House of Eratosthenes

Now here’s an interesting study from UCLA. A fella’s chances at success in having one-night-stands increases when he’s built up some muscle mass, but this will set him back when he’s looking for something more long-lasting.

Women choose musclemen for brief liaisons, but the less burly appear more desirable for long-term relationships because women believe they’re more faithful and romantic. The brawny were seen as more domineering and volatile.

“If a man is interested in long-term relationships, maybe he shouldn’t spend so much time at the gym,” says Martie Haselton, an associate professor at the University of California-Los Angeles and co-author of the research. The study will be published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in August.

My girlfriend doesn’t have too many opinions about these egghead studies, but is emphatic about this one: It’s a crock. I’m not entirely sure what this says about me. Next time I’m bench pressing my 500 pounds, I’ll think it over some more. ++grin++

Naw, seriously. I think what the researchers have found out, is that women seek out more superficial qualities when they want a more superficial relationship. Men are no different, I’m thinking. Great looking breasts and legs mean everything if I’m not in it for the long haul, but if I’m going to be looking at someone from across a breakfast table for twenty years, I’m interested in something completely different.

In order for someone to be clueless about my meaning, they’d have to be entirely unacquainted with the experience known as a “bad date.” It isn’t fun. Trying to find something fun to talk about, with someone who may be smoking hot but lacks your perspective on things and doesn’t share common interests with you. It’s a pretty crappy way to go through an evening, much less a life.

These things — being physically hot and sharing interests — are not mutually-exclusive and they don’t have to be. It’s just got to do with people having different goals, looking for different things.

But that doesn’t explain everything, does it. The scrawny guys are found overall to be superior matches. A correlation has been found…which could be causation…and then again, might not be. You know what they say about correlation and causation. They aren’t the same.

If there is a cause-and-effect taking place, the most tempting explanation would be that men who are obsessed with their bodies tend to neglect other pursuits and become shallow individuals. There could be something to this. In fact, I really wouldn’t mind having a nickel for every one of my dates who made mention of this. But that seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? Bodybuilding is a discipline like any other. It is, or at least it certainly can be, an intellectual pursuit. If it is one, it’s certainly one the ladies would be unlikely to share. And if it’s a taxing one, I would have to think the beefy guy would offer the appearance of suffering a curiosity defect, to his lady-friend, when in actually what’s happening is these are two people who are just failing to connect.

But this passage about the husky guys being “seen as more domineering and volatile” is disquieting. You have to factor in exactly what was sampled:

Haselton and David Frederick, a UCLA graduate student in psychology, conducted six studies from 2002 to 2006 in which they analyzed responses about muscularity and sexual partners from a total of 788 college students — 509 women and 279 heterosexual men.

I see two big problems with this. Problem Number One: What in tarnation does a college student know about “long term” relationships? They aren’t old enough to define that phrase the way I define it, if they want to speak to it from experience. I’m forty-one next week, so to me, “long-term” means you both migrate through stages of your life, shifting your priorities around accordingly as you’re forced to, and you’re both flexible and deep enough to maintain your compatibility with each other. This is a challenge that may have risen up to confront a college student, perhaps, once at the most. I’m sure when you’re actually that age, this seems like lunacy. But it’s true.

Problem Number Two: Am I to understand the researchers asked college students about their sexual histories, and then went ahead and believed them? That doesn’t seem like a good idea at all.

If I had to make a conclusion from this, about which I felt good enough to be some real cash on it, I would say this: Between their classes on “The Stigma of Being a Female Engineer in an Oppressive Patriarchal Western Society,” and “The Oppressive Male-Dominated Undertones in Beer Commercials,” et al, the ladies are asked about the masculinity of their sexual partners. College cultures being remarkably similar to each other overall, they’re living in a miniature city-state in which one gains social status by denigrating masculinity, and loses social status by saying anything that might be flattering about it. So you answer questions about what turns you on, and it’s the usual college fluff girls say that they don’t really mean: Man in touch with his feelings, not afraid to cry, open-minded and rejecting antiquated stereotypes, refuses to eat meat, etc.

But sooner or later you have to pick out someone to help you rock that mattress. And a lady’s carnal desires kick in, which have been subjected to thousands of years of genetic programming. During those thousands of years, there are animals to be killed and eaten — which her ancestors must have successfully accomplished, or she would not be here.

So it’s time to lie. But she can’t tell any ol’ lie; she has to use one of those lies that are so convincing, the liar herself somewhat believes it. Which means it contains a kernel of truth. Odds are, she’s screwed a combination of gym-hounds and veggie-geeks, and if that’s the case it’s a sure thing she’s held out more hope for a long-term relationship with the veggie-geeks. She lives in a society crammed full of cultural norms, and that’s supposed to be the biggest cultural norm right there. Ferret-face good, muscle-man bad.

Refer back to Problem Number One. Holding out hope for long-term relationships, is all she’s old enough to do. It is an impossibility for her to have actually carved through a few.

These are young women, in the prime of their mating lives, who have had a succession of flings. They’re answering questions about their flings, probably knowing full well there is no way to fact-check their answers and nobody’s going to be calling them out on their crap…skewing their answers to help substantiate what they’ve been told and what they’ve been coerced into repeating back, in class as well as in their social circles, twenty-four hours a day.

My jaundiced view is rooted in a solidly supported principle: Women crave ability. If I’m wrong, I propose a different study. Let’s survey happily-married women. Women who thought they knew what they wanted when they got married, and turned out to be right. I’m sure there’s a way to discretely ask about their prior histories, if you want to compare how they sought out their one-night stands.

But one way or another, you’ll find women crave ability. They certainly don’t crave inability. Find it amusing, maybe, but it doesn’t turn them on.

[…] Washington State University Link to Article ucla Muscleheads Get Lucky, Wimps Get Wives » Posted at House of Eratosthenes on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Now here’s an interesting study from UCLA. A fella’s chances at success in having one-night-stands increases when he’s built up some muscle mass, but this will set him back when he’s looking View Entire Article » […]
- University Update - UCLA - Muscleheads Get Lucky, Wimps Get Wives | 07/11/2007 @ 12:50
Hmmm. What about your illustrious Guv’nor? While I’ve never read a Schwarzenegger biography, I see that he’s married very well and I believe he didn’t have any issues “pulling the birds” as a young man… well before he was famous …far from it, as far as I know from my casual reading. Of course, he was Mr. Universe at the tender age of 20, so maybe Ahnold ain’t a good example.

Your bottom line about the survey sample is a good one. College girls cannot possibly have the experience to “know” what they want in a long-term relationship. Middle-aged married women, OTOH, DO know….whether they’re happy or not. I think it’d be most interesting to read what the unhappily married female population consider the best qualities in a mate…but my gut tells me there wouldn’t be a lot of difference between happy women and unhappy women. Just a bit more anger on the part of those who didn’t get what they wanted.
- Buck | 07/11/2007 @ 14:04

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Muscleheads Get Lucky, Wimps Get WivesWednesday, July 11th, 2007

Muscleheads Get Lucky, Wimps Get Wives
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007