Regarding J.P. Rushton's argument that we assortatively mate with those most like us genetically, I want to suggest a distinction that might help us better understand mating patterns. While people do indeed tend to marry people who are similar to them on a number of traits, people do not want to marry people who are exactly like them.
Most obviously, they want someone of the opposite sex, with all those highly opposite physical and mental sexual secondary characteristics. Even homosexuals show this tendency: judging from Personal Ads, most gay men want a man who is more masculine than themselves, and most lesbians want a woman who is more feminine.
Thus, it's useful to distinguish between social attraction (which urges us toward mating with those like ourselves) and sexual attraction (which urges us toward mating with those not like ourselves). Social attraction is when your family owns a chain of supermarkets in Ohio and your beloved's family owns a chain of supermarkets in Pennsylvania; you both "summer" in Maine; have mutual friends, etc. What would make more sense than for you two to get marriage?
Of course, sexual attraction does not always align with social attraction. One of the most common storylines in movies is this: the blonde debutante gets engaged to the blonde fraternity president, but then she falls hard for the tall, dark, and handsome boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Why have I seen a hundred movies with this basic plot? Why in roughly 90-95% of the sex scenes in big budget Hollywood movies is the man darker than the woman? (One reason, among many, that I so anticipated the great Ron Shelton's "White Men Can't Jump" is that I wanted to see how Hollywood handled a love scene between brown-skinned Rosie Perez and The Whitest Man in Hollywood, Woody Harrelson. Would they break the pattern and have a man who was lighter colored than his woman? Well, with enough beige lighting and body makeup, they made both come out an even butterscotch color, so the streak continued.)
Peter Frost has explained why this is so. All else being equal, women really are fairer than men. This was extremely obvious in monoethnic societies, although in modern America few people consciously notice this because of the wide racial variations in coloring. But we unconsciously notice this.
That's why Hollywood likes its women blonde and its men tall, dark and handsome. And it's not just Hollywood. Try watching Mexican TV. It's wall to wall blonde babes. The only time you see Mexican-looking girls is in commercials made by American firms like Busch and Miller.
Peter also argues that it's also likely that women from icy climes are sexually selected more for sex appeal because wives are very expensive in regions where hunting husbands have to feed them over the winter. Conversely, West African males like Michael Jordan have become icons of masculinity possibly because in climates where women can feed their families, husbands are expensive and need to earn their dinner by looking sexy.
Thus, we see patterns in interracial marriage that can't be explained by traditional assortative mating theory. Since African-American women tend to be more middle-class than African-American men (e.g., 80% more black women than black men in grad schools), assortative mating theory should predict that there should be more white husband-black wife marriages. But, of course, in 1990 there were 2.5 times more black husband-white wife marriages. Why? Because social attraction (homogeneity) and sexual attractions (heterogeneity) are frequently opposed.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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50 comments:
A very nice (and classic) example of disassortative mating (the correct term) is when looking at the evolution of MHC variability.
Are you saying that women can't be sexually attracted to blond-haired men?
A very nice (and classic) example of disassortative mating (the correct term) is when looking at the evolution of MHC variability
But this wouldn't explain interracial marriages since members of the same racial and ethnic groups can have significant variations in MHC.
Related research from three years ago:
Women marry men who look like dad
Extract:
The research shows that women use their dads as a template for picking a mate by a process called "sexual imprinting", says Tamas Bereczkei at the University of Pécs in Hungary and colleagues.
Husbands and wives have long been suggested to look alike and this is known to occur in many animal species. Couples that look like each other are also more likely to share common genes, and having a degree of similarity is believed to beneficial.
This might explain the study's findings, suggests Glenn Weisfeld, one of the research team and a human ethologist at Wayne State University, Detroit, US "There seems to be an advantage for animals to select a mate somewhat similar to themselves genetically," he told New Scientist.
"One good possibility is that there are some fortuitous genetic combinations which are retained in the offspring if both parents are similar," he says. "In humans there is evidence to show a lower rate of miscarriage."
Men look for good looks first women look for ability to provide. This leads to disassortative mating.
