As mentioned previously, many seducers could use some additional help coping with stress and relaxing.
Although in all probability, it doesn’t matter whether you have a highly strung boss, or a lack of choices when talking to attractive strangers - The following commonsense hints and tips should be of some use in managing your stress levels.
1. Learn how to say ‘No’.
Very simple, but very effective - Where a ‘No’ is the appropriate response - say it without guilt.
2. If you’re ill, rest.
Don’t carry on regardless. Working will tire your body and prolong your illness. So recognise that you have limits, and don’t carry on as if you were firing on all cylinders.
3. Get enough sleep.
Sleep is essential for the body to function properly. And sleeping pills shouldn’t be necessary with the right life-style. If you’ve habitually skimped on sleep, you probably won’t even remember how it feels to wake up fully rested. Give it a go for a week and see if there’s a reduction in stress, and a difference in how well you perform during the day.
4. Listen to your body.
When you’re tired, hungry or thirsty, do something about it. Also, recognise stress, anxiety and anger in your day and counter it immediately with a brisk walk, ten minutes of a visualisation exercise, some deep relaxation or whatever else works best for you.
5. Avoid nicotine and caffeine.
These are stimulants, so they won’t calm you down. If you’re feeling stressed, steer clear of them and keep yourself well-hydrated by drinking water or fruit juice instead.
6. Fight off stress with physical activity.
Pressure or anger releases Adrenaline and other stress hormones in the body. Sports and physical exercise helps to reduce this, and produces ‘good mood’ chemicals in the brain. So go for a brisk walk around the block when you feel tense, or try some regular sport or exercise after work.
7. Agree with people once in a while.
Life shouldn’t be a constant battle, and conflict is often due to someone feeling defensive out of fear of losing face. People sometimes set goals for how others should treat them, and then rigidly expect that others will fulfil those expectations. However, this rarely produces satisfaction, because others also have an agenda for their own rigid goals. So even if you disagree with someone, you can avoid this impasse by agreeing with them, helping them reach their own goals, or just keeping quiet if that person is quite unpalatable. Remember, idiots only have status if you grant it to them.
8. Learn to accept what you cannot change.
Saint Francis of Assisi’s famous prayer asks for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. This philosophy will help you avoid unhappiness, cynicism and bitterness; all of which will help you combat stress.
9. Manage your time.
Take one thing at a time, and don’t overdo it. Create time buffers to deal with unexpected emergencies, and tackle them with a system that works for you.
One very simple method is:
- List the things that you need to do
- Put them in order of importance
- Decide what you need to do yourself, and what can be delegated
- Decide which need doing today, next week or next month
- Decide what doesn’t need doing after all, and then drop it from the list
Your mountain of tasks is now in some sort of order, and could even be a bit smaller, which should help. These things might have controlled you before, but now you control them. And therefore you’ve lost any stress they used to cause you.
10. Think up a self-affirming mantra.
Suggestions could be ‘I have a choice in every situation’ or ‘I deserve calm in my life’. Repeat your mantra to yourself whenever you feel tense.
11. Relax with a stress-reduction technique.
Try self-hypnosis - it’s very easy and can be done almost anywhere.
12. Try a very simple visualisation exercise.
- Find a quiet spot where you won’t be interrupted for a few minutes.
- Just shut your eyes for a moment, and imagine what your life will be like when you’re able to live it in the way you’d like to.
- See, hear and feel what that is like.
- See yourself getting everything done in a relaxed way. Notice the way you’re sitting, standing or moving, then observe how calmly you’re interacting with people, and the positive way in which they’re responding to you.
- Hear the sound of your voice as you talk to people, and notice how it’s different from the way you tend to talk now.
- Listen to how people are talking to you and the kind of things that they’re saying.
- Feel what all of that is like, and enjoy the feeling.
- Perhaps you’ll see yourself having some time for new activities in your life (or some old ones that you haven’t done for a while) see and hear yourself doing them, and feel good.
- Take all the time you need, and allow yourself to enjoy the exercise.
Posted by Jonathan as Philosophy, Psychology at 1:44 AM EDT
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Something I noticed in the latest issue of New Scientist (9th Feb, page 19) was an article by Daniel Nettle about personality traits.
The big 5 are:
- Neuroticism (Amygdala + Serotonin)
- Openness (Mental association mechanisms?)
- Conscientiousness (Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex)
- Agreeableness / Empathy (Theory of mind mechanisms?)
- Extroversion (Mid brain Dopamine reward system)
What the author writes about extroverts makes for the most interesting reading:
I studied 545 British adults with a range of extroversion scores. High scorers had more sexual partners, and we know that they also do better in economic and career terms on average. But those in my sample were also more likely to be hospitalised as a result of an accident or illness, and their family lives were less stable. Since they were more likely to divorce, the men often ended up not living with their children. It is tempting to think of extroversion as an unalloyed blessing, but it is not.
