This will be the last on the movie tastes of teenagers. In the comments on the post showing that under-18 girls are most likely to dig good horror movies, culture buff Thursday remarked that the only artistic movies that showed up on the horror movie list were by Spielberg and Hitchcock. I'm not sure how well Spielberg is regarded by the snobs, but even they will admit that Hitchcock is a Real Art Director. So off we go to IMDb.com's filmography of Alfred Hitchcock page to see how well young girls appreciate the master of suspense.
As with the other posts in this series, I only included movies if at least 40 votes were cast in each female age group, which yielded 14 movies. For 13 of these 14, under-18 girls rated the movie the highest out of the four female age groups, and for the remaining one, they tied with 18-29 females in rating it the highest -- to be conservative, let's count this one against the hypothesis. Using a two-tailed binomial test as before, this result is statistically significant at the 3 x 10^(-7) level, obviously not a fluke. As before, I assume 18 and 19 year-olds are similar in tastes to the under-18s than the 20-somethings.
But Hitchcock directed lots of movies -- maybe the scores that were left out due to few votes being cast had greater artistic merit. First, the vast majority of these movies showed under-18 girls rating it the highest too, so including them would not alter the results. And second, the 14 movies that made the cut are virtually a list of his top 14 in the IMDb user ranking of his movies. They are:
Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, Dial M for Murder, The Lady Vanishes, Rope, The 39 Steps, The Birds, and To Catch a Thief.
Another potential criticism is that the under-18 voters may be less representative of their demographic than the older voters are -- perhaps the under-18s are composed mostly of precocious film nerds. This may be true to some extent, but there are convincing data that my findings do reflect true age differences in movie tastes. See Table 6 in this study of movie preferences by sex, race, and age groups.
The authors asked respondents to name their favorite movies, and then classified them by genre. As you can see, the "murder / thriller" category declines steadily in popularity as age increases, although it is never incredibly popular in any age group. And to refer back to the horror movie post, the data in Table 6 also show that "horror" declines steadily in popularity as age increases, as do "action / adventure" and "animation." The categories of "comedy" and "science fiction" peak among the 26 - 49 age group and are less popular with younger and older viewers. The categories that steadily increase in popularity with age are "drama," "musical," "Biblical," and "animal focus" ("Yes, son, that's what you have to look forward to.")
Basically, genres that excite your sympathetic nervous system are popular among young people and decline afterward, while boring movies are an acquired taste. (Compare the popularity of rollercoasters vs. walking through a sculpture garden.) It can't be that people appreciate slower-paced movies as they age, since mystery, murder, suspense, and thriller genres build tension through slow pacing (this is true for most good horror movies too). It also can't be that people appreciate more weighty, serious subject matter as they age, since the mystery-type genres treat human psychology, and action-adventure movies deal with large-scale conflict, glory, our bestial human nature, and other Big Important Themes that appeal mostly to males and are left out of the feminized school curriculum.
So invite that cute college coed over, sit close together while you watch Psycho, and make sure to give her a physical jolt with your hands during a tense moment. Feeling like she's survived a series of dangerous events with you will set fire to her loins, and all it costs you is $1 to rent a DVD overnight.
June 28, 2008
Go to teen dance clubs and bypass cockblockers
Let's say a girl wants to dance with you. Usually you have to approach her, take her hand, or whatever, but if you go over just near enough and perhaps make some eye contact, she will feel relieved and close the rest of the distance -- again, if she already wants to dance with you. A fair amount of the time, she will actually approach you. It's always preferable for her to do at least some of the work because, before she can begin pursuing you even partly, she must shut off the chilling worry-spigot and allow a blood-warming bath of impulses to wash over her. That's how she enjoys herself in a social gathering -- by getting lost and swept away in the moment.
Teenagers may be more boy-crazy than late 20-somethings, but they are also much more self-conscious in public, so you might think that a 16 to 18 year-old girl would never be able to overcome her anxiety and approach you. However, girls, especially young ones, don't even go to a public bathroom as individuals. As long as she doesn't have to break away from her group, she won't get a panic attack. Thus, her entire group will come over and surround you.
The girl who wants you is always the one in the circle who's right in front of you, in case you couldn't figure that out (guys, eh?). Again, the others are there mostly to keep their friend from feeling overwhelmed by nervousness, although any of her friends who also like you will make this known. A few weeks ago, I was surrounded by six girls, and the one right in front of me had grinded on me earlier that night and returned with her comforting group. Still, two of the remaining five also wanted in, so I ended up with one girl grinding her ass on mine, and one girl grinding on each of my thighs. I only wish I had another pair of legs to offer the three remaining girls in the circle.
There is no greater way of broadcasting your value to other females in the venue than being pursued and engulfed in a pile of girls. For this reason, when this happens, it will usually happen more than once that night, as onlookers follow the original group -- "Look at that! That guy must be worth approaching." However, since teenagers are more ruthless in judging mates, you have to stand out right away. In a dance club, that means being painfully good-looking and demonstrating your prowess in coordinating your body. In a daytime situation, that means dressing and carrying yourself powerfully and confidently (although being ridiculously hot helps here too).
In the club for fully grown adults that I went to, girls had no problem leaving their group to approach me. By their mid or late 20s, they've had enough experience interacting with guys, and their level of Neuroticism has fallen from its teenage peak, so they aren't paralyzed by anxiety anymore. I would therefore expect the "surrounded by the group" phenomenon to not happen, or at least to happen much more rarely. I was only there one night, but I didn't observe it anywhere in the club the entire night. Broadcasting your value to the onlookers must be much more difficult in that sort of venue -- yet another reason to favor girls young enough for the herd mentality to still rule.
Perhaps the greatest aspect of this dynamic is that any potential cockblockers in her group will feel uncomfortable piping up. After all, she begged her friends, "C'mon you guys, go over there with me so I don't feel weird," and if they oblige, then they are prevented from interfering. It's all based on who approaches who: guy approaches girl, and her friends man their battle stations, while if girl approaches guy, her friends are conscripted to fight for the cause. If you approach her, you can try your damnedest to defuse her cockblocking friends -- it's the best you can do, but it rarely works.
This is one reason why I don't like the orthodox Game method of approaching a group of girls out of the blue and trying to win them over on the spot. Display some alluring quality of yours -- your looks, height, dancing ability, whatever -- and remain comfortably aloof, while still engaging in whatever the context requires (dancing, eating your meal, etc.). This provides enough time for the spark of infatuation to light within her, and she will then pursue you at least partly. Since that's the most important part of getting her friends off your back, as well as muzzling her inner worry-wart, it's worth doing.
Teenagers may be more boy-crazy than late 20-somethings, but they are also much more self-conscious in public, so you might think that a 16 to 18 year-old girl would never be able to overcome her anxiety and approach you. However, girls, especially young ones, don't even go to a public bathroom as individuals. As long as she doesn't have to break away from her group, she won't get a panic attack. Thus, her entire group will come over and surround you.
The girl who wants you is always the one in the circle who's right in front of you, in case you couldn't figure that out (guys, eh?). Again, the others are there mostly to keep their friend from feeling overwhelmed by nervousness, although any of her friends who also like you will make this known. A few weeks ago, I was surrounded by six girls, and the one right in front of me had grinded on me earlier that night and returned with her comforting group. Still, two of the remaining five also wanted in, so I ended up with one girl grinding her ass on mine, and one girl grinding on each of my thighs. I only wish I had another pair of legs to offer the three remaining girls in the circle.
There is no greater way of broadcasting your value to other females in the venue than being pursued and engulfed in a pile of girls. For this reason, when this happens, it will usually happen more than once that night, as onlookers follow the original group -- "Look at that! That guy must be worth approaching." However, since teenagers are more ruthless in judging mates, you have to stand out right away. In a dance club, that means being painfully good-looking and demonstrating your prowess in coordinating your body. In a daytime situation, that means dressing and carrying yourself powerfully and confidently (although being ridiculously hot helps here too).
In the club for fully grown adults that I went to, girls had no problem leaving their group to approach me. By their mid or late 20s, they've had enough experience interacting with guys, and their level of Neuroticism has fallen from its teenage peak, so they aren't paralyzed by anxiety anymore. I would therefore expect the "surrounded by the group" phenomenon to not happen, or at least to happen much more rarely. I was only there one night, but I didn't observe it anywhere in the club the entire night. Broadcasting your value to the onlookers must be much more difficult in that sort of venue -- yet another reason to favor girls young enough for the herd mentality to still rule.
Perhaps the greatest aspect of this dynamic is that any potential cockblockers in her group will feel uncomfortable piping up. After all, she begged her friends, "C'mon you guys, go over there with me so I don't feel weird," and if they oblige, then they are prevented from interfering. It's all based on who approaches who: guy approaches girl, and her friends man their battle stations, while if girl approaches guy, her friends are conscripted to fight for the cause. If you approach her, you can try your damnedest to defuse her cockblocking friends -- it's the best you can do, but it rarely works.
This is one reason why I don't like the orthodox Game method of approaching a group of girls out of the blue and trying to win them over on the spot. Display some alluring quality of yours -- your looks, height, dancing ability, whatever -- and remain comfortably aloof, while still engaging in whatever the context requires (dancing, eating your meal, etc.). This provides enough time for the spark of infatuation to light within her, and she will then pursue you at least partly. Since that's the most important part of getting her friends off your back, as well as muzzling her inner worry-wart, it's worth doing.
June 25, 2008
The sweet charms of the pure, flawed teen: 4
Perhaps some clarification is in order, since many readers will get too distracted by my praise of romantic relationships with teenagers. The larger theme is how our modern lives are so derailed from nature's plans that we have trouble imagining what courtship and marriage are supposed to be like. Like it or not, your genes are not a magic lamp: they have no intention of granting your wishes to find your first husband or wife at age 30, and then have your first child sometime afterward.
Some aspects of this outta-whack-ness are pretty obvious, like the difficulty women face in conceiving and delivering healthy babies after 30. Still, there are thousands of subtler effects, which when added up may make the relationship as miserable as the inability to start a family. It's these "death of a thousand cuts" differences that I'm interested in.
Charm #4: Not wanting a sugar daddy. Spending less and appreciating you more
Yes, I know it sounds strange to suggest that girls in their late teens don't want sugar daddies as much as ones in their late 20s do, but it's true. The key difference is that a teenager unconsciously expects you to be courting her, in order to get sex, while the late-20s woman unconsciously expects you to be providing for her and her real or imaginary children. If you spend too much on a young girl (aside from a minority of precocious gold-diggers), she will interpret it as soliciting prostitution and become turned off. That's why all it takes is a hamburger and a milkshake to make her feel special.
The woman whose unconscious brain is in mothering mode will interpret your lack of big-spending as a refusal to provision for her and her offspring -- she'll view you as a bad dad. This is also reflected in the types of things she expects you to pay for, at least in part: an expensive zip code, furniture and home accessories, kitchenware, and so on, and not so much on make-up or movie dates. (An appendix at the end of this post provides a back-of-the-envelope estimate of how much more expensive it is to date a late-20s female.)
This mindset of hers would be perfectly fine if she were indeed your wife and raising your children, but in today's world, it's likely that you two are dating and perhaps cohabiting. Your brain is still focused on getting sex rather than raising kids, and so you'll want to spend less on her; but in compromising with her and dropping a lot of dough on ottomans from Design Within Reach, you'll come to feel like you're her sugar daddy. With the young girl, at least both of your minds are on sex (and other things too, but certainly not raising kids), so there is less conflict in the spending domain. Her suspicion of big-spending will prevent you from even accidentally engaging in sugar daddy behavior.