It used to be said there is nothing more useless than having good looking sons and intelligent daughters. This is of course hyperbole but there is some truth to it ad this leads to Hispanic girls with anglo men.
why can't we just admit that black women are generally not attractive and not smart?
you don't need science, you don't need an elegant theory and you don't need to come up with any non-obvious explanation. only black men are trying to date black women.
this has to be one of the most frustrating parts of race science to me. the absolute inability to acknowledge simple things like this and not stuff every single thing into a system. men don't want black women, they don't look good, it's really that simple.
Why can't jody just admit he/she has nothing to contribute to any discussion beyond his hangups with blacks? It would be one thing if you cited some data and compared some explanatory theories as Sailer does here, and the Inductivist and the folks at Gene Expression do, but all you ever seem to say is "Hurr, black people suck". The first time you do it we all learn that jody does not like black people. The next time, we see that jody does not like black people, but we already knew that. I think we can remember that well enough without you having to remind us over and over.
"This is of course hyperbole but there is some truth to it ad this leads to Hispanic girls with anglo men."
From what i've read, the number of white female-hispanic male couples and white male-hispanic female couples are about the same. Steve sailer said as much in an article before.
It would be one thing if you cited some data and compared some explanatory theories as Sailer does here, and the Inductivist and the folks at Gene Expression do, but all you ever seem to say is "Hurr, black people suck".
But doesn't the fact that black men seem to prefer white women (and black women with straight hair, light skin and European facial features) to black women with a traditional African appearance prove Jody's point?
jody, what you said about the unattractiveness of black females to non-black males is generally true. Harsh but true.
In fact it is increasingly true of black male preferences as well now that they have more freedom to act on their preferences.
But underneath dark to light coloration I think there needs to be a focus on hormones and other masculine traits. The increasing White female preference for black males is not only about dark color.
I don't know if any such study has been done, but I'd wager that marriages between black men and white women tend to be more common among lower class white women. I suppose that's related to assortative mating, and that's been my observation.
In a world where economic obligations to mothers and children are heavily enforced, the consequences of a relationship gone bad are far more dire than ever they were before. As a result men are particularly more picky about who they'll date and/or marry.
As for the Hollywood preference for dark men/white women, I wonder if that also has something to do with the ethnic makeup of Hollywood. Hollywood is disproportionately run by men who fit into the "dark" ethnic category - Jews and other Mediterranean/East European ethnic groups. The matchup of dark-toned girl/fair-skinned girl is more appealing.
And is darker skin color for men genetic, or is it more a result of the fact that men are more likely to have outdoor jobs and engage in outdoor activities more than women?
Wouldn't mating with somebody exactly like oneself be i)anatomically implausible and ii)incest?
Steve Sailer,
I have read you for a good while. However, I always had a slightly different take on attraction of females by males. Its ugly too, here goes:
First paragraph that will make the rest obvious:
Ethiopic men are much much much less of a hit with the ladies than west African men, despite the fact that they earn more, are less volatile, and generally quite polite. Blonde men generally have evolved in northern Europe, where many males have elegant "swimmers" builds.
I have always noticed that if a man has an at least "regular" face (no third eye or anything) and "acceptable" hair (not halfway bald by the time he is 21 or something), sheer physical bone structure accounts for a LARGE part of his attractiveness to women.
Dorky guys with mesamorphic frames that are six foot three can be seen with good looking women even if they have a pot belly, relatively skinny legs, and average looks.
"Pretty" men who are five-ten with lean, "swimmers" bodys and six-pack abs can be almost fantastically ignored by the same females, even with whats regarded as very nice faces and hair.
"Big" guys, ones with meso-ectomorphic bodies, EVEN WITH TATTOOS everywhere, a buzzed haircut, an earring, a lousy job, VERY AVERAGE looks (reminiscent of cave men with flat foreheads and too-large jaws and eyes set too deep) with big forearms and shoulder muscles can be seen with mega-babes. It doesn't matter if they are stupid, it doesn't matter if they are ugly. It DOES NOT MATTER IF THEY ARE BLONDE either.
Its that large bone structure, vastly aided by height, that reels in the babes for them. Its much like a "bubble" ass and D-cup breasts reel in "the hot guys" for barbie-doll-stupid-peroxide-blondes-with-large-pores that well-read, freshly scrubbed, university women complain about.
Large shoulders, and barrel chests must also "do something" to women, regardless of a soft or portruding belly. Like I have stated earlier, the guy can be kinda goofy-looking and stupid, but he will always be able to find a pretty woman, if he is just employed "somewhere".
