WARNING: You may be extremely disturbed by the contents of this post! Open the Spoiler section at your own risk.
So lately I’ve been discussing the Ladder Theory with a lot of people lately. I don’t remember how it comes up, but it did in CoHo randomly one day. And then with Mo and some other people. And then at a kick-back I was at. And just today, Jimmy P, Haley K, and Helen Z were having a conversation and Jimmy P made an allusion to it, Helen Z tried to say something, and I jumped in to defend the Ladder.
For those of you who don’t know what the Ladder Theory is and don’t care to click on the convenient link I’ve put at the beginning of this post, it is a “scientific” social theory about dating.
See, all guys have a single ladder onto which they place all women. (For the interests of simplicity, I’m going to be speaking in heterosexual terms, but the same thing should apply for homosexuals.) Let’s start at the top of the ladder and work our way down:
- Dream Girl — Out of your league, you don’t bother pursuing these girls.
- Hot Girl — You’d actively pursue the chance to fuck one of these girls.
- OK Girl — You wouldn’t actively pursue one of these, but you wouldn’t say no if they offered.
- Drunk Girl — You’d have to be drunk before you’d fuck one of these girls.
- Denial Girl — You’d only fuck one of these girls if you were very drunk, and you wouldn’t admit it afterwards.
Every guy has a slightly different weighting system, and so the different “rungs” of the ladder may be of different sizes for different guys. Some rungs have subsections, but the basic premise still holds. And how girls get placed onto the rungs can be weighted differently between looks, personality, etc. for different guys.
If everyone in the world was like this, we’d be a lot more populated, and sex wouldn’t be taboo. But unfortunately, girls aren’t like this. Girls have two ladders — the Fuck Ladder and the Friend Ladder. A girls’ Fuck Ladder is similar to the top of the guy’s ladder. The Friend Ladder also has “rungs” which represent different levels of friendship. However, the important thing to note is that every guy a girl meets is instantly placed onto one of her two ladders. He can move up and down that ladder, but can never move from one to the other. Guys who do try to leap from one ladder to the other fall into the abyss, and are usually removed from the girl’s life.
Now, I’m a pretty big proponent of the Ladder Theory, and I think I’ve had some successful conversions to it. However, a lot of people still try to poke holes in the theory. The most commonly asked question is, “What about the female family members of guys?” Well, it’s simple… they are just extremely low on the ladder. If you put stock in the societal norms that incest is bad, then they will be at the very bottom of your ladder… somewhere along the lines of, “Only if you were so drunk, you blacked out, had no idea who it was anymore, and wouldn’t remember it when you sobered up again.”
So if you have any other questions about the Ladder Theory, feel free to shoot me a line. Obviously I’m open on the subject. 
Now I’m going to yak and gouge my eyes out for thinking such things. Not necessarily in that order.
clicking Show was kind of disturbing
1 for a firm believer in the ladder theory, but i’ve had it work pretty much every possible way when jumping ladders…sometimes it’s great, sometimes you fall on your ass and break your tailbone, and sometimes it’s really awkward
Here’s the thing… you may THINK that you were trying to leap the abyss, but you weren’t really in all those cases.
If you really were on the friends ladder and tried to jump to the fuck ladder, then you would fall into the abyss.
If you “successfully” jumped from friend ladder to fuck ladder, then you weren’t really on the friend ladder at all. See, the top of the friend ladder is very similar to the bottom of the girl’s fuck ladder. What really happened is that you were low on the fuck ladder the whole time, and moved up it into “greatness.”
Or in the case of “awkwardness,” you thought you were on the friend ladder, but you were low on the fuck ladder. You tried to move up the fuck ladder, but you didn’t. And the awkwardness is just you (and perhaps the girl as well) discovering that you’re actually low on the fuck ladder.
