What Frauen Want

It is accepted in some scientific circles that orangutans, and not chimpanzees, are the closest relatives to humans among the great apes. Ask a human woman about the similarities between the ginger monkeys and their own species and they are likely to add to the burgeoning evidence that man (but not necessarily woman) is but an evolutionary side-step from an orangutan.

The list appears endless at times: body hair, personal hygiene, mating techniques…If you listen to some disgruntled females you could be misled into believing that they live in a monkey house bedecked with hanging tires rather than a swanky apartment filled with the latest modern furniture.

As if to give women even more ammunition, another similarity between German men and orangutans was discovered only last week, courtesy of a certain knuckle-dragger called Sibu.

Simbu's blonde ambition

Sibu (an orangutan and not a German male), had become a pain in the hairy backside by refusing to mate with any of the ape babes which swung his way for some primate lovin' at the Apenheul Primate Park in Amsterdam, Holland. Instead -- and here is where the very tenuous link to German men comes in -- he preferred to go monkey nuts over the blonde female humans which attended to him.

Sibu's preference for flaxen-haired female humans, preferably tattooed, fits snugly with documented evidence which says that German gentlemen prefer blondes.

German women, however, do not share Sibu's or their menfolks' lust for the fair-haired.

Well-trimmed, dark-haired men get the nod

A new survey of attractiveness by the GfK research institute on behalf of a German health magazine reveals that when it comes to choosing a mate, German women prefer dark-haired men to blondes. Only 17.2 percent of those questioned found blond men attractive while a total of 28.9 percent favored brown-haired men, and 34.7 percent preferred men with dark hair.

Now, while this doesn't appear to be such a great problem for the large number of swarthy types out there, the survey showed that German ladies require a little more than just a luxurious inky thatch from their mates. And this is where our friend Sibu comes back in.

Grooming high on German women's list

If you are a man who has more in common with Sibu than his penchant for pneumatic blondes, then even your dusky crowning glory may not save you from being cast aside in the mating game. Those also sharing Sibu's grooming and hygiene habits may be forced to fight lesser apes over the monkey bars and fling feces at the cropped and manicured males who are more likely to successfully pair up with the females.

According to the GfK survey, every second woman in Germany is attracted to clean-shaven men with short hair and manicured nails. Of the 1,031 women questioned, 59.6 percent found a man with manicured nails attractive, while 50.9 percent said they did not like men with stubble on their chin.

Some 53.9 percent said they preferred men to have short hair, with a mere 4.7 percent saying they were attracted to males with a long, flowing mane.

All is not lost for those deemed unattractive

So, if you're a blonde, long-haired German guy with talon-like fingernails and the habits of an orangutan, you may consider looking elsewhere for a less-fussy mate.

If you haven't had enough of being compared to Sibu already, you may want to follow his lead one more time. After striking out with all the blonde women he had the hots for, our tree-swinging hero finally found love with his own type -- in Britain.