The Science Of Sex and Romance

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Gender instincts bubble up and boil over into our higher brain faculties, clouding our judgment on sex and romance.

Why do good people, smart people, choose lousy lovers? The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves. Our instincts often overwhelm our higher brain faculties. We see this phenomenon everyday at work, on the way to work, in the way we vote, in our purchasing decisions, in our religious practices, and in our social lives. And yet there are two distinct sets of gut-level responses to everyday threats: male; and female.

Have you ever heard people talk about how differently men and women think? And then you talk to someone else, and they insist that male-female minds are the same but their bodies are different?

Well, here’s the deal. In our higher brain faculties, men and women are the same. We all have the capacity to love and compete over resources; to form political, social, and religious values; and to make decisions based on rational thought. But deep down, in our gender instincts, men and women are very different.

Different How?

Evolutionary Psychology is a very broad category, essentially referring to the study of human impulses; based, of course, on Darwin’s theory of natural selection. I use it to explain the differences between male and female gender instincts.

Men, for instance, are genetically programmed to value a woman’s physical appearance more than women do a man’s. And women value a man’s social status more than men do a woman’s.

Men and women are also very much the same in that each set of gender instincts — as different as they are — overwhelms each sex’s higher brain faculties. Because of this boiling over effect — this spontaneous eruption of our innermost fears and desires — smart men and women fall for bimbos and bad boys; or they miss promising opportunities altogether.

I dealt with this phenomenon all the time in my dating coaching days. By far, the biggest issue with my male clients was approach anxiety. Most men are instinctively fearful of initiating flirtatious encounters with attractive women. This is so because, for many thousands of years, only the most dominant men had access to the majority of attractive women. And, in some ways, this still applies today. But in those days, a man could easily lose his life for getting involved with one of the king’s wives or concubines.

The primary issue for my female clients was teaching them to discern, quickly, which attractive men were worth pursuing and which ones were bad news. And this was simply a matter of asking the right questions. Women are instinctively driven to bad boys. But there are good-bad boys and bad-bad boys. And many women have trouble distinguishing between the two.

Wait . . . What Questions? . . . Don’t Leave Me!

Don’t worry. It is possible to find partners with whom you have both a gut-level attraction, as well as intellectual and spiritual compatibility. The goal, of course, is reconciling your heart with your brain.

Ladies, I know you’re wondering, What questions? What exactly do you mean by good-bad boys and bad-bad boys? Well, I call this method of distinguishing between the two The Bad Boy Meter. And it’s the topic of conversation on one of our SRP Radio Podcast segments. In fact, the discussion gets quite heated between me and one of our View From Below reporters, the Queen Of Uncommon Sense, Kissonia Marvel. You could say that the argument itself exemplifies how men and women just plain ole don’t get each other.

Scratch ball end article

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1 Response

  1. Guadalupe Esposito says:

    More people should read this. I know so many girl make horrible decisions with men. OMG

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