It's ironic that the average guy in his late 20s and beyond worries about younger girls using him as a sugar daddy, when it's the females his own age whose spending habits and expectations are more likely to exhaust his savings. Let me be clear: this is not because the late-20s woman is necessarily more shallow or materialistic. She simply has different unconscious needs, and being provided for -- as opposed to being courted and wooed -- is among the strongest at this stage, since her body expects her to be a mother by now. However, if there is no family to raise, she will have to satisfy this urge by having her mate spend money on other family-type things, such as improving the home.
Still, if the guy is not getting kids out of the deal, he will find himself wondering what all this spending is really accomplishing. Eventually he will believe, with some reason, that he is only subsidizing her female-female status competition, a role that is as rewarding as being the ball in a schoolyard soccer match. The partners will probably not know what the other's frustration is about, and talking about it rarely does any good anyway. The surest way to avoid all of this mess and maintain your girly charm in this area is just to marry and have kids sooner rather than later, so that your mate's provisioning can achieve something he'll actually feel proud of.
Appendix
The following is a rough estimate of the cost of dating a darling in her late teens vs. someone in her late 20s and beyond. I'm comparing extremes to make the differences stand out. Rather than try to account for all of the costs of maintaining a girlfriend, let's just look at how much you might be set back after a big-spending day consisting of buying her an entire outfit, eating out, and going to a nightclub.
Clothes shopping
Your teen gf would compete with her female peers by getting her clothes from a trendy, moderately priced store like Wet Seal, and would shriek with glee if you offered to take her there for a head-to-toe outfit. After buying her some shoes, a pair of shorts, a top, and boyshorts, you've spent $67.
Your late-20s gf would compete with her female peers by going to a place more like Bloomingdales. You could take her to Target, but she would only really get wet if it were at least Bloomingdales or above. After buying her some shoes, a pair of shorts, a top, and boyshorts, you've spent $219. Note that I chose the least expensive counterpart of the Wet Seal item, so this is a conservative estimate.
Eating out
Your teen gf would be happy to grab a bite to eat at Burger King, for God's sake, where a value meal sets you back $5. Your late-20s gf would expect at least Applebee's, where a combo meal plus tip starts at $12. Obviously if it's a "special occasion," the price disparity will only worsen.
Going to a nightclub
The nearby 18+ club that hosts '80s night has a $5 cover charge, and since a teenager cannot drink alcohol, you might spend $2 on a bottle of water or soda. The nearby see and be seen 21+ club, which is de facto 27+, charges $10 to get in and about $5 for a drink. This discrepancy is surely worse in more fashionable metro areas.
Summing up
This whirlwind day of spending with your teen gf costs you $79, while with your late-20s gf it costs you $246. In other words, you spend less than one-third on a teenager than on a 20-something -- status-striving sure does get expensive as you age. And remember, this only accounts for courtship spending -- forget about the price difference between the Ikea furniture your teen gf would be content with, and the designer stuff your late-20s gf would require to compete with her gal pals.
Some aspects of this outta-whack-ness are pretty obvious, like the difficulty women face in conceiving and delivering healthy babies after 30. Still, there are thousands of subtler effects, which when added up may make the relationship as miserable as the inability to start a family. It's these "death of a thousand cuts" differences that I'm interested in.
Charm #4: Not wanting a sugar daddy. Spending less and appreciating you more
Yes, I know it sounds strange to suggest that girls in their late teens don't want sugar daddies as much as ones in their late 20s do, but it's true. The key difference is that a teenager unconsciously expects you to be courting her, in order to get sex, while the late-20s woman unconsciously expects you to be providing for her and her real or imaginary children. If you spend too much on a young girl (aside from a minority of precocious gold-diggers), she will interpret it as soliciting prostitution and become turned off. That's why all it takes is a hamburger and a milkshake to make her feel special.
The woman whose unconscious brain is in mothering mode will interpret your lack of big-spending as a refusal to provision for her and her offspring -- she'll view you as a bad dad. This is also reflected in the types of things she expects you to pay for, at least in part: an expensive zip code, furniture and home accessories, kitchenware, and so on, and not so much on make-up or movie dates. (An appendix at the end of this post provides a back-of-the-envelope estimate of how much more expensive it is to date a late-20s female.)
This mindset of hers would be perfectly fine if she were indeed your wife and raising your children, but in today's world, it's likely that you two are dating and perhaps cohabiting. Your brain is still focused on getting sex rather than raising kids, and so you'll want to spend less on her; but in compromising with her and dropping a lot of dough on ottomans from Design Within Reach, you'll come to feel like you're her sugar daddy. With the young girl, at least both of your minds are on sex (and other things too, but certainly not raising kids), so there is less conflict in the spending domain. Her suspicion of big-spending will prevent you from even accidentally engaging in sugar daddy behavior.
It's ironic that the average guy in his late 20s and beyond worries about younger girls using him as a sugar daddy, when it's the females his own age whose spending habits and expectations are more likely to exhaust his savings. Let me be clear: this is not because the late-20s woman is necessarily more shallow or materialistic. She simply has different unconscious needs, and being provided for -- as opposed to being courted and wooed -- is among the strongest at this stage, since her body expects her to be a mother by now. However, if there is no family to raise, she will have to satisfy this urge by having her mate spend money on other family-type things, such as improving the home.
Still, if the guy is not getting kids out of the deal, he will find himself wondering what all this spending is really accomplishing. Eventually he will believe, with some reason, that he is only subsidizing her female-female status competition, a role that is as rewarding as being the ball in a schoolyard soccer match. The partners will probably not know what the other's frustration is about, and talking about it rarely does any good anyway. The surest way to avoid all of this mess and maintain your girly charm in this area is just to marry and have kids sooner rather than later, so that your mate's provisioning can achieve something he'll actually feel proud of.
Appendix
The following is a rough estimate of the cost of dating a darling in her late teens vs. someone in her late 20s and beyond. I'm comparing extremes to make the differences stand out. Rather than try to account for all of the costs of maintaining a girlfriend, let's just look at how much you might be set back after a big-spending day consisting of buying her an entire outfit, eating out, and going to a nightclub.
Clothes shopping
Your teen gf would compete with her female peers by getting her clothes from a trendy, moderately priced store like Wet Seal, and would shriek with glee if you offered to take her there for a head-to-toe outfit. After buying her some shoes, a pair of shorts, a top, and boyshorts, you've spent $67.
Your late-20s gf would compete with her female peers by going to a place more like Bloomingdales. You could take her to Target, but she would only really get wet if it were at least Bloomingdales or above. After buying her some shoes, a pair of shorts, a top, and boyshorts, you've spent $219. Note that I chose the least expensive counterpart of the Wet Seal item, so this is a conservative estimate.
Eating out
Your teen gf would be happy to grab a bite to eat at Burger King, for God's sake, where a value meal sets you back $5. Your late-20s gf would expect at least Applebee's, where a combo meal plus tip starts at $12. Obviously if it's a "special occasion," the price disparity will only worsen.
Going to a nightclub
The nearby 18+ club that hosts '80s night has a $5 cover charge, and since a teenager cannot drink alcohol, you might spend $2 on a bottle of water or soda. The nearby see and be seen 21+ club, which is de facto 27+, charges $10 to get in and about $5 for a drink. This discrepancy is surely worse in more fashionable metro areas.
Summing up
This whirlwind day of spending with your teen gf costs you $79, while with your late-20s gf it costs you $246. In other words, you spend less than one-third on a teenager than on a 20-something -- status-striving sure does get expensive as you age. And remember, this only accounts for courtship spending -- forget about the price difference between the Ikea furniture your teen gf would be content with, and the designer stuff your late-20s gf would require to compete with her gal pals.
June 22, 2008
Canadian fags rap about bashing, remind New York of their depravity
One reason that lesbians have so little influence on the larger culture, compared to gay men, is the narcissism gap -- it's tough to capture straight people's attention if your style is more laconic than preening. Now, your sheltered impression may be that queer men exploit this skill mostly to monopolize your group's conversations, but the sophisticated recognize that they employ it in service of a higher calling: raising awareness.
In the most recent effort to enlighten us breeders about how dangerous we are to gays, a duo from Alberta, Canada have journeyed to New York to perform Bash'd, a "hip-hop musical about gay marriage and gay bashing." While I cannot see and review it personally, this bit from the NYT sums it up rather nicely:
Angels, couple, falling in love, wedding, idyll, and tragedy caused by straights -- gosh, only a bigoted Fascist would choose other words to describe an always-shifting web of butt buddies and epidemic diseases. Back on planet Earth, we discover an only slightly different account. *
And why rap, of all genres?
Something that never dawns on naive White activists is that there is no such thing as "identifying with someone else's oppression," as identity politics is nothing more than whining and clamoring for an unfair slice of the pie -- and louder and more insistent queers only divert more of our limited public and private resources away from race racketeers.
By the way, the use of art as "a tool of social justice" has a shorter name: propaganda. But surely perverting art is OK as long as the ills it alleviates are pandemic, right?
Well, I'll grant you "pushed down" and "violated," but I hardly see what straight people have to do with that. As in all other cases of the personal being political, you are your own worst enemies.
* Choice quotes from the linked post:
In the most recent effort to enlighten us breeders about how dangerous we are to gays, a duo from Alberta, Canada have journeyed to New York to perform Bash'd, a "hip-hop musical about gay marriage and gay bashing." While I cannot see and review it personally, this bit from the NYT sums it up rather nicely:
With exceedingly bawdy lyrics, two rapping angels, T-Bag (Mr. Craddock) and Feminem (Mr. Cuckow), recount the tragedy of a Canadian couple, Jack and Dillon, who meet in an Edmonton club, fall in love and wed. But when Jack becomes the victim of violence, their idyll collapses.
Angels, couple, falling in love, wedding, idyll, and tragedy caused by straights -- gosh, only a bigoted Fascist would choose other words to describe an always-shifting web of butt buddies and epidemic diseases. Back on planet Earth, we discover an only slightly different account. *
And why rap, of all genres?"It was a way to turn hip-hop on its head," Mr. Craddock said, "because of the ultramasculinity of it, but also to take it back to its roots, to back when hip-hop was a tool of social justice, speaking out against poverty and oppression."
Something that never dawns on naive White activists is that there is no such thing as "identifying with someone else's oppression," as identity politics is nothing more than whining and clamoring for an unfair slice of the pie -- and louder and more insistent queers only divert more of our limited public and private resources away from race racketeers.
By the way, the use of art as "a tool of social justice" has a shorter name: propaganda. But surely perverting art is OK as long as the ills it alleviates are pandemic, right?
Carl D. White, one of the show's producers, called "Bash'd" an answer to current social ills. The gay world, he says, "is still marginalized, attacked, hated, pushed down, violated, ignored, beaten, sometimes killed and often shunned -- even in New York City."
Well, I'll grant you "pushed down" and "violated," but I hardly see what straight people have to do with that. As in all other cases of the personal being political, you are your own worst enemies.
* Choice quotes from the linked post:
I estimate I've had approximately 3,000 men up my butt ... I estimate that I went to the baths at least once a week, sometimes twice, and that each time I went I had a minimum of four patners ... I also racked up about three men a week for five years at the Christopher Steet bookstore ...Then of course there was the MineShaft; the orgies; the 55th Street Playhouse; the International Stud backroom ...
Let me present my own history of STDs. From 1973, when I came out, to 1975, I only got mononucloeosis and non-specific urethritis, or NSU. In 1975, I got my first case of gonorrhea. Not bad, I thought. I'd had maybe 200 different partners, and I'd only gotten the clap twice. But then, moving from Boston to New York City, it all began to snowball.
First came hepatitis A in '76 and more gonorrhea and NSU. In 1977, I was diagnosed with amebiasis, an intestinal parasite, hepatitis B, more gonorrhea, and NSU. In 1978, more amebiasis and my first case of shigella, and of course, more gonorrhea. Then in 1979, hepatitis yet a third time, this time non-A, non-B, more intestinal parasites, adding giardia this time, and an anal fissure as well as my first case of syphilis ... By 1981, I got some combination of STDs each and every time I had sex ...
