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Female Sexual Fluidity: Power of Context and the Future of Heterosexual Partnerships

by Steven Fearing | Nov 10, 2021 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Gender Politics, Men's Issues, Relationship Issues, Sexuality, Women's Issues

“Power comes to women who bring gay expectations to their heterosexual couplings.”

~ Jennifer Baumgardner

Mutually satisfying romance, love, and sexuality are teetering on the edge of failure in the modern heterosexual mating economy. Women are turning away from men and toward other women. Recognition and knowledge of female sexual fluidity may expand our understanding of human intimacy and improve the quality of heterosexual relationships, perhaps not a moment too soon. Let me start with a prescription and challenge to men and women in response to this trend. The rest of this post gives background and rationale for my “solutions,” focusing on nine formulations of context underlying female sexuality and fluidity.

What Can Be Done to Improve Heterosexual Partnerships

Men (and women) need to learn much more about female sexual response, including sexual fluidity. Men need to accept and be curious about female sexual fluidity for what it can teach them.
Men need to further develop the capacity for interpersonal intimacy and connected conversation. Creating that context is crucial for the future of heterosexual relationships.
Men need to learn how to “interpret” the individual needs of women and create a sex-positive context specific for that woman.
Women need to be patient with men as they learn and apply “gay expectations.”
Women need to prefer men with high emotional intelligence over men with greater resources, status, and power. Establishing this preference is a very tall order for women because it runs counter to evolutionary pressures in mate selection. Female choice is always paramount. Women shape male behavior by their criteria for sexual access. The energetic and sexual charge between men and women must “diversify” (somehow) so that the alpha male does not always get the most desirable woman.
Men need to reclaim the traits of heroic masculinity while monitoring and reducing particular forms of dominance. Servant leadership is the model. A man can be heroic without being “toxic.” Disengaging from the need for status and power is also a tall order. Male psychology has been shaped by hierarchy over thousands of years of mate selection in collusion with women.
Women can readily encourage positive masculinity (heroic masculinity) by respecting and verbally acknowledging men for acts of service and by pushing back against the thinking that (all/most) men are “the problem.”
Male sexuality should not be vilified as a malevolent force in nature but understood for its biological basis and evolutionary purpose. Political feminists who disparage or discourage male sexuality must acknowledge the sexual complexities of women concerning desire, power, and erotic objectification.
American economic and social systems must allow average, working-class men to provide for their families and women to be supported in the workforce with a provision of care for their children.

Female Sexuality is Different from Male Sexuality

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’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.

Female sexuality is different from male sexuality in ways that affect all of us, all of the time.

What is Female Sexual Fluidity?

According to researcher Lisa Diamond, the fundamental and defining feature of female sexual orientation is fluidity (Sexual Fluidity — Understanding Women’s Love and Desire).

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.” Further clarifying is the definition of bisexuality by author Robyn Ochs (Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World): “A bisexual person has the potential to be sexually and/or romantically attracted to more than one sex, but not necessarily at the same time or to the same extent.”

Female Fluidity is Growing

Female sexual fluidity is on the rise. There is an increase in the percentage of women who identify as lesbian or bisexual in practice. Women are more likely to be “hetero-flexible” in their behavior than men, perhaps by a large margin. Researchers believe this has always been true, but it is a growing behavioral and cultural trend. Women are turning away from men for romance and connection; they prefer the company of women for a variety of socio-cultural reasons (e.g., response to memes of “toxic masculinity and the “me-too” movement).

A 2005 study by the Centers for Disease Control found that 11 percent of women aged 15-44 reported having some form of sexual experience with women; women were also three times more likely than men to have had both male and female partners in the last year. (1)

Liberal Generation Zs – An Increasingly Fluid Population

A recent Gallup poll found one in six (15.9%) Generation Z adults (ages 18-23) identified as LGBTQ. LBGTQ identification is lower in each older generation, including 2% or fewer respondents born before 1965. Young people who are politically liberal identified as LGBTQ at astronomical rates. Gallup found nearly thirty-one percent (30.7) percent of Gen Z liberal adults identified as LGBTQ. In 2021, female bisexual behavior is so common, the concept of “orientation” fits women less than men.

Bisexual women reveal preference instead of orientation.

Female Sexual Fluidity Reveals the Power of Context

Female sexuality is more context-specific than male sexuality. All external circumstances of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, orgasm, choice of partner, and orientation identity. Diamond observed, “the more we learn about women’s desires, the more obvious it becomes that they involve complex interplays between biological, environmental, psychological, and interpersonal factors.”

Formulations of Female Context

Related to fluidly and context, men and women are not the same sexual species.

Women’s sexual behavior and fluidity emerge out of several formulations of context.

1. Context of emotional connection

More than ever, women feel more emotionally connected to other women than to men. If this emotional trigger is strong enough, same-sex behavior as a preference can easily emerge. “Straight” women genuinely fall in love with other women; straight men do not often (or ever) fall in love with men in the same way.

Women Have More Interest in the Character Traits of Connection

Men and women have different preferences and priorities for traits desired in a mate. While there is some agreement about preferring kindness, stability, humor, and care of children, women overall have much more interest in character traits that may bring interpersonal connection. Preference for interpersonal connection powerfully drives interest in same-sex behavior.

2. Context of being empowered and politically progressive

As extensively detailed by Jennifer Baumgardner (Look Both Ways – Bisexual Politics), female same-sex sexuality often emerged out of a political context. It provided a kind of virtue signaling – a badge of cultural wokeness. Female sexual fluidity was politically in alignment with the movement of women to equalize power dynamics and disengage from men and “structures of patriarchy.” Segments of the modern feminist movement have demonstrated strident but unexamined misandry. It has turned many women away from men as a political statement. Loving and being sexual with women becomes the correct political statement.

“Gay Expectations” – Contexts 1 and 2 Combined

“There are two reasons to be drawn to women when you are a woman,” explains Baumgardner. First, “being with a woman provides comfort. She is like the first person you bonded with, the nurturer; through her, you get understanding.” The second reason is political, she says, and forces this question: “Can I have a more satisfying, more equal relationship in which I like myself better with a woman?” Baumgardner answers this by saying, “I have yet to have a relationship with a man where I feel as strong and independent as I felt with the two serious female relationships I’ve had.”

“Gay expectations” are essentially the best traits in the character cluster of a heterosexual woman’s long-term mating strategy. Baumgardner says “power comes to women who bring gay expectations to their heterosexual couplings.” By “power” she means significant benefits of relationship satisfaction produced from asserting the need for a co-equal partnership with a man – a partnership where the woman also “brings” her criteria for emotional affinity. (To be clear, Baumgardner is not talking about a woman’s erotic power in a heterosexual partnership; Baumgardner may not even acknowledge the privilege of female erotic power.)

3. Context of being hip, renegade, and more sexually interesting

Bisexual or hetero-flexible women may be seen as more interesting, adventurous, and sexual than straight women. And, there is almost no downside for a woman to fall in love or want to have sex with a woman while continuing to attract men. Men are often more turned on by the thought of a woman who also loves a woman. Women who are sexual in a variety of ways are erotic for most men.

4. Context of belonging and community

“Membership” in the bisexual, “queer,” or lesbian community can often bring a powerful sense of belonging, especially for young adults. In an episode of The Bisexual, a young woman turns to the lead (bisexual) female character and says in a sense of comradeship, “well, you know, I am queer.” Our 30-something, experienced bisexual protagonist turns to her and says derisively, “well, everyone under 25 thinks they are queer.”

