Thursday 18 April 2013

Frankly, Rhett, I Couldn't Give a Darn What You Own

 No, honestly, it's your paycheque I'm after.
Oooh la la. Hits through the roof for yesterday's post, and almost entirely due to Facebook. However, I see that someone has sent it to Reddit (thank you), so we may even go viral.

Sadly, a Reddit reader entirely missed the point, and printed a little sermon about some study that showed that women find men more attractive the richer they are said to be, a study which he can't find right now. But anyway he says comparing women's attraction to men and men's attraction to women is like comparing apples and oranges, and obviously this Reddit reader was not in the Bloor Street Aveda that day I went in for a therapeutic massage and the masseur turned out to be, not an athletic chick named Ashley, but a six foot tall hottie named Branko. 

"Surely this should not be legal or even socially acceptable" was my thought at the time. "However, it is. La la!"

And you know what? I don't think I was even over thirty at the time. Since everybody and his uncle has been telling me that women are more attracted to men the more money the men make, I developed a theory that this becomes less true the older women get and the more money we make ourselves. But then, how to explain why twelve year old girls are attracted to certain twelve year old boys, and not to others? 

When scientists or "scientists" do sexuality studies entitled "Are Women Really The Money-Grubbing Bee-at-ches We Think They Are?" I hope they are paying attention to what age their subjects are and their economic status. For example, if anyone is going to be thinking about money, it's going to be the undergraduate woman about to be thrown into the scary world of employment, a world from which many of us flee by jumping straight into grad school. Maybe there's an  age-window or circumstances-window at which a woman's subconscious says, "Forget sexy eyebrows. I need food, shelter and a Prada bag." Or maybe not.

I really do not believe a straight line can be drawn between women's sexuality and men's money. Honestly. Really. Truly.  Women may sigh and shelve our personal preferences for reasons of survival or because nobody cares what we want, e.g. Afghan child brides, impoverished Pakistani teenagers, English Lit majors afraid of entry-level employment, but physicality will still dominate those perhaps secret preferences. Poor teenage boys will always be more attractive to teenage girls than rich old men with orange-peel skin, let's face it.

Actually, the people who need to face it are men. Women's sexuality scares the dickens out of many men, and I can well imagine them developing the old "women care only about money" theory, not just to look down on women, but to think money is the answer. After all, it is easier to earn and spend money than it is to look a certain way, or sound a certain way, or even to smell a certain way. It is easier for a frightened man to sulk at home and look at naked women on the internet than it is to go to the gym, or to learn to stop slouching, or to go to the dentist, or join a neighbourhood soccer team, or to put himself in the hands of a competent tailor and say "Fix me." Or to notice that women do indeed notice him, and he just hasn't noticed yet. 

Oh, and another thing. If women's sexuality is soooo bound up in money, explain cougars.

Nota Bene: This post is about sexuality, not relationship. Quite obviously (to women anyway), women are going to be sexually attracted to various men we would never be in a relationship with because we know that, for one reason or another, e.g. differing core values, a language gap, a previous commitment, it just would not work out.

Update: Hey, the Saudis read my blog!

***
Seraphic married a man because he was kind, funny, intelligent and, above all, pretty darned cute. So please pre-order her controversial novel Ceremony of Innocence from Ignatius Press, so she can add more to the family finances.

8 comments:

Lydia Cubbedge said...

What I want to know is why there are no pictures of the handsome Saudis. Perhaps they would be too powerful for my over thirty married eyes. Le sigh.

Alisha said...

Good stuff. I've never been attracted to a man due to status or money: that's the honest to goodness truth. It's usually the opposite. If he has a lot of money, I am turned off: I find it boring...unless he's using it for the good of the artistic community, then I would be less bored. Besides, I'll simply never be able to relate to someone who makes a lot of money and is financially comfortable, nor would I feel they would understand me.
Explain cougars, indeed! Were it not for my Serious Singleness, I might be in danger of being a cougar. So embarassing. But since I am still relatively young, apparently the term is puma :p

Jackie said...

Seraphic, you are awesome.
That is all. :)

Athanasius lover said...

I agree that you can't draw an absolute line between male and female sexuality. I went through a period of time where I was incredibly visually oriented and very distracted by the sight of any well-muscled man. I thought I finally understood what it must be like to be a teenage boy struggling with purity. Fortunately that stage is past, but I still am more visually oriented than I was (Your talk yesterday about hairy, muscled calves reminded me of a particular man whose calves I have long admired!), and I am much more likely to be attracted to a man for his looks than for his money. In fact, I have never been attracted to a rich man, but I have been attracted to several handsome ones.

As far as money goes, I want to marry a man who could support a family, especially if we were to have children, but he doesn't have to be rich. It's far more important to me that he manages his money well than that he has a lot of it.

To give context, because you suggested that age might have something to do with it, I am in my mid-to-late-20s.

Urszula said...

I also think you are awesome :)

While I do think there are many differences between how men and women express/live their sexuality, what bothers me most is men assuming (or hoping?) that women have no issues or struggles in this area, at least not comparable to what they go through in their struggles for 'custody of the eyes'.

I agree that men can 'tempt' women visually just as women can 'tempt' men. And part of the deal for men who make good money is that they dress well (usually), care for themselves, and are often enterprising, energetic, and confident - which for me at least makes them attractive.

Seraphic said...

Urszula, well exactly. And I wish men would make that connection and do the surely-not-so-tough imaginative work of seeing men from women's point of view. (WOMEN'S, not gay men's.)

A man who "makes good money" is INDEED often enterprising, energetic and confident, and it is THOSE qualities that attract women. The snazzy suits (if he belongs to a snazzy suit profession) don't hurt either, in part because good tailoring creates the inverted triangle (wide shoulders, narrower waist) look I talked about earlier. They also make a man stand up straight, or look like he is standing up straight. They also remind us of a thousand handsome models and movie stars.

Sheila said...

I read a study awhile back showing that women were attracted to artists, guitar players, and men with foreign accents. I could have told you that! LOL. The foreign-accents thing is supposedly our instinctive search for very different genetic material so we don't end up marrying our cousin. But maybe it's just that "I love you" sounds really hot in a Spanish accent. "You should get your tires rotated" sounds hot in a Spanish accent.

I'm another who has never, ever in my life been attracted to a rich guy. I don't even want to be rich. I was brought up poor and come from a family that's partly Scots Irish and never lost its Depression-era habits ... I re-use the same piece of plastic wrap half a dozen times and use every dry patch on a paper towel. I rarely buy anything at full price. I would be WASTED on a rich man. He would never truly appreciate my frugality.

truthfinder said...

MSN finally put up pictures of one of those Saudi men...
http://now.msn.com/omar-borkan-al-gala-identified-as-one-of-the-men-deported-for-being-too-handsome