Your personality will entail risks, and some alternative pathways might be closed to you. There will also be situations for which your personality is too risk-prone.
Agreeableness is a negative predictor of success in the worlds of executives and artists, where people need to put themselves first and focus on what they want.
His last word is:
To some extent we can alter who we are, but we might be better off recognising that for almost any personality profile, there is an optimal environment. So if your personality causes you grief, why not try changing the niche you occupy in this complex ecosystem that is modern life?
These words must sound hollow to the neurotic! Yes… whoopee, I’ll prosper the best in a dangerous environment… so um, how long before I can get my hands on a Sudanese visa, in order to immigrate to Darfur?!
Posted by Oliver as Philosophy, Psychology at 8:00 AM EST
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We’d all love to know what other people are thinking; but some individuals just can’t accept that the contents of someone else’s head are private and confidential, and are therefore inaccessible.
So, in just a slightly less annoying way than Psychic charlatans and get laid quick guides promise magic bullets and miracles, to part the gullible and lonely from their cash, a whole industry has sprung up writing and promoting books about Body language.
Surprisingly though, many people don’t seem to realise that Body language is the bastard child of Evolutionary Psychology and Astrology. Certainly, we can say that fat people probably enjoy their food a bit too much, and it’s a near certainty that smiling people are happy. There might even be some slight truth in claims such as people point their feet at someone they’re interested in; after all, if you’re interested in someone you’re probably going to speak to them, and if you’re going to speak to someone, you’re more than likely going to face toward them first, and generally people point their feet forwards, most of the time.
As an aside, much is also culturally dependent. If you speak to someone in England, and they nod or shake their head, you know that they are either agreeing or disagreeing with you, respectively. However, if you were to speak to someone in Sri Lanka, this pattern would be reversed.
So, now, we come to myths and dishonesty. We’ve already noted elsewhere that the rather too frequently quoted idea that all communication is 7% Words, 38% Voice tone and 55% Body language is nonsensical rubbish. If words were really only 7% of communication, why would we have to learn foreign languages? And then, how do we cope on the telephone? Many lazy and/or ignorant authors have just blindly copied an attention grabbing snippet of information, without even bothering to check if it’s true or not. This statistic is actually nothing more than a myth derived from a misquoting of an experiment carried out in 1967 by Albert Mehrabian, that asked “what factors does a speaker’s likeability depend on?”, rather than anything concerning someone’s ability to communicate. Certainly, the oft mentioned idea that people with folded arms or crossed legs are defensive must be one of the daftest things I’ve come across though…
Compliance professionals should recognise in the above paragraphs something known as a Yes-ladder. - Start your communication by saying something that’s almost certainly true, move to saying something that could possibly be true, and finish with what you want to try to slip under the radar of the person you’re talking to. Pretty much all Body language books I’ve browsed through seem to work in that same way.
Now, it would certainly be interesting if there was some top secret way to read peoples minds through Body language, especially since so much of the subject matter appears to deal with sex and relationships. Take the following rather interesting quote that I found recently, as an example:
…men are notoriously bad decoders of women’s [body language], often assuming that a woman is interested in them when she isn’t. That’s because a man automatically assumes that an attractive woman is aiming her availability signals at him personally, when she’s actually broadcasting them to everyone. Men also have a tendency to inflate come-ons in their mind, and to assume that put-offs are only hang-ons. This tendency of men to misread women’s signals is part of a more widespread insensitivity. Not only are men less observant, they are generally not as tuned in to other people’s needs as women are.
Here, the author has invented a system; and presumably hopes that the reader will summon up a male stereotype of a good-for-nothing couch potato in their mind, and reason “yeah, men are pretty dumb and insensitive, while women generally have a reputation as good empathisers. This Body language must be top stuff”.
So, let’s examine the above quotation more critically:-
If you’ve ever read pseudo-intellectual literature, or perhaps even looked at some of the many various explanations found on the Internet which claim to document how to seduce people, you will realise that often the material is written in such a way that it can be interpreted in two ways. The first is a radical but manifestly false way that grabs headlines and attracts attention to the author, whilst the second is a true but relatively banal way that the author can fall back to, once some bright spark has spotted the deception.
In the quoted paragraph, we’re supposed to accept that men are somehow generally defective, since they often won’t fit into this author’s system. But, if something is to be communicated, we need a compatible sender and receiver, as well as the method of signalling. And then, Evolutionary theory tells us that characteristics will only be selected for, if they are beneficial. Therefore, what is the point of a communication system that doesn’t communicate? That would be like someone trying to ring a cellphone when they know that the battery in the phone being called is flat.