My thoughts:
1. I just HAD to click “show”, didn’t I?
2. Helen is awesome.
3. Dinh, your response to Tim’s comment actually makes a lot of sense, in context of the ladder theory.
4. You would rather fuck your grandma over your sister??
5. Taking Tim’s past situation into account, are you sure that girls really have two ladders? I think they really just have 1, but the levels are defined differently than they do for guys. For example, the guys that I’ve put into Friends category are just really low on my ladder. I really want to prove this!
Yes, I would. As I explained, they are of equal genetic distance, so it’s equally creepy, but at least there’s less risk with my grandmother.
And no, girls definitely have two distinct ladders that cannot be traversed. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
Man, I would MUCH rather do my sister than my grandma, if only because I (because of the way I was raised) must show utmost respect to my grandma first. Also, my sister would be better able to overcome the inevitable trauma that would happen afterwards.
I most definitely want to prove otherwise, but I’m not sure how without getting specific… hahaha
Prove that girls have one ladder, i mean.
i am a firm believer of the ladder theory. i found out about it like 4 years ago and I’ve had many debates about it. till this day the ladder theory holds strong.
Thu, theres no way you can prove girls have one ladder. anything you say can be disproved or explained through the theory itself. i bet you
Ok, I will give it a shot. It might be TMI so don’t read if you can’t stomach it (but it’s not as bad as Dinh’s, I promise).
I have one ladder. The rungs are not defined the same way as the guys’ are, though. To be honest, I never imagine or consider the thought of having sex with someone I know unless he’s already high on the ladder— a guy I’m already dating, or mayhaps a guy I’m really really interested. I don’t think it’s because I’m female so much as the BCP so you can blame that (sorry, TMI like I said).
However, the ladder is pretty much the same as the guy’s ladder except replace “fuck” with “date”.
Contrary to Dinh’s projected girl theory, no guy is ever permanently doomed to a Friend ladder. There are guys I might say I’ll likely never date, but they’re not on the Friend ladder— they’re just on the bottom of the Date Ladder.
The things that determine a guy’s placement is not just how much I am attracted to him physically or even personality wise. The power of the mind is VERY strong. If you believe strongly in something you can pretty much convince yourself of it. There are some rules I subconsciously follow– for example, I will not consider dating, ever, a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend of one of my friends. That is, Dinh, Jimmy and Haley are on the bottom of my Date ladder. Because of this relation to me (boyfriend-of-friend), it’s easy for me to drop any potential interest. If Tim ever dates a friend of mine, or if he has dated a friend of mine, he will instantly fall to the bottom of the ladder. I don’t do this on purpose, it’s just that I internalize this rule (“do not date friends’ boyfriends”). Like I said.. power of the mind; you can truly convince yourself of many things.
Here’s another thing that complicates the ladder. I don’t do this on purpose either, but I subconsciously gauge my own interest in a guy based on his interest in me. If I know there’s no chance a guy will be interested in me, I’ll subconsciously not have any interest in him; basically, it’s a self defense mechanism that protects me from getting rejected. It skews the ladder.
Finally, I will note that no guy has, by default, no chance with me— but he might always just be near the bottom. You wonder why, once you fall into a girl’s friend zone, it seems like you can NEVER get out of that friend zone? I don’t think it’s because girls are unable to change the way they see you; I just think it’s very, very hard. Chances are, if you had crushed on a girl for 8 years without doing anything, and she knew about this, she already thinks of you as too passive to find you attractive. You’d really have to flip a 180 on this to change her mind, but that’s a pretty big change indeed.
I want to hear your thoughts, Dinh! And anyone else!
http://xb1.xanga.com/75fc1af534131162087724/w122105460.jpg
There is really just one ladder. People just want to blame the ladder theory for their inability to leap.
Like I told Peggy on AIM, I completely agree with her.
I think the difference between guys and girls (on average— you’ll always know exceptions) is just that girls are stingier with the way they perceive others’ relations to them.
I’m sure you’ve heard that boys tend to play playground games in order to win— in order to achieve a goal that is offered to them. Girls tend to play playground games with the emphasis of defining their relationships with other playmates. So what I’m saying is, in the context of the ladder theory, girls just tend to place more emphasis on their current relations to potential mates. That’s why it’s harder for girls to promote you from Friend –> Fuck, whereas it’s not as hard for guys to promote you from Friend –> Fuck.
