Sunday, November 23, 2008
Lonely Hearts: Love and unfaithfulness …
I was interested in the following table on the BBC’s science site. Some psychologists have been analysing the key words that men and women use when advertising their wares in the shop window that is the Personal Columns. As you can see in the table below, women have a more pragmatic, economic outlook to the way they prioritise what seem to be the top five evolutionary ingredients in preserving gene stock. It goes some way to explaining the beautiful woman/ugly bloke scenario, though, here in Ghana, one might expect, given my last blog, that Resources would be closer to the top of a woman’s list.
Men's preferences
1. Attractiveness
1. Commitment
3 Social skills
4. Resources
4 Sexiness
Women's preferences
1. Commitment
2. Social skills
3. Resources
4. Attractiveness
5. Sexiness
There were other differences, further down the list, such as humour. The rather toe-curling acronym, WSOH, which people liberally apply to themselves, is meant differently by the genders. Men are looking for approval for their humorous offerings while women see them as a means to illuminate the psyche and resourcefulness of the male. Crudely put, men want their partners to think highly of them and, therefore, not go off with another male's gene possibilities. Women want to know what they are getting into, though they may not be as prescriptive about their own faithfulness as previously thought.
There was some research done a few years back which suggested that more than one in ten children born were not the offspring of the male partner of the time. Midwives have plenty of anecdotal evidence to support those findings. Since everyone is aware, at some level of consciousness, of what appeals to the opposite sex, self-advertisers tend to present themselves as having a potent combination of these top traits. They manufacture appealing self-images.
It is not surprising, therefore, that lying provides fuel for the biggest complaint among those who indulge in Lonely Hearts advertising.
After all, more recent scientific studies have found that most people in the West engage in the ‘three stages of love’. Lust, attraction and then attachment. A little more physical and chemical than advice found in Eddie Cochrane’s Three Steps to Heaven. No wonder then, as male and female correspondents create and present their seductive fibs to each other, most potential relationships never even reach stage one.
If your heart is yearning and you want to do something about it, take the table at the top and study what your would-be partner is likely to be looking for – but get the traits in the right order! Then, having met your lonely heart, hope to play out the reality of the three stages of love.
Good luck!
Labels: Lonely hearts. Physical attraction. The mating game.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Sex, flirtation and romance on the Internet
The latest moral maze that has extruded from Second Life even made national news in the UK. Second Life, for those of you who don’t indulge (there are over 50 million who do!), is a virtual community where you can live a life interacting with others of similar bent. So, the news story goes, a man logs on to Second Life and chats up some female and his real-time partner, who has warned him once before about having licentious thoughts which find fruition in virtual reality, kicks him out of his real house. But he says he didn’t do anything except flirt. One on one with another avatar. And who knows who that was? It could have been another bloke. It could have been a teenager trying out a bit of slap and tickle with his or her parents’ generation. For a laugh, like. But for her, the thought is what counts. She doesn’t want a bloke whose libido is raised by alter egos in the never never. Even if it could have been the creation of some potbellied redneck loser, dressed as a schoolgirl. She wants a man whose every thought is focused on her.
Are we on the cusp of transmigration of the physical into the virtual, where the Second Lifer carries with him or her an entire moral suitcase, packed by a partner, sworn never to be opened on the other side? If, as some pundit said on Sky News, people’s lives can be so humdrum that they gain their sole fulfilment in virtual worlds, then it is not surprising sometimes that with the freedom to express their deepest desires in this animated Pandora’s Box, comes the sexual tension of being found out in their First Lives. Sinning gains an unholy halo of extra frisson when it crosses the line, drawn in the sand, by a partner’s toe, even when that toe is hypothetical.
