Your sexual choice reveals a lot about who you are and what you think of yourself.
Some people shoot for a partner lower than themselves. For example, a intelligent guy may feel that he’s only able to hold some “dumb broad” he picks up at a bar. He knows he can control her and not lose her. What does his choice reveal about his view of himself? Does he feel worthy or less so? What does his choice reveal about his view of woman? Does he feel they are rational or not? What does his choice reveal about his view of relationships? Can they be based on a mutual trade or do they involve control and manipulation? What does his choice reveal about his view of his chances in the world? Is he optimistic or not? Dumbness in a woman becomes an important selection factor for him.
Some people shoot higher than themselves. They want someone who can take care of them. They fall into a dependent relationship. If a woman says, “I married my husband because he had a lot of money and I knew I’d be taken care of and be able to have a country-club life style.” What does her choice reveal about her? She doesn’t think she could live independently or become successful on her own. She feels the need to be dependent upon a man. Money becomes an important selection factor in her choice for a partner.
Some people shoot for what I call “eye level.” They try to find a partner who is similar to themselves in terms of self-esteem and in terms of their view of the world. If you choose a partner with traits that are similar to your own–e.g., matching on levels of ambition, intellectual curiosity, ability to communicate openly and effectively — then your choice is a tribute to yourself, demonstrating your self-esteem and healthier premises. You value yourself enough to look for a match, not someone to look up to you, nor to peer down at you. A potential partner’s level of self-esteem and healthy character traits become important selection factors in choosing a romantic partner.
In healthy romance, we are attracted to similarities in the realm of virtues and values. But are we also attracted to differences?
To answer this question, ask yourself who you’re attracted to and who you find repulsive. I dated a lot when I was in college. I was attracted to intelligent, decent looking men who were good listeners, men I could admire and felt comfortable around, men who were not embarrassed about sex. I was attracted to men who admired in me what I admired in myself. I was not attracted to athletes involved in spectator sports, I was revolted by con-artists or those on drugs.
So in one sense, I was looking for similarities: intelligence, a decent looking individual, a good listener, a romantic partner and, very importantly, a rational atheist. I was repulsed by anyone who bought into any sort of irrationality.
In another sense, I definitely wanted a partner who had what I lacked. I was sometimes shy. I wanted my partner to be someone who was confident so that I could learn from him. I was disproportionately work-focused. I wanted someone who was work-focused, yes, but able to relax more so that I could learn to unwind. In that sense I wanted an “opposite,” but in a specific context. I wanted someone who had what I lacked character-wise, traits which I admired and wanted to achieve for myself. Notice that opposites on other fronts were repulsive to me (e.g., a drug user or a religious person); those traits were very unsexy, unromantic, and irrational.
Why did I throw in my dig about not liking men involved in spectator sports? I did it to illustrate that your experiences from your own family are not irrelevant in terms of your personal selection factors. My dad was obsessed with the damn (not Yankees) but the damn losing Red Sox. I spent much of my childhood watching his mood rapidly deteriorate because of a strike-out or some such nonsense. I vowed that I would never subject myself to the torture of my partner’s mood being at the mercy of a losing team. Finding a partner who could care less about sports was important in my selection process. In fairness to my dad, I wanted to find a partner who had his level of ambition, his sense of adventure and his light-hearted sense of humor. Those too became selection factors.
You may find some similar dynamics in your selection process (e.g., I want a woman who never nags me — my mother drove me nuts; I want a woman who cooks as well as mom).
Regarding the sexuality, there’s a wide range of sensual activities. You want to match on that dimension also, or be open to experimenting. If you are repulsed by oral sex and your potential partner loves it, that might be a factor that is non-negotiable and it could spell the end of this relationship, even though you enjoy each other in other capacities. If a woman was raped in childhood, she may hate intercourse throughout her lifetime; that may absolutely rule her out as a partner if you love intercourse.
Differences between the sexes
What role do the differences between the sexes play in sex? Ask a gay or lesbian couple and you will get a response that is different from asking the same question to a “helplessly heterosexual” man or woman. This demonstrates that sexual attraction involves a complex set of factors such as your sexual history (maybe you had a close same-sex companion as a young child and you experimented and enjoyed your budding sexuality with this person), your experiences with the opposite sex in general (maybe the men you dated were always forceful), and other factors.
In the normal course of events, men get highly aroused by the sight, thought, or image of their ideal woman. Woman, likewise get aroused by the opposite sex. Both fantasize about giving themselves and this “ideal partner” pleasure. The biological and physical differences are obvious here, but as illustrated with gay couples, male/female attraction can be overridden by your values.
The differences in physique, i.e., male, female, are intriguing–an adventure. The masculinity of the man can be very sexy as can be the femininity of the woman. You don’t have to be a size 6 woman to feel sexy and appealing to a man. A woman at our dance studio is easily a size 16, yet she sways her hips, smiles confidently, wears short skirts and heels and does one hot mambo with her male partners.