No, Thu, you still have two ladders, too. It’s just that you are more likely to believe that a guy is at the bottom of your fuck ladder than at the top of your friend ladder, whereas I believe most girls are more likely to believe that most of their male acquaintances are at the top of their friend ladder and don’t acknowledge the bottom of their fuck ladder. Like I said, they are very similar places to be, but you can’t move from one to the other.
Are we all that different, though? I stick by my stance that guys and girls have the same ladder, but girls just have stricter criteria for placement. Culturally and evolutionarily, females tend to be more selective about their mates. You already know this. So I imagine that, in this context dating & sex and all that good stuff, girls tend to be more conservative about mate selection. That’s why it SEEMS like girls have to have two different categories for mates, constantly excluding one. I maintain that this isn’t true, but girls just have a harder time being inclusive. If we say that we’d potentially have interest in ANY guy (the way you’re saying guys do), then that sorta implies that we’re a slut. It’s a subtle, but present, stigma.
I’m gonna be aggressive now and take this back to the guy’s (and your) perspective.
Just yesterday (I think) Tim asked me this hypothetical question: “do you believe that a guy can be friends with a girl without ever having the slightest bit of romantic interest in them the in the first place?”
My answer was a definite yes. His answer was a definite no. And I noticed that many guys seem to believe this: that guys can’t be friends with a girl without being romantically interested in them, at least at one point. If this is true, then Dinh’s Ladder theory (that guys have 1 ladder and girls have 2) is true. However, I’m gonna attack it now.… by arguing that, if girls have 2 ladders, then maybe guys have 2 ladders too.
I want all you guys to think of female friends that you are absolutely not attracted to in any way, shape or form. Hey, it could be ME! And if you can think of this female friend you’re not attracted to, then it’s NOT true that you can’t be platonic with someone without having romantic interest in them at one point. I know my words are confusing but I hope you can get my point. My point is that guys and girls aren’t really that different; either both genders have 1 ladder, or both ladders have 2.
Oops, I forgot to add the last part of my statement.
My answer to Tim’s question was yes. That’s not the whole picture, though, I realize. The thing is, it’s true that I could meet a guy and instantly place him at the bottom of the Date Ladder. However, it doesn’t mean he can’t EVER move up the date ladder. It just means that often, guys that I place there don’t really move up. It has happened before in high school. After spending time with a friend that I originally found unattractive (and liked me… and was my ex’s best friend), I ended up crushing on him too. Nothing happened because he was my ex’s best friend. Some might say it’s because my crush was always on the Friends Ladder, but it’s actually only because an obstacle (being my ex’s friend) kept him from moving up high enough on the Date Ladder for me to actually date. Truthfully, he ended up being pretty high up there, but I felt too guilty to act on it.
Oh wow Thu, you totally said what I was going to say. After I posted my response, I went into shower where I do all my thinking, and I was just thinking, guys would have two ladders, too, then. All we need to do is cut one in half, then ta-da!
And I was JUST THINKING ABOUT THE STRICTER MATE SELECTION TOO! Wow Thu, we are meant to be. I mean, seriously, if I say that there is a possibility that i’ll jump on any guy that comes around, what would people think? that I am a SLUT, right? But if guy says, “I’d do that girl… that girl… that girl.. that girl… ANNNND that girl”. everyone’s just go, wow, you have unlimited energy and possibly a huge manhood to satisfy all these women!
I mean, females have to be careful because first of all, we get the baby. second of all, we get UTI more easily, and lastly, we have that social stigma that we have to deal with.
Again I must agree with Thu. I know it’s going to be REALLY fucked up to say it, but I am sure there is probably ONE girl in APO that you are absolutely not attracted to for several factors. Maybe she’s ugly, maybe she’s annoying, maybe she’s hot, maybe she’s whiny. FOR ANY REASON, if guys only have one ladder, all the girls would be placed on this ladder. And if that is the case, would you, REALLY, realistically, consider having sex with this girl, even when you’re drunk and desperate?