At age twenty-seven I've had: gonorrhea, syphillis, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis non-A, non-B; intestinal parasites including amebiasis, e. historicia, shigella, giardia; herpes simplex types one and two; venereal warts, mononucleosis, cytomegalovirus, and now cryptosporodiosis, for which there is no known cure.
June 20, 2008
More evidence that booty girls are more sexual
Returning to some speculation that females with larger rumps are more masculinized, consider the fact that most porn stars have pretty nice derrieres but almost always require breast implants. It's not as if there aren't millions of females out there with large natural breasts, and who aren't fat. So why are they more or less absent from pornographic movies? It must be because breast girls have a bias toward more chaste, longer-term sexual strategies, while booty girls are biased toward less chaste, shorter-term strategies. The mechanism could be as simple as sensitivity to androgens.
June 19, 2008
People still appreciate ballet
I mean, how could you not?
I'll be providing more extensive data in an upcoming GNXP post on how people these days do appreciate good art, contra the declinist complaints that our culture is devolving in a cult of Britney Spears music and American Pie movies. For starters, though, here is a nine year-old Reason article on the non-decline in public enjoyment of the arts during our technological age.
Some still worry that, even if more people can spot a Renoir painting after touring a blockbuster museum exhibition, the more aristocratic art forms like ballet are in danger. Well, at least in Britain, this is not true. What about those youngsters held in constant bondage to their computers, mindlessly absorbing YouTube videos? Let's set a threshold of roughly 100,000 views and see how many videos are this popular, using the following search terms in YouTube: "Paris Opera Ballet" gets 4, "Kirov" gets 7, "Bolshoi" gets 9, and "Semionova" also gets 9, including one with over 1 million views.
Obviously, searching for "Swan Lake" or "Nutcracker" returns even more videos exceeding the threshold, but the above four searches show that even ballet videos that aficionados would look for are quite popular. Of course, we have no way to compare popularity on YouTube across the decades, but there should be no such videos if our culture were in such disrepair.
It's also true that there are more "one hit wonder" pop songs that exceed the threshold, and by a larger amount, but it is a mistake to expect liking ballet to ever be as common as digging pop music. That is sheer Utopianism, the artworld equivalent of No Child Left Behind. (I don't doubt that some group of morons has, in a vain struggle to alter human nature, squandered tax dollars on ensuring "a Beethoven in every CD player.")
What we should really focus on is the degree to which potential ballet lovers are being converted into actual ballet lovers. And for anyone whose financial means or location do not allow them to be touched by the world's top ballet performers in person, they can still be moved at a distance via YouTube.
Age of beauty pageant contestants
As long as the dataset involves age and girls, I'll crunch the numbers. Before, I showed that the average porn star is 23, supporting my contention that looks tend to peak during the 22 to 24 range. Beauty pageant contestants are also judged mostly on their looks, and maybe a bit on personality traits -- namely, being girly -- so they're worth looking at.
Importantly, they do not have any sort of ladder to climb: if she's an "it girl," she will be recognized right away. This is unlike Hollywood actresses (and perhaps porn stars to a lesser extent) who require years of work to become famous. There are artificial floors, though, as Miss Universe contestants must be 18, and Miss World I believe must be 17.
Below are statistics from four recent international beauty pageants, chosen based on being able to get age data easily. Means are rounded.
Miss World 2006
Range: 17 - 25
Mean: 20
Miss World 2007
Range: 17 - 25
Mean: 21
Miss Universe 2004
Range: 18 - 26
Mean: 21
Miss Universe 2008
Range: 18 - 26
Mean: 21
Skewness: +2.6 Standard Errors of Skewness
In each case, extrapolating to the younger-than-allowed ages predicts that somewhere between 1-5% of contestants would show up in the below-legal ages. That jibes with personal experience: 16 is the age when a typical girl starts getting noticed by all males, not just by her peers. After their mid-20s, females apparently cannot make it into beauty pageants, although they can be successful in porn. In all four cases, the data are skewed so that the below-average ages have more representatives than the above-average ages, but this is only statistically significant in one case.
I attribute the lower age here, compared to porn stars, to personality differences and certain aspects of a girl's shape. Girliness declines during the 20s, so it makes sense that feminine beauty pageant contestants would be younger than aggressive porn stars. As for looks, porn stars have to have somewhat ample bottoms, as these are the most sexual part of their bodies. Judging from the involuntary analysis I am always doing in real life, I'd say it takes until a girl's mid-20s for her butt to reach full size, unlike the breasts. Since beauty pageant contestants are supposed to project an image of goodness and chastity, they cannot have J-Lo booties, and this favors younger girls. Skin condition may also play a role, it being more tight, smooth, and flawless at younger ages.
Really, though, this is all just splitting hairs: girls are hottest sometime during their early 20s.
Importantly, they do not have any sort of ladder to climb: if she's an "it girl," she will be recognized right away. This is unlike Hollywood actresses (and perhaps porn stars to a lesser extent) who require years of work to become famous. There are artificial floors, though, as Miss Universe contestants must be 18, and Miss World I believe must be 17.
Below are statistics from four recent international beauty pageants, chosen based on being able to get age data easily. Means are rounded.
Miss World 2006
Range: 17 - 25
Mean: 20
Miss World 2007
Range: 17 - 25
Mean: 21
Miss Universe 2004
Range: 18 - 26
Mean: 21
Miss Universe 2008
Range: 18 - 26
Mean: 21
Skewness: +2.6 Standard Errors of Skewness
In each case, extrapolating to the younger-than-allowed ages predicts that somewhere between 1-5% of contestants would show up in the below-legal ages. That jibes with personal experience: 16 is the age when a typical girl starts getting noticed by all males, not just by her peers. After their mid-20s, females apparently cannot make it into beauty pageants, although they can be successful in porn. In all four cases, the data are skewed so that the below-average ages have more representatives than the above-average ages, but this is only statistically significant in one case.
I attribute the lower age here, compared to porn stars, to personality differences and certain aspects of a girl's shape. Girliness declines during the 20s, so it makes sense that feminine beauty pageant contestants would be younger than aggressive porn stars. As for looks, porn stars have to have somewhat ample bottoms, as these are the most sexual part of their bodies. Judging from the involuntary analysis I am always doing in real life, I'd say it takes until a girl's mid-20s for her butt to reach full size, unlike the breasts. Since beauty pageant contestants are supposed to project an image of goodness and chastity, they cannot have J-Lo booties, and this favors younger girls. Skin condition may also play a role, it being more tight, smooth, and flawless at younger ages.
Really, though, this is all just splitting hairs: girls are hottest sometime during their early 20s.
June 18, 2008
Radicalism even among babes
Something people my age don't recognize is how widespread the insanity was in the late 1960s. In reading a post of Steve Sailer's about Michelle Obama's track record, I came across this gruesome quote from a former female Weatherman, Bernadine Dohrn, referring to the Manson Family murders:
Here is her mugshot and a press conference photo, both taken when she was 27:
Aside from a mannish chin, she looks quite attractive (imagine her 5 years younger). During my clueless college student days, I was involved in the early 2000s version of what she was into (though not violent and destructive like The Weathermen), and it would have been impossible to see someone like that lobbing back a teargas canister during a demonstration.
For, despite the upsurge in radicalism during the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was nowhere near as widespread as in the late 1960s, when it affected even those who would be jeopardizing their potential trophy wife status. * Trying to understand its scope for someone who wasn't there is like reading through your assigned book in English class in which everyone seems to be dropping dead from the Plague or tuberculosis, diseases that nowadays would claim the lives of only the most invisible sectors of the population.
* Note that the 1960s outbreak of radicalism among good-lookers is not comparable to the Lebanese babe protester phenomenon, as the latter is not a violent and destructive movement. There, it's OK to turn out and flash your Christian Dior sunglasses for the cause, and then return to life as normal.
Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in their bellies. Wild!"
Here is her mugshot and a press conference photo, both taken when she was 27:
Aside from a mannish chin, she looks quite attractive (imagine her 5 years younger). During my clueless college student days, I was involved in the early 2000s version of what she was into (though not violent and destructive like The Weathermen), and it would have been impossible to see someone like that lobbing back a teargas canister during a demonstration.
For, despite the upsurge in radicalism during the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was nowhere near as widespread as in the late 1960s, when it affected even those who would be jeopardizing their potential trophy wife status. * Trying to understand its scope for someone who wasn't there is like reading through your assigned book in English class in which everyone seems to be dropping dead from the Plague or tuberculosis, diseases that nowadays would claim the lives of only the most invisible sectors of the population.
* Note that the 1960s outbreak of radicalism among good-lookers is not comparable to the Lebanese babe protester phenomenon, as the latter is not a violent and destructive movement. There, it's OK to turn out and flash your Christian Dior sunglasses for the cause, and then return to life as normal.
June 17, 2008
The sweet charms of the pure, flawed teen: 3
Smiling and giggling
A female who doesn't giggle when you're talking to her is like a cat that doesn't purr when you stroke its head and neck (or whatever the hell dogs do). How would you tell that this purr-less feline loved you for taking care of it?
Giggling is not the same as "ha ha" laughter, and it is certainly not the faux cackling that girl-haters produce in mockery. In fact, she is more likely to giggle when she's done something wrong (but not horribly so), and you give her a mock scolding look -- "[giggle, giggle] Whaaaat? [giggle, giggle] What did I doooo?" Giggling signals her vulnerability: it is designed to manipulate you into treating her more gently than you might be inclined to when she goofs up.
Young girls are also much more likely to make a drawn-out, highly inflected "Awwwww!" when they think something is cute. You will then be tempted to make that sound yourself (if briefer and less inflected) in response to how adorable they are being, but you must always suppress this reflex, as you don't want to look adorable.
(The first 17 times you watch this video, you will probably be too mesmerized by how impossibly tight and smooth her skin is to enjoy the humor.)
How to preserve this charm:
Because it's reflexive, giggling is hard to fake. But do whatever gets you into a giddy mood -- sleep deprivation helps. Maybe watch some old movies that feature your teenage crush and recall all of the silly little fantasies you had about how your first encounter would go.
A female who doesn't giggle when you're talking to her is like a cat that doesn't purr when you stroke its head and neck (or whatever the hell dogs do). How would you tell that this purr-less feline loved you for taking care of it?
Giggling is not the same as "ha ha" laughter, and it is certainly not the faux cackling that girl-haters produce in mockery. In fact, she is more likely to giggle when she's done something wrong (but not horribly so), and you give her a mock scolding look -- "[giggle, giggle] Whaaaat? [giggle, giggle] What did I doooo?" Giggling signals her vulnerability: it is designed to manipulate you into treating her more gently than you might be inclined to when she goofs up.
Young girls are also much more likely to make a drawn-out, highly inflected "Awwwww!" when they think something is cute. You will then be tempted to make that sound yourself (if briefer and less inflected) in response to how adorable they are being, but you must always suppress this reflex, as you don't want to look adorable.
(The first 17 times you watch this video, you will probably be too mesmerized by how impossibly tight and smooth her skin is to enjoy the humor.)
How to preserve this charm:
Because it's reflexive, giggling is hard to fake. But do whatever gets you into a giddy mood -- sleep deprivation helps. Maybe watch some old movies that feature your teenage crush and recall all of the silly little fantasies you had about how your first encounter would go.
What cultural decline?
I've started a series over at Gene Expression on the cultural improvement during the most recent generations (roughly born in 1975 or after), as compared to the blight of those generations who, oddly enough, accuse youngsters these days of being out-of-control.
The first entry is titled Your generation was sluttier, and if you don't regularly read GNXP, you can find any future entries by clicking the tag "previous generations were more depraved," which I'm using to mark the series.
