctness has done wonders for our collective efficiency.
IME women don’t have an specific height beyond “at least 3 inches taller than me”
Across ethnicities, the average man is half a head taller than the average woman, so “at least 3 inchs” sounds about right.
I’m glad, Royale. I don’t say things I don’t mean BTW.
@Susan
“Do black women have a preference re pigment?”
The answer to that isn’t 100% clear to me. Dark skinned/ kinky haired men and women have gotten (and still get) their share of outright disdain within the black community. However, recently there’s been a “tall dark bald” man meme, but I’m finding it hard to see it as much more than a fad. Pigmentocracy is certainly not gender specific. There is indeed a lot of deeply engrained stuff rooted in past race-status dynamics (which contradicts a lot of honest pure aesthetics…another discussion) that is still bubbling up to the surface in modern times.
Obsidian stated that men who matter go for “high yellow” ladies. I’d add that men who *want* to matter go for high yellow ladies.
“This is obviously related to consensual and non-consensual sex during the era of slavery, and as such must be a very loaded topic among descendants of slaves.”
Extremely loaded, and the discussions are endless, and hackneyed. I prefer to observe and ponder the raw honest aesthetics of humans without wasting too much brain power on analyzing constructs that control typical behavior.
@Jonny
But women did evolve, that’s not in question. The question is “why?” Pair bonding won out over promiscuity, and fossil remains show a clear demarcation of the era when reproducing males became noticeably smaller and less symmetrical. This was 1.5 million years ago, so a woman was undoubtedly more susceptible to her hindbrain then than she is today. Yet she began selecting men differently, radically differently at around that time. Much of natural selection is not gradual, but a swift and sudden shift in a new direction. It may very well be that’s what happened here, based on fossilized remains.
This is what men find hard to accept – the female evolved preferences – which are not disputed in evolutionary bio or psych circles, btw – are just that. Preferences. As in, first choice. As in, not settling.
If men are unsuccessful with women, they would do well to study all the female attraction cues, rather than rely on a 1987 discredited study that claims women like dominance, period.
@Ramble
Pish posh, no worries. I’m being called a dirty whore elsewhere
You strike me as a pretty bright guy, Ramble.
If it makes you feel better though, I’m not very spatial. My verbal IQ is one standard deviation above my verbal, and I sometimes have trouble orienting myself in space.
@J
I honestly don’t know who either of those women are to begin with, was just going on the assumption that they’re murders given what you responded to.
@Ramble
And we send them without any imparted wisdom but advice to discover the world on their own.
Which is where the freshman hookup who ignores her after fucking her gets his opening.
@Obsidian
“If he had married say, a woman who looked more like spike lees wife instead of michelle, would your assessment of him change?”
No. For what it’s worth, I like Colin Powell’s intelligence, too.
“Would you still had voted for him?”
Absolutely. He’s sharp and pragmatic.
(A big “you LIE!” from Obsidian in 5, 4, 3, 2…)
I am sure she “earned” all $150 million.
Hey, if he was a big enough pain in the ass, she might have. I used to joke that Anna Nicole Smith deserved every bit of alimony she got from that 90 yo she divorced. She worked hard for that money!
@Susan
Yet, someone, those cues run the lives of women in 2012 more than they did in 1012.
The question is why? Evolution can’t account for that change.
BTW, men can also choose to GTOW. That is bad for women who have children (not want children, but have children).
Why? The Fate of the Species Human Extinction
I saw it at B&N yesterday and didn’t care. For me, my genes, extinction has already happened.
If we return to 20% of the men having all the children it will be ugly. This isn’t a few thousand men in Africa at the bottleneck of human evolution about 70,000 BC. It would be over 3 billion men without any investment in their future beyond their own fun.
@Joe
This is really interesting to me – by your own admission you dated women you seem to feel were out of your league, and your height clearly doesn’t explain it. So what does? You were interesting, fun, of good character (as evidenced by your many comments here). You never fell back on acting like an asshole.
Indeed, let’s look at men who have been successful with women, and who are happy with their relationships right now.
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