Female Biological Attraction
I have no scientific evidence to back up what I’m about to say, but I’ve experienced so much anecdotal evidence of this that I’m pretty sure I’m on to something. Biological science also tends to back up my theory.
My assertion is this:
Women are physically attracted to what they are sexually accustomed to.
Men are physically attracted to what is different from what they are sexually accustomed to.Â
Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, so not every man or woman will follow this. I still think it’s generally true on the overall. I have experienced many examples of this but I’ll give you one or two off the top of my head.
Women And Difference
Years ago, I was on a date with a woman who was short; about 5’3″. She had been in very serious relationships over the past several years, and the two men in question were over 6’3″. In other words, this was a short woman who had spent the last several years in relationships with very tall men. This is what she was accustomed to.
It was a first date, and her and I were really hitting it off. Her demeanor, words, and body language all indicated she was into me. I kinoed her and she loved it. For some reason I don’t remember, we decided to go to a different bar that was located a few blocks away. So we got up and walked outside.
As soon as we started walking, she started staring at me like I was some kind of mutant.
“Um…how tall are you?” she asked in a nervous tone.
“Right now, with these shoes on, just under 6 feet,” I said, “If I took these shoes off I’d be about 5’11”.”
“Oh,” she sputtered, “I just…I just…”
She kept sputtering, and for the next ten minutes, all I heard out of her was about how “short” I was and about how she was “so surprised” I was that “short”.
Needless to say, at about 6’0″ with shoes on, this was the first and only time in my life I had ever been called “short” by a woman. Especially from a woman who was barely 5’3″.
She was very tense for the rest of the date. Gone was the rapport and interest I had experienced with her before. She had gone from smiling, happy, and invested to jittery, nervous, and cold. After that date I never saw her again.
I had never experienced something like that before, and thought on it afterwards. It was more than just the simple answer…that she’s into tall guys. It was something more than that. By not being the super tall man she was accustomed to and comfortable with, I was outside of her comfort zone.
Here’s another one. In my adventures I have run into two different women who were very hot (9s or 10s by most men’s scales) who were “turned off” by men with flat stomachs. That’s right. They liked men with “bellies”. Not having a belly “turned them off”, at least in their words.
Were they really turned off by men with flat stomachs? No. The real answer was that the last one or two long-term serious boyfriends they had were dudes with “bellies”. It was what these women were accustomed to. To be clear, these two women didn’t like fat guys, they liked normal looking guys with pooch bellies they could “rub” and “cuddle with”.
If you’re wondering, yes, I had sex with both these women, since while I don’t have a “belly”, my stomach is anything but flat. So this was a case where this odd female phenomenon worked in my favor.
Regardless, I am convinced of two things:
1. Those same two women would love a man with sixpack abs or a flat stomach if had they both not been in recent long-term relationships with men with bellies.
2. If either of these women somehow overcame her prejudice and ended up in a long-lasting relationship with a sixpack guy, then once the relationship ended she would suddenly consider men with bellies as “gross” and want a sixpack guy again.
In other words, often it’s not about a woman’s “type”, it’s more about what she’s accustomed to.
Men And Difference
On the other hand, men are the exact opposite. If a man has been in a long, monogamous relationship with a woman with certain physical traits, he’s (likely) going to be strongly attracted to other women with very different traits.
Take a guy who’s had a monogamous girlfriend for 3 years and he’s never cheated on her (yet). Let’s say his GF is trim but has really big boobs. This guy is going to likely find himself oddly turned on by women with a more athletic build and smaller breasts.
The reverse is also true…the guy married to a small-boobed wife is going to be really turned on when he finally cheats (or gets divorced) and has sex with a woman with really big tits. He’ll love every minute of it, more so than if his (ex) wife also had big boobs.
I went 36 years without ever having sex with an Asian woman. I never even looked at Asian women in a sexual way for most of my life. But when I finally did have sex with an Asian girl for the first time, the experience was so fantastic I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. She wasn’t even that good in bed, but because she was so different from the blonde white women I was accustomed to, I was turned on in a strong, visceral way I wasn’t expecting and at the time, couldn’t explain.
As one might expect, I suddenly started looking at Asian women very differently, and there’s been many more in my life since then. More importantly, I suddenly realized that women of radically different ethnic backgrounds could really stir my loins. Not just Asian women, but women of all races and cultures. It wasn’t something I was expecting at all.
