It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that men and women are different. We seem to know it instinctively from a young age. When get to adolescence suddenly these difference begin to cause us a lot of grief. I’m no exception. I always used to puzzle over “what was she thinking?” and “why did she say that?” or “what did she mean by that”. I also thought that this was strictly a problem faced by males. It’s a common stereotype in the media that men are simplistic to a fault and thus biologically unable to grasp the complexities of women’s minds. However looking around this site one can see that us guys don’t make a lot of sense to them either.
The strange thing is that, at least when it comes to attraction, we just assume the opposite sex thinks and acts as we would. Men on this site often ask women what physical aspects of men they find sexy. On the other hand women often ask if they’ll come off as creepy if they do something (such as call the guy first). This seems to be not an honest mistake rather than a learned behavior. In many ways women and men are the same. Insult us and we’re offended. Cut us and we bleed. Tell us a joke and we’ll laugh. Empathizing is an important skill and most of the time we use it to guide our actions. We use the way we would react if something happened to us as a basis for other people’s reactions.
When talking about attracting the opposite sex, however, we cannot empathize because we heterosexual men and women are not attracted to own genders. But we substitute in our own attraction mechanisms for theirs in our logic anyways because it comes naturally. We must accept that as heterosexuals we cannot fully understand why the opposite sex is attracted to us because we have not experienced it firsthand. We therefore need to throw away those assumptions we have about them and accept those differences if we want to begin to understand them.
For men this usually manifests itself as “What features do girls find sexy?” questions and let’s not forget: “Does size matter?” The assumption is that women are naturally attracted to men’s physical features just as men are attracted to certain features of a woman’s physique. The only difference is which features they are attracted to so guys will ask questions like these to find out. When said guy develops such features and it doesn’t change his luck it becomes quite confusing.
What us guys need to understand is that the female attraction mechanism is completely different from ours. While any woman appreciates a nice body it doesn’t play nearly the same role in their minds as it does for us. What does attract women is a question that has been puzzled over for ages beyond count and even modern science which managed to put a man on the moon (with sixties era technology, no less!) has found a way to quantify it.
But I’ve found the best way to think of it is in biological terms. What is the biological basis for female attraction? Well consider what kind of mate a woman in prehistoric times would have needed to ensure both the survival of herself and her children. Such a man would have to keep her safe from predators, especially during pregnancy which would hinder her agility and other natural hazards. He would also have to be trustworthy enough to stick around after the child was born to assist in raising him/her. He also would have to be able to provide for his family. Such things would ensure that his line would endure and not be snuffed out by natural selection.
From that we can learn that a woman needs to have a sense of security in a man. Indeed I’ve seen many women admit this explicitly. They need to feel that the man is able to take care of them and to face the challenges and adversities of an ever changing world. These tend more often than not to be character traits and therefore hard to deduce just by looking. A woman must therefore TEST for them. By asking questions and observing subtle things they can get a sense of a man’s true character. Of course that isn’t really a conscious process and women don’t explicitly “decide” who to feel attracted to. This all happens “behind the scenes” so to speak and they themselves would have a hard time explaining it.
What does this mean to men? Women are attracted to men. So we must therefore be our male selves because that’s what they are attracted to. Instead of curbing our assertiveness, boldness and natural instincts we must be unapologetic about who we are. Not that we should be animals, though. We should still allow these to be overridden by logic and reason.
To be honest I’m not 100% sure what it means to “be a man”. I know it’s something deeper than the alpha-male pissing contests that many guys get caught up in yet I can’t exactly describe what exactly it IS as opposed to what it isn’t. It’s something that’s been on my mind quite a bit and I guess I’m still figuring it out as I go. For myself I tie it to my integrity as a person. I try to be a trustworthy and moral person in my dealings. I’ve always had a sense of integrity and dignity and I’ve tried to uphold as best I can. I’ve often failed myself but deep down I know I won’t betray myself completely.
For women I often see it in questions like these:
“Is this cute or creepy?”
“Will he think I’m easy if I call first?”
“Does this sound desperate?”
Questions like often assume that the man will discover something or at least assume something about her based on her actions. The truth is that men don’t do this and they aren’t really even biologically wired to think that way. Little details that women stress over often go completely unnoticed by men. But again the assumption is that men will notice them and cause his attraction to her will decline as a result because that’s what would happen to her.
