Sexual Attraction?

Why are men attracted to women and vice versa? Philosophical reasons? Biological and Psychological reasons?

I was just thinking today how strange it is that I am attracted to the opposite sex and I was wondering what it is that makes this seemingly supernatural event take place? and if Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct, how could such a complex system have developed from amoeba and made it’s way to male and female human beings?

Sex is an amazing concept if you think about it. :smiley:

i have no answer for that question myself, and it’s something that i’ve always wondered. thankfully, not knowing why myself has made me tolerant toward people who are attracted to members of the same sex, unlike the majority of close-minded america . . .

Biological and philosophical:

You are sexually attracted to a partner because your body want to reproduce your genes. Why does your body want to reproduce your genes? Because that’s the way nature once started. Why did nature start this way? It did that because only when two separate individuals interact it’s possible to reach a new level. If not, nothing would develop. Why does things want to develop? It’s probably a universal maxim. During interaction more complex forms are created, and this is the reason why you can ask this question today. If it was not true you would not ask this question and you would not be sexually attracted to the opposite sex.

You are attracted to your opposite sex because nature is developing.

Johan

Johan,

Thanks for your thoughts. It seems that you are just saying that it is because we see that is.

But I guess that I also took from what you said that it is the nature of organized systems to become more complex and to assimilate or organize themselves further. but why?

And how does it come to be that when I kiss my girlfriend, I get tingly all over?

It could be different, and then you would also ask why, but probably not because you would not exist. There seams to be many places where this does not happen, so far we only know of the earth. I don’t think that the nature “want” to assimilate and organize itself further, but if you give the process enough time you can not stop it from happening. And time is something the universe have.

It’s quite funny: The universe exist for 14 billion years and then suddenly it happens that a few particles forms a human that lives for an eyeblink, questions his existence and die. And the universe say: “Sorry for that, my fault. Can you get me a piece of paper, I have to clean up this mess”.

The above is not necessary my main theory. I think the universe is designed so that biological life can develop. If not it’s a enormous waste of space! I know this is a very egocentric standpoint, but it fits in to a model I have.

Drugs!

Johan

To me the answer is in the question. But in order to help my view become clear I direct your attention to different questions. Are there different forms of attraction? Is it possible to be attracted to a person personality? Is it possible to become attracted to a person because of the amount of time spent with them? Is it possible to become attracted to someone who you didn’t find attractive before, and is it possible to find someone unattractive whom you found very attractive before?

In ‘Sexual Attraction’ the attraction is what adhers best to your conception of ‘sex’. So what I find attractive, ie. Boobs that are perky, firm and large (just an example people), is one aspect of what is sexually attractive to me. Ofcourse attraction becomes complicated because of all the different variables involved, like the possibility of finding many things about a person attractive, each of which has many different variables inside it to consider.

Sexual attraction is the strongest of all attractions, in my opinion, because it needs to be. The first brain stimulation we receive from a person is through our eyes. We look more than we do anything else, so what we will be doing for the most of the time is what will have the greatest impact on how we feel. We want to feel good, so we pick a person who is pleasing to the eye so that we will end up looking at beauty which makes us happy. But I think sexual attraction is important as the first step to encountering and having the impedus to bring me to my significant other. Life is so busy and hectic that we don’t have time to go around looking for someone who has the right personality. Personalities are complex, what you think you like may not be what you really thought it was. But with attraction, there can be no lying (aside from make-up). It is simple and you get what you see.

But I think people make a huge mistake after they introduce themselves to their soon to be significant other. Their ambition disappears. It’s as though ALL they need is an attractive person. But like I said, attraction should only be important as a first step, but never as all the steps. People forget that one day this person in front of them will seize to be attractive no matter how much plastic surgery is done or how well they take care of themselves. So there better be something else there. People get on such a high off of attraction that they make themselves believe they like every other aspect of the other person as well without seriously considering it.

What’s your take?

Attraction for me is all based upon action.
If a woman is nice to me, treats me good, brings me cookies and beer without me asking…shes going to be an empress in my eyes.

On the other hand…
If a woman has a body which is commly accepted as very good looking…but is mean, cruel and whatnot…im not even going to notice her.

