Sexual attraction and hard wiring

[angie2443]

Your attraction may be more "hard-wired" than you realize. From an evolutionary biology perspective, men with longer life spans tend to produce children who live longer. While a younger man may or may not have greater stamina for sex than an otherwise identical man, the older man does have the "biological certification" of a certain period of longevity which the younger man has yet to obtain.

 

 

This only works if you have sex with a 60 year old who is destined to live to be 100. In general, older men's sperm is not as viable as a young man's sperm. This is a proven fact. By the way, you can say the same for a woman. A woman who is destined to live to be very old, will in gerneral be able to have children later on in life than a woman who dies younger from natural causes.

[prenus.]

This only works if you have sex with a 60 year old who is destined to live to be 100. In general, older men's sperm is not as viable as a young man's sperm. This is a proven fact. By the way, you can say the same for a woman. A woman who is destined to live to be very old, will in gerneral be able to have children later on in life than a woman who dies younger from natural causes.

 

Excellent point.

[Kamille]

Since when is it considered scientific knowledge that men are hardwired to prefer slim women? Bullocks! Up until about the 1960s women with curvy bodies were considered hot. Have you ever seen 18th century nudes? Curves curves curves. Not only that, but archealogical finds have demonstrated that fat bodies, masculine or feminine, were fetichized.

 

Hardwiring! . More like hardwired to be socialized into shallowness.

[dazzle22]

ADF and Gorilla nailed this one in my opinion. I get so sick of hearing men making excuses for porn addictions because they are visual. (No, I'm not adamant about porn, but I am talking about logic of the argument here). Using that logic, one could say, well, women are hard wired for "relationships" so then it should be ok for women to engage in "sexual chatting" on the internet with men other than their partners...Right??

 

Were the Incas "hardwired" to admire flat foreheads? Are pigmy tribes hardwired to admire bones through the nose? Were Japanese men hardwired to need women's feet to be deformed? No, all social conditioning. We are probably hardwired to eat our young too if we are starving, like cats do, doesn't mean we should do it...

[mem11363]

James,

When a spouse - and it is not always the man - expresses to their partner that they find a commitment to fitness important, and then subsequent to that discussion the partner lets themself go that is disrespectful. If the conversation occurs before marriage and the lazy behavior subsequent to marriage then that is even more disrespectful and may represent deceitful behavior.

 

I strongly object to your consistently making this about shallow males improperly loving their deserving wives. This is a spouse to spouse issue and sometimes is the wife who is turned off by their husbands fat.

 

This has been consistently framed as an issue of sexual attraction and you yourself have acknowledged being more sexually attracted to your wife when she weighs less then you are when she weighs more. And yet you continue to use terms other then that of sexual attraction when addressing the topic.

 

I will say that if a spouse abusively withholds sex for 6-8 weeks at a time the issue of weight becomes a moot point for me because after 6-8 weeks I would be so starved for touch that I would be able to get and stay hard even for a very, very heavy version of my wife. But if my wife wants me 3-4 times a week and she is beyond a certain weight I simply might not be able to maintain a good quality erection consistently.

 

As for whether or not my hydraulic system performs well or badly - well I don't see that as a basis for measuring the depth of my love. Getting an erection is largely something I don't directly control.

 

If I were lacking that core arousal - I would still be willing to entertain my wife in other ways if she wanted - because I do love her and don't see "sex" as optional in marriage. In that regard I feel my love is deeper, stronger and yes superior to that of the wives who starve their husbands of much needed sexual affection because they "aren't in the mood" more then 6-8 times a year.

 

As is perhaps obvious at this point the self righteous tone of many of the posters here grates a bit. Arousal or the lack thereof is largely an involuntary response.

 

Well said.

 

I don't think that getting fat means that a wife is ignoring or disrespecting her husband. It MAY mean that. It COULD be her motive. But using that logic, a man watches football on Saturday as a way of disrespecting his wife. It could be if she sees that nothing gets done around the house and because he knows that it spites her, but most likely it is because he sees football as a priority (and no, that is not what I do. ).

