Studies show that men not only have the highest sex drives, but also are more likely to abuse illicit drugs and more frequently than women (although women are more likely to get addicted to said drugs than men are). They’re also more likely to do more recreational activities that require bravery, like skydiving for example. I would cite where I found this information from, but GaG won’t allow me to post links. So, this is for curiosity’s sake. Do you think men are wired to be more focused on indulgence and pleasure than women are? Are men more hedonistic?
No. Men have higher sex drives because of testosterone, its responsible for sexual drive, that however doesn't mean that he will just indulge in the behavior at any moment given the option. Second, men are wired to take greater risk, that is the very mechanism that allows men to jump into dangerous situations to protect others, so again, its far more complicated then them simply being adrenaline junkies or something. Third, the drug issue is more about self medicating rather then thrill seeking. Male suicides comprise 80% of all suicides. The drug use is a form of self medication in most cases and not about indulgence. In fact if you look, men actually spend more time working then women generally speaking, that's not self indulgence. They tend to be more competitive as well, again, that's not really self indulgent so they spend a lot of time in competition and working. They also spend substantially less money then women, spending only 20%(in the US, 30% globally) of money generated despite the fact that they generate about 70% of all income. Meanwhile women avoid discomfort, less inclined to take risk, are just as likely to have sex (statistically they have the same number of sexual partners as men), work a bit less (depending on region obviously but in the west, males tend to work more), spend more (and spend more on themselves) etc. So if anything you could argue that women are more hedonistic. That said I think its more about personality then gender. Also technically hedonism is, at least philosophically, about what brings about the most happiness which even the hedonistic philosophers new did not occur through decadence but generally speaking, charity and self control.
No. The male sex drive is motivated by the desire to reproduce, which should be compared to the female desire to have children. Men and women are motivated to have sex by different desires and should be treated differently. Men are also built to proactively fight and kill all of the things that try to eat infants in the wild, while women are built to passively stand near infants and protect them against anything that makes it's way past the male. You can think of the male roll as "special ops" in the military and the female role as "a home security system"; special ops goes out to fight specific threats before they reach home, while a security system waits and listens for intruders and when one appears it jumps to act with all bells on alert. These things have nothing to do with pleasure; it's about survival.
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Anonymous
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Have you ever seen the show Ridiculousness on MTV?
It’s just a show of people doing really dumb stuff and they end up getting hurt. Yeah. Ok. A majority (like 90%) of the people doing the dumb stuff are guys.
You're talking about short-term high-risk behaviors. Eating a pound of chocolate every day is very hedonistic but doing so probably won't give you a heart attack until 20 years down the road when you're a morbidly obese diabetic.
TL;DR Short term risk is not the only thing that makes something hedonistic.
Men are more primed for risk taking than women are. They have higher sex drives mostly because of biology. A woman can only get pregnant once at a time. Once she's pregnant, she can't get double pregnant. Men, on the other hand, can impregnate many women at once. As for risk taking, since the nature of our species requires that men protect women, since women bear children and men do not, men are required to both be dangerous and be in danger. Testing ourselves against dangerous situations is just preparation for when real danger comes knocking.
Short answer, yes. Men are more hedonistic, but it's not so much ego driven as it is survival driven. We're expected to face down danger and not live as long, so we need all the momentary pleasure we can get while we can still get it.
No. Men are just more open about their hedonistic tendencies. And perhaps more likely to act them out. A woman might indulge in an erotic novel while a man might be more likely to visit a strip club.
A natural side effect of testosterone is the increased likelihood of engaging in risky behaviour. Women tend to be more risk-averse than men do as a result. So that's probably the main reason behind this difference.
Death rate for men is very high in comparison to female. It's programmed within our DNA to be risk takers, fearless, careless and adaptable under a lot of stress or what not. That's why men are more likely to get rich because we are hedonistic in achieving a goal whereas females play it safe, prudent and steady.
In other words men have the minerals to move forward, advance civilisation and overcome obstacles...
I think that men are more hedonistic ON AVERAGE, but I think that the smaller number of hedonistic women are just as hedonistic as the most hedonistic men.
yes, we are. but once the we get a need that we didn't have beforehand, is the pursuit after satisfaction of this need less desperate and self-destructive among men than women.
Nah, men are just generally more extreme, in just about every part of life. The most hedonistic people are probably male, but the least hedonistic are probably too. On average it evens out to women.
No, it's just testosterone which make us more aggressive with our decisions (we're more likely to think "fuck it, let's do this", which is somewhat similar to the concept of bravery).
Men and women are just hedonistic in their own way. Men craves for short bursts of pleasure (sex, skydiving, drugs) while women craves for simple ones (having a clean house, eating)
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