Mate Value of High-Income Men: Seeking Arrangements and the Erotic-Economic Bargain

Mate Value of High-Income Men: Seeking Arrangements and the Erotic-Economic Bargain

by | Oct 12, 2021 | Dating & Mating Economy, Gender Politics, Relationship Issues, Sexuality

“You can lose a lot of money chasing women, but you will never loose women by chasing money.”
                    ~ Chris Rock — I Think I Love My Wife

Evolution and Behavior published (September 2021) a recent study by Rosemary Hopcroft 1 that confirms that high-income men have a higher value as long-term mates in the U.S.   The study’s conclusions are almost too obvious to report given years of data and research that have confirmed this fact of mate selection in America (and around the world), but like climate change, the benefits of Covid vaccines, and the integrity of the 2020 election result, some things bear repeating over and over until the impact is understood.

I will take this occasion to share the conclusions of this study and revisit related posts and pages on Mating Straight Talk (also see concluding Appendix.)  My intent (a return to basics) is similar to that of First Principle: Acknowledge Male-Female Differences, where I reviewed fundamental sex differences as a prologue to understanding the sexual fluidity of women.  In a couple of weeks, I will get back to that topic:  beginning a deep dive into the conditions, context, and politics (all proximate causes) of contemporary female sexuality.

Hopcroft Study

“High-income men have high value as long-term-mates in the U.S.: personal income and the probability of marriage, divorce, and childbearing in the U.S.”  Rosemary Hopcroft in Evolution and Human Behavior, 42 (2021) 409-417.

Study Abstract (abridged)

“Using data that includes complete measures of male biological fertility for a large-scale probability sample of the U.S. population (N=55,281), this study shows that high-income men2are more likely to marry, are less likely to divorce, if divorced are more likely to remarry, and are less likely to be childless than low-income men.

Study Conclusions

• Women Prioritize Earning Capability

Income is not associated with the probability of marriage for a woman and is positively related to divorce.  High-income women are less likely to remarry after divorce and more likely to be childless than low-income women.

These results are behavioral evidence that women are more likely than men to prioritize earning capabilities in a long-term mate and suggest that high-income men have high value as long-term mates in the U.S.”

• Higher-income Men in the U.S. and Scandinavia

Prior research in the U.S., Norway, Sweden, and Finland has shown that higher-income men have more biological children than lower-income men and higher-income women have fewer biological children compared to lower-income women.

• Men with Status in Pre-industrial Societies

Hopcroft says research findings in the U.S. and Scandinavia are relevant to studies in behavioral ecology and evolutionary demography that detail the relationship between status and reproductive success for men in pre-industrial societies.   “Status is positively related to reproductive success for men in pre-industrial societies, whether status is measured as land ownership, hunting ability, prestige, or wealth.”

• Evolutionary Psychology and Mate Preferences

According to Hopcroft, these research findings are also supported by the literature in evolutionary psychology regarding sex differences in mate preferences. The positive relationship between income and fertility is predicted by sexual strategies theory. “Financial prospects and status in a long-term mate are a higher priority for women than for men, according to mate preferences research.”  (Buss, 1989, 2016; Buss & Schmitt, 2019; Fales et al., 2016; Walter et al., 2020; Wang et al. 2018; Williams & Sulikowski, 2020.)

• Income and Wealth are Most Important in the U.S.

In most modern societies, status is measured by education, occupation, or household income.  Hopcroft reports that in the U.S., education does not have a robust correlation with income.  Income or wealth is the most crucial ingredient for reproductive decision-making in the U.S., while reproductive success is still associated with overall male status.

• Low-Income Men Are More Likely to Be Childless

Men’s income is positively associated with fertility because low-income men are more likely to be childless than high-income men.  “This is further supported,” Hopcroft says, “by evidence that low-income or unemployed men are less likely to be married and more likely to be divorced.”

• Watch What She Does — Not What She Says

Hopcroft cites the research of evolutionary psychologists Paul Eastman, Eli Finkel, and Jeffry Simpson (2019) 3 that showed stated preferences for traits in a partner might not be in alignment with a chosen partner’s actual characteristics.  “Female choice influences the occurrence of marriage, divorce, and childbearing.  This suggests a revealed female preference for earning capability in a long-term mate, regardless of stated preferences or ideals.”  In other words, watch who women marry, not who they say they might want to marry.

• Females Value Resources, Men Not So Much

“While income for men predicted greater success in long-term mating and reproduction, income for women was either unrelated or negatively related to long-term mating and reproduction.”

• It is About Female Choice

“Increased marriageability, lack of divorce, re-marriageability, and increased likelihood of fatherhood by high-income men are evidence that the marriage, divorce, and reproductive behavior of men reflect female choice,” Hopcroft said.

• Societal Norms Are Shaped by Evolved Predispositions

Hopcroft asserts (as do most evolutionary psychologists) that evolutionary approaches and sexual strategy theories take into account societal norms, values, and individual preferences that “are themselves shaped by evolved predispositions, so that sociological explanations do not exclude a role for evolved factors.”

• High-income Men Beat Low-income Men in Intrasexual Competition

Any reproductive advantage that accrued to high-income men stemmed from their marriageability and re-marriageability alone, Hopcroft’s analysis suggested.  “Competition for mates is always intrasexual,” Hopcroft concluded, “and the evidence presented here suggests that in this competition, high-income men win out over low-income men.”

• Higher-income Men More Likely to Have Younger Mates

Hopcroft reminds us that sexual strategies theory predicts male preference for younger women as mates, and men with higher personal income may be more likely to fulfill that preference. 4

Seeking Arrangement

One way for high-income men to fulfill the preference for younger mates is to find motivated and willing women online.  The phenomenon of young women seeking financial and “entrepreneurial” support from rich men has seen a recent uptick.  College is expensive.  The website service Seeking Arrangement matches “sugar daddies” with “sugar babies.”  The site’s mission directly embraces and expresses the perennial exchange between men and women – what sociologist Catherine Hakim calls the use of “erotic capital” to achieve mating objectives.5

Erotic Capital

Hakim defined erotic capital as “an individual’s beauty, sexual attractiveness, enhanced social integration, liveliness, social presentation, sexuality, and fertility that can provide opportunities to advance in life.”  Erotic capital, she says, plays a subconscious role in daily life decisions, such as career offerings, enrichment opportunities, and social networking.    Hakim asserts that current dating apps and subsequent decisions for marriage are driven by a woman’s erotic capital and a man’s economic capital.   I call this the erotic-economic bargain. (See Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference.)

Seeking a Wallet in the Form of a Person

Seeking Arrangement implores women to “meet a rich sugar daddy who can provide exotic trips, lavish gifts, financial support, mentoring, and the up-graded lifestyle you desire.”  Every profile comes with a “gift wish list.” One profile I read (for research purposes only) said, “I need a man that gets off by buying me things — seeking a wallet in the form of a person.”

What’s Your Price?

Seeking Arrangement has created several sister sites, including “What’s Your Price?” which allows men to bid against each other for a first date with a beautiful woman.  This bidding process promotes intrasexual economic competition between men that gives the woman a cash reward – a pay-to-play before you even get on the field.

Glorified Escort and Sex Work

Female proponents of the Seeking Arrangement tout it as a vehicle for female empowerment (with some validity).  In reality, the site primarily operates as a glorified escort and sex-worker service, which has existed for thousands of years.  Some of the women may be fantasizing about securing a rich man to marry.  Men, of course,  are fantasizing about having sex with beautiful young women.

Erotic-Economic Bargain – the Unconscious Infrastructure of Heterosexuality

The exchange of physical beauty and fertility (erotic power) for economic power (and/or protection) is the perennial bargain of human mating over eons of time.  This bargain is rooted in the willingness and capacity for parental (economic) investment from the man and the reproductive (sexual) access allowed by the women in response to that investment.  It is the unconscious infrastructure of heterosexuality — the ultimate exchange in the mating economy.

Male Aspiration for Dominance

The ability of a man to protect and provide for children is the crucial ingredient and evolutionary force driving this mate preference by women; it is the trigger for her sexual availability.  Her youth and fertility is her erotic power — a power that controls and influences male aspiration for social dominance, economic power, and competition with other men.   Sexual access to women is the penultimate motivation and prize.

Assortative Paring By Mate Value

The strength of a man’s preference for physically attractive women and a women’s preference for financially successful men works conjointly in relationship to their mate value.   At the upper end of their respective mate value, there is an assortative pairing of the beautiful with the rich.  For the “average” man or woman, the erotic economic bargain is not as stark, but its “hard-ware” (infrastructure) remains an influence along the entire spectrum of class and physical attractiveness. (See Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference.)

Renegotiating the Bargain?

In recent decades, the erotic-economic bargain may be undergoing a bit of renegotiation with surface or cosmetic changes that comport with our particular political moment.  Female empowerment and independence from men are progressing and evolving in their influence.   But most evidence “on the ground” of the modern dating scene does not show movement away from our ancient, evolutionary adaptations; there has not been a significant change in the foundational priorities and preferences for a partner by men and women.  Content analysis of dating websites reveals that women explicitly ask for “financially secure” or “professional” partners roughly twenty times more often than men.

Foundational Collusion

Although the exchange of sex for resources is a shared agreement, it is often implicit and “secretly” held – that is what is meant by “collusion.”  Men and women have vastly different parts to play in keeping the agreement in place.  This foundational collusion of exchange influences all other pieces of the heterosexual “puzzle.”  The erotic-economic bargain is often not explicit or conscious; it is largely “undiscussable” (Undiscussables).

“Erotic-Economic Bargain” As  Modern Evolutionary Mismatch

The hard-wired erotic-economic bargain is now destructive to the planet.   Getting off fossil fuel (which is related) may be easier than “getting off” (no pun intended) the desire by women for men with power and resources and the desire by men for women who are physically beautiful (fertile).  The “good news” is that change probably starts (or really must start) with women.

“You’ve Got the Whole World In Your Hands”

When “high mate-value” women TRULY prefer (prioritize) to mate with men of character rather than men of power, status, and money, men will change their behavior, and the planet will be saved.  (Allow me this bit of hyperbole.)  The world may be decidedly less sexy, but women’s capacity for flexibility and fluidity may be part of the roadmap for a more sustainable future.  Sexual access to women by men is a hard-wired co-variant to the desire by men for youthful, fertile, female beauty.  If women changed the criteria for sexual access, there might be a possibility for change.