Now let’s not go crazy here. Of course most men have “types” they really like. What I’m saying doesn’t invalidate that. I still like curvy blonde women the best, and probably always will. Even that first-time Asian girl was curvy, with big boobs and hips like I like ’em. Regardless, I still think that above and beyond your “type”, you’re going to be really attracted to women who are very different than what you’re accustomed to, whether you’re aware of it or not, especially if you’ve only been having sex with one woman for a very long time.
Biological Aspects
Men like variety. Duh.
Why? Because it serves our irrational though very biological desire to spread our seed and make lots of healthy, diverse children with many different women. Emphasis on the word “diverse”.
Let’s do an experiment right now that will bolster my point. Clear your mind and think about this for a minute…
Imagine you live in a world with no alimony and no child support. Now imagine you have fathered 20 kids. All these kids have been born from different women you impregnated, and here’s the kicker: all these women are of different ages, races, hair colors, and body types.
Doesn’t that thought get your inner caveman a little excited? It does, doesn’t it? Even if you’re reluctant to admit it, I bet you got a little happy charge by reading the preceding paragraph.
Interesting, isn’t it? That’s your biology talking.
This is all assuming you’re a man, of course. If you’re a woman, you’re probably throwing up right about now. That’s your biology too.
While men’s biology seeks difference and variety, women’s biology seeks stability. I think usually, that woman you’re trying to have sex with wants you to look as close to her last long term ex-boyfriend or husband as possible. I would love to see a scientific study of women and see how often they choose boyfriends/husbands who look very similar to prior boyfriends/husbands.
This is not to say that women don’t get bored with sexual partners. That’s still true. There is strong biology in women that make them get bored with fucking the same man over and over again, really hitting hard at the three-year mark. (I’ll be discussing this in detail on this blog next week.) She gets bored, wants a new guy, but wants that new guy to have strong physical similarities as the old guy.
Women don’t really have a “type” like men do, but I think most women are more comfortable having sex with men similar to the men they’ve already had sex with. (Whereas that would be boring for most men.)
Interesting.
If you have any experiences that go along with what I’m saying, or possibly refute what I’m saying, I’d love to hear them.
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An interesting observation BD, which I can or can’t confirm since I’ve never took any effort to make some evidence…
But from my observation I can say this:
Men do have a certain type of looks they like (e.g. slim body with big boobs and oddly certain haircuts) the best and enjoy the most (as you’ve confirmed as well). This is what they’re looking for as a constant variable. On the other hand it doesn’t matter what race or hair color the women are. This is the changeable variable where the greater the diversity the more enjoyment for the man. This is 100% true for me as well.
When it comes to women I’d say that there is an ongoing conflict between the visual and the “prudential” attraction and that’s also why they get often so “confused”.
On one side they are attracted to the tall and ripped guy who can “make them scream” in bed, but on the other side to the guy who “can provide” and make them “feel safe”, no matter what he looks like or how good his sexual skills are. Of course they would like their man to be both.
The height is an interesting topic by itself. This is what both genders look at as a constant variable (as I see it), where both prefer the “average”. And by average height I mean women between 160-175cm/5’3″-5’9″ and men between 180-195cm/5’11”-6’5″, where (of course) women like the man to be taller and vice versa. The preferred difference in most cases is at least about the height of high heels or 10-12cm/4-5inch. But even if you don’t fit the “ideal”, it’s usually enough to be taller/shorter in order to not lose any significant points in attraction.
What you’re describing is perfectly consistent with some women having a physical type they prefer. How did you rule out that possibility? Correlation is not causality. What about “exotic” “straycation” hookups?
Very true. I’m so glad I’m a man.
Yes. The never-ending female myth of the Submissive Alpha. The Perfect Man.
I haven’t completely ruled that out, but to repeat from my post: If either of these women somehow overcame her prejudice and ended up in a long-lasting relationship with a sixpack guy, then once the relationship ended she would suddenly consider men with bellies as “gross” and want a sixpack guy again. I’ve seen women do this. They love guys with blonde hair, then they hate guys with blonde hair. They love uncircumcised guys, then uncircumcised guys are “gross”. Etc.
In other words, their “type” is very changeable based on the last guy they dated. This is usually not true of men.
Very true. Thus my above example as (some) evidence.
Frequency of occurrence. Not all women do that, but damn near all women end a relationship then go after a new guy.
That works for me. I mean as far as dating men who remind me of others, I pretty much always do. What I am attracted to or turned on by is usually something that “worked” for me in the past.
