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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."
Is this from the same study group that found males like beer?
"She slapped me, that means she wants my bod!"
Table-ized A.I.
women have blurry behavior
I blame geof's speakers.
The study actually just found that women are unclear about communicating their intentions to men.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
Things sure were simpler when we were monkeys.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Why's this story in the "Humor" section? What's so funny about a 30-year old virgin?
Oh, wait..... HAW, HAW!
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
We're MEN... We need CLEAR signals. We've only got enough blood to fill any one of the two organs at a time and most of the time it isn't the brain. Give us a CLEAR yes. You want us to fully comprehend then wear a damned sign - until then? Well... *shrugs*
Bah... Screw it... Until then remember that we've got too many people on the planet already.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
There may be some evolutionary advantage in over-interpreting signals. Even though you may be wrong most of the time, the few times you are right still gets you some bootie. (Although it barely offsets the broken leg from one of the error's boyfriends.)
Table-ized A.I.
Since humans are one of the few species that conceal ovulation I am wondering if this has a more genetic basis.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Wow. Talk about interpreting the data to fit ones prejudices, instead of exploring all possibilities.
How about this take?: Women can't effectively communicate sexual intent (or lack) to men.
Or maybe we'll decide not to bow to such specious sexist chauvinism?: Study shows people are confused about sexuality. Women don't know how to ask for it, and the men don't know when they're asking. NAAAH!
It may seem trite, but communication is a two way street. Both the speaker and the listener are equally to blame for a failed communication, usually for not setting a clear set of assumptions upon which to base it. You know, language.
I would say that what this shows is that the language of sexual intent, especially primary (non-verbal) language, is sorely lacking. Have you seen the current youth "sexy dance?" They are seriously just out there having fun. Not a thing wrong with it. But if I did that with my wife, she'd know I want to "get down" later.
Don't get me wrong, they're hooking up too, but they're out there grinding like a bunch of feckless bunnies, and it doesn't necessarily mean anyone wants to have sex.
How could anyone not be confused? The only societal basis in the sexual dialogue we have any more is that misinterpretation is the only crime, and that only men misinterpret, because they're so bad at communication.
That's not a basis for relations between the sexes, that's absurd chauvinistic prejudice that makes your right hand seem considerably less risky.
So, in the age of sexy dancing, well past overtly sexualized clothing, trivialized sexual language, and a general dissolving of the entire courting process, how does one communicate, "Hey sailor, wanna fuck?" in a subtle and socially acceptable fashion?
That's not a question worth answering when you can just blame the man for being clueless.
Retitle: Study shows common prejudice that communications problems are always the man's fault. New study sets out to prove that the trivialization of sexual content in American society has left all parties thoroughly rudderless.
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Toro
Begin with simple statements:
Put down the 20 sided dice and come have a drink with me.
Your guild can raid without you for a night, lets go see a movie.
We can make out while your program compiles.
I know you enjoy moderating that silly Slashdot forum, but we could be having sex right now!
I've worked for a karaoke bar called the 7 Bamboo since 2001. Here's some video clips of the mayhem.
.com, NT3.51 days) I used to see women use the very same techniques at work to size new hires up, or get guys to help them on projects, or whatever. I think this is pre-programmed into us from our primate ancestors (ever see female chimps in heat with the swollen red asses? How about the bonobo chimps trading sex for food, etc.)
http://uncutvideo.aol.com/users/sevenbamboovideo
Here's a statement from a guy that deals with both sexes at the core of thier honest drunkness when it comes to getting what they want. In this case, it mostly happens when our playlist is so full we cannot take anymore requests.
Guys will typically flash cash, or they'll do a intimidation display (beating thier chest) to get what they want. Girls on the other hand will flirt, pout, or use some other form of sexual display.
So when a slobbering drunk girl is pouting at me, bent over the booth, cleavage showing, saying "PLEASE MR KARAOKE MAN! LET ME HAVE ONE MORE SONG!" You mean to tell me as a male i'm misreading what she's trying to communicate?
She's trying to tell me "I'll fuck your brains out of this world if you let me sing." 99% of the women will pretend this is thier offer, but never deliver. (Yes, there's a small maybe even less than 1% that would deliver. (Cue up the "TOQER PLZ INTRO ME jokes now)
Just because a woman has no intent on fullfilling the message she's projecting, it doesn't diminish the fact that she *IS* trying to get that message across. It could be cleavage, it could me smiling and acting all cute, it could be putting thier arm around you, women have a lot of body language things they can do to convey it.
Not all men can tell the difference either. In fact, I'd say the majority can't. It's not fair to lump all us men together as one chauvenist mass though because women are trying to decieve us. Who's worse? The dumb man that can't tell the difference, or the salacious seductructress using her false (read lying) sexual messages?
And maybe I just don't know WTF i'm talking about because I have a skewed view of the world based on where I work, but I did work in desktop support in corporate enviroments for many years prior (think netware, early
My wife is a very paranoid lady when it comes to other women. I think deep down inside all women know that all other women use sexual body cues in the same way. I used to think my wife was nuts when she would be all jealous of other girls standing around me, but after 14 years of her giving me cues I can sort of spot what's going on now too.
I believe a lot of this behavior is going to end at my generation. We didn't have this tharn intarnet in the 70's when I was born. I believe that the net, womens sufferage, and globalization has lead to a balancing out of the genders (at least here in the US) We are really on the verge of having a woman president, and that says a lot for how much gender roles have changed in this country. A lot of men (like me) had to take what jobs they could in 2001 between the layoffs and 9/11. I'm not the breadwinner in my household anymore, and i'm OK with that.