It’s A Wicked Problem

In addition to hard-wired mating preferences, the intransigence of the erotic-economic bargain presents a “wicked” problem6 with multi-causal systems interacting together – including unregulated capitalism and the myth of unlimited growth.  A social safety net and guaranteed care for children may be needed to change the sexual psychology of men and women in the U.S. .

Sexual Juice Repurposed

Yes, a lot of “sexual juice” between men and women will have to be reconfigured or “repurposed” in a world where alpha-male power can no longer be an energetic-biochemical turn-on.   Women must lead the way.  Female choice is the preeminent dynamic of mate selection.  We could just kill all the men by destroying the Y chromosome – but, if you are watching Last Man Standing on Hulu, that may not be an optimal world for the women (and trans-men) who are left.

Notes

  1. Hopcroft is a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has published widely in evolutionary sociology and comparative and historical sociology in journals that include the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Evolution and Human Behavior, and Human Nature.  She is the author of Sociology: A Bio-Social Introduction (2010).
  2. Income is from reported monthly earnings and amounts received from all businesses and investments. High vs. low income was determined by a statistical cut-off within the subject sample distribution.
  3. From the University of California-Davis, Northwestern University, and University of Minnesota, respectively.
  4. See “Age Differences of Male Celebrities and Their Partners,” Appendix, Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference.
  5. For discussion of Hakim’s research and related issues, see The Male Sexual Deficit: Social Fact of the 21st Century.
  6. From social planning and systems theory, a wicked problem is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are difficult to recognize. Most importantly, there are multiple interacting variables and no single solution.
References

Buss, D.M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences:  Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures.  The Behavior and Brain Sciences, 12(1), 1-14.

Buss, D.M. (2016). The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating.

Buss, D.M., & Schmitt, D. P. (2019).  Mate preferences and their behavioral manifestations.  Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 77-110.

Eastwick, P. W., Finkel, E. J., & Simpson, J. A. (2019). Best practices for testing thy predictive validity of ideal partner preference-matching.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(2) 167-181.

Fales, M. R., et al. (2016). Mating markets and bargaining hands:  Mate preferences for attractiveness and resources in two national U.S. studies. Personality and Individual Differences, 88, 78-87.

Hopcroft, R. L. (2006). Sex, status and reproductive success in the contemporary U.S. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 104-120.

Hopcroft, R. L. (2015). Sex differences in the relationship between status and number of offspring in the contemporary U.S. Evolution and Human Behavior, 36(2), 146-151.

Hopcroft, R. L. (2019).  Sex differences in the Association of Family and Personal Income and wealth with fertility in the United States, Human Nature, 30, 477-495

Walter, K. V., et al. (2020) Sex differences in mate preferences across 45 countries:  A large-scale replication. Psychological Science, 31 (4) , 408-423

Wang, G., et al. (2018). Different impacts of resources on opposite sex ratings of physical attractiveness by males and females. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39, 220-225.

Williams, M., & Sulikowski, D. (2020).  Implicit and explicit compromises in long-term partner choice.  Personality and Individual Differences, 166, 110226.

Appendix

From Mate Value and Mating Economy,  Science of Attraction and Beauty, and Long-term and Short-term Mating Strategies: Domain # 2 of Male-Female Difference

 Women’s Long-term Strategy

Women’s long-term mating is driven by genetic characteristics and interests of our species: internal fertilization, an extended period of gestation, prolonged infant dependence on mother’s milk, and the need for relatively “high” male parental investment compared to other primates

Women Prioritize Male Status

Women have evolved to prioritize male status before being concerned about other mate characteristics.   It makes sense for women to first verify that a man has sufficient status/resources and then (and only then) seek positive levels of other characteristics. 

Mate Value Budget

Using a budget–allocation and mating screening method, evolutionary psychologist Norman Li found that under constraints of low budget, men spent the highest proportion of their budget on physical attractiveness, and women spent the highest percentage of their budget on status and resource-related characteristics.  As budgets increased, spending on these traits decreased but increased on other traits, such as creativity and intelligence.  But, when choices were highly constrained, men prioritized some minimal level of physical attractiveness, and women prioritized some minimum level of status.  Both sexes also prioritized kindness.

chart: female preferences for a long-term mate
Trade-offs Between Resources and Character

In addition to protection and a provision of resources, a woman’s long-term strategy seeks character traits that ensure stability and loyalty to her and her children over the long term.

What is often more salient in female mate selection and relationship satisfaction is the tension between the two preferences inside the female long-term strategy:  resources and character.   A woman’s long-term mating strategy often involves ambivalence and internal confusion related to her desire for a mate with resources and status and her preference for loyalty, kindness, intelligence, and character traits for parenting. (See “trade-off boundary” on the diagram below.)  In America, resources usually win this game of mate selection preference, often with rationalization and denial about the lack of optimal character.

Venn diagram: women's long-term mating strategy
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It Takes A Village – Alloparenting and Female Sexual Fluidity

It Takes A Village – Alloparenting and Female Sexual Fluidity

by | Sep 27, 2021 | Sexuality, Women's Issues

Being born with the ability to go both ways may have been beneficial to ancestral women ~ Barry Kuhle

Same-sex sexual behavior poses an evolutionary puzzle.  Reproduction is the engine of evolution.  Given the primacy of reproduction, why would sexual selection motivate women to engage in sexual behaviors with other women?

Alloparenting – A Proposed Cause of Female Sexual Fluidity

The theory of alloparenting is a proposed ultimate cause of female sexual fluidity.  It suggests that sexual fluidity increased ancestral women’s ability to form pair bonds with female alloparents who helped rear children to reproductive age.  Under this view, most heterosexual women are born with the capacity to form romantic bonds with both sexes.

The alloparenting hypothesis (and this post) is based on the research and writing of evolutionary psychologist Barry Kuhle at the University of Scranton.

Sexual Fluidity Defined

As noted in my last post, Ultimate and Proximate Causes of Female Sexual Fluidity – the Wisdom of Evolutionary Psychology, Lisa Diamond defines sexual fluidity as “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness that makes it possible for some women to experience desires for either men or women under certain circumstances, regardless of their overall sexual orientation.” Sexual fluidity is described as a conditional adaptation designed to promote opposite-sex sexual behavior in certain situations and same-sex sexual behavior in other situations.

Precursor to Proximate Causes – Men and Women Are Not the Same

In upcoming posts, Mating Straight Talk will address proximate causes (situations and immediate factors in the environment) of female same-sex behavior.  For now, let’s set the foundation of how or why female sexual fluidity was a mechanism for evolution that may have been the precursor to all proximate causes.

The nature of female sexual fluidity and occurrence of female alloparenting underscores this highest level take-away:  men and women are not the same (in aggregate) in their mating strategies and sexual responsiveness.  The sooner we really get that, the sooner a kind of healing between men and women can begin.

Ultimate Causation

What is meant by an ultimate cause? Ultimate causes of human behavior come from our ancestral past and address behavior or psychological processes that were adaptive for survival-based natural selection or reproduction-based sexual selection.

Ancestral Women Faced Problems of Paternal Investment

Ancestral women recurrently faced the adaptive problems of securing resources and care for their offspring.  They were frequently confronted with either a shortage of paternal resources due to their mates’ death, an absence of paternal investment due to rape, or divestment of paternal resources due to their mates’ extra-pair mating efforts. Fluid sexuality would have helped ancestral women secure resources and care for their offspring by promoting the acquisition of allomothering investment from unrelated women. Same-sex sexual responsiveness was triggered when inadequate paternal investment occurred or when women with alloparenting capabilities were encountered.   Perhaps this is true in modern times; the salient point (of this hypothesis) is that alloparenting and same-sex female sexuality was linked for thousands of years.

What the Alloparenting Hypothesis is Not

Kuhle is emphatic about what the alloparenting hypothesis is not:

  1. The alloparenting hypothesis is not intended to explain the evolutionary significance of a homosexual sexual orientation. Instead, it aims to account for same-sex sexual behavior among heterosexually-identified (What I called “mostly straight” or “hetero-flexible” women in Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Presentation, and Biological Sex.)
  1. The hypothesis is not intended to explain all occurrences of same-sex sexual behavior in women. The broad scope of same-sex behavior by women and the practices of self-identified lesbians do not necessarily rely on alloparenting as the primary cause.
  1. The hypothesis does not claim that all same-sex sexual behavior serves to promote alloparenting. Alloparenting is not the inevitable result of female same-sex behavior.
  1. The hypothesis does not imply that same-sex sexual behavior is the only route to alloparenting. Rather, the theory suggests that alloparenting is one sexual selection adaptation that encouraged sexually fluid mating by facilitating and sustaining bonds between mothers and allomothers.
  1. The hypothesis does not equate fluid sexuality with a chosen sexuality (as explained by Lisa Diamond in Sexual Fluidity, 2008; to be discussed in-depth in my next post). Although Kuhle postulates the existence of mating mechanisms that promote flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness, no conscious choice is invoked or implied.
Alloparenting in Monkeys

Alloparenting is particularly common in our primate cousins.  Among squirrel monkeys, relatives and non-kin engage in alloparenting and allonursing of infants to free up time for the genetic mother to forage, find potential mates, and scour the vicinity for predators.

Among Japanese macaques, mothers allow females in the group to hold and care for their offspring. These allomothers help macaque mothers hunt, babysit, and protect infants who are very susceptible to predators. Genetic mothers and allomothers engage in frequent grooming behavior and may stay together for their entire lives. Female Japanese macaques also engage in same-sex sexual behavior, but such behavior did not promote alloparenting in a captive colony.

Alloparenting by Bonobos

Although it was once thought that non-human great apes did not alloparent, growing evidence now suggests that such behavior occurs in at least one of our great ape cousins, the bonobo.  Bonobos are 98.7% genetically similar to humans and engage in substantial alloparenting, primarily by females. Bonobo females form strong pair bonds that last the duration of their lives.  When a female reproduces, other females are significantly involved in the life of the young bonobo.

Food sharing, French Kissing, and Genital Rubbing

Food sharing is an essential component of alloparenting and one that bonobos engage in regularly. To cement pair bonds within the troop, female bonobos engage in various forms of sex with troop members, especially with females who may serve as allomothers.

