After carefully discussing my research topic with Marlen I have chosen to do my research on womans sexual attraction to men in uniform. I am curious to do this research because I myself am in the Army and am also sexually attracted to woman, thus both of these aspects of my question are interesting to me.
1.) I assume that the uniform could be a sign of masculinity, and that is why women see it as a sign of sexual attraction.
2.) It could also be due to wanting to find a mate who is a part of something bigger than just being a normal person.
3.) In general being in uniform comes with some sort of discipline, thus the woman may think a man is less likely to cheat given his uniform.
4.) Uniforms are all around nicer looking than normal clothes, so just for the reason that a man looks nice could mean more sexual attraction from woman.
5.) Woman naturally want to be protected, and being in a uniform such as a fireman, cop, or military man means that you protect people as a job.
6.) The military could recruit better by using more ad’s that pretty much say, “Get a uniform, chicks dig it”.
How could the military, or other companies who use uniforms for that matter, broaden their recruitment through using womans sexual attraction to the uniform?
Why do woman feel more protected when around a man in uniform?
Is the sexual attraction due to just the idea that the uniforms look nice, and classy?
If so then why are women attracted to fireman uniforms?
Does the uniform make a woman feel like a man is disciplined?
Does discipline sexually attract woman?
Would discipline promote a man who doesn’t cheat?
What makes a uniform make a man more masculine?
Do movies make woman think this more than they regularly would?
Could the sexual attraction just be to that fact that a uniform portrays power?
As far as to what has already been researched, I have found multiple peer-reviewed articles on what sexually attracts females, and more in-depth what women look for in a man related to what the women wants. For example, in Laramie D. Taylor’s article entitled “Cads, Dads, and Magazines” she cites ”Buss” when saying that when woman look for a relationship they tend to look for traits in men such as relational frame, emotional stability, and being romantic (Buss,1994). As for sex as a recreational activity, woman look for traits such as physical attractiveness, sexual experience (Cashdan,1993), and lack of inhibitions (Kruger, Fisher, & Jobling, 2003).
Taylor , L. D., (2008). Cads, Dads, and Magazines: Woman’s Sexual Preferences and Articles about Sex and Relationships. Communication Monographs, 75(3), 270.
My research will be different than this article because I will try to portray that a uniform on a man could portray both of these two sets of qualities. I will link together the emotional stability, and romantics side of the uniform with the qualities of physical attractiveness, and sexual experiance.
The next peer-reviewed journal discussed mate attraction once again. One of my favorite parts of this article was in the first paragraph when the author cites Darwin in saying that sexual attraction is a competition to pretty much distinguish the alpha males, and those alpha males will experience greater mating success. This process is called intersexual competition (Darwin,1871). Of course that was over 200 years ago so while an interesting point, may not hold the validity that I would like. In a more recent study it was seen that women look to find mates who make a better parental investment (Buss, 1996). This article also talks about how it has been thought that women sometimes are sexually attracted to males due to a good gene pool. Next the journal stated that women tend to be more sexually attracted to muscular men during their fertile periods (Provost, Troja, & Quinsey, 2008). Also during the womans fertile periods they seem to seek men with more of a social presence, and men who tend to be at the top of the intersexual competition scale (Gangestad, Simpson, Cousins, Garver-Apgar, & Christensen, 2004)
Miner, E. J., (2010). Mate Attraction, Retention, and Expulsion. Psicothema. 22, 9-14.
What I could bring different to this article is the aspect of what a man in uniform is compared to the intrasexual competition theory. I think a women would see a man in uniform as the strongest, and most masculine of men, thus making him their first choice when they are in their most fertile times of the month. Although, its pretty tough to only say that women are attracted to the uniform when they have pms, so I am going to try to find more articles to support this with woman who aren’t even in their menstrual cycle. I say this, but who knows, maybe it just looks like all woman are always attracted to men in uniform, but really its just that some woman somewhere will be going through their fertile cycle when they see a man in uniform.
My next article discussed what a highly sexual active women acts, and perceives things compared to a less sexually active women. It dabbled with saying that women were more self-confident when they were more sexually active (Blumberg, 2003). It also said that woman who aren’t as self conscious tend to have more pleasurable sexual experiences (Cash, Maikkula, & Yamamiya, 2004). The label “slut” gets thrown out a lot in our culture judging woman, while these woman do not really care about what they are thought of as, it seems that the higher sexually active a woman is, the less likely she will be to stop having sex. and thus the less likely she will ever be happy with just one man (Blumberg, 2003). One of the questions in the research done was asking if their was an age difference between highly sexually active woman vs less sexually active woman, the results showed that their was no significant difference in the two groups’ ages. The two groups also did not have a difference in education level. However highly sexual woman indicated that their first sexual partner came at a younger age than the less sexual group. Woman who were more sexually active were more likely to have sexual fantasies, and also to masturbate more.
Wentland, J. J., Herold, E. S., Desmarais, S., & Milhausen, R. R., (2009). Differentiating Highly Sexual Woman from Less Sexual Woman. 18, 4.
