That being said, lot of the time most of the guys who complain that they can't get a girlfriend because they're "a nice guy" are generally just inexperienced and going after women who are out of their league. If they lowered their expectations -- and actually made an effort to find out what they really are looking for (rather than drive themselves insane over women they saw as "perfect") -- they wouldn't have had that complaint.

Roissy should come with a warning label, though. He is the dark side. A Nietzsche-an amoral creature. His front page is remarkably tame at the moment, for him.

A large proportion of American women have been raised with an unspoken and often subliminal belief that sex is filthy, painful and degrading. This association is formed at a young age and most women are not aware that they have it, but it leads them to become attracted to men who are boorish, stupid, and threatening, rather than the intelligent and decent guys. Often, they are actually completely incapable of being sexually attracted to men who don't threaten and degrade them on, at the least, a subconscious level. This is what's at hand in the case of "you're a nice guy, but I'm sorry, I'm just attracted to you. I really wish I was, but I'm not".

This doesn't describe the majority of women or relationships, but it does describe nearly all of the sexually "loud" women. It seems paradoxical, but promiscuous women almost always have this subconscious distaste for sex, while relatively chaste women often have only a trace of it.

I actually think men get some blame for the "girls falling for aholes" problem. I think too many quality men listened to their mothers and school teachers, who said the key is to be a nice guy. The assholes never listened, and learned on the street to win girls via strength. Thus only the assholes act strong and get the girl, while the nerds lose out. The solution is that the good men need to grow a backbone. Then women will be able to find men who they are both attracted to and are good partners.

The antonym to strong is weak, not nice. I think people often forget that girls, particularly sane and intelligent ones, do not reject the prototypical "nice guy" because he is nice but because he is a pushover. That is, weak. You can be strong and nice. In fact, I think the strongest ones usually are "nice" or considerate because they can afford to, whereas at least where I'm moving, being an asshole or abrasive is a sign of weakness.

In my experience, girls do want first and foremost an alpha male, and being a nice guy on top of that makes it even better. It's just not a necessity so the jerks can succeed without that quality, whereas the nice guys can't succeed without "dominance."

I'm sure you have friends who you would consider incredibly nice, but very shy, guys who never could get a girlfriend, and plenty of jerky, but confident, guys who you wonder why girls would date. Confident guys, even when not nice, just seem to win out over really nice, but not at all confident, guys. Guys with both win out over both. Whether or not it's a bad thing is your call.

(I'm not arguing guys are above their primitive desires: not by any means, it's just not the focus of this discussion.)

I guess now we know what time_management's new nickname is...

If a woman has a preference for muscular men, or skinny hipsters, or even fat men, that's fine. We all have our physical preferences. And the fact that women want to date men with enough spine to have meaningful character is a good thing. However, women who are attracted to loud, boorish, and stupid badboys are utter garbage.

The attraction to badboys is not aesthetic; many badboys are out of shape and ugly. I think the appeal of the badboy is that it provides release from the pressure that is put on women to "marry up". It's not looked down upon for a man to marry a woman less ambitious and intelligent than he is, as long as she's good on her own merits (e.g. if he's a Wall Street quant with a 155 IQ, and she's in a lifestyle career and has a 130 IQ, that's fine, because she's still a smart woman who can hold her own in intelligent conversation). Women, however, are expected to marry men with at least the same level of earning potential and intelligence, because of a lingering concern with gender roles and the expectation that the man will be equal or dominant. This obviously places a lot of pressure on high-power women. The appeal of the badboy is that, although he's virtually never intelligent or ambitious, he's dominant on account of his sheer arrogance and narcissism, but at the same time worthless enough that he can be flippantly discarded. This enables the woman to enter a relationship where she takes a submissive role, but one that has an "off switch"; she can leave without pain, since it's unlikely that she'll form an emotional attachment to such a useless and defective man.

[*Edited for clarity @ 12:26]

I don't think we need an HN poll on this to disconfirm. The mindset of most men chasing sex seems to be based on the fact that it feels very good. Period. No nightmares needed.

That's the key point - alpha characteristics/interactions trump everything else. Girls like alpha assholes despite them being assholes, not the other way 'round.

No one is accusing anything. You don't see the red sign and "accuse" it of being a stop sign. You realize immediately that it is a stop sign (pattern recognition) and behave accordingly. Behaving accordingly with respect to such women is avoiding them entirely.

If what you're calling an "alpha male" is a domineering asshole, I actually agree with you 100%. There are definitely dysfunctional women who like that kind of guy and I've learned to steer clear.

If we're talking about "alpha male" in the evolutionary psychology sense (i.e. conveying confidence, virility, and leadership), though, I think you're incorrect to say that women who look for those traits in a partner are just looking to be degraded.

If you see that mentality in most of the women you meet, then you're missing something about them or about the men they like. Or you're hanging out in strip clubs.

1. A number of people in the US find sex to be degrading and harmful, at least on a subconscious level, while most reasonable people would only apply those epithets to a small subset of sexual activity.

2. People who harbor unhealthy beliefs (such as those described in 1) have a tendency to behave in suboptimal ways according to those beliefs, often with results that confirm them. An example of this is the misogynist/misandrist; people who believe that all members of the opposite sex tend to repel quality partners and have a very limited range of experience, and those negative experiences reinforce their beliefs.

3. Men who fit into the stereotypical "alpha" category strive to humiliate and damage women; thus, sex with them is, in fact, harmful and degrading.

4. Ergo, according to (2), women brought up with the attitude described in (1) are likely to be sexually attracted to the sorts of men described in (3).

I don't see anything vague here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_male

"In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community whom the others follow. Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair"

Girls want to be part of an alpha pair, it's as simple as that. I think you are projecting your own warped ideas about sex ("humiliation") onto this. But hey, whatever floats your boat, we're all grownups here.

Healthy women don't want to be anywhere around those sorts of men, who tend to be abusive husbands and terrible fathers. However, a certain class of psychologically damaged woman does tend to find that type of man sexually attractive.

Will have sex with them gladly, though, and tell the nice guy the kid's his.

Heh, I doubt this phenomenon is endemic to the U.S.