What I call the “Las Vegas effect” is the phenomenon where women become more adventurous and open to trying new things on vacation (whether in Las Vegas or anywhere else). (This effect applies to men too.)
It’s well known that women often are willing to try new and crazy things when they’re on vacation. First, they are away from home, so most of the social consequences (real or perceived) that would happen if they had sex with a random stranger do not apply. They have more freedom to pursue fantasies and take social and sexual risks. Second, the kind of woman who goes on vacation to a foreign city is typically more open-minded and interested in new experiences. A true stick-in-the-mud who fears change is unlikely to visit faraway places. Travel and tourism naturally select for women that are in an adventurous place in their lives.
In general, women are more sensitive to, and affected by, the surrounding social context than men. Women’s sexuality, and their sexual decisions, are more plastic, flexible and more influenced by cultural norms. This has positive and negative implications. On the upside, it means that men have a lot of ways to become more attractive. Leveraging context to your advantage, as discussed in Chapter 1, can be very powerful. But on the downside, social norms can also present an obstacle to sexual connection. The Las Vegas effect greatly mitigates these social obstacles that otherwise would make seduction difficult or impossible.
The phenomenon of being more open-minded and adventurous is not limited to vacations. It often applies to students living and studying in a new city, and women living temporarily (over the course of months or even years) in a city for work or internships. On a smaller scale, it applies on holidays like Halloween, or other situations that temporarily suspend “the rules” that we have to live by (or that we think we have to live by). Alcohol-infused partying is the prime example.
Men who study attraction and seduction realize that many things are possible with the opposite sex, that they are not beholden to the “normal” expectations of the culture. Women, for the most part, do not have this. The closest they can come to bending or breaking the rules (and still being relatively safe) is by going on vacations, carousing on the weekend, and/or dressing up in sexy and fantastical outfits.