Obviously I think bone structure is HUGE in determining in how attractive a male is to a female. To be 6'2 and built up to 230 from a 210 lb. frame is a gigantic advantage from being 5-11 and built up to 210 from a 170 pound frame IN PERSON. On the internet, where one can take pictures of themselves at the beach and attatch them to personals profiles........the smaller guy (if really cut up and with a six pack) can do well in my experience at "getting" lots of dates. However, in person........a female will usually favor the larger guy even if he has more body fat, isn't "cultured", is historically rather ignorant, relatively poorly-spoken, and uniformed politically, and does not make as much money.
I think there is something very primal about all of this, and females are just attracted to larger males not because of some evolutionary psychological holdover, but pure animal lust. Just like us guys (admit it Steve) do really think those old Britney Spears videos show a hot sexy babe (no matter how disgusting a human being we find her to be), men who are over six foot tall and built like wrestlers and football players unearth primal sexual passions in females.
THIS STEVE, is why I think you see lots of men pump themselves up in gyms and with home fitness equipment. They are simply trying to make themselves appear LARGER than their bone structure (i.e. they are!), because they see women interested in the larger men and want to get larger themselves. Its more than an issue of height, tall skinny guys dont do nearly as well as thicker men, even with thirty pounds of flab around their mid-section. There is a certain "kind" of woman I have always noticed that always goes for the biggest guy that she can find. I know one that is five-four, curvy, and cute. Ive never known her to date a man who wanst AT LEAST six-two (and a couple have been six five) and all well over 220 pounds (heaviest being about 260). She is smart, and every one of the guys that we have met she has introduced us to is "doltish"---read, (seemed stupid). But Im not to be construed as bemoaning this phenomena myself, I think its natural. Its a woman's choice to gravitate to what she privately desires. However, women should not complain when they find men chasing a 29 year old waitress with no college background with an hourglass figure and a (sorry Nelson DeMille) "nordic track" ass either. Its just nature.
"I think there is something very primal about all of this, and females are just attracted to larger males not because of some evolutionary psychological holdover, but pure animal lust."
Evolutionary psychological holdovers often manifest themselves as pure animal lust. This isn't a one-or-the-other proposition.
I am not black, but I do find black women very attractive and sexy, especially the light-skinned women. Nothing effectively improves the appearance a flaccid butt, straw haired lipless white (often scot-irish) woman than a few drops of African, e.g. Beyonce Knowles, Haile Berry, etc. They may not always be the fruit of the mutual attraction between lower class black men and fat blond white women, but the phenomenon is at least improving the looks of the poor in this country.
"Are you saying that women can't be sexually attracted to blond-haired men?"
Blond men look slightly more effeminate, all else being equal. I think that's equated with them being better for less individualistic, more social-calculating slimy roles in Hollywood. (Femininity typically associated with being less individualistic and more compromise-oriented socially.)
Totally anecdotal, but I remember high school conversations with other girls, and they also tended to prefer brown hair for guys. It wasn't a racial thing, the friends I remember gossiping with about this were white middle-class suburban mid-westerners, with hair color from red to blond to brown, all of whom tended to prefer white guys.
It also isn't a total thing, if the guy is a little hotter in some other way (height, say) that will typically make up for it. I'd like to see a survey on this, though; this is just cafeteria talk I'm reporting.
Still, I think there's a reason Elvis' manager had him dye his hair black.
It is the flipside to sexual selection. Blond women look sexier because their coloring makes them look younger and more fertile, not that it *actually* means they are younger and more fertile. Blond men look less sexy because their coloring makes them look more immature and effeminate, not that it *actually* means they are more immature and more effeminate.
Blond women look sexier because their coloring makes them look younger and more fertile, not that it *actually* means they are younger and more fertile. Blond men look less sexy because their coloring makes them look more immature and effeminate, not that it *actually* means they are more immature and more effeminate.
Children often have very light hair that darkens as they get older. That may be part of the reason why blond(e)* hair is associated with a youthful appearance, which as you point out is good for a woman but not always so good for a man.
* = not to be pendantic or anything, but males are blond while females are blonde.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
This is getting ridiculous folks.....
