A male friend of mine writes, apropos the “men and sexy” post:
I think your friend is missing something. Men spend just as much time and effort as women do on the kinds of things that they perceive will make them an attractive mate. The difference is, men don’t think that the key to being attractive is being a good flirt or wearing an “in” shirt.
Rather, men tend to believe that the key to attracting women is making lots of money, being powerful, or otherwise being the top dog. Are men less openly self-critical? On balance, probably yes, but that’s true about most things, not just whether they are attractive to the opposite sex.
I think my friend is absolutely right that men do spend a lot of time trying to be financially or professionally successful — on average, more than women, though plenty of women spend plenty of time on that, too — and they do it in part because they know women find it attractive.
But I think Marilyn’s original point, which is that men spend much less time than they should thinking about how else they can make themselves attractive to women, remains correct. Calling the success/money/power angle “the key” is, I think, a mistake, because there isn’t just one key.
Women of my and my friend’s social class, which is to say professional coastal urban women (I’m not saying that other classes are different, only that I can speak with less assurance about them) want it all. They do by and large want men who are successful. But while success is something of a genuine turn-on, it’s much less so to women who meet lots of successful men, and have come to expect it. Those women also want more: A certain kind of behavior, attitude, whatever it is that they see as sexy (still a mystery to me, by the way).
An 18-year-old who wants to eventually date women of the class I describe would indeed be well-advised to go to college, prepare to get a great job, and to be a success. But when he’s a 30-year-old practicing lawyer, even a successful one, he will generally be competing against others just like him.
He could invest effort into becoming much more successful than his peers — but that’s not easy, because he really would need to be much more successful. (The diminishing marginal utility of money applies also to a mate’s money.) He’s actually likely to get a much better return by investing effort into improving his social skills, changing some of his habits and attitudes, working on that side of male sexiness rather than just the power side. What’s more, even the 18-year-old might find it worthwhile to invest some of his effort that way; after all, he wants women now and not just in the future, and social polishing yields more immediate dividends than professional advancement.
And men’s underinvestment in this social self-polishing is what Marilyn was pointing to. Why men underinvest this way is a fascinating question. But it seems to me that she’s right that they do indeed by and large underinvest.
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