Leave any comments over there, not here.
The first entry is titled Your generation was sluttier, and if you don't regularly read GNXP, you can find any future entries by clicking the tag "previous generations were more depraved," which I'm using to mark the series.
Leave any comments over there, not here.
June 13, 2008
Ruining my pretty feet
Living in a domesticated society makes it tough for men to accrue the marks of wear-and-tear that chicks dig, like battle scars or syphilis. Guys who wield tools all day develop rugged hands, but even they wear comfortable socks and shoes and tread little ground on the job.
To rediscover the sensation that our hunter-gatherer and pastoral ancestors must have endured as they pursued lions across miles of savannah, trekked over the burning desert sands, and traipsed through mud knee-deep while fleeing a barbarian raid, I connect with the only modern site that is savage and virile enough to still expect men to destroy their tender soles -- a dance club on '80s night.
Now, don't get me wrong: hip-hop and R&B are fine and danceable too, but no other decade has produced as much fast-paced, syncopated dance music as the 1980s. When you enter a "see and be seen" club and labor to move your body to the dull, marching-step rhythms of recent music, you can't help but feel like a slave bound by the bloated Roman Empire that eclipsed the efflorescence of Ancient Greece.
And like all trials that men suffer through, going to the dance club is mostly about getting close to pretty young things, like these two:
Yeah, the song is more poppy than dancy, and there are probably better examples of cuties boogying down to '80s music -- but while my team of paid interns is busy scouring through the catacombs of YouTube to locate them, this one will have to do in the meantime. Maybe you could turn down the volume on that video and play some better music in another window, kind of like how I mute the facesitting porn clip I'm watching while the dialogue of Casablanca plays in the background.
Try playing these songs for a more authentic feel (if they don't get your body moving in a club, first check to make sure you're not paralyzed from the neck down):
Dancing in Heaven by Q-Feel, Lucky Star and Holiday and Into the Groove by Madonna, Situation and Don't Go by Yazoo, Just Can't Ge Enough by Depeche Mode, Send Me an Angel by Real Life, and Always on My Mind and Opportunities by Pet Shop Boys.
You will probably feel a little bit gay when dancing to them at first, but the feeling tends to diminish once your hands are on an 18 year-old's hips, with only the thin layers of some American Apparel leggings and athletic shorts separating you from your goal. Sure, some of your success is just playing the numbers game: that's why you should go out dancing four nights a week, for three hours at a time. That is natural cardio, not being shackled to some hunk of metal and plastic in an air-conditioned gym. Break free -- trust me, you'll enjoy it.
To rediscover the sensation that our hunter-gatherer and pastoral ancestors must have endured as they pursued lions across miles of savannah, trekked over the burning desert sands, and traipsed through mud knee-deep while fleeing a barbarian raid, I connect with the only modern site that is savage and virile enough to still expect men to destroy their tender soles -- a dance club on '80s night.
Now, don't get me wrong: hip-hop and R&B are fine and danceable too, but no other decade has produced as much fast-paced, syncopated dance music as the 1980s. When you enter a "see and be seen" club and labor to move your body to the dull, marching-step rhythms of recent music, you can't help but feel like a slave bound by the bloated Roman Empire that eclipsed the efflorescence of Ancient Greece.
And like all trials that men suffer through, going to the dance club is mostly about getting close to pretty young things, like these two:
Yeah, the song is more poppy than dancy, and there are probably better examples of cuties boogying down to '80s music -- but while my team of paid interns is busy scouring through the catacombs of YouTube to locate them, this one will have to do in the meantime. Maybe you could turn down the volume on that video and play some better music in another window, kind of like how I mute the facesitting porn clip I'm watching while the dialogue of Casablanca plays in the background.
Try playing these songs for a more authentic feel (if they don't get your body moving in a club, first check to make sure you're not paralyzed from the neck down):
Dancing in Heaven by Q-Feel, Lucky Star and Holiday and Into the Groove by Madonna, Situation and Don't Go by Yazoo, Just Can't Ge Enough by Depeche Mode, Send Me an Angel by Real Life, and Always on My Mind and Opportunities by Pet Shop Boys.
You will probably feel a little bit gay when dancing to them at first, but the feeling tends to diminish once your hands are on an 18 year-old's hips, with only the thin layers of some American Apparel leggings and athletic shorts separating you from your goal. Sure, some of your success is just playing the numbers game: that's why you should go out dancing four nights a week, for three hours at a time. That is natural cardio, not being shackled to some hunk of metal and plastic in an air-conditioned gym. Break free -- trust me, you'll enjoy it.
Alluring older women: 3
Older woman #3 was a bartender at a small bar / lounge in Barcelona, which draws a crowd of 18 - 25 year-olds. * I believe that when an older woman is surrounded by pretty young things all day, she develops a sense of humility and vulnerability that her peers do not. Female high-school teachers might be this way too. In any case, I noticed her staring back at me several times one night, but since she was easily a 9, I figured she was just gaming me for a larger tip or something.
But when she had a lull in customers, she walked over and started chatting with me. Over the next hour or so, she was leaning in, grazing her cheek against mine to speak, reaching out to touch my arms, and laid her hands on top of mine. It never seemed eager or calculated, like a cougar would do, although her movements were more relaxed than those of a youngster.
I never mentioned her looks, starting off instead by asking if it's hard being a bartender since everyone must treat you like a robot -- she chuckled yes -- and proceeded to ask her what she does for fun, what she would like to do, etc. She was a painter, originally from either Mallorca or Menorca, so I mentioned that I was also a foreigner, and started talking about how guys don't do artistic things for the girls they love anymore. (I used to write them poems, a bad habit that I ended around this time.) Looking back, it was a very cheesy thing to say, but she responded really well to that remark, probably just because she was an artist (or thought I was cute enough to forgive).
Near the end of the conversation, she asked how old I was, and I said 23 (though I was nearly 24). "Oh my, you're very young, aren't you?" she said in Spanish. Shit. I asked her the same, and after a pause, she confessed that she was 28. I didn't know at the time that I was supposed to playfully tease her about being too old for me to talk to, so her anxiety about the age difference only grew from that point on.
When I returned the next week, she ignored me the entire time. Still being rather clueless about girl behavior, I waited around at the bar until a male bartender approached me and, in the friendliest way possible, told me that I was making her nervous. So a five-year age gap was all it took to go from heavy flirting to the cold shoulder, eh?
I didn't bother talking to older women after this, although by then they'd pretty much lost their looks anyway. This one simply flew under my radar: she had the same ultra-petite body type as older women #1 and #2 and showed no signs of aging -- I thought she was 20 or 21. That's probably how she got such a difficult job.
It's not cheating to include someone I thought was several years younger than me, for the simple reason that she didn't act that way, only looked it. Like older woman #1, who was almost the same age, her level of Neuroticism had settled in a more mellow range. That did make her appear less girly and high-energy, but I admit that there is a certain attractiveness to a mellow personality when the girl is strikingly gorgeous, like a mature cat who is happy to flop on your lap and purr for hours on end, and unlike a kitten that's too occupied in bouncing itself off the furniture and wanting you to constantly run around with some string for it to chase.
* By the way, there are lots of these places in Spain, including the gigantic club Razzmatazz that attracts people from hours away every weekend. In the US, there are only a handful of 18+ clubs, although these repel 22 to 25 year-olds (who think they're too cool for college-aged kids), and 21+ clubs, which in practice cater mostly to the wealthier 30-something group. The typical option for college-aged kids here is an awful frat party, and out-of-college kids have almost no places that cater primarily to them.
But when she had a lull in customers, she walked over and started chatting with me. Over the next hour or so, she was leaning in, grazing her cheek against mine to speak, reaching out to touch my arms, and laid her hands on top of mine. It never seemed eager or calculated, like a cougar would do, although her movements were more relaxed than those of a youngster.
I never mentioned her looks, starting off instead by asking if it's hard being a bartender since everyone must treat you like a robot -- she chuckled yes -- and proceeded to ask her what she does for fun, what she would like to do, etc. She was a painter, originally from either Mallorca or Menorca, so I mentioned that I was also a foreigner, and started talking about how guys don't do artistic things for the girls they love anymore. (I used to write them poems, a bad habit that I ended around this time.) Looking back, it was a very cheesy thing to say, but she responded really well to that remark, probably just because she was an artist (or thought I was cute enough to forgive).
Near the end of the conversation, she asked how old I was, and I said 23 (though I was nearly 24). "Oh my, you're very young, aren't you?" she said in Spanish. Shit. I asked her the same, and after a pause, she confessed that she was 28. I didn't know at the time that I was supposed to playfully tease her about being too old for me to talk to, so her anxiety about the age difference only grew from that point on.
When I returned the next week, she ignored me the entire time. Still being rather clueless about girl behavior, I waited around at the bar until a male bartender approached me and, in the friendliest way possible, told me that I was making her nervous. So a five-year age gap was all it took to go from heavy flirting to the cold shoulder, eh?
I didn't bother talking to older women after this, although by then they'd pretty much lost their looks anyway. This one simply flew under my radar: she had the same ultra-petite body type as older women #1 and #2 and showed no signs of aging -- I thought she was 20 or 21. That's probably how she got such a difficult job.
It's not cheating to include someone I thought was several years younger than me, for the simple reason that she didn't act that way, only looked it. Like older woman #1, who was almost the same age, her level of Neuroticism had settled in a more mellow range. That did make her appear less girly and high-energy, but I admit that there is a certain attractiveness to a mellow personality when the girl is strikingly gorgeous, like a mature cat who is happy to flop on your lap and purr for hours on end, and unlike a kitten that's too occupied in bouncing itself off the furniture and wanting you to constantly run around with some string for it to chase.
* By the way, there are lots of these places in Spain, including the gigantic club Razzmatazz that attracts people from hours away every weekend. In the US, there are only a handful of 18+ clubs, although these repel 22 to 25 year-olds (who think they're too cool for college-aged kids), and 21+ clubs, which in practice cater mostly to the wealthier 30-something group. The typical option for college-aged kids here is an awful frat party, and out-of-college kids have almost no places that cater primarily to them.
June 12, 2008
Under-18 girls are most likely to love good horror movies
Virgle Kent recently observed what many other 20-something men have: the disappearance of cool chicks starting around age 25 or so. We all know that guys are cooler than girls, and so what coolness girls do enjoy must reflect how much guy-type hormone is available to encoolify their brain. Below are some new and old data on tastes in movies as a female ages, and they support the testosterone theory of coolness.
Having shown that under-18 girls are the least likely to dig awful chick flicks -- a certain mark of how cool she is -- I had a hunch and checked out a genre aimed at males: horror. I googled the phrase "best horror movies" and found a website called "best-horror-movies.com," so they must know what they're talking about. The data here are from their list of the 100 greatest horror movies ever.
Same procedure as before: I looked up each movie's rating at IMDb.com and only counted entries that had around 40 or more votes for each female age group (for one, under-18 girls cast 39 votes), and went from the top of the ranking downward until I had 30 movies that met the criterion. I could have gone longer, but the trend was so clear that I didn't bother. The result: for 25 of these 30 movies (or 83%), under-18 girls gave them the highest rating of any female age group. See the Appendix for the significance test. As before, I assume that 18 and 19 year-olds are more like the under-18s than the 20-somethings who IMDb lumps them together with.
Sure, young girls like dopey movies about gossip and boys, but they also seem to enjoy movies aimed primarily at males. What this suggests is that there is no single dimension of how girly vs. how manly a person's tastes are, at least for movies, and probably for other media -- just like there is no single sex hormone. There appear to be at least two independent dimensions (again, like there is more than one sex hormone): one preference for manly movies and another for girly movies. Young girls have higher testosterone levels than older women, which causes them to have more acne, greater lust, and a greater likelihood of committing violent crime than their elders. So that's my guess for why they like horror movies so much. But they also have higher estrogen levels than older women, making them girlier at the same time.
