ROMANCE: ardent or passionate involvement or attachment, a fascination or enthusiasm for someone; to make love, court or woo; the idealism of love.
Women crave the feeling and passion of love. Women crave the ecstasy of love. And they crave it much more than men!
But why so?
Do women long for love because of social upbringing or other inherent traits?
There is no doubt that society encourages women to be romantic, to place great emphasis on love, and its idealism. In fact, much of the literature that children grow up reading promotes the ultimate fantasy as the rescue of the beautiful woman by the knight in shining armor or the handsome prince. In other words, literature and the arts generally create roles for the genders: the damsel in distress for the female, and the heroic prince for the male:
- The prince awakes Sleeping Beauty with a kiss
- The prince revives and awakes Snow White with love
- The charming and handsome prince rescues Cinderella from her tragic life and evil family
- Rapunzel is imprisoned for her parents’ sins by the witch but Rapunzel grows the longest, most beautiful hair in the world. A prince falls in love with her and when trying to rescue her he falls and is blinded but later when he and Rapunzel are reunited, he is rewarded with his sight so he can gaze upon her beauty; they marry and live happily ever after.
Of course, these fairy tales have many themes and messages but nonetheless, there is one common strong message:
The heroine is the woman that is beautiful, kind and gracious but she is helpless, suffering at the hands of other women jealous of her beauty. Her only hope for happiness and freedom is the love of the handsome, rich and powerful man (the prince) who will rescue her, provide for her and bring her eternal happiness with his unwavering, undying love and worship of her.
Here now is the strong and clear idealism of love, namely romantic love, as the ultimate goal and objective for every woman.
But do these types of fairy tales create and inspire romance in women or do they simply feed the woman’s already preexisting hunger for romance? And if these fairy tales reflect inbuilt beliefs and desires, then why do men woo the woman with romance but once having conquered her love, do they stop being the romantic prince?
The answer lies in the differences between the makeup of the male and female brains.
Women are much more emotionally charged than men. Women are primarily feelers and more imaginative than men who tend to be analytical, primarily concerned with cause and effect.
There are two hemispheres to the brain. The left side is analytical, logical, precise, detail oriented, and capable of conceiving and executing plans. The left side sorts out differences and it is the happy, cheerful, more optimistic side of the brain. The right side of the brain is imaginative, dreamy, artistic, negative, fearful, anxious, mournful and pessimistic. It is the more emotional side of our brain. It helps us recognize familiar faces and is responsible for hunches. The right hemisphere is associated with our sense of self, our sense of who we are.
Can you guess which part of the brain men tend to focus on?
Further, the limbic system, or emotional brain, tends to be larger in women. The limbic system is the emotional bonding center of the brain. The larger limbic size makes bonding easier for women. Women tend to have more friends in life and have a larger nesting instinct than men. Finally, women have the ability to use both sides of the brain simultaneously and have greater access to the right hemisphere than men do. Yes, women can multitask. Men focus on one side of the brain at a time.
Hormones also affect our desires. For example, testosterone (the dominant hormone in men) makes them aggressive and competitive. Estrogen (the primary hormone in women) makes them more nurturing. Also, Oxytocin –hormone of love and cuddle chemical is present in both genders but is more prevalent in women. Oxytocin is associated with bonding, a sense of partnership and urge to care for a child. It is often released during times of stress and labor and delivery (and creates the bond between mother and child.) During times of stress a woman seeks out personal interaction, someone to talk to, “tend and befriend” – which explains why women who have a stressful day simply want their man to listen and be a friend – not an advisor!
Women’s responses are much more acute in four of our five senses and they can detect more subtle levels of input than men can. Women prefer sounds half as loud as men. Women are much more sensitive to odor and fragrance and can recognize their newborn child from smell alone. Women have greater sensitivity in taste and a greater ability in taste than men to experience the four key tastes: bitter, salty, sweet and sour. The most dramatic gender difference is found in the area of sensitivity to touch. In some tests, the most sensitive guy couldn’t feel skin contact as well as the least sensitive woman!
While men’s emotions are primarily recognized in the right side of the brain, women’s emotions are distributed in several areas of the brain making them more emotional. All of these above factors explain why I refer to women as “feelers.” And unlike men who are primarily sexually stimulated by what they see, women are primarily sexually stimulated by what they hear which is why women fall for men with magnificent voices, accents and poetic words.
And women have much more active brains than men!
Of course, the greatest challenge women face is that even after they have found and are united with their prince, he often too quickly stops being the prince and turns into a dictator, the angel of darkness, the lazy court jester or the king that expects to be waited on – hand and foot!
What men fail to understand is that the reason their woman is not treating him the way she did when they were courting (sexually, romantically or affectionately) is because the man thinks courting is a one-time experience designed only to woo and win over the woman, and that once wooed, she no longer needs the romance. Truth be told, she needs it more now than ever before because she now faces so many more of life’s everyday challenges. She will be washing dishes, running errands, looking after the kids, balancing the check books, and running a business. For her, the fairy tale world of romance has been replaced by 21st century world of reality.
The only yellow brick road to living happily ever after, for the prince and his princess, is for the prince to treat her as a princess, reminding her that she is special, beautiful, the only one for him, that he needs her, and to offer his support and love for her emotionally, mentally and physically! The 21st century prince understands that his woman not only craves the passion and ecstasy of romance, she needs it to be truly happy. And when the princess is happy, she will do everything to make her prince feel like a king!
Listen to Patrick Wanis’ audio book “Get the man you WANT!”
**This article was originally published March, 2008 on Magicofromance.net (now defunct)
Anointed “The Woman Expert” by WGN Chicago, Patrick Wanis PhD is a renowned Celebrity Life Coach, Human Behavior & Relationship Expert who developed SRTT therapy (Subconscious Rapid Transformation Technique) and is teaching it to other practitioners. Wanis’ clientele ranges from celebrities and CEOs to housewives and teenagers. CNN, BBC, FOX News, MSNBC & major news outlets worldwide consult Wanis for his expert insights and analysis on sexuality, human behavior and women’s issues. Wanis is the first person ever to do hypnotherapy on national TV – on the Montel Williams show.