Belonging Is Intoxicating

Belonging is an intoxicating and essential human need. For marginalized or minority communities of any kind, belonging to a subculture is salvation. Sexually fluidity brings membership in a tribe that is counter to mainstream culture. It is potentially a provocative and charismatic club. Like a tattoo, it is an outward affectation that says, “I am adventurous; I am (paradoxically) unique and sexy.”

Dissension Within the Fluid Community

It is also true that there are subcultures and dissention within the fluid community, queer umbrella. Baumgardner details the struggles of bisexuals to be accepted within the lesbian community and the internal tensions about female sexuality within the feminist movement.

“Bi For Now”

We have witnessed popular terms such as “Lesbian until Graduation” (LUG) or “Bisexual until Graduation” (BUG) as sex researchers viewed college as a place where young women explore their sexuality and have their first and sometimes only lesbian relationship.

In 2003, a New Yorker magazine article, “Bi for Now,” suggested that women’s involvement in their college’s gay scene exposed them to a different culture, like a junior year abroad in “Gay World.” A large study (13,550 responses) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the prevalence of “gay until graduation” may be overestimated compared to non-college women. Yet, they also found the gender gap on homosexuality remained substantial: twice as many women as men reported same-sex behavior.

5. Context of men as undesirable and a liability

Men are perceived as less interesting and are less admired by women than ever before.

Being attracted to only men may even be seen as a liability, a disability, or just provincial. Women and the popular media often portray men as emotional and moral “children.” Sometimes bisexual women have to defend or hide their interest in men to self-identified lesbians.

6. Context of safety and a “sex-positive” situation

Women’s sexual functioning is influenced by their internal brain state — how they experience the present moment and how they generally think and feel about sex. Judgment, shame, stress, mood, trust, body image, and past trauma influence a woman’s sexual well-being. A woman’s brain must create a context that sees the world as a secure, pleasurable, and sexy place. A sex-positive context for a woman is a moment with low stress, high affection, high trust, and is explicitly safe.

What a woman wants and enjoys will change with her external circumstances and internal state. Women are often different from one another because a variety of contexts work to create female interest and readiness (female response variability).

7. Context of female competing intentions for erotic intimacy

Satisfaction in long-term relationships often requires balancing a polarity of human needs: safety, familiarity, attachment, and security on one pole, and adventure, risk, mystery, and novelty on the other. Bridging this polarity calls for a reconciliation between intimacy and caretaking (human bonding) and the sexual-erotic life, which often relies upon surprise and even distance.

Human beings want and need both sides of this polarity in order to experience optimal happiness. The need for familiarity and attachment may be a driver of same-sex behavior among women. But the need for distance or difference also seems to enter the equation of women’s sexual fluidity, especially for hetero-flexible or bisexual women. “One of the pleasures of the opposite sex is directly opposed to intimacy,” says Baumgardner. “It is the fact of our mysteries to them and theirs to us that fires some of the relationship.”

Female Sexual Fluidity Deals With Trade-offs Between Character and Power

Bisexual women want emotional bonding with women, the equality of sameness – politically, physically, and emotionally. Yet, as detailed by Baumgardner, bisexual women may also want the difference of a male body and the polarity of power experienced with a man – in a vaguely understood psychological soup of dominance and submission, subject and object. Baumgardner explains: “There is more to life than being a sex object. But the pleasure of being objectified – thought beautiful, sexy, special, and captivating – was drastically underplayed by feminists.”

“My sense of how hot and foxy a lover found me during sex had always been one of life’s greatest pleasures, and now I had trouble believing that this girl would or could objectify me.” ~ Jennifer Baumgardner

Author and bisexual sex researcher Lisa Featherstone was asked by Baumgardner what she learned from dating men that she could bring to her sexual relationship with a woman. “When I first started having sex with women, I remember thinking, I really like this, but I kind of want to be a little more attacked and objectified.” Featherstone continued: “It sounds weird, but you have more freedom to express the range of your sexuality to a man or another bi woman (than to a lesbian).”

Unconscious Double-binds

Below the “surface” of conscious awareness in hetero-flexible or bisexual women are complex unconscious factors and double-binds related to dominance, submission, desire to be desired, desire to be safe, and the internal struggle between preferring alpha traits of dominance and beta traits of kindness loyalty, and commitment. These are the same competing intentions of heterosexual women for long-term mating, amplified under the influence of modern feminism.

The “modern” woman must juggle her aspiration for personal power with her attraction to traditional forms of male power, embodied, not systemically, but in a particular man. She must also navigate trade-offs in mate selection between the apparent “polarities” of power and character. She wants both in different amounts at different times from the same person.

8. Context of supply and demand

One of the most potent “situations” in female heterosexuality is the workings of the overall mating economy – the impact of male spontaneous desire, initiation, and intrasexual competition. Sex for most women is an abundant resource; it is not in short supply. It is a need (within self-imposed selection preferences) that willing men can almost always meet. Therefore, there is no need to attend to it. If the refrigerator is full, there is no need to fantasize or strategize about getting food. If there is a man “pulling up” (like a bus) every 5 minutes, there is no need to worry about missing or choosing not to take the last bus.

In the recent opening episode (Half the Money) of Paramount’s Yellowstone, hard-charging Beth Dutton gives a woman direct advice on why she should stand up to her husband: “You have half the money and 100 percent of the pussy!” Enough said; Beth Dutton (and the writers of Yellowstone) understand female erotic power and its demand in the mating economy. This supply and demand dynamic is also salient for practicing bisexual women.

Supply and demand in the mating economy mostly encourages female sexual fluidity.

9. Context of physiological response, subjective desire, and sexual motivation.

As outlined in prior posts (see Appendix), female sexual fluidity is influenced by less testosterone and a weaker “sex drive” compared to men. Women operate primarily from “response-desire” and an “inhibition-braking” system, whereas men operate from “spontaneous-desire” and an “accelerator-excitation” system. Women also have very low “concordance” (agreement) between their subjective sexual desire and their physiological arousal compared to men. All of these factors influence the complexity of female sexual fluidity and undergird all other contextual factors.

Feminism Must Reconcile Complexities of Female Sexual Fluidity and Response

Positions of feminism that disparage or discourage male sexuality must recognize and reconcile the sexual complexities of women concerning desire, power, and objectification. Heterosexual feminist women sometimes disown the differences in male and female sexuality. Yet, they may desire “alpha male sexuality” and collude with it when it suits them. These complexities are also revealed in the multitudes of female sexual fluidity.

Male Sexuality Should Not Be Uniformly Criticized

We are in an era where masculinity itself is often considered toxic, not just specific inappropriate behaviors. The impact of the “me-too” movement is mainly a social good, but men are often lumped together as a singular class of predators. Male sexuality should not be vilified as a malevolent force in nature but understood for its biological imperatives. Men and male sexuality should not be criticized for “objectification” in many or most cases. Men are hard-wired and hormonally constructed to look and want. Bisexual and heteroflexible women (along with their heterosexual “sisters”) still “want to be wanted” and “erotically objectified” by men if the context is sex-positive.

The Drift Away from Men

Women are creating more distance from men, not less.

The “drift away” from men appears to be an exercise in preference, not orientation. Female sexual fluidity is emerging in a new context of romantic and sexual preference. The bisexual behavior of women may be uncovering an inherent female bisexual orientation, and it could also be an expression of disenchantment with men and masculinity in general. As the tee-shirt says, “the future is female.”