If the author was telling us that women have a signalling system that men could detect more than 50% of the time, it would be an interesting idea to test. However, the more likely explanation is that a man sees an attractive woman, and then decides to talk to her simply because he likes how she looks, and thinks she’d be fun in bed; rather than because some sort of erratic subconscious signalling system is in action.
It should also be noted that it’s been claimed before that women are generally pretty good communicators, who apparently have a greater verbal fluency than men. If there’s any truth to this claim, why would women be such good verbal communicators, but such poor non-verbal communicators?
Even assuming that a woman could broadcast signals to everyone, the author’s explanation breaks down, since he claims that the hypothetical man assumes that the woman is interested in him when she isn’t. So, why would a woman broadcast to all, if she only wants the message received by specific men? This would be like someone whispering secrets to a person in the same room, through a megaphone.
Perhaps the woman is especially attractive and has dressed provocatively, in which case she would have plenty of male attention, regardless of other criteria. Ergo, it would make more sense for her signalling system to send selective messages to specific men communicating “stay away”, rather than “come here” as the author suggests.
Finally, in the last sentence of the paragraph we’re analysing, the author just becomes rude (and rather ignorant in my opinion). If men are as insensitive, unobservant and un-empathetic as claimed, then this is a slap in the face for all those men who have entered caring professions, for example, male nurses, social workers, teachers, doctors, therapists, counsellors, etc. Yet, Sociobiologists tell us that men are more visual than women (apparently it’s an adaptation from many years gone by, when men were the hunters, in hunter gatherer communities). So the explanation breaks down yet again.
It seems to me that the people teaching this overcomplicated rubbish owe their students an apology, and also a refund.
Posted by Jonathan as Philosophy, Sociology at 4:09 AM EST
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Research has suggested that testosterone is linked with aggression. Other studies have shown that when men have sex, their endocrine system’s release a cocktail of chemicals, including serotonin, norepinephrine, oxytocin, vasopressin, nitric oxide, and prolactin. All of which makes them feel extremely relaxed and happy; further, this mixture seems to act to counter the effects of testosterone.
It’s therefore my belief that in some instances, where males aren’t having any sex, they get increasingly aggressive, eventually ending up becoming violent and possibly even committing petty crimes; or at least generally making a nuisance of themselves, for the rest of society to sort out.
So, I suspect I may have touched a nerve with one of these gentlemen, who writes in a somewhat aggressive manner that “Seduction” is a bad thing because he feels that there is an implication of manipulation and deceit attached to the word, and therefore he proposes that “attraction” would be a more suitable alternative, the website should be renamed and etc. (the rest of his e-mail is an unqualified rant, unfortunately)
Normally, this type of missive goes straight to the trash, but my highly-strung new friend does make an attempt to backup part of his argument with evidence, so he has to be commended for that. He thus claims that the dictionary defines Seduction as:
The act of seducing; enticement to wrong doing; specifically, the offense of inducing a woman to consent to unlawful sexual intercourse, by enticements which overcome her scruples; the wrong or crime of persuading a woman to surrender her chastity.
Unfortunately for him, the Internet gives everybody access to the world’s largest source of information, and it’s therefore extremely easy to check references; whereupon it seems that this definition is his own fabrication, since the meaning doesn’t appear in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the rather handy Dictionary.com says:
se·duc·tion
–noun
- an act or instance of seducing, esp. sexually.
- the condition of being seduced.
- a means of seducing; enticement; temptation.
Maybe this fellow’s bizarre belief stems from the fact that he thinks Seduction is a “game” (I sincerely hope he doesn’t mean seducers should persuade girls to go “on the game“). Maybe he means this in the same sense as someone I once met who boasted that he was “Gaming the System”, which he explained as obtaining money he wasn’t properly entitled too, or perhaps he thinks that he is a “Player”? However, I would posit that in a game, one has a chance of losing a lot more than in a seduction. A knock-back from someone you are trying to seduce is not nearly as unpleasant as a broken leg from playing Rugby, losing all your money playing Poker, and certainly not in the same league as the consequences of losing a game of Russian roulette. Perhaps a Lottery would be a better analogy, because one would only tend to lose the entry fee; but then to suggest that Seduction is completely random completely defeats the point of trying to have a rich and varied sex life.
Back to the original point of this article, I would suggest that manipulation in seduction is a good thing. Clearly, it would be extremely unusual for any sane person to walk straight up to a stranger and honestly propose that they should have sex together; at least not without a certain amount of initial manipulation.
As an example, if I meet some attractive girls somewhere, they’re probably pretty much ho-hum about meeting yet another guy; possibly they’re even slightly disinterested. After all, a lot of guys are fools that have no respect for women; so why should they make the effort to be nice, especially when they probably have random guys wandering up to them on a semi-regular basis.