PICTURE OF HOLLYWOOD'S BIGGEST STAR:
http://www.nonsologossip.com/gossip_img/brad_pitt_01.jpg
PICTURE OF YOUTH MAGAZINE'S MOST PHOTOGRAPHED YOUNG MALE STAR.....
http://www.sarjaopas.com/kuvat/nayttelijat/Jensen_Ackles.jpg
another....http://www.thekryptonian.com/images/bios/smallville/jason.jpg
Pic of FOX's new "star" of a desperately stupid show called Prisonbreak that garners good ratings from young women, mostly to look at this guy............
http://www.prisonbreak-online.com/gallery/albums/season1press/magazines/tvguideouttakes/wentworth-miller-photos10.jpeg
PICK OF ALL-TIME GREATEST COLLECTOR OF GROUPIES AND ROCK GOD...........
http://www.fotobaron.com/music/ledzeppelin/largeimages/plant1.gif
They are all blonde men (with Wentworth Miller having dishwater blonde looking hair).
I stick to my original point. PRIMAL things rule attraction between the sexes. A large frame with a thin waist on a tall man with a good jawline, even features, good skin, good hairline usually "gets the girl" whether he have brown hair, blonde hair, be hispanic or other.
Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt have nice physiques, square-boned faces, clear eyes, and nice hair going for them........hence they are sex symbols.
Beyonce Knowles and Cindy Crawford (in her prime), and Salma Hayek, and Alita Valli, and Kim Novak, and Grace Kelley, and Erin Grey in the second season of Buck Rogers all have similar things in common and I dont think I need to list them.
"Because social attraction (homogeneity) and sexual attractions (heterogeneity) are frequently opposed."
I'm wondering if there is a component of sexual attraction that is hardwired to find something like oneself.
This would be different from the social attraction involved in finding someone whose parents also run a grocery chain and summer in Maine.
And it could perhaps fit in with other components of sexual attraction:
For example, say I've got a hard-wired drive to find a guy that seems to have a similar (but not too similar) genetic background to me, all the better to avoid disrupting the complex set of genes whose interactions create the emergent systems that make me and my extended family oh-so-cool. Looks can be a useful guide for finding such a guy.
Say that at the same time, I'm hard-wired to avoid a guy that too light, and especially that looks as pale as me, as that would indicate he's not manly or mature enough to bring me bison in the winter. Or protect me from the nasty folks across the river who like to steal women from our camp at night. Or what other historical evolutionary pressures have you.
The two pressures might tend to, on average, for most people but not all, all else being equal, push me (or women in general) to go for men somewhat darker than I am (or, than they are), but not very much, and men to go for women somewhat lighter than they are, but not very much. (By "push" I mean by causing one to find certain folks "hotter", at a gut level, than others.)
I'm not sure this is the case, and your data from Mexico does seem to go against it. Still, I'd have to see more evidence than just the Mexico example to totally toss this possiblity out the window.
Even the Mexico (and similar) examples may be a matter of interfering factors, such as the novelty, status, or noticability of women with light coloring. They don't necessarily show that there isn't a "like me" attractivness component we're born with along with the "pale women/dark men" component. They just show that it can be overridden by other factors.
Main point being that I'm not convinced that you can divide social and sexual attraction neatly, and then link developmental factors cleanly to social attraction and hard-wired factors cleanly to sexual attraction, and then relate group similarity indicators to social selection and femininity/masculinity indicators to sexual attraction so neatly. I'm guessing there's a lot of messy crossover between these various factors, such as (perhaps) hard-wiring being geared to pick up on group similarity indicators.
Which racial groups have the best-looking women?
After 35 years of study, I've come to the conclusion found in the last paragraph of most scientific papers:
"More research is necessary!"
Like so many here I have only my impressions, so I'm not embarrassed to comment.
My impression is that in the US it is an advantage for a male to be blond.
As to a reason. In the US blondes, especially blond men (because they don't dye their hair as much as women do) are rare. It is an advantage to stand out, just as blacks (Othello) do well when they are very rare. Women come around to check you out ... so at least you get a chance.
Other anonymous:
I don't mean to contradict your main point. I agree that how big and tall a guy is makes a MUCH MUCH larger difference than his coloring.
However, I maintain that on average, brown-haired men have an edge, and it is linked to the youth/femininity indicated by light coloring.
This probably isn't noticible at most points of life, but when you're looking at the movie and TV industry, which take a miniscule proportion of the population and largely has their pick, it starts making a more noticable, though not necessarily total, difference.
