turns to thoughts of love,” so the poet tells us.
Just in time to revive the love, sex and relationships discussion, the New York Times provides a trio of studies about the sociology, evolutionary biology and hormonal effects on humans of love and sex and dating.
In this article, research on internet and speed daters shows men are desperate and women are damn picky. In a room of 50 women, a man will survey for his bottom line in physical attraction and be attracted and want to date as many women in the room who meet or exceed his individual “line”. women have as many as 45 criteria and in a room of 50 men may choose few or none. One of the more interesting findings: three men, one six foot, one 5’8″, one 5’2″, a woman may choose any one of the three, but the 5’8″ guy must make $146,000 per year more than the taller man in order to be chosen and the 5’2″ guy needs a quarter million a year more to overcome his stature deficit vis-a-vis the 6 footer. The notion in the article is that we all sift by flaws and not by desireable qualities.
In a second article, researchers looked at sexual desire and found it universal, but highly diverse:
definitions of sexual desire can be as quirky and personalized as the very chromosomal combinations that sexual reproduction will yield.
…
A plethora of new findings, however, suggest that the experience of desire may be less a forerunner to sex than an afterthought, the cognitive overlay that the brain gives to the sensation of already having been aroused by some sort of physical or subliminal stimulus — a brush on the back of the neck, say, or the sight of a ripe apple, or wearing a hard hat on a construction site and being surrounded by other men in similar haberdashery.
In a series of studies at the University of Amsterdam, Ellen Laan, Stephanie Both and Mark Spiering demonstrated that the body’s entire motor system is activated almost instantly by exposure to sexual images, and that the more intensely sexual the visuals, the stronger the electric signals emitted by the participants’ so-called spinal tendious reflexes. By the looks of it, Dr. Laan said, the body is primed for sex before the mind has had a moment to leer.
In other words, we just think we make a choice about who we want sex with when we really are just rationalizing the choice our bodies have already made.
That’s not enough to chew over, however, and the NYT bombards us with yet a THIRD study about the battle of the sexes. Turns out we’re more hard wired by nature and nurture plays a distinctly second fiddle. Also, it seems that men have their sexual orientation determined in the womb but women, ehhh, not so much. Seems almost all women have a little to a lot of lesbian in them, and although they may take clues from culture and never act upon it, women can be aroused by images of men, women, men and women, women with women, men with men, a diamond necklace.
OK, that last part was just humor.
Enjoy!
blogblah
You’ve said it yourself in your last entry, John. YOU ARE BORED WITH YOURSELF.
So you expect a partner to lead you out of boredom? That won’t work, I’m afraid. Any therapist should be able to tell you why or you should get a new one.
If you need a partner to cover a huge inner void, you’re looking for a partner for the wrong reasons. Why don’t you try to read stuff like “The Road Less Travelled” et al again. There are huge libraries of books out there to tell you that being in love with the feeling of falling in love (this is, from all I read, IMO is what it basically boils down to with you – since you choose to share your private thoughts with the whole world..) is no solution at all.
Start with yourself. When was an addiction to alcohol replaced by an addiction to finding “the perfect partner”, for example.?
Dearest B.
Keep your day job, you literal Austrian, you.
I am not necessarily a reliable narrator of my own life on these pages and a great many posts are more about a moment of time rather than a considered opinion. I am also a writer of other kinds of fiction — check ‘em out on the panel to your right.
Bored on a Sunday night is not necessarily also bored on Friday night nor even a Tuesday as I await a court appearance tomorrow.
There is a flaw in your reasoning elsewhere: if I was addicted to falling in love and that’s what I wanted, why have I simply not asked out anyone for a long period of time, as also blogged hereabouts?
Seems like if I just had to have that rush, I’d go out looking for a fix.
Perhaps if I used words like “ennui” and “existential angst”, I would have come closer to the mark than “bored”. For that, I am sorry, but I’m unaccustomed to such close readings and I intended the tone to be somewhat jocular and less a formal statement of my personal philosophy.
Finally, please forgive me one more personal failing: I rather live in gloomy frames of mind at times and it’s better for me to vomit it out on these pages and then go back later and see it for what it is than to spend another 10000 Euros on my shrink. He’d just laugh at what few problems I have these days anyway.
It’s why I call him “Jolly Dr. Max.”
I find I often pay him to ridicule me and my notions.
Much like Mistress D, the yoga teacher who I paid to put me into intense pain.
Now, I take it, I have a European editor of my psyche? OK. What are your rates?
blogblah