How Men And Women Choose Their Sexual Partners

We didn't need the research of Dr. Galperin and Dr. Haselton to tell us that men tend to pursue hot sex and women tend to pursue stable relationships. But what else can social psychology tell us about how men and women differ in the ways they choose their sexual partners--before they have a chance to look back in either satisfaction or regret?

Men, the social psychologists tell us:

• Agree to casual sex after consideration of the potential of the partner to provide sexual satisfaction.

• Agree to casual sex more often than women.

Women, on the other hand, psychologists tell us, are:

• Agree to casual sex after consideration of the potential of the partner to provide sexual satisfaction.

• Agree to casual sex less often than men.

If both men and women naturally agree to casual sex on the basis of their assessment of how much they will enjoy it, why do women agree less often than men? After all, if the researchers surveyed enough people to include a fair sampling of various kinds of moral attitudes on sex and various kinds of physical attractiveness, shouldn't men and women be about equally likely to engage in casual sex?

It's not enough for a man to be "hot." He must also not give off signals that he is a cad. (Women also consider personality in lesbian relationships, of course.) On the other hand, men usually don't consider personality in their sexual relationships with either women or other men. Women prefer relationship. Men prefer one night stands.

"I find you to be very attractive." 

Pick up lines, whether slick or lame, also have different effects on men and women. Explicit pick up lines are the most likely to get the desired results in men, sometimes after the man recovers from his initial shock. Explicit lines are likely to be totally ignored by women (although a famous study in Austria found that 6.1% of women are receptive to an offer of immediate sexual satisfaction from an attractive stranger, in this study, an attractive man). In most cases, rejection of a suitor results in the suitor moving on. But there are exceptions:

• The protest response, in which the person seeking sex complains that he or she really is desirable.

• Frustration attraction, in which someone who has been rejected becomes even more attracted to the person who did the rejecting.

• Abandonment rage, an expression of a psychiatric disorder in which rejection leads to anger and/or violence.

• Mate guarding, in which one of the sexual partners is not willing for a relationship to remain casual.

Read More: Painful Sex: Causes and Treatment

Both men and women can express these reactions to sexual rejection, although they fall into different behavior patterns, men more overt, women more covert. But the best way to avoid the complications of having to reject a sexual suitor is not to be in a place where these propositions are received.