Restrict the inquiry to heterosexual men in the United States. To be sure, famous rock stars have a lot of opportunities, but that is just one small corner of the distribution. Which variable is the best predictor for the population as a whole? Patrons of prostitutes do not count.
You might rush in and claim "income" or "status" and maybe those are the correct answers. But we're talking unconditional predictors here, and men with high income and status are a) often older, and b) often busy working. I'm not ready to sign off on those answers and anecdotally, when I think of the people I know, I don't quite see it. (It may be more true in Latin America, for instance, and that is one reason why visiting American tourists don't always succeed there. They first need to be certified by a local of high income or status, but instead they make some kind of foolish direct charge.)
"Facility with women" is too vague empirically and in some cases verges on the tautological. Maybe this is the most powerful variable but then I wish to re-ask the question and consider what variable predicts facility with women.
Any takers?
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Extroversion
Age of first sexual encounter. Ask your friends… you'll see.
Proximity to loose women.
Like anything else, effort.
Population density in place of residence.
"Age of first sexual encounter."
Isn't that tautological too?
Undoubtedly height.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a nonlinear effect, though. I'd expect a much more pronounced effect for each inch below the average than for each inch above it.
Athleticism. Great signal of overall health and physical fitness of potential offspring.
Seconding or thirding extroversion but that could be…ahem…unpackaged a bit- enjoyment of the effort.
Corey…not tautological perhaps. But endogenous for sure.
Owning any cocaine.
Race.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27503812?seq=3
Also, if you want to understand why bullying is so prevalent, here's your answer: the pecking order of your classmates at the age of 13 is probably the best indicator.
How often do they go to church?
Does Tyler mean n, or quality? On that note, maybe it -should- be n of quality-adjusted sex partners? After all, the difference btwn M. Foody's proposed variable and Tylers 'no prostitute' provision is…what, exactly?
Height has got to be #1. But I recall reading that being able to dance was an indicator as well.
What's the best predictor of sex partners?
What the hell does that even mean? Are you asking us what best predicts if someone has a sex partner (in that case a ring on the left ring finger is the best indicator I know of; in which case they almost certaintly aren't having sex).
Are you asking us to predict the amount of partners, maybe their astrology sign?
baseline testosterone level
Peter,
Depends on your perspective, on alimony, what the rates are. Add that, and prositution rates go way up.
How about some predictors of non-success: playing D&D or WoW, being a sci-fi fan, participating in Civil War re-enactments or renfairs, not being an NFL fan.
"men who succeed with women behave as if they do not need them, that those women can take or leave whatever they have to offer them"
An assertion backed up by nothing other than conjecture (ignoring whether or not your definition of "success" is qualitatively correct). Additionally, trying to reduce all social dynamics to an individual personality characteristic seems specious at best.
Age of first sexual encounter is interesting. You could make an argument for facial symmetry, which plenty of people do – but that could fall under the more general heading of attractiveness. I earnestly have no idea how to take into account sex-positive cultural norms (age of first sexual encounter might be the closest one could get?), but I have to think levels of promiscuity would be most accurately tied to that.
The reason pecking order in adolescence is the best single indicator it that it is a function of everything else mentioned: height, confidence, looks, extroversion, jerkiness, aggression, testosterone level, athletic ability, IQ, social intelligence, competitiveness — it will be a main determinant of age of first sex — it correlates with lifelong income and status –and it will lead to those qualities the Gamers are throwing out such as not treating women like they are so special.
There have got to be some public datasets on this out there somewhere.
My guess: A desire for many sexual partners (rarer than you might assume) + extroversion + not coming off as creepy + the ability to engage in non-committal emotional intimacy.
Though that very much depends on the setting. Bars, where women are looking for similar low-intimacy sexual encounters, have different rules (though the first three still apply, the third isn't important in the same way: that's not what women who go to bars are looking for.)
The biggest piece of hooking up with a woman is inspiring interest simultaneous with trust. Since each sexual encounter for a woman is an opportunity to be raped, on average 1/3rd of potential sexual partners for heterosexual men in America have been raped and the rest are (probably rationally) scared of it happening to them, the key is to inspire her to want to be vulnerable with you. It matters a lot less when you are dating or looking for long-term encounters, but this dynamic will likely dominate short-term or one-night-stand dynamics.
