I guess this goes best here...
Intercourse and Intelligence - The more intelligent you are, the less likely you are to have sex.
I disagree with the conclusion though, which prompted me to write this: (Note: Everything I talk about can be found in the article I linked to.)
Now to start off, I wouldn't have needed a study to tell me this. I could have looked at Sheldon Cooper and gone: "Yep, being smart does not equal to sex." I could have looked at any of the teeny movies (American Pie, Not another teen movie, etc.) and found the exact same stereotype. Heck, I'd only have to look at my class and in particular at me!
Now even though Jason Malloy goes with the "lower sex drive" idea, I'd go for a mix of two different ones.
Now first I need to qualify why the "lower sex drive" seems wrong to me. After all, "intelligence correlates with less sex within marriage for the same age range". Doesn't that pretty much show that their (or should I say "our"?
) sex drive is lower? No, I don't think so!
Now I can't argue with the evidence that men as a matter of fact do have less sex within marriage the more intelligent they are, however I can argue with the interpretation. Remember that smarter men are also more likely to pay for sex and I think a different picture emerges. Intelligent men have, in my opinion, the same sex drive but they handle it differently. Whenever I read about a scientist doing science, what do they report? This is purely from personal experience, but I find that they compare it to an orgasm. No, I'm not joking. It seems, but again this is only what I see, that they are so immersed in their science that there's literally nothing else for them in the world. This also seems to be what popular media shows, though this is of course not an attempt to boost my hypothesis. (In "The Big Bang Theory", the four guys are asked by Penny to put up her cupboard. They then think about installing crazy stuff left and right, completely ignoring everything she says. At one point, she goes "I'm gonna take off my shirt, it's sooooo hot in here." to which none of the guys respond and just go on with their work.)
I hope I've sufficiently shown that there might be a different explanation, one that Malloy gives but dismisses, for "less sex within marriage".
The second thing that is partially right, I think, is the following: "Another idea, consistent with popular media portrayals of geeks and nerds (males at least), is that intelligent people actually want to have sex, but are simply less likely or unable to obtain willing partners because they are disproportionately viewed as unattractive or undesirable as partners."
This seems correct up until the point "because they are ... viewed as unattractive or undesirable..." I think that's an incorrect assessment. Readers of my Facebook feed will remember that just yesterday I posted an article, however unsound the science behind it may be, about which jobs women prefer. Of all those, the jobs with the highest geekiness level tended to score higher than others. I also tend to find that my geeky (or nerdy? Who cares, you know what I mean) friends have enough girls that would like them. So what exactly seems to be the problem? Well once again I can only give personal testimony, so bear with me for a second.
When I was still in school, I was desperate for a girlfriend but never had one. I never felt like any of the girls liked me. Once I got out of school and moved away from those friends, I started thinking about my school time a bit more and it felt like I had overlooked some things, but I didn't know what I had overlooked. A year or so later I came back to my old school and met up with a few friends from school, both friends that were still at school and friends that had already left school. I talked to them about this and that and one of the things that came up was "who we liked in school". Typically, and very unexpectedly I might add, the "crush" was almost always me. It seems that what I had overlooked was that girls did like me, I was just too (socially) incompetent to notice! This is also the trend I saw with my geeky friends.
So based on personal testimony, I absolutely disagree that nerds are seen as less desirable, I actually think they're seen as MORE desirable, after a certain age at least. The problem seems to be that 1) nerdy guys don't see that girls like them because like me, they're waiting for so obvious a sign that even an idiot would know, which socially speaking nerds probably are and 2) girls don't give obvious signs, especially when the guy seems so far out of reach. (Yes, that's what I got quite often.)
I would also refer people to Richard Feynman here, who at first was totally inept with the ladies and only through coaching learned the tricks of the trade and look at what he did!
Sooooo long story short, I would say the reasons are mainly the following: Smart people focus too much on their tasks and probably even after they're finished they still think about that, while less intelligent people might have an easier time "switching off". This leads to what is perceived as a lower sex drive. Smart people are less socially astute and only mingle "with their kind". This might create a negative feedback loop, making them less and less aware of signs from outside their group.