Bonobo females frequently partake in a unique behavior called genito-genital (GG) rubbing, in which two females rub their prominent clitorises and genitals together. They often reach orgasm and have been observed to eye gaze with each other and hold hands during the activity, suggesting that bonding occurs. Bonobo females also engage in French kissing, releasing hormones such as oxytocin that may help individuals bond.

Bonobo Family

Bonobo Alloparenting – Friends with Benefits

Bonobo females know how to hang out together:  food sharing, French kissing, and genital rubbing – now that’s a good date!  Given the ubiquity of alloparenting and same-sex sexual behavior in bonobos, it is possible that GG rubbing and other same-sex sexual acts facilitate the acquisition of alloparent care.

Alloparenting in Humans

The human infant is tremendously dependent on its caregivers to survive and thrive. Without prolonged investment from two parents, infants and young children are more likely to die before reaching reproductive age.

Anthropologist Sarah Hrdy suggests that without cooperation from both kin and non-kin alloparents, humans may have been unable to flourish as a species because human infants are so helpless. “Alloparental care and provisioning set the stage for children to grow up slowly and remain dependent on others for many years, paving the way for the evolution of anatomically modern people with even bigger brains,” Hrdy said.

Help From Non-kin Women

Close kin are not always the dominant allo-caregiver; unrelated women often contribute substantial allomothering across cultures. Non-kin women are especially likely to alloparent if they have offspring. For example, Efé mothers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo cooperate in raising offspring by gathering and preparing food, watching for predators, and ensuring adequate shelter is sustained. This allomothering has been shown to increase the likelihood of Efé infants’ survival. Among the Aka and Nganda tribes in Central Africa, it was observed that when allomothers are available, they are always utilized.

Alloparenting Mitigated Four Adaptive Problems

According to Kuhle, sexual fluidity and the acquisition of allomothers mitigated the costs of four adaptive problems that caused a deficiency of paternal investment:   

(1) an absence of paternal investment due to rape,

(2) reduced paternal investment due to paternal defection,

(3) reduced paternal investment due to paternal death, and

(4) reduced paternal investment due to a dilution of resources.

Absence of Paternal Investment Due to Rape

Rape was a recurrent feature of our ancestral past, occurred throughout recorded human history, occurs in all human cultures, and has been documented in numerous non-human primates and other animals.*

Rape circumvented a woman’s ability to exercise mate choice; its reproductive costs were catastrophic. Rape could have left ancestral women impregnated but without investment from the father or his relatives.

Rape also caused the potential loss of a primary partner and damaged a woman’s ability to choose and acquire quality mates in the future.

Reduced Paternal Investment Due to Paternal Defection

Men have evolved preferences for women with characteristics indicative of high reproductive value. As men get older, research suggests they prefer and marry women who are increasingly younger.  Ancestral men who defected from their middle-aged mates by mating with younger women would likely have reallocated their resources and protection to younger women. The evidence that fathers who leave their wives and children invest less in those children than fathers who remain with their family is consistent with this suggestion.

Reduced Paternal Investment Due to Paternal Death

Higher male mortality and men’s tendency to mate with women younger than them, were likely features of our evolutionary history.  Men’s earlier death would have prevented them from protecting and investing in their mates and any offspring their mates bore near the time of their deaths.   Widowed mothers would likely have incurred diminished mate values that inhibited their ability to acquire quality replacement mates.

Reduced Paternal Investment Due to a Dilution of Resources

Polygynous mating systems (state or practice of a man having two or more wives) were likely a part of our ancestral history.  In modern times, 84% of 853 societies studied were found to permit polygyny — 44% considered it the preferred mating system. In polygynous mating systems, co-wives of ancestral men who acquired additional wives may have experienced a reduction of paternal investment due to the dilution of their husband’s time, investment, and protection across co-wives. As men aged, they may have divested in their established mates to free resources they could invest into new potential mates.

Men Less Averse to Women’s Same-sex Behavior

Within polygynous mating systems, male psychology is designed to be less averse to a female mate’s homosexual affair than a heterosexual affair.  Men’s common fantasy of simultaneously mating with multiple women is an outgrowth of a male psychology designed to promote their mates’ same-sex sexual behavior and may be positively correlated to the practice of female alloparenting.

Why Sexual Behavior is Connected to Alloparenting

Why does same-sex sexuality promote or correlate with alloparenting?  Let’s go back to our randy bonobo cousins. Sex is an effective means of forming, increasing, and sustaining pair bonds between people. Sexual behavior with men generally promotes women’s feelings of commitment to them. A similar process of sexual behavior-induced commitment is likely to occur between female partners. Committed partners make good alloparents.

Impetus to Design Female Sexual Fluidity

There was a maximal selective impetus to design women’s sexual responsiveness to be fluid because it mitigated the four adaptive problems listed above. Fluid sexuality would have increased an ancestral woman’s likelihood of forming a pair bond with an unrelated woman who could help rear her children through alloparenting.  Ancestral mothers would have encountered women who exhibited strong alloparenting potential.

Paradox Resolved

As the engine of evolution is reproduction, same-sex sexual behavior poses a paradox. This paradox is resolved if, far from impeding reproduction, the trait in question actually facilitates it.

In light of the alloparenting hypothesis, a trait that formerly appeared maladaptive—sexual behavior between women—is recast as an adaptive outgrowth of sexual fluidity.

Summary

According to evolutionary psychologist Barry Kuhle, acquisition of alloparental care from other females would have helped ancestral women solve the adaptive problems of a lack of paternal resources due to rape, their mates’ death, their mate’s desertion, and a general divestment of resources by their mate.

Sexual fluidity may have been one way to solidify alloparent care.  From this perspective, most heterosexual women are born with the capacity to form romantic bonds with both sexes.

Same-sex sexual responsiveness is triggered when inadequate paternal investment occurs or when women with alloparenting capabilities are encountered. Being born with the ability to go both ways may have been beneficial to ancestral women.

Note

* Evolutionary psychology does not assert that what is true ought to be true (the “naturalistic fallacy”).  Obviously, the ubiquity of rape is abhorrent to our modern-day moral sensibility.  With rare exceptions, and rape may be one, evolutionary psychologists attempt to describe what human nature is like, not prescribe what humans should do. 

References

Diamond, L. M. (2008). Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. Harvard University Press.

Hrdy, S. B. (1999).  Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection.  Pantheon Books.

Kuhle, B. & Radtke, S. (2013).  “Born both ways: The alloparenting hypothesis for sexual fluidity in women.”  Evolutionary Psychology, 11, 304-323.

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Ultimate and Proximate Causes of Female Sexual Fluidity – the Wisdom of Evolutionary Psychology

Ultimate and Proximate Causes of Female Sexual Fluidity – the Wisdom of Evolutionary Psychology

by | Sep 14, 2021 | Sexuality, Women's Issues

Problems arise when proximate explanations, like sociocultural theories, are used in place of ultimate explanations, or evolutionary theories, to explain human characteristics.  ~ Alex Mackiel

In my last post (First Principle: Acknowledge Male-Female Differences), I underscored the need to acknowledge differences between men and women in their sexual psychology and response in preparation for understanding sexual orientation and the sexual fluidity of women.  I outlined twenty-two domains of difference. Several of these domains (such as #15 – “influence of context”) directly clarify the causes and expression of female sexual fluidity, or as researcher Lisa Diamond describes it, the “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.”  I will address all manifestations, causes, and effects of women’s sexual fluidity in future posts.

Thanks for Letting Me Set the Foundation

Today’s post is very “inside-baseball” and may have limited appeal to casual readers.  What follows is not popular, titillating, twitter-ready, easy-to-eat-like-candy fluff psychology.  Intellectual integrity and rigor demand that consideration of female sexual fluidity (in this particular cultural moment) revisit basic concepts of evolutionary psychology and address misconceptions about its tenets (see Appendix).  I explain and defend evolutionary psychology as an educator and reluctant contrarian to the dominant narratives of the academic social sciences and politically-correct thinking.  Reviewing concepts of evolutionary psychology will provide a foundation for understanding the biological and cultural adaptations of female sexuality.

Women’s Sexual Functioning Demonstrates Biological and Cultural Adaptations

Women’s sexual functioning includes sexual attractions, romantic affections, sexual practices/behaviors, and preference/orientation identities that are different from men’s sexual functioning due to biological and cultural adaptations.

Evolutionary Psychology Explains Biological and Cultural Adaptations

Basic tenets of evolutionary psychology (EP) undergird the arguments and evidence about female sexual fluidity (see What is Evolutionary Psychology?) and clarify the interplay of biological and cultural adaptations that operate in female sexual psychology and response. 

How or Why “Situations” Trigger Female Sexual Fluidity

If female sexuality is “situation-dependent,” we must understand not only what situations trigger same-sex attractions, bi-sexual identity, or hetero-flexible behavior, but how or why those situations operate as triggers.

Move “Upstream” to Understand Adaptations

Acknowledging the evolved behavioral differences between men and women is a “first principle” that explains the difference between the sexual psychology of men and women; it certainly explains different degrees of sexual fluidity.  But we might need to move “upstream” one step further to understand how behaviors become adaptive over thousands of years of human evolution.  We must clarify the difference between ultimate and proximate causes to completely understand modern-day female sexual fluidity.

Female Sexuality is Sensitive to Context

Female sexuality is dramatically sensitive to context.  Women are more context-dependent than men; all external circumstances of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, orgasm, choice of partner, and orientation identity.  Situation-dependent equals context-dependent.  Women’s “situation-dependent” sexual fluidity implies the power of proximate causes, but it does not eliminate the possibility of ultimate causes driven by evolutionary adaptation.

Causes of Sexual Fluidity and Patterns of Expression

My next post will address “ultimate” (evolutionary) causation theories for female sexual fluidity, such as the alloparenting hypothesis.  After that, I will handle the “juicy” stuff:  patterns of desire (and its three elements), sexual behavior, and sexual orientation identities.  Importantly, research suggests functional independence (potentially) of these patterns for any particular woman.  You can begin to see the possible permutations of female sexual expression.

Definition and Overview of Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychology (EP) is the study of human nature – meaning the study of evolved psychological mechanisms or psychological adaptations.  An adaptation is a product of evolution by natural and sexual selection that allows the human species to solve particular problems — most importantly, problems of survival and reproduction.  EP contends adaptations are behind most of our preferences, desires, and emotions and incline us to behave specific ways.  EP is particularly focused on behavior traits that appear to be universal across human populations.

