Seduction Tip: Be Rough around the Edges

A new study shows that women prefer men with facial scars for short-term flings.

There is a theory in sleight of hand magic called the “too perfect theory.” The idea is that some tricks are “too perfect,” and either seem implausible or lead the spectator toward figuring out the secret. As an example, in the effect cigarette through coin, if a cigarette passes through a flat piece of metal, spectators’ thinking may lead them toward the secret. But suppose a small hole is drilled in the coin. Admittedly, a cigarette through a tiny hole isn’t as miraculous as a cigarette through a solid piece of metal, but the effect seems more likely.

Another example is a prediction effect. If a spectator is given a free choice of any word in a dictionary and chooses “consternation,” and my prediction is “consternation,” something seems fishy. The prediction is too exact. If on the other hand my prediction is “concentration,” or “constellation,” it seems believable.

The main idea of the too perfect theory is that things can be too neat and tidy for their own good –there is a certain appeal in roughness.

This applies to seduction in that men can be too clean, too nice, too polite. This is easy to do in a culture in which men are raised to repress their natures. Think how often we are told that “violence solves nothing,” and how easily flirting, telling a joke, or saying the wrong word can result in charges of harassment and insensitivity.

Men are also raised to be the fall guy, the upright citizen, the hard-working, self-effacing nice guy who will put in long hours and ask little in return. When a woman has her fling and ends up pregnant, or suddenly realizes she is not as attractive as she used to be and now needs to settle down, she turns to the fall guy, who will raise another man’s child as his own and spend his whole life supporting a woman and her children (which may or may not be his).

Seduction guru Paul Janka observes that he does better with women when he doesn’t shave. A couple of days’ growth of beard is ideal. We know that women who are ovulating prefer men with darker faces, which may explain the greater success of the “scruffy” look.

For years I suffered from being too neat, wearing ties when going out, or a suit and tie. Of course I was excessively polite and sensitive.

When I was a school teacher in Fresno the lady who taught next door to me was a very attractive woman. I was stunned to learned that she had screwed the Larry the janitor, who was loud, rude, vulgar, unshaven, and a smoker. The affair mystified me. Given my understanding of women and my philosophy at the time, it made absolutely no sense.

Only now does it make sense to me. Larry was rough around the edges, reveled in it, and was sexually aggressive. And it paid off.