Friday, May 31, 2013

The "sexy son" hypothesis, or, my biological excuse for putting up with an asshole for too long

Fairly recently, I came to the conclusion that I needed to go through with finally purging a toxic relationship from my life. This guy (#bigdrummerboy, if you are a Twitter follower) was someone that I met back in 2010 after a particularly traumatic breakup. At the time, my friends decided the best way to cheer me up was hot guys, and being the band nerds we are, they immediately carted me to the nearest place where a Drum Corps was holding a camp. (In case you doubt that DCI is full of some of the sexiest men I have ever met, here are some photographs of one of the Corps) So, as we're sitting in the stands of the local football stadium, my friends and I played the game of "pick your favorite" and quickly came to the conclusion that every single one of us thought a particular guy on the drumline was it. All seven of us agreed.

To shorten this story somewhat, he ended up approaching me later in the week and, suddenly, I was caught up in this maelstrom of sexuality that he exuded like other human beings "exude" carbon dioxide. I'm not even sure now, after I've eliminated him from my life, if I can explain my reaction to him in a way that doesn't make me sound mentally touched. The sexual tension was so think I couldn't think. I became a bundle of energy, a grouping of nerves, A VAGINA ATTACHED TO A BRAIN STEM.
Anecdote 1) I met up with him after one of their performances and as we were walking somewhere he jokingly lifted his shirt to show me "how much weight he's lost" and I literally lost the majority of my motor function. I was unable to walk, talk, or do anything but stare at his stomach until he put his shirt down.
Anecdote 2) At one point during a semi-public heavy petting session, I pulled his shirt up over his stomach and just...bit him. And growled. It was at this moment he pulled me close to him and said "Yeah. I know."

In short, we had a sexual/chemical/physical compatibility that you probably could have bottled and sold to porn stars as an enhancement drug.

Unfortunately, as I was to learn partially that summer, and learned again in the summer of 2012, this guy...seriously, folks, ladies in particular, learn from my mistakes and walk away from toxic assholes like this before you get as hurt as I did. Some of his crowning moments:
1) Despite the fact that I went down on him more times than I can count, I know exactly how many times he touched my vagina. He touched it twice. How did I think that was okay.
2) He (being on tour at the time) needed to use my computer to send some stuff for his study abroad program. Afterwards, I opened my computer to find that he had been, not emailing the forms, but looking at titty pictures that he had been emailed by four other girls who resided on various towns he would be visiting on his tour.
3) Finally, after spending over a month calling me "his girl", holding my hands, snuggling with me on his water breaks, kissing me randomly etc, he decided that I was "acting too girlfriend-y" and that I needed to stop. When I informed him that, to the best of my knowledge, we were just friends with benefits and I didn't want to date him, he smiled and put my hand on his cock before asking me if I felt generous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming he's the devil. I'm not even saying he's a bad person- but the way that he treated me was unacceptable and because of the sexual chemistry I was blinded to it. Even to this day, I catch myself thinking that maybe the sex is worth it. But it's not.

I needed an explanation- for my own piece of mind. I like to think of myself as an independent, aware woman who wants a companion that respects and treats her well- so why did I put up with him? Why was I still so attracted to him? And last fall, during an Animal Behavior class I was taking, an answer of sorts emerged from our studies of mating strategies.
There is this hypothesis that was proposed in 1979 by these guys called Weatherhead and Robinson. They mostly studied birds, who have the highest occurrence of monogamous couplings in nature. However, this hypothesis can be applied to almost any animal, including us big-brained bipeds.
I highly doubt you'll look up scientific literature (as people who are expecting the first published post here to be about fuckin', I don't blame you) but the general gist of the hypothesis is this:
Females are attracted to promiscuous males, even if they won't help with child rearing or resource providing, because those womanizing genes of his will raise the chances of her own male offspring spreading their (and, indirectly, her) DNA far and wide.

So I'll blame that.
Yeah.

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