Culture and Nature are Part of Evolutionary design

EP believes humans are born with an innate nature and that culture and learning are part of the evolutionary design and, thus, also innate.  This blend of intrinsic nature and culture is called the “dual inheritance” model of human evolution which explains how we are “structured prior to experience.”

Psychological Adaptations Operate Beneath Conscious Thinking

Psychological adaptations exist in the brain and operate primarily beneath conscious thinking.  For example, male sexual jealousy is an evolved psychological mechanism that prevents cuckoldry and investment in children who will not carry the man’s genes into the next generation.  EP explains human behavior in terms of the interaction between these evolved psychological mechanisms and the current environment in which they express themselves.

Adaptations Emerge at Appropriate Time

Adaptations do not need to appear at birth.  Many adaptations develop long after birth (e.g., walking by humans and development of female breasts).   With some exceptions, an adaptation “must emerge at the appropriate time during an organism’s life in reasonably intact form, and hence be characteristic of most or all of the members of a given species” (Buss, D.M. 1999, p. 36).

Proximate Causes Are Triggers for Female Sexual Fluidity

Evolutionary psychologists examine proximate and ultimate causes of behavior.  Proximate causes of behavior often include stimuli in the immediate environment of the organism or physiological mechanisms inside the organism.  Such stimuli include the current cultural triggers of female sexual fluidity.

When and Where Our Mind Developed – the Timing of Ultimate Causation

Humans (the genus Homo) appeared between 1.5 and 2.5 million years ago, in a time roughly coinciding with the start of the Pleistocene Epoch.   Because the Pleistocene ended only 11,700 years ago, most human adaptations either newly evolved during the Pleistocene or were maintained during that era.   EP, therefore, proposes that the majority of human psychological mechanisms are adapted to solve survival and reproductive problems frequently encountered in Pleistocene environments.

Ultimate Causes from the Ancestral Past

Ultimate causes of behavior evoke our ancestral past and address behavior or psychological processes that were adaptive for survival-based natural selection or reproduction-based sexual selection.  Ultimate causes of a behavior pertain to our evolutionary (phylogenetic) history, addressing these questions (for purposes of this discussion):

How did female sexual fluidity come to be?  How was it adaptive? How did it confer reproductive benefits to individuals with this behavior?

Evolutionary “Situationalism” – Proximate Causes of Survival and Reproduction

EP seeks to understand both proximate and ultimate causes of species-typical psychological processes in light of basic evolutionary theory.    Modern-day EP posits “evolutionary situationalism” (Geher, G. 2014).  Situational factors that matter most in affecting behavior are the ones that bear directly on factors associated with survival and reproductive success. Five decades of feminism and women’s economic progress and political empowerment are likely contributing proximate causes of female sexual fluidity.  (To be explained in subsequent posts.)

Alloparenting is a Proposed Ultimate Cause of Female Sexual Fluidity

The theory of alloparenting is a proposed ultimate cause of female sexual fluidity.  It posits that sexual fluidity in women is a contingent adaptation that increased ancestral women’s ability to form pair bonds with female alloparents who helped rear children to reproductive age.  Under this view, most heterosexual women are born with the capacity to form romantic bonds with both sexes. (My next post will explain this in-depth.)

Interplay of Biological and Cultural Adaptations

EP sees total congruence between learning and evolution; they are natural explanatory partners – perfectly compatible.  Many evolutionary hypotheses are about learning.  Humans are endowed with evolved learning mechanisms embodied in the brain.   For instance, the claim that humans have an evolved fear of snakes and spiders does not mean that people are born with this fear.  Instead, it means that humans are endowed with an evolved learning mechanism that acquires a fear of snakes more easily and readily than other fears. Learning itself is a Darwinian process and provides one of several possible mechanisms of inheritance in addition to conventional genetic processes.

Nature versus Nurture is a Strawman Debate

It should be clear by now that nature versus nurture is an antiquated “strawman” debate*, especially as a critique of evolutionary psychology.  (See Appendix below.)  Ultimate and proximate causes easily co-exist – but it is the “nature” part of the equation, the research about ultimate evolutionary causation, and the evidence of evolved behavioral sex difference that have been under-reported and too often dismissed in the halls of contemporary political and academic inquiry.

Problems arise when proximate explanations, like sociocultural theories, are used in place of ultimate explanations, or evolutionary theories, to explain human characteristics.

Sociocultural and Evolutionary Explanations Are Not at Odds

Sociocultural and evolutionary explanations are not necessarily at odds with each other.  Evolutionary psychology is an interactionalist framework.  Human minds created culture in the first place.  Both operate simultaneously to cause most human actions, such as aggressive behavior.  It would be virtually impossible for humans to acquire and learn their culture and all its complexity without innate mechanisms in place to make it happen.

Evolutionary psychologist Glenn Geher offers, in summary: “Given this focus on both environmental and innate causes of behavior, coupled with a genuine focus on proximate and ultimate cause of behavior, evolutionary psychology is truly an approach to psychology that embraces both the nature and nurture side of that debate” (Geher, G., 2014, p. 22).

Conclusion and Summary

There are both ultimate and proximate causes of female sexual fluidity.  My next post will describe the ultimate cause(s).  After that, I will address the more proximate, modern-day situational causes and expressions of women’s same-sex orientation and bi-sexual and hetero-flexible behavior.  All of this rests on the foundation of evolutionary science – or at least an appreciation of how the field of evolutionary psychology informs the discussion.**  But the contexts or “situations” in our current sociocultural moment are rich with nuance and ripe for observation. Why did your mother take up with a woman in her fifth decade of life in 2021?  I will get to that.

Notes

*A strawman is a fallacious argument that distorts an opposing stance in order to make it easier to attack.  EP has been attacked for supposedly not incorporating “nurture” in its framework.

**Sources Outside of Evolutionary Psychology

It is worth reminding you that MatingStraightTalk draws heavily on psychologists, sexuality educators/researchers, social scientists, neurobiologists, and investigative journalists that fall outside the ranks of evolutionary psychology but whose work mostly corroborates evolutionary ideas about the context-driven, proximate causes of female sexual fluidity.

The theories and writing of Emily Nagoski (Come As You Are) are very on target.

See blog posts:

Also relevant are these posts: 

I will give an in-depth analysis of Lisa Diamond’s seminal work (Sexual Fluidity, Understanding Women’s Love and Desire) and Jennifer Baumgardner’s book, Look Both Ways, Bisexual Politics. Baumgardner relates her personal story and the stories of women in the 70’s and 80’s.  These women were at the leading edge of discovering, integrating, and “coping” with the milieu of the women’s movement through the lens of sexual identification and sexual practice.

Appendix: Correcting Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology
  • EP does not focus mainly on mate selection and reproduction.
    While research on evolved behavioral sex differences has been prolific, the broader field studies parenting, education, politics, emotions, morality, aggression, mental health, physical health, technology, and mismatches of evolutionary design in the modern world.
  • A belief in evolved behavioral sex differences does not negate support for women’s equality and political empowerment.
    Most evolutionary psychologists reside in academic institutions; survey research of these psychologists shows a decided leaning to the political left generally representative in the academic community.  Many feminist scholars do indeed disparage evolutionary psychology.  The bias is so strong that it has been studied as a separate phenomenon. Steven Pinker in The Blank State explains an EP position that equality is not sameness: “equality is not the claim that groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be constrained by the average properties of that group.”  EP also supports equal access to all rights and privileges of economic power and role flexibility for both sexes.
  • EP does not claim that products of evolution are present at birth or emerge very early in development.
    This is not how natural selection works.  Adaptations come online during the developmental phase in which they are needed – they develop reliably in all or most members of a species during the appropriate developmental state of an organism’s life.
  • Evolution (EP) does not imply that behavior is genetically determined.
    Evolutionary psychologists believe that everything in the mind, body, and brain is co-determined by genes and the environment.  Environmental pressures drive the evolution of adaptations, and adaptations require environmental input to develop correctly during an organism’s lifespan.  Environmental triggers are necessary to activate the adaptation in the present.  All adaptations have a genetic basis but are not genetically determined.  Genes often build different minds in response to different environments.

    Different environments will change the way the mind causes behavior.   Thus, evolutionary psychologists accept that it is possible to change most human behavior. This flexibility is an essential part of how we are designed.  Natural selection has programmed human development to be contingent on various environmental triggers.

    “However, humans are not infinitely flexible.  Changes in the environment still interact with a relatively stable genome and a relatively fixed mental architecture.  We can’t make people fly just by giving them plastic wings” (Evans, D. & Zarate, O., 2005, p. 161).

  • EP does not suggest behavior will be uniform across cultures; it suggests the neurocognitive machinery that produces behavior will be uniform across cultures.
    Natural selection has sculpted a universal ability to learn language, but the language learned depends on where a person grows up.  “Evoked culture” refers to cultural differences between groups that arise from combining a universal psychological mechanism with environmental inputs that differ across cultures.  Cultural differences in mating strategy demonstrate this by responding to a particular operational sex ratio in the local environment.   Evolutionary approaches to psychology predict cross-cultural universality at the level of information processing mechanisms, not at the level of behavior.  Again, this is called the “dual inheritance” model of human evolution, illustrating how we are “structured prior to experience.”
  • EP does not think everything is an adaptation.
    Evolution also yields “byproducts” (spandrels) and “noise.”  Examples of byproducts include racism, sexual fetishism among men, homicide, uxoricide (killing a wife), and filicide (killing a son or daughter), religion and belief in the supernatural.  Evolutionary biology uses the term “spandrel” for features of an organism arising as byproducts rather than adaptations that have no clear benefit for the organism’s fitness and survival.

    Evolutionary psychologists accept that much of human behavior is a side-effect of modules designed for other things.  Some authors believe that the great products of human civilization — including art, religion, and science, are side-effects of modules originally designed for other purposes.  However, Geoffrey Miller (The Mating Mind, 2000) and most evolutionary psychologists now say that capacities for creative expression are, in fact, essential modules, or primary adaptations inside the global adaptation of sexual selection.

