"Don't touch me." "Take your hands off me." These are normal statements in American culture that are virtually never heard in Brazil, the Western Hemisphere's second most populous country. Americans don't like to be touched. The world's cultures have strikingly different opinions about matters of personal space. When Americans talk, walk, and dance, they maintain a certain distance from others - their personal space. Brazilians, who maintain less physical distance, interpret this as a sign of coldness. When conversing with an American, the Brazilian characteristically moves in as the American "instinctively" retreats. In these body movements, neither Brazilian nor American is trying consciously to be especially friendly or unfriendly. Each is merely executing a program written on the self by years of exposure to a particular cultural tradition. Because of different ideas about proper social space, cocktail parties in international meeting places such as the United Nations can resemble an elaborate insect mating ritual as diplomats from different countries advance, withdraw, and sidestep.
One of the most obvious differences between Brazil and the United States involves kissing, hugging, and touching. Middle-class Brazilians teach their children - both boys and girls - to kiss (on the cheek, two or three times, coming and going) every adult relative they ever see. Given the size of Brazilian extended families, this can mean hundreds of people. Females continue kissing throughout their lives. They kiss male and female kin, friends, and relatives of friends, friends of relatives, friends of friends, and, when it seems appropriate, more casual acquaintances. Males go on kissing their female relatives and friends. Until they are adolescents, boys also kiss adult male relatives. Thereafter, Brazilian men greet each other with hearty handshakes and a traditional male hug (abraco). The closer the relationship, the tighter and longer-lasting the embrace. These comments apply to brothers, cousins, uncles, and friends. Many Brazilian men keep on kissing their fathers and uncles throughout their lives.
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Many Americans fear physical contact and confuse love and affection with sex. According to clinical psychologist David E. Klimek, who has written about intimacy and marriage, "in American society, if we go much beyond simple touching, our behavior takes on a minor sexual twist" (Slade 1984). Americans define demonstrations of affection with reference to marriage. Love and affection are supposed to unite the married pair, and they blend into sex. When a wife asks her husband for "a little affection," she may mean, or he may think she means, sex. As Americans discuss love and sex on talk shows and in other public forums, it becomes obvious that American culture confuses these needs and feelings.
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It is true, of course, that in a good marriage love and affection exist alongside sex. Nevertheless, affection does not imply sex. Brazilian cultures shows that there can be rampant kissing, hugging, and touching without sex - or fears of improper sexuality. In Brazilian culture, physical demonstrations help cement several kinds of close personal relationships that have no sexual component. (Mirror for Humanity)
I'M NOT A VERY AFFECTIONATE PERSON. I'M NOT A VERY TOUCHY, FEELY PERSON. I'M NOT A VERY EXPRESSIVE AND EMOTIONAL PERSON. I DON'T FLIRT. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FLIRT OR TOUCH FEMALES IN A WAY THAT WOULD MAKE THEM FEEL COMFORTABLE OR AT EASE WITH ME. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TALK TO FEMALES IN A SMOOTH*, DECEPTIVE, COMPASSIONATE, AND LOVING WAY. NOR DO I KNOW HOW TO TOUCH FEMALES IN A SMOOTH, COMPASSIONATE, AND LOVING WAY OR AT LEAST A WAY THAT WOULDN'T LEAD THEM TO CALL SECURITY OR THE PO-LEASE ON ME. NOW, BECAUSE OF MY INABILITY TO DO THIS (GET CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH THE LADIES), MANY FEMALES PERCEIVE ME AS BEING COLD, DISTANT, ALOOF, AND NOT CHARMING (NOT A LADY'S MAN OR GOOD WITH THE GIRLS). RIGHTLY SO, BECAUSE I'M NOT. WHY AREN'T I? BECAUSE I HAVE GENES THAT PREDISPOSE ME TO BEING UPTIGHT AND INHIBITED AROUND FEMALES AND I WAS RAISED IN A WAY (A DISCIPLINED, STRICT, SEXUALLY REPRESSIVE, WHITE ANGLO-SAXON CATHOLIC WAY) THAT FURTHER LED TO THE EXPRESSION OF THIS INHIBITION AND SEXUAL REPRESSIVENESS.