And I am going to use another personal example. I am going to write on a separate post because if Dinh feels like it, he can delete it without deleting everything I said.
When I first met Dinh, there was NO DOUBT in my mind that I would never date him. Why? Remember my reason? I said you were like a BROTHER to me, you were like a relative that I just couldn’t see myself dating.
IF I were to have two ladders, there is going to be a huge strait that you can’t cross, because sleeping with relatives… just a little wrong. But the fact is, you are not my relative; we are *hopefully* not genetically related.
So how did you leap the ladder? You DIDN’T because there is no ladder to leap. You moved UP the ladder.
It is just really hard to move up the ladder, like Thu said. In order to move up from the bottom half to the top half, something BIG would need to happen/change, and luckily, it did for us.
And I mean, even if you moved down the ladder now, you still didn’t fall into the strait, right? If I were to have two ladders, with all the moving back and forth, you’d probably fall with severe injuries.
Ok so my answer to my own question posed to Thu wasn’t a definite no — I said that was my friend’s answer and I was asking about her opinion. I’m a 95% no to my own question because my old roommate is an example of a girl I became friends with without thinking oh shit is she single? But that’s because her ex (who is pledging…) looked like he was gonna beat the shit out of me everytime I said hi to her (just looked that way though…real nice guy actually.)
I mean we’re just generalizing here aren’t we? IMO my question is 95% true for most guys, and the ladder theory is 95% true for most girls. I think Dinh is too defensive of the ladder theory…it’s just a theory after all isn’t it?
My question to the girls is what makes a guy move up your ladder? Or jump across, or however your brains work. What makes a guy you’ve been good friends with for 3 years all, and strictly friends with, all of a sudden someone you want to be intimate with? And is intimacy the defining point of a “relationship”? What has changed for him to go from being your best buddy to being your boyfriend? Is it just a label?
Like I said, Tim, something big has to change.
But let me ask you a question to clarify the question you posted: do you mean dating, or just sleeping with?
Because as far as dating go, in order for a friend to move up the ladder, at least for me, something big has to change, like we previously talked about. He has to show romantic interest (no joke), and he has to show me something he has not shown me before as a friend in order for me to change my view about him, then moving him up my ladder and into my pants. I mean… ladder. Or it could happen when you start spending extraordinary amount of time together. For example, before me and Dinh started dating, we saw each other almost everyday, and I was pretty much in every single Dinhternet post, and I was usually the quote of the day not because I had interesting things to say, but because I talked to him the most. Of 100 shots, there will at least be one hit, right?
But that’s the tangent. As far as having sex goes, I am trying my hardest not to sound slutty, but I know because of the way the society is constructed, I will have that stigma and that reputation of a “slut” because I said this. But as far as having sex goes, as long as the timing is right (like I am not romantically attached) and the place is right (not in a public bathroom) and the mood is right (I am drunk or in desperate need) and the person is right (I have to feel safe and clean about the guy), I mean, generally, just feel OK with having sex with this person, then nothing needs to change, really, for me to sleep with this person and still remain friends. AFter all, sex is only a primary need, just like when you’re tired, you sleep; when you’re hungry, you eat. So being my boyfriend it means the person is really high on my ladder and I have to think highly of him because he attracted me, not just because I want to sleep with him.
Tim, I think the reason you didn’t think oh shit is she single? with your old roommate is because of what I mentioned earlier— your role/relation to her.
I think for all of us, male and female, the way we measure potential dates/fucks is influenced by cultural expectations. Dinh puts his family members super low on his Fuck ladder because it’d be incest. Tim didn’t consider dating his old roommate because of a role constriction (afraid that her bf would beat the shit out of him). I would put all the guys who posted or was mentioned in this thread on the bottom ONLY because of their relation to me (either they are boyfriends-of-my-friends, or they’ve never had romantic interest in me). If I were truly just placing them all on the Friends Ladder, that means I would never ever and would have never ever, under any circumstances, have any interest in them. But they all possess dateable personality & looks, so that’s not what makes me not have interest. It’s definitely true that we’re generalizing, of course, but I think this general idea still stands.