So, I need to manipulate them into seeing me in a more positive light, get them enjoying my company, and wanting more of it… Then I can work on getting to manipulate them in the bedroom, but that’s a whole different story.
On the other side of the coin, the same women probably want to meet a man that they can have fun with, enjoy some intelligent company, and know that he won’t spend all evening insulting them, trying to touch them inappropriately (and other dumb stuff that some guys try), since I would imagine that the same dim-witted guy, assuming he had sex at all, would then spend the next month bragging about it to all his mates, and ruining some poor girls reputation in the process.
So, in western society, there’s a taboo against girls walking up to guys they don’t know, at least 
not without an excellent reason. But women still need to attract quality men… How do they do this? Well, they’ll manipulate their appearances, using make-up, Wonder bras, nice clothes and hairdos etc., to make themselves look more attractive.
In summary, therefore, attraction is a passive process mostly used by women who aren’t prepared to approach men directly, whilst seduction is an active process. As a simpler example, someone might claim “I was attracted to the painting…” (a passive process) “…and the Salesperson seduced me into buying it, when they offered good credit terms / a discount / free framing” (an active process). This just doesn’t work the other way round.
So, for many men, myself included, unless we get extensive cosmetic surgery, lose weight, gain height, develop a six-pack, a sense of fashion and then go on to discover the fountain of youth; the chances of a woman being passively attracted and then instigating sex, are slight at best. Ergo, attractiveness is more of a bonus that you either have or you don’t, whereas seduction is a skill that can be made explicit and is therefore transferable from person to person.
As to deceit, that’s generally a bad thing, but then deceit was never mentioned in any of the definitions of seduction already listed. Although, I’ve given this a little thought, and it’s certainly possible that even deceit has a small use in seduction. For example, when I’ve been asked for my opinion, by a girl I’m going out with, as to whether she should change the dress she’s wearing for the one she’s holding; I’m savvy enough to know that the best answer is to tell her “keep the one you’re wearing on”. After all, she’s probably spent some considerable time deciding what to wear, and my knowledge of women’s fashion is on a par with my knowledge of Quantum theory. I’m sure she knows this too, and since I figure she’ll look good in either dress, I know that what she really wants is a quick confidence boost, and not a teary debate about dress styles with a guy that doesn’t really have much opinion either way.
Alternatively, many people hold strong views about inconsequential things. So, how many times have you, dear reader, been at the start of a relationship with someone that appeared to be a lovely person in almost all respects, except they support a different football team to you, perhaps they venerate some over-rated celebrity that you wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire, or quite possibly they are simply opposed to promiscuity, while you spend time reading websites like Seduction Labs.
In this situation, you can be honest (and I’ll admire your principles if you are), but let’s face it, it’s more than likely going to jam a spanner in the works of your seduction. You could of course skirt the issue and wind up looking rather shifty, or you could just be deceitful (the sin of omission is deceit too) over a trivial matter that will most likely be forgotten within a short time and probably never mentioned again, at least until your relationship is on a firmer footing, and more able to deal with such ripples.
So, finally, if we don’t manipulate, we’ll more than likely just end up with a bored seducee, a worthless phone number or simply asked to ‘Please go away’. Of course, in no way am I suggesting that one should lie all the time, just occasionally it’s best to stay quiet or bend the truth a little.
Chris Rock tells an amusing anecdote about how both men and women lie, but men tell small petty lies. According to Mr. Rock, a man might say “I’m going bowling”, not realising that the woman already knows that he’s lying, because he does it all the time. But the woman might say “It’s your baby!”
Posted by Jonathan as Biochemistry, Philosophy at 11:24 PM EST
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First, understand that the best biological strategy for men has historically been ‘relatively promiscuous’ sexual behaviour, and for women ‘relatively selective’ sexual behaviour. Furthermore, for men sex is frequently an end in and of itself; more so than for women. I once heard it put quite well as:
Men use intimacy to achieve sex, and Women use sex to achieve intimacy.
This is not universally, true, of course, but there is enough truth to provide insight and be useful.
If you accept these notions as being relatively useful descriptions of real life, you might also predict, other things being equal, that men would have a lower ‘threshold’ for sexual interactions than women (and by the way, a higher threshold for interactions involving significant intimacy). Ask yourself; are these assertions not both true?
In other words, in most relatively symmetric situations, there are more women that the average man ‘would have sex with’ than there are men that the average woman ‘would have sex with’. Therefore, other things being equal, the typical male/female sexually-related interaction is that of him making a pass at her, and her declining. Based on the most logical and most prevalent male/female strategies for maximizing their own genetic success into subsequent generations, a typical male/female sexual interaction, is that of a man attempting to initiate sex and a woman rejecting it.
