Why DO males take the responsibility for initiating?

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CHILL...


Yes I guess I was as well and I will post some random studies on the internet to back up my generalizing just like you so then we will equal in our generalizing, won't we. I mean it's only fair.

Link:Do men have a stronger sex drive?

"Even though sex doesn't pop up in the male brain with the merry-go-round constancy some might expect, that trio of studies also confirmed that, on average, men think about sex more often than women. In the Ohio State University data, for instance, the most sexually minded woman in the participant pool reported 140 daily fantasies, less than half of her male counterpart's total [source: Fisher]. Even during masturbation, which is closely associated with and driven by sexual thought, heterosexual men in a 1990 study from the State University of New York reported "significantly more sexual fantasies" than heterosexual women [source: Baumeister, Catansee and Vohs]."

That doesn't mean men are more visual.

Also studies showed that women are way more likely to feel guilty after masturbation, which indicates a heavy cultural/belief factor in the equation. One would be less motivated to do something that makes him/her feel guilty.


People lie in surveys, however the study I posted from Webmd have used devises, genitals can't lie. For instance, mathematical evidence indicates that males exaggerate numbers of sex partners in surveys while women do the opposite (reporting less).

Read this:

Link: Sex Differences in Response to Visual Sexual Stimuli: A Review

Biologically it is women with higher testosterone that tend to be more visual and why men who normally have higher testosterone levels are very visual, normally more than women.


And...

"Further investigation of the cognitive aspect of sexual arousal is very important in our understanding of the sexual arousal process, not only in how participants respond in experimental conditions, but especially in understanding sexual arousal outside of the laboratory. Current therapy for sexual dysfunction in men and women primarily addresses the physiological component of sexual arousal, such as the ability to maintain an erection or produce vaginal lubrication. We argue that despite recent pharmacological scientific advancement, the most appropriate treatment is cognitive therapy. Women, especially, may be better served by sexual therapy targeting cognitive components of sexual arousal, rather than pursuing pharmaceutical relief, which may be ineffective. Finally, while the current review focuses on sex differences in the cognitive processing of visual sexual stimuli, differences in attention and preferences for different contextual element s of pictures may not be unique to sexual stimuli. Rather, differences in response to visual sexual stimuli could be one example supporting the idea that the brains of men and women differ functionally in their environmental assessment to produce sexually differentiated behavioral response patterns."

In conclusion, what is so wrong with men and women being different? I happen to like our differences, even in sexuality.

The big thing that everybody misses that that contrary to how I feel as a bit of a loner with no close friends, that is TYPICAL for someone in my age group. All the men I know have only one close friend: their wives. Meanwhile, every woman I know has a large circle of friends. Men might be programmed to be more solitary but that doesn't mean we don't crave intimacy and companionship! Sports buddies are not the same as the BFFs women have.

That's very true but I wonder if women aren't more wired for "God" for example, I once mentioned a 'divine' encounter I once had (as a non-religious person) to a number of people I know. The men were all skeptical and dismissed my experience as a coincidence or hallucination (it was not) and the women universally believed me and told me of their own tales. It was quite surprising to hear the vast difference in attitude between the sexes.


That is something I am starting to believe. Looking back all I had to do was dress up in a suit or wear tight fitting clothes and my Exs underwear was on the floor within seconds. I was also once dressed up in a full suit and decided to 'forget' something at work. I was blatantly hit on by several women and even the married women commented how attractive I looked.

One more thing I should add that there are a number of women at work who have husbands much like myself (which explains why they like me so much). To my knowledge, they were the ones who initiated the relationship and they all seem very happy and have been married a while. Unfortunately, I don't think such a woman exists for me so I have been slowly trying to be more aggressive: quite difficult for an Aspie male used to rejection!

The study shows they are visually different but not visually unequal, further in the study it shows that women are more likely to notice clothing and backgrounds details in sex scenes yet this isn't correlated to their appraisal of the film.


Also, it reinforces what I said earlier:

YES! And YES! This is so extremely remarkable every time. The other day a male acquaintance was telling Djinni stories (about a girl got possessed by some djinn) and all girls were so absorbed by the stories while all of we guys, including the muslim devout ones (Djinn is part of the Islam belief), were trolling and laughing in disbelief.

This is also very apparent when it comes to all supernatural stories including zodiac signs.

An old Christian Arab proverb: "Praying is for women", often to point how more women attend church than men.

The study backs up both what I claim and what you claim depending on what area in the study you concentrate on reading. It is addressing many different scenarios in which men and women either react the same or very differently.

