THE PSYCHOLOGIST : Women prefer flings with muscular men, but they don't want to marry them

Women prefer flings with muscular men, but they don't want to marry them

My own experience reflects this. I have always been physically average but, like most high IQ people, I have a very lively sense of humour. I was always a bit peeved to hear women say that they want someone who makes them laugh. Is the ideal partner a clown? But I was a beneficiary of it so I didn't complain. So the article below is right in noting how attractive to women that is. Over the last 60 years, I have had many relationships with fine women, including four marriages

They say nice guys finish last, but it turns out the truth might look a little different. New research shows that while women are more attracted to muscular men for short-term flings, traits like kindness and humour are more important for long-term relationships.

When it comes to pop culture and societal norms, it’s a well-known truth that certain appearances are deemed more desirable than others.

Men with large muscles, and women with large breasts, are often ranked at the top of the physical pecking order – and those who fit the mould are seen as the model for who we should aspire to be, and aspire to date.

By and large, this not-so-subtle marketing works; it influences purchasing decisions, social hierarchies and dating app swipes, and it’s been more or less the same for the last hundred years.

However, a new study shows that while these archetypes are attractive on a surface level, we may be drawn to them when it comes to steamy flings and short-term affairs – what we want changes significantly when we’re looking for a long-term partner.

Professor Mitch Brown from the University of Arkansas was curious about the correlation between physical attributes and dating and surveyed 384 heterosexual women about their thoughts on dating.

The research, published in the Personality and Individual Differences academic journal, showed that when it came to a short-term physical relationship like a one-night stand or casual hookup, women were more inclined to prefer a man with a muscular physique, over their lankier counterparts.

This is not altogether surprising, as the pro-muscle mentality is drilled into us on a daily basis online and in brand marketing everywhere. But it’s also an evolutionary instinct too that harks back to our animal brains – females are biologically drawn to males who look like they can protect and provide.

However, where the research gets interesting is what we look for in long-term relationships, and how our bucket list for a perfect partner changes when longevity is involved.

When searching for a life partner, women were more inclined to prioritise other traits like kindness, humour and the willingness to contribute to a family.

“Women associate muscles with being fit and healthy,” said Brown in the report. “However, in a long-term context, it was important to find a kind person who will support his family” – in more than just a physical sense.

Humour was one trait that rose significantly in importance, though only if the jokes aren’t at the woman’s expense.

“Nice guys who make friendly jokes can actually finish first when it comes to attracting a woman looking for a long-term relationship,” said Brown.

Turns out all we want is to be with someone who doesn’t make us feel like crap. Wild.

The study builds upon a 2007 piece of research by the University of California, Los Angeles that examined the number of sexual partners for muscular versus thinner men. The results concluded that the more physically large men “were twice as likely to have over three sex partners than their less-muscular peers”, per the New York Post.

One of the study’s authors, David Frederick, said “Most research is focused on what men find physically attractive in women…Much less research is devoted to what women find attractive.”

It’s great to see that 16 years on, that research has been carried out. And the results? At the end of the day, when it comes to lasting love, we don’t care so much about looks. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

https://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/relationships/sex/women-prefer-flings-with-muscly-men-but-they-dont-want-to-marry-them/news-story/cbd151e4da9abf64a86a118838414214

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Background

The essence of conservatism is caution. The essence of Leftism is anger

This blog is written solely by John Ray, who has a Ph.D. degree in psychology and 200+ papers published in the academic journals of the social sciences. It does occasionally comment on issues in psychology but is mainly aimed at giving a conservative psychologist's view on a broad range of topics. There are very few conservative psychologists.

The blog originated in Australia and many (but not most) posts discuss Australian matters. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart, which is the reason behind the old name for this blog. So events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.

A primer in American politics for non-Americans:

SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land

The "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.

The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Global warming

Calibrated in whole degrees. Larger graph here

Climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson said. “The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all.”

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Two examples of Leftist racism below (much more here and here):

Beatrice Webb, a founder of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society, and married to a Labour MP, mused in 1922 on whether when English children were "dying from lack of milk", one should extend "the charitable impulse" to Russian and Chinese children who, if saved this year, might anyway die next. Besides, she continued, there was "the larger question of whether those races are desirable inhabitants" and "obviously" one wouldn't "spend one's available income" on "a Central African negro".

Hugh Dalton, offered the Colonial Office during Attlee's 1945-51 Labour government, turned it down because "I had a horrid vision of pullulating, poverty stricken, diseased nigger communities, for whom one can do nothing in the short run and who, the more one tries to help them, are querulous and ungrateful."

Defensible and indefensible usages of the term "racism"

The book, The authoritarian personality, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a war criminal. Both British and American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code so FDR knew what was coming at Pearl Harbor. But for his own political reasons he warned no-one there. So responsibility for the civilian and military deaths at Pearl Harbor lies with FDR as well as with the Japanese. The huge firepower available at Pearl Harbor, both aboard ship and on land, could have largely neutered the attack. Can you imagine 8 battleships and various lesser craft firing all their AA batteries as the Japanese came in? The Japanese naval airforce would have been annihilated and the war would have been over before it began.

FDR prolonged the Depression. He certainly didn't cure it.

WWII did NOT end the Great Depression. It just concealed it. It in fact made living standards worse

Joe McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse anyone of McCarthyism is to accuse them of accuracy!

The KKK was intimately associated with the Democratic party. They ATTACKED Republicans!

People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter:

The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.

America's uncivil war was caused by trade protectionism. The slavery issue was just camouflage, as Abraham Lincoln himself admitted. See also here

Did William Zantzinger kill poor Hattie Carroll?

Did Bismarck predict where WWI would start or was it just a "free" translation by Churchill?

Leftist psychologists have an amusingly simplistic conception of military organizations and military men. They seem to base it on occasions they have seen troops marching together on parade rather than any real knowledge of military men and the military life. They think that military men are "rigid" -- automatons who are unable to adjust to new challenges or think for themselves. What is incomprehensible to them is that being kadaver gehorsam (to use the extreme Prussian term for following orders) actually requires great flexibility -- enough flexibility to put your own ideas and wishes aside and do something very difficult. Ask any soldier if all commands are easy to obey.

A good article on Leftist hate

The real history of social Darwinism

Some personal memoirs

Memoir highlights

THE PSYCHOLOGIST

Women prefer flings with muscular men, but they don't want to marry them

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