  • EP does address individual difference.
    Although evolutionary psychology began with studying universal and sex-typical mechanisms, the last twenty years have produced a plenitude of research on individual differences related to personality characteristics, sexual jealousy, disgust, mating strategies, and within-sex variation, to name a few.
  • EP does not assert that what is true ought to be true (the “naturalistic fallacy”).
    Evolutionary psychologists attempt to describe what human nature is like, not prescribe what humans should do.  They argue that discoveries of EP could be used to inform left-wing policies just as much, if not more than right-wing policies.  For example, the equal distribution of wealth could be advocated for by knowing that humans are adapted to live in groups in which inequality is relatively low.  EP does not make moral or value judgments. 
  • EP does not believe in or promote eugenics.
    EP does not believe in selective breeding or optimizing the gene pool.  (Do I have to say this?) EP is focused on human behavior as shaped to optimize an individual’s chances of reproduction with no regard for saving the species.  Natural selection happens at the level of the individual organism.  Eugenics is a group-selection doctrine.  But finding mates with good genes is indeed one of the significant functions of mate choice across all sexually reproducing species.
  • EP does not use questionable research methodology – it is not “just-so stories.”
    “Just-so storytelling” refers to the process by which a researcher notices something about human behavior, proposes an explanation for it (an evolutionary one in this case), and then decides to believe that explanation without further inquiry or testing.  This criticism asserts EP over-applies evolutionary explanations and that there are no safeguards against such over-application.  But, it is a misconception that evolutionary psychologists will take any finding and mold it into an evolutionary explanation after the fact.
  • Evolutionary psychology (EP) is not simply a sub-discipline of psychology.
    Evolutionary theory integrates the life sciences and unites many disciplines.  Thus, modern evolutionary theory provides a foundational, meta-theoretical framework that integrates the entire field of psychology.  EP draws insights from anthropology, economics, computer science, and paleo-archaeology but relies mostly on the combination of evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology.
References

Buss, D.M. (1999). Evolutionary Psychology, The New Science of Mind.

Buss, D.M., & von Hippel, W. (2018). Psychological Barriers to Evolutionary Psychology: Ideological Bias and Coalitional Adaptations.  Archives of Scientific Psychology, 6(1) 148-158.

Evans, D., & Zarate, O., (2005).  Introducing Evolutionary Psychology.

Geher, G. (2014).  Evolutionary Psychology 101.

Mackiel, A. (2019) What Explains the Resistance to Evolutionary Psychology?  Quilette (April 8).

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First Principle: Acknowledge Male-Female Differences

First Principle: Acknowledge Male-Female Differences

by | Aug 30, 2021 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Gender Politics, Relationship Issues, Sexuality

As I prepare to address issues of sexual orientation and fluidity (see Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Presentation, and Biological Sex), it seems appropriate if not necessary to review “first principles” related to my mission and central message, including:

  • Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk
  • General differences between men and women in sexual psychology and response
  • The twenty-two (22) domains of male-female difference. Domain #13 is related to the influence of context, and domain #15 is about sexual orientation, preference, and response variability.  These domains will receive special attention in coming posts. But nearly all domains have an impact on sexual fluidity.
Denial of Sex Differences is Problematic

Part of the mission of Mating Straight Talk is to affirm the differences between the sexes as revealed by evolutionary science and psychological research.  My motivation?  The denial of relevant sex differences in our culture is nearly as problematic as the denial of similarities related to race, ethnicity, and religion.

We Are Uniquely The Same

As a degreed person from a  humanistic psychology graduate program started by a colleague of Abraham Maslow, I am well aware of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Although at least one evolutionary psychologist (Douglas Kenrick at Arizona State) has offered a revision of Maslow’s hierarchy to include sex, mate acquisition, and mate retention, I embrace Maslow’s original ideas describing the universal features of human beings – similar needs of all human men and women.  But from an evolutionary perspective, a salient question remains: How do men vs. women uniquely meet the needs of esteem, belonging, and intimacy as a function of their biological sex?  Is it the same in aggregate?  I think not.

Universal Emotions — Sex-Specific Causes

I believe in exploring universal emotional needs as a pathway for healing interpersonal relationships, perhaps, especially for couples.  All men and women experience anger, sadness, fear, joy, anticipation, surprise, disgust, and trust.*  But there are often sex-specific causes for these emotions.

We are “spiritually” all one.  In the quantum universe, we are the same.  In the material world of dimorphic human culture, we are most often diverse and functionally unique as an expression of our gender and sex.

Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk

Men and women have similarities as human beings and aggregate differences that are primarily a function of biology and evolutionary adaptation.  Our similarities do not often cause conflict.  But our differences, and the denial of those differences, often cause “trouble.”

Women and men have differences that we must acknowledge and understand to have satisfying heterosexual (romantic and sexual) relationships.

Men and women have differences that we must acknowledge to “re-balance” and integrate the biological and social sciences in academia and overcome resistance to the facts of evolved behavioral sex differences and evolutionary psychology.

Women and men have differences that we must acknowledge and understand to clarify the “politics” of sex and gender and challenge pockets of censorship in the public domain.

Men and women need “straight talk” (radical honesty) to uncover and accept our differences.

Women and men need “straight talk” about our differences to empower one another for co-creative relationships.

Vive la Différence

Over the millennia, men and women have evolved with different objectives and strategies of sexual psychology and response related to choosing a mate, reproduction, and parental investment.

General Differences between Men and Women in Sexual Psychology and Response
  • Women have their unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and vary more than men in anatomy, sexual response, sexual mechanisms, and how their bodies respond to the sexual world. Women vary more widely from each other and change more substantially over their lifetime than do men.
  • Women are less likely to have alignment (“concordance”) between their genital response and subjective arousal; this causes confusion and misunderstanding for women and their male partners. Men have dramatically more concordance between their genital response and subjective arousal.
  • All sex happens in context. Women are more context-sensitive than men, and all external circumstances of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm.
  • Women’s sexual functioning is more influenced by their internal brain state — how they think and feel about sex. Judgment, shame, stress, mood, trust, body image, and past trauma influence a woman’s sexual well-being.
  • Men and women have significantly different hormones and some variations in brain structure. Differences caused by the amount of testosterone cannot be overstated.
  • Women and men differ significantly in visual orientation for physical attraction and production of sexual thoughts.
  • Men and women have different preferences and priorities for the traits desired in a mate (with agreement about kindness, stability, humor, and care of children).
  • Human sexual response consists of a “dual control” system with an excitation mechanism (“accelerator”) and an inhibition mechanism (“brake”). Men are accelerator-dominant, and women are brake-dominant.
  • Related to differences between the sexual “accelerator” and “brake,” men operate primarily from “spontaneous desire” triggers, and women operate primarily from “response desire” triggers.
  • Men sell (primarily), and women buy (most often) in the mating economy; this is the predominant evolutionary dynamic. The psychology of the sexual initiator and pursuer is vastly different from that of the one pursued and the one who chooses among her pursuers.
  • The psychology of male intra-sexual competition differs from that of female intersexual selection (preferential mate choice.) Also, women’s intra-sexual competition (competing against each other) for male attention is a different behavioral phenomenon than male-on-male competition.

And last but not least:

  • Women’s sexual functioning includes sexual attractions, romantic affections, sexual practices/behaviors, and preference/orientation identities that are different from men’s sexual functioning due to biological and cultural adaptations. The fundamental and defining feature of female sexual orientation is fluidity.  Men are not nearly as fluid as women.  Researcher Lisa Diamond (Sexual Fluidity — Understanding Women’s Love and Desire) defines sexual fluidity as “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.”

Terms of Engagement – Prelude to Understanding Female Sexual Fluidity

Diamond uses the term “sexual orientation” to mean a consistent pattern of sexual desire for individuals of the same-sex, other-sex, or both sexes, regardless of whether this pattern of desire is manifested in sexual behavior.

Sexual Identity

“Sexual identity” refers to a culturally organized conception of the self, usually “lesbian/gay,” “bisexual,” or “heterosexual.”  As with “sexual orientation,” Diamond says we cannot presume that these identities correspond with particular patterns of behavior, especially for women.  Nor can we assume that they correspond with specific patterns of desire.  Women often reject conventional labels in favor of “queer,” “questioning,” “pansexual,” or simply “unlabeled.”

Same-Sex and Other-Sex Orientation

Diamond uses the term “same-sex orientation” to refer to all experiences of same-sex desire, romantic affection, fantasy, or behavior.  She uses “other-sex” sexuality instead of “opposite sex” because (she says) it is more scientifically accurate.  She uses the terms “lesbian” and “bisexual” but considers them problematic (to be addressed later.)  If a person is 100 percent attracted to one sex, they are “exclusively” attracted (in Diamond’s terminology).  All other patterns of attraction are “nonexclusive.”

Domains of Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology

Here is a list of the twenty-two domains of male-female differences in sexual psychology and response.  There is overlap and synergy between the domains, but the underlying distinctions are clarifying. These differences are based on statistical aggregates of all men and women from authoritative research studies and cannot predict the unique sexuality of a particular man or woman.

  1. Behavioral dynamics in the mating economy
  2. Long-term vs. short-term mating strategies
  3. Trait preferences and priorities for mate selection
  4. Physical attraction and perceptions of beauty
  5. Concordance between physiological response and psychological desire
  6. Spontaneous desire vs. response desire
  7. Sex and love-making that fuels desire
  8. Accelerator vs. brake: sexual excitation and inhibition systems
  9. Brain structures: sexual pursuit and visual stimuli
  10. Hormonal differences
  11. Variety and novelty
  12. Sexual mentation and “sex drive”
  13. Influence of context
  14. Female competing intentions and imposed double binds
  15. Sexual orientation (and preference) fluidity and response variability
  16. Orgasm – purpose and characteristics
  17. Meta emotions
  18. Romance and desire, together and apart
  19. Psychology of monogamy
  20. Infidelity – reasons and response
  21. Jealousy – triggers, tactics, and consequences
  22. Sexual fantasies

I will eventually examine each domain as a distinct phenomenon of difference. However, some domains will be addressed together because they are related or parallel in physiological or psychological response.  Differences between men and women in genetic make-up and physical morphology are not included as separate domains (see Biological Differences).  But genetic differences will be addressed in a future post about “biological sex.”

*In modern-day “assortative mating” — the economy of mate selection — a similarity of interests, values, and background works better for relationship satisfaction than “opposites attracting.”