So let’s go back to our biological basis. What is the biological basis for male attraction? Well, in order for the prehistoric man to survive he would have to rely on his own strength and wits but as for his children, their survival depends on them being healthy, strong and intelligent. Since man is not encumbered by pregnancy he could freely spread his seed far and wide with little consequence. His aim would be to find healthy and fertile females which would help ensure healthy offspring. So by having as many children as possible and by having healthy children, would he avoid being wiped out of the gene pool.
These needs have manifested themselves as an attraction to physical characteristics in women that embody health and fertility. While there can be a lot of variation in characteristics that men find attractive some generalizations can be made. One thing that stands out is the quintessential female figure which is largely exemplified by how the body curves outward at the hips. The wide hips signal fertility and allow the clearance for a baby to pass through.
Scientists have developed various ratios, the most noticeable being the waist to hip ratio, to quantify this. Based on surveys they found most men prefer a WHR of around 0.7 meaning a waist that is 70% of the width across the hips. Of course WHR isn’t everything and female bodies come in many shapes and sizes but a body that is more slender at the waist and curves outwards at the hips tends to signal feminine whereas male bodies are more square (WHR nearer to 1).
I never really thought about it but really what men like in women can be as vague as what women find attractive in men and there is room for lots of variance. The central thing I want to convey though is that the male attractive mechanism has far more to do with proportions and ratios than say absolute values of height or weight. As a woman you will already have many of these characteristics and it is a much more attainable beauty than what is sold to you by the media. I’ll expand on that at another time.
The point is that men are not turned on or off by character traits but rather by your natural feminine physical beauty and chances are, being a female, you naturally embody that more than you are led to believe. Since our attraction mechanism works differently there is no male equivalent to your concept of “creepy”. Unless you look like a character out of a horror movie you will not creep a guy out and you needn’t worry about it. You can also feel free to call us first without looking desperate as most guys wouldn’t even make that connection. Our attraction isn’t based on those little tests. Desperation drives women away and doing these things can turn her off. Not so with men.
So to sum it all up, if you’re looking for answers, first ask if you are asking the right questions. This site can really be informative if you can read between the lines a bit. By looking at these questions you can pick up on little clues about what women/men find attracted by the questions they ask as much or more than the answers they give!
The strange thing is that, at least when it comes to attraction, we just assume the opposite sex thinks and acts as we would. Men on this site often ask women what physical aspects of men they find sexy. On the other hand women often ask if they’ll come off as creepy if they do something (such as call the guy first). This seems to be not an honest mistake rather than a learned behavior. In many ways women and men are the same. Insult us and we’re offended. Cut us and we bleed. Tell us a joke and we’ll laugh. Empathizing is an important skill and most of the time we use it to guide our actions. We use the way we would react if something happened to us as a basis for other people’s reactions.
When talking about attracting the opposite sex, however, we cannot empathize because we heterosexual men and women are not attracted to own genders. But we substitute in our own attraction mechanisms for theirs in our logic anyways because it comes naturally. We must accept that as heterosexuals we cannot fully understand why the opposite sex is attracted to us because we have not experienced it firsthand. We therefore need to throw away those assumptions we have about them and accept those differences if we want to begin to understand them.
For men this usually manifests itself as “What features do girls find sexy?” questions and let’s not forget: “Does size matter?” The assumption is that women are naturally attracted to men’s physical features just as men are attracted to certain features of a woman’s physique. The only difference is which features they are attracted to so guys will ask questions like these to find out. When said guy develops such features and it doesn’t change his luck it becomes quite confusing.
What us guys need to understand is that the female attraction mechanism is completely different from ours. While any woman appreciates a nice body it doesn’t play nearly the same role in their minds as it does for us. What does attract women is a question that has been puzzled over for ages beyond count and even modern science which managed to put a man on the moon (with sixties era technology, no less!) has found a way to quantify it.
But I’ve found the best way to think of it is in biological terms. What is the biological basis for female attraction? Well consider what kind of mate a woman in prehistoric times would have needed to ensure both the survival of herself and her children. Such a man would have to keep her safe from predators, especially during pregnancy which would hinder her agility and other natural hazards. He would also have to be trustworthy enough to stick around after the child was born to assist in raising him/her. He also would have to be able to provide for his family. Such things would ensure that his line would endure and not be snuffed out by natural selection.
