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What do women find attractive?

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16:24 / 05.01.04

Nick, haven't you bothered to read the thread? Proven life-coaching strategies have indisputably shown that "it depends on the women" is a MYTH promulgatred by the homosexualist lobby in order to make the average, straight man invest in moisturizers and skin creams, haircuts that cost more that $8, Viagra and anger-management classes in order to feel worthy enough to take some dame out for an expensive meal she's not going to eat. God, your retrograde thinking is setting back the CAUSE. They all want the same thing. Babies.

16:30 / 05.01.04

I suppose that's all good advice for those who can't aford to buy their women.

Matthew Fluxington

16:33 / 05.01.04

Todd is right - "anger management" is total bunk. That's all a part of continuing emasculation of men everywhere. There's nothing wrong with rage, or having a temper. That's all part of being passionate, and everyone knows that passion is the key to any successful relationship.

17:12 / 05.01.04

Are you drawing a connection between 'masculinity' and 'the chase', Illmatic? That sounds interesting.

Nah, not really. Not in anyway I've thought about and could put up a sustained arguement for. Interesting point though. What are your thoughts, O distant anthropologist? I may post something on tis tomorrow if this thread isn't rotted irretrivably.

With regard to the initial post, it was aimed at straight women, as I was reacting to another thread about a not-gettin-off-the ground hetereo relationship. Sorry for any offence caused by thoughtlessness here and subsequent generalistions etc.

I think I deserve the pisstaking but there are some interesting issues there which are though I may have expressed 'em clumsily. The first of these was the "all (straight) women love a bastard idea - it's a cliche I've heard a lot i wanted to get some folks opinions on it. The other issue was issues of masculintity and attractiveness. I do cliched gender roles may play some sort of role in our mutual attractiveness to each other - tho' thinking about it, it's probably mixed in with such a mutltitude of other factors as to be meaningless. The thing that got me thinking about this was the very cliched hypermasculine presentations you sometimes see on the male gay scene ie. skins etc. Bit of a mistake ot mix all the issues up, I think. Certainly seems to ring people's alarm bells anyway.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:23 / 05.01.04

I'm, not actually sure which is funnier - the parodic explanations from men of what women find attractive, or the apparently deadly serious explanations from men of what women want. And that's before we even get on to "women are aliens".

It's enough to make a man spend some time with his real live tiger...

Tryphena Absent

17:26 / 05.01.04

Well being bisexual the straight-queer distinction has never made any sense to me to the point where I often forget that these types of things are actually directional. I mean really people, you're distinguishing between types of genitalia and through the window of the gender construction that society has set up for you. Isn't that a little backward?

17:27 / 05.01.04

That's an excellent first step, Haus. The 2nd chapter of my book is entitled "Tigers: Furry Babe-Magnets". Look at Sigfriend and Roy - they're drowning in high quality ladies.

Tryphena Absent

17:28 / 05.01.04

By the way, I was fucking around, just in case people didn't get that and they might not because my sense of humour is a little too straight for text sometimes.

17:45 / 05.01.04

i think you've got quite a point, deva, about the threads about women vs. threads about white people thing. i think, illmatic, it maybe would've been better to say: straight women: what do YOU like in a man? then we all could've prattled on, individually, about our love of harleys, shakespeare, tigers, and how we just want babies. or whatever.

20:31 / 05.01.04

Not just a cheap point, I hope, praying mantis - I think it is the case (and it is interesting) that a fair number of people who identify as white women will be happy to talk about their individual stuff in answer to a question about "women" in general, in the full knowledge that not every woman in the world will agree 100% with what they say, but less happy to talk about their individual stuff in answer to a question about "white people" in general - one of the ways racial identification works differently from gender identity, I guess.

I do think both (main) points you raised in your first post are interesting, illmatic, and not just for straight women (though they take a bit more translating, maybe, for people - of any orientation - who don't think "nice" is the opposite of "masculine" which is a synonym for "sexual oomph", which is what it looks like on a casual reading of your first post): how does masculinity intersect with "niceness" or "availability" or "bastardness", and (how) do we desire those things in our (potential) partners? I think you'd be hard put to find a couple - f/f, m/f or m/m - who can honestly state that masculinity is not implicated at all in their attraction to each other/sexual practice...

See, I keep explaining to my students that cultural studies jargon makes things clearer, not less obscure!

Tryphena Absent

21:39 / 05.01.04

a fair number of people who identify as white women will be happy to talk about their individual stuff in answer to a question about "women" in general, in the full knowledge that not every woman in the world will agree 100% with what they say, but less happy to talk about their individual stuff in answer to a question about "white people" in general

In order for 'white person' and 'woman' to garner the same kind of reaction you have to place them in the same kind of box. I don't think that's reasonable in a society where sexism is generally accepted as wrong, sexual difference is created through physical difference to a degree and in a way that affects women quite obviously and racism is absolutely everywhere consistently permeated by media reiteration of difference. Women are subjected to a scrutiny different from men certainly but they don't have the constant and nearly overwhelming negative press that Asylum Seekers do and the reason for that negativity is their difference. So when talking about race and gender I think you're dealing with two entirely separate and distinct issues and it does a little disservice to any comment on either of them to lump them together as if these two cultural labels or items can be taken as parallel to one another.

how does masculinity intersect with "niceness" or "availability" or "bastardness", and (how) do we desire those things in our (potential) partners?