What makes a guy move up our ladder? I would say that whatever put them in the bottom in the first place needs to change, in order for them to move up. If it’s because they’re physically unattractive to us, then it’s their looks that would have to change in order to move up. For me, as I’ve said before, I always place guys on the bottom of my ladder if I don’t think they have interest in me. So maybe a guy on the bottom who suddenly shows interest in me might rise up the ladder. So what makes you move up depends on what put you on the bottom in the first place, for the most part.
So the main thing that differentiates a good friend and a boyfriend is that the boyfriend is attracted to you? Because I would then argue that would mean pretty much all your friends had to have been attracted to you at some point…so then what amongst every friend you know made the ones at the top be at the top, and the ones at the bottom be at the bottom? The SHOW of attraction? And then that gets me to the point that attraction ultimately means sex. Consider a homosexual relationship…isn’t the whole point it the sex? Most guys have some super awesome friend that they drink beer and watch football (or play halo) with a lot and would gladly ignore their girlfriend to do so, so the guys’ relationship is purely defined by sex or the lack thereof.
Soo if you’re still following me, every guy starts off at the bottom of your (generalizing for all girls) ladder, with all of them wanting to get into your pants, and then all the shy ones don’t do anything about it or don’t know what to do, and then you’re left with the 5% that’ll make it obvious they want to get into your pants so make it to the top rung, and then you pick one from that rung and you end up as “boyfriend and girlfriend” and you get a bunch of poor shmucks who just get to be your best friend and nothing more and they’re like “wtf i don’t get this ladder theory shit i hate life =(“
I vote for polygamy.
Tim’s comment about “all your guy friends have been attracted to you” could only apply to Peggy, not me. Hahahaha.… seriously, I can tell when a guy is or is not attracted to me, but that’s an entry for a later time (and most likely my LJ haha).
There’s more to make a relationship happen other than attraction. I think there has to be that “spark”, or “connection”, or “chemistry”, or whatever people call it. Cause I can be physically attracted to a guy but the way that I relate with him doesn’t have that spark that inspires me to desire something more. Also, to get into a relationship would probably also involve being on the same page of what you want out of the relationship, things in common, etc. etc. I think this is the difference between boyfriends vs. good friends, boyfriends vs. casual dates (guys I’m seeing but not attached to), and boyfriends vs. friends-with-benefits or one night stands.
Polygamy works for many people, whether in other cultures or in our own. It’s totally possible and often very successful. However, it’s hard for a lot of people in our society to get accustomed to it because we have internalized the cultural expectation of monogamy. We’re also afraid of STDs and stuff, which is a valid concern of course.
Showing romantic interest isn’t the only thing that we need for a guy to move up the ladder.
Let me just clarify myself a little, I guess.
We all have an image of what we might want our significant other to be, Brad Pitt is the image in my head. But realistically, I can’t get with Brad and become Mrs. Pitt. And the truth is, if I DID get with Brad Pitt, I may realize that there are things I can’t stand about him.
On the other hand, there might come a guy who initially does not fit the image in my head AT ALL, but after spending the time to get to know that person, I may realize that he’s what I want.
Wait, where am I going with this. Okay, let me think…
Oh okay, so in order for the guy to move up the ladder, I have to realize that he has the potential to be my romantic partner, which would obviously include the fact that he will have to be romantically attracted to me, and fits the image in my head or how I feel a romantic partner should be.
OK… let me try to cover everything that’s been said since my last comment…
The Ladder Theory doesn’t say that guys can’t be friends with girls. What it does say is that given the right situation, the guy would still fuck her. That doesn’t mean that he’s secretly thinking about sex with every girl he knows. It’s subconscious, and it will only come out under the right circumstances.
