How do women manage their emotional vs sexual attraction?

[Jonathanese]

This discussion has come up a lot for me, so I figured I would try to consolidate into a single thread.


For guys, at least the vast majority, Sexual attraction tends to come largely from physical appearance (Mind you, any girl who is NOT nice is pretty much an instant turn-off, but that's as specific as that gets). Then emotional attraction comes from the underlying friendship and romantic attachment.

But being around a lot of women, I've noticed that since emotional and sexual attraction are personality-based for women, there's a discrepancy between "Hot" guys and "Sweet" guys. Usually if they're really sexually attractive, they are the sleazy ones that get you hurt. And if they're the kind of guys that can hold a lasting relationship, they come off as initially having no backbone, or being clingy. No one wants that.

Like, if you look at it like a venn diagram. 2 circles being sexual and emotional connection, a guys easily overlaps. A good-looking girl can easily be nice, and nice girl can be plenty good-looking. Looks and personality aren't very heavily correlated. In other words, the sexiness of a girl says little about her personality, and vice verse.

That's why I feel it must be difficult for women, because personality affects sexual AND emotional attraction. There's little overlap. On one far end we've got good guys who don't show necessarily their toughness on their shirts,, are actually wimps like they appear to be, or just have good social etiquette., then there are the guys that can sweep women off their feet, but usually just drop them. They'll rip your heart in two, but you'll crave it that much more.

I just want to know how you manage, or how accurate this point of view is.

This would also explain why girls throw guys in categories of "friends" or "potential dates" that cannot interchange. It's either one or the other. And then a lot of guys crush on friends, or consider all girls potential dates regardless of friendship status.

[qwertz]

I can see where you are coming from, but for me I can still find an absolute dickhead of a guy hot if he is hot. When looking for someone to actually have a relationship of course personnality is a big thing, but so is looks- i wont find a seriously nice guy with a great personnality attractive if he just physically isnt.

So its a bit of a sweeping statement to say that emotional and physical attraction is personality based for women. Yeh im sure thats true for some, and more so for women than men.
And as for hot guys being sleazy..there are ugly guys that are sleazy too! Its not too hard to find a good looking guy with personality to match- though i would say that, ive found one!

[ammi00]

I'm not sure if your "theory" is right, but I can talk only from a personal point of view. In my opinion, because humans are different, what works for one doesn't mean it will work for another. I believe that all is a matter of selection, which depends on people's (both women and men) tastes and wishes (as in what they want from their possible new relationship: fun/ an adventure/ something stable etc.).
Personally, when I see/ meet a new guy that appears to be on my taste, I can instantly tell if I'm attracted and interested in him (which will lead, in the future, to sexual attraction if I'm actually going to like his personality). If I see a guy with nice features, but whose personality I don't like, he's going to turn me off completely and I'll lose all of my interest (forever).
In what concerns my male friends - I'm simply not attracted to them. I have had good looking male friends, but there was something I didn't like about them (physically); I've also had good looking male friends with a personality I didn't like OR average looking guys with weird personalities & so on. There's something about ALL of them that makes them "non-boyfriend material".

[Jonathanese]

"I can still find an absolute dickhead of a guy hot if he is hot."

Wat i'm saying is that the guys fall under the sexually attractive OR emotionally attractive. Girls seem to be sexually attracted to dickheads because of their powerful badass-ness. So this line is supporting the rule, not the exception. What I'm saying is that theres a choice to be made as to whether or not a guy is sexually or emotionally attractive, but that both together tends to be uncommon, because modern men are working harder on supportive or expressive personalities. Either they don't give a damn about you or anyone else, or they're caring, but unsexy. At least that's been my experience. here in small-town USA.

Also. When I talked about women categorizing men as "friends" or "dates", I was talking about first impressions. Basically, if I didn't particularly like a girl, I expressed little interest, and was more blunt. Those girls were the ones who ended up crushing on me, and I became a little attracted to them later, still considering potential dates, even though they're friends. For girls who I was attracted to right away, I was more polite and expressed interest, a method that has only worked once, all other cases it was "I don't want to ruin the friendship" or something like that.

So basically, the friend/date status was determined within the inaccurate first few minutes around me, and was unchangeable from then on. The girls who liked me initially seemed uncomfortable as friends, and the ones who I was polite to and considered me friends, didn't even take though in dating me. Get what I'm saying?

