By Tom Miller — Written on May 30, 2007
Who's sleeping around? Scientists can tell
From Live Science
People who are either extremely warm or extremely cold toward others tend to be promiscuous — and that people who are just moderately warm have the fewest sexual partners, researchers found.
People who are socially dominant and either very friendly or very antagonistic tend to be more sexually promiscuous, according to a new study.
Friendly, warm people may enjoy sharing their warmth with others by sleeping with them, whereas antagonistic people may sleep around to avoid having a monogamous relationship. And having a dominant personality makes it easier to approach potential partners.
Past studies have suggested that people who are dominant tend to have more sexual partners than people who are submissive, but there has been little research into whether a person’s level of interpersonal warmth — the way in which they interact with others — affects their sexual actions.
Tango’s Take Wow. Although this study could use more than 210 participants, it’s still pretty interesting. The two most promiscuous personalities, aggressive and very friendly, can then be further divided by gender. An overly friendly man is generally viewed as charming. He may buy a round of beers as an opening salvo and then charm the pants off of the quarry. (Think Bill Clinton or a Wilson brother.) An overly aggressive man is typically seen as an asshole (or bad boy in chick lit parlance). He may impress women with his apparent lack of interest and sweet barbed wire tat. Two examples of this guy are Frank Sinatra and Colin Farrell (first and last time for them to be mentioned in the same breath).
Women are a little tougher to pigeonhole into these stereotypes, but here goes. The female of the overly friendly-set is willing to talk to any dude who approaches her. She’ll laugh at his jokes and decide in the first five minutes if this guy is destined for the friend heap or the ‘has-potential’ pool, though she may sleep with someone to avoid hurting their feelings. Examples of this archetype include Jennifer Aniston (at least any Jennifer Aniston character). The last category is of the whoa-whoa here she comes, she’s a man-eater variety (thanks Hall AND Oates). This character is sometimes thought to be a nymphomaniac. She’ll approach guys on behalf of herself or her friends. All tabloid starlets clearly fall into this category.