Obviously you and I have very different of opinions on this matter so we should just agree to disagree. I respect your right to have an opinion, I am not going to battle you on this.

The stupidity on this thread is beyond belief. It's as if some of you have never met actual real live men or women.

I think the original question's also been demolished several times now. To repeat: Men do not put in all the effort. The sidestep that's developed along the way -- "women don't initiate" -- is also untrue. You've really got to put down this PUA garbage you're trying to learn about life from.

Great! Let's get back on topic, then!

Thank you to Yuzu for an on-topic reply that provides the kind of insight I asked for! Honourable mentions to Eureka13 and modernmax for good on-topic replies, too.



Then I trust there will be no need for you to demolish it any further and therefore you're done with this thread and all the stupidity herein.


For everyone else I'd like to re-iterate:

1) This is not a "who has it harder/worse" thread. It's not a rant nor a debate. It's an attempt to fill in blanks in my understanding - of male behaviour. If you feel the need to defend yourself from anything I said then you have not understood my post (and therefore cannot reply meaningfully).

2) Every generalising statement in this post should be prefixed with "in general". Yes, I know there are exceptions.

3) I really am asking about initiating relationships here, not sex.


I don't think I got my question across very well, judging by the replies saying "women put in effort too". Well, I did say it was hard to explain... OK, let me try again. It's not so much about effort as about taking responsibility. Revised question:

Why do males generally accept most of the responsibility for starting relationships?

Yes, women can certainly put a lot of effort into being attractive, but the overwhelming attitude is still that the man is the one who has to actually make the change from "no relationship" to "relationship" happen. My impression is that both men and women have this attitude.

Consider the responses to a man saying "I want a partner, but nobody seem to be romantically interested in me. What do I do?" The first response would be "do you meet the minimal criteria?" (aka "got job, place, car?") followed by "how many people have you asked out?", "how are you approaching them?", "what do you have to offer them and how are you communicating that?" etc. All of these questions strongly imply that it is the man's responsibility to create a relationship if he wants one. If that man then said "actually, I haven't asked anyone out" he'd be laughed out of the room!

Can you imagine a woman getting any of these responses if she asked the exact same question? She might get advice about becoming more attractive, advice on where to meet more men or just some sympathy, but it's very unlikely she would be put down for not asking out any men.

My question is about "the system" and why men play along with it, despite apparently not liking it at all. Even many women have said they don't like it, which is all the more reason why I'd expect it to have changed by now - and yet it hasn't.





OK, but what if all men suddenly decided to not put in the effort? What would happen? Would women then take the responsibility for starting relationships or would there simply be no relationships any more?



Sending subtle signals is not what I'd call "initiating", but the second part is an interesting point! Yes, maybe it's not so much a "lower sex drive" per se (though I think that's true, too), but more that a woman only rarely meets a man that's attractive enough to put any effort into courting him, while men find many women "attractive enough".



OK, so they may have different reasons, but are you saying that women's overall desire for relationships is lower than men's? (Or as I said in the OP they're "that much happier being single"?)



Oh, I've been waiting all my life! But I'm clearly not a representative case.

i see, so the object is to make statements like "black people are criminals" less offensive by adding "in general, black people are criminals".

now i understand.

(and yeah, such statements ARE just as offensive when applied to a specific gender as they are when applied to a specific race--so how about we just stop making sweeping generalisations about half of the population because they don't contribute anything worthwhile to a rational discussion about human interaction.)

I put in a lot of effort.

And what do I get in return?

About the ego boosts:

Of course, the majority of time I see someone looking for an ego boost and they succeed in doing so... gone and not to be heard from again. I don't like wasting time on such mind games and manipulation.

About PUAs- don't know who brought it up here, but it's been discussed to death countless times. Most of the dating advice given by men about how to date women can be very condescending in it's context and tone as well.

On spirituality- very important in my life, and I do believe from talking to my guy friends that I believe guys are more scared of being spiritual then women are.

i just got asked in a private message not to participate in this thread anymore after i posted this comment. i guess calling people on their sexist language is inappropriate?

funny, because if someone came to me for advice on this topic, my first response would not be "do you have a car/job/house?"--it would be "are you a decent human being presenting yourself to potential dates as a decent human being with courtesy and consideration?" because i, and i daresay likely many other women in the world, care much more about what sort of person you are than how much money you make or what you drive. i would be sort of a hypocrite if i weren't willing to consider dating a man who has no job or car, as i don't have those things myself.

those generalisations again.

Funny I am a girl and I have started by telling the guy I love that I love him.