Girls, on the other hand, absolutely will not fuck certain guys, no matter what the circumstances. That’s why they have two ladders.
As for girls who think they’ve had guys move between ladders… Placing a guy on a ladder is a subconscious act that happens when you first meet. It’s weighed by your physical attraction for him, your read of his non-verbal displays of his interest in you, and other things you know about him (like he’s rich). After that first sort between ladders, your other weighing variables come into play, such as cultural norms, and those affect where exactly he fits on the ladder that he’s already been put onto. Some of these secondary weights are conscious, and some aren’t. That’s why you think you have one ladder.
So for Peggy’s example of me and her… I was placed onto her fuck ladder when we met. I was put very low on it due to the imposed norm that APhiO brothers don’t date and the fact that I didn’t show interest at first. (Or, I didn’t actively pursue.) But then, when I did start to actively pursue, I was shifted up a little, and the weight of the norm faded away, so I got high enough on the ladder for us to actually date.
Oh, and on a bit of a side-note… girls have no fucking clue when guys are interested in them. Jimmy and I were talking about this before as well. If a girl thinks that there are two guys who are kinda interested in her, in reality, there’s at least five guys who are on or past the verge of active pursuit. True story. I was there.
i was at coho that day, and i remember asking you about family members. but i just left it at that. anyway, thu and peggy already did a pretty good job so i’m not gonna bother contributing anything. relationships have always been mysterious to me. oh, except! the question of “can men and women ever be just friends?” goes back to when harry met sally:
Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally Albright: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail ‘em too.
Sally Albright: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
Harry Burns: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
… and in the end they got together. so! i guess the answer would be no, but it IS just a movie. written by a woman.
Just to let everyone know, Jimmy corrected my “genetic relatedness” math. My mother has a guaranteed 50% shared genetic relatedness to me. My sister is a range of 100% (impossible, since she’s female, but very close to it) to 0%, for an average of 50% genetic relatedness. And my grandmother has a range of 50% to 0% for an average of 25% genetic relatedness.
Because of these numbers, my new ranking of them from least to slightly less likely to fuck: sister, mother, grandmother. The original post has been changed accordingly.
Wow, what a torrent of comments.
First let me start off by saying that there are a lot of things I agree with in this post
1) Ladder Theory is mostly true, especially among younger people
2) Females have to be more selective about their mates due to evolutionary reasons, which then became social norms
3) The theory is 95% true.
I think part of where people are getting tussled up is in that they are harping on the exceptions. As with anything, there are always exceptions!
For guys:
1) I would be open to sleeping with about 95% of girls. Yup. Bring that up to about 99% when drunk. Is there an exception? Well, of course. I probably would be too paralyzed to sleep with a girl that had 5 legs sprouting out of her forehead. Does the exception mean that the theory isn’t worthwhile?
2) I would almost never sleep with a girl that was dating, and I would never sleep with a girl that was dating my friend. This isn’t a matter so much of fear, but rather that for me personally this overrides any other compulsions. Basically, that girl goes to the bottom of the ladder temporarily, though not due to reasons explained by ladder theory.
3) Ladder ranking mostly only applies to fucking. It doesn’t take into account kindness, empathy, compassion, or any of those things that make a good girlfriend. I think this is what bothers girls. For guys, because we are less invested in sex, there does not HAVE to be a lot of emotion involved. It certainly can involve emotion, and it is great when it does, but it is not a requirement. This is COMPLETELY different when it comes to relationships of course, which is why people may think that ladder theory is flawed.
For girls:
1) Of course you can move guys across the ladders. This probably comes at a point when you say, man, its really dumb that I have two ladders. I would like to think more long term, and choose a different sort of mate. All my fuck ladder bfs have been pretty shitty, maybe it’s not a good idea to choose from the fuck ladder anymore.
2) Guys can also jump ladders if they start to take on the characteristics of people on the fuck ladder. I don’t know how this is accounted for in ladder theory.
