I applaud you for the survey, the research and attempting to quantify traits that are attractive to women. I’m legitimately impressed with your analysis and what shook out from the data.
There’s the set of questions that are asked too often:
How do I get girls to like me? How do I get girls to give me sex? How do I make them happy?
The set of questions that are not asked often enough:
How does her nature exploit me? How does my own nature lead to my exploitation? How do I get society to value me as much as them?
There’s a prior here that the first set is more important than the second set. Put another way that a straight man who successfully answers and implements the first set is better off than a straight man who doesn’t. This article would be good advice for a straight man with such priorities.
I want to take a minute to question the wisdom of those priorities.
A mismatch trait is one that was adaptive in the ancestral milieu, but is maladaptive in the present, most often due to a change in the environment.
From a certain perspective, it seems obvious that a straight man who has a lot of “mating success” will be happier and more fulfilled than one who hasn’t, and perhaps that was true for much of human history. I’ll agree further and say in 2021 a straight man who does some work to make themselves more attractive to women benefits from the self-improvement that occurs as a side-effect, but that’s a very dubious premise for self-improvement.
In the Neolithic era, lustprinzip was probably the most significant game in town. If there was something else, how would you know about it, anyway? it made sure humans made more humans, at least.
In an era of supernormal stimului, is chasing lustprinzip more of an asset or a liability? Are there alternatives to living a happy and a fulfilled life? If you’ve seen Matthieu Ricard’s fMRIs, you know the answer is yes.
When you think about what’s going on here… the edict “straight man, mold yourself in to what women find attractive and this will give you the most pleasure” sounds like the programming for a memetic cordyceps parasitoid. Maybe when this was the only game in town, it was the best you could expect from life.
What happens when straight men ask, “Is there more to life than being a foil for the opposite sex? Are these orgasms commensurate compensation for the effort I’m putting in here? Are orgasms really that important at all?”
If I had to guess, I’m pretty sure many straight men find quiet moments where they wonder about this and then dismiss it. I’d also guess many theists throughout history had quiet moments where they wondered if their deity really exists, and dismissed it because the alternative was too terrifying and different to contemplate. There is unexpected intimidating factor about contemplating what life is like as a straight man with orgasms decentered as a priority.
[People] shouldn’t be scared of revolution because revolution is nothing but change. These words became so important to me when was going thru the changes of addiction. Because I began to ask myself, “was I scared of revolution?”
I’m still kind of scared of revolution, but I entertain the idea for as long as I can. I may never have a cortex like Matthieu Ricard, but I still benefit from the punctuated experiences of freedom.
I applaud you for the survey, the research and attempting to quantify traits that are attractive to women. I’m legitimately impressed with your analysis and what shook out from the data.
But it’s something like a 5,000 foot view. There’s an old YouTube video presents two sets of questions:
There’s the set of questions that are asked too often:
How do I get girls to like me?
How do I get girls to give me sex?
How do I make them happy?
The set of questions that are not asked often enough:
How does her nature exploit me?
How does my own nature lead to my exploitation?
How do I get society to value me as much as them?
There’s a prior here that the first set is more important than the second set. Put another way that a straight man who successfully answers and implements the first set is better off than a straight man who doesn’t. This article would be good advice for a straight man with such priorities.
I want to take a minute to question the wisdom of those priorities.
Let’s start by considering evolutionary mismatch.
From a certain perspective, it seems obvious that a straight man who has a lot of “mating success” will be happier and more fulfilled than one who hasn’t, and perhaps that was true for much of human history. I’ll agree further and say in 2021 a straight man who does some work to make themselves more attractive to women benefits from the self-improvement that occurs as a side-effect, but that’s a very dubious premise for self-improvement.
In the Neolithic era, lustprinzip was probably the most significant game in town. If there was something else, how would you know about it, anyway? it made sure humans made more humans, at least.
In an era of supernormal stimului, is chasing lustprinzip more of an asset or a liability? Are there alternatives to living a happy and a fulfilled life? If you’ve seen Matthieu Ricard’s fMRIs, you know the answer is yes.
When you think about what’s going on here… the edict “straight man, mold yourself in to what women find attractive and this will give you the most pleasure” sounds like the programming for a memetic cordyceps parasitoid. Maybe when this was the only game in town, it was the best you could expect from life.
What happens when straight men ask, “Is there more to life than being a foil for the opposite sex? Are these orgasms commensurate compensation for the effort I’m putting in here? Are orgasms really that important at all?”
If I had to guess, I’m pretty sure many straight men find quiet moments where they wonder about this and then dismiss it. I’d also guess many theists throughout history had quiet moments where they wondered if their deity really exists, and dismissed it because the alternative was too terrifying and different to contemplate. There is unexpected intimidating factor about contemplating what life is like as a straight man with orgasms decentered as a priority.
Umar Bin Hassen left an annotation on genius.com to lyrics he wrote in 1970 that I found truly inspiring. (WARNING: in 2021 the linked song is maybe the most unsafe for work song there is, but will quote the important part here with a transposition).
I’m still kind of scared of revolution, but I entertain the idea for as long as I can. I may never have a cortex like Matthieu Ricard, but I still benefit from the punctuated experiences of freedom.