The Future of Male-Female Relationships

This “new” bisexuality and hetero-flexibility of women significantly influences the heterosexual mating marketplace – a marketplace that already favors the erotic power of women to choose and the struggles of men to be chosen. Studies have shown that female selectivity for mates is at an all-time high (except on college campuses with a surplus of women). Most men do not “make the grade” – they are not acceptable or attractive to women as mates. Preferences for same-sex relationships squeeze men even further out of the mating economy. Men often feel frustrated in their attempts to please women emotionally and sexually. The future of male-female relationships and heterosexuality depends upon understanding the fluidity of female sexuality emerging in young women (young millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha). Like climate change, we may already be behind the curve in understanding and adapting to it.

Why does this matter?

Recognizing the sexual fluidity of women underscores the evolved behavioral sex differences between men and women. Acknowledging differences between male and female sexuality is a necessary starting point for improving male-female sexual partnerships. But the truth of evolved differences is often resisted by feminists. Pockets of academia continue to cling to a “blank-slate,” standard social science model that overemphasizes culture (“proximate” causes) and underemphasizes evolutionary biology (“ultimate” causes).

Cultural Forces Matter Going Forward

While accepting evolutionary biology and the tenets of mate selection science in the etiology of human sexuality, we must also acknowledge recent cultural forces that have increased female sexual fluidity. The growing disrespect of male heterosexuality and the drift away from men as sexual partners is probably not healthy or sustainable long-term. Solutions (“What can be done….?) must come through new knowledge and its application — perhaps a Sisyphean task considering ions of mate preference evolution and the rigidity of political-economic power structures, especially in the U.S.

Understanding Fluidity and Context Can Make Men Better Lovers

In conclusion, the understanding of female sexual fluidity and the formulations of female context can have an immediate positive impact on the quality of sexual relating for heterosexual couples, same-sex couples, and “queer” couple variations. (The effect on gay male couples is probably negligible.) It can significantly help men better understand female physiology, arousal, and the power of context.

Bottom line: understanding the power of context for female sexual fluidity can help men become better lovers for women.

Note

Mosher, W. et al; Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, Advanced Data 2005; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Appendix

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First Principle: Acknowledge Male-Female Differences

by Steven Fearing | 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.

Behavioral dynamics in the mating economy
Long-term vs. short-term mating strategies
Trait preferences and priorities for mate selection
Physical attraction and perceptions of beauty
Concordance between physiological response and psychological desire
Spontaneous desire vs. response desire
Sex and love-making that fuels desire
Accelerator vs. brake: sexual excitation and inhibition systems
Brain structures: sexual pursuit and visual stimuli
Hormonal differences
Variety and novelty
Sexual mentation and “sex drive”
Influence of context
Female competing intentions and imposed double binds
Sexual orientation (and preference) fluidity and response variability
Orgasm – purpose and characteristics
Meta emotions
Romance and desire, together and apart
Psychology of monogamy
Infidelity – reasons and response
Jealousy – triggers, tactics, and consequences
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

by Steven Fearing | 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

by Steven Fearing | 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.

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

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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The Male Sexual Deficit: Social Fact of the 21st Century

by Steven Fearing | May 10, 2021 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Men's Issues, Sexuality

the”‘“Feminists insist that men’s greater demand for sexual activity is an outdated myth. Recent sex surveys prove the myth to be a fact and one that the social sciences have yet to address.”

~ Catherine Hakim

Men want more sex than women (in statistical aggregate with individual differences). This is not a criticism of men or a judgment of women. This is just the way it is. We were designed this way over eons of time. The fact that men want more sex than women comports directly with the evolutionary evidence of sexual selection and the science of human mating. It reflects and is predicted by the difference between the sexual excitation system dominant in men versus the sexual inhibition system dominant in women. (See prior posts.) Only the questioning of this fact seems surprising.

Unsatisfying Sex Does Not Account for the Deficit

I have recently written about why heterosexual women may not want the sex they are being offered (Why Women Are Bored in Monogamous Relationships and Addressing Barriers to Female Sexual Pleasure – Let’s Get Educated). But the prospect of unsatisfying sex does not account for the disparity of desire between men and women and ultimately the male sex deficit. The “male sexual deficit” (also called surplus male sexuality) is the condition of men not getting enough sex.

The Male Sexual Deficit is Caused By:

Women generally have a lower sex drive (sexual motivation) — the predominance of their sexual inhibition system (responsive desire). Men have a higher need for sexual activity and a need for more variety of sexual partners.
Women find only a few men “suitable.” Female selectivity is a critical sex difference and evolutionary adaptation. The criteria of mate choice in a woman’s long-term mating strategy reveals “choosiness” for a narrow cluster of traits that define a “suitable” mate. Related to “suitability,” there is a wide attraction disparity between men and women; men find a majority of women attractive; women find the majority of men unattractive. (This fact is mostly undiscussable in the dating advice marketplace.)
A severe supply and demand imbalance in the mating market that disadvantages men – the result of a lower female sex drive and “choosiness.” Available and willing women are in short supply compared to the significant demand by interested men.
Women often do not want the “kind of sex” offered by their male partner, causing relative boredom, disinterest, and reduced sexual activity.
There is an increase in the percentage of women who identify as lesbian or bi-sexual in practice. Female sexual fluidity is growing. Women’s inherent sexual plasticity is leaving men on the sidelines.

Male Sexual Deficit in the Twenty-First Century

This post is named after and draws from a paper written by British sociologist Catherine Hakim. It also captures the wisdom of evolutionary psychologists pertinent to this topic, primarily the work of David Buss. (See bios in the Appendix.)

Hakim describes the sexual deficit among men as a universal phenomenon in modern societies. This phenomenon “emerged” during her research on sexual cultures, internet dating, and marriage markets.

Harbingers and Evidence of the Deficit: Sex Differentials Around the World

“The sex differentials in sexuality remain large, substantively important, and are found in all cultures, including the sexually liberated societies of Scandinavia.” ~ Catherine Hakim

Hakim reviewed studies conducted worldwide over the last 30 years and reported a long list of “sex differentials” between men and women. Below are just a few examples from various countries.

The most commonly reported sexual problem is the lack of interest in having sex. In all countries, the rate of women is at least double the rate for men at all ages.

Men are four times more likely than women to agree to sexual approaches from their partner (38% of men versus 11% in Finland).

A majority of women regard love as a precondition for sex, while a majority of men reject the idea. (Sweden)
Men express two to ten times more enthusiasm for trying every variation in sexual activity. (Britain)
Men are three times more likely to prefer several concurrent lovers. (Estonia and Sweden)
Regular masturbation is two to three times more common among men in Sweden, Australia, Finland, and Britain.
Men are three times more likely to have frequent sexual fantasies and to use erotica of all kinds.
Casual sex was regarded as acceptable by a two-thirds majority of men vs. a one-third majority of women in Britain.

Men reported extra-marital affairs twice as often as women. Only in France, Spain and Italy do men and women begin to converge in their acceptance and practice of affairs.

A cross-cultural study of 29 countries showed that sex differences in desire and sexual interest are universal, but the gap between men and women is larger in male-dominated cultures than in liberal western democracies.

Male Sexual Deficit in the United States

Denise Donnelly (University of New Hampshire) analyzed a sample of 6,029 married persons in the United States to determine the correlates of sexual inactivity in marriage and to see if sexually inactive marriages were less happy and stable than those with sexual activity. Donnelly found that about 1 in 7 marriages in the U.S. are largely “sexless” — characterized by little to no sexual intimacy (“dead bedrooms” is a popular subreddit). Typically, this happens because one member of the relationship refuses to engage in sex. It is most often the woman. Although sexually inactive marriages are not uncommon, Donnelly concluded that they are not happy or stable marriages. Thus, lack of sexual activity may be a danger signal for many marriages.