This type of interaction is not an isolated incident, an emotional trauma, or an excuse for being shy. It is the most natural, and by the way, the most frequent, type of interaction. Probably 90-95% of all sexually-related (heterosexual) interactions look pretty much like this.
Much words to assert what is for most of us an obvious reality. The question is, so what?
The insight for men is; understanding that long run equilibrium is defined by an equation that looks something like this:
10 passes = 9 rejections + 1 acceptance
The insight is that in order to get the 1 acceptance a man should expect to have to go through 9 rejections. The number may actually be 1, 2, 9, 90, or any other number, but the point is the same. Men should expect a certain amount of ‘rejection’ as a natural part of their long-term seduction strategy, and should learn to deal with it, with understanding and confidence. After all dealing with acceptance is easy. It’s dealing with the rejections that are ‘in-between’ now and the next acceptance that is difficult.
Posted by Scott as Philosophy, Psychology at 9:13 PM EDT
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In a rather Freakonomics-like article about sex and promiscuity, the New York Times suggests that:
If multiple partnerships save lives, then monogamy can be deadly
Imagine a country where almost all women are monogamous, while all men demand two female partners per year. Under those circumstances, a few prostitutes end up servicing all the men. Before long, the prostitutes are infected; they pass the disease on to the men; the men bring it home to their monogamous wives. But if each of those monogamous wives were willing to take on one extramarital partner, the market for prostitution would die out, and the virus, unable to spread fast enough to maintain itself, might well die out along with it.
Posted by Jonathan as Philosophy, Sociology at 2:52 AM EDT
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Psychologists have finally found something very much worthwhile to study.
Cindy Meston and David Buss, of the University of Texas, write in the August 2007 issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior that most scientists assume that the reasons for having sex are simple: “to reproduce, to experience sexual pleasure, or to relieve sexual tension.”
However, nobody else has bothered to look much further; so they have investigated, and after studying more than 2,000 men and women, they discovered 237 reasons why people have sex.
In a further experiment, participants (N=1,549) were then asked to evaluate the degree to which each of the 237 reasons had led them to have sexual intercourse, and the Psychologists were thus able to group the reasons into four main factors, and thirteen sub-factors: I’ve summarised these in the table below, for ease of reference.
| |
Main factors leading to sexual intercourse. |
| Physical reasons |
Goal attainment |
Emotional |
Insecurity |
| Sub-factors |
Stress Reduction |
Resources |
Love & Commitment |
Self-Esteem Boost |
| Pleasure |
Social Status |
Expression |
Duty/Pressure |
| Physical Desirability |
Revenge |
|
Mate Guarding |
| Experience Seeking |
Utilitarian |
|
|
Several reasons seemed quite similar, and there was no rating as to which items could be most useful to a Seducer, or how to exploit these reasons. Neither was there an indication as to whether the reasons given originated from men or women.
However, for the curious, here are the reasons they published in their study:
- An erotic movie had me turned on.
- Because of a bet.
- Everyone else was having sex.
- I’m addicted to sex.
- I am a sex addict.
- I could brag to other people about my sexual experience.
- I desired emotional closeness (i.e. intimacy).
- I didn’t know how to say “no.”
- I didn’t want to “lose” the person.
- I didn’t want to disappoint the person.
- I felt guilty.
- I felt insecure.
- I felt jealous.
- I felt like it was my duty.
- I felt obligated to.
- I felt rebellious.
- I felt sorry for the person.
- I got “carried away.”
- I had no self-control.
- I had not had sex in a long time.
- I hadn’t had sex for a while.
- I knew the person was usually “out of my league.”
- I needed another “notch on my belt.”
- I realized I was in love.
- I saw the person naked and could not resist.
- I thought it would boost my social status.
- I thought it would help “trap” a new partner.
- I thought it would help me to fall asleep.
- I thought it would make me feel healthy.
- I thought it would relax me.
- I wanted a “spiritual” experience.
- I wanted my partner to notice me.
- I wanted the adventure/excitement.
- I wanted the attention.
- I wanted the experience.
- I wanted the person to feel good about himself/herself.
- I wanted the person to love me.
- I wanted the pure pleasure.
- I wanted to “gain control” of the person.
- I wanted to “possess” the person.
- I wanted to achieve an orgasm.
- I wanted to act out a fantasy.
- I wanted to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings.
- I wanted to be nice.
- I wanted to be popular.
- I wanted to be used or degraded.
- I wanted to become more focused on work (sexual thoughts are distracting.)
- I wanted to become one with another person.
- I wanted to boost my self-esteem.
- I wanted to brag to my friends about my conquests.
