I’ve been thinking about another interpretation of the beauty vs message graph for women messaging men that I posted last week:
The message curve looks like it’s been shifted to the right a constant amount. Because it’s so constant, it can’t be explained as women valuing personality/wealth over beauty. (OkTrends might be controlling for that somehow? They don’t really discuss their methodology.)
There’s a theory that women’s conscious and non-conscious desire is poorly linked. I’m thinking of research where women watch porn while their physical arousal is monitored and they report their psychological arousal. Women get physically aroused by mysoginistic porn. A recent result with animal porn led to the theory that women get physically aroused by the possibility of near-future sex whether it’s voluntary or not (ie: “you’re gonna get raped!”).
An alternate explanation is that women’s non-conscious mind likes to watch animal porn but culture has repressed that. Men are simpler creatures that have a direct connection between physical and psychological arousal. Or men don’t even have psychological arousal except caused when they observe their physical state.
This theory could explain the OkCupid graph by saying that women consciously claim all men are ugly but their non-conscious mind would still hit that.
The funny thing is that for the few men who are admittedly attractive, the messaging rate still drops. My theory is that attractive men can more easily cheat on a partner, so they’re best avoided in planned situations like online dating. This predicts that women would prefer more attractive men in unplanned situations like one-night stands.