 

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Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Presentation, and Biological Sex

Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Presentation, and Biological Sex

by | Jul 13, 2021 | Biological Difference, Gender Politics, Sexuality, Uncategorized

“Everyone under 25 thinks they are queer.”

~   The Bisexual (Hulu)

Mating Straight Talk (MST) attempts to scientifically demonstrate the evolved behavioral sex differences between men and women and explain human mate selection; it does so because heterosexual (behaviorally) men and women produce human children and the race of homo sapiens on earth.

MST affirms “straight” male and female sexuality as drivers of procreation and protection of offspring but recognizes outliers of sexual orientation that must be explained or incorporated into the understanding of the forces that propel sexual reproduction.  We cannot fully understand “straight” sexuality without considering the proportion, “causes,” and role that homosexuality (and all apparent variations of sexual orientation along a continuum) may play in the evolution of human species — or at least the role of sexual orientation variations in contemporary dating and mating.

Starting with a Basic Foundation of Sexual Orientation

In the coming months, I will write about the complex and sometimes confusing world of sexual orientation, gender identity, identity presentation, and the biology of sex. I will start by addressing a “basic foundation”: sexual orientation among cisgender individuals – (people who identify with the biological sex that they were assigned at birth).

Cisgender Is Subjective

While cisgender individuals are the statistical norm (mode), even “cisgender” (as a category of gender identity) has a psychological component. Identity is always subjective and personal.  For example, a person can have an xx chromosomal/genetic makeup, female external genitalia, female internal reproductive organs, be considered a girl by the hospital, midwife, and parents, yet still “choose” to identify as a man.  However, being cisgender theoretically says nothing about sexual orientation — nothing about who that person desires and wants to have sex with (or why).   Sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender presentation often get conflated and confused in the immense vocabulary of “identity” parlance.  Later, I will introduce the variations of gendered identity beyond cisgender and biological sex (i.e., “male” and “female.”)

But to simplify, let’s begin with sexual orientation among cisgender identified individuals and consider the following “foundational” spectrum:

Orientation Spectrum
  • Homosexuality (gay/lesbian): (Near) exclusive sexual attraction to, or sexual activity with, the same sex.
  • Bisexuality: Some proportion of attraction to both the opposite sex and the same sex (roughly within a 30-70% split one way or another as a conceptual null hypothesis) exhibited by internal experience, desire, and behavior depending upon the context and a host of factors.
  • “Mostly straight” women:  I will also call them “hetero-flexible.”  These are self-identified heterosexual women who express an “occasional” or infrequent feeling of desire for another women or behavior of sexual attraction to another woman.  Along with outright bisexuality, this orientation designation draws from a broad spectrum of research on women’s sexual fluidity that is dramatically on the increase among Gen Y.1 (25-29 years old) and Gen Z (up to 24 years of age).
  • “Mostly straight” men: Based on the book and research by Rich Savin-Williams at Cornell, these are supposedly self-identified heterosexual men who occasionally have a desire for and sexual behavior with other men. For me, this is the most interesting (and perhaps controversial) category to investigate on the sexual orientation spectrum.  What does evolutionary psychology have to say about these men?
  • Heterosexual men and women: Men and women who are sexually attracted to the opposite sex.  They are the most common orientation and the subject of most research on sexual selection in evolutionary psychology.
  • Where do asexuals, “pansexuals,” and “demi-sexuals” fit along the above spectrum? Are they an actual orientation?  All of this will be explored in future posts.
Sources of Information

These are broad and complex topics studied and researched primarily within the field of “gender studies.”  I will draw upon just a fraction of the available literature, including:

Books:

  • Lisa Diamond’s classic Sexual Fluidity, Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (2008).
  • Rich Savin-Williams’ ground-breaking book, Mostly Straight, Sexual Fluidity Among Men (2017).
  • Jennifer Baumgardner’s Look Both Ways — Bisexual Politics (2007).

Popular – Lay Critiques:

  • “The Science of Gender (Time Magazine, Special Edition, 2020).
  • “The Gender Revolution” (National Geographic, Special Edition, Jan. 2017).
  • Writings and resources from the website Them and writings in the categories of relationship and sexuality appearing in Medium.

Last But Not Least — from Evolutionary Psychology:

  • Numerous critiques, studies, and articles.

 

Commentary in Future Posts – Confusion and Inquiry

Here are some of the issues that I will be addressing in the coming months:

What Are the Effects of Increasing Female Sexual Fluidity on Heterosexual Relationships?

  • The “new” bisexuality and hetero-flexibility of women may significantly influence the heterosexual mating marketplace – a marketplace that already favors the erotic power of women to choose and the struggles of men to be chosen.  We would be well served to understand the cultural forces that seem to have increased female sexual fluidity.
  • Is there a drift away from men as sexual partners and less understanding and respect for male heterosexuality? This “drift away” from men appears to be an exercise in preference, not orientation.
  • What are the problems of heterosexual men in attempting to partner with these women? The bisexual behavior of women may be uncovering an inherent female bisexual orientation, or it could also be an expression of a disenchantment with men and masculinity in general.
What Are the Sociological Causes of Increased Declarations of “Queer” Identity?
  • Is the increased number of “queer-identified” (used as a convenient short-cut, catch-all term) young Americans due to new permission to “come out,” or is there some deeper nature-nurture co-evolution expressing itself (albeit with radically accelerated speed)?
  • How much of “queer identity” is a cultural meme related to the need to be unique and “cool” yet also (paradoxically) driven by a need to belong and relieve anxiety?
  • How much of this cultural phenomenon (or even a fast-moving nurture-nurture co-evolutionary effect) is a function of the digital and virtual world where any identity can be tested and tried with relative anonymity? (See episodes of Black Mirror.)
  • How much of “queer identity” reflects a lens of activism projected through the entertainment media: the view of the outlier and artist who is disproportionately “queer,” providing commentary on all these issues through film, TV, and theatre?  Are we being “hammered” by political correctness and snowflake psychology to put a flashing (and exaggerated) neon light on the need for change?  Does this powerful voice of change necessarily represent a proportional expression of the actual numbers of people within the sexual orientation and gender identity communities across the globe?
Conflating of Terms Across Domains of Function

There is a mixture and conflating of orientation, gender identity, biological sex, and gender presentation in the umbrella category of LGBTQ2SIA+.

The LGBTQ2SIA+ acronym is a political designation that identifies anyone who does not identify with the biological sex “assigned to them” at birth or anyone who is not heterosexual.  Therefore, this categorical umbrella has myriad designations of biology and subjective psychological states which overlap and involve redundancy with inadequate definitions and distinctions between them.  (This is one of the reasons why there is much internal strife between political advocacy groups representing these designations.)

Conflating of Biological Sex and Gender Identity in Arguments

In the political advocacy writings about (and from) these groups, there is often a conflating of biological sex and gender identity in their arguments.  On the one hand, the difference between biological sex and gender identity is described.  Then several paragraphs later, gender identity will be used to imply biological sex and vice versa without noting that a blurring of definitions has occurred.

What About Trans-sexuality and Intersex?

The issues, needs, and stories of transsexuals are compelling and deserve our full attention and support. Unpacking the permutations of gender identities and expressions of sexual orientation among transsexuals (and their partners) is one of the most unexplored areas of sexual, psychological research.  One question jumps out in this sphere:  what is the biological basis (genetic, hormonal, neural) for gender dysphoria?

There are differences of opinion about the nature and amount of people who do not present as one biological sex or the other, i.e., as men or women.  These people are called intersex — an umbrella term for several biological and physiological conditions.  Intersex folks are rare, but their political advocacy is not.

Do We Still Have Biological Men and Women?

What we are perhaps left with, inside the advocacy of these various groups, is the idea that a biological “man” and “woman” may no longer make sense.  It is asserted (in some circles) that not only is gender “non-binary” (with literally millions of possibilities of proclaimed identification) but that biological sex is also non-binary (which is NOT to say it is a continuum).  And yet, we need sperm and ovum (unfertilized female gamete) to make the human race on planet earth.

Political Battles and Framing

One might notice that much of the discussion about gender identity, orientation, etc., is framed as a political battle of us vs. them, oppressed vs. oppressor, victim vs. perpetrator. This framing is not incorrect per se; it just obfuscates the knowledge within the biological and psychological sciences.   It heightens the influence of the social and emotional context in the field of human sexuality (especially female sexuality) and reproduction.  The history and certitude of human reproduction and sexual selection are blurred under the weight of group politics and individual expressions for belonging, recognition, and justice.

Why Swim in These Waters?

An attempt to systematically unpack the confusing and ever-evolving narratives of sexual orientation and gender identity is probably a fool’s errand.  Why address issues of sexual orientation in the posts of MST (leaving aside, for now, the multitudinous universe of gender identity variations)?  From the About page on this site, one of the purposes of MST is “to explore and bring clarity to issues of gender politics and the tensions between men and women related to roles, power, and sexual strategies with a focus on honesty, mutual understanding, and complementarity.” The upcoming posts are “on purpose.”

Evolutionary Psychology Joins the Conversation

Conversations about orientation and identity are ubiquitous in current politics, popular psychology, social media, and entertainment.   They are staring us in the face.  Evolutionary psychology and mate selection science must be in the mix with critique and information and thus utilize this cultural moment to expand our knowledge of what it means to be a sexual human being.

Outliers Reveal More About Evolved Sex Differences?

Statistical outliers of orientation may help elucidate the nature of male and female sexuality and the evolved behavior differences between “the sexes.”  The broader conversation about the spectrum of sexual orientation and gender identity may increase our understanding of the co-evolutionary synergy of biology and culture.  Grasping the contours of sexuality in 2021 seems to require exploring the continuum of “queer” identities; it calls for an inquiry about the biology, psychology, and cultural politics of desire and sexual relating.   Certainly, it provokes curiosity about what it means to be human.

Beyond Nature and Nurture

Relatedly, evolutionary psychology (EP) must continue to articulate insights beyond the “nature vs. nurture” debate and explain what is meant by “dual inheritance” or “structured prior-to-experience.”  Also, EP must recognize the possibilities of human potential that come from “naming” (if not discovering) new forms of identity.