You can't just be quiet and unassuming, because she won't ever notice you. At the same time, most of the things that might lead you to stand out in a group of guys will probably lessen the "trust" aspect. It's part of why "rockstar" or "member of a band" is good: lots of visibility, the opportunity to act outside of gender roles (you would not believe how many girls go for the skinny andro guys), and you have to be at least outgoing enough to get up on stage and perform. At the same time, you are used to protecting yourself and your ego while being emotionally raw on stage (it's what makes rock interesting to watch), and so you can empathize with, connect with, have mind-blowing sex with and then ditch a woman.
Other good professions: teacher (single moms can tell you about their kids, lots of empathy, have to draw lines between personal connection with the kids and all the terrible things they might be living through at home), sports coach (used to working with people with egos), artist, anything in theater (it also gives you a wide population of vulnerable women looking for validation, or they wouldn't be in theater in the first place), goth or Harry Potter fandom communities (if you can deal with the emotional immaturity and the clove cigarettes), activism (though only if you have a certain kind of personality; you have to be willing to listen a lot, talk little and give really good … attention to the women you meet.) Basically, you are looking for communities of women who are already outside the social norms (so they aren't searching for a man to start a family with), are likely to respond well to external validation and aren't inundated with creepy men (creeps make women put their shields up, and then it's way harder to get through). You also want places where women aren't doing something else, or where they will think it was their idea.
Oh, yeah, bisexuality helps. If you find a boyfriend who's into it, it greatly increases the available population of women since some guys only get jealous if they can't join in. Also, it might mean you are comfortable enough to wear a corset to a Rocky Horror production and look good in it (which, if all you care about is ticking up a big number, I would highly recommend.)
Narcisism.
I think thats what people mean when then talk about "acting like a jerk".
Simple answer. Seems bizarre, because women have no way of knowing it, but I would bet my house that it's true. At risk of seeming crude, it's Penis length. There are many areas where a person may be confident or not. When it comes to confidence in sexual/romantic situations, penis length is the primary contributor. Nothing else matters nearly as much.
All combined with an ability to lie, especially to the wife.
risk aversion. you will never get laid if you never try. so those that risk more, get more.
this is easy to measure and intuitive.
Low Standards
Ability to lie (in order to lay)
My proposal would be high social intelligence coupled with low emotional intelligence. That combination is related to the frequency of manipulative and subtle bullying behaviors (where I'd definitely put "the neg" that the PUA men keep going on about.)
Since social intelligence is related to how much time boys spend talking with girls or women (it's primarily a learned trait, and one that, in America, is associated with being female), I would also assume there is an extra loop here, where the most socially-intelligent men are also those with the most practice talking with and being comfortable around women.
Though it depends, too, on what part of the curve we are talking about here. "Number of Sexual Partners" in Western countries is an excellent example of a long tail; if we are talking about the people with 10 lifetime partners versus those with two we'll probably get a different answer than if we're talking about the people with 10 lifetime partners versus those with 50.
At the extreme end, I'd assume you'd find a lot of covert narcissists, who are fulfilled in the short term by making someone else happy (until that person disappoints them in any way), but aren't oblivious or clearly self-centered the way overt narcissists are. I'd also expect to find survivors of sexual abuse, especially survivors of early teenage sexual abuse by women.
There is a lot of misogyny coming out in these comments. People have low opinions of what women use to choose, which is really an indictment of women, no? Maybe guys who have a lot of sex only seem like jerks when you aren't having much yourself?
I think it's more likely than having women falling all over you makes you into a jerk, not the other way around.
An ability to lie, especially to your wife
David, It's not necessarily an indictment of women. If asking what attracts men, I'm sure you'd get plenty of people saying "bitches."
Prosociality and trying. The rest of the stuff listed is just guys "spinning their wheels."
Honestly, this topic is just the crappy amateur subsection of evolutionary psychology, which is a pseudoscience wherein bitter men tromp off into the woods and watch ducks peck at eachother, then project their reasons for not getting laid onto said ducks. It's pathetic.
Anyway, nothing is more attractive than a prosocial person.
I bet it's actually a problem space with many local maxima. Of course there's going to be a global maxima somewhere, but the nature of such a solution space is that you can't break it down easily to linear interactions of predictors.
But, if I had to guess three with a decent linear relationship, I'd say looks (which is a bit too obvious), anxiety (negative correlation), and proficiency with a musical instrument.