Was the woman right to inhabit this moral high ground? Walk along any high street in any country and watch men and women walking together in apparent happiness. Then focus on the eyes. Mmm how they slither this way and that, dragged into focus by the exploding pheromones of a passing male or female! Here in Ghana, the very notion of Second Life for most people would be an activity verging on ridiculous fantasy. The self-indulgent madness of the cosseted. The case, outlined above, would be given short shrift. Eyes are expected to stray. Men are expected to play the field. Sex is not shrouded by the same moral rip tide that washes away western sinners. Romance is not the social ideal that westerners espouse in their relationships. When you are fighting to survive, there are far more pressing issues. Better a relationship that is economically sound than one that is sexually or romantically fulfilling.
The latest moral maze that has extruded from Second Life even made national news in the UK. Second Life, for those of you who don’t indulge (there are over 50 million who do!), is a virtual community where you can live a life interacting with others of similar bent. So, the news story goes, a man logs on to Second Life and chats up some female and his real-time partner, who has warned him once before about having licentious thoughts which find fruition in virtual reality, kicks him out of his real house. But he says he didn’t do anything except flirt. One on one with another avatar. And who knows who that was? It could have been another bloke. It could have been a teenager trying out a bit of slap and tickle with his or her parents’ generation. For a laugh, like. But for her, the thought is what counts. She doesn’t want a bloke whose libido is raised by alter egos in the never never. Even if it could have been the creation of some potbellied redneck loser, dressed as a schoolgirl. She wants a man whose every thought is focused on her.
Are we on the cusp of transmigration of the physical into the virtual, where the Second Lifer carries with him or her an entire moral suitcase, packed by a partner, sworn never to be opened on the other side? If, as some pundit said on Sky News, people’s lives can be so humdrum that they gain their sole fulfilment in virtual worlds, then it is not surprising sometimes that with the freedom to express their deepest desires in this animated Pandora’s Box, comes the sexual tension of being found out in their First Lives. Sinning gains an unholy halo of extra frisson when it crosses the line, drawn in the sand, by a partner’s toe, even when that toe is hypothetical.
Was the woman right to inhabit this moral high ground? Walk along any high street in any country and watch men and women walking together in apparent happiness. Then focus on the eyes. Mmm how they slither this way and that, dragged into focus by the exploding pheromones of a passing male or female! Here in Ghana, the very notion of Second Life for most people would be an activity verging on ridiculous fantasy. The self-indulgent madness of the cosseted. The case, outlined above, would be given short shrift. Eyes are expected to stray. Men are expected to play the field. Sex is not shrouded by the same moral rip tide that washes away western sinners. Romance is not the social ideal that westerners espouse in their relationships. When you are fighting to survive, there are far more pressing issues. Better a relationship that is economically sound than one that is sexually or romantically fulfilling.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Obama in Ghana
Well, it happened! The American public voted him in. Meanwhile, two so-called white supremacist, would-be assassins were caught by police, Palin suggested that Africa was a country, not a continent and Berlusconi, that obnoxious manipulator of Italian politics, congratulated Barack on his tan. These are merely connected filaments in the mycelium which exists beneath the surface of white, western societies. They join up to the millions of historical dots that are/have been the expressions of racism. They leak into the itineraries of the media in various forms; some as terrifyingly real threats and some as ‘amusingly’ ignorant gaffes, but all are based on a singular premise – that the colour of skin defines differences between peoples. And that white is superior to any other shade. The absolute indicator of the end of racism will be the day that skin is not used as a primary descriptor of a person, in every day life. We probably will always rely upon it in the criminal field, in profiling a suspect but, come that day, it won’t add one atom of antipathy, deprecation or prejudice. All that will matter is the simple fact that the sought-after individual is Chinese, Asian, Caucasian or whatever. It won’t infer, in any way, that this is a lesser being and that there may be a causal connection between skin and act.
For the moment, it’s great he won. Ghanaians, I have met, even those who have as much knowledge of American politics as Palin has of this continent, know and love one thing. Obama is black. He may prove to be a great President. He may fall from grace. But now he enjoys the right to do so, just like any white human being.