Adverse Effects of Male Sex deficit

Hakim believes the male sexual drought negatively affects society, fracturing families and potentially leading to violence and crime.

Hakim says, with some controversy, that the male sexual deficit helps to explain sexual harassment, sexual violence, rape, infidelity, and a rising demand for commercial sexual services that is almost exclusively male. (Below, I will provide some contrary and perhaps more reliable evidence about sexual coercion from evolutionary psychology.)

Commercial Sex Services Demonstrate the Deficit

Commercial sex services have existed in all societies, whether they are treated as legitimate or not. The male sexual deficit explains why, in all societies, customers for the sex industry are men almost exclusively. For instance, in Greece and Italy, 40% of men have bought sexual services compared to less than 1% of women.

An International Labor Office (ILO) study of the sex industry found that demand for erotic services grows as a country (or individual) becomes more affluent; therefore, overall demand is rising.

Demand for such services from women is minuscule in all cultures, and this is not due to women’s lack of economic resources. Some poor men will find the money if necessary but affluent women are rarely tempted. The sex industry has always been highly stratified, with a diversity of services at all price levels, because male demand exists at all income levels.

Sex Work is Lucrative But Not a Cure for the Deficit

Men’s ambivalence towards women working in the sexual entertainment industry may be because women exploit men’s “weakness” effectively. Women can earn 10 – 40 times more than in conventional jobs. The sex industry is the sine qua non of the “erotic-economic” bargain but does not significantly depress the male sexual deficit. (See “Erotic-Economic Bargain — the Ultimate Exchange in the Mating Economy” in Dynamics in the Mating Economy – Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference.)

Cause #1 of the Deficit: Lower Female Sex Drive

“This gap in desire between men and women is seen in every country and culture where sex surveys have been done. The received wisdom that men always want more sex than their wives is not a stereotype, but a fact.” ~ Catherine Hakim

Measure of Desire in Developed Countries

Inside Hakim’s data set, Finnish sociologist and sexologist Osmo Kontula identified (2009) 12 measures of sexual desire (see Appendix) and offers this summary of four decades of sex research in developed countries:

Younger men experience sexual desire twice as frequently as women.
Older men experience sexual desire four times as often as women in the same age group.
As a result, male sexual desire is compatible with the level of desire in women approximately 20 years younger.
Overall, male sexual desire is manifested at least twice as often as female desire, and men would like to have sex twice as often as women.
The gap in sexual desire between men and women grows over time.

Female Sex Drive Is More Plastic

The national surveys on sex differences around the globe are corroborated by more detailed studies of the sex drive by Roy Baumeister and other social psychologists. Those surveys suggest the differences in sexuality between the sexes may be due to the female sex drive being more plastic, malleable, and responsive to social influences (See Cause #5 below), whereas the male sex drive is less compliant (Baumeister, 2000, 2004).

Women’s Lower Interest Is Not a Disorder

Marta Meana, clinical psychologist and researcher in women’s sexuality, concluded (2010) that discrepancies of sexual desire within relationships are the norm rather than the exception, generally due to the woman’s lower interest in sexual activity. She says clinicians should not treat this as a sexual disorder since very few women are distressed by their lack of desire per se. Instead, they are worried about the impact on their relationships.

Men Want More Sex Partners – More Evidence of the Deficit

Evolutionary psychologist David Schmitt (2003) studied 16,288 individuals residing in 52 nations (2003) and found sex differences to be culturally universal without a single exception. Men said they wanted 1.87 sex partners over the next month; women wanted only .78. Over the next decade, men said they wanted six partners on average; women said they wanted two. In Middle East countries, such as Lebanon and Turkey, men wanted 2.5 sex partners over the next month. In South America, 35% of men wanted more than one sex partner over the next month, but only 6% of women did. In Japan, where levels of sex drive appear to be unusually low, six times more men (18%) than women (2.6%) wanted more than one sex partner.

Sex Difference in Rates of Infidelity is Narrowing

The infidelity rate between men and women has narrowed since sexologist Alfred Kinsey found (in 1953) that twice as many men as women had experienced at least one sexual infidelity (50% vs. 26%). Recent studies show that men cheat with a larger number of partners, and women are choosier even in this domain, typically having a single affair. And of those women, 70% cite love or emotional connection as the key reason for the affair. This finding points more toward the mate-switching function of female infidelity than a woman’s desire for sexual variety. (See Mate Switching Hypothesis.) Men’s affairs are more motivated by sex with someone new, especially if they have no sex at home.

Consenting to Sex with Strangers – Sex Differences

Studies of consenting to have sex with strangers found that 75% of men approached by female confederates said “yes” to the question: “will you go to bed with me tonight?” Nearly 100% of women said “no way” to the request from male confederates. Most men who declined asked for a raincheck. (The first study was done in Florida in 1989; it was later replicated in Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands.)

“The psychological and behavioral evidence all points to the same conclusion,” says Buss, “men and women differ profoundly in their desire for sexual variety.” (As explained in Why Women Are Bored in Monogamous Relationships, a woman may need or want a variety of experiences with the same partner.)

Unfulfilled Longings

“The large and profound sex difference in the desire for variety is not something that merely rattles around in men’s heads,” says Buss. “Many men are burdened by lust for a variety of different women, constant cravings that cannot ever be fully satisfied. Sexual desire sometimes bursts forth into action.” It explains the philandering of such men like Hugh Grant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charlie Sheen, who had wives or girlfriends and presumedly were not experiencing much sexual deficit. But “it also explains,” says Buss, “the rage of ‘incels,’ whose sexual desires remain forever unfulfilled as they watch women they want from the sidelines of the mating market.”

Men Have a Higher Sex Drive – Period

“Evolution has equipped men with a higher sex drive,” says Buss. This is reflected in several sexual adaptations:

Men become sexually aroused more easily than women, especially to visual stimuli.
Men have more frequent and spontaneous sexual fantasies.
Men spontaneously think about sex twice as often as women do every day.
Men desire to have sex more frequently than do women.
Men average 679 circulating units of testosterone; women’s average is a tenth of that.

“In short,” says Buss, “the gender differences in sex drive create a gap. The less interested person has more power over if and when sex will occur, and women are often less interested.”

Causes # 2 and 3 of the Deficit: Female Choosiness and the Mating Marketplace

“Female choosiness – deciding who qualifies for interaction, relationship escalation, and sexual access is a first principle in human mating. ~ David Buss

Women find few men “suitable” as mates. Female “choosiness” coupled with a lower sex drive creates a severe supply and demand imbalance in the mating market that disadvantages men. Women who are available and willing are in short supply compared to the great demand by interested men. As a result, many men lose out or opt-out of the market, causing a vast “surplus” of male sexuality. “It is precisely this female selectivity,” says Buss, “that creates sexual conflict, sometimes expressed as resentment by those who fall below the threshold.”

Women Liked Very Few Profiles

Buss cites a study that placed 14 fake male and female profiles on Tinder and analyzed the responses to them. Over eight thousand (8,288) men liked the female profiles, compared to just 532 women who liked the male profiles. Although men on Tinder swiped right on hundreds of female profiles, fewer than 1% of women reciprocated that liking.

Few Women Actually On Ashley Madison

Investigative research revealed that 99% of female profiles on Ashley Madison were fake. In reality, although there were 20 million men actively using the cheating site, only 1,492 women, less than 1% of the total user base, actively used the site.