From that we can learn that a woman needs to have a sense of security in a man. Indeed I’ve seen many women admit this explicitly. They need to feel that the man is able to take care of them and to face the challenges and adversities of an ever changing world. These tend more often than not to be character traits and therefore hard to deduce just by looking. A woman must therefore TEST for them. By asking questions and observing subtle things they can get a sense of a man’s true character. Of course that isn’t really a conscious process and women don’t explicitly “decide” who to feel attracted to. This all happens “behind the scenes” so to speak and they themselves would have a hard time explaining it.
What does this mean to men? Women are attracted to men. So we must therefore be our male selves because that’s what they are attracted to. Instead of curbing our assertiveness, boldness and natural instincts we must be unapologetic about who we are. Not that we should be animals, though. We should still allow these to be overridden by logic and reason.
To be honest I’m not 100% sure what it means to “be a man”. I know it’s something deeper than the alpha-male pissing contests that many guys get caught up in yet I can’t exactly describe what exactly it IS as opposed to what it isn’t. It’s something that’s been on my mind quite a bit and I guess I’m still figuring it out as I go. For myself I tie it to my integrity as a person. I try to be a trustworthy and moral person in my dealings. I’ve always had a sense of integrity and dignity and I’ve tried to uphold as best I can. I’ve often failed myself but deep down I know I won’t betray myself completely.
For women I often see it in questions like these:
“Is this cute or creepy?”
“Will he think I’m easy if I call first?”
“Does this sound desperate?”
Questions like often assume that the man will discover something or at least assume something about her based on her actions. The truth is that men don’t do this and they aren’t really even biologically wired to think that way. Little details that women stress over often go completely unnoticed by men. But again the assumption is that men will notice them and cause his attraction to her will decline as a result because that’s what would happen to her.
So let’s go back to our biological basis. What is the biological basis for male attraction? Well, in order for the prehistoric man to survive he would have to rely on his own strength and wits but as for his children, their survival depends on them being healthy, strong and intelligent. Since man is not encumbered by pregnancy he could freely spread his seed far and wide with little consequence. His aim would be to find healthy and fertile females which would help ensure healthy offspring. So by having as many children as possible and by having healthy children, would he avoid being wiped out of the gene pool.
These needs have manifested themselves as an attraction to physical characteristics in women that embody health and fertility. While there can be a lot of variation in characteristics that men find attractive some generalizations can be made. One thing that stands out is the quintessential female figure which is largely exemplified by how the body curves outward at the hips. The wide hips signal fertility and allow the clearance for a baby to pass through.
Scientists have developed various ratios, the most noticeable being the waist to hip ratio, to quantify this. Based on surveys they found most men prefer a WHR of around 0.7 meaning a waist that is 70% of the width across the hips. Of course WHR isn’t everything and female bodies come in many shapes and sizes but a body that is more slender at the waist and curves outwards at the hips tends to signal feminine whereas male bodies are more square (WHR nearer to 1).
I never really thought about it but really what men like in women can be as vague as what women find attractive in men and there is room for lots of variance. The central thing I want to convey though is that the male attractive mechanism has far more to do with proportions and ratios than say absolute values of height or weight. As a woman you will already have many of these characteristics and it is a much more attainable beauty than what is sold to you by the media. I’ll expand on that at another time.
The point is that men are not turned on or off by character traits but rather by your natural feminine physical beauty and chances are, being a female, you naturally embody that more than you are led to believe. Since our attraction mechanism works differently there is no male equivalent to your concept of “creepy”. Unless you look like a character out of a horror movie you will not creep a guy out and you needn’t worry about it. You can also feel free to call us first without looking desperate as most guys wouldn’t even make that connection. Our attraction isn’t based on those little tests. Desperation drives women away and doing these things can turn her off. Not so with men.
So to sum it all up, if you’re looking for answers, first ask if you are asking the right questions. This site can really be informative if you can read between the lines a bit. By looking at these questions you can pick up on little clues about what women/men find attracted by the questions they ask as much or more than the answers they give!
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