Despite the decline in coolness, females may become more cultured and civilized as they age, and that's just who you want to be the mother of your children. But unless you're planning on having kids right now, or are looking for a mother for the kids you already have, you want someone who is more fun and exciting, and this means much younger. If she can't have a good laugh at a side-splitting comedy or enjoy being afraid during a horror movie, she's probably past her "ideal girlfriend material" stage.
Appendix
If the four female age groups were equally likely to give a movie the highest rating, and if each movie is rated independently of the others, then using a binomial test, the probability of our result is 3.2 x 10^(-11), making our result statistically significant at the 6.4 x 10^(-11) level (two-tailed). So, this is no fluke: teenage girls are far and away the group of females most likely to enjoy good horror movies.
Having shown that under-18 girls are the least likely to dig awful chick flicks -- a certain mark of how cool she is -- I had a hunch and checked out a genre aimed at males: horror. I googled the phrase "best horror movies" and found a website called "best-horror-movies.com," so they must know what they're talking about. The data here are from their list of the 100 greatest horror movies ever.
Same procedure as before: I looked up each movie's rating at IMDb.com and only counted entries that had around 40 or more votes for each female age group (for one, under-18 girls cast 39 votes), and went from the top of the ranking downward until I had 30 movies that met the criterion. I could have gone longer, but the trend was so clear that I didn't bother. The result: for 25 of these 30 movies (or 83%), under-18 girls gave them the highest rating of any female age group. See the Appendix for the significance test. As before, I assume that 18 and 19 year-olds are more like the under-18s than the 20-somethings who IMDb lumps them together with.
Sure, young girls like dopey movies about gossip and boys, but they also seem to enjoy movies aimed primarily at males. What this suggests is that there is no single dimension of how girly vs. how manly a person's tastes are, at least for movies, and probably for other media -- just like there is no single sex hormone. There appear to be at least two independent dimensions (again, like there is more than one sex hormone): one preference for manly movies and another for girly movies. Young girls have higher testosterone levels than older women, which causes them to have more acne, greater lust, and a greater likelihood of committing violent crime than their elders. So that's my guess for why they like horror movies so much. But they also have higher estrogen levels than older women, making them girlier at the same time.
Despite the decline in coolness, females may become more cultured and civilized as they age, and that's just who you want to be the mother of your children. But unless you're planning on having kids right now, or are looking for a mother for the kids you already have, you want someone who is more fun and exciting, and this means much younger. If she can't have a good laugh at a side-splitting comedy or enjoy being afraid during a horror movie, she's probably past her "ideal girlfriend material" stage.
Appendix
If the four female age groups were equally likely to give a movie the highest rating, and if each movie is rated independently of the others, then using a binomial test, the probability of our result is 3.2 x 10^(-11), making our result statistically significant at the 6.4 x 10^(-11) level (two-tailed). So, this is no fluke: teenage girls are far and away the group of females most likely to enjoy good horror movies.
June 11, 2008
Alluring older women: 2
Older woman #2 was my Italian language professor during senior year of college, when I was 22 and she was -- well, I never found out, but a girl friend in the class said she was at least 60. Part of this was just envious slander, but she was certainly in her 50s. She was from Perugia, and like most Italian women, she aged very well: it was only after hard thought that I conceded to my friend that she was over 50.
Also like most Italian women, she had a very chic look -- a typical ensemble consisted of straight-legged black leather pants (even the girls admitted that she wore them very well), a crisp white blouse with a fluffy-textured gray, white, and black speckled sweater, and red designer eyeglasses. If you're picturing her with short punky hair based on this, no, she did not try to look younger that way -- it was like that of Jacqueline Kennedy. And like older woman #1, she was very petite, probably 4'11 and 90 lbs.
Unlike Anglo women, who aim to sharpen their wit as they age, southern European women rely more on their overall level of culture, and particularly on emphasizing as much of their femininity as is socially acceptable (too much, and they would become Anglo cougars). Also unlike Anglo women, they experience culture more naturally during their life, so it rarely appears that they are trying to broadcast how high-status they are, status-striving in females always being an instant turn-off.
I could tell she was unmarried or divorced and somewhat lonely, though not desperate, and I was the only person in the class who related to most of what she talked about. I was also far more driven than my classmates: I skipped over the first two years of Italian by teaching myself during the preceding summer to prepare for a family vacation to Rome. I also did plenty of reading and writing in Italian outside of class.
She was delighted at my level of ambition, and this emboldened me to sit close to her in our daily discussion circle. (This was also about the time when I started to become physically attractive, and you can tell when someone notices you in that way.) She had such a nonchalant air that I could have talked to her for hours. In fact, I don't remember discussing anything with my classmates or responding to their remarks -- they weren't very bright anyway, let alone in a foreign language -- but just blocking them out and drinking in professoressa's amaretto eyes.
Still, she'd probably had at least one really driven student each semester. The moment we really connected came when she was explaining the historical background of a movie we'd watched. She referred to one character as a member of "gli ex-sessantottini," and as she wrote that phrase on the blackboard, I chuckled rather loudly. She turned around, caught my eye, formed a genuine smile, and then let loose a few deep-breath chuckles herself.
To explain, the Italian phrase means "the ex-sixty-eighters," referring to the well-to-do radical protesters of 1968 who have since become bourgeois. She was preparing to have to explain all of this over the course of 15 minutes, since she was talking to undergrads, but having a knack for deciphering foreign phrases and having recently been a student radical at the time, I got the joke right away.
While my precociousness may have taken her by surprise, what really touched her must have been the fact that she didn't feel like a geezer -- anytime you have to ask, out of exasperation, "Don't they teach you kids about ____ in history class?" it must make you feel like an old crone, like your life experiences are already history.
After awhile, I decided to write her a poem in Italian, although I didn't address it to her directly; I gave it to her and asked for helpful comments. She said she really liked it, and showed it off to another Italian professor. When she spontaneously said it reminded her of John Donne -- my favorite poet -- it took all I had to keep from carrying her petite body off of the ground and onto her desk.
Eventually I told her how I felt, and she said that while I am very impressed with your work in class and hope you continue your Italian studies, I must remind you that I am your professor, and that you should let go of pursuing any other relationship outside of the student-teacher.
Hey, no worries, professoressa: it's your loss.
Also like most Italian women, she had a very chic look -- a typical ensemble consisted of straight-legged black leather pants (even the girls admitted that she wore them very well), a crisp white blouse with a fluffy-textured gray, white, and black speckled sweater, and red designer eyeglasses. If you're picturing her with short punky hair based on this, no, she did not try to look younger that way -- it was like that of Jacqueline Kennedy. And like older woman #1, she was very petite, probably 4'11 and 90 lbs.
Unlike Anglo women, who aim to sharpen their wit as they age, southern European women rely more on their overall level of culture, and particularly on emphasizing as much of their femininity as is socially acceptable (too much, and they would become Anglo cougars). Also unlike Anglo women, they experience culture more naturally during their life, so it rarely appears that they are trying to broadcast how high-status they are, status-striving in females always being an instant turn-off.
I could tell she was unmarried or divorced and somewhat lonely, though not desperate, and I was the only person in the class who related to most of what she talked about. I was also far more driven than my classmates: I skipped over the first two years of Italian by teaching myself during the preceding summer to prepare for a family vacation to Rome. I also did plenty of reading and writing in Italian outside of class.
She was delighted at my level of ambition, and this emboldened me to sit close to her in our daily discussion circle. (This was also about the time when I started to become physically attractive, and you can tell when someone notices you in that way.) She had such a nonchalant air that I could have talked to her for hours. In fact, I don't remember discussing anything with my classmates or responding to their remarks -- they weren't very bright anyway, let alone in a foreign language -- but just blocking them out and drinking in professoressa's amaretto eyes.
Still, she'd probably had at least one really driven student each semester. The moment we really connected came when she was explaining the historical background of a movie we'd watched. She referred to one character as a member of "gli ex-sessantottini," and as she wrote that phrase on the blackboard, I chuckled rather loudly. She turned around, caught my eye, formed a genuine smile, and then let loose a few deep-breath chuckles herself.
To explain, the Italian phrase means "the ex-sixty-eighters," referring to the well-to-do radical protesters of 1968 who have since become bourgeois. She was preparing to have to explain all of this over the course of 15 minutes, since she was talking to undergrads, but having a knack for deciphering foreign phrases and having recently been a student radical at the time, I got the joke right away.
While my precociousness may have taken her by surprise, what really touched her must have been the fact that she didn't feel like a geezer -- anytime you have to ask, out of exasperation, "Don't they teach you kids about ____ in history class?" it must make you feel like an old crone, like your life experiences are already history.
After awhile, I decided to write her a poem in Italian, although I didn't address it to her directly; I gave it to her and asked for helpful comments. She said she really liked it, and showed it off to another Italian professor. When she spontaneously said it reminded her of John Donne -- my favorite poet -- it took all I had to keep from carrying her petite body off of the ground and onto her desk.
Eventually I told her how I felt, and she said that while I am very impressed with your work in class and hope you continue your Italian studies, I must remind you that I am your professor, and that you should let go of pursuing any other relationship outside of the student-teacher.
Hey, no worries, professoressa: it's your loss.
June 9, 2008
Alluring older women: 1
While I'm uncharacteristically writing about the dangers of dating younger girls, I might as well get this out of my system too. Even as a senior in high school, I was pulled toward the freshman and sophomore girls, and my love of younger girls has not diminished since then. However, there have been a few special females who, despite being older, have managed to intrigue me. If they won over someone who has such picky tastes regarding age, they could win over anyone. Aging women, take notice of these traits.
To sum up the series in advance, the three common factors underlying the appeal of these older women are, in order of decreasing importance, 1) looking much younger than they are; 2) maintaining a girly personality, in this sense; and 3) having an aura of reserve and mystery about them. The trend toward a more reserved and mysterious demeanor parallels the steady decline in Extraversion as people age, so these women did not try to reverse their changing personalities but to make the best of them. Becoming witty and urbane had nothing to do with their charm.
As an aside, this explains why cougars fail to interest anyone other than the woefully desperate: they may or may not look fuckable, but they have a manly personality, appearing strong rather than vulnerable, and being too aggressive. Moreover, as exhibitionists, they leave nothing to the imagination -- and at their age, it's really wiser to cover up.
Steven Pinker wrote a book whose thesis was that much of modern life, especially some of the more undesirable aspects of it, could be traced in part to a belief in The Blank Slate. Certainly, the cougar phenomenon supports his thesis, as these women foolishly cling to the ideology of the perfectability of (wo)mankind, and struggle to achieve this Utopian state through top-down social engineering: for example, marshaling a Big Lie campaign that "30 is the new 20" -- a phrase that gets 25,000 Google hits -- spreading propaganda about how older women have higher sex drives (they do not), and burning at the stake any man who would rather taste the flesh of a bright-eyed 22 year-old intern than that of a 48 year-old aspiring senator who graduated from Yale Law School.
Older woman #1 and I were in the same small Arabic language class, where I noticed her mock-flirting with me anytime we worked in pairs. She stood barely 5'0 tall and must have weighed under 100 lbs. Plus she was half-Persian and half-Pakistani, and these women age incredibly slowly (especially Persians). I recall bumping into her many times over the next two years on campus, and she always had an aristocratic aloofness to her -- not a false, bitchy sort of aloofness. Being a foreign medical student, she did not appear nearly as haughty as her American-born Brown peers.