The Tenets of Sexual Selection Do Not Change

Alas, perhaps it is not necessary to solve the riddle of homosexuality, bisexuality, and “mostly straight” sexuality (and other variations of orientation) as it relates to evolution and sexual reproduction.  (More of the fool’s errand?  The jury is still out.) The basic tenets of mate choice (sexual selection) for reproduction do not change.  Procreation between biological men and women (sperm and ovum) seems to operate unimpeded on its own terms.

 

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Women’s Preferences for Male Facial Masculinity

Women’s Preferences for Male Facial Masculinity

by | Jun 20, 2021 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Sexuality

“The face is more honest than the mouth will ever be.”

~ Daphne Orebaugh

In a prior post (Want An equal Marriage? Then Date As Equals),  I described the “trade-off problem” (coined by evolutionary psychologists) that women have in choosing between male alpha traits of dominance and status and male beta traits of loyalty and kindness.  Recent research reveals this trade-off phenomenon is operative when a woman rates a man’s attractiveness as a function of his facial masculinity.  Do women who are attracted to men prefer a macho, masculine appearance? Or is a gentler, more feminine face the ideal?

Take-away – High-level

Along a continuum of digitally produced hyper-feminine to hyper-masculine faces, women preferred the “moderately” masculine face.  Women’s preference for moderately masculine faces comports directly with the overall female mating strategy that attempts to find the “sweet spot” of an alpha-dominant man (with resources, prestige, and hierarchical power) and a “beta” man who will be trustworthy and invest in her children.  This trade-off problem is solved by finding a compromise for facial masculinity –  identifying a masculine face rated above the mean but not so masculine as to be perceived as untrustworthy.   A preference for “moderately” masculine faces demonstrates the combination of a woman’s long-term and short mating strategy and her competing intentions for selecting traits in an ideal mate.

Order of Facial Preference (Summary)

After moderately masculine faces, the order of preference for male faces was “intermediate” (balanced masculine and feminine) faces, followed by extremely masculine and moderately feminine faces.  Extremely feminine (male) faces were the least attractive to heterosexual women.

Masculine Traits in the Animal Kingdom

In the rest of the animal kingdom, males with exaggerated masculine traits are favored.  For example, the showy plumage of a bird of paradise or the puffed-up chest of a silver-back gorilla makes these animals luckier in love. This is likely because there is a link between these macho traits and health and vigor. A preference for masculine traits is a preference for a male who will make a good biological father.

Tough Guys and Sensitive Types

In our species, perhaps unsurprisingly, the story is more complicated. Some women prefer “tough guys,” and others prefer more sensitive types. Why?  In some circumstances, masculine qualities are more valuable. In others, a more feminine partner might be the better choice.

Dimorphism and the Masculine Human Face 

Men’s facial masculinity expresses the degree of dimorphism or physical differences between the sexes in humans.  A masculine face has narrower eyes and thinner lips; a broader mandible (jawbone), chin, forehead, and (wider) nose; larger cheekbones, a long lower face height below the nasal region, a more protruded and robust brow ridge, straighter eyebrows, facial hair, and darker complexion. The heavy lower face that women favor in men is a visible record of the surge in testosterone and other male sex hormones that turn small boys into athletic men.

Male Facial Hair and Attractiveness

A paper published in January 2020 found that facial masculinity was positively correlated with attractiveness, and beards significantly increased attractiveness in both short-term and long-term scenarios. The effect is demonstrated by the fact that full-bearded feminine (male) faces (otherwise least attractive) were rated as more attractive than clean-shaven moderately masculine faces (otherwise, the most attractive).

“Moderate” Man Pictured Above

The signature image for this post demonstrates (IMO) a moderately masculine face.  This man has narrow eyes, a wide jaw bone, prominent cheekbones, a fairly robust brow ridge, facial hair, and a darker complexion.  He does not have a broad nose or significant face height below the nasal region.  His facial symmetry (see Appendix) is nearly perfect, generating overall attractiveness (and perhaps a touch of femininity). His expression is determined, if not slightly menacing, adding an artifact to his overall masculinity.

What is a Feminine Face?

Given the dimorphism between the sexes, it is necessary and instructive to consider the “feminine face” to access levels of facial masculinity.  Social psychologist Michael Cunningham at the University of Louisville found dimensions and proportions of the ideal female face: large eyes, small chin and nose, high cheekbones, and narrow cheeks.  These traits are signs that a woman has reached puberty.   The tiny jaw is essentially a monument to estrogen and obliquely to fertility – signaling the increased odds that she could get pregnant.  High eyebrows, dilated pupils, and broad smile signal excitement and sociability.  Cunningham also found that men are looking for lips that have “fullness, redness, and warmth.”

Hyperfeminine Face

When researcher David Perrett exaggerated the ways in which the prettiest female composite differed from the average composite, the resulting face was judged more attractive.  “It turned out that the way an attractive female face differs from an average one is related to femininity,” say Perrett.  “For example, the female eyebrows are more arched than males and exaggerating the difference from average increases femininity.”  Perrett created a “hyperfeminine” face in his studies by slightly changing the face to have larger eyes, a smaller nose, plumper lips, a narrow jaw, and a smaller chin. (See “Averageness and Exceptionality” in Appendix.)

The hyperfeminine face is considered attractive (if not beautiful) by both men and women.  The hypermasculine face is considered less attractive than average, especially by women.

Healthy Men Can Afford High Levels of Testosterone

Facial masculinity is a secondary sexual trait caused by sex-specific ratios of androgens (testosterone) and estrogens, affecting morphology (physical form and structure) and behavior.   It is hypothesized that women should find facial masculinity attractive in potential mates because masculinity may act as an honest signal for male health.  Only men with above-average health in adolescence can “afford” to produce high levels of testosterone that masculinizes the face.   Facial masculinity is positively associated with some aspects of men’s health and disease resistance.

Facial Masculinity May Signal Competitive Ability

Facial masculinity may signal competitive ability to other men and the ability to provide protection and resources.  It may also provide relevant information to potential mates and same-sex rivals regarding reproductive maturity, underlying health, formidability, and social status. More masculine-looking men tend to have more muscular physiques and greater physical strength, health, and competitive ability.

Facial Masculinity is Associated with Behavioral Dominance

Facial masculinity is associated with behavioral dominance, an open sociosexual orientation (level of “sapiosexuality”*), and higher social rank in same-sex dominance hierarchies.    It has been reported that square-jawed men start having sex earlier than their peers and attain higher ranks in the military.

Trade-off: Good Health vs. Good Parent

Masculine facial traits increase both perceived dominance and decreased quality as a parent.  High levels of testosterone have been linked to undesirable social traits such as aggression and decreased parental investment.   Again, women may face a trade-off between choosing a less masculine but more agreeable (and investing) long-term partner versus choosing a man whose masculine appearance indicates good health — but who may have less socially desirable traits. Thus, variation in preference for masculine men may reflect choices for more prosocial partners and nurturing fathers over possible indirect (genetic) and direct benefits associated with masculine facial traits.

“Masculine” Men and Likelihood of Sexual Infidelity

Masculine-looking men are perceived to be less warm, kind, and less paternally investing.   Further, masculine men state higher preferences for short-term mating than for long-term relationships.  They engage in more short-term relationships than their less masculine peers, and women accurately assign the likelihood of sexual infidelity for the masculine facial shape in static photographs.  Women find less masculine faces more attractive for a long-term relationship, perhaps because macho men are generally less committed.

Women Prefer More Masculine Men for Short-term Flings

Illustrating collusion or synergy related to a masculine man’s short-term mating preference, the results of 15 years of research consistently show that women find above-average masculine faces to be sexiest and most attractive for a casual sexual encounter.

Study Rated Degrees of Facial Masculinity

As reported in Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology (2017),  Iris Holzleitner (Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology in Glasgow) published a comprehensive study of how women differ in their preferences for male facial masculinity.  Holzleitner recruited 563 women who rated the attractiveness of a set of male faces that had been manipulated to appear more feminine or more masculine. Masculine faces were altered to have a more robust jaw, narrower eyes and lips, and a wider nose. In many research studies, volunteers are only asked to compare one feminized face with one masculinized face; in Holzleitner’s study, volunteers individually rated faces of varying degrees of masculinity.

Example of Continuum of Facial Masculinity

Degrees of facial masculinity are depicted below as an illustrative example.  The “average” face is from a research data set; the “less masculine” and “more masculine” faces are alterations from the “average” made by web-master and photographer Tom Carroll, especially for this post.   Changes to the jawline, cheeks, chin, lips, eyes, and eyebrows exaggerate the difference between a “feminized” male face and a strong (perhaps “hyper”) masculine face; Holzleitner’s computer-generated facial changes were more subtle, systemized, and “mathematical” along a continuum. The average face depicted here is roughly equivalent to a “moderately” masculine face.

three faces of masculinity
Women Preferred the “Moderately Masculine”

Holzleitner found that women most preferred male faces that were moderately masculine. Very masculine or feminine faces were less appealing. However, the degree of masculinity a woman preferred in a man’s face depended somewhat on her own characteristics.

Sexual Orientation-Fluidity Effect

Not surprisingly, women who had some attraction to women tended to rate feminine male faces more attractive.  Whereas women who were exclusively attracted to men had a stronger preference for more masculine faces. “The more women were exclusively sexually attracted to men, the more attractive they found highly masculine faces,” reported Holzleitner.

Recent Research on Sexual Fluidity Effect 

Variations in the sexual orientation (degree of fluidity or “hetero-flexibility”) of self-identified heterosexual women influence preferences for male facial masculinity, according to recent research by Carlotta Batres (2020) published in the International Journal of Sexual Health.  Batres is a professor and director of The Preferences Lab** at Franklin & Marshall College.

Batres and colleagues asked 27,611 heterosexual women to report their level of sexual attraction to women, level of sexual attraction to men, hormonal contraceptive use, relationship status, attitude toward casual sex, and self-assessed attractiveness. The participants were then shown pairs of male faces and instructed to select which face from each pair they considered to be the most attractive.

Sixty-two Percent of Heterosexual Women Reported Some Attraction to Women!

Even though all the women identified as heterosexual, 62.6% reported some level of sexual attraction to other women. This finding was quite significant (if not surprising) by itself.  But more pertinent to the study was the finding that attraction to women influenced assessments of male attractiveness.

“Heterosexual” Women Who Are Attracted to Women Prefer Less Masculine Faces

Batres found the same effect as did Holzleitner.  Women with higher levels of attraction to other women were more likely to view less masculine-looking male faces as more attractive.