I would say I deviated from that when I married my ex-husband. The guys I was sleeping with before that were definitely not marriage material so I went and picked the complete opposite. I did go through a white guy phase for a bit, both before I met him and after my divorce so it wasn’t AS drastic of a change as it could have been either, lol. The guy before him had some pretty similar characteristics (looks wise, not personality).
Then I defaulted back to a version of what I found attractive before I ever met him, after the divorce, but a more improved version, haha. My affair was with someone that I had slept with a long time ago anyhow so that comfort level was already there.
Maybe women’s biology does that because it’s almost like tricking it into thinking he’s the same guy, that he “stuck around” when we needed him to, or something. Idk…you’ve seen some pics of my assortment of guys (well, not the most recent bunch) and you have to admit they are all similar to the guy i had the affair with.
Then I lost interest in him and branched out to guys who reminded me more of the Professor or of someone else I’ve been with. Still my latest “Mr. Firm” lol, looks a lot like the affair guy again.I’d say each new guy in some way reminds me of someone else I have had good memories with. Once I have bad memories and a bad association its off.
The other thing with ,many women, BD, is that sexually they are very unpredictable. While she may love security and stability in a man, most women will break all their rules to please a man whose power they seek to be identified with, no matter how shit the dude is in bed. Look at Hugh Hefner, or many other wealthy old geezers. They still turn on the chicks like hot water taps, while virile studs wank their way to sleep every weekend. Women are predictable in so far as we can admit that they are flaky thrill seekers. As a great lover of good porn myself, I never cease to get amazed at the amount of extraordinarily beautiful chicks who do unspeakable things on camera for what is essentially shit money. Someone obviously tells them that they are going to get famous. And who knows what else come with fame.
You’ve very succinctly described a phenomenon I’ve thought about for a long time. And I agree- I can point to several women who went from dating me to a guy very similar to me. I also wonder how much Daddy issues play into this- i.e. if daddy was a chubby, bearded white guy, do they tend to gravitate more towards chubby bearded white guys?
What I also think is important is realizing how, if you are not her “type”, you are fighting an almost unwinnable uphill battle. Unless there is some over-riding reason (like, you promise marriage and are rich/successful), a chick who likes black guys isn’t going to go for a white guy, or a chick who likes tall guys isn’t going to go for a short guy. This is why when I see very explicit statements on online dating profiles, I move along: chicks who emphatically state “I only date black men” or “Must have 6 pack” or “Must be over 6’2″” are impossible to game online if you don’t meet their criteria.
There is, however, one real-life exception, and it’s one of the most important quotes I’ve ever heard come out of the pickup movement: a woman said “I don’t like short guys, or bald guys, or old guys, or fat guys…unless I’m in love, in which case all bets are off.”
@Jetsetjim
… a woman said “I don’t like short guys, or bald guys, or old guys, or fat guys…unless I’m in love, in which case all bets are off.”
– The game must be pretty strong with this guy. 🙂
I’m going to strongly disagree with this and say that if a guy is “good buff” ( think Christan Bale from Batman, Brad Pitt fight club, Tom Cruise oblivion, Underware Models, shit like that ), has a nice face, and some game… she will not in a million years say “nah, I like guys with pot bellies”. GTFO of here. Sure if a buff handsome dude has zero game and is a pussy then OK the badass pot belly dude will win hands down.
I think what it really comes to when you see girls preferring dudes who are more average or below average looking is that they(girls) want a guaranteed win. They assume he isn’t super hot, so he probably isn’t swimming in pussy. They probably figure the hunks are banging 10s every day and will just pump and dump them. I recently met a girl online who prefers guys who aren’t “hot” because the average looking guys are “safe”.
This is where game comes in. If a hot guy uses a good variation of game to combat this effect he’ll be able to get the lay hands down. Her primitive brain is screaming for the lay by this geneticly superior man, but her logical brain is saying “this dude can get tons of girls, he is going to pump and dump you”. Some people call this the “player vibe”. Girls will really want to fuck a dude but they feel he has a “player vibe”. They can forsee a pump and dump.
I also think this is why some older dudes end up getting good results with younger girls. Women will figure, this dude is old.. he can’t afford to just pump and dump me. They there is a level of pre-built in comfort already at the start.
This is the only downfall of having that handsom “I get tons of pussy” hunk look. They will automaticly slot you into the category of a pump and dumper. If the girl is “sluty” she won’t care and will fuck anyhow ( some call it a sport fuck or secret fuck ) esp if she is young. But like I said solid game and esp focused on comfort ( maybe make some strategic beta mistakes on purpose ) will get the lay in the end.