Don’t let exceptions clear your judgement of theories. Even Newton’s Gravity doesn’t hold true 100% of the time.
Ohhhh
Ohhh
True true. Guys you do bring up a good point. In fact I think I WAS confusing the Fuck ladder and the Date ladder, because they do overlap. But I should really concentrate on the Fuck ladder so I will finally return to that.
I believe that as a female, the Fuck ladder closely resembles the male one. However, when it comes to sex, not only are we evolutionarily more selective, but I think some of our pickiness resides in our biological differences from you guys. The possibility of pregnancy can be prevented pretty well with condoms and birth control, but that’s not what I mean here. Females may have reluctance to have sex because of the chance it will hurt or that they will not orgasm. Yes, there are ways to ease or erase any pain that women feel during sex, but it’s still a fear that many women have. And yeah, a lot of women have difficulty having vaginal orgasms.
Socially and culturally, sex is considered to be “done” after the male has the orgasm. Good sex will involve mutual satisfaction, but it’s not necessarily guaranteed (if you consider orgasm as the “goal” of satisfaction in sex). I’m not actually going to argue that it’s because our society is sexist (as you’d probably expect me to) but because a lot of women have difficulty having vaginal orgasms. And mayhaps that difficulty has something to do with sex-stigma that females face, but that’s besides the point. I don’t think these factors prevent most women from wanting to have sex, but I do think it might be one of the reasons why women are choosier about their opportunities to have it. That, as well as evolutionary reasons and social gender role stigma, as Peggy noted. I’d also like to add that for many women, myself included, feeling safe and respected in sex is really really important. Most of the time the guy is going to be stronger than me so there is a worry that he’s going go too far for my physical comfort. Obviously, both men and women can be raped, but there’s a particular fear that women have because it’s usually women that are raped. Anyway, my point is, this is another reason why women may be pickier about fuckmates, and it has nothing to do with drawing a distinct line between Friends and Fucks.
I originally took this debate in the direction of how girls perceive their dating choices, because I can see why you’d think girls would have 2 ladders when it comes to dating. However, I definitely don’t think girls would have 2 ladders when it comes to sex. I really just think we’re pickier with criteria because of the aforementioned factors.
I think because times are a’changing, girls don’t necessarily need emotion involved in sex either. Obviously everybody is different, and Jimmy’s only talking about general, overall gender patterns, but I think the distinction between males and females are blurring enough to question this part of the Ladder theory. My criteria for sex is pretty much the same as Peggy’s. We’re both picky about choosing sex partners in the sense that we need someone who is clean, safe, etc. but let’s not confuse that for requiring any sort of emotional or romantic investment. As Jimmy says, I do not need any emotional investment, and if you’re curious to learn more about this, find me when I am drunk and then I will tell you everything. Hahaha.
Thus, because we don’t need any romantic investment, we don’t need to see you as a potential boyfriend to have sex with you. That’s why guys can be Friend, Fuck, neither, or anywhere in between— and this is arbitrary and indeed could change.
When a girl places a guy as “Friend”, and it seems like this label is immobile, take a deep look into the reasons that guy is a “Friend” in the first place. You’ll probably see that she’s being picky or protective of her own sexual choices. I think these restrictive (cock-blocking) labels are more fluid than permanent.
Jimmy, if guys can move across girls’ ladders then the Ladder Theory is faulty, because this Theory posits that girls’ ladders CANNOT be crossed.
Again, there are just different interpretations of what Ladder Theory is, and how universal it is. I don’t think a theory exists that cannot be shown to have exceptions, except of course in math, etc. But that’s just me.
Girls were not born to fit ladder theory, ladder theory was born to fit girls. Some guy saw that
1) Girls are very selective about who to sleep with
2) Often times that judgment is made very quickly, and seems to be permanent.
And thus, ladders.
