Interesting Poll of Men and Women

Chris Michaud reported for Reuters on a poll conducted by AskMen and Cosmo. The headline was “Half of men would ditch woman who gained weight?” This is how it starts:

Men are more concerned with their partner's body type than women but they also seem to value family more highly, according to a new survey released on Tuesday.

Is it really news that men are more concerned with their partner’s body? Only to those people who have had so much "education" they believe there is no real difference between the sexes.

Nearly half of men questioned in the poll of 70,000 people said they would ditch a partner who gained weight, compared to only 20 percent of women.

A lot of the other half of the men are lying. I’ll get back to this below.

Two-third of men also said they had fantasized about their partner's friends, while only one-third of women had done so.

Two-thirds of men admitted this. A typical man only avoids fantasizing about any semi-attractive unrelated female through actively, intentionally stopping himself.

While only 18 percent of women said they would want their mate to be better endowed, more than 51 percent of men said they wished they themselves were.

It is an extremely sensitive issue for men. We relate to our penises in ways that women usually don't when it comes to parts of their bodies. That isn't to say that women wouldn't want part of their body to be different. Often, though, ladies, the things you're obsessing over a man finds fine or even great the way it is. As far as myself... at the risk of "TMI", I'll just say that I haven't had any worries since I was about 17 or 18 and measured myself, having read what the averages were.

But the survey also found 39 percent of men chose family as their top choice of the ultimate status symbol.

There are career men out there who got married and made babies in no small part because they thought they had to do that to gain favor with the people who would be hiring/promoting them. These are the guys who are likely to always put career before family. If I was a boss, I'd rather hire someone who didn't have a family over someone who neglects family.

By contrast, 43 percent of women selected a beautiful home, compared to only 6.5 percent of men. One-quarter of women named a successful partner as a top status symbol.

Those would mostly be women hot enough to attract rich men.

But men were more likely to lie about the number of sex partners they had had (50 percent) than women (35 percent).

How can the people behind the poll know this? It is relying on people to be honest about when they lie. Do they assume people will be more honest with them, rather than the people they know?

One thing both sexes agreed on was an as-yet undeveloped male birth control pill, an idea that proved popular all around.

A "temporary vasectomy" would do wonders for men, but would probably result in more infections as fewer men would use condoms. There are women who poke holes in condoms. What are they going to do about the pills? Find them and replace them with fakes?

But the sexes differed about paying for dates, at least in the early stages. More women, 38 percent, think each should pay their own way, versus 33 percent who think men should foot the bill. But 59 percent of men think they should cover the tab, at least until a relationship is established.

I want to know why.

Nearly 80 percent of men said they feel cheated by the divorce courts.

Most of the other 20 percent have not been divorced.

But more women feel the sexes receive equal treatment than those who agree the men get a raw deal.

Well, duh! They should ask their fathers, brothers, and sons.

Women are also far less comfortable with their mates keeping in touch with their ex. More than two-thirds of men are okay with their partner friending an ex on Facebook, as opposed to 38 percent of women.

Men care a lot of less about social contact. They just don't want her having sexual contact.

But three-quarters of men surveyed said they consider sexting cheating.

Interesting.

Back to the "getting fat" thing. Men are visual creatures, and we need to get turned on enough to get erect in order to have sex. A woman can be aided by artificial lubricant, so it is a little different. The weight issue is also a matter of respect. Letting yourself go tells your man you don’t respect him or care. Like it or not, successful men are expected to have attractive wives, so there's the status signifier thing.

Boiling it down to the most basic reality, men marry for sex, women marry for security (which really means money). So imagine, ladies, if you married a man with a steady, high income, and then after you married him, he voluntarily halved his income, for no other reason than he was tired of working hard. Would you stand for that? You can't avoid growing older. Usually, though, you can avoid getting fat.

The full results of the poll can be found at www.askmen.com/specials/great_male_survey and at www.askmen.com/specials/great_female_survey