Examples of Female Choosiness

Buss shares the story of a female friend who tried online dating. She was described as a successful, intelligent, and attractive academic, no doubt with high mate value. She received more than 500 responses in two weeks. However, after the end of her exhaustive screening process, she sent only one reply out of the 500. And after a coffee date with him, “she concluded he did not exceed threshold.” Another woman told Buss that she used Tinder and swiped right on less than .8 % of the men she saw and met only .6 % of that group, resulting in a .005 % of the total men she saw.

Attraction Disparity – the Pernicious Underbelly of the Deficit

The choosiness and caution demonstrated by women as compared to men are reiterated in Buss’s new book: When Men Behave Badly. Buss found that men, on average, find women more attractive than women find men attractive. The difference is BIG!

In a study, men rated women’s attractiveness along a bell curve. Sixty (60) percent of the women were rated by men as “average” to “very attractive.” The women rated only 17% of the men from “average” to “attractive.” Women rated 58% of the men as below threshold or unattractive. Ouch.

Eons of Sexual Selection Demonstrate the Disparity

The attraction disparity is demonstrated by eons of sexual selection for the alpha male and men’s behavioral co-evolution to acquire hierarchal power and social status to be that alpha male. Attraction disparity gives women the upper hand in the sexual marketplace.

Men Lower Their Standards

Contributing to the attractive threshold gap is men’s willingness to lower their standards for casual sexual encounters. Men are willing to date down when it comes to sex.

Supply and Demand Forces in the Mating Marketplace

In the human mating economy, men primarily sell, and women mostly buy; this is the predominant evolutionary dynamic. Thus, the buyer (female chooser) significantly controls the marketplace.

All mate selection behaviors are driven by supply and demand forces for sexual access to the best or highest-mate-value mates. Fertile (and consensually most “beautiful”) women are in great demand, and the supply of men interested in them creates significant differences in behavioral dynamics – leading to a multitude of male initiation strategies, misreading of signals by women (male “over-perception bias”), and a reproductive variance curve.

Most Men Want the Same Women

Simply said, roughly 80% of men compete for 20% or less of the same (highest mate value) women in the overall mating economy. Interested men are plentiful in this market (as driven by biological-hormonal imperatives), and receptive women are scarce. Supply and demand forces skew odds in favor of female choice and dramatically work against the odds of a man being chosen.

Pursuer and Pursued “Are Not” The Same People

The 180% difference between a buyer and a seller in the mating-sexual economy is dramatic in its psychological impact. It affects motivation, the origination of desire, perceptions of risk and safety, and ultimately the experience of sexual scarcity or abundance.

The psychology (lived experience) of the sexual initiator and pursuer is vastly different than the psychology of the one pursued and the one who chooses among her pursuers. This general difference between men and women cannot be overstated. (See “We Are Not the Same People” in Appendix)

Mate Value is the “Currency” of the Deficit

Mate value (and assessed mate value trajectory of men) rules the marketplace. Men with resources, status, and larger physical attributes (especially height) have greater mate value than men who do not. Women’s mate value is primarily determined by physical characteristics of beauty, waist-to-hip ratio, and other signals of fertility. Mate value drives the initial mate selection process. Mate value includes elements of character and other preferred traits as courtship continues into the period of relationship maintenance. But human sexuality is primarily designed to choose and access sexual partners, not keep them over time.

“In or Out of Your League”

It is no accident that we commonly rate ourselves and others on a “1-10” point scale. While there is a tendency for both sexes to over-rate vs. under-rate themselves, we generally know if our desired partner is “in or out of our league.” If we are a “7,” we strive to bargain successfully for a “7-9.” Men, especially, who know they are seen as a “5” or below, lust hopelessly after unattainable women who are a “9” or “10.” This understandable tendency is biologically, not rationally inspired. There is painful despondency for both sexes related to the invisibility of low mate value.

Reproductive Variance – There Has Always Been a Male Sexual Deficit

“Reproductive variance” refers to the variability of reproductive success for human males and females. More women have sex and reproduce in the general population than do men, as shown by genetic studies. For men, the difference between men who did not reproduce (the have-nots) and the men who reproduced prolifically (the haves) is very wide. For women, there is much less variance; most women reproduce, and the number of children they have is constrained by their biology.

Most Men are Losers in the Mating Game

DNA studies by Jason Wilder and colleagues revealed that approximately 80% of women in human history have reproduced compared to about 40% of men. The human population is descended from twice as many women as men.

Male Sexual Deficit and Female Choice

The male sexual deficit is an expected “collateral damage” of female preferential mate choice. Men operate as best they can within this power imbalance, and women use their “erotic capital” (a term coined by Hakim, see Appendix) to achieve their mating objectives.

Less Deficit On Campus

There are now fewer men than women on U.S. college campuses. That gives those men a sex-ratio advantage and works against a pervasive male sexual deficit. A sexual deficit remains for the male “losers” of mate competition on college campuses, but some men are getting laid right now that might not have 10 to 15 years ago.

Misperceptions About Mate Value – An Artifact of the Deficit

People differ profoundly in how desirable or valued they are on the mating market. Differences in desirability create havoc in at least two fundamental ways, according to Buss. The first centers around misperceptions. Although both men and women can err in their self-perceived mate value, research shows that men are more likely than women to be overconfident in a variety of domains.

Men experience higher self-esteem than women – a sex difference that emerges at puberty. Men have higher estimates than women of their physical attractiveness. Consequently, men are more likely to err in overestimating their desirability on the mating market.

Some Men Are Dumb and Dumber

“So you are telling me there is a chance?” Lloyd, Dumb and Dumber

In the movie Dumb and Dumber, Lloyd (Jim Carey) asks Mary (who is comically out of his league), “so what are my chances? “Not good,” she says. “You mean not good like one in a hundred,” Llyod optimistically inquires. “No, not good like one out of a million,” Mary concedes. Nevertheless, Lloyd’s optimism is undeterred. He thinks he has a chance.

The over-perception bias among men – a belief that women may be interested in them, is a much-studied tenet of mate selection and is related to error management theory. It is better to lose a potential mating opportunity with a direct pursuit (a false positive) than lose an opportunity by not trying (a false negative).

Everybody Wants the Best Deal in the Mating Market

According to researchers Bruch and Newman (2018), both sexes pursue partners in the mating market who are 25% more desirable than they are. One of Buss’s colleagues asked, “why am I being pestered by men I don’t care about, but the men I am genuinely attracted to seem to show so little interest in me?” Buss told his colleague that she is an “8” chasing after “10s” but being pursued by “6s.”

Cause #4 of the Deficit: Women Do Not Want the “Kind of Sex” Being Offered

Repetitious, unimaginative sex by a long-term partner may produce relative boredom, disinterest, and reduced sexual activity by women. See post Why Women Are Bored in Monogamous Relationships for discussion of this cause of the male sexual deficit.

Cause # 5 of the Deficit: Female Sexual Fluidity is Growing

Female sexual fluidity is growing. There is an increase in the percentage of women who identify as lesbian or bi-sexual in practice. Women are turning away from men for romance and connection; they prefer the company of women for a variety of socio-cultural reasons (e.g., memes of “toxic masculinity and the “me-too” movement).

Liberal Generation Zs – An Increasingly Fluid Population

A recent Gallup poll found one in six (15.9%) Generation Z adults (ages 18-23) identify as LGBTQ. LGBTQ identification is lower in each older generation, including 2% or less of respondents born before 1965. Young people who are politically liberal identify as LGBTQ at astronomical rates. Gallup found nearly thirty-one percent (30.7) percent of Gen Z liberal adults identified as LGBTQ.

