Maybe Males Need...

Maybe males need to brush up on their science...well, most males. An interesting article from www.cracked.com today is titled "6 Things Men Do To Get Laid That Science Says Turn Women Off". The title gives a very brief summary as to what the article is about.

I will note, however, that I recognize that this website is a humor website. Having said that, the authors tend to do their research. Through this, and other similar articles, they link to their sources, many of which are news stories about these studies, some are directly linked to the study themselves.

Here are the 6 things that Men do:
6: Talking To Her
5: Acting Interested
4: Dancing
3: Complimenting Her Looks
2: Being Nice
1: Having the Wrong Name

There are a lot of interesting points made in this article and even this list.

A basic summary of each portion:

6: Talking to Her - Basically, the article and the source says that the more attractive a woman is, the male becomes less intelligent, at least in that moment and shortly after. Science attributes this to the fact that females are generally less interested in looks, whereas males are "reproductively focused". This basically means that men are in it to have sex with an attractive female, so they are unable to think as clearly while alone.
5: Acting Interested - This portion says that women enjoy to be ignored. Well, not in those words. Essentially, it's the whole "you want what you can't have" idea, but this one is more of a "you want what doesn't want you". What's really interesting about this section is that the dating site, OkCupid did a study and realized that men who had profile pictures of themselves were contacted 50% more often if the profile picture was of them NOT looking directly at the camera.
4: Dancing - If you're a good dancer, you're more likely to get a woman according to this study. This idea behind this is that subconsciously, a good dancer, to a woman, shows signs of being a good mating partner. The idea is that a good dancer will have high levels of testosterone.
3: Complimenting Her Looks - This one states that men were rejected more often if they used words like beautiful, glamorous, gorgeous, and other similar words. What did work, was acting interested, not in her, but in her hobbies and pastime activities.
2: Being Nice - Guys, if you want a girl, be the bad guy, at least according to this study. There are three areas that attract a girl to the "bad boy" idea (the study called this the Dark Traid)
- Exploitation
- Callous Behavior
- Self-Obsession
However, the study also notes that while women are inherently attracted to the bad boy, the bad boy also tends to make bade life partners. So...score one for us good guys!
1: Having the Wrong Name - If you're a male, and your name is Michale, James, or David, you can consider yourself lucky. Those three names are the luckiest, most successful, and wealthiest names for men. "Apparently, your first name can drastically influence how successful you are and, yes, even how attractive people think you are."

The best part about reading this article is realizing just how men act. Even at the local bars, college students do these things all of the time. They might as well carry a checklist with the 6 on a card...after an hour, they could probably withdraw themselves from any of the categories; and, if the article is 100% correct, withdraw themselves from any potential sexual encounter that night.

Teeny Weeny Condoms

Yet again, Feministing has supplied me with a wonderful blog topic. A Switzerland-based company is manufacturing small condoms targeted at boys from 12-14 years of age. This couldn't have come at a better time, since this next weeks discussion topic is sexuality.

I have mixed feelings on this issue.

I feel that it is important that boys this young who choose to have sex have the option of condoms that fit them and will work properly for their size.

However, I also feel that doing this encourages sex at that age. Perhaps it is hypocritical of me to say that while I would not encourage sex at that age, I find it interesting that people that young are engaging in sex and exploring their sexuality.

This article notes that the age of consent for Switzerland is 16; however, it also notes that "sex between minors is perfectly legal as long as they are not more than three years apart in age". I think that this is a very interesting law, one that America should consider adopting. I think that the laws need to change with the times; and time are changing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I want to have sex with a minor, but I feel that at age 16, I was informed enough about sex to consent.

Also, I heard that last year at my middle school a party was busted at a house of a student. What was going on? Sex, drugs, and alcohol! This is MIDDLE school, and they got busted for a sex party (along with drugs and alcohol). I also heard of (from my school) an incident where a boyfriend was caught receiving a blowjob from his girlfriend in the woods next to our school! As I said earlier, I encourage people to explore their sexuality, but not at school!

Even reading this post, I'm sure I sound very conflicted on the subject. My writing is kind of all over the place. But this is what happens after a weekend of relatively little sleep, or at least late nights.

Booty Booty Booty Booty Rockin' Everywhere

So one of the sites that I frequent is called Cracked.com. This site, updated daily, is a humor site. Every day there are three new articles or videos, or a combination of the two. One of the relatively recent articles (December 31st, 2009).

The author of the article, "Seanbaby", looks at popular songs of the recent years (more specifically hip-hop songs) and has a mathematical formula (somewhat simple, with interesting stipulations) to determine the amount of booty in each song.

The rules for his interpretation are as followed (As found on this article's page)

Booty Per Second Booty Rules
1. The song has to be serious. It’s OK if it seems silly to you, but the artists who wrote and performed the song had to be completely sincere about wanting your ass to shake or be placed on his or her mouth.
2. All synonyms for booty such as rump or junk are acceptable. This is obviously a bit clouded by metaphoric interpretation, so all results should be considered to have a variation of ± .05 Booty Per Second.
3. Always brake for monster booty.
4. The word “it” does not count, even if “it” is clearly referring to a butt. For example, in the Backstreet Boys’ hit, “I Want It That Way.” Or in the end of this sentence: Ha ha suck it, Backstreet Boys.

Now personally, I find this whole website hilarious at many times, despite their seemingly overt heterosexism and sexism. While I would never argue that this site is NOT either, at most times, it is (depending on the author) done tastefully. (Side note: I will say that not all of the authors of the site come off this way, for there are some articles and authors that show great support for feminism and the LGBTQ movement, back to the blog).

The number 1 "winning" song is:

"The Booty Call" by Bass-n-Effect coming it at a whopping .45 Bootys per second!

So what exactly does this mean? It seems to mean that society (or at least Hip-Hop) is absolutely obsessed with the female butt. Part of this, I feel, relates directly to the amount of African-American artists in that group. Almost all of the artists listed there (group artists) are exclusively African-American. The exception is the Black Eyed Peas, but even that is primarily African-American.

This most likely stems from the hyper-masculinity that has arisen in the African-American community. From early in the U.S. History (dated back to colonization and slavery), Africans (and even now to a point African-Americans) are seen as hyper-sexual beings. Apparently, any man (or any race, ethnicity, or national origin) should strive to get "booty" (in all meanings of the word), but more specifically, female booty. Hah! As if that was the case...

Aside from my fair amount of research into this topic (I wrote a paper last semester on the hyper-sexuality of the African-American community), I see this just about every day living in the Residence Halls here on campus or even going to class. There is this notion (that goes beyond the African-American community) that all men should be doing is having sex with women. Just listen in on any given conversation between two "men" (I put that in quotes for very specific reasons, take a guess?) and see how often they are talking about women. You may find the results rather interesting.