Attractive Women Did Not Prefer Feminine Faces

Women also differed in their preferences according to their self-rated attractiveness.  Women who thought they were high in attractiveness didn’t find feminine male faces very attractive at all, but less attractive women rated them moderately appealing. Both self-rated attractive and self-rated unattractive women agreed that moderately masculine men were the most appealing and that very masculine men were slightly less so (as in “order of preference above”).

More Attractive Women Want More Masculine Faces

Stated another way, more attractive women showed less tolerance for lower levels of masculinity than did less attractive women.  The more physically attractive the woman (by self-rating), the stronger preference for higher levels of masculinity.  More attractive women also showed greater discrimination than less attractive women in their preference for masculine faces.

Male-Female Polarity Phenomenon

Greater discrimination or more “choosiness” is a predictable behavior of more attractive women.  As uncovered in Batres’ research, this result is a phenomenon of male-female polarity:  beautiful women want and get more masculine men (men with masculine facial features, taller, and with more defined v-shaped torsos). This polarity seems biologically unconscious as well as predicted by “sorting” in the mating economy.  There is a “mate value” agreement: beautiful women have a high mate value and taller, masculine men generally have higher mate value than shorter and less physically masculine men.

Beautiful Women Can “Afford” More Masculine Men

Attractive women have more immunity from the costs of disloyalty often imposed by more masculine men.  Masculine men are less likely to abandon very beautiful women.  The costs are higher for less attractive women – those women calculate the risk and often “trade” for more “beta” character traits in their choice of a long-term partner.

Women Prefer Masculine Faces in Better Economic Conditions

According to a study appearing in scientific reports  (2019), women’s preference for facial masculinity is strongest under favorable ecological conditions.    Improved economic conditions reduce the need for parental investment from men.  Women may prefer a less masculine and more loyal mate under more tenuous economic conditions – conditions for which assured parental investment is most important.

Female Short-term Mating Increases in Favorable Economic Conditions

Women’s preferences for masculine faces, bodies, voices, and odors are stronger when considering short-term rather than long-term mates.  Economically favorable conditions and reduced need for parental investment may cause women to have more interest in short-term mates and thus more masculine men, referred to as higher “sapiosexuality.”  Under favorable economic conditions, women reported greater willingness to engage in less romantically committed relationships and were more likely to select masculine faces as most sexually attractive.

Holzleitner proposed that women in prosperous countries were more sexually liberated and economically secure, thus freer to make costly mate choices.   Holzleitner’s research does seem to provide further evidence that promiscuous women tend to prefer more masculine men.

Menstrual Cycle Affects Facial Preference

Women may be attracted to masculine-looking men at the most fertile time of their menstrual cycle.  This “ovulatory shift hypothesis” contends that a woman’s preference for more masculine partners as short-term mates may be strongest at the peri-ovulatory phase of the cycle.  In a study conducted in Scotland and Japan, researchers asked women to select one “face” they were most attracted to for a short-term sexual relationship.  In the most fertile week of their menstrual cycle, women preferred more masculine faces.   During the less fertile time, women chose men with more feminine-looking faces.  These men were seen as kinder and more cooperative but less strong and healthy genetically.  However, the choice of face did not vary for women using an oral contraceptive or those asked to choose the most attractive face for a long-term relationship.  Research supporting the ovulatory shift hypothesis is not conclusive.

Preference for Masculine Faces Associated with Poor National Health

Evolutionary mating theories propose that women overlook the costs of selecting less paternally investing masculine traits to secure benefits associated with phenotypic masculinity that could enhance offspring (genetic) fitness.  Indeed, preferences for facial masculinity were highest among women living in countries and states in the U.S. that have lower health and higher levels of pathogens.  These findings are bolstered by experimental studies reporting that exposure to pathogens result in higher preferences for facial masculinity.  This suggests that any social costs of selecting masculine partners may be circumvented under conditions where potential indirect (genetic) benefits may be realized.

Confusing and Contrary Research?

While some studies have shown a preference for more masculine traits in poor health conditions, other studies have shown a preference for less masculine traits in poor economic conditions (as stated above). Undoubtedly, poor economic conditions and poor health conditions go together in some cultural-geographical environments.  This appears to reveal confusing or incompatible research results.

Preferences Related to Homicide Rates and Income Inequality

Adding to the mix of data, research by DeBruine, et al. reported that women’s preferences for facial masculinity were strongest in countries with high homicide rates, male-on-male violence, and income inequality (indices of male intra-sexual competition) rather than reduced national health.

Conclusion

In my last post (Side-swiped: Evolutionary Mismatch and Sex Differences with Mobile Dating) I explained how physical appearance takes on a disproportionately large role in dating by mobile app.  A face flickers across the screen, and juices of attraction or disapproval are registered in an instant.  The degree of facial masculinity is recorded in old regions of the brain before a reason for sexual interest can be articulated in words.   (“The face is more honest than the mouth will ever be.”)

Women’s preference for a moderately masculine face aligns with the female long-term mating strategy of finding an “alpha-dominant” man who also reveals safety and loyalty in his face.  This preference is often a compromise or trade-off made by a woman depending upon her attractiveness and mate value, degree of attraction to women, economic security, the health and safety of her environment, and her situational desire for a short-term fling.  Even her menstrual cycle may play a role in the level of facial masculinity she “requires” for sexual attraction.

Studies broadly suggest that women’s perception of male attractiveness is sensitive to facial cues of masculinity.  These facial preferences are shaped by sexual selection, which dictates the benefits and costs associated with choosing a (facially) feminine or masculine partner.

In the world of sexual selection, a face is not just a face.

References

Batres, C; Jones. B.; Perrett, D., “Attraction to Men and Women Predicts Sexual Dimorphism  Preferences,” International Journal of Sexual Health online,  Jan. 21, 2020.

Burriss, R., Ph.D., evolutionary psychologist at Basel University, Switzerland. The Psychology of Attractiveness podcast.

DeBruine, L.M., et al.  “The health of a nation predicts their mate preferences: cross cultural variation in women’s preferences for masculinized male faces. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. Biol. Sci. 277 (2010).

Holzleiter, I. J., & Perrett, D. I, “Women’s preferences for men’s facial masculinity: Trade-off Accounts Revisited.”  Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology (2017) 3:304-320.

Marcinkowska, U. et al., “Women’s preferences for men’s facial masculinity are strongest under favorable ecological conditions.” Scientific Reports, March 2019.

Notes 

*Sapiosexuality (SOI) refers to the desires for and attitudes toward short-term uncommitted and long-term committed sexual partners.   More sexually open or unrestricted people report high scores for sexual openness, more sexual partners, and may not place high importance on sexual monogamy. By contrast, people with a more restricted sociosexuality have fewer sex partners and place greater importance on monogamy, love, and fidelity.  SOI varies both within and between cultures in ways that conform to mating strategy theories. 

** The Preferences Lab examines the information that faces convey.  The lab’s website says:  “It takes only milliseconds for our brains to process someone’s face, and unconsciously we use facial cues to make a myriad of social judgments, ranging from how dominant someone is to how attractive we find them.”

Appendix

From Science of Attraction and Beauty

Bilateral Symmetry

Humans and most other animals are bilaterally symmetric.   The left and right sides of the body are basically the same, including the face in humans.    Small deviations from this symmetry are called “fluctuating asymmetry” (FAs).  Behavioral ecologist Randy Thornhill and other researchers have discovered a preference for symmetry (low FAs) and its influence on human perception of sexual beauty.  Men with symmetrical bodies tend to have symmetrical faces and bodies that are more muscular, taller, and heavier than those of men with less symmetrical bodies.   A bilaterally symmetrical face is a cue to genetic quality and developmental stability.

An Asymmetrical Male Face

asymmetrical male face example

Symmetry Linked to More Sex and Orgasms

Thornhill found that men with symmetrical bodies were more athletic and more dominant in personality than their peers. He also found that symmetrical human males started having sex three to four years earlier than asymmetrical males, have sex earlier in the courtship, and have two to three times as many partners.   

In 1995, Steven Gangestad and Thornhill surveyed 86 couples and found that women with highly symmetrical partners were more than twice as likely to climax during intercourse than those with low-symmetry partners.  When women have extramarital affairs, they tend to choose symmetrical men as partners.

Symmetrical women were favored too.  They have more sexual partners than less symmetrical females and may be more fertile.  Interestingly, women’s symmetry changes across the menstrual cycle.  They are more symmetrical (and presumably more attractive to their partners) on the day of ovulation.

Averageness and Exceptionality

Humans love “average” faces (koinophilia).  The more “average” you are, or closer to the mean of all people, the more attractive you are perceived to be.  From an evolutionary perspective, a preference for extreme normality makes sense, says researcher Judith Langlois: “individuals with average population characteristics should be less likely to carry harmful genetic mutations.”

Yet, paradoxically, the faces we find most attractive are not average!  Victor Johnson at New Mexico State University found the “ideal” female had a higher forehead than average, fuller lips, shorter jaw, smaller chin and nose, and more arched eyebrows. The most exquisite people are slightly away from average.  “Average faces are attractive, but they are not usually the most beautiful.  Maybe it’s the exaggerations of certain features the creates celestial features,” Johnson wrote. 

Baby Face Phenomenon                               

Large eyes, thick lips, a relatively short nose, and a large curved forehead are considered baby face traits.  Many studies indicate that this “baby face phenomenon,” or the tendency to find infant-like facial features attractive, occurs not only because these features suggest youth, but also because they elicit the same warm feelings as our typical response to babies, both human and animal.

Golden Ratio in the Face

The golden ratio or golden rectangle is one of the most satisfying of all geometric forms.  It is a mathematical relationship (a/b = (a+b)/a = 1.618…) that appears in all of nature and science:  plants, animal bodies, painting, architecture, sculpture and even music.  It has been called the “divine proportion.” 

The golden ratio occurs repeatedly in the dimensions of the human face and produces our perception of balance and physical beauty.  The human head forms a golden rectangle with the eyes at the midpoint.   The mouth and nose are each placed at golden sections of the distance between the eyes and the bottom of the chin.  The golden ratio can be found in more than twenty facial calculations.  Human facial beauty is based on divine proportion.  From Queen Nefertiti to Marilyn Monroe, beautiful women throughout history display the golden ratio in the face.

 

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