According to a new study, the Chinese Family Life Survey, women are sexually aroused to the sweet, sweet, stink of money.
I don't know why this surprises me. It is the excuse I used for being dateless my freshman year of college. Surely I'm not the only guy here who used to reason to his friends back in the day that "she must be stuck up," or "she only wants him 'cause his dad bought him a Mustang 5.0 (we didn't aim high where cars are concerned)," or "she got ticked off when I asked her to get out and push my car, while I steered and popped the clutch so we could get it started again."
Maybe I am the only one.
Anyway, the study says that intimate relations with rich men leave women more satisfied than intimate relations with broke guys. There is a possibility, the study says that women who are prone to frequent satisfaction may seek out guys with fat wallets.
Hardly seems fair to the good-hearted guy who bags groceries for a living.
Ladies - at least those of you who've dated a wide range of salariess - is this true?
I think I can say for all men, tsk tsk, especially since the study also suggests that men are less likely to be swayed in the bedroom by their female partner's assets. What?
Rich men may be more attractive, but better lovers? I don't think so. Having said that, I have just cast my memory back over the myriad of lovers I have had and, oops. High earning guy was the best (he wasn't rich in net assets though since he spent every cent he earned). Coincidence, I swear. And, we were in love. :)
And, as for men not finding rich women better lovers, that's hardly surprising. They go for the physical assets first. Make more money than a guy or show real evidence of success and you have performance anxiety rather than anxiousness to perform - generally speaking, of course. There are wonderfully evolved guys out there who are not primary swayed by surface attraction (although I fear they are not in the majority) and there are guys who seek out sugar mommies. But studies like this tend to deal in generalities, no?
Posted by: Anonymous | January 21, 2009 at 05:32 PM
File under "I can't believe they needed to spend the money to study this". Money is the ultimate power. All animals are attracted to the animal with the most power.
Posted by: Alex | January 21, 2009 at 08:33 PM
Anonymous, this particular study is based on results from a very thorough survey of hundreds of men and women in China and the very specific answers they gave to what got their rocks off.
This may be the chauvenist in me, but I've never been intimidated by women who make more money than me. But I have (in the past, but no more) been intimidated by women who were more knowledgeable than me. But that was more than 15 years ago when I was still learning my way around women.
Alex, I agree that money is the ultimate power so that draws the most attraction. However, this study wasn't directly about power it was about what in men caused the women in the study to have the most orgasms and most intense orgasms. And, it seems, the common denominator among a significant portion of the women in the study was that they found themselves achieving "satisfaction" more often and more intensly when their male partners were wealthy.
Posted by: James B. | January 21, 2009 at 08:40 PM
The article also states, "women are more influenced by the social status, intelligence, quick wits and success of a partner than men are".
Rich men may already have the social status, intelligence, quick wits and success that women seek to father their child. If you could look at the data, you'd probably find that the women rated their lovers high on most of those traits - not just on wealth.
Posted by: ɔıuʎɔıʇsɐɔɹɐs ǝɥʇ | January 21, 2009 at 08:42 PM
Sarc, I don't disagree. But the article highlighted the money factor, based on the study's author citing it (the wealth) as the most stand out element of the study.
Posted by: James B. | January 21, 2009 at 08:45 PM
If a woman has a lot of stress (like worrying about paying the bills), then sex is less satisfying. Simply because she is stressed.
More money, less stress. obvious reason to enjoy sex more. d'oh.
Posted by: Pamela | January 21, 2009 at 10:01 PM
I'm sure if a group of scientists were to strap a few electrodes to a female chimpanzee, they'll find out that she has the most intense orgasms with the alpha chimp. Mind over matter.
Posted by: Alex | January 22, 2009 at 01:01 AM
I believe it. They're more "open" to that type of man.
Posted by: M@ | January 23, 2009 at 01:24 PM
I find it perfectly valid research in a long history of such research going back decades to Kinsey and before. Sociologists used to call the marriage relationship the sex-support relationship before World War 2. That started to change with the availability of the birth control pill and Women's Liberation.
Then, Masters and Johnson published their book on their research on Sex in the early 70's and it became a best seller. Since it was a research review, I doubt many people actually read it as it was 1500 pages long.
Research has shown cultural differences between American and European men and women. As for freshmen men having problems dating, women mature faster at that age and are looking for older men. Senior women tend to feel out of luck if they haven't found someone. Sophomore men have the entire freshman class of women to choose from.
Last, women are still the chosen ones who give birth and nurture children. They are generally born with the 'mothering' instinct, so I'd assume they would look for a good provider in a partner. Rich is an easy substitute, but not always a good one.
It is much easier doing single variable (rich) research on humans than multivariate (rich, handsome, nice person) because humans can't cleanly separate those notions. That day will come when the research tools improve.
I hope this helps a little.
Posted by: The CEO | January 25, 2009 at 01:31 AM