What I plan to bring new to this research is to find a bond between highly sexual, and less sexual woman so that I can try to prove that either way, the uniform does something for them. It could be because the woman who are highly sexually active and are active at pursuing sexual fantasies have the sexual fantasy of being with a man who is say in the army, a police officer, or a firefighter. For the less sexual woman, I will try to see how they may feel that they would be in for a more long-term relationship when dealing with a man in uniform, and would feel secure knowing that he was the guy they wanted to actively persue in a serious, less originally sexual manner. This has also given me another idea as to what to look for in another peer-reviewed journal. I now want to try to look into what sexual fantasies woman may have, and how that relates to men in uniform, or in power.
Like I previously stated for my next article I looked for a journal article which discussed womans sexual fantasies. In the article I actually found a reference pertaining to how women seek out men who are portrayed in movies to be the sexy guy, or hero. The sentence said mass media is responsible for creating unrealistic or culturally perfect images of actors carrying out unrealistic romantic relationships that are not easily recreated in real or mid-life (Koch, Mansfeld, Thurau, & Carey, 2005). I may look into this article after I am finished with my research on sexual fantasies. In the study in which the researcher was doing in the article I read 80 to 83% of woman reported non genital, physical sexual desires. It seemed like in this study though, that while most woman reported their first few times tantalizing were related to the physical feelings they had with getting wet, or having an orgasm, after the feeling wasn’t new anymore they began to become more non physically fantasized. Their was a narrative from a 66-year-old woman who said that her sexual fantasy was merely just having a nice day with her husband, and what sexually attracted her to him was just the fact that she was happy and content with who she had chosen. Well now that I have gotten through this whole article I feel like an idiot for just busting into it and misinterpreting the title. I had thought that this would tell me more about the fantasies that woman have sexually in a sense of what their husbands, and boyfriends aren’t. It was only after reading 10 or so narratives that I realized the primary area of study was to discuss what their partners did that made them sexually desire them. The things that they said were such things as ” I like waking up in the morning, and thinking my boyfriend, and then I think coinciding or soon after that physical stuff starts”. While it wasn’t what I was looking for I am still going to cite this article, and look for ways to turn the information that I have read into something I can use even though my main group of study is college aged woman.
Brotto, L. A., Heiman, J. R., Tolman, D. L., (2009). Narratives of Desire in Mid-Age Woman With and Without Arousal Difficulties. Journal of Sex Research. 46(5), 387-398.
I believe that I can bring something new to these peoples research. I think I could use the idea that after you have been with someone for so long, you don’t even need to be having sex to fantasize about them. I think this could pertain to the military in a great way considering that soldiers are away for long periods of time, so just the thought of them to their lover would sexually arouse them. I think that woman could then maybe just generalize all military uniforms into the category of sexual fantasy. I may have to broaden my horizon to all woman in general and not just college aged woman.
The next article I reviewed was on the uniform, and what it means to wear one. The article discusses how a uniform is not merely just a blue shirt, and khakis, and that a uniform actually means something which in some cases is honorable, and prestigious. It embodies the attributes of a group, and the group is often the main focus. When a person wears a uniform like this, they lose some individuality, and puts more emphasis on what you are a part of. Pretty much everyone who wears these uniforms place more emphasis on not disgracing the uniform, and their group, than they do on disgracing their self. In this sense the uniform can either bring honor to its wearer, or take it away if the group is an embarrassment. If one is expelled or kicked out of a group their will sometimes be a degradation ceremony which entails the removal of certain prestigious symbols such as a sword ( honor), or a rank patch. The uniform minimized confusion of the wearer with non-wearers. In some instances such as the Army, an officer is not permitted the same means of expressing his attitude than a normal citizen because he is held to a much higher standard. The uniform is a symbolic statement that says he will adhere to group rules, and has completed essential skills, and lived the values of the group.
Joseph, N., Nicolas, A., (1972). The Uniform: A Sociological Perspective. Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York. 77(4), 719-723.
Wow… Finally something that is completely 100% relevent to my topic. I found this and immediately ideas started to flow through my head. I am planning on taking all of the qualities that this article says a uniform entails, and relating them to what women want. I will use things such as the group’s honor, and prestige as arguments as to something woman are attracted to. I will use the officer not being able to do things a regular samaritan can do to portray the higher standard in which many woman like. This is awesome. I am finally starting to get excited about this thing.
The methodology I chose is to conduct a survey. I will hand out roughly 20-40 copies to college aged woman. Some of the question I will include will be things such as: “Does a man in uniform look more sexually attractive than one who isn’t?”, “Do you feel like you can trust a man in uniform more than a man who isn’t?”, “Does a uniform make you feel protected?”, “Has the media stereotyped men in uniform to look sexy?”. I am currently trying to make a few more questions, and to also rephrase the questions so it isn’t completely obvious what I want them to say. I may even ask them if they would mind sharing how many sexual partners they have had to see if this brings up anything about experienced woman vs. non experienced woman.
Journal of Sex Research – http://www.sexscience.org/publications/index.php?category_id=439&subcategory_id=337#2424
American Journal of Sociology – http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/ajs/instruct.html?cookieSet=1
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – http://www.apa.org/pubs/authors/instructions.aspx#
Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences – http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/31970/home/ForAuthors.html?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Journal of political and military sociology - http://www.jpms.niu.edu/sub.html
