Well, it really is a good job that I am a married man… Apparently, my current nerd status is likely to have women flocking all from far and wide to have relations of all sorts with me and those like me… At least according to an encouraging article at the New Scientist entitled “Braininess boosts likelihood of sex“… And there was I thinking it was just my incredible good looks that was doing the trick!

I read the title and thought, heck, are the readers and writers of New Scientist magazine just trying to encourage and maybe even kid themselves… Maybe trying to make their readership feel better about themselves? Well, let me tell you some more about this and we’ll see…

This article at the New Scientist states:

Lonely men ought to flaunt their copies of New Scientist. Women looking for both one-night stands and long-term relationships go for geniuses over dumb jocks, according to a new study of hundreds of university students.

Excuse me butting in so early here… But University students are more likely to think that aren’t they? Ok, lets crack on with the article…

“Women want the best of both worlds. Not only a physically attractive man, but somebody in the long term who can provide for them,” says Mark Prokosch, an evolutionary psychologist at Elon University in North Carolina, who led the study.

To many women, a smart man will appeal because he is likely to be clever enough to keep his family afloat. But he may also pass on “good” genes to his children, say Prokosch and his colleagues at the University of California, Davis.

Rather than ask women to rate qualities they seek in men, as other studies had done, Prokosch’s team asked 15 college men to perform a series of tasks on camera.

The volunteers read news reports, explained why they would be a good date, and what would be the ramifications of the discovery of life on Mars. They also threw and caught a Frisbee to parade their physical appeal. Each potential suitor also took a quantitative test of verbal intelligence.

I have to butt in again here…”threw and caught a frisbee to parade their physical appeal” ? Hahahahaha… Ok, ahem… The article continues:

More than 200 women watched a series of these videos before rating each man’s intelligence, attractiveness, creativity and appeal for a short-term or long-term relationship.

While the difference between short- and long-term mates may amount to a boozy decision students face each weekend, it has some evolutionary significance, Prokosch says. In potential husbands, women look for signs that a man might be a good provider and father. In one-night stands, women are on the prowl for little more than good genes, not to mention a good time.

Women proved to be decent judges of intelligence, with their scores generally matching each man’s intelligence test results.

As for picking a bed-mate, the men’s actual smartness proved a reliable indicator of their appeal for both brief hook-ups and serious relationships — which came as something of a surprise.

The latter part of the article does concede to some previous understanding though…

But some things never change. Looks were still a much more powerful predictor of sex appeal than brains. “Women are still going for the hunk,” Prokosch says. “If you had an option to pick from five different people, you would pick the most attractive one.”

So in a perfect world, women want a Nobel prize winner with movie-star looks. Is this true women?

Is this something we didn’t know before? WHo funded this research in order to find this out?

Nobel prize winner with movie-star looks. That’s me safe then… Now simply because I am not wishing to alienate my female readers any further after last week… I actually suggested that the word labour affected their mindset about childbirth… Which they all truly proved me wrong on… What with their volatile responses at facebook… (I am being far too ironic for a Monday morning, aren’t I?) … So I’m disagreeing with the research here…

I am a firm believer that evolutionary psychology does not offer a full paradigm for what women go for in men… Come on, we are all so incredibly different… Taste, subjective experience, our life and individual needs, beliefs and values surely all affect what creates the attraction to man… And we cannot all be everything to everyone… Can we? (I am raising an eyebrow as I ask)

I am guessing that one or two women may not think Brad Pitt is the be all and end all… And that Professor Brainstorm probably did not get laid as often as this article might imply… I am off to ask my wife once again what she thinks…

Hypnotic Attraction & Personal Magnetism could be the answer though… 😉