I think the analogy of ladders is very apt for describing the differences. For girls, it is very easy to climb up or down a single ladder, as it is for a guy to meet her somewhere on that ladder. For guys, we can try to jump across from ladder to ladder, sometimes 50 feet apart. I’m sure SOMEONE will do it. A girl may even nudge the ladders closer together for guys to hop across more easily. Have you seen American Gladiators? It’s harder than that.
i’m just confused to all fuck now, i don’t really even get what we’re debating about anymore.
and the ladder theory isn’t FAULTY, it just only holds true 95% of the time. it’s a generalization — a stereotype, like all asians have chinky eyes.
Can we have a quick poll?
How many times have you heard a girl say: I don’t really think of him in that way. We’re just friends.
How many times have you heard a guy say that?
To use an example from the website:
Pick a guy who you think is your friend. Then ask yourself this question: If you were both alone at his place one night, and you excused yourself to the bathroom and came out naked and asked him to have sex with you would he:
1. Tell you he doesn’t want to risk the beautiful friendship you have created with messy physical entanglements.
2. Comply.
“How many times have you heard a guy say that?”
Story of my life!!!! *writes emo livejournal entry*
most of them would pick 3. avoid out of awkwardness.
jimmy you’re asking two exclusive questions though. “i don’t think of her that way” is answering the question of “do you want a relationship?” vs the example from the website of “fuck yes i’ll fuck her!”
sure a guy might say to a girl “i don’t think of you that way” and not want a relationship, but unless you’re just really really unattractive he’ll still bang ya. it’s just no-strings-attached sex vs emotionally-tied sex.
http://xf7.xanga.com/c24c0477d8230162192563/w122197056.jpg
If we WERE to have two ladders, it wouldn’t be a friend ladder and fuck ladder. It’d more likely be… the fuck ladder and the date ladder. However, with the image above, its… really just one ladder after all. I mean, most females wouldn’t say, “I’d take him… and him… and him…” Unless she’s 45 and a cougar. But how many times, ladies (seems like it’s just me and Thu mostly), have you sat in that coffee shop and go, “hey, that guy’s pretty cute.. I wonder how he is in bed.….…..” I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I’d like to see people outside of their box, that’s why I like company parties so much, when you see your sales associate being drunk and managers giving each other horseback rides. Our company party hasn’t happened yet, but that’s how I’d imagine it to be! I am excited!
Oh tangent. Back to what I was saying, take away the social stigma, take away the risk of pregnancy, take away commitment, take away STDs, take away moral values, take away aestheticism (basically gouge your eyes out, or your brains), and take away low self-esteems, who WOULDN’T sleep around? Like I previously stated, sex is like food, sleep, water, air; one of our primary instincts/needs. It is so tabooed when it shouldn’t be. Using the example of food, if we don’t have to worry about health issues, calories, body images, who WOULDN’T pig out?
As Dinh and I were talking about this on AIM, I seriously think that who are men to say what we, the women, subconsciously are thinking about when they don’t even KNOW what we are CONSCIOUSLY thinking about?????
So are you men all talk or are you gonna put out???
i like peggy’s visual aids =D
and the theory is based on the observations of men, it’s the most scientific way we can go about it. physically digging around in that cranium of yours isn’t gonna help us much, so we base our opinions on our observations. and thus even if you don’t have two imaginary ladders that we get placed on, it’s definitely how guys see it because we know from EXPERIENCE.
i really hope i don’t qualify to be president of APhiO by being around a 3rd term but Dinh is well on his way of making it so with this discussion
Yeah, you’re on the mark. I think that’s what Peggy and I find faulty about the Ladder theory. To me, the Ladder theory is a pretty good generalization, but the problem is that the guy who thought of it thinks he knows how females think. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s going off from his own personal experiences being rejected.
Ok ok.
Women are right. There is only one ladder for women. I even came up with a visual aid to explain.
http://www.jimmypan.com/ladder.jpg
lol nice, jimmy
hahahhahaha
jimmy wins
V2 is def right. allllll the way to pluto, and we’ll take everything in between!
oops, i commented with the quote BEFORE i saw that ladder website.
this is entertaining. i don’t even care who’s right anymore. carry on.