This phenomenon and female sexual fluidity is an extremely important topic for one or more future posts on this site.

Buss Disputes Male Sexual Deficit as Source of Sexual Coercion

Buss disputes that the male sexual deficit is the primary source of sexual coercion – an idea called the “male deprivation hypothesis” studied by evolutionary psychologists. Buss shares his research findings and a prolific body of research in his new book When Men Behave Badly. Sexual coercion is more often perpetrated by high-status males than by low-status males suffering from a sexual deficit. (Buss disagrees with Hakim’s assertions on this point.)

Buss would agree that the male sexual deficit is a contributing cause of infidelity and the demand for commercial sex services because it triggers the powerful motivation by men for sexual variety. From zero sex partners in a “dead bedroom” marriage to one or more partners outside of that marriage is a significant improvement in sexual variety.

But Male Violence and Sexual Deficit May be Linked

There is compelling evidence that overall male aggression, violence by so-called “incels” (involuntary celibate men), and mass shootings are linked to a lack of sexual relationships, male loneliness, and a condition of low status. Low status is perhaps the most salient, but all three are related. This topic deserves separate treatment in this space and will be done along with a review of Buss’s books When Men Behave Badly and The Murderer Next Door. Suffice to say, Hakim and evolutionary psychologists may agree on the general point about violence and the male sexual deficit.

Future Trends of the Male Sex Deficit

According to Hakim, several factors suggest that the male sex deficit will not disappear and might even grow in the 21st century:

A decline in the frequency of sexual intercourse (inside and outside marriage) in Britain, the USA, Germany, Finland, Japan and other countries.

Women’s increasing economic independence allows them to withdraw from sexual markets and relationships that they perceive to offer unfair bargains, especially if they do not want children.

Changes in national sex ratios towards a numerical surplus of men help women re-set the rules in developed societies. (I am dismissive of the influence of more males as an important driver of the male sexual deficit. There would be a deficit even if the sexes were equal in numbers. Female preferential choice primarily determines the deficit.)

Conclusions

According to Catherine Hakim, the male sexual deficit in developed societies is an indisputable, universal social fact of growing importance. The research appears to support this conclusion.

Evolutionary psychologists believe the male sexual deficit is predicted by female preferential choice in mate selection. Also, the sexual deficit among heterosexual men helps explain why men are the principal customers for commercial sexual entertainment, most likely to have affairs, and engage in some forms of violence.

References

Anderson, E. (2012). The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating.

Baumeister, R. (2000). “Gender differences in erotic plasticity: The female sex drive as socially flexible and responsive.” Psychological Bulletin 126 (3): 347-374.

Baumeister, R. (2004). “Gender and erotic plasticity: Sociocultural influences on the sex drive.” Sexual and Relationship Therapy. 19: 133-139.

Bruch, E.E. and Newman, M.E.J. “Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets.” Science Advances, 4, no. 8 (2018).

Donnelly, D; (1993). “Sexually inactive marriages;” The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 30, Issue 2.

Kontula, O. (2009). “Between Sexual Desire and Reality: The Evolution of Sex in Finland.” Population Research Institute, Helsinki.

Meana, M. (2010). “Elucidating a women’s (hetero) sexual desire: definitional challenges and content expansion.” Journal of Sex Research, 47 (2-3): 104-122.

Mustanski, B. (2011) “How often do men and women think about sex?” Psychology Today, December 6.

Peplau, LA. (2003). “Human Sexuality: How do men and women differ?” Current Directions in Psychological Science 12 (2): 37-40.

Schmitt, D.P. “Universal sex differences in the desire for sexual variety: Tests from 52 nations, 6 continents, and 13 islands.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, no. 1 (2003).

Appendix

Kontula’s 12 Measures of Sexual Desire

thoughts, fantasies, and spontaneous arousal
desired frequency of sex
desired number of sexual partners
frequency of masturbation
continuous willingness to engage in sex
the emergence of sexual desire in youth
seeking out experiences and initiating them
desiring a variety of experiences
investing resources for sex
attitudes favorable to sexuality
infrequent absence of sexual desire
self-assessed degree of desire

Catherine Hakim

Catherine Hakim is a British sociologist who specializes in women’s employment and women’s issues. She is currently a Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas). She has published over 100 articles in academic journals and over a dozen textbooks and research monographs.

Hakim is best known for her criticisms of many feminist assumptions about women’s employment. Her “preference theory” seeks to provide an empirically based predictive explanation for the differentiated choices women make between paid productive work and unpaid “reproductive” work in affluent modern societies.

Hakim defines “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. Hakim says erotic capital 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 have named this the erotic-economic bargain.)

David Buss

David Buss is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of leading textbooks on evolutionary psychology, The Evolution of Desire, The Dangerous Passion, The Murderer Next Door, and Why Women Have Sex, co-authored with Cindy Meson. His most recent book is When Men Behave Badly – The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault. Buss has written for multiple publications and received numerous awards, including designation as one of the fifty most influential psychologists in the world.

We Are Not the Same People
(Steven Fearing, 2010)

You are the people of the Adored

I am the people of the Longing.

We are not the same kind of people at all.

You are the people who receive the desire;

I am the people who feel the desire like a wound in my body.

You are the people who receive “gifts”.

I am the people who fight other men in the material world so that gifts may be given.

You are the people (who are not fat or ugly) who live in the act of choosing. I am of the people who hope to be chosen.

You are of the people who choose when you want love and sex.

I am of the people who wait with longing to be chosen.

You are the people who enjoy the adoration of 50 offers.

I am of the people who are mostly lost, one among the 49 others.

You are the people who receive the gifts and the offers with no risk.

I am of the people who must constantly risk and suffer the feedback of a hundred offers avoided, discounted, or rebuked.

You are of the people who speak of no jealousy because you rarely lose love to another person who was chosen instead, and because 50 more offers to you await your response.

I am of the people who have lost you to another person many times. That wound in my heart is a gaping, angry hole.

Sometimes the people of the longing try to fill the hole with God, with service, with drugs, or a belief in the possibility of a transformed world. The people of the longing try to fill the hole with meaning. It rarely works to stop the longing.

You are the people of the adored. I am the people of the longing.

We are not the same people.

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Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: The Root of It – Part 1

by Steven Fearing | Oct 27, 2020 | Biological Difference, Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide, Gender Politics, Sexuality

Male competition for mates and sex differences are first cause in human political affairs.

Since the advent of agriculture in human societies, nearly all impulses for male power and authoritarianism, and expressions of male dominance in a social hierarchy, have ultimately been the result of men competing for sexual access to women. All disputes over territory and wars between nations have their roots in out-group competition and the rewards of that competition for increasing mating opportunities. All causes of the unequal distribution of resources throughout all of human history are linked causally to the male reproductive strategy.

All impulses to check male authoritarianism come from men and women who lack resources and equality and exist at the lower end of a social hierarchy. Women primarily lead the charge to check the impulses of authoritarian men unless they want to mate with them. Liberal policies that strive to equitably distribute resources are more frequently backed by women.

Conservatives, and especially conservative men with power, are mostly interested in pursuing and maintaining male dominance and resist policies and governmental rules that change the status quo. Conservatives are most aligned with male needs and a male mating strategy. Liberals policies are more linked to a female mating strategy which focuses on the caretaking of children and other human beings.

Evolutionary Politics

The application of evolutionary science to our current political environment is quite revealing and instructive. In Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide (2019), Hector Garcia explores how evolutionary adaptations explain and predict our Left-Right political divide and a litany of issues. This post (and the one to follow) relies heavily on Garcia’s insights and the book’s 533 references of scholarship covering a broad range of disciplines.