(Similarly, it is also noticable when you've got a bunch of high school or college gals nit-picking about their ideals while chatting, but knowing full well that in real life they'll make trade-offs for more desirable things. It might therefore show up in a careful study as well.)
Taking your claims one by one:
1. I don't think that Hollywood's biggest male star is Brad Pitt.
Tom Hanks and George Clooney and Johnny Depp seem to be bigger stars. Brad Pitt is getting lots of tabloid attention because of his personal life, but that isn't the same thing.
I want stats on how much money they make per movie and per year before believing Brad Pitt is the biggest star.
And also, in that picture, Pitt has medium brown hair with frosted tips. Pitt's hair color changes in films, but averages medium brown by my estimation.
2. The Youth Mag stars are tanned men with light-to-medium brown hair and light highlights.
I grant you the youth stars, but youth stars, like DiCaprio, back my point. The 12-13 year old girls buying teeny-bopper mags want a guy that looks much younger and less threatening than the sort of guy a 17 year old girl wants.
3. Fox TV star.
Has close-shaved but apparently medium or dark brown hair.
4. Again, the rock god in the picture has light-to-medium brown hair.
I'd have guessed Elvis and the Beatles as bigger rock gods. Maybe Mick Jagger in there too. Elvis' hair: dyed black. McCartney and Lennon: light to medium brown. Jagger: dark brown.
Kurt Cobain was blond.
Eddie Vetter: medium brown.
Timberlake: I'm not sure.
Bono: dark brown.
Country stars would be interesting to look at. They're taller on average, so the male attractiveness seems to be more of a factor. If they tend to make it big while blond, they'd be good evidence for your case.
It seems actually pretty hard to find a really blond Hollywood guy. I really liked to guy from Princess Bride (Carey Elwis, I think), and he was very blond (and a protagonist in that movie), but he isn't a huge name.
"Beyonce Knowles and Cindy Crawford (in her prime), and Salma Hayek, and Alita Valli, and Kim Novak, and Grace Kelley, and Erin Grey in the second season of Buck Rogers all have similar things in common and I dont think I need to list them."
Yes, but the number of really dark black A list leading ladies looks about as low as the number of platinum blond A list leading men.
Again, I'm not saying coloring is a total make-or-break factor, but it does appear to be an active one.
One interesting thing is that height isn't very important in a leading man these days. Tom Cruise made three movies with Nicole Kidman, who towers over him. The era of tall stars like John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, and Gary Cooper is long gone. These days, Hollywood likes ENERGY in a star, which little guys like Tom Cruise tend to have more of. (Of course, as in Tom's case, they can be prone to too much energy and wind up jumping the couch.)
"Thus, we see patterns in interracial marriage that can't be explained by traditional assortative mating theory. Since African-American women tend to be more middle-class than African-American men (e.g., 80% more black women than black men in grad schools), assortative mating theory should predict that there should be more white husband-black wife marriages."
This assumes white men are attracted to black women, which typically they are not.
"Social exchange theory" is what you should be looking at here. Studies of black male-white female couples have shown that the male is on average better educated and better looking than the female.
An ugly white woman can choose a white man who will accept her (typically of similar attractiveness) or a more attractive (relative to her) black man. The fact that the vast majority of white women choose the former should tell you that assortative mating remains very relevant and that the lust you imagine white women have for black men either doesn't exist or is very well controlled.
Attractive white men gain nothing by marrying black women. Even unattractive white men rarely mate with black women, choosing white or asian women instead.
"One of the most common storylines in movies is this: the blonde debutante gets engaged to the blonde fraternity president, but then she falls hard for the tall, dark, and handsome boy from the wrong side of the tracks."
It is?
"Why have I seen a hundred movies with this basic plot?"
Care to list them?
Hollywood isn't real life. Hollywood movies aren't produced by a representative sample of Americans and do not necessarily represent the tastes or values of typical Americans.
Anyway, as has already been mentioned, blond men are rare. My guess is that the proportion of white women attracted to blond men is as large or larger than the proportion of white men who are blond. I've seen surveys indicating that on average, women prefer men with brown hair, but, then, the average man has brown hair, and some women preferred men with blond hair. If Sailer wants to give facts a chance to interfere with his theory, perhaps he should look up the relevant studies instead of spouting uninformed opinion.
