On the liberal side, a majority of women go to bars, while only a minority of fence-sitting and conservative women do. This backs up the conventional wisdom that if you want a long-term girlfriend or wife, you'd better look some place other than the nightclub scene. Either that, or invest in a liberal woman and suffer the consequences, like getting cheated on. It also supports the conventional wisdom that scoping for flings works best in bars and dance clubs.
GSS variables used: POLVIEWS, SOCBAR, SEX.
Was this controlled for marital status? If liberal women are less likely to be married than their more conservative counterparts that could easily account for their greater propensity to visit bars.
ReplyDeleteThe data on liberals having more sex with non-spouses doesn't exclude the possibility of threesomes, which I believe are easier to arrange with liberal women.
ReplyDeleteWhen you restrict it to non-married females, the graph is basically the same. But in that case, the correlation is +1.00 -- avoiding bars increases strictly moving from extremely liberal to extremely conservative.
ReplyDeleteThis _really_ cute girl from my church small group just left it because she couldn't handle being around men. Not that any of us were hitting on her. (I would have, but she always came late and left early.) She just couldn't handle being around a bunch of us being our normal selves. Really, how's that for non-attention whoring. She's a Grade 1 teacher at a private Christian school. She's in her mid-twenties and I would be very surprised if she has ever set foot in a bar her whole life. I would bet my life she is a virgin and may never even have kissed a guy before.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, I have a buddy in a very similar situation to the one described here. Such high quality girls are out there.
P.S. On the other hand, I have to concede to you that 19 year old club rats really do make _the_ best dancing partners, though I am not convinced that anyone that age would make a good girlfriend.
BTW I think this shows that Roissy is clearly wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou really have to be exposed to a fair number of good women to recognize them when they show up. They are pretty rare in bars and clubs.
The best place to meet marriage material is at large churches near a downtown or a university. (Large churches in the 'burbs are terrible for meeting people.) Usually a critical mass of students and young professionals in a city will settle around one or two particular churches. Once you find them, it is like hitting the motherlode. Hey, single church people aren't stupid. They know they have to put themselves out there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteBTW, aside from the occasional natural, often a black fellow, most church guys have no game whatsoever. The field is wide open.
Agnostic,
ReplyDeleteYou are correlating the averages, not individual data points, presumably. Would you consider throwing in the latter in the future as well? There's a potential problem in readers misinterpreting the results (only a correlation of .15? That's so weak!), but it's pretty erudite so I doubt that will be much of a problem.
I don't know if there's a way to get individual data from the GSS.
ReplyDeleteThe correlation here is an OK way of showing that the visual pattern is real.
If I wanted a better way, I'd just do a two-proportion z-test using the liberal side vs. the conservative side. Then individuals don't matter. But I didn't want that, since you wouldn't be able to see the finer-grained change across the spectrum.
I have to concede to you that 19 year old club rats really do make _the_ best dancing partners, though I am not convinced that anyone that age would make a good girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteYou're judging "anyone that age" based on "club rats" that age. I don't go to church, but aren't there college-aged girls who go there? I mean, you know they're sinning...
You're judging "anyone that age" based on "club rats" that age.
ReplyDeleteRead again.
You say "I am not convinced that anyone that age would make a good girlfriend." Just before: "I have to concede to you that 19 year old club rats really do make _the_ best dancing partners."
ReplyDeleteIf you wanted to make your point clear, you should've said "I've been around lots of 19 year-olds / in various situations, and the only thing they're good for is dancing."