Garcia applies the evolutionary lens to conservatism versus liberalism, equality versus hierarchy, and “big ape” authoritarianism; he reveals the “politics” of human mating strategies as a story of resource acquisition, sexual control, and the power of tribes. The underbelly of our political instincts has deep ancestral roots.

Planting and Staying Put Changed Everything

The study of human evolution shows that for most of our existence as a species, individual and community interests were in rough equilibrium. Our forging ancestors sought status, like all primates, but they generally acquired the highest status by doing things that benefited the group. Hunter-gatherers kept greed in check by employing guilt and shame among the group. Cooperation was essential to survival. Before agriculture, there were restraints on competition and evidence of coordination inside of the tribe.

With the advent of agriculture and civilization, a split began to occur. Individuals could acquire hitherto unimaginable status by accumulating wealth and power – often at the expense of family and community. Once agriculture drove out foraging, the need to cooperate was no longer essential to survival. It became every man for himself, except competition between tribes (out-groups) led to the development of coalitions and subsequent war between tribes and nations.

Size of the Tribe and Food Storage

Hunter-gatherer “tribes” tended to range in size from an extended family to a larger band of no more than about 100 people. Tribe-size groups were easier to regulate from within because hunter-gatherers could not store vast amounts of food to leverage their power base; there were limits to how much wealth and influence they could acquire. But when humans began to master agriculture, things changed drastically. Men used this power to achieve reproductive success in a zero-sum game. Zero-sum games are the root of inequality.

The Split

In the United States, the split between individual interests and community interests has become embedded in two ideologies: conservativism and liberalism. Conservatives promote individual freedom and self-reliance, primarily defined as freedom from government. Liberals promote fairness and equality and freedom from injustices suffered by a large segment of the community. In a later post, I will explain the foundations of morality that have shaped these positions. It is actually more complex than “individual vs. community,” but self-interest and the common good exist in a state of tension in most political ideologies. Understanding the moral foundations of conservatives and liberals is the only way for us to “listen to learn” from one another.

“Daddy Party” and “Mommy Party”

Republicans protect us with strong national defense; Democrats nourish us with Social Security and Medicare. Republicans worry about our business affairs. Democrats look after our health, nutrition, and welfare. It’s the traditional American family. “Daddy” locks the door at night and brings home the bacon. “Mommy” worries when the kids are sick and makes sure each one gets treated fairly. ~ Chris Mathews (1991).

Gender/Sex and Political Affiliations

The existence of a fundamental gender gap in American political party affiliation has been reported for years. In 2009, Gallop concluded their survey analysis with this: “The fact that the gender gap persists not only across age groups, but within major racial, ethnic, and marital-status groups, reinforces the conclusion that a gender difference in political orientation is a fundamental part of today’s American political and social scene.”

In 2020, the gender gap has widened even more. The New York Times/Sienna College poll of July 16, 2020, found that women favored Biden by 22 points. White women with a college degree favored Biden by 39 points. The Wall Street Journal poll in August of 2019 found that white/non-college men favored Trump by 45 points, 67-22 percent.

“Barring a giant polling error, the 2020 election will witness the largest gender gap in partisan preference since women gained the franchise” (New York Intelligencer, “Men and Women Have Never Been More Politically Divided,” October 19, 2020).

Stereotypes and Political Affiliation

Political scientist Nicolas Winter looked at US survey data from the American National Election Study from 1972 to 2004 and that found voters overwhelming used more masculine stereotypes to describe GOP candidates and more feminine characteristics to describe Democrats.

In another study (2006), political scientist Monika McDermott administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to 780 Americans, along with a series of questions about their political beliefs and behavior. The BSRI is one of the most widely used instruments to assess gendered psychology. For feminine traits, the BSRI asks participants to rate how much the following descriptors apply to him or her: “understanding, sympathetic, warm, loves children, compassionate, gentle, eager to soothe hurt feelings, affectionate, sensitive to the needs of others, and tender.” Masculine traits were described as “willingness to take risks, forceful, strong personality, assertive, independent, leadership ability, aggressive, dominant, willing to take a stand, and defends own beliefs.”

McDermott found that men and women who scored high on femininity were significantly more likely to identify as Democrat, and men and women who scored high on masculinity were more likely to identify as Republican.

Why Do Sex-Based Partisan Differences Exist?

Political partisanship arises from sex-based approaches to perpetuating our genes. Conservatism is a male-centric strategy shaped by the struggle for dominance in male competitions within-and-between groups, while liberalism is a female-centric strategy derived from the protracted demands of rearing human offspring.

Not all men enact a conservative strategy, nor do all women enact a liberal strategy. But we do see sex-based leanings — two bell curves, one tilting toward the political right for men, and one tilting to the left for women, with significant overlap between the curves.

Partisan Politics and Reproductive Dominance

The tribalistic flavor (us vs. them) of political conservatism, with its emphasis on female sexual control and hawkish territorial nature, is rooted in male mate competition – the ageless biological struggle for reproductive dominance. Male competition for women turns out to be the core driving force behind political issues.

The winner-take-all mentality of conservative economic policy is based on male competition for mates. War is team-based male-mate competition. The coalitionary psychology of men was forged by the risk of being annihilated by the outside tribe – and the potential gains of taking over the rival tribes’ territory, resources, and women. Militaristic logic embedded in that psychology maps squarely onto the hallmark values of political conservatism. It is from the context of violent male mate competition and its most heightened expression, war, that we are able to most fully understand the masculine tenor of conservative political psychology.

Roots of Liberalism

The roots of liberalism have arisen from the timeless effort to rein in dominant males and to prevent them from monopolizing resources and impinging on the evolutionary fitness of those with less power. Liberalism is based on the prodigious human task of raising children, a critical survival enterprise championed by women and provisioned by the “Mommy” parties of the world.

Big Five Personality Traits

Social scientists have developed various models for understanding human personality, the most widely researched of which is known as the “Big Five.” The Big Five personality traits are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Cross-cultural studies strongly suggest that Big Five patterns of interacting with the world are genetically based universals. Human personality traits, especially openness to experience, reliably correlated to political orientation.

Liberal Openness

Openness to experience is a hallmark of the liberal political orientation. This personality dimension reflects not only an openness to new things, policies, and programs, but also to other people. Liberals demonstrate xenophilia, an attraction to new cultures, and even outsiders. High openness is also related to sensation-seeking and a general appreciation for novelty and adventure. There is a moderate correlation of openness to the trait of extroversion – the tendency to be talkative and seek social interaction.

One large study (Gerber et al., 2010) of over twelve thousand Americans examined the Big Five personality traits as predictors of core social and economic values, as well as self-reported political ideology (a five-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative). The authors found that higher openness was associated with greater liberalism across all three measures of orientation.

Conservatives Fear Disease and Outsiders

Could fear of disease translate into fear of outsiders and political conservatism? Research has shown that individuals who have a higher perceived threat of disease show more ethnocentrism, greater xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners, and increased willingness to stigmatize socially marginalized groups. This is particularly ironic in the time off Covid-19 but will make sense in the context of conservative “moral foundations” described in a future post in this series.

Xenophobia: Membership Has its Privileges

Xenophobia is a dislike of outsiders and a corresponding preference for in-group members and values. This is not just about “outside” people and their physical differences, but also about differences related to language, customs, dress, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, political party, and even sports teams. This preference often manifests as a sense of patriotism and loyalty. Conservative political ideology predicts prejudice against an outside group. If xenophobia reflects an adaptation that helped our ancestors avoid contagious diseases from outsiders, we would expect to see xenophobia in modern times and conservatives exhibiting more fear of contagion.