As far as I know, Peter Frost is most concerned with skin color. White men have darker skin than white women on average. The vast majority of white men who are active outdoors fall within a range of skin color most white women find pleasing. One cannot infer that white women prefer black men because their skin is darker. If Sailer disagrees, I'd like him to produce evidence.
"Peter also argues that it's also likely that women from icy climes are sexually selected more for sex appeal because wives are very expensive in regions where hunting husbands have to feed them over the winter. Conversely, West African males like Michael Jordan have become icons of masculinity possibly because in climates where women can feed their families, husbands are expensive and need to earn their dinner by looking sexy."
Nice theory, and I don't entirely disagree with it.
One thing though: which element of the northern European environment caused white women to evolve to be attracted to sub-Saharans living thousands of miles away and adapted to a totally different environment?
I think, that like all too many nerdy and effeminate sports writers, you are in physical awe of black men. This doesn't mean white women are.
"Proving" that white women are sexually attracted to black men by differential interracial marriage rates is begging the question. Women can only choose among men who are interested in them. White men are not lining up to marry black women.
Nor are most marriages founded purely on sexual lust.
Agree with anonymous and anonymous. Hollywood has its own biased tastes. Why do some Jewish women hate blondes? Because some Woody Allen types erect temples of lust to them, many times on celluloid.
Hollywood male beauty also has a whole gay male asthetic injecting its preferences (for men and for women).
There's also the whole drama school bias. Is it the popular football players that hang out in Drama Club? Not in my experience.
Hollywood nepotism is also in the mix.
Outside of Hollywood, the whole height/build thing works pretty well for men. Lots of super hot sexpot women like tall guys who show them who's boss. Women can smell insecure guys who try to hard to be pretty from a mile away, and they hate it (because it reminds them of themselves).
Whether guys get bone for them or not, Black women are very dominant, which men of all races avoid. I doubt it's all about looks (average looking white chicks get guys all the time). Blacks are also scary in general to everyone else. (Kind of like a cute baby bear in the woods: it's very cute, but you know a big, angry Mama Bear is close by). Getting shot or beaten up can be a big turn-off.
Overall, the biggest aphrodisiac when it comes to marriage is social acceptability. It even trumps hotness.
Rosario Dawson and Edward Norton have a bathtub scene in 25th Hour (not exactly maintstream Hollywood or a sex scene, true) in which the girl is darker.
Also, if men are more acutely sensitive to status issues, and black is a peg below white, then black men (white seeking) and white females (indifferent) would possibly form more couples than white men (black avoiding) and black women (indifferent).
Just based on my own observations--I don't know if a scientific study would confirm this--it seems that the gender balance in black/white couples has been shifting in recent years. I notice more black woman/white man pairings than I did 20-30 years ago.
Just based on my own observations--I don't know if a scientific study would confirm this--it seems that the gender balance in black/white couples has been shifting in recent years. I notice more black woman/white man pairings than I did 20-30 years ago.
Census statistics don't really show any such increase. If I recall correctly, the gender/race split of interracial marriages remained at ~75% BM/WF from 1990 to 2000.
That being said, I too have noticed more WM/BF couples in the past several years. Most of them are fairly young and seem to be dating rather than married. It would not be surprising if dating between white males and black females is more accepted than is actual marriage. It also is possible, especially as I'm in the New York area where there are many Dominicans, that many of the females actually are dark-skinned Hispanics.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Some posters have suggested that white man/black woman pairings are rare because white men aren't attracted to black women. There's a way we could test this idea. Do a study of the black women who are clearly attractive to any man, of any race, with a pulse: the Halle Berry/Beyonce/Tyra Banks class. Count up their boyfriends and husbands, and see what percentage are white. If the theory is correct, that percentage should be higher than for average-looking black women.
I don't know what the results of such a study would be. I do note that none of Halle Berry's husbands were white, and Jada Pinkett (who is in that class) is married to a black guy.
I also don't know how you'd go about getting such a study funded. . .
Pace Anonymous 3:38, I always considered Robert Plant blond. (I can't get the link Anonymous 2:03 provided to work; maybe lighting issues or something make him look darker there.) Plant is less famous (and IMHO, a writer of lesser songs) than Lennon, McCartney, and Jagger, but he does have more of a "rock god" persona than they do.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned 2 movie classics, Casablanca and Gone with the Wind, each of which features a light skinned, blond male in a noble secondary role, with the less ethical main male role going to a dark skinned, dark haired male.
