Women differ in how they love men first and foremost by category. Men differ in how they love women first and foremost by degree.
Women love men in categories, each man they love fits in a certain category of love, and she loves them each in that one way. For instance, if a man is in her \Lover\ category, then she will continue to love him in that way indifferent to his behavior. Other men may be mystified when she endures shoddy treatment by that man, but it makes perfect sense to the woman. She does not like the shoddy treatment but it will not influence her to love him differently.
When a woman likes a man more intensely it will not increase her desire to change the kind of relationship they have. She can easily love a man much more intensity and keep him in the exact same category. Category trumps degree for a woman.
Men do not love categorically. A man loves all women to some degree and her behavior towards him can increase or decrease the degree of love he feels for her.
When a man likes a woman more intensely it will influence his desire to change the kind of relationship they have. He cannot easily love a woman much more intensely and keep her in the exact same category. Degree trumps category for a man.
This gender difference makes women more lively to be abused (anywhere from mildly to severely) and men more likely to be perverted (anywhere from mildly or severely).
I’m not really prone to believing in the necessary existence of differences between the two genders, but I must admit that I agree with everything that you just said.
Let me ask you this:
Does this whole love by degrees and love by categories only influence the emotions and relationships of a man/woman with his/her significant other, or do you believe that this model can be applied to all types of love?
For instance, I think that a man loves a woman largely in terms of degrees, but a man loves his child in mostly categorical terms with degree influencing only how much he likes his child.
This was a very hard won idea for me. It was a kind of breakthrough moment while wrestling with trying to understand women after an unexpected rejection. I’ve shown the idea it to a few men and it really clicked for them.
I am not sure how broadly the explanatory power of this idea extends. While men do have categorizes for love I think those categories have weaker boundaries. That fits with how men tend towards perversion. Men can love people in the wrong category too much or in the case of fetishism they can even love body parts or objects. Women just don’t love that way.
I think it could apply just as thoroughly to other types of relationships. Consider a relationship with an overbearing and cynical parent. Many males that I know that have come from this kind of family will just stop taking to their parents, aka their love decreased by a degree high enough to warrant not talking to them. A female, on the other hand, may endure the abuse and maintain contact because those people are in the categories “Parents” and “Love”.
Hey Xander, long time no see. Whereya’ been hiding.
Scares me when one of you guys re-appear, makes me think you’ve been having a life, which in turn makes me wonder why I haven’t/ didn’t whatever.
Anyway.
I kinda agree with the male sliding-scale intensity thing based on a woman’s behavior. Males, dog-like, love their strokes.
Women and catagories, okay I agree with the proviso that a man in her eyes (or loins perhaps) can jump from one state to another - friend to lover to husband material etc. - if circumstances, and his actions produce sufficient ‘emotional energy’ to bump him over the ‘hill’ between the two ‘stable’ valleys.
I would say the difference between men and women, in the context you’ve outlined, is more that with men, the hills between the valleys of catagory are lower, so it is easier for a woman to slip up and over into a different state - casual desire - friend - sexual object - child bearer - fetishistic object whatever - with much less impetus. With men, a simple smile can light a fire under our balls and hearts, whereas with a woman it’s more like 500 smiles, a Ferrari and a crate-load of choccies.
That’s the negative extreme. On the flip-side, this gender difference makes a woman more dependable in her love - once established it will not easily waver - and it makes a man more passionate, [size=75][if not always with the same woman].[/size]
I’ve always explained this by appeal to the role women play in the reproductive game. Whereas men only need to donate their sperm, women need to gestate a fetus for 9 months, then spend a good 10 to 15 years nurturing and providing for her young. She needs more than sperm for this - she needs a functional, long-lasting, and loving relationship with a man. This means that she invests way more into her man than the man does the woman. She has much more of a stake in the relationship than the man. She therefore will put up with a lot if it means preserving the relationship. She would rather repair it than abandon it and start over from scratch.
I’ve always thought a good test of this would be to see if women have more of a tendency to feel this way after sex than before.
I suppose the categories having to do with romantic or physical love are very weak with men in terms of boundaries. But, I think that the categories when it comes to stuff like platonic love for a friend or family member can sometimes even be stronger than that of a woman.
Take women and their friends, one of their friends crosses them and it’s just over. I think that women are better at holding a grudge then men are. On the other hand, two guys that are good friends will come to blows over something stupid and then be drinking beers together the very next day.