- I wanted to break-up another’s relationship.
- I wanted to break-up my relationship
- I wanted to break up a rival’s relationship by having sex with his/her partner.
- I wanted to burn calories.
- I wanted to celebrate a birthday or anniversary or special occasion.
- I wanted to celebrate something.
- I wanted to change the topic of conversation.
- I wanted to communicate at a deeper level
- I wanted to decrease my partner’s desire to have sex with someone else.
- I wanted to defy my parents.
- I wanted to display submission.
- I wanted to dominate the other person.
- I wanted to end the relationship.
- I wanted to enhance my reputation.
- I wanted to ensure the relationship was “committed.”
- I wanted to even the score with a cheating partner.
- I wanted to experience the physical pleasure.
- I wanted to experiment with new experiences.
- I wanted to express my love for the person.
- I wanted to feel attractive.
- I wanted to feel closer to God.
- I wanted to feel connected to the person.
- I wanted to feel feminine.
- I wanted to feel loved.
- I wanted to feel masculine.
- I wanted to feel older.
- I wanted to feel young.
- I wanted to forget about my problems.
- I wanted to fulfil a previous promise to my partner.
- I wanted to gain acceptance from my friends.
- I wanted to gain access to that person’s friend.
- I wanted to get a favour from someone.
- I wanted to get a job.
- I wanted to get a partner to express love.
- I wanted to get a promotion.
- I wanted to get a raise.
- I wanted to get a special favour from someone.
- I wanted to get back at my partner for having cheated on me.
- I wanted to get even with someone (i.e. revenge).
- I wanted to get my partner to stay with me.
- I wanted to get out of doing something.
- I wanted to get rid of a headache.
- I wanted to get rid of aggression.
- I wanted to get the most out of life.
- I wanted to give someone a sexually transmitted disease (e.g. Herpes, AIDS).
- I wanted to have a child.
- I wanted to have more sex than my friends.
- I wanted to have something to tell my friends.
- I wanted to help my partner forget about his/her problems.
- I wanted to hurt an enemy.
- I wanted to hurt/humiliate the person.
- I wanted to impress friends.
- I wanted to improve my sexual skills.
- I wanted to increase my emotional bond by having sex.
- I wanted to increase the number of sex partners I had experienced.
- I wanted to intensify my relationship.
- I wanted to keep my partner from straying.
- I wanted to keep my partner happy.
- I wanted to keep my partner satisfied.
- I wanted to keep warm.
- I wanted to lift my partner’s spirits.
- I wanted to lose my inhibitions.
- I wanted to make a conquest.
- I wanted to make money.
- I wanted to make my partner feel powerful.
- I wanted to make someone else jealous.
- I wanted to make the person feel batter about himself/herself.
- I wanted to make up after a fight.
- I wanted to manipulate him/her into doing something for me.
- I wanted to please my partner.
- I wanted to prevent a break-up.
- I wanted to punish myself.
- I wanted to put the passion back into my relationship.
- I wanted to raise my self-esteem.
- I wanted to reaffirm my sexual orientation.
- I wanted to release anxiety/stress.
- I wanted to release tension.
- I wanted to relieve “blue balls.”
- I wanted to relieve me menstrual cramps.
- I wanted to reproduce.
- I wanted to return a favour.
- I wanted to satisfy a compulsion.
- I wanted to say “goodbye.”
- I wanted to say “I’m sorry.”
- I wanted to say “I’ve missed you.”
- I wanted to say “Thank you.”
- I wanted to see if I could get the other person into bed.
- I wanted to see what all the fuss is about.
- I wanted to see what it would be like to have sex while stoned (e.g. on marijuana or some other drug).
- I wanted to see what it would be like to have sex with another person.
- I wanted to see whether sex with a different partner would feel different or better.
- I wanted to show my affection to the person.
- I wanted to stop my partner’s nagging.
- I wanted to submit to my partner.
- I wanted to test my compatibility with a new partner.
- I wanted to try out new sexual techniques or positions.
- I wanted to welcome someone home.
- I was “horny.”
- I was “in the heat of the moment.”
- I was afraid my partner would have an affair if I didn’t have sex with him/her.
- I was afraid to say “no” due to the possibility of physical harm.
- I was attracted to the person.
- I was bored.
- I was competing with someone to “get the person.”
- I was curious about my sexual abilities.
- I was curious about sex.
- I was curious about what the person was like in bed.
- I was drunk.
- I was easier to “go all the way” than to stop.
- I was frustrated and needed relief.
- I was mad at my partner, so I had sex with someone else.
- I was married and you’re supposed to.
- I was on the “rebound” from another relationship.
- I was physically forced to.
- I was pressured into doing it.
- I was seduced.