Well, it happened! The American public voted him in. Meanwhile, two so-called white supremacist, would-be assassins were caught by police, Palin suggested that Africa was a country, not a continent and Berlusconi, that obnoxious manipulator of Italian politics, congratulated Barack on his tan. These are merely connected filaments in the mycelium which exists beneath the surface of white, western societies. They join up to the millions of historical dots that are/have been the expressions of racism. They leak into the itineraries of the media in various forms; some as terrifyingly real threats and some as ‘amusingly’ ignorant gaffes, but all are based on a singular premise – that the colour of skin defines differences between peoples. And that white is superior to any other shade. The absolute indicator of the end of racism will be the day that skin is not used as a primary descriptor of a person, in every day life. We probably will always rely upon it in the criminal field, in profiling a suspect but, come that day, it won’t add one atom of antipathy, deprecation or prejudice. All that will matter is the simple fact that the sought-after individual is Chinese, Asian, Caucasian or whatever. It won’t infer, in any way, that this is a lesser being and that there may be a causal connection between skin and act.
For the moment, it’s great he won. Ghanaians, I have met, even those who have as much knowledge of American politics as Palin has of this continent, know and love one thing. Obama is black. He may prove to be a great President. He may fall from grace. But now he enjoys the right to do so, just like any white human being.
Labels: Barack Obama, racism.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Swear words in The United States: socialist and liberal
During the heavy crawl through the toxic fumes that can suddenly envelop me in Accra gridlocks, I am able to be the perfect social anthropologist, taking notes on the human traffic that weaves its way between the vehicles. These fit young men and women are, as has been noted, models of grace and tolerance. Whatever they are selling, they must endure a hundred rejections to each sale. And the combination of goods is sometimes surreal. Bath plugs and chewing gum. Road maps and T shirts. Electrical adaptors and death masques. There are also some who sell books. What must be the biggest seller among them, is a book entitled Barack Obama which contains some of that presidential candidate’s political views. His name is also on the back window of many cars as though the election is taking place here. Which, of course, in real terms, it is!
You have to live in Africa to understand the degree to which folks here are (literally) praying for an Obama presidency. The hundreds of years of appalling inhumanity towards skin and race, from the early days of slavery to the present, insidious, institutional denigration of black people’s capabilities, give a black person a sense of injustice, frustration and (sadly, sometimes) a lack of self-confidence, whatever his or her remarkable achievements. The white man has ruled supreme and still does so. The money he spends on the home, war, nuclear defence, oil-imperialism and the promulgation of dubious versions of democracy so dwarfs the funding needed to feed and water the millions who are climatically, economically and politically destitute, that it has become an obscenity. Yet it has also become a way of life, a way of thinking that has never recently been challenged by a US President. Instead, the virtues of free-market capitalism are expounded by politicians, as though there can be no alternative. This, despite the latest Wall Street crash and the violent convulsions of a deregulated market that allowed capital full rein and, as a consequence, has enabled its uber rich beneficiaries to screw the American Dream: a dream that is now being shored up by billions of dollars of joe-public’s money.
McCain’s rhetoric shows little deviation from the standard hypocrisy that has dogged campaign after campaign in the last and current centuries. In order to raise his invective against Obama he has begun to pillory him as a ‘liberal’ and a ‘socialist’. As such he is obviously a threat to the American Way. He will redistribute wealth from the middle classes to the poor. What crime can be more heinous than that? The fact that Christ allegedly extolled it, is conveniently forgotten. In the US, Christ, after all, is believed to support the American President, whatever his course of action – and the redistribution of wealth can never be a Christian option. The Bible is gutted for supporting evidence of the American mind-set and anything remotely looking like a virtue of socialism, is deselected. (In much the same way that the Koran is ransacked for quotations by extremists, to defend the treatment of Muslim women, when the Koran clearly extols the basic human value of equality).
