Ah, great topic,..
I generally go into great detail on a lot of my posts about the conditions for intimacy women place on men. He's got to be attractive, tall, well employed or the potential to be so, he must have status (some call it power), be caring, sensitive, humorous, educated, not too overbearing, not indecisive, posess confidence, a good listener,..etc., etc. and the list goes on and on. Rarely do I have the chance to explain men's one condition for intimacy - physical attraction. She's GOT to be hot. Guy's rarely post seeking advice for HB 2s or 3s, they post about HB 7s to 9s.
That said, his one condition should be pretty important as well as effect the highest standard he's capable of attaining. Obviously men's particular ability to attract women is based on a number of criteria (including his own appearance) and respective of his own physical conditions - in otherwords fat guys are going to be limited in their ability to attract exceptionally fit women and those that do so by meeting women's other conditions for intimacy (most commonly wealth) will still be hindered in their ability to maintain a woman's continuous interest level, desire, arousal and passion. Needless to say this would also call her fidelity into question at some point and even if it were completely unwarranted it's still an existing issue.
The same situation holds true for women only there is a much higher standard for maintaining her physical attraction. His one condition for intimacy is that she remain attractive and to a greater degree, sexually available to him. In order to circumvent this women for centuries have maintained a complex social dynamic that makes his one condition his greatest fault. Thus we hear how 'shallow' he is for not seeing her 'inner beauty'. We are scolded for being 'superficial' and ridiculed as being unevolved troglodytes for those men with still enough testosterone to overtly say they're looking for the best looking woman they can get. "It's what's on the inside that counts", or "Beauty is only skin deep" has been the mantra of westernized romaniticism since the Renaissance. And why not? It works in a woman's biological favor to breed with the male gifted with not only the best genes, but also the best ability to provide for her security and that of her offspring. What better social dictum than one that shames him for recognizing his one condition for intimacy while simultaneously giving her the advantage of better selection when she doesn't measure up to what his standards would biologically be. Human beings have many psycho-social practices that have the latent purpose of thwarting our evolved, biological best interests, this is one of them.
Just as a side note here, I should point out that the two most common reasons cited for divorce in western culture are sex and money, and in that order. Men most commonly complain that their wives are no longer in the shape that they were when they met and women generally complain of reasons relating to his ambition and economic status. Every married man I've experienced (including myself) has always expressed feelings that his wife isn't as sexually available - in frequency or intensity (i.e. passion/desire) in comparisson to when they first encountered each other. Generally this is due to her "letting herself go" after marriage or childbirth and she no longer 'feels sexy' so sex becomes less important to her or worse still, it takes the status of becoming another 'household chore' to add to her list. This then becomes a viscious cycle; she's let herself go, sex decreases in importance to her and she makes little attempt to, or has no time to take care of herself physically as she did in her youth when she had a prime motivation to maintain herself in peak physical shape (or as close as she could). Add to this the psycho-social dynamic that stresses that men ought not to be so concerned with the physical or place such importance upon sex and goes as far as to shame him as a 'deviant' if he is unwilling to internalize and accept this. Her lack of desire becomes HIS problem.
He of course feels cheated and goes through the frustrating internal turmoil of dealing with a social dynamic that tells him he's 'bad' for recognizing his wife is no longer the woman he married. This is called the 'bait & switch' marriage. Her sex drive and physical condition is more than acceptable during courtship and pre-marital relations, but after the marriage he feels he got a raw deal and is powerless to even mention that she ought to take better care of herself for fear of driving that psychological wedge between them that the dynamic of 'loving her for what she is and not her physical form' dictates. Essentially he is stripped of his one condition for intimacy while her conditions remain and are even more pronounced in light of the responsibilities he assumes in marriage or an LTR.
How's that for psych 101?