- I was sexually aroused and wanted the release.
- I was slumming.
- I was tired of being a virgin.
- I was trying to “get over” and earlier person/relationship.
- I was turned on by the sexual conversation.
- I was under the influence of drugs.
- I was verbally coerced into doing it.
- It’s considered “taboo” by society.
- It’s exciting, adventurous.
- It’s fun.
- It became a habit.
- It feels good.
- It just happened.
- It just seemed like the think to do.
- It seemed like good exercise.
- It seemed like the natural next step.
- It was a favour to someone.
- It was a romantic setting.
- It was a special occasion.
- It was an initiation rite to a club or organization.
- It was expected of me.
- It was part of the relationship “routine.”
- It was the only way my partner would spend time with me.
- It would allow me to “get sex out of my system” so that I could focus on other things.
- It would damage my reputation if I said “no.”
- It would get me gifts.
- My friends pressured me into it.
- My friends were having sex and I wanted to fit in.
- My hormones were out of control.
- My partner kept insisting.
- My regular partner is boring, so I had sex with someone else.
- Someone dared me.
- Someone had told me that this person was good in bed.
- Someone offered me money to do it.
- The opportunity presented itself.
- The person’s physical appearance turned me on.
- The person caressed me.
- The person demanded that I have sex with him/her.
- The person flattered me.
- The person had a desirable body.
- The person had a great sense of humour.
- The person had a lot of money.
- The person had an attractive face.
- The person had beautiful eyes.
- The person had bought me jewellery.
- The person had taken me out for an expensive dinner.
- The person had too much to drink and I was about to take advantage of them.
- The person made me feel sexy.
- The person offered to give me drugs for doing it.
- The person really desired me.
- The person seemed self-confident.
- The person smelled nice.
- The person was “available.”
- The person was a good dancer.
- The person was a good kisser.
- The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex with him/her.
- The person was intelligent.
- The person was mysterious.
- The person was really desired by others.
- The person was too “hot” to resist.
- The person was too physically attractive to resist.
- The person wore revealing clothes.
Posted by Jonathan as Philosophy, Psychology at 2:24 AM EDT
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I recently read in the paper about a man in Pakistan who gouged out the eyes of his wife and cut off her nose on suspicion of her being unfaithful. The most shocking part of this story is that in Pakistan such behaviour is not uncommon. Indeed, crimes such as killing ones wife for being unfaithful (or on suspicion of being unfaithful) are called ‘honour crimes‘ and are rarely prosecuted. In many parts of the world, female infidelity or promiscuity still ranks as a heinous crime. In many cases draconian punishments are meted out by the woman’s own family.
When we are quite finished being self-righteous about the more ‘civilized‘ morals of the western world, it is good to remember that there have been times when western cultures entertained similar attitudes particularly with respect to female infidelity, sometimes even with similar brutal consequences. Aside from the issue of the asymmetrical nature of such attitudes, an interesting question is how do we reconcile such behaviours with what we think of as ‘Love‘?
From Webster’s dictionary I take the following definition of love which describes our normal use of the word and is consistent with a very altruistic and generous state of mind:
Love; a deep and tender feeling of affection for or attachment or devotion to a person or persons…
This does not exactly explain an ‘OJ’ who is supposed to have cut the throat of the woman who had been his wife, and was the mother of his children. The woman he loved so much he could not let her go. OJ is quoted as having said;
If I was guilty of this crime, it could only have been because I ‘loved her’ too much.
How do we explain the Pakistani man who cut his wife’s eyes out? Was that ‘for love‘?
What about the millions of people who get insanely jealous to the point of being destructive to the person they ‘love‘, rather than let another have them? In fact, what about people who deliberately provoke their partners because they view the subsequent jealousy as ‘a sign of love‘? And what about stalkers, is that ‘love‘? What about unrequited or jilted love? How does that ‘turn’ into hate, in the bat of an eye? How does a ‘lover‘ suddenly become a ‘hater‘ immediately after being dumped?
In case I left the impression that I think horrible behaviours towards the object of ones love is primarily a male phenomenon, I don’t. Women may tend to be less physically violent, but divorce courts, abuse shelters, every day relationships, and graveyards are full of men and women who treat each other in ways that are in no way reconcilable with the way we commonly think of ‘love‘. It is so common that we are not surprised when we see these behaviours in associated with people who love, or have loved, each other.
If we believe that love is so altruistic, generous, and beautiful, how should we explain how it also often inspires our most ‘horrific‘ behaviour? Are the behaviours we observe in the real world consistent with our understanding of love as a ‘deep and tender feeling of affection‘, or an ‘attachment or devotion‘? Or, is our understanding of love conceptually flawed, sentimental Bullshit!?