 

There are so many reasons that women gain weight and don't lose it, and very few times is it because of disrespect to the husband.

 

How selfish is the man who demands that his wife lose weight simply to make him think she is attractive? Is his love so shallow?

 

 

 

Oddly, as I grow older with my wife, she seems more beautiful to me. I look back at her ten years ago, and now I see her as better looking. How I view her when she is seventy is hard to say, but I think it comes down to how deep is my love? And that goes for sexual attraction, too.

 

I saw a movie the other night called The Family Stone, where the husband (played by Craig T. Nelson) makes love (no, not shown) to his wife (played by Diane Keaton) who is dying of cancer. It shows how her breasts have been taken off. I know it is a movie, but it is an example of how a husband views his wife as more than just a body. My thought was of the thread previously mentioned....could a husband who sees weight as an obstacle to his attraction look past the physical loss of breasts of his wife and still sexually be attracted to her?

 

Soserious, I do not believe that men are hardwired for a certain body type. I do think most men become attracted to and love their wife because of the body type she has. However, the personality is what keeps them, and then their definition of the perfect body type is defined with their wife in mind...if their love grows deeper for her. And for most men, if she gains weight or loses weight, they do not love her more or less. Of course, they may see her as outwardly more attractive, but this doesn't mean that their love ebbs and flows based on weight or physical standards.

[EmmaLou]

JamesM, you are the perfect man! You sound like my partner... someone who deeply unconditionally loves their wife and doesn't fear her getting older. I love reading your posts.

[LucreziaBorgia]

Could these women have "hard wired" preferences that their husbands aren't meeting and therefore don't find them sexually attractive?

 

I don't know that it has much to do with attraction so much as it does changes in hormone levels in long term relationships. I was reading an article not too long about about how sex drive in women diminishes over time and the article was about a phenomena called "lesbian bed death" - where lesbians in long term relationships mutually lose their sex drive and eventually stop altogether. It happened to a couple that I know - ten years together, the last three or so completely devoid of sex. They broke up, and one of them found a new partner and - bang! the sex drive was back up immediately.

 

Humans are like bacteria - they replicate to survive as a species. Once the 'job' is done by individuals, their bodies stop producing as much of the hormones that drive them to replicate. Women don't have it in the same levels that men do because females don't carry the seeds to longevity - they just deliver the fruit. Males are driven to spread seeds continuously, hence the mismatch that you find in sex drives in long term relationships. That is also why sexually dead women can find themselves bursting with sex when a new man comes along - new man = new surge in hormones that will assure wider and more varietal reproduction. Blame our brains and the hormones they chug out for that one. There is a book called "Sperm Wars" which explains it pretty succinctly.

 

Not all women end up sexually dead in long term relationships, but I'd say a majority of them are - once the babies are made, the marriage is concrete and the foundation is steady the sex dwindles to near nothing, if not nothing at all. I suspect that if a poll were given to women around the world who are in long term relationships asking "if you could stop having sex, but continue to get the same benefits and levels of intimacy otherwise, would you stop?" the answer would be an overwhelming "yes".

 

Is it because of attraction? Not so much as it is about our biology.

 

Attraction plays a strong role though, more so for men than women though. Again, I'd wager that is more biology and than it is "shallowness" (though, yes there are some shallow muthertruckers out there, that's for sure.)

Edited December 5, 2009 by LucreziaBorgia

[giotto]

it was me who used the word "shallow" in the other thread... and I'm not changing my mind. As someone said before, men are hardwired for many things and many are not really acceptable in our society anymore. So, it's just matter of using your brain, instead of relying exclusively on your dick...

[You Go Girl]

Soserious1, I know your situation from reading the porn thread.

You are looking to validate his behavior, be understanding to his behavior, etc., and it can't be done. He is beyond shallow, beyond disrespect, beyond not loving, but pretending he does in his claims of platonic love for you.

He is both purposely hurting you and needs sex addiction counseling. You have contributed to the problem, but that doesn't make you guilty of something, it is just the merry go round that is addiction. You are the provoker role, thrust into this role by him, and so the merry go round continues.

You cannot change him, or validate what he has done.