What I've been wanting to develop in myself is how to make those first few minutes work better, so they can see who i really am, since they don't seem to look past the first impressions.

Ever see Hitch?

"Sara: Why don't you go hit a titty bar with your buddy Vance?
Hitch: Wow. I don't believe this. That's your source?
Sara: You buried yourself, Alex.
Hitch: Then you weren't listening.
Sara: I heard every word. You're a scam artist. You trick women into getting...
Hitch: Into getting out of their own way, so great guys like Albert Brennaman have a fighting chance! "

[Take2]

I don't think that is quite how it works, at least not for me or the women I know. To me, there is pure looks, physical attractiveness. And there is pure personality, emotional attractiveness. And there is sexiness, which is probably mostly made up of self-confidence, but colored by all kinds of attractiveness. If a guy is JUST physically attractive, I will just look at him (and some women will just have meaningless sex with him). If he is JUST emotionally attractive, I will be his friend. I only want a relationship with guys who are fully attractive to me AND sexy to me. Which isn't objective, so my friends and I won't all agree on which guys in any group of guys are that kind of attractive.

The complication comes, I think, from the fact that women want to be kind. And we don't consider "you are only emotionally attractive to me" or "you just aren't sexy to me" to be nice things to say. So guys end up our friends, and they complain they have been put in the friend zone due to happenstance or poor alignment of the stars or being that mythical "too nice" because women are not honest about the real reason the dude is only ever going to be just a friend.

[ammi00]

I'm completely turned off by "dickheads". Completely and absolutely. BUT if a person has nice features, you can't deny that (excluding his/her personality, the way he/ she dresses, he/ she acts and so on). I don't want my boyfriend to be a badass dickhead, but I do need one who's confident, caring and attractive (for me).
I think you're generalizing too much. Humans are more diverse than that.
*agrees with take2*

[MrBojangles]

I find that humans are unusually generic when it comes to ways of thinking. Girls saying the old "everyone is different" argument is just bullshit imo. You're all alike and so are men. Now let me lay down my theory.

"How do women manage their emotional vs sexual attraction?"

They don't. They are equal. How often do you meet at least a *seminormal* woman who wants a guy just for sex? The answer is of course almost never.

Now let me ask you, how often do you meet a *seminormal* guy who wants just sex with a woman? Quite often. Now girls, I have to explain the above point.

A guy might look for a girlfriend but will still **** like 90% of his hot girl*friends* before he finds that girl (if he could) including lots of random girls that he finds hot etc. Think of it like this. For every girl a guy wants as his girlfriend he wants to have casual sex with like 20. For women, they want to make most of their mates into boyfriends rather than casual sexbuddies. It's just biology, men increase their chance of survival with many partners while women need to go for quality, taking care of every baby they have (since it takes so much effort, a man just cums and has no more responsibilities).

Therefore I think that a majority of women are relationshiporiented (personality traits are important) while men are "spread seed" (biological traits important) oriented. This is reflected also in the biology argument i gave above. I think this is also the cause of a lot of bullshit that happens between men and women in the dating phase. Men want sex, women want relationships. So for a man to get sex he has to "trick" a woman into thinking there is a potential relationship. Women make the guy stay by making him invest in the relationship.

I know I can seem kinda cold and scientific-ey in the above text but prove me wrong tbh.

Conclusion:

Guys: Separate emotion and sex because we are oriented around springing to life genetically healthy children. We don't care much about spending time with the person after successfull impregnation.
Women: Cant separate because they need both a man who is biologically healthy and also has staying potential (good personality) in order to successfully breed.

[girl68]

I'm not sure I completely understand your POV OP but for me it isn't black and white. I personally think my 2 "circles" have a huge overlap. Yes, a dipshit who is damn sexy is damn sexy no matter what his personality is. And the sweetest guy ever is still physically hideous if in fact I find him ugly. However, most of the time a guy is attractive I find him BOTH physically and emotionally attractive. One is probaly more pronouned but it isn't either or in MOST cases.

[Take2]

MrBojangles, your argument has some merit, but it assumes that women and men will have the exact same desires romatically and sexually for their entire lives! In college I knew a lot of totally normal women who really just wanted sex just like all the men, maybe someone to snuggle with, too. In our 20s, most of the guys either decided they wanted a relationship AND sex or decided a relationship was worth the effort to assure readily available sex. Now I am 35 and most of the 30-something single fathers I meet are looking for an exclusive relationship.