"Adolescent pecking order is not bad, but would rule out some of the best womanizers. Socializing almost exclusively with women, these men don't spend much time competing with or building status among other men. They're almost invisible in the pecking order."
I've observed a number of men who were invisible in the pecking order in high-school yet turned out to be highly successful with women in their 20s because they were attractive and knew how to speak with women better than with men. However most of these men fell behind again in their 30's because, not socializing well with other men, they tended to perform poorly in other areas of their life and reverted to a less attractive state. The 25 year old slacker/womanizer may not do so well when he is 35. So if we are talking total lifetime returns here the old locker-room pecking order often comes back to haunt.
@Peter,
I would assume that being an NFL fan would be negatively correlated with sexual partners, probably for the same reason playing WoW is (namely, that all the time you spend watching NFL games is time you aren't spending meeting women to sleep with.)
Women go for NFL fans because it's a sign that the men are unashamedly masculine guys with appropriately masculine interests. In addition, given the social nature of NFL fan-dom, NFL fans often have a wide circle of male friends, which increases their chances of meeting women (your friend's cute sister-in-law, that sort of thing).
In addition to sports, men who are into other male-appropriate interests also tend to do well with women; these include car-related activities, hunting and fishing, and manual skills such as woodworking. What women do NOT tolerate are the sorts of activities which are engaged in mostly or solely by men yet are which seen as not fully masculine. These are the things I noted in my prior comments, things like sci-fi, D&D, WoW, Civil War re-enactments,* and so on.
* = it may seem paradoxical that re-enactors are failures with women, given the inherent masculinity of warplay. It may be that the fantasy and role-playing aspects of these activities are more important that their martial nature.
its about having alpha status within a specific group. good looks can put you at the top across virtually all groups whereas other factors are much more limited plus it takes one second of interaction to establish. wealth is very overrated. women are rational; they want to marry you if youre rich, not give it up.
I'll re-up narcissism + impulsivity. but only for raw number.
For top-shelf girls only, income/status starts coming in a lot more, since without *some* of these (or else psychopathy that allows you to fake it) you'll never get close.
I have serious doubts about building a quality-adjusted count. Do five 2s equal a 10?
If we want a predictor we need something quantifiable don't we? How do you quantify extroversion, jerkiness or sociability? Penis length, testosterone level, or income at a certain age you can quantify. Pecking order in high school you can quantify: survey the kids and you will get a fairly accurate response.
Acting boldly towards the woman seems to do the trick. So it can fall under high testosterone, extroversion, or simply being drunk.
Just anecdotally, I have to agree with height being a clear #1. I stand 5'11.5 and was amazed during my days on the dating market at the number of girls that claimed they would never date anyone under 6 foot. My fiance, one of the girls mentioned above, is still in the dark–a secret I'll probably take to the grave.
Can't be answered without more control variables. And by that I mean context. A backwards hat will attract women in some circumstances but will repel them in others.
You can't just ask, "Which ingredients are most likely predicters of a tasty dish." What kind of food? Who's eating it? When?
If you are asking who is most successful with the subset of ALL WOMEN, I would say the most successful ones are those who are best at knowing their own market and crafting their pitch accordingly.
Backwards hat frat guy can get a lot of action, for sure. But not if he thinks he'll get it at the squash courts or the University Womyn's Center.
Weepy emo guy can do OK, too. But not at a tractor pull.
Any of the following:
Psychopathy. Narcissism. Personality disorders. "Puer Aeteneus". Drug or alcohol addiction.
Not dating hand models…
What is interesting about these comments is that the men's answers are so different than the women's answers.
The best predictor is the women's answers, since they are the one's who choose.
Guys, read those womens comments if you're looking for a good time. Ignore other guys.
fame
Gender? (i.e. being the opposite gender as partner)
They didn't say it couldn't be an obvious one.
How about a portfolio approach. Friends of mine have been quite successful despite one being only 5' 7.5" but nice facial features, no athletic talent, very skinny, extremely bright, and a good talker. Another is 6' 2", college quarterback, nice facial features, nice guy, bright (not brilliant) but not super smooth. Both have obvious but very different attributes (other than reasonably attractive faces). I am kind of in between the two in most ways, and can't complain about my luck. Consider a hedonic model of the obvious attributes with a eye towards reproductive fitness. If your average is high enough and higher than her other options, you score.
"Preferences?"/"Willingness to put in effort?"
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