After awhile, I figured why not ask her out -- she told me that she was 27 and preferred to date guys her own age (I was 20). Fooled! I tried to save face by saying something like, "Oh, if I'd known that you were that old, I probably wouldn't have asked you out." And how did she respond to this assholish remark? By apologizing for how young she looked, saying that she still gets carded at bars, etc., ending her email with a smiley face, and becoming more mock-flirty in class.
Even if an older woman is not magnetically drawn to a younger guy, she may still find him promising enough to want to initiate him into adulthood -- not necessarily by seducing him, but at least giving him some valuable sparring practice with a gorgeous female, to groom him for when he reaches full potential. Even attractive teenage girls will engage in this play-flirting with pre-pubescent boys who they sense are a natural lady's man, something I saw at my tutoring center, in the same way that high school athletes will invite the precocious fifth grade boy to toss the football around with them.
Because this behavior of older women toward younger guys is perfectly natural, it should be explained to the guy so that he understands that it is only for practice. If his hormone-soaked brain gets the better of him, as it surely will without being told otherwise, he will think her advances are genuine, and her eventual rejection will leave a sour taste in his mouth regarding girls, as though she were just toying around with his mind. There's probably a small, unstudied tribe of people living somewhere in France who discuss these relationships more openly, but here they may embitter more than they empower.
To sum up the series in advance, the three common factors underlying the appeal of these older women are, in order of decreasing importance, 1) looking much younger than they are; 2) maintaining a girly personality, in this sense; and 3) having an aura of reserve and mystery about them. The trend toward a more reserved and mysterious demeanor parallels the steady decline in Extraversion as people age, so these women did not try to reverse their changing personalities but to make the best of them. Becoming witty and urbane had nothing to do with their charm.
As an aside, this explains why cougars fail to interest anyone other than the woefully desperate: they may or may not look fuckable, but they have a manly personality, appearing strong rather than vulnerable, and being too aggressive. Moreover, as exhibitionists, they leave nothing to the imagination -- and at their age, it's really wiser to cover up.
Steven Pinker wrote a book whose thesis was that much of modern life, especially some of the more undesirable aspects of it, could be traced in part to a belief in The Blank Slate. Certainly, the cougar phenomenon supports his thesis, as these women foolishly cling to the ideology of the perfectability of (wo)mankind, and struggle to achieve this Utopian state through top-down social engineering: for example, marshaling a Big Lie campaign that "30 is the new 20" -- a phrase that gets 25,000 Google hits -- spreading propaganda about how older women have higher sex drives (they do not), and burning at the stake any man who would rather taste the flesh of a bright-eyed 22 year-old intern than that of a 48 year-old aspiring senator who graduated from Yale Law School.
Older woman #1 and I were in the same small Arabic language class, where I noticed her mock-flirting with me anytime we worked in pairs. She stood barely 5'0 tall and must have weighed under 100 lbs. Plus she was half-Persian and half-Pakistani, and these women age incredibly slowly (especially Persians). I recall bumping into her many times over the next two years on campus, and she always had an aristocratic aloofness to her -- not a false, bitchy sort of aloofness. Being a foreign medical student, she did not appear nearly as haughty as her American-born Brown peers.
After awhile, I figured why not ask her out -- she told me that she was 27 and preferred to date guys her own age (I was 20). Fooled! I tried to save face by saying something like, "Oh, if I'd known that you were that old, I probably wouldn't have asked you out." And how did she respond to this assholish remark? By apologizing for how young she looked, saying that she still gets carded at bars, etc., ending her email with a smiley face, and becoming more mock-flirty in class.
Even if an older woman is not magnetically drawn to a younger guy, she may still find him promising enough to want to initiate him into adulthood -- not necessarily by seducing him, but at least giving him some valuable sparring practice with a gorgeous female, to groom him for when he reaches full potential. Even attractive teenage girls will engage in this play-flirting with pre-pubescent boys who they sense are a natural lady's man, something I saw at my tutoring center, in the same way that high school athletes will invite the precocious fifth grade boy to toss the football around with them.
Because this behavior of older women toward younger guys is perfectly natural, it should be explained to the guy so that he understands that it is only for practice. If his hormone-soaked brain gets the better of him, as it surely will without being told otherwise, he will think her advances are genuine, and her eventual rejection will leave a sour taste in his mouth regarding girls, as though she were just toying around with his mind. There's probably a small, unstudied tribe of people living somewhere in France who discuss these relationships more openly, but here they may embitter more than they empower.
June 8, 2008
The dangers of dating a much younger girl
Let's interrupt our regularly scheduled song in praise of the young girl and remind ourselves of some important dangers in dating them -- other than the obvious, like her father's shotgun going off in your back.
Most discussion of the mere downsides of dating a young girl -- such as in this 2blowhards post and its comment section -- exaggerates how bad the cons are for the average guy (like her not being able to get all art-chatty with you), while neglecting more real dangers. Having recuperated from a bout of the flu, I was able to go out four nights this week, and the novelty of it all after a week of being confined to my house made me notice a new danger each night I went out.
1) They're incredibly fickle. This doesn't matter if you just want to press your bodies together, but because they're so alluring, being cast aside out of flightiness stings more than it would if she were older. You can develop thick skin, and it still smarts more than in the older woman case. Older women are more brusque in their rejections, but this makes it easier to get over -- "yikes, glad I didn't get to know her" -- while rejection from a peppy teen affords you no such easy rationalization.
2) Unless you plan on dating your students, it is difficult to run into young girls in a get-to-know-you environment. One of the most common ways is being introduced to the younger sister of someone closer to your age. The older sister may be quite attractive and still only 22 years old, and so hardly worth spurning in an abstract sense when she throws herself at you. But when, after only knowing you for 10 minutes, she introduces you to her 17 year-old sister, it's hard to look at the more seductive and drunken behavior of her elder sister and find her as attractive as the unspoiled, sanguine younger sis, who is also flirtatious with you. (Adjust the ages as necessary: you're 40, a pleasant acquaintance is 32, but her sister is 26.)
So, you'll be faced with a choice between hooking up or dating the older sister and not enjoying yourself very much because you really want her younger sister, vs. going around the older sister's back to date the younger one, complicating every day's plan thereafter. Plus, if you spurn a nice 22 year-old for her 17 year-old sister, she will be constantly poisoning her sister against you when you're not around, most of it just shit she'll make up. While I happened upon this danger in a sister-sister context, it would come up in any other context where someone closer to you in social space introduces you to a young girl -- for example, if a 22 year-old fellow graduate student introduces you to a 17 year-old freshman who she's tutoring.
3) They will ruin any idealistic view of them that you may have had. I don't think becoming disillusioned is a bad thing, but some guys do. Or at least, while they may admit to terrible truths about other things, they still want to preserve their vision of adolescent girls as basically innocent and kind (it helps that these guys have completely blocked out all memories involving girls from their own adolescence).
I tried dancing with a 16 year-old face-to-face, holding hands, and keeping about a foot-and-a-half distance between us -- just to see if the female soul would appreciate this non-aggressive gesture. We danced this way for five to ten seconds, then she closed the distance and put one of her arms down, leading that hand of mine to her hip. After dancing this way for a further five seconds, she spun around, gave me her ripe ass, and lifted her arms away from her torso for me to caress the sides of her ribcage.
Events like this will fuck with your mind and change you forever, like the first time you heard a girl, in real life, say that she likes having her hair pulled. The animal nature of man -- and woman -- is not something our culture cares much about anymore, so these events will blindside most guys, and they may feel like they've bitten off more than they can chew. (At least the girl above leaned up to kiss me on the cheek when the song had finished, so it wasn't completely unwholesome.) Now, I have enjoyed purely innocent dances with young girls, but I can count them using only my thumbs.
4) As with males, females are the most violent from ages 15 to 24. While males get into violent fights in public settings, usually when their honor has been threatened, females are more likely to commit violence in an intimate setting. If you're dating a hotheaded youth, be prepared to step up your dominance displays on a regular basis, to deter her from getting the nerve to hit you, and be prepared to eventually get hit and have to respond. (I would hit her back, no question, though in proportion to what she did.)
This dynamic is more likely to unfold for a noticeably older guy dating a young girl, because the girls who will be open to this relationship will certainly not be a representative sample of young girls -- they will have a thorough excitement-seeking streak. These girls are likely to get into man-type public fights, so you can imagine how much more easily they would feel like pushing or slapping you in private.
Remember the girl who first corrupted my mind? She will illustrate this well. Tonight, she must have been in a higher state of physiological arousal, because right away she walked behind me while I was dancing and gave me a pretty good slap on the ass. By this point, I realize she views me as a novelty to have a little fun with, the same way I view her, so I didn't think it meant anything unusual. Later, though, a Big Girl was shouting at someone behind me, and I felt a girl fight coming on, so I maneuvered my way into her line of sight and planted my feet, just to block whoever she was staring down.
After bearing the brunt of a rush attack and getting knocked forward a good two feet (but fortunately having no trouble keeping my balance), I turned around and saw that it was the caramel-skinned girl -- with two guys already holding her back! Damn, I hate to think what could've happened if they and I weren't there to block her. That firecracker nature of hers not only makes her a sassy little sexual prankster, but also the type to enjoy whooping another girl's ass in public. For most, this would just be way too dangerous of a relationship to bother with. No doubt about it, though: at first, I would get a huge rush from pulling her off another girl and fucking her anger out later on -- but policing her would get tiresome very quickly.
5) Related to the above, you are also more likely to get into violent fights with guys her age, since they too are at their peak propensity toward violence. From displaying good body language and wearing a suit and tie (which connote power), I've never even gotten into a verbal fight with the hormone-crazed young dudes, even the thuggy Black guys who go to the teen dance club. Still, there are all those thousands of little pissing matches you have to get in when one of them tries to push past you, stand in your way, and so on -- something I hardly noticed during my sole venture to a 30-something club. It's do-able, but still another type of bullshit you'll have to deal with during the courtship process.
Even if you don't go to bars or clubs, there will be all of those sleazeballs who will leer at her or try to touch her when you're both out in public, a threat you wouldn't face if your girlfriend didn't attract attention from males aged 25 and under. Again, good body language and powerful clothing will mostly obviate the need to push a guy off of her, but there's always the chance that even a minor, routine turf war could escalate.
So, in the end, are the pretty young things worth braving these potential dangers, both physical and psychological? I think so -- "you get what you pay for," "no pain, no gain," bla bla bla. Plus, most of these dangers are present to a lesser degree in dating older women, except for having your idealistic vision of them ruined, as you probably hold no such view to begin with. Dating and mating will always be hell, and all females drag drama wherever they go. You might as well accept a bit more of the usual costs and enjoy a much higher payoff.
Most discussion of the mere downsides of dating a young girl -- such as in this 2blowhards post and its comment section -- exaggerates how bad the cons are for the average guy (like her not being able to get all art-chatty with you), while neglecting more real dangers. Having recuperated from a bout of the flu, I was able to go out four nights this week, and the novelty of it all after a week of being confined to my house made me notice a new danger each night I went out.
1) They're incredibly fickle. This doesn't matter if you just want to press your bodies together, but because they're so alluring, being cast aside out of flightiness stings more than it would if she were older. You can develop thick skin, and it still smarts more than in the older woman case. Older women are more brusque in their rejections, but this makes it easier to get over -- "yikes, glad I didn't get to know her" -- while rejection from a peppy teen affords you no such easy rationalization.
2) Unless you plan on dating your students, it is difficult to run into young girls in a get-to-know-you environment. One of the most common ways is being introduced to the younger sister of someone closer to your age. The older sister may be quite attractive and still only 22 years old, and so hardly worth spurning in an abstract sense when she throws herself at you. But when, after only knowing you for 10 minutes, she introduces you to her 17 year-old sister, it's hard to look at the more seductive and drunken behavior of her elder sister and find her as attractive as the unspoiled, sanguine younger sis, who is also flirtatious with you. (Adjust the ages as necessary: you're 40, a pleasant acquaintance is 32, but her sister is 26.)