Obama could never be a socialist. It is hard-wired in him to be what most Americans are: devotees of competition wherein the best rises to the top. His success (one hopes) in becoming President, will actually prove the capitalist case. But he carries a calling card that, though often forced by acts of denial into the deepest pocket of American consciousness, emerging now and again like a spiteful Djinn to raise images of the ‘strange fruit’ of their history, tells them that a black man might assume the most powerful office on Earth.
If it happens and he becomes President, it is enough, however well or otherwise his time in office goes.
It is why he is revered by all shades of black people here in Africa and elsewhere. It is why, just to hold the book among the exhaust fumes, feels so great. Finally, in global terms, a black man will have transcended every barrier white folks have erected against him.
During the heavy crawl through the toxic fumes that can suddenly envelop me in Accra gridlocks, I am able to be the perfect social anthropologist, taking notes on the human traffic that weaves its way between the vehicles. These fit young men and women are, as has been noted, models of grace and tolerance. Whatever they are selling, they must endure a hundred rejections to each sale. And the combination of goods is sometimes surreal. Bath plugs and chewing gum. Road maps and T shirts. Electrical adaptors and death masques. There are also some who sell books. What must be the biggest seller among them, is a book entitled Barack Obama which contains some of that presidential candidate’s political views. His name is also on the back window of many cars as though the election is taking place here. Which, of course, in real terms, it is!
You have to live in Africa to understand the degree to which folks here are (literally) praying for an Obama presidency. The hundreds of years of appalling inhumanity towards skin and race, from the early days of slavery to the present, insidious, institutional denigration of black people’s capabilities, give a black person a sense of injustice, frustration and (sadly, sometimes) a lack of self-confidence, whatever his or her remarkable achievements. The white man has ruled supreme and still does so. The money he spends on the home, war, nuclear defence, oil-imperialism and the promulgation of dubious versions of democracy so dwarfs the funding needed to feed and water the millions who are climatically, economically and politically destitute, that it has become an obscenity. Yet it has also become a way of life, a way of thinking that has never recently been challenged by a US President. Instead, the virtues of free-market capitalism are expounded by politicians, as though there can be no alternative. This, despite the latest Wall Street crash and the violent convulsions of a deregulated market that allowed capital full rein and, as a consequence, has enabled its uber rich beneficiaries to screw the American Dream: a dream that is now being shored up by billions of dollars of joe-public’s money.
McCain’s rhetoric shows little deviation from the standard hypocrisy that has dogged campaign after campaign in the last and current centuries. In order to raise his invective against Obama he has begun to pillory him as a ‘liberal’ and a ‘socialist’. As such he is obviously a threat to the American Way. He will redistribute wealth from the middle classes to the poor. What crime can be more heinous than that? The fact that Christ allegedly extolled it, is conveniently forgotten. In the US, Christ, after all, is believed to support the American President, whatever his course of action – and the redistribution of wealth can never be a Christian option. The Bible is gutted for supporting evidence of the American mind-set and anything remotely looking like a virtue of socialism, is deselected. (In much the same way that the Koran is ransacked for quotations by extremists, to defend the treatment of Muslim women, when the Koran clearly extols the basic human value of equality).
Obama could never be a socialist. It is hard-wired in him to be what most Americans are: devotees of competition wherein the best rises to the top. His success (one hopes) in becoming President, will actually prove the capitalist case. But he carries a calling card that, though often forced by acts of denial into the deepest pocket of American consciousness, emerging now and again like a spiteful Djinn to raise images of the ‘strange fruit’ of their history, tells them that a black man might assume the most powerful office on Earth.
If it happens and he becomes President, it is enough, however well or otherwise his time in office goes.
It is why he is revered by all shades of black people here in Africa and elsewhere. It is why, just to hold the book among the exhaust fumes, feels so great. Finally, in global terms, a black man will have transcended every barrier white folks have erected against him.