Dave
Robert Plant referred to himself as "a golden god" famously in front of the Waldorf-Astoria in 1973.
If you google pictures of Plant that are from Zeppelin's heyday, you will see that he was quite blonde.
Jensen Ackles, a teen heartthrob, now in his twenties and a ridiculously good looking young man (he should play Hoyt Thorpe if Tom Wolfe's novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons" gets made in the near future), would be considered blonde also. Ackles is an unusually good looking human being and he is "prettier" than about 90% of women that you see even though he has square shoulders and a square jaw.
Brad Pitt is considered blonde by everyone I have ever talked to about his acting. He is a sex symbol. He is NOT the actor Tom Hanks is however, but thats OK, few actors are. Pitt, probably like Ackles will have to deal with in the future, suffer from the Casper Van Diem syndrome. Their features are so even, so statueseque, that when they attempt to convey emotion you feel like you are watching Ron Moss attempt to act on a soap opera. "Real" people just so rarely look like that. There are more beautific women on earth than men, perhaps thats why beautific men like Errol Flynn (in his youth) never can come across as great actors (until you think about someone ELSE attempting to pull off Robin Hood in green tights).
If anyone argues that the men above are not "blondes", then their "bar" for blondness must go way up to Roger Daltry in his "rock god" days to cross the threshold to being a true blonde. VERY VERY few MEN are this blonde at 25, much less thirty.
My hair is damn near medium brown now, darker than all the men above easily. When I was a teenager, it was so blonde that it was almost as light as Debra Lafavre (the hot florida teacher that slept with the 14 year old). Men's hair gets darker, and in my opinion, whats considered "blonde" for men has to be lighter than for women, are there would literally be very very few men who would consider themselves blonde.
One final remark: Whether deserving or not, Brad Pitt was certainly regarded as a leading sex symbol well before he became involved with Angelina Jolie.
Hollywood is controlled by jews.(Duh!) They like the idea of jews mating with blonde gentile women. Have you noticed how often the hero is the jewish guy,and the heroine is the sexy white woman?
white women being attracted to black males makes me want to vomit!
When I chose the mother of my kids & wife the most important factors were good looks, good health with familiar longevity & high intelligence, and strong point where I had weak points (I'm disorganized & lousy at math) She's organized to the point she has her filofax filled in 2 years in advance, and she's a wicked accountant too, she even looked similar with similar height, same eye color & comparable intelligence.
The kids turned out really smart (my 13 year old son clocked an IQ of 142 on a popular dating site) my daughter is smart too but keeps it on the down low because she's lazy (like me).
The wife turned about to be a psycho bitch, I didn't dig deep enough into her family history, they've been single moms for cause since records have been kept-well over 250 years.
Here are some more white men who see the beauty of black women:
http://mizhelenuk.topics.com/HBprem~13.jpg
http://www.kimmitroy.com/
http://www.knbr.com/garyRadnich/story2.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/computerzen/347361045/in/set-72057594052595008/
(For thisone, click to also view the slideshow. Enjoy!)
http://www.jeffntina.com/wedding/0133.html
http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=9959
(For this one, scroll down to the photo of Mr. and Mrs. Ronald and Lois Betts, and their lovely, beautiful daughter.)
Oh, there are white men who date black women. There are women who are into science fiction, computer games, and math. There just aren't that MANY.
More white men who adore and marry black women:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/May-17-Mon-2004/photos/puck.jpg
(Wolfgang Puck, and his adorable wife, Gelia Assefa)
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,26334,1531738,00.html
http://www.thecityreview.com/gaither2.gif
(Dorothy Gaither & John Brecher, wine columnists for the Wall Street Journal and authours of 2 books)
http://www.absolutecelebrities.com/pic/BinghamTrac455035209.html
http://img419.imageshack.us/img419/2647/paul2xd.jpg
(Crytal & Paul Wall)
http://www.henryk_broder.de/images/usa10-01.JPG
(Rita Dove [Poet Laureate] & husband, Fred Viebahn)
Steve,
you contend that people tend to choose long-term mates of similar backgrouds while sowing wild oats with those who doesn't. What you don't write in your blog and you and I know is that society has long regulate matings of the opposite class, race, culture, ethnicity, religion, educational background. Society usedthe eugenics movement, residential/educational segregation, intermarriage laws, old-boys/old-girls network, immigration laws, segregation of unpopular racial/ethnic groups, anti-gay/lesbian laws, inheritance laws, etc., in order to keep random mating/dating/marriage between various peoples in check.
