Sex Is A Funny Thing
Psychology Today has a great article about the nature of our humor and how it relates to our sexual relationships:
Ask men and women which qualities are most attractive in a mate and both sexes are likely to rank a good sense of humor near the top of their lists. The trait is so sought after that it has its own acronym—GSOH—in dating ads.
Humor has been viewed as the one behavioral characteristic that men and women seek in roughly equal proportion. After all, everyone wants a partner who is entertaining and fun.
At least, that’s the popular conception. However, humor researchers have long noted gender differences in the use and appreciation of humor. While women want to settle down with a guy who can crack a good joke, men, to a large degree, want a partner who laughs at their antics.
Well, that’s no surprise. I think anyone who’s been in the dating game for a year or more probably knows this. Or at least recognizes it when they hear it.
The really interesting thing is the, “why?” that’s behind it…
The basic difference is that males tend to use humor to compete with other men, while women tend to use humor to bond with others. Studies show that men more often use humor to jockey for position with other males when they are in the company of women.
The allure of male humor is so strong that female laughter may have evolved as a signal of sexual interest—picture a woman’s girlish giggles as she flirts with a man at a bar. Indeed, a German study found that when male and female strangers engaged in natural conversation, the degree to which a woman laughed while talking to a man was indicative of her interest in dating him. How much the woman laughed also predicted the man’s desire to date her. On the flip side, how often a man laughed was unrelated to his interest in a woman.
The study doesn’t account for long term relationships and it is self-admittedly painting using a broad brush, but it’s a very interesting read that gets much more in depth than I can excerpt from here.
Check out the full monty after the jump!
Humor’s Sexual Side – Psychology Today
[tags] sex, humor, male, female, attraction [/tags]
“A woman who deploys a typically male sense of humor—one that’s aggressive or competitive—is a turnoff to men…Many men feel threatened, perceiving a funny woman as a rival or worrying that they’ll become a target of her sharp tongue.”
“I think every man in the world loves the humor, even the sexual put-down humor, of Judy Tenuta or Joan Rivers,” he says. “But very few men want to marry them.”
Awesome. Great. Super. Fabulous. To add to my excitement of reading this article, I’d like to point out that Joan Rivers and Judy Tenuta aren’t 6′0″ tall. Height adds an even more “threatening” aspect, you know.
*SIGH*
Bummer Wade. Bummer.