Yes, I believe it is.
Posted by Scott as Philosophy, Psychology at 11:14 PM EDT
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You meet a woman you are interested in; so you try to interact. You go to the same places, make excuses to talk to her, hang out with her friends, and maybe even try to invite her places. She accepts the attention but only barely; avoids acknowledgements unless you do first, and seems so independent of whether you are there, or not, that it’s unnerving. Her conversations with you may be thin and brief, like she has somewhere else to go. Sometimes, just having a conversation, she makes you feel like she is doing you a favour. Maybe she invites you somewhere one time, and then shows up with another ‘friend’. In spite of the ego bruising you take it further. She says she likes you, but all the while the process of getting to know each other is a one-sided effort. It feels like you are swimming upstream pulling her on a raft behind you. Also, you are not happy about it, but you want her badly and feel lucky to get what you have.
Once you sleep with her, suddenly, everything changes. Pretty soon, you can do no wrong. She practically ‘gushes’ over you and wants to be with you all the time. You hear her repeating things you say, and she wants to hang out with all your friends. Soon, she becomes dependent on you, and has lost that ‘independence’ that attracted you so much in the first place.
What happened? How did she swing 180 degrees from the “I’m doing you a favour” posture, to the “you and I are one” posture? After all, you are the same guy now as you were in the first place. Perhaps even you are no longer so excited about her and may be losing interest. Before you were totally challenged but unhappy because of the uncertainty, and now you are totally unchallenged and unhappy because of the ‘opposite’. And by the way, why did all this happen right after you had sex together?
This phenomenon is what I call the ‘Ovary Response’; The suitor for this girl (the behaviour is more common to young girls) like a sperm seeking the ovary, must accomplish the metaphorical equivalent of swimming a marathon upstream, followed by a wrestling match to the death with a giant Michelin man… With his hands tied behind his back! He will struggle like the dickens to get in, but if he penetrates beyond a certain critical threshold, everything changes. From that point on the Ovary will completely absorb him, and invest all her efforts in him; also, from that point on she will be unreceptive to all others, just like the real ovary!
If the psychology and the behaviour seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to the biology, I believe it’s no accident.
Posted by Scott as Philosophy, Psychology at 4:55 AM EDT
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Everyone knows that, on average, men are more ’slutty’ and selfish, than women, right? There is a strong tendency to condemn the male sex in general, as being promiscuous, and bad. All we are talking about here is the notion that the average man has more (different) sexual partners than the average woman. Well if we define “the average number of different sexual partners” as an appropriate measure of promiscuity, this assertion is demonstrably flawed… I’ll show you.
To demonstrate why this assumption is flawed, imagine a closed world of five men and five women, and imagine that they were all ’straight’. This is not my vision of utopia, just some simplifying assumptions to illustrate a point. If only one man has sex with only one woman, sex takes place only once in this world; and the average number of partners is 1/5 for both men and women. If two different men are with two different women then the average number of partners is 2/5 for both; three men with three women equals 3/5 for both, and so on.
OK, but we know men are sluttier, right? So let’s see what happens when men try to get more sex than women. Let’s say, for example, that one man has sex with two different women. Here, the average for men is 2/5 and the average for women is also 2/5! The same sluttiness equality between the average man and the average woman results no matter how slutty the men try to be. Furthermore, the same mathematical equality results, no matter how many of the men try to get slutty. If the men have sex many times with the same women, we still get the same result; namely male sluttiness = female sluttiness. The inescapable mathematics of this simplified fornication model lead us to the stunning conclusion that (at least in this closed world with simplifying assumptions) it is actually impossible for the average man to be more ’slutty’ than the average woman. The mathematics applies to all situations of equal men and women regardless of whether it is five, fifty, or five billion. The simple reason for this is that for each man that has sex with a unique (different) woman there must be a unique woman that also had sex with that man. If five men have sex with the same woman, there are five normal, one-woman guys on the male side, and the female side is balanced with four virgins and a ’slut’. But they are equal, on average!
Now let’s relax the assumption that there are equal numbers of men and women. After all, maybe women live longer, on average, and maybe there are, in fact, more women than men in the world. Let’s say in our simplified world that there are six women and five men. Now if each of the men had sex with only one woman, the average number of partners for men would be 5/5=1, but the average for women would now be 5/6<1. In this situation there could be a (small) difference in ’sluttiness’. Now the interesting question that arises is: Do we want a world in which the men withhold sex from female number six, just to be in keeping with a less ’slutty’ model of behaviour? Would we really want a world in which one in six women don’t get any sex, just to keep the averages! I don’t think so, but let’s ask woman number six…
Bear in mind that if there are significant differences between male and female homosexuals, then putting aside the assumption of everyone being ’straight&#
