Why are men both attracted to and threatened by sexually attractive women?
Psychologists, as well as social commentators from other professional backgrounds have long noticed an interesting paradox: Men celebrate yet disparage, pursue yet fear sexually appealing women. Perhaps nowhere is this paradox more aptly represented than in Pattaya’s sex industry. Here men pay money for the sexual favors of mainly women, while the activities of those same women are socially denigrated, even criminalized by laws written by men.
Men’s ambivalence toward women is certainly not confined to this particular activity, place and time. References to the dangerous and deceitful nature of women can be found in folklore, religious texts, and other writings from the earliest civilizations. Noteworthy examples are the feminine mythical characters, Pandora and Eve, through whom evil and suffering were first introduced into human history. The Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey were powerfully seductive, yet harbingers of death and ruin, an attractive force to be avoided at all cost.
Women have suffered greatly as a result of these attitudes. Women who violate societal rules against sexual taboos typically face much more severe sanctions than do men. The vast majority of individuals identified and executed as witches during the 17th century in New England, U.S. were women. Many cultures continue to practice the barbaric act of female circumcision. Infibulation, a similar practice performed in some cultures, removes the clitoris and stitches the vagina closed until marriage.
The reason for this curious ambivalence by men toward women and sex is the subject of a report appearing this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published by the American Psychological Association. The team of researchers led by psychologist Mark Landau of the University of Arizona proposes that negative reactions experienced by heterosexual men toward sexual impulses and attractive women could be explained by Greenburg, Pyszcynski, and Solomon’s “terror management theory,” (TMT).
The central claim of TMT is that we humans, like other creatures, have a basic impulse to avoid threats to our survival. In doing so, we primarily rely upon our superior intellectual abilities. The sex act, according to this line of thinking, by its nature, is a reminder of our animal heritage, our vulnerability, our mortality. Because reminders of our inevitable death tend to stir feelings of anxiety within us, our societies have developed ways of thinking to counteract these disturbing emotions.
One method we have discovered to relieve these unpleasant feelings is to elevate the sex act above the purely physical plane, to associate sexual activity with lofty values that are uniquely human, such as spirituality and romantic love. Furthermore, we suppress our natural biologically driven sexual inclinations through social, legal, and religious rules and taboos intended to govern when, where, and under what circumstances our sexuality is properly expressed.
To test this theory, the authors conducted five innovative studies to evaluate various predictions generated by TMT. Results tended to support the notion that concerns about mortality play a role in the negative attitudes of heterosexual men toward sexual attraction and women. For example, when men were presented with reminders of their mortality, they exhibited decreased interest in and sexual attraction toward women who inspired lust. As predicted, no such decrease in attraction was found for women who were presented as chaste and wholesome. No such patterns were found among women.
Obviously, men are not a homogenous group, and individual men are likely to experience varying levels of ambivalence toward sexuality and women. Missing from this analysis is an examination of the worldviews and attitudes of self- and other-acceptance of men with particularly healthy attitudes toward women.
It would be interesting to discover what attitudes and values would allow men to accept their sexual impulses and sexually exciting women independently of the romantic and spiritual associations, or the socially generated sanctions which are currently in place. If TMT holds true, one would predict that men who are more attuned and accepting of their mortality and animal nature would experience less ambivalence toward sexual attraction and sexually provocative women. Future psychological research will, no doubt, cast further light upon this interesting question.
Men’s ambivalence toward women is certainly not confined to this particular activity, place and time. References to the dangerous and deceitful nature of women can be found in folklore, religious texts, and other writings from the earliest civilizations. Noteworthy examples are the feminine mythical characters, Pandora and Eve, through whom evil and suffering were first introduced into human history. The Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey were powerfully seductive, yet harbingers of death and ruin, an attractive force to be avoided at all cost.
Women have suffered greatly as a result of these attitudes. Women who violate societal rules against sexual taboos typically face much more severe sanctions than do men. The vast majority of individuals identified and executed as witches during the 17th century in New England, U.S. were women. Many cultures continue to practice the barbaric act of female circumcision. Infibulation, a similar practice performed in some cultures, removes the clitoris and stitches the vagina closed until marriage.
The reason for this curious ambivalence by men toward women and sex is the subject of a report appearing this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published by the American Psychological Association. The team of researchers led by psychologist Mark Landau of the University of Arizona proposes that negative reactions experienced by heterosexual men toward sexual impulses and attractive women could be explained by Greenburg, Pyszcynski, and Solomon’s “terror management theory,” (TMT).
The central claim of TMT is that we humans, like other creatures, have a basic impulse to avoid threats to our survival. In doing so, we primarily rely upon our superior intellectual abilities. The sex act, according to this line of thinking, by its nature, is a reminder of our animal heritage, our vulnerability, our mortality. Because reminders of our inevitable death tend to stir feelings of anxiety within us, our societies have developed ways of thinking to counteract these disturbing emotions.
One method we have discovered to relieve these unpleasant feelings is to elevate the sex act above the purely physical plane, to associate sexual activity with lofty values that are uniquely human, such as spirituality and romantic love. Furthermore, we suppress our natural biologically driven sexual inclinations through social, legal, and religious rules and taboos intended to govern when, where, and under what circumstances our sexuality is properly expressed.
To test this theory, the authors conducted five innovative studies to evaluate various predictions generated by TMT. Results tended to support the notion that concerns about mortality play a role in the negative attitudes of heterosexual men toward sexual attraction and women. For example, when men were presented with reminders of their mortality, they exhibited decreased interest in and sexual attraction toward women who inspired lust. As predicted, no such decrease in attraction was found for women who were presented as chaste and wholesome. No such patterns were found among women.
Obviously, men are not a homogenous group, and individual men are likely to experience varying levels of ambivalence toward sexuality and women. Missing from this analysis is an examination of the worldviews and attitudes of self- and other-acceptance of men with particularly healthy attitudes toward women.
It would be interesting to discover what attitudes and values would allow men to accept their sexual impulses and sexually exciting women independently of the romantic and spiritual associations, or the socially generated sanctions which are currently in place. If TMT holds true, one would predict that men who are more attuned and accepting of their mortality and animal nature would experience less ambivalence toward sexual attraction and sexually provocative women. Future psychological research will, no doubt, cast further light upon this interesting question.
posted by Michael | Monday, February 06, 2006
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