Ooh, nicely put. I harbour an obsession with masculinity and have done since I started (and finished) writing my fashion dissertation so many moons ago. To go back to sticking 'nice' in to subjective terms, would masculine be 'nice' for the woman perceiving it as attractive?

I say my lovelies, (sorry, falling back on to gender specifics here because I actually want to think about the construction of...) 'Nice guy' isn't related to New Man is he? When did this idea of the 'Nice guy' arise? Is it a prolonged myth? Is Mr. Darcy a 'nice guy'- every woman's fantasy, a bastard turned sweet? Is this an ongoing Western (British?) myth?

22:36 / 05.01.04

ok quick post then i have t hit the road.

i am an extremely nice guy. i am fairly good looking. i have never run into the problem stated above where nice guys don't get the woman. i have turned down plenty of women for being too "nice". when i am turning away a perfectly beautiful girl for being too "nice" what i really mean is "i don't think you would be very good in bed".

i had always assumed that women felt the same way. being very nice i usually work around the nice deterrent by casually mentioning a past sexual experience. nothing crude, no bragging, just enough to get the girl thinking about me in a sexual context.

can anyone else corroborate. anyone else thinking being too nice is a way to say " i can't ever imagine having sex with you"?

22:52 / 05.01.04

Dude, everytime you turn down a perfectly byootiful bisexual ex-supermodel for sex, God kills an angel. It's a fact. So don't do it anymore.

Matthew Fluxington

22:59 / 05.01.04

Very very very interesting. So when you reject girls, you tell them that they are too nice for you? Do you say something like "you're too nice for me" or is it more like "you're such a nice person that I can't bring myself to corrupt you with my filthy evil cock"?

This is a fascinating approach to letting girls down easy. Please tell me more, and maybe I can incorporate your techniques into my Life Coach teachings. I really like your idea, because it lets the girl down in a way that tells her that she's a good person inside (that helps with her self esteem), but also teases her with a hint of how dirty you are when you're doing it. It leaves her wanting you still, which is good if you ever happen to need her womanly services at a later date.

23:05 / 05.01.04

When you're next stood by the bar in a busy nightclub, turn round and ask the nearest woman whether she piched your ass. When she says no, ask her why not, and throw your drink over her.

23:08 / 05.01.04

I have a question. Why do women always cry after really great sex?

23:13 / 05.01.04

the clitoris has way more nerve endings than the penis. and the clitoris is a hell of a lot smaller. if sex felt as good to you guys as it does to us, you might cry too.

23:15 / 05.01.04

oh, and by "sex" i meant really great sex. for us.

Matthew Fluxington

23:22 / 05.01.04

Wait...what the HECK is a "clitoris"? Is that part of the boob?

23:24 / 05.01.04

flux just lost all his life coaching clients on that one. omg, lol, rofl!!!!!!

Matthew Fluxington

23:32 / 05.01.04

I just looked up what a clitoris is, and yeah, I knew all about that, I just called it a different name.

I call it the "love button."

23:36 / 05.01.04

Coincidence! I'm sure that’s what Turd calls his penis

Keith, like a scientist

01:52 / 06.01.04

i dunno about all this stuff...it does my head, trying to figure out what women want. i obviously have no idea as many of you now know.

i'm what you would call the "nice guy." never pushy, never coming with the smarmy lines, never out to just bed some girl. i'm always going out of my way to be nice and helpful and sensitive. the "doormat" as someone mentioned. i'm fairly good looking, girls always note that. girls have been attracted to me before, sometimes in a big way...

i can never understand why the girls i'm crazy about are uninterested, or unwilling, or why the girls i only am sort of interested in are crazy about me. what is it about the vague, aloof, guy that is attractive?

oy, my brain is having a seizure thinking about this.

Regrettable Juvenilia

01:58 / 06.01.04

Going back to why I just skipped to the absurdism rather than engage with this thread... I have to admit that I was being pessimistic, based on Barbelith's track record where discussions like this are concerned. It seemed only a matter of time until this thread devolved into anecdotal stories from poor sensitive guys about how the girls they like always go for the cool bastards, vague "women, huh? they're just so kray-zee! they're from Venus!" remarks, and worse (see: the 'What do men find attractive?' thread, which in an ideal world wants deleting, locking, or setting on fire).

02:16 / 06.01.04

Can everyone just shut up so Turd can quote 25th Hour some more, please?

Tks

07:30 / 06.01.04

Deva, I think you're a genius. CS jargon works for me in this case. I think I had too many mixed ideas etc. in my opening post. This whiole thing might be better servedd as a well thought out Headshop topic.I thought a quick "vox pop" might have some uses, but well.... Will come back to your points later when I given them some thought.