Partner intimate touch is associated with increased interpersonal closeness, especially in non-romantic partners
https://twitter.com/PsychoSchmitt/status/1370010955757813767
*WHEN I'M DRUNK MY SEXUAL INHIBITION AND SEXUAL REPRESSION DIMINSHES AND I DO BETTER WITH THE LADIES, BUT LIKE CINDERELLA, IT DOESN'T LAST LONG. ONCE I BECOME SOBER (TYPICALLY THE FOLLOWING DAY), MY INHIBITION AND SEXUAL REPRESSION RETURN AND I BECOME THE NON-AFFECTIONATE, NON-TOUCHY-FEELY, STOIC, NON-EXPRESSIVE PERSON THAT I USUALLY AM. BY THE WAY, I NEVER KISSED MY FATHER GROWING UP. I FINALLY DID KISS HIM, HOWEVER, WHEN HE WAS ON HIS HOSPITAL BED ABOUT TO BE WHEELED AWAY TO THE OPERATING ROOM. I KISSED HIM ON THE CHEEK AND SAID "YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT FATHER." I DON'T COME FROM A TOUCHY, FEELY, KISSY FAMILY. WE DON'T DO THAT SHIT.
*WHEN I'M DRUNK MY SEXUAL INHIBITION AND SEXUAL REPRESSION DIMINSHES AND I DO BETTER WITH THE LADIES, BUT LIKE CINDERELLA, IT DOESN'T LAST LONG. ONCE I BECOME SOBER (TYPICALLY THE FOLLOWING DAY), MY INHIBITION AND SEXUAL REPRESSION RETURN AND I BECOME THE NON-AFFECTIONATE, NON-TOUCHY-FEELY, STOIC, NON-EXPRESSIVE PERSON THAT I USUALLY AM. BY THE WAY, I NEVER KISSED MY FATHER GROWING UP. I FINALLY DID KISS HIM, HOWEVER, WHEN HE WAS ON HIS HOSPITAL BED ABOUT TO BE WHEELED AWAY TO THE OPERATING ROOM. I KISSED HIM ON THE CHEEK AND SAID "YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT FATHER." I DON'T COME FROM A TOUCHY, FEELY, KISSY FAMILY. WE DON'T DO THAT SHIT.
REGRET
(SMOKE A BIGARRETTE)
(SMOKE A BIGARRETTE)
Men regret more having missed out on opportunities for casual sex, women regret more having jumped at them. Both sexes fail to act upon the lesson.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11
Unrestricted sociosexuality in women may increase opportunities to experience short-term sexual action regret, through having more one-night stands. Conversely, restricted men will more often pass up short-term sexual opportunities, thereby increasing their likelihood of experiencing inaction regret. Therefore, sexual personality may increase typical settings for sex typical regret. While such behavior is in accordance with their sociosexuality, the emotional consequences are not always in accordance with sociosexual orientation (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017; Kennair & Bendixen, 2012; Townsend & Wasserman, 2011). Further, to some degree prior behavior predicts future behavior, thus it may be that underlying sociosexuality and other traits maintain the short-term sexual behavior despite sex typical regrets and aversive emotional processing.
Galperin et al. (2013) did not specify what more adaptive future sexual behavior and choices would entail. Deciding what might be more adaptive sexual choices and behavior for women who regret having had one-night stands is not straightforward. For women regret seems to be driven by partner quality and sexual arousal, as women regret less when they take the initiative to having sex and regret more when experiencing disgust (Kennair et al., 2018). Thus, it is not necessarily merely a case of reducing number of one-night stands that might be the adaptive choice; similar behavior with better partners may reduce regret, too. Further, it might be that entering long-term committed relationship is the aim of the short-term behavior, and thus a predictable outcome for women with increased short-term sexual regret. What would be an adaptive behavioral shift for men after experiencing inaction regret is more obvious: If men have been selected to seize scarce and sought-after chances of reproductive opportunities, including short-term sex, this may explain why they experience inaction regret more than women after having had the chance of having a one-night stand or hook up. Consequently, men should seize their opportunities more often to increase the number of one-night stands.