I suppose that’s a good point. I think the biggest category that men may not fit the prototype is with their children and their friends, whereas I think women may not fit the categorical prototype so much with their friends either.
I think there is a lot of cultural training going on here. At the same time that men are taught to “get back on the horse,” women are taught that “the recovery after a relationship takes as long a the relationship.” This makes men see love as more fluid, and women see love as more stable. But beyond that I just see a whole lot of confirmation bias.
There are many women who have stopped communicating with their parents. I’ve seen girls come to blows one day and make up later. I’ve seen guys hold grudes for a long time. In the real world.
I’m not sure this tread is discussing anything but sterotypes from movies and sitcoms.
Okay, I can certainly see the biological benefit of commitment. Once a woman has starting building a relationship it is not worth the energy to abandon it and start from scratch. But i am more interested in the mate selection phase. That is where things are strange. Women are highly selective but their criteria is not wise. They do no evaluate a man on his character or qualities like dependability. There is something inscrutable that influences their decision to pick a male. It is something over which they have no conscious control.
Which mate choice preferences? They change across the female cycle. They’re evolutionary wise choices as well. When females are most fertile they have different preferences to the rest of the month.
But in all seriousness, don’t women choose based more on personality, talents, temperament, and all that other ‘inner’ stuff more than our physical features? I’ll admit, I was flabbergasted by some of the choices my female peers were making in high school - I was brought up to believe women went for inner qualities over outer ones - but I think young men who are taught this also carry the misconception that these inner qualities aren’t variable - that is, that women always look for the ‘good’ inner traits (like kindness, emotional, good listener, etc.), and albiet this may be what the average woman is looking for, but the average is often a meaningless statistic when the diversity within the range is vast (and that diversity probably includes age and maturity - in my experience, teenage women often don’t look for these traits). I think what determines what a woman is looking for more than anything else is their own dispositions, upbringing, personal tastes, etc. A good Christian girl will be attracted to a good Christian boy, a biker chick will be attracted to biker boys, hell even a guy with severe mental disorders might be attractive to a girl who’s got the same disorders. In all cases, it’s usually ‘inner’, but hardly ever the same across the board. That’s not to say that physical attraction means nothing, but I think it’s a lot more eclipsed by these other ‘inner’ variables than it is for men.
As for whether they can control it or not, that’s a completely other matter. What women are attracted to may be determined by highly variable factors particular to the woman in question, but that doesn’t mean it’s all going on on a conscious level or that they have any control over it.
(on a side note, I wonder if we’re pissing any women off - not that we’re saying anything sexist, but as someone once told me here on ILP, it’s always a bit insulting when one talks about another group as though they know more about that group than the group themselves. Oh well - walking on eggshells I guess).
I don’t know if all women know that preferences change across cycle. At mid cycle women as a group found the scent of symetrical men sexier and masculine facial features. (Johnston et al 2001, Penton-Voak et al 1999)- Also found that men who were confident/condescending towards rivals rated as sexier. (Gangestad et al 2004). At mid cycle deep voices are rated as more attractive. (Putz 2005)
When women are most fertile they tend to prefer talent over wealth (Haselton and Miller)
and Thornhill et al 2003 show wealth particularly valued by less fertile women.
(Gangestad, Thornhill and Garver 2002, cf Pillsworth, Haselton & Buss 2004, Bellis and Baker 1990) Show that at this period they’re more likely to fantasize about extra-pair partners, symetrical mates only *moderate the effect.
I doubt women know anything about smell preferences based on being Heterozygous at MHC loci or what benefits that may convey to offspring.
Leda Cosmides knows more about male sexuality than most males. Period. The same is true about certain males understanding female sexuality better. Experience doesn’t equal understanding.
Did you know that women who don’t use condoms/swallow have less depression, want sex more, become ‘closer’ to their partners? cuz of the chemical components of the stuff effecting neurocognition? Vasopressin/oxytocin essential neuropeptides in pairbonding? This is true of homosexual men as well.
Robert Trivers has a great quote about how assuming humans aren’t hugely self deceptive is a naive view of mental evolution.
It’s the testoserone in the semen actually. Testoserone is good at perventing depression. So next time your feeling blue, beat up a hobo or go hook up at a gay bar- either should work.