@ Jake I dont think most men really get how women view things because it’s so different. Its not that we dont want the guy to look good, because we do, but that is within our personal parameters of what we find attractive and we just don’t look as closely at physical things as men do. A lot of women actually think the bodybuilder look is ridiculous and not sexy.
Me, I admit to liking well built men, but it’s secondary. There are other things I am looking at first. As far as a belly, I honestly barely notice if he’s got broad shoulders and muscular arms (which I like). Probably on a subconscious level that is more about feeling like he could fight off other guys if need be. I think women are looking more for dominance than looks.
The Producer I am seeing is a big guy. Not fat, he used to wrestle in college and was in the Navy. Hes muscular, but he is not sporting a six pack and you can tell he eats well. I honestly barely notice and even after having sex with him multiple times I have no idea if he has a nice ass or not. I haven’t paid attention!
Yet a guy notices those kinds of things immediately, every time. Women, I think we just tend to focus on whatever it is we like about him and ignore the rest.
When I go out with the Producer he will sometimes comment on this or that woman and its always something i would never have noticed on my own. Like he will say something about a skinny woman having fat ankles or how some woman’s ass looks like it is melting into her legs or another has a nice body but small boobs. I guess I mostly just notice if they are fat or skinny and how they are dressed plus face, makeup and hair. Totally different perspective.
So i can totally see how some women might get emotionally attached to squishy belly guys and not really be that interested in a six pack. Its just what has been imprinted on their mind as “sexy” or associated with positive sexual experiences.
There have been times i have blown off really good looking men, and even ones i think are physically attractive because something else turned me off or i just didn’t feel we were making a good connection for whatever reason. Good looks are great but charming is even better.
I think it’s a huge stretch. I’ve had way too many different experiences from what you’ve described to buy into this…well, at all, really. I’ve dated girls who “only date black guys” (and I’m VERY white). I’ve dated girls who “only date big muscly guys” (and I’m only kind of muscly).
I pretty much only date girls who are white or have that Filipino/Brazilian look (as in, dark(er) skin, long black hair). I’ve never dated a black woman, and very rarely find them physically attractive. I go for what I like over and over.
Your theory is that if a guy likes to bang skinny girls, a fat chick will turn him on because it’s variety? I don’t buy that.
As far as women go, how would you explain the attraction a woman feels for her first lover, before she’s “sexually accustomed to anything?” Or further, what if she’s a Type III who never gets accustomed to any one guy or type of guy?
I’m not buying this one.
In other words, you’ve confirmed with all the women in your harem that their pervious LTR was with middle aged, white, suit wearing consultants?
the more practical question being, when is the window which women are opened to “switching types”, and how to identify that.
That’s a very good point and you may have changed my mind, at least in that one aspect. In other words, the attraction for the pot-belly guy in that case is mental more than physical. The attraction for the sixpack guy is purely physical, but can be overridden by the mental. Yeah…you may be on to something.
You’re going too far with it. The answer is no, but the majority of women in my life had ex-boyfriends that did not look much different from me. In other words, rarely will the prior long-term boyfriend be WAY taller than me or WAY shorter than me or WAY thinner than me or have much different hair, etc.
In other words, turn your question around. Did most my women have prior long-term LTRs who were young, ripped, gorgeous, blonde, stupid, unsuccessful men? No.
Agreed. And the answer, some of which Jake has alluded to, is 1) game and 2) luck, as in where she happens to be currently in her life mentally. (Does she want to be “free”? Is she provider-hunting? Does she “hate men” right now? Is she just looking for fun? Etc.)
very well, let’s take this a step further then.
Could it be that this girl in question associates the trait of being tall as a sign of high value, and therefore a turn on (because of the exes) – and she’s was simply seeking one of the traits that makes up the combination of traits that spreads her legs…. and less to do with what she’s “comfortable” with?
Perhaps it was because your game not being spot on (you did say “Years ago”), AND you falling short of her standard, that you didn’t get the lay?
There is truth in what you say BD, but the -kind- of truth has to be clarified, I think…
First, I agree about the biology part. Women need a protector/provider for their offsprings. Someone who will steadily, constantly take care of them to maximize their survivability. Men are maximizing the species survivability by increasing its biodiversion: having offsprings with different women to increase the list of genetical backgrounds. So, yeah, that partly explains why men and women are wired by nature this way.