Get with reality, Steve and stop speculating.
I think a lot of "research" into the area of mating is generally nonsense.
The "one will select a mate of the same genes" concept is retarded.
A lot of men will go for a woman who is VERY different from himself -"exotic"- if he has a large enough dating pool in which to select her.
Convenient dating pools have a lot to do with selection. If a guy could choose any woman on the planet via looks alone a lot of sociologists would have to hang up their hats and go home.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I forgot the piece-de-resistance!
Check out MORE white men who love and adore black women.
White men who date/marry/have children with/ provide for/protect/cherish and worship the ground that beautiful black women walk on.
Here is the link:
http://bfinterracialmarriage.blogspot.com
Enjoy!
Jody,
Your stupidity shows right through. You haven't met any black women in your life. Stop watching too many Maury Povich, MTV, BET, and, especially Fox News and get out more often. Better yet, you need to go the nearest library and bone up on African-American culture and history because your ignorance is most telling of all.
ALL men who are attractive to women or are considered sex symbols for the most part...have ONE thing in common....its ALL about the face. Symmetry, photogenic symmetry. It doesn't matter what hair color a man has. What body type. Wether he is tall or short or muscular or thin. Its ALL about a mans face. His bone structure.
Where in women, its more about the body. With men a nice body is just a bonus for women. But for women, men look at their body mostly. There is a hip to waist ratio that indicates fertility and femininity. Men are easy to please. A woman doesnt have to be model beautiful for most men around the world to lust after them. Its ALL about the body and to a lesser degree youth.
But for a man to get that world wide lustful reaction from a majority of the women...a man HAS to have model chiseled look to the face to be a sex symbol.
This is totally true.
"Even homosexuals show this tendency: judging from Personal Ads, most gay men want a man who is more masculine than themselves, and most lesbians want a woman who is more feminine."
That obviously doesn't make sense for reasons that shouldn't even need explaining:
For example, two women in couple can't be more feminine than their partners at the same time. Think about it. That's like if you said lesbian women still expect (like hetero women) their partner to be taller than themselves. You can figure, I hope, while two women can't simultaneously be taller at the same time than the other.
In theory: every heterosexual women could require a partner taller than her no problem. Lesbian women cannot have similar requirements for logical reasons I mentioned above.
So obviously, there ARE some difference in homosexual that exist due to strictly logical reasons.
Isn't your discussion of assortative mating based on methodological individualist assumptions? Are you assuming that individuals select their mates all by themselves, that is, that each individual makes a decision regardless of the influence or approval of significant others. Also, are you claiming that each individual makes this decision on a rational choice basis or what is economically most feasible. I noticed that you included terms related to 'falling in love' or similarly but you did not explain why falling in love is assortative and not hypergamic. That is, why might everyone desire someone rich and beautiful when obviously this pool of possible mates is quite small and then switch out to an assortative strategy. Isn't the selection criteria extremely biased and unreliable given the high divorce rate? Just some ideas.
Isn't your discussion of assortative mating based on methodological individualist assumptions? Are you assuming that individuals select their mates all by themselves, that is, that each individual makes a decision regardless of the influence or approval of significant others. Also, are you claiming that each individual makes this decision on a rational choice basis or what is economically most feasible. I noticed that you included terms related to 'falling in love' or similarly but you did not explain why falling in love is assortative and not hypergamic. That is, why might everyone desire someone rich and beautiful when obviously this pool of possible mates is quite small and then switch out to an assortative strategy. Isn't the selection criteria extremely biased and unreliable given the high divorce rate? Just some ideas.
"Are you assuming that individuals select their mates all by themselves, that is, that each individual makes a decision regardless of the influence or approval of significant others?"
No, that's the point of a distinction between social v. sexual: Juliet's family wants her to marry the man they've picked out for her for social reasons, but she wants Romeo for sexual reasons. A million stories since have been about conflicts between social and sexual mating.
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