Do you think this because of the Brad Pitt question?
That, and the fact that the participants were asked to guess how good in bed their friend or a random person was. The qualities that make someone seem good in bed are also qualities that people find sexually attractive, e.g. confidence, fashion sense, dancing skill. Also, a big part of sex is mental, so people you find attractive will be better in bed.
I actually think we have good evidence that our culture does not teach men how to (literally) please a woman sexually, nor require it, and that one man without training would find this far more difficult than an alien might suppose.
What evidence? Books and webpages on the subject abound. Magazines are filled with articles on sexual skills. And like any skill, of course, it takes practice to develop, but our current culture is far more accepting of women explicitly communicating what they like than in the past; women are routinely encouraged to do so (though slut-shaming still exists).
I’m confused by the relevance of your “one man” link to partible paternity, which concerns the belief that a child can have more than one father.
We’d therefore expect any woman with a shred of rationality to expect less pleasure from the random “attractive” man the study asks her to imagine.
This makes sense, but isn’t the whole story. I would like to see answers to the following scenario:
A close and trusted friend of the same sex introduces you to an average looking person of the opposite sex, saying “This guy/girl is really good in bed. Trust me, we had a fling awhile back. You two should have some fun together.” The person says “I have been noticing you and I find you to be very attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?” Rate the likelihood that you’d accept.
This eliminates the bias and is a much better version of the question. I predict that men are much more likely to accept in this scenario. If I’m wrong, this would be good evidence that women are not more selective when danger and sexual ability are taken into account.
the following seems like at least weak evidence against the conflation of perceived sexual capability with attractiveness
I don’t see how. Obviously if a straight woman is going to guess how good another woman is in bed, it won’t relate to how attracted she is to the other woman. Also, it’s not surprising that the average woman would rate an average woman as better at pleasing her than the average man: as you say, there is a popular conception that men don’t know how to please women, and women have an obvious advantage in familiarity with a female body..
That, and the fact that the participants were asked to guess how good in bed their friend or a random person was. The qualities that make someone seem good in bed are also qualities that people find sexually attractive, e.g. confidence, fashion sense, dancing skill. Also, a big part of sex is mental, so people you find attractive will be better in bed.
What evidence? Books and webpages on the subject abound. Magazines are filled with articles on sexual skills. And like any skill, of course, it takes practice to develop, but our current culture is far more accepting of women explicitly communicating what they like than in the past; women are routinely encouraged to do so (though slut-shaming still exists).
I’m confused by the relevance of your “one man” link to partible paternity, which concerns the belief that a child can have more than one father.
This makes sense, but isn’t the whole story. I would like to see answers to the following scenario:
A close and trusted friend of the same sex introduces you to an average looking person of the opposite sex, saying “This guy/girl is really good in bed. Trust me, we had a fling awhile back. You two should have some fun together.” The person says “I have been noticing you and I find you to be very attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?” Rate the likelihood that you’d accept.
This eliminates the bias and is a much better version of the question. I predict that men are much more likely to accept in this scenario. If I’m wrong, this would be good evidence that women are not more selective when danger and sexual ability are taken into account.
I don’t see how. Obviously if a straight woman is going to guess how good another woman is in bed, it won’t relate to how attracted she is to the other woman. Also, it’s not surprising that the average woman would rate an average woman as better at pleasing her than the average man: as you say, there is a popular conception that men don’t know how to please women, and women have an obvious advantage in familiarity with a female body..