I look forward to it. It's got to be better than the message tradition beliefs and pop culture has tried to teach us. Western Christianity has typically conveyed that the man is in a dominant role, and the woman is a sexual toy/servant/baby launcher. I think the best balance is a true partnership, but so many women, men are running around ignorantly trying to assert thier gender role that they don't learn that till many years down the road.
There's also another side to this and that's the pop culture aspect. How many of you have watch Margeret Cho and Andrew Dice Clay?
I've known girls that follow Cho like she's Jesus, and guys follow ADC like he's uhh I dunno, Jesus? I'm sure other folks have seen the same. People a
... that women are useless at communicating non-verbally with men, as they persist in using signals that are in fact only understood by women. First off, I think women typically place a much higher value on secondary (verbal) communication than men do, and men a higher value on primary than women do, and that this probably has much to do with evolution as anything else.But the real kicker is that our society has taken away every subtle means of communicating such things non-verbally by trivializing and commercializing sexuality as a way of getting adults to sublimate continual titillation into their shopping. Sex sells, and as a result, primary language of that sort has become nothing more than an affectation, instead of a seductive invitation. I've heard lectures given deliberately stating that it is never an overture, even if it would make any man of moderate libido flush.
To men, our blood pressure goes up involuntarily, and then even the slightest smile seems like a flirtation. We're supposed to somehow contain our biology and millenia of evolutionarily determined visual cues. Women downplay this effect because they're not wired that way.
Personally, I'd like to see a study on what happens to male judgment whilst trying to contain an involuntary erection. It might have something to do with the results. Worse than "beer goggles" is the kind of wishful thinking that typically occurs when a man is aroused.
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Toro
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" .
/. summary: Men were found commonly to perceive more sexual intent in women's behavior than women were intending to convey.
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
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).
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
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!!!
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
It pays biologically for men to err on the side of trying to get laid, for women it's better to err on the side of caution.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
FORM: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Money. When ladies talk to you they are only trying to assess your worth. Wealth of an individual can sometimes change with time and circumstance. So ladies put those they believe might become wealthy in the "friends" category, if they do become wealthy they simply pretend they were interested all along.
Always marry an ugly girl, that's the only kind. She'll never ever leave you, and if she does you won't mind. Let's not forget, ugly girls need lovin', too! But then again, discussing sex with women on slashdot is like discussing Ubuntu with your grandmother... neither party knows what the hell is going on...
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
But consider this:
Women will often flirt with a man just for attention. I've met women who simply didn't even know what they were doing was interpreted as flirting. And when I confronted them with this observation, they gave this crazymaking attitude like "I don't even know what you're talking about. I was just being friendly." Yeah, right.
Philipino women are a great example of behavior that can easily be mistaken for flirting. I've never been more confounded by any other culture. The world "no" just isn't in their immediate vocabulary.
Women from American culture can flirt just out of anger. Anyone remember that song, "I know What Boys Like" by the Waitresses? That song spelled it out loud and clear.Women were tired of feeling as if they were being oppressed by men. So they used their power against the men.
Those are just two of the reasons that I've found for the confusion on the part of the women. I know why I've been confused before: I was single. Now that I'm married, that confusion is pretty much gone. I know where I stand with my wife.
It takes two to tango. It's not just that men have blurry vision. Women have fuzzy behavior, too.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
I remember that one show from Home Improvement when Tim held up the stop sign, saying "STOP". With the other side having the female way of saying it, reading "If you really cared for me, you'd know what to do now". I found it funny because it's just plain true.
/., my hopes are still there): TELL US, in no uncertain terms, what you want. We're notoriously bad at guessing. We do care for your feelings and needs, but we don't guess them. A man is not constantly trying to find out what's wrong, the way a man works, for him everything is running fine as long as there's nobody complaining. No complaint, no change. We do subscribe to the "never change a running system" theory of thinking. Don't try to poke into a system (or relationship for that matter) without good reason. And some ambigious sigh is no good reason.
We are men. We enjoy a direct, blunt and honest way of talking. Wanna have sex? Then say so. Don't? Works for me either. But don't be surprised that we act it! What this study shows is that we can't "read" women. Ok, we can't. Big news. We're used to saying what we want, and also to being told what is expected from us. The best joke is always a woman complaining that in her relationship, they always do what he wants, be it sexually or otherwise. Guess what: He said what he wants! She was sitting there, waiting for him to guess her interests and desires.
Dear women (in case there are any on
Grab your man and tell him what you want, dammit! Be blunt. We need that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In the time it would take to do the study, the women would change their minds 4 times making the results invalid...
In almost ANY communications scenario in which a message is being received but misinterpreted, it must be the job of the sender to clarify the message. The receiver does not know what is wrong, and therefore has no way to force it make sense. The sender, on the other hand, can often perceive what is wrong, and correct the sending.
It doesn't matter who you blame, the fact is that as a practical matter, nobody can clear this up but the sender of the signals. So before women go complaining that their signals are misunderstood, they should make some effort to make sure their signals are unmistakable!
A typical conversation with my wife goes something like this:
... that she was making a fresh pot of coffee.
Her: "That girl was flirting with you."
Me: "What girl?"
"The waitress, (receptionist, librarian, whatever). She was openly blatantly flirting."
"I think she was just being polite."
"No, She wasn't. She was openly blatantly flirting with you and you're too stupid to see it."
Ok, now let me recount the conversation with the waitress that led my wife to this conclusion.
Me: "Miss, could I please have some more coffee?"
Waitress: "Sure, I'm making a fresh pot. It'll be ready in just a minute."
Me: "Thank You."
Now maybe my wife is seeing something I'm not. But I think when she said she was making a fresh pot of coffee, that what she really meant was
This is another case of blaming the user for confusing interfaces,
and another case of blaming hardware for a software problem.