What you can do is seek out the al-anon version of sexaholics anonymous. It is for those who are affected by others sex addictions.

There, you will finally find validation for the way you feel. Not from friends, or relatives, that have a duty almost to justify your feelings, but from total strangers that also have been affected by someone else's sex addiction. These people will call you on your errors, and will not validate you just to have strength in numbers or to have another in their camp. They will validate your emotions because they have been there, and understand.

This is something your husband has never given you. Validation for your feelings.

Validation for your feelings will be the beginning of empowering yourself. For the first time, you won't feel nutso, or feel that you are guilty for aging, or feel that he has ever right to behave in the manner he does, or feel that you are somehow less of a woman because you are not on the barely-18 porno website.

The trick to breaking the circle of this sickness your husband has begins with you getting off the merry go round. The way you do that is to begin to take care of yourself, respect yourself, believe in yourself, and rebuild your self-esteem.

You won't change him overnight, or possibly ever.

But you can and will get well--with or without him going along.

And you will never again say, I wish I was dead.

Because you will have all the joy in your life returned, and his problem won't be your problem anymore, even if you continued to live with him as his wife, or you leave him.

You can find your joy in life again. Please do. It's time to get off the merry go round.

[threebyfate]

The only way it's disrespectful to the man, if his wife gains weight, is for one of two reasons:

1. He feels he's entitled to control her body.
   
2. He sees her as a reflection of him, hence objectifying her.
   

Beyond that, stating that it's disrespectful to him, is manipulative. What's more honest, is that he's got a body type he's attracted to and when his wife exceeds the body type, he's no longer sexually attracted to her. And yes, it's shallow.

[You'reasian]

Personality traits matters most to me.

 

I don't care if she's overweight, if I love her, I love her - yep, I walked the walk.

 

I don't care to control a woman - she needs to be who she needs to be and its so much better when she's really into you and just wants to be with you, rather than trying to change her drives or desires.

Edited December 5, 2009 by You'reasian

[Woggle]

Sure men are shallow and care about looks but women are just as bad if not worse. Men should not let women guilt us into not being shallow when they do the exact same thing.

[You'reasian]

Sure men are shallow and care about looks but women are just as bad if not worse. Men should not let women guilt us into not being shallow when they do the exact same thing.

 

True. Especially if you find yourself in the company of many woman having girl talks.

 

Again, I don't care if she's somewhat overweight or somewhat thin, if I am with her its because I love (or want to) love her.

 

It would be nice to meet a woman who believes this too lol

[Heroic]

Guess I'm lucky, I have always found mature women to be sexy. All the Mom's on my block as a kid were MILF's. I rarely have wanted to date women my age. IMHO women truly bloom about age 30 and only get better to about age 50.

 

Try having a conversation with a younger person, makes you head hurt.

[prenus.]

ADF and Gorilla nailed this one in my opinion. I get so sick of hearing men making excuses for porn addictions because they are visual. (No, I'm not adamant about porn, but I am talking about logic of the argument here). Using that logic, one could say, well, women are hard wired for "relationships" so then it should be ok for women to engage in "sexual chatting" on the internet with men other than their partners...Right??

 

Were the Incas "hardwired" to admire flat foreheads? Are pigmy tribes hardwired to admire bones through the nose? Were Japanese men hardwired to need women's feet to be deformed? No, all social conditioning. We are probably hardwired to eat our young too if we are starving, like cats do, doesn't mean we should do it...

 

While the comment didn't refer to original poster directly, I took the question to suggest the 'hard-wiring' was an explanation, as opposed to an excuse, for the behavior of some men. And, yes, women may or may not be "hard wired for 'relationships'". One would have to ask a scientist with knowledge on this topic to be sure. (Do we have one on the forum? That would be really neat, actually. ) Even then, we might find the evidence in need of additional data.

 

Regarding conditioning, scientifically sorting out what constitutes 'hard-wiring' and what is conditioning has always been difficult for social psychologists, biologists, and athropologists. So, simply saying this or that behavior is "all social conditioning", I would wager, is not correct. A majority of behaviors may be conditioned. The label of conditioning may only apply to a minority of behaviors. In any event, I would be reluctant to go so far as to say "all".

