Study Shows Males Commonly Mistake Sexual Intent

seattle-pk writes "Males are apparently clueless when it comes to interpreting sexual intent from females, according to a recent study (PDF) from Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Men were found commonly to perceive more sexual intent in women's behavior than women were intending to convey. (A campus survey showed that 68% of college females had an experience where a male mistook signs of friendliness for affection.) However, the study also shows that men were quite likely to misperceive sexual interest as friendliness. 'Rather than seeing the world through sex-colored glasses, men seemed just to have blurry vision of sorts, overall,' according to the article. If you're a male who ever mistook the meaning of a barista's smile, looks like you're not alone."

Comments

Wrong summary, wrong accompanying article

[ElGanzoLoco]

I quote the Live Science article: "More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on" .
Well, actually the study (see findings table, last page of the PDF) shows that 79.9 percent of guys correctly identified friendliness and only 12.1pct mistook it for sexual interest. Sadness and rejection were also correctly interpreted most of the times (and almost never mistaken for sexual interest).

And now I quote the /. summary: Men were found commonly to perceive more sexual intent in women's behavior than women were intending to convey.
Wrong again: sexual interest is the only intent that just less than half of the male sample correctly interpreted, with almost 40% of them mistaking it for friendliness.

So it seems that we don't do too bad after all. Of course, this doesn't fly too well with the typical "horny males think all girls 'want some' " stereotypes.

Now, I'd be willing to see the results of the same research, applied to girls. My anecdotal evidence indicates that girls fare even worse than guys at interpreting "sexual interest" signals. My "sexual interest" signals consistently get ignored (maybe I'm just too shy) or, even worse, mistaken for an invitation to be friends and tell me their ex-boyfriend stories (when this happens: run!). I also find that a non-trivial number of girls mistakes friendliness for sexual interest (usually the same ones who think of themselves as hot and intersting).

Smalltalk is the answer.

[master_p]

Not the programming language, of course! Smalltalk with a girl you like, and if she really likes you, the conversation will go on without any embarrassing pauses. Smalltalk allows us to relax and let ourselves be, and any underlying feelings usually surface.

There are some subtle clues to as if a girl likes you; for example, if, after a long conversation, she starts to touch you. Or if she turns her body towards you while she speaks.

Of course none of the above guarantee 100% that a girl likes you. But it's a good start.

Remember some general principles: be clean, be gentle and polite, show interest in your partner, be sincere.

Also remember that one of the most important feelings for women is the feeling of security: try to make them feel relatively secure; women have a wide spectrum of feelings but they are usually reluctant to show them until they feel nice and welcomed to the person they speak to.

Finally, also remember that for women, sex is more a psychological operation than a physical one. Sex is not the same for the two sexes. Women are mentally and emotionally aroused before physically aroused, so try to care for them!!!

Something can be done about this

[assertation]

There are a lot of books out there on how to improve your dating life. A lot of those books are even written with geeks in mind, not that description ever fit me or anyone who reads slashdot......*cough* *cough* :).

Be warned, most of these books are poorly written and the web sites where even the good books are sold are styled in a way where it looks like snake oil is being sold.

However, there is a lot of good stuff out there that actually works.

I highly recommend:

1. Renting a copy of the movie "The Tao Of Steve". It is based on the true story of an obese underachiever who develops a method to get all of the dates he wants despite his disadvantages.

2. Read "Without Embarrassment" by Mike Pilinski. Don't buy it from Amazon, it is overpriced by $30 there. Go to the author's web site. The web site is done poorly and looks like snake oil. Don't let that fool you. Pilinski was one of us, and his book is one of the good ones. You can get the book as an ebook or printed on demand. You have to look around on the site a bit to find the later option.

If you want to read more after this I would start with the "The Game" by Neil Strauss. The author is a professional writer and it shows. Despite the size the book will read like it is only 100 pages. It is very captivating and the book is an excellent overview of the "PUA Community" ( Pickup Artist Community ). This is very valuable, because even the good authors have bogus looking web sites that make it hard to get a good idea of what their products are like.

This wikipedia page also serves as a good overview. Most of the "literature" on this subject falls into about 4 sets of approaches with many, MANY copycats. This page will give you the bottom line -- without having to read a lot of marketing crap -- on each prominent system. I recommend watching the movie and reading "Without Embarrassment" first though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_Community