Thats just me.
Attraction through action.
~JL

Johnny, again you mean attraction through slavery. Don’t you notice that all you speak of is a woman doing things for you, treating you like God, who do you think you are? Do you honestly think that you are better than women? Have you ever thought about all the things you should be doing for you wife when you get married?

Slavery? ROFL…please pass the joint…

Im merely stating in a humoristic sense of the formula in which I normally find myslelf falling in love with…a woman that treats me well.
Never did I mention how I treat women…which is always better then they deserve :laughing:
So cmon …slavery…where did you pick that up from?
~JL

Where did I pick that up from?

Johnny stated:

You say that attraction for you is [enter woman doing something for Johnny]…then you get slavery. I say this because many, and I mean many, men are exactly like this. Your conception of an attractive woman is a woman doing things for you. Why isn’t your conception of an attractive woman a woman who treats you nicely after you have treated her nicely? Wouldn’t that be a switch, huh?

thats the way it is…your just bent on this whole slavery bit…
sure I like to have a little chain and whip action in the bedroom lol
but thats as far as slavery goes…

Just because I like it when people give me gifts of cookies and beer
and are good to me…does that mean that they are my slaves?
~JL

No not necessarily, but your missing my point. If that’s what you like, and that’s what love is defined for you as, then as I suggested previously, I don’t think it is really love. Furthermore, I think it leads the woman into slavery. If you solve this dilemma, actually I guess you dont see it as a dilemma, by saying ‘that’s the way it is’ then I hope you one day realize different…for your future wife’s sake. There is an argumentative fallacy called the ‘is/ought fallacy’ which is when a person makes a mistake of making a claim of being right about their opinion in a matter based upon the fact that their opinion is the way things are now. Remember, just because things are a certain way now, doesn’t mean that they OUGHT to be that way.

Just a thought…

You have valid points …but your labeling them on the wrong person.
I’m intrested anyhow on your presumtions based upon how vaugely your estimates are of me…continue though…all and all im getting a good laugh out of this.

JohnnyLegion,
You are getting a good laugh out of this? hmmm. . . you sure are arrogant. I have a feeling you don’t have much of a love life. I am with Magius on this, although I wouldn’t go as far as calling it slavery. Any female that was in such a situation could leave any time that she wanted and probably would once they realized your character. There are a few women out there with broken self-esteem that don’t know any better but that is a shame. Only a loser would take advantage of such a person.

I hope that you are joking with this statement. If not, that is the most egotistical and pitiful thing I have ever heard.

Anyways, I am hoping that you are trying to be comical in your statements. I like a woman who treats me well too. In fact, I think that we all do, but if you really want to enjoy life and relationships, you will find that giving is always better than receiving.

As to your earlier comments, Magius, you have some good ideas.

Magius stated:

These are all great questions. I’d like to hear how you would answer them?

This is more along the lines of what I was asking in my original post. Why do you find perky, firm, and large boobs sexually stimulating? as opposed to myself who finds smaller but proportional boobs attractive? or even further, as opposed to the homosexual who does not find boobs sexually stimulating at all? See what I mean?

I just wonder how these complicated transactions take place, biologically and psychologically. In psychology, many studies have found that most men tend to be attracted to someone who resembles their mother. Seems kind of strange but it is very common. Think about who you have dated in the past. Do they resemble your mother in any form or fashion? Maybe not but the majority tends to lean in that direction. This is also the same for most women in that they tend to lean towards a resemblence of their father.

I guess it really comes down to the question of what makes something beautiful? which I think that we have already thoroughly discussed in another thread, but I still think that it is a very strange phenomena.

I completely agree with you here but this is really a different subject. This is why the divorce rate is so high. Attraction is a wonderful tool to aid the search but if your personality doesn’t match then you need to get out quick and keep looking. Don’t bite the bait until you’ve nibbled it a bit! :laughing:

Skeptic,
some very well thought out ideas.
To answer your question about how I would answer my own questions, I will answer in point form:

I asked “Is it possible to become attracted to a person because of the amount of time spent with them?”