As a whole, you are certainly right that the percentage of men who want just sex is higher than the percentage of women the same age who want just sex. But I think your overall analysis is oversimplified to the point of being innacurate.

[red_sparrow]

heh.

that's why I chose the best of both worlds. Not wimpy, but not an asshole, either.

There. Problem solved.
But i agree--its hard for women because for us, sexual attraction is physical, too (more physical than you think). for example, i need someone who is tall or i am not at all attracted to them. But there are ways in which we can correlate the two. You just need the right combination. Which is why guys are the ones usually getting turned down!

by the way, if you think those douchebags at the club with a six-pack are the ones we like, then you're wrong.

[Jonathanese]

"if you think those douchebags at the club with a six-pack are the ones we like, then you're wrong. "

Well, that's certainly good to hear! Haha.

"for example, i need someone who is tall or i am not at all attracted to them."

It's the same for me, but with overweight. I've denied if for a while, growing up with 2 sisters who would give me flak for anything that hints towards physical attraction. Now I pretty much accept it as fact about myself. I'm tall and thin, I like girls of that body type. Obesity is very common here, though, so having a weight preference comes off as "too picky", either that or women harm themselves to meet the body type. I guess that's where Europe has things better.

"But there are ways in which we can correlate the two. You just need the right combination."

That I totally understand. I don't think that's gender-specific. I guess guys just get turned on rather quickly sexually. But basically, there are hot, nice girls who I would consider dating. Then there are the ones whose personalities, intellect, energy, and appearance resonate in perfect unison, and resonate with my own personality. It's the most amazing feeling I can possibly conjure up. Only ran into a few girls like that, but there were unfortunate events that made having them improbable. That's an emotional nightmare. Usually I ended up being, mehh, a little clingy because I'm aware of how rare those girls are, and I was rejected because of that. But girls like that are what I search for, and what I wait for. I guess I just want to be the guy who resonates with her as well. Sometimes they just have trouble getting past the initial "categorization".


"that's why I chose the best of both worlds. Not wimpy, but not an asshole, either"

Congratulations! I hope that goes well for you. I just notice that amongst my guy friends, the nice guys and the macho men rarely coincide. The nice guys I know have been rejected nonstop, usually for checking up on them when they are sick, or some romantic gesture like that which comes off clingy. Then I have other friends that have had several relationships, who come home every day and can't stop talking about getting laid and bragging about how much they have "banged their girls". It kinda ticks me off now and again, because a girl will say they want a guy who's humble, romantic, respectful, etc, but their past BF's will have lacked specifically those traits, but knew how to fake them.

I'm not calling that the rule, just an unfortunate tendency.

I guess my frustration is that I won't accept the idea of being some sort of "left-over", Like the guy that girls only go out with for the moral obligation to date a nice guy. I'm just trying to be the guy that women want, but who will not step all over them and treat them like junk. It's really heartbreaking to see nice girls fall for guys, and hear about them being treated unfairly, but not noticing it, because he's a good charmer, you know? So maybe I'm exaggerating things, I just wanted to be the guy who can be a charmer, but treat women with the respect they deserve.

[smackie9]

Girls grow up and become mature women and they get over this crap.

[doppelgaenger]

by crying and whining and nagging, and making a bunch of drama (which is always unnecessary.)

[red_sparrow]

hey,

great reply! oh yes.. well, i know a few girls who go for the male-model look, but I like something a little more rugged. My BF is tall and he's a big guy.. maybe even a bit overweight (though he does sports). he's not the IDEAL, IDEAL body type I'd like, but he's okay . i'd rather have that than some short, skinny guy whose back i could break just hugging him.

that's cute! my Bf has never checked up on me when I was sick, though he texts and asks If I'm Okay.. still, that would be cute! i don't think that's clingy at all.
you sound like a great guy! ya, it's too bad but a lot of girls do go for assholes. i think there needs to be a balance: a man needs to be assertive and show initiative, but at the same time be respectful and have the woman feel like she's supported.

[qwertz]

by crying and whining and nagging, and making a bunch of drama (which is always unnecessary.)

Pot and kettle come to mind.