Fact or Fantasy?

[everywomanshero]

I believe there has been a lot of good (and some bad) philosophy come out of the "community". In general, many men have learned to be more pragmatic & effective in managing relationships, including the one with self. I've seen a lot of men begin to see themselves and their desires as being just as important as anyone else's, become less self-concious & more assertive, etc. etc.

I believe I have also seen some very irrational ideas come out of the "community", sometimes even represened as "scientific fact". I will provide a few examples from the top of my head:

Touching X body part is an IOI: The research available does not support this bizzare claim made famous by Mystery. These are called manipulators. They are idiosyncratic, not generalizable in response to specific emotions. They tend to increase in both discomfort & comfort. While this fantasy of being able to tell if "she's interested" is intriguiging, I find it very likely suffers from wishful thinking, or perhaps a self-fuffiling prophecy at best.

Women Dig Body Builders: I've seen some evidence that women prefer men with slender but athletic, V-shaped bodies & darker skin tone. I've spoken with many women who are turned off by an overly developed body. There is no doubt that this body type can be an attention getter, but I don't think this is really much of a factor. In survey data, I found women rated personality & facial attractiveness as more important than build even for a sexual relationship.

Looks do or don't matter: In a study of whether partners at a dance would consider dating, the only relevant factor found was physical attractiveness for both men & women. However, another study found the link between dating frequency & physical attractivenes was stronger for women than men. High social skills were found to be more related to dating frequency for men than for women. Additionally, attractive women were found more likely to seek financially able men in personal ads.

The point I hope to make is that rarely are these kinds of issues something that can be distilled down into simple answers across contexts. This has not stopped some well-meaning (and some $$$ motivated) individuals from claiming to have done so, but an analysis of the available data makes such claims suspect.

Examples of other junk science commonly referenced by the "community":

Sperm Wars: Although this book is not entirely junk science, its core premise of "lethal sperm & blocker sperm in humans" is more fantasy than fact. Human sperm interaction of the kind postulated by Baker has proven to be unduplictable by other researchers. There has been a lot of discussion on various other components of the theory, and this has generally also been unsupportive.

NLP: Some of the NLP concepts were taken from psychology and renamed under the pretense of "having been discovered". In this regard there is an occasional bit of truth, although the powers of such conepts tend to be exaggerated in a circus-act sort of way. There is a reason why psychology programs are not concerned with NLP.

 

[Obsidian]

Women will often dig bodybuilders, not because the bodybuilder is huge, but because the bodybuilder molds his personality to become more masculine. The testosterone and other chemicals will make you a better man, even aside from physique. Also, the brawny guys often get more respect and fear from other men, which makes them seem more alpha in social situations.

And I'm sure there is at least a segment of women who likes the look of brawny guys, despite what your friends tell you.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Women will often dig bodybuilders, not because the bodybuilder is huge, but because the bodybuilder molds his personality to become more masculine. The testosterone and other chemicals will make you a better man, even aside from physique. Also, the brawny guys often get more respect and fear from other men, which makes them seem more alpha in social situations.

And I'm sure there is at least a segment of women who likes the look of brawny guys, despite what your friends tell you.

Yeah, I hate that, but it is true to some extent. I did read somewhere that at least intelligent and educated women tend to not prefer the beefed-up look as much as women who have lower socioeconomic status.

In regard to good chemicals and molding personality to become more masculine, there are other ways to do that besides bulking up. Combat sports like kickboxing and mma do the trick as well.