 

BTW, I'm glad you don't automatically think we should eat our children.

[tommyr]

My view on this topic is that I have never been attracted to overweight women. I would call that a hard-wired preference.

 

I have no such aversion to the visual effects of normal aging.

My tastes in female beauty have always roughly matched my own age.

 

In short, I disagree with soserious1's theory that men's visual "hard wiring" is the same for weight (which is a decision) as it is for aging (which is just nature which cannot be controlled).

[OneTwo]

Here how it works for me:

 

I find all different types of women attractive. Normally, I am attracted to younger women with tiny waists, large breasts, and a round butt. Something about them just puts me into a primal state. However, I have found myself completely blown away by an older women who carried herself well, kept fit but was not slim. She was just so sexy. She wasn't wrinkle free. She was curvy and very sexy but not petite. She just seemed so sensuous I would get excited just by seeing her. For me, sexy is sexy no matter what the number on the scale says. Usually, it means the stereotypical slender young females but not always.

 

On the other side of the coin, I have dated a slender female who was very pretty, and seemed to have the whole package from the looks perspective. After a while, I started noticing some things that really began to bother me. She slouched while standing, had poor eating manners (would get food on her face while eating and never notice it), and just seemed like she wasn't so much into personal hygiene (she had oily hair, dandruff, etc). While most of the time she was very pretty, from a sexual perspective she just completely turned me off. I had to be drunk to get busy with her. Needless to say, that relationship didn't last long.

 

So, it's not only the outward silhouette and smooth skin that matters, it's the whole sensuality aspect of a woman that does it for me. Sometimes that's a very fit young woman, sometimes that is a distinguished sexy older woman.

 

I would say that the young slim females have the upper hand as they will get the initial attention, but if they don't have anything else going for them, they will find that men will stick around only for a short time and then move on to someone else.

 

However, there is nothing worse than a woman who is not shapely, doesn't try to keep up her appearance, does not try to look sexy (for her age, e.g. goes with the frumpy grandma look rather than the Victoria Principal look) has a bad attitude and complains all the time about men. Those women are the worst kind of turn off that there is.

[Kic]

People tend to partner with others that are the same age and attraction level.

 

We all age at the same rate, although age may be harder on women since being physically attractive is more important for them.

 

For the attraction level part, perhaps two people partner up when they are initially around the same level, but then one gains weight while the other does not. Five years later, they are no longer at the same level, and the more attractive one may become tempted to look elsewhere.

[Gypsy_Soul]

I think this 'hardwired' stuff is over used too much. I think as humans we are all a bit more complicated than that. It's an easy cop-out rather than to just admit our preferences and not sound rude about it.

 

My preference is a fit, athletic and muscular man. I'm 32 and I'm the same physically fit and athletic. I wouldn't settle for less. I suppose I must be visual and hardwired that way so to speak. Definitely there has to be other personality attributes and qualities there that I seek as well.

 

We will all age eventually, but life is too short to settle for less in the meantime. I want to a enjoy a sexy hot body too before I get too old and saggy!

[Gypsy_Soul]

ADF and Gorilla nailed this one in my opinion. I get so sick of hearing men making excuses for porn addictions because they are visual. (No, I'm not adamant about porn, but I am talking about logic of the argument here). Using that logic, one could say, well, women are hard wired for "relationships" so then it should be ok for women to engage in "sexual chatting" on the internet with men other than their partners...Right??

 

Were the Incas "hardwired" to admire flat foreheads? Are pigmy tribes hardwired to admire bones through the nose? Were Japanese men hardwired to need women's feet to be deformed? No, all social conditioning. We are probably hardwired to eat our young too if we are starving, like cats do, doesn't mean we should do it...

 

Thank you for explaining this better than me!

[Gypsy_Soul]

Sure men are shallow and care about looks but women are just as bad if not worse. Men should not let women guilt us into not being shallow when they do the exact same thing.

 

Yes we are just as "shallow" if that's what you want to call it. We are visual.