  • Yes I believe this is true. This is part of the reason why I believe that if anyone tries hard enough they can get anybody. To some rational and logical constraints ofcourse.

I asked “Is it possible to become attracted to someone who you didn’t find attractive before?”

  • I certainly think so for many reasons. One is that people change. I remember in elementary school there was this tom-girl (As we use to call them), you know those girls who like to play sports, wore guy clothes and had short hair. Anyway, this girl liked me, or so I believe. I couldn’t give her the time of day, but not because she was a tom-boy but because many people hated me in that school and I didn’t want people to start thinking of her as a loser. But that aside, I also went to highschool with her. After highschool I once saw her in the mall and I realized just how gorgeous she was and how lucky of a guy I would be to be with a girl like that. She wasn’t just good looking, but she had manners, she didn’t stick to stupid highschool social codes, she was herself, I never saw her making fun of anyone, etc. Another reason I think it’s possible to become attracted to someone you weren’t attracted to before is because you learn about the person, or sometimes you have few experiences with the person and ironically they are all negative and bad, but once you see the person in their true colors (hopefully good) then you may become attracted to them. Thirdly, sometime we are just really blind and don’t see the beauty and perfection in front of us, usually we don’t realize it until it is almost too late.

I asked “, and is it possible to find someone unattractive whom you found very attractive before?”

  • This is definitely so for me. My first relationship was with your typical teenie-bopper blonde whom I could barely stand to look at even after we were friends.

Skeptic stated:

Luckily I have taken a psychology course in university and have come across similar hypotheses. Well, these hypotheses date back to the ancient greek times with Oedipus Rex etc. But I must say that in my opinion it is true, except not in the way most would see it. I don’t find my mother attractive, which is weird because I am very good at being objective even about personal things like family, etc. Everyone in my life has always told me how beautiful my mother is, in elementary school when my parents arrived for parent teacher interview night all the students would gawk at her and I would hear people talking next day about how I had such a beautiful mother. My point here is to demarcate the idea most jump to right away when they hear about their significant other resembling one of their parents, which is that there is some sort of a sexual or other abnormal thing going on. For me, I wish I could find a woman with qualities similar to my mothers, but not exactly the same. If I was to picture my significant other to look completely differently than my mother but acted exactly like her, I would not be happy. But if my significant other didn’t look like my mother but had many of her good qualities as a person, while still retaining her own sense of personhood, her own being, etc, then I believe I would be incredibly happy. But nothing has ever happened like that, so I can only speculate. Personally, my relationships are absolutely horrible. It’s the usual nice guy gets treated like shit by girlfriends thing, no offence to women in general, for I wouldn’t generalize like that - I mostly blame myself. But hey, that’s a whole other topic.

What’s your take?

Maybe you are not attracted to men because you never found the right man for you or because you don’t let yourself feel this attraction. Maybe genes… maybe society… it can’t be just one thing.

Who knows, you could be right. I do have an opinion of how men look. I can easily make a judgement of whether I think another guy has aspects of beauty or not (although that would be breaching on my homophobia and sexual insecurity. . . j/k). Seriously though, I find no sexual attraction to my same sex for what seems to me to be a very obvious reason. They are missing some of the essential characteristics that I find attractive in a woman (breasts, vagina, hips, legs, etc.). Speaking of vaginas, I don’t find them entirely attractive, just useful. :slight_smile: Although I must admit that they are much better to look at than what we as men have. Penis’ are just simply unttractive. In fact, I think that most women would agree with me on that. Of course, that is just an assumption.

Skeptic stated:

Oh my GOD!!! You are surrounded by men with no hips or legs!?! You poor soul. :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Skeptic stated:

I agree with your first statement. Furthermore, I have actually had girls tell me that they did not find penis’ attractive at all, just useful. The girls were straight by the way.

What’s your take?

Clementine stated:

:astonished: ??? :astonished:
Was that directed to me? I said nothing about finding guys attractive in the sexual sense. Did you just read a part of my post or something, it appears that you missed what was being talked about in the above posts. I just made a simple comment about how guys can be straight but still be able to tell if a guy is good looking or not. I am straight.

What’s your take?