Reminiscence can take two forms. Sometimes when we reminisce, we think about things that actually happened, like that three-way kiss or the painful call from my mother. But sometimes we think instead about alternative realities, about what it might have been like if we had walked up a different life path at some time in the past. Indeed, sometimes we remember more about the imagined alternative than we do about events that actually happened.
As a younger man, I had a passionate crush on a beautiful but reticent young woman. One afternoon, though, she seemed ready to overcome her reluctance and started leading me back to her bedroom. But as I thought about my current girlfriend, I decided to pass up the opportunity. Nevertheless, I still wonder what would have happened if I had stayed. Would it have turned into a pleasant memory of a short and passionate affair, or would it have completely disrupted my life?
Many of my male friends have a counterfactual reminiscence very much like that one - of a time they almost got to sleep with a woman they found highly attractive. I wondered whether women have similar reminiscences.
On a sabbatical many years later, I had a conversation with Neal Roese, who was then a professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Neal is probably the world's foremost expert on counterfactual reminiscences - musings people have about choices they did not make and about how things might have been if they had chosen differently. He and I had independently started wondering about possible sex differences in these counterfactual thoughts.
Previous researchers had not found many interesting sex differences in counterfactual thinking, but as Neal and I talked it became clear that researchers might have been asking the question the wrong way. Earlier studies had focused on people's counterfactual thoughts about possible achievements ("If only I had studied harder or made that home run," for example) and had not probed much into counterfactual musings about relationships. Working with Neal's colleagues Ginger Pennington, Jill Coleman, and Maria Janicki and with my colleague Norm Li, we took a more focused look at people's counterfactual thinking in the romantic domain. Across several studies, we asked participants to think about either their past romantic relationships, their academic achievements, their friendships, or their relationships with their parents. As they thought about these different relationships, we asked them to consider the question, "Is there something you wish you had done differently?"
When it came to their parents and to their school careers, both men and women had about twice as many regrets over inactions, things they should have done but did not, than over actions, things they actually did but wished they had not. When it came to romantic relationships, though, men and women were very different. Women were much more likely than men to have regrets over things they had done (getting involved with that self-centered bastard despite Mom's warnings, for example). The vast majority of men's regrets over relationships, on the other hand, were about actions they did not take (a time they did not get more intimately involved with some desired damsel).
Yeah classic finding
“Men regretted failures to act on sexual opportunities significantly more than women. Women were more likely to have regretted acts of sexual commission—wishing they had not had sex with someone that they did have sex with.”
From an evolutionary perspective, this makes a lot of sense: Men incline a bit more toward promiscuity, and women to careful choice. When women make a bad romantic choice, they remember. And perhaps by remembering, they will do a better job of avoiding those mistakes in the future. (Sex, Murder, and The Meaning of Life)
I'M GLAD I DIDN'T HAVE A CHILD AT A YOUNG AGE BECAUSE THE FEMALES I WAS ATTRACTED TO IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE AREN'T THE FEMALES THAT I'M ATTRACTED TO NOW AND WOULD BE WILLING TO HAVE A CHILD WITH NOW. WHAT A MISTAKE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN IF I'D HAD A CHILD WITH THE GENETICALLY INFERIOR TYPE OF FEMALES I WAS ATTRACTED TO AT A YOUNGER AGE. I'M GLAD I'VE BEEN SEXUALLY REPRESSED FOR MOST OF MY LIFE. I CAN NOW MAKE BETTER MATING DECISIONS AT THIS WISER, YET LATER STAGE IN MY LIFE. THE SAME GOES FOR GUYS I ONCE ASSOCIATED WITH. I NO LONGER HAVE MUCH IN COMMON WITH THEM AND HENCE NO LONGER ASSOCIATE WITH THEM. WE DON'T HAVE THE SAME INTERESTS, SAME BELIEFS, AND SAME OUTLOOK ON LIFE AT THIS LATER AGE. G00D RIDDANCE!
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