• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tony White

Psychologist

  • Home
  • Profile
    • Professional History
    • Professional Services
    • About Me
    • Training & Work Background
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blogs
  • Monograph Series
  • Home
  • Profile
    • Professional History
    • Professional Services
    • About Me
    • Training & Work Background
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blogs
  • Monograph Series

Human courtship and attraction

The best advice for this is simply to be happy and confident in your body. Some men will find it erotic and some men wont no matter what shape or size it happens to be.

November 13, 2015 //  by Tony White//  Leave a Comment

Working recently with two women who are back on the courtship or dating scene. If there ever was a thing that will keep therapists employed forever it’s human courtship. It’s a psychological minefield that can leave the unconfident even more unconfident and even the confident second guessing self at times. Being female of course they do not understand the male mind when it comes to courtship and attraction, (and of course the same applies the other way around).

However in this case we have female clients dealing with the machinations, uncertainties and tribulations of courtship and we have a male therapist who of course understands the male mind so much better because he is one of them. So what are words of wisdom I can declare to help these female clients in their period of courtship.

There are three types of attraction for men when it comes to courtship.

1. Physical beauty. Any person including males can look at something and find it beautiful or not. That can be a sunset, a drawing or a female person. In the male mind this has nothing to do with sex. What is a beautiful woman is determined to some degree by society. On this I agree two some extent however there are commonalities that one finds across cultures such as a high cheekbone structure in the face and certain proportions of the legs compared to the trunk and head and arms and so forth.

hair dryer

However it should be noted that the whole ‘thin’ thing as beautiful, is largely a female construction. The cat walk model, is women arguing amongst themselves about what is beautiful. Men by and large are not consulted on what they think in this way. Some men would see such women as beautiful but I would say that many, if not most, see physical beauty in a female in a much wider variety of ways than primarily thin. In the male mind the thin thing is definitely over rated.

If a woman is expecting men to see thin as beautiful then she will be disappointed as many (most) men see physical beauty in a female in others ways than just thin. Men who seek what society sees as the physically beautiful woman are more likely to be looking for a “trophy” woman. That is a woman who will make himself look more ‘successful’ to others. Although he would never admit it, it’s about him, not her. He is using her to massage his own narcissism.

2. Sexual attraction. As I said this has very little to do with physical beauty. A man can have a strong sexual response (attraction) to a female who does not fit the criteria of being physically beautiful much at all. I would say if a woman is concerned about being attractive to males this is probably more influential in the male mind than physical beauty. The physically beautiful woman can also be sexually attractive to some men but I would say in most instances that is not so. The most obvious example is the group of men who find the larger sized woman sexually attractive.

acrobat

The theory says: what a male will find sexual in a female is determined by his unresolved fixations in childhood. Some of these fixations then become eroticised in his mind and when he sees a female who has that particular feature or way of being then he will have sexual response to her. It is no great surprise that the female breast is a source of erotic attraction for many men in varying degrees. The breast is the first point of contact between mother and child that can proceed easily or become a battle field in the relationship and hence some kind of fixation will result.

As a result Freud called these ‘perversions’ and indeed they are that. What you find erotic in the opposite sex will represent your neurotic fixations that developed in you as a young child that have become eroticised in the mind. What a person finds erotic can be useful diagnostically in therapy. It can tell you a lot about the personality of the client.

As you can see this has little, if nothing to do with what a man may see as physically beautiful. In the male mind they are two separate things. And again if a woman is wanting to be attractive to males then the sexual response if probably more influential in his mind than the physical beauty. The best advice for this is simply to be happy and confident in your body. Some men will find it erotic and some men wont no matter what shape or size it happens to be.

When men see a physically beautiful woman many will do the male thing of:

“Oooh aah, ooh aaah, she’s a bit of alright” nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

But very few will act on it because they don’t have the motivation or they will make some feeble half hearted attempts. They are mostly doing ‘the male thing’ so they belong in their male peer group. They are far more likely to act when there is a sexual response to the woman.

J1

3. Free Child need. Men have as much a need for emotional intimacy, closeness and attachment as females do. All men have some unmet emotional needs in them that they hope a close other will one day satisfy and of course many people look for that in a partner. If a man sees these qualities in a female, that she may indeed meet his emotional needs for intimacy then she will be particularly attractive to him. But the importance of this changes over time. The order of importance can be seen below (and this is where men and women probably differ in the courtship business).

Day 1 importance

Sexual attraction

Physical beauty

FC needs

Day 21 importance

FC needs

Sexual attraction

Physical beauty

If a man finds the woman is not meeting the FC needs then he will feel a lack of connection or compatibility to her. In a reasonably short space of time he will loose interest in her no matter how good looking or sexy she may be and the relationship will be terminal in his mind.

(Of course the same applies for the male attempting to be attractive to the female. The machinations of that is for another discussion, another day)

Category: Relationship, romance, society valuesTag: beauty, courtship, sexual attraction

Previous Post: « Violence and personality
Next Post: Fantasy as a defence mechanism »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Website Re-build

The website is being rebuilt at the moment. Thank you for your patience and many apologies for any inconvenience.

Recent Posts

  • Deconfusion of the Child ego state
  • Deconfusion of the Child ego state
  • How I became a child psychotherapist
  • Consent and power in relationships.
  • Silence and the unconscious – Part 2
  • Silence and the unconscious
  • Silence in psychotherapy
  • Permission and redecision
  • Mature love, immature love and the teenager
  • Embrace the homeless
  • Psychology of the court process
  • Psychic organs to ego states
  • Regression – defence mechanism & natural human process
  • Two types or levels of life script change
  • Identification – Post 2
  • Identification – Post 1
  • Self control. Therapeutic implications
  • Adult ego state strengthening – Post 4
  • Adult ego state strengthening – Post 3
  • Adult ego state strengthening – post 2

Recent Comments

  • Irina on Social development – History taking
  • Joseph on How I became a child psychotherapist
  • Kahless on The Demon sub personality (Aka Lillith)
  • Kahless on How I became a child psychotherapist
  • Kahless on Consent and power in relationships.
  • Tony White on Consent and power in relationships.
  • Kahless on Consent and power in relationships.
  • Kahless on Silence and the unconscious – Part 2
  • Kahless on Silence and the unconscious
  • Kahless on Silence and the unconscious

Blog Archive

  • December 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • August 2013

Copyright © 2023 · Mai Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in