Intercourse and Intelligence - The more intelligent you are, the less likely you are to have sex.
I disagree with the conclusion though, which prompted me to write this: (Note: Everything I talk about can be found in the article I linked to.)
Now to start off, I wouldn't have needed a study to tell me this. I could have looked at Sheldon Cooper and gone: "Yep, being smart does not equal to sex." I could have looked at any of the teeny movies (American Pie, Not another teen movie, etc.) and found the exact same stereotype. Heck, I'd only have to look at my class and in particular at me!
Now even though Jason Malloy goes with the "lower sex drive" idea, I'd go for a mix of two different ones.
Now first I need to qualify why the "lower sex drive" seems wrong to me. After all, "intelligence correlates with less sex within marriage for the same age range". Doesn't that pretty much show that their (or should I say "our"?
) sex drive is lower? No, I don't think so!Now I can't argue with the evidence that men as a matter of fact do have less sex within marriage the more intelligent they are, however I can argue with the interpretation. Remember that smarter men are also more likely to pay for sex and I think a different picture emerges. Intelligent men have, in my opinion, the same sex drive but they handle it differently. Whenever I read about a scientist doing science, what do they report? This is purely from personal experience, but I find that they compare it to an orgasm. No, I'm not joking. It seems, but again this is only what I see, that they are so immersed in their science that there's literally nothing else for them in the world. This also seems to be what popular media shows, though this is of course not an attempt to boost my hypothesis. (In "The Big Bang Theory", the four guys are asked by Penny to put up her cupboard. They then think about installing crazy stuff left and right, completely ignoring everything she says. At one point, she goes "I'm gonna take off my shirt, it's sooooo hot in here." to which none of the guys respond and just go on with their work.)
I hope I've sufficiently shown that there might be a different explanation, one that Malloy gives but dismisses, for "less sex within marriage".
The second thing that is partially right, I think, is the following: "Another idea, consistent with popular media portrayals of geeks and nerds (males at least), is that intelligent people actually want to have sex, but are simply less likely or unable to obtain willing partners because they are disproportionately viewed as unattractive or undesirable as partners."
This seems correct up until the point "because they are ... viewed as unattractive or undesirable..." I think that's an incorrect assessment. Readers of my Facebook feed will remember that just yesterday I posted an article, however unsound the science behind it may be, about which jobs women prefer. Of all those, the jobs with the highest geekiness level tended to score higher than others. I also tend to find that my geeky (or nerdy? Who cares, you know what I mean) friends have enough girls that would like them. So what exactly seems to be the problem? Well once again I can only give personal testimony, so bear with me for a second.
When I was still in school, I was desperate for a girlfriend but never had one. I never felt like any of the girls liked me. Once I got out of school and moved away from those friends, I started thinking about my school time a bit more and it felt like I had overlooked some things, but I didn't know what I had overlooked. A year or so later I came back to my old school and met up with a few friends from school, both friends that were still at school and friends that had already left school. I talked to them about this and that and one of the things that came up was "who we liked in school". Typically, and very unexpectedly I might add, the "crush" was almost always me. It seems that what I had overlooked was that girls did like me, I was just too (socially) incompetent to notice! This is also the trend I saw with my geeky friends.
So based on personal testimony, I absolutely disagree that nerds are seen as less desirable, I actually think they're seen as MORE desirable, after a certain age at least. The problem seems to be that 1) nerdy guys don't see that girls like them because like me, they're waiting for so obvious a sign that even an idiot would know, which socially speaking nerds probably are and 2) girls don't give obvious signs, especially when the guy seems so far out of reach. (Yes, that's what I got quite often.)
I would also refer people to Richard Feynman here, who at first was totally inept with the ladies and only through coaching learned the tricks of the trade and look at what he did!
Sooooo long story short, I would say the reasons are mainly the following: Smart people focus too much on their tasks and probably even after they're finished they still think about that, while less intelligent people might have an easier time "switching off". This leads to what is perceived as a lower sex drive. Smart people are less socially astute and only mingle "with their kind". This might create a negative feedback loop, making them less and less aware of signs from outside their group.