Flyboy, judging from that other thread, maybe you're right. However, a bit of intelligent response from yourself to start with might have set the ball rolling in a different direction. Maybe not. Same goes for you, Flux, still waiting for you to engage with the issue.

Anyway, I'm offline for a bit...hope something worthwhile transpires.

08:21 / 06.01.04

it does a little disservice to any comment on either of them to lump them together as if these two cultural labels or items can be taken as parallel to one another.

Well, yeah, it would. I don't see anyone doing that, though (you'll notice that my post says that racial and gender identification are different and that it's interesting that they're different. I apologize if it sounded like I meant "wrong" or "stupid" when I said "interesting"; I genuinely meant "interesting"). However, I think this sentence from your post:

I don't think that's reasonable in a society where sexism is generally accepted as wrong, sexual difference is created through physical difference to a degree and in a way that affects women quite obviously and racism is absolutely everywhere consistently permeated by media reiteration of difference.

makes exactly as much sense if you write

...a society where racism is generally accepted as wrong, racial difference is created through physical difference to a degree and in a way that affects non-white people quite obviously and sexism is absolutely everywhere consistently permeated by media reiteration of difference.

which undermines your point a bit, since 'racism' and 'sexism' are actually completely interchangeable on this definition.

Sorry, Illmatic, I promise to spend all day thinking about masculinity and niceness...

foot long subbacultcha

09:49 / 06.01.04

Hints and tips and tips and hints. Too many rules and regulations. It all does my head in.

Ex

10:23 / 06.01.04

Being a byootiful bisexual, I've been wondering what I find attractive in men which I don't find attractive in everyone else, including platonic lovelies. It's a bit sparse.
I do tend to give men credit for breaking away from standard-issue manstuff. So, blokes who respect my personal space and my opinions.
Wow. That really looks like money for old rope, doesn't it?

That shades into liking genderfucked stuff - such stuff makes me suppose that a bloke may have something in common with me. An instinctive lurch of sympathy towards blokes who wear frocks, skirts, dandygear, makeup, or have excessively elaborate hair. But I increasingly meet gits who don eyeliner in order to pull susceptible ladies.
And liking unusual gender displays can be a bit dodgy, because it means that femmes who make jam may slip under my genderfuck radar even though they're performing the making of jam in a self-aware and radically genderfucked manner...
Along with jam-making femmes, I also like blokes who do "bloke" in a self-aware way. Hard to describe, and it takes a while to ascertain that they're aware of what they're doing. So that's more of a slow-developing attraction.

All the other things which make people attractive - passionate interests, intelligence, big eyes and long fingers - apply across the board.

"Nice" boys? Personally mystified by the idea that someone can be too "nice". I've heard that far more often from men who consider themselves illtreated for being nice than from women themselves, but I don't know many straight women. I would say that turning someone down by telling them they're "too nice" (if that isn't the reason) is slightly ill-conceived and can only lead to misunderstandings.
Possibly "niceness" is an advantage for the nasty partner, in that being a shit causes a distraction in a relationship - the partner has to deal with someone else's ambivalence ("Does sie like me, would sie like me if I did X...") rather than examine their own feelings ("Fuck me! Sie's a total fuckup!").
Pfft. If you want to inject mystery and drama into your relationship, read Dorothy L Sayers and go to the theatre together.

12:09 / 06.01.04

I was going to make a few points, but then I started considering the nature of 'nice' - is it a quality or a collection made up of a number of qualities or both? How subjective is it? So I'm not even sure if what I was going to say is valid.

While I work this one through, I will quote one friend who once said of a bloke who's generally considered to be really, really nice - 'I can't see myself going down on him'. She now uses this as an acid attraction test.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I think I'm nice.

The Apple-Picker

12:47 / 06.01.04

A guy who turned me down did it by saying something along the lines of You're super and you're cool, but I'm just not romantically inclined. I was annoyed because he had been behaving in a misleading way, but if he had said, I can't date you; you're just too nice!, I would have been supremely pissed instead of merely annoyed.

Mr. Extremely Nice Guy, maybe you're not as nice as you think. Ever since I read your post last night, I was curious about what you think qualifies you as an extremely nice guy.

I back what Bitchie Kittie wrote, mostly.

Tryphena Absent

15:03 / 06.01.04

Actually Deva I was agreeing with you but swapping the two terms racial and sexual difference doesn't work because one applies to the possibility of carrying a child around inside you and taking over your body and the other applies to a slight pigmentation difference in your skin. Sorry, I know I didn't make the detail clear.

15:52 / 06.01.04

So you know, Radix packs my lunch every day, and I'm eating my lunch & I've got an orange and a hard-boiled egg, and I put aside the orange for later & I tap the egg on my desk, and I notice that the egg has a little Sunkist label stuck to its shell. That's what I like in a guy. Somebody who would take the label off an orange & stick it on an egg.

Freezing in a car in disguises with coffee and powdered donuts is okay, too.

16:14 / 06.01.04

How do you powder a donut? Do you have to freeze it first?

16:22 / 06.01.04

I've just realised that I completely failed to make a "powdered toast" joke there.

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