Physical Attraction is Mental
Dear [Mentat],
I answered this above by saying that yes, we typically need other interests besides physical attraction to make a relationship viable over the long run. But let me also suggest that without some other motivations to be with the woman besides her well-proportioned body, the physical attraction itself would likely not be potent enough to make getting her to bed a priority. That is, we don’t feel physically attracted just to gratify ourselves physically.
The following scenario should make this clear: Imagine a gorgeous woman in a bar. She sits there, sipping her drink, looking around often, as though she’s waiting for her Prince Charming. She’s obviously available, which itself is rather unusual given her good looks. After all, how often do we find unattended, beautiful women in bars? Not often in my experience. Yet here one is. So why look a gift horse in the mouth? Let’s just be thankful that circumstance, whatever that is, brought her into our midst, and let’s go meet her. She’s so pretty that we just can’t stay away.
A conversation follows. But we discover that she’s got mental problems [...]. She speaks with an obnoxious slur about how proud she was that she had learned just today to drink through a straw. Then, she tells of how she got to leave her institution to come here and how nice a person her therapist is. Now I know that there are some guys out there who would not find this off-putting, and they’d take her to bed even if she was unconscious [...]. But for me, and probably you as well, any interest in loving her that way vanishes within the first moment of conversation [once her intellectual limitations become clear].
While this woman might inhabit the best example of the human female body, [...] her body [nonetheless] cannot, in and of itself, be sexually inspiring. [...] [Thus, without more] [...], sexual attraction likewise, cannot be felt, without my immediate and sustained perception of her roughly comparable intellect to my own. [In short] the only [...] redeemable quality about this woman would be her body because she’s obviously got nothing upstairs. Under these circumstances, I normally wouldn’t be drawn to a lady [with such mental simplicity], even if her body made her look to be a perfect ten. It seems then, that this so-called physical attraction is not so physical after all, or at least, is much more than physical. It involves many higher mental processes like judgment, preference, evaluation, measurement, achievability, and the like. The penis just won’t rise without some form of obvious mental compatibility [and awe].
Physical attraction therefore, may not be as independent of those “other” common interests and motivations; at least, not as much as you suggest. That is, while the shape of her body can strongly influence how alluring we find her, it is by no means the only necessary or sufficient element in that attraction. The physical longing itself, as discussed in other posts, derives from numerous bases completely outside the realms of lustful carnal yearnings which at first glance seem inspired solely by the body state of the beloved. This is why I find that age-old whine of [many] women [...] so irritating, that they’re tired of men only liking them for their bodies. When you get right down to it, how often would you say that this really happens?
Could you love a gorgeous body without a mind of some quality inside it? Your comments above suggest not. Indeed, though we seek her body to satisfy those lusts, there are other reasons besides wanting her body for going after it. Once again, allow me to bring [the] Motivation and Personality [book] into this. She may excite us sexually because we have needs of maintaining a good self-esteem and we know that her loving us would meet them. We might also have need for others’ approval and respect and we believe that having her on our arm would augment that group-wide high opinion, as well as to provide a reliable source of approval even when others outside the relationship disapprove. Maybe she’s rich and we’d like to get into her wallet. Maybe she’s a good cook and we just love eating good food. As for me, I find the celebrated woman the most physically attractive, not because she’s celebrated per say, and not merely because her body fits my formula, but rather due to a marriage of the fact that she’s celebrated and the fact that she’s chosen me as her mate. Others tend to be more accepting and respectful of me when they see that I’ve ensnared a revered woman. So I suppose that as I seek the “physical” pleasures linked with beautiful women, I am also seeking acceptance and respect from she as well as others, and validation too. All these seemingly unrelated desires typically express themselves through that lusty longing of physical attraction.
So, I contend that if you are able to appreciate a woman’s good body, and then are also able to feel lust for that body, then this is enough evidence to conclude that she has already brought more to the table than just that gorgeous body. Otherwise, you would not feel attracted to her in the first place. So, I’d say, to answer your question about what would happen after the sexual desire is satiated, that the other dimensions of her holistic desirability, which are less physical in nature, would assert themselves. Now you might have to probe a little to find them. But find them you probably will if you both try in earnest and if you both had the most intense forms of love lust at the start.