So, you'll be faced with a choice between hooking up or dating the older sister and not enjoying yourself very much because you really want her younger sister, vs. going around the older sister's back to date the younger one, complicating every day's plan thereafter. Plus, if you spurn a nice 22 year-old for her 17 year-old sister, she will be constantly poisoning her sister against you when you're not around, most of it just shit she'll make up. While I happened upon this danger in a sister-sister context, it would come up in any other context where someone closer to you in social space introduces you to a young girl -- for example, if a 22 year-old fellow graduate student introduces you to a 17 year-old freshman who she's tutoring.
3) They will ruin any idealistic view of them that you may have had. I don't think becoming disillusioned is a bad thing, but some guys do. Or at least, while they may admit to terrible truths about other things, they still want to preserve their vision of adolescent girls as basically innocent and kind (it helps that these guys have completely blocked out all memories involving girls from their own adolescence).
I tried dancing with a 16 year-old face-to-face, holding hands, and keeping about a foot-and-a-half distance between us -- just to see if the female soul would appreciate this non-aggressive gesture. We danced this way for five to ten seconds, then she closed the distance and put one of her arms down, leading that hand of mine to her hip. After dancing this way for a further five seconds, she spun around, gave me her ripe ass, and lifted her arms away from her torso for me to caress the sides of her ribcage.
Events like this will fuck with your mind and change you forever, like the first time you heard a girl, in real life, say that she likes having her hair pulled. The animal nature of man -- and woman -- is not something our culture cares much about anymore, so these events will blindside most guys, and they may feel like they've bitten off more than they can chew. (At least the girl above leaned up to kiss me on the cheek when the song had finished, so it wasn't completely unwholesome.) Now, I have enjoyed purely innocent dances with young girls, but I can count them using only my thumbs.
4) As with males, females are the most violent from ages 15 to 24. While males get into violent fights in public settings, usually when their honor has been threatened, females are more likely to commit violence in an intimate setting. If you're dating a hotheaded youth, be prepared to step up your dominance displays on a regular basis, to deter her from getting the nerve to hit you, and be prepared to eventually get hit and have to respond. (I would hit her back, no question, though in proportion to what she did.)
This dynamic is more likely to unfold for a noticeably older guy dating a young girl, because the girls who will be open to this relationship will certainly not be a representative sample of young girls -- they will have a thorough excitement-seeking streak. These girls are likely to get into man-type public fights, so you can imagine how much more easily they would feel like pushing or slapping you in private.
Remember the girl who first corrupted my mind? She will illustrate this well. Tonight, she must have been in a higher state of physiological arousal, because right away she walked behind me while I was dancing and gave me a pretty good slap on the ass. By this point, I realize she views me as a novelty to have a little fun with, the same way I view her, so I didn't think it meant anything unusual. Later, though, a Big Girl was shouting at someone behind me, and I felt a girl fight coming on, so I maneuvered my way into her line of sight and planted my feet, just to block whoever she was staring down.
After bearing the brunt of a rush attack and getting knocked forward a good two feet (but fortunately having no trouble keeping my balance), I turned around and saw that it was the caramel-skinned girl -- with two guys already holding her back! Damn, I hate to think what could've happened if they and I weren't there to block her. That firecracker nature of hers not only makes her a sassy little sexual prankster, but also the type to enjoy whooping another girl's ass in public. For most, this would just be way too dangerous of a relationship to bother with. No doubt about it, though: at first, I would get a huge rush from pulling her off another girl and fucking her anger out later on -- but policing her would get tiresome very quickly.
5) Related to the above, you are also more likely to get into violent fights with guys her age, since they too are at their peak propensity toward violence. From displaying good body language and wearing a suit and tie (which connote power), I've never even gotten into a verbal fight with the hormone-crazed young dudes, even the thuggy Black guys who go to the teen dance club. Still, there are all those thousands of little pissing matches you have to get in when one of them tries to push past you, stand in your way, and so on -- something I hardly noticed during my sole venture to a 30-something club. It's do-able, but still another type of bullshit you'll have to deal with during the courtship process.
Even if you don't go to bars or clubs, there will be all of those sleazeballs who will leer at her or try to touch her when you're both out in public, a threat you wouldn't face if your girlfriend didn't attract attention from males aged 25 and under. Again, good body language and powerful clothing will mostly obviate the need to push a guy off of her, but there's always the chance that even a minor, routine turf war could escalate.
So, in the end, are the pretty young things worth braving these potential dangers, both physical and psychological? I think so -- "you get what you pay for," "no pain, no gain," bla bla bla. Plus, most of these dangers are present to a lesser degree in dating older women, except for having your idealistic vision of them ruined, as you probably hold no such view to begin with. Dating and mating will always be hell, and all females drag drama wherever they go. You might as well accept a bit more of the usual costs and enjoy a much higher payoff.
June 5, 2008
Under-18 girls are least likely to dig awful chick flicks
To get some hard data on the benefits of being friends with or dating young girls, I looked at three lists of the "worst chick flicks" that I found from a Google search for that phrase (here, here, and here). Because others created these lists, no one can accuse me of only examining movies that favor my hypothesis. They appear to be representative since so many movies show up on all three lists, indicating consensus (indeed, all but one from the Playboy list also show up in the recent 20 Worst list).
I then looked up their ratings on IMDB.com to see if the under-18 female group rated the movie lower than did the pool of all females, and, for greater precision, if they gave the movie the lowest score of all female age groups. I only used movies for which each age group cast about 40 or more votes (for one, under-18s cast 39 votes). That yielded 29 terrible chick flicks, and in the comments I'll post the gory details for each movie.
To summarize, though, for about three-quarters of the movies, under-18 girls rated them below the female average for the movie; and for about half the movies, they gave the movie the lowest rating of all four age groups. Both results are statistically significant (see Appendix below). While IMDB's age groups are rather broad -- under 18, 18 to 29, 30 to 44, and over 44 -- it is reasonable to assume that 18 and 19 year-olds are more like the under-18s than 20-somethings. A limitation of this cross-sectional data is that I can't tell whether these differences reflect maturational differences (like if today's 17 year-olds will eat up maudlin cellu-lard when they are 35), or whether they reflect cohort differences (like if teens today aren't as turned on by sappy culture as are members of previous generations).
Regardless of their source, why do these differences matter? There's a lively conversation over at 2blowhards on guys who chase much younger girls, and a recurring complaint about young girls is their level of culture. Frankly, it's their physical appearance, high energy level, and bubbly personalities that do it for me; I'd rather hear more about Bach's life and works from a scholar than my girlfriend. Still, I consider this a matter open to debate, as I've known too many cultured young girls and too many unrefined 30-somethings to consider the complaints self-evident, or if true, that they are of the magnitude that the complainers imply.
As always, data trump impressions. For instance, maybe an older man thinks young girls are ditzes because they don't feel like opening up to him out of mistrust toward older people -- it's been known to happen -- giving him a biased range of observable behavior. I want to see if older men's (and women's) impressions of the pretty young things are reflected in what these girls are really like when old people aren't looking. The data presented here show that the youngest girls are the least likely to buy into schmaltzy, low-brow estrogen-fests on film -- you can almost hear them groaning "this movie is so gay" and leaving the theater -- and that's to their credit in the dating market: one less type of charmless female bullshit you'll have to endure. Ah, but surely older women are better at getting high-brow movies, right?
In an upcoming post, I'll look at that question in more detail. My impression so far is that under-18 girls are fond of top-rated movies that involve violent male anti-heroes such as A Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver (!), while they yawn at top-rated movies that are slower paced and more subtle. Apparently, young girls can only appreciate the good stuff if it's of the get-your-blood-pumping type, although there's a corresponding downside in the older woman who can appreciate subtler fare while remaining less moved by action-packed movies or side-splitting comedies. At any rate, the young girl is better at recognizing femi-twaddle when she sees it, for the most part.
So, while Taxi Driver may not be the best date movie, lend a young girl the DVD and see what she thinks of it -- you'll be surprised. And she will look up to you for initiating her into the world of Cool Adult movies.
Appendix
Result #1: in 21 of the 29 cases (or 72%), under-18 girls rated it below the female average for that movie. Assume that the under-18 average could be above or below the total average with equal probability, and that each movie is rated independently of the others. Then, using a binomial test, the probability of Result #1 = 0.012, which makes our finding significant at the 0.024 level (two-tailed).
Result #2: in 15 of the 29 cases (or 52%), under-18 girls gave the movie the lowest rating of the four age groups. (These 15 cases exclude those where under-18s tied with another group for lowest score, and so if anything, this underestimates their hatred of bad chick flicks). Assume that under-18 girls could occupy any one of the four ranking positions -- i.e., rating it lowest, next to lowest, next to highest, and highest -- with equal probability, and that each movie is rated independently of the others. Then, using a binomial test, the probability of Result #2 = 0.0018, which makes our finding significant at the 0.0036 level (two-tailed).
I then looked up their ratings on IMDB.com to see if the under-18 female group rated the movie lower than did the pool of all females, and, for greater precision, if they gave the movie the lowest score of all female age groups. I only used movies for which each age group cast about 40 or more votes (for one, under-18s cast 39 votes). That yielded 29 terrible chick flicks, and in the comments I'll post the gory details for each movie.
To summarize, though, for about three-quarters of the movies, under-18 girls rated them below the female average for the movie; and for about half the movies, they gave the movie the lowest rating of all four age groups. Both results are statistically significant (see Appendix below). While IMDB's age groups are rather broad -- under 18, 18 to 29, 30 to 44, and over 44 -- it is reasonable to assume that 18 and 19 year-olds are more like the under-18s than 20-somethings. A limitation of this cross-sectional data is that I can't tell whether these differences reflect maturational differences (like if today's 17 year-olds will eat up maudlin cellu-lard when they are 35), or whether they reflect cohort differences (like if teens today aren't as turned on by sappy culture as are members of previous generations).
Regardless of their source, why do these differences matter? There's a lively conversation over at 2blowhards on guys who chase much younger girls, and a recurring complaint about young girls is their level of culture. Frankly, it's their physical appearance, high energy level, and bubbly personalities that do it for me; I'd rather hear more about Bach's life and works from a scholar than my girlfriend. Still, I consider this a matter open to debate, as I've known too many cultured young girls and too many unrefined 30-somethings to consider the complaints self-evident, or if true, that they are of the magnitude that the complainers imply.
As always, data trump impressions. For instance, maybe an older man thinks young girls are ditzes because they don't feel like opening up to him out of mistrust toward older people -- it's been known to happen -- giving him a biased range of observable behavior. I want to see if older men's (and women's) impressions of the pretty young things are reflected in what these girls are really like when old people aren't looking. The data presented here show that the youngest girls are the least likely to buy into schmaltzy, low-brow estrogen-fests on film -- you can almost hear them groaning "this movie is so gay" and leaving the theater -- and that's to their credit in the dating market: one less type of charmless female bullshit you'll have to endure. Ah, but surely older women are better at getting high-brow movies, right?
In an upcoming post, I'll look at that question in more detail. My impression so far is that under-18 girls are fond of top-rated movies that involve violent male anti-heroes such as A Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver (!), while they yawn at top-rated movies that are slower paced and more subtle. Apparently, young girls can only appreciate the good stuff if it's of the get-your-blood-pumping type, although there's a corresponding downside in the older woman who can appreciate subtler fare while remaining less moved by action-packed movies or side-splitting comedies. At any rate, the young girl is better at recognizing femi-twaddle when she sees it, for the most part.
So, while Taxi Driver may not be the best date movie, lend a young girl the DVD and see what she thinks of it -- you'll be surprised. And she will look up to you for initiating her into the world of Cool Adult movies.