But we all know that when it comes to sex, women tend to listen to their mind more than their hormones.Attractive men are no longer those who look as protectors but those who can fulfill this role in modern society. Even if well-built men are logically healthier and better protectors, women will -consciously- agree to sex with successful men. Their societal rather than biological preconceptions take over and decisions are taken on a conscious level. This is an important realization. A favorite phrase from the fora is “Attraction is not a choice”. What does this mean? You cannot control who you like. But you can control if you are going to have sex with that person.
For example, I am pretty sure the girl you described was attracted to you. But at some point she consciously realized that, and society has taught her that she has to make a decision: Escalate or not. And then all the wrong societal programming kicks in, and she flakes, for the most illogical of reasons.
A good question is: is this behavior really a sex thing? I think not. In the end, I believe it is about risk and getting out of your comfort zone. Women hate risk and love comfort. Men are more likely to take risks – in this case by sleeping with someone who they might even not be very attracted or familiar with. It is a general mentality, not narrowed to sex. And as I said, sex for women it is more mental than biological. If I understood it correctly, that is what lovergirl said.
Want another example? Take 50 Shades of Grey. I BET millions of women have come to orgasm by thinking about the book’s protagonist, either alone or during sex with their sexual partner. But I also bet none of them ever dated a million dollar guy who was into SM. What happened? He does not exist, that happened. So women didn’t need to take a decision and all the societal programming stayed inactive. What is left is pure, hormone based, biological passion.
But my closing point will be about something even more important. It will be about statistics. Everyone, men and women alike, like generalizations. We like phrases like “Women are like this” or “Men always do that”. Generalized rules like that make life easier for us because we don’t have to spend time and energy evaluating people around us all the time. Though rules like that can have some truth, they are valid when applied to large numbers (there is a name for that in statistics that I do not recall now). So, yeah, women can possible feel attraction to types of men that they are familiar with. Can this knowledge help me somehow when I am flirting with a woman? Not at all. Why? Because she is only ONE and statistical rules go out of the window. This knowledge -might- be useful if you are dealing with many women at the same time, and I mean MANY. In fact, the more, the better. Someone said that dating is a numbers game. It may be. But in the end, all these knowledge can do little to help me have sex with the beautiful woman standing in the other side of the bar that I can’t get my eyes off. She is just one, and God knows what strange beliefs she has in her head. As someone mentioned already, a woman will declare all the standards a possible suitor should have, only to break them a while later. I am sure everyone here has witnessed this at least once in his/her life. Rules and logic defeated.
Try to think about it. Every rule accounts for a mean value. And every exception accounts for whatever that mean value cannot cover. When I am face to face with someone, he/she is not mean value. Everyone is unique. Doctors sometimes get this better, because if they don’t, someone might die.
Sorry for the long post, but nothing puts the mind at rest better than a thoroughly developed subject. I am sick, I know.
Great post BD – write some more posts on the sexual quirks of women if possible.
Off topic but,
Susan Walsh has a post about older men younger women pairings and she argues it isn’t favorable to men.
http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2013/09/27/relationshipstrategies/women-like-older-men/#disqus_thread
According to her the stats show that the majority of women marry within a 5 year age gap. 8+ years is statistically very low, less than 10%. Her argument is that the best time to find a mate is when you’re young.
I know you are against monogamy but I was curious what you think of her reasoning?
That article is geared towards women who are looking for Mr. Right to get into a forever Disney marriage. I don’t fault the data, but it’s premise is so far away from what I talk about that I couldn’t even comment on it (beyond my obvious reactions).
Interesting, although I have to say that being short for a man – 5’6″ – I’ve never been lacking for companionship. And I’m almost universally the shortest man a lot of the women I’ve been with have been in a relationship with.
So while women have physical traits they respond to, they are much more responsive to attitude. And while some have a laundry list of things they “want” in an abstract sense, all of that goes out the window when they are with a man that excites them. Fortunately, my hobbies bring me into contact with a lot of young, attractive women, in which I am in a position of being able to choose – so women tend to compete with each other for my attention. And when women compete with other women, – it is the sense that they “won” you, that is most important…
That article is geared towards women who are looking for Mr. Right to get into a forever Disney marriage.
OK. But that ends up being about 88% of women as that is the percentage of women who marry by 35 years old (give or take).
Oh, I know. That’s the problem.
I don’t like men with six packs because they are selfish, absorbed douche bags. Â I like a man with a little chub. Â It keeps him real.
I’m a short 5’4″ female. Â It is a huge turn off to know you’d be able to Uchi mata (Judo hip throw) your date if he’s under 6′. Â Just no. Â I’ve been with short and tall men. Â I like how small I feel next to a tall guy.