Appendix
Result #1: in 21 of the 29 cases (or 72%), under-18 girls rated it below the female average for that movie. Assume that the under-18 average could be above or below the total average with equal probability, and that each movie is rated independently of the others. Then, using a binomial test, the probability of Result #1 = 0.012, which makes our finding significant at the 0.024 level (two-tailed).
Result #2: in 15 of the 29 cases (or 52%), under-18 girls gave the movie the lowest rating of the four age groups. (These 15 cases exclude those where under-18s tied with another group for lowest score, and so if anything, this underestimates their hatred of bad chick flicks). Assume that under-18 girls could occupy any one of the four ranking positions -- i.e., rating it lowest, next to lowest, next to highest, and highest -- with equal probability, and that each movie is rated independently of the others. Then, using a binomial test, the probability of Result #2 = 0.0018, which makes our finding significant at the 0.0036 level (two-tailed).
The sweet charms of the pure, flawed teen: 2
Being unable to control themselves physically
When they see you for the first time in awhile, they won't be able to help but run up to you and spring off the ground to throw their arms around you. The guy must then either spin around with her still holding on, or lean back to give her body extra distance from the ground. If they don't spring onto you, they will still stop short of you, push themselves up onto their tip-toes, and lean forward to hug you, so that holding onto your body is the only way of keeping their balance.
When making a point, they rest their hands on your shoulder and arm, or playfully hit you -- and not in that calculated way where it seems like they're aiming to seduce you, but because they just can't keep their hands to themselves. The look on their face is not "Oh, you...." but one of angry surprise or mock-disgust.
To get a boy's attention, they tap or stroke the chair in front of him at a table as they walk by, fluff their hair, tap or hold onto or stroke the jamb of a door as they leave a room that he's in, tug lightly and repeatedly on his sleeve when he's not looking, and bend over to rest their weight on a chair or table in front of him while arching their back. None of these is done is a slinky or seductive way, but in a perky and anxious way.
The common factor here is that involuntary behaviors like these signal that she has no control over her emotions, which reassures the guy that she can't just turn off her interest in him like a switch. By contrast, moves that appear more seductive signal that she's only interested in a quick fling and won't hang around -- which may be great if he's just looking to get laid, but not if he's judging potential long-term girlfriends.
How to preserve this charm:
This is really easy: just do the above behaviors. You may have to practice a bit, since you're probably rusty, but just remember that you should project an air of involuntary nervousness, like you have butterflies in your stomach. The hug move where you stand on your toes and lean into and onto him for support is all-purpose, since there don't have to be tables or chairs or door jambs nearby to caress as you walk by. Try psyching yourself up and walking fast before reaching him, since there should be a little spring in your step right before going for the hug. End it by opening your eyes wide and putting on a big genuine smile (where the muscle around your eyes squeezes to form crow's feet), and he will take notice of how different and refreshing it feels to hug you compared to other women.
Method actors try to recall past personal experiences where they felt the way they need to be for a character, and this should help here as well. While men have better reasoning abilities, women have better memories, so this is easier for you all than for us. Try remembering a specific guy you had a huge crush on in high school or college, and how nervous you were right before you went up to hug him for the first time. Or perhaps how you came back from summer camp or summer vacation and saw a guy friend for the first time in months, ran up to him, and jumped into his arms. Really, anything like this that you have a vivid memory of.
When they see you for the first time in awhile, they won't be able to help but run up to you and spring off the ground to throw their arms around you. The guy must then either spin around with her still holding on, or lean back to give her body extra distance from the ground. If they don't spring onto you, they will still stop short of you, push themselves up onto their tip-toes, and lean forward to hug you, so that holding onto your body is the only way of keeping their balance.When making a point, they rest their hands on your shoulder and arm, or playfully hit you -- and not in that calculated way where it seems like they're aiming to seduce you, but because they just can't keep their hands to themselves. The look on their face is not "Oh, you...." but one of angry surprise or mock-disgust.
To get a boy's attention, they tap or stroke the chair in front of him at a table as they walk by, fluff their hair, tap or hold onto or stroke the jamb of a door as they leave a room that he's in, tug lightly and repeatedly on his sleeve when he's not looking, and bend over to rest their weight on a chair or table in front of him while arching their back. None of these is done is a slinky or seductive way, but in a perky and anxious way.
The common factor here is that involuntary behaviors like these signal that she has no control over her emotions, which reassures the guy that she can't just turn off her interest in him like a switch. By contrast, moves that appear more seductive signal that she's only interested in a quick fling and won't hang around -- which may be great if he's just looking to get laid, but not if he's judging potential long-term girlfriends.
How to preserve this charm:
This is really easy: just do the above behaviors. You may have to practice a bit, since you're probably rusty, but just remember that you should project an air of involuntary nervousness, like you have butterflies in your stomach. The hug move where you stand on your toes and lean into and onto him for support is all-purpose, since there don't have to be tables or chairs or door jambs nearby to caress as you walk by. Try psyching yourself up and walking fast before reaching him, since there should be a little spring in your step right before going for the hug. End it by opening your eyes wide and putting on a big genuine smile (where the muscle around your eyes squeezes to form crow's feet), and he will take notice of how different and refreshing it feels to hug you compared to other women.
Method actors try to recall past personal experiences where they felt the way they need to be for a character, and this should help here as well. While men have better reasoning abilities, women have better memories, so this is easier for you all than for us. Try remembering a specific guy you had a huge crush on in high school or college, and how nervous you were right before you went up to hug him for the first time. Or perhaps how you came back from summer camp or summer vacation and saw a guy friend for the first time in months, ran up to him, and jumped into his arms. Really, anything like this that you have a vivid memory of.
June 3, 2008
The sweet charms of the pure, flawed teen: 1
Let's take a break from hedonism. I've had some time to appreciate the less sensory appeal of the 16 - 21 year-old, reflecting on the experiences of tutoring high-schoolers, befriending two delightful freshman girls last year, and enjoying all of the fun but non-libertine encounters I have with young girls in dance clubs (which I would never write about here). Keeping with the staying girly theme, after each part I'll include some practical advice on how to lessen the effects of aging. Apologies in advance to male readers for this vivid reminder of how uninspiring the women around you have become over time.Roissy caught a lot of flak for describing the perfect woman almost like an enthusiastic, loving pet, but that's basically what girlfriends are supposed to be. Push-pull behavior, where we give a little and take it away to make the other chase us to get it back, is second-order. Playful "adopt me" behavior triggers our protector instincts, as we are not moved to support and shield females who appear self-reliant, tough, and in control of their emotions.
The series will reflect this: the most endearing features of a young girl stem from her naivete and helplessness. She will be grateful that you are a Man in Her Life to cultivate or protect her, however brief the need may be (as in this nice guy encounter told by Alias Clio). Quite simply, she makes us feel truly appreciated as men. These qualities manifest themselves within friendships as well as romantic relationships, so even if you are dating or just fucking an older woman, it's worth making friends with some younger girls to keep your soul refreshed.
Charm #1: Freshness, lacking contamination by other males
The most obvious aspect of this is that she is almost guaranteed not to have any STDs. More importantly, though, prolonged exposure to males corrupts her in two broad ways:
1) As one bad experience after another piles on, however slight in degree, she becomes jaded about romance and men. This simple fact is the reason why picking up girls is so hard if they're 23 -- they are used to tons of guys approaching them with the same lines, and will view you as just another horny guy if you do so as well. Avoiding cynical treatment is why PUAS go through behavioral gymnastics during the opening or attraction stage.
2) She just has a bigger ego from having been hit on lots of times, in a subtle or gross way. This makes her more likely to tune out of an interaction because she thinks she has many alternatives to you. While this may be true from about 22 (when the ego boost really starts to show) to 25, after that, the ego remains while the beauty wastes.
Girls who have not graduated college are free of these corrosive effects on their girliness, so that you don't need to memorize a PUA playbook just to start a conversation with them and start building comfort. Even the very good-looking 18 year-olds still have not been hit on that much and remain terribly insecure about their looks, so you almost never encounter a young ice princess (unless they're red-headed).
How to preserve this charm:
Just don't go out to bars and clubs. If you're over 25, it's probably best not to go at all, unless you know there won't be many men there. Otherwise, you will only become more cynical about men and have an increasingly unrealistic view of your value on the dating and mating market. All those horny guys hitting on you fool you into thinking that you've still got it, but since you're interested in a longer-term relationship, you should focus on how many serious dating offers you've received instead. That will keep you better grounded and motivated. And let's be honest: by now, going out clubbing is no longer an insatiable urge like it was when you were 22, is it? So what are you really missing by hanging out with your friends in other places?
If you're under 25, I realize how powerful the pull of nightlife is, but recognize that its long-term effects are toxic for girls, as detailed above. Try to have one night per week, at most, where you go to a packed venue and get inundated with attention from male strangers, and another night where you go to a less crowded but still fun place. Seeing live music is a good idea since you're out, you're surrounded by people, there's good music, you feel high energy -- but the situation doesn't permit the guys there to constantly hit on you. And of course there are always gay clubs.
It's fine to want to dress hot and get some attention, but attention is addictive and it's easy to get carried away. If you're not careful, pretty soon you're jaded about romance because of all the losers you've attracted (when you dress hot, you attract all levels of guys, right?), and your ego is too big. Fighting the urge to attract lots of attention is probably the hardest challenge for a younger girl, but it will pay off in the short-term -- all that extra attention doesn't really make you feel better after a certain level -- and in the long-term, as you'll preserve your fresh-faced nature when few others will.
June 1, 2008
Cocky / funny lines for wearing a suit
Well, you could just be wearing a jacket and tie, but most people you meet will call it a suit. Because few guys wear them anymore, let alone to a dance club, the girls who take a liking to you will come up and ask you, "Why are you wearing a suit?" while smiling and stroking your jacket sleeve or your tie. Since this is a form of shit-testing, do not give logical answers like "I dunno, I just think guys don't put much effort into how they look anymore, and I'm trying to change that." Bzzt! And definitely do not respond with, "Oh, do you like it?"
The response I go with is a template adapted to the context: "My _____ are at the dry cleaners, and this is all I could scrounge together." At '80s night, "My cut-off jean shorts and headband are at the dry cleaners..." At a lingerie / fetish-themed night, "My leather chaps are at the dry cleaners..." At the teen dance club, "My awesome Hollister shirt is at the dry cleaners..." If I went to bars or clubs that catered to 30 year-olds, "My striped shirt and jeans are at the dry cleaners..." You get the idea. Use a slow, unrehearsed, dry delivery, and you're guaranteed to tickle her and produce some genuine giggling.
In your line, try not to bust on what other guys are wearing, though, since that makes it look like you think they pose a threat, which 99% of them do not. That's why I prefer going to venues where wearing a jacket and tie would be more unexpected: then you're just commenting on the silly requirements that '80s night or lingerie night makes on people, rather than taking pot shots at other males.
The response I go with is a template adapted to the context: "My _____ are at the dry cleaners, and this is all I could scrounge together." At '80s night, "My cut-off jean shorts and headband are at the dry cleaners..." At a lingerie / fetish-themed night, "My leather chaps are at the dry cleaners..." At the teen dance club, "My awesome Hollister shirt is at the dry cleaners..." If I went to bars or clubs that catered to 30 year-olds, "My striped shirt and jeans are at the dry cleaners..." You get the idea. Use a slow, unrehearsed, dry delivery, and you're guaranteed to tickle her and produce some genuine giggling.
In your line, try not to bust on what other guys are wearing, though, since that makes it look like you think they pose a threat, which 99% of them do not. That's why I prefer going to venues where wearing a jacket and tie would be more unexpected: then you're just commenting on the silly requirements that '80s night or lingerie night makes on people, rather than taking pot shots at other males.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)