Patrilocality and Human Warfare

Historically, humans have been mostly patrilocal – that is, women often left their natal group (i.e. more adapted to outsiders) whereas men stayed put with their male relatives. The resulting concentration of male blood relatives encouraged strong, trusting, and cooperative male bonds based on shared genes. The love and trust that related men have for one another have had profound implications for the human condition across time. Higher relatedness gave men greater confidence in risky cooperative enterprises, such as war. Patrilocality in human groups is associated with more frequent warfare.

Human Males Are Like Chimpanzees

Primatologists Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson write that among four thousand mammals, only chimpanzees and humans follow this pattern of patrilocality, accompanied by “a system of intense, male-initiated territorial aggression, including lethal raiding into neighboring communities in search of vulnerable enemies to attack and kill.” Chimpanzee males are extremely hostile to outside males, thus males rarely transfer between groups. Any male attempting to transfer would be killed by the males of the out-group. By contrast, 50-90 percent of female chimpanzees transfer to other groups to breed once they reach sexual maturity. Whereas male transfers are seen as sexual competitors carrying foreign genes, females are welcomed as potential mating partners. (Again, the female-centric roots of xenophilia.)

Xenophobia and Band of Brothers

Thus, xenophobia is concentrated among men and has caused real dangers for them. Most of the world’s perpetrators of violence are men, but most of its victims are also men. The United Nations recently found that globally, 80 percent of homicide victims are men.

If ancestral men could not leave their group for fear of death, then turning inward to their band of brothers, remaining xenophobic toward outsiders, and favoring dominance over other groups was evolutionarily sensible. The over-representation of men among conservatives and the preponderance of male interests embedded in conservative ideologies reflect these ancient selection pressures on men. (I will come back to xenophobia in post #2 of this series.)

Conservatives Are “Disgusted”

Research consistently finds a higher disgust sensitivity related to self-placement on the Left-Right spectrum. One study of 31,045 men and women from 121 countries found that those who self-rated as conservative showed significantly higher disgust sensitivity than those who self-rated as liberal.

Disgust sensitivity (as well as fear of disease) can translate into fear of outsiders. Researchers found that those with higher disgust sensitivity were more likely to see immigrants and foreign ethnic groups as less than human, and scored higher on measures of political conservatism, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism. Research in this area links the fear of pathogens to disapproval of nonnormative sexual behaviors, which suggests that our sexual morality is rooted in adaptations designed to help us survive reproduction in a world filled with pathogens. (I will address social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism more in-depth in the next post.)

Conservatism, Conscientiousness, and Closed Systems

Conscientiousness (a Big Five personality trait) is consistently associated with political conservatism. Conscientiousness relates to orderliness and control of one’s environment. According to a study by Alain Van Heil and colleagues reported in the Journal of Personality, a preference for closed systems is related to cognitive rigidity, or lower cognitive complexity – the ability to grasp alternative perspectives or dimensions and synthesize those varying perspectives into a cohesive framework. An example offered by Garcia: saying “All immigrants are criminals,” instead of reasoning, “Some immigrants my commit crimes, but many do not, and there are a variety of factors that may lead to such behaviors” (p. 60).

Conservatives Are More Rule-oriented

Related to conscientiousness, conservatives in the US score higher than liberals on measures of following rules. This is linked to the conservative value of traditionalism and dedication to the existing way of doing things – a resistance to social change. Conservatives tend to favor harsher punishment for rule-breakers, such as the death penalty and longer prison sentences.

Political Affiliation and the Autistic “Male” Brain

One theory that might explain the conservative, male-centric personality is proffered by British developmental psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. He argues that autism is an extreme variant of the male brain. Autism is over-represented by males in a 10-1 ratio. Baron-Cohen also describes how men prefer “closed systems” that are predictable, factual, rule-based, knowable, and to some extent, controllable. Again, these ways of processing information are linked more reliably with the “conscientiousness” of conservatism and in opposition to the “openness to experience” of political liberals.

Theory of Mind

Important differences between females and males that Baron-Cohen uses to explain autism are glaringly present between liberals and conservatives. Being able to read the mind of another human (thoughts, emotions, intentions) is called theory of mind (ToM). The inability to read minds is one of the hallmarks of autism. There is much evidence that women outperform men on theory of mind (ToM) tasks and are better at understanding the minds of others.

Brain Morphology and Theory of Mind

The brains of men and women (morphology and function) exhibit vastly more similarities than differences. Even so, existing differences have meaningful implications for our political psychology.

While few studies to date have measured the difference in the theory of mind between liberal and conservatives, two neuroimaging studies give us some interesting clues. One study measured gray-matter volume and found those self-identified as liberal exhibited greater volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region implicated in the theory of mind and feeling the pain of others. Conservatives had greater brain volume in the amygdala — the fear center of the brain.

Another study examined MRIs of Republicans and Democrats. Republicans showed greater activation in the amygdala, and Democrats had more activation in the cingulate insula, a brain region also activated in theory of mind tasks. Mindreading differences between liberals and conservatives may be a function of differences in brain structure.

Women and Liberals Show More Empathy

Any research finding of difference between women and men will have a rough correlation to differences between liberals and conservatives, respectively. For instance, women score higher on questionnaires that measure empathy. Girls from one year of age show more empathy to others’ suffering than do boys. Liberals show more signs of distress about violence and suffering than conservatives and tend to score higher on empathy measures.

Language, Gender, and Political Affiliation

Women have better language skills. A Gallup poll (2001) found that those who identified as being liberal were more likely to be bilingual than moderates or conservatives. Other studies show that liberals score higher than conservatives on verbal ability and vocabulary tests. (And girls develop vocabularies faster than boys.) Lower verbal ability has also been associated with right-wing authoritarianism and a high social dominance orientation. (I would gladly supply the eight studies behind this section upon request.)

Fairness and Turn-taking

Females are generally more concerned with fairness and males are more concerned with dominance hierarchies. These tendencies are observed early. One study found that girls exhibited twenty times more turn-taking than boys and boys exhibited competitive behaviors fifty times more than girls. Boys often form dominance hierarchies. Girls, on the other hand, spend more energy trying to solve differences using politeness, tact, and diplomacy. Boys are more incline to intra-group and intergroup dominance. Boys don’t let losers forget who won. Girls more often try to make the players feel equal and deemphasize who won. Intergroup dominance among male competitors continues into adulthood and is seen everywhere from professional sports teams to street gangs to militaries.

Primacy of Fairness for Liberals

In my next post, I will expound at length about the moral foundations of liberalism and conservativism. Suffice to say now, the concept of fairness (meaning equality) is a sacred value for liberals. In one large international study (34,476 subjects) conducted by Jesse Graham, liberals agreed to such statements as “when the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly.” Graham found that fairness concerns are reliably higher among those identifying as liberals.

Conservatives and Social Hierarchy

Conservatives are more comfortable with social hierarchies, tend to oppose policies such as affirmative action, and participate little in efforts to redirect social wealth. Research has found that conservatives score higher on the Social Dominance Orientation scale (SDO). In my next post, I will explore and assert the benefits of a conservative framework that are somewhat independent of their comfort with social hierarchies.

“Conservatives” Helped Our Ancestors Survive – a Prologue to Moral Foundations

There is a significant relationship between conservatism, masculinity, physical stature, spatial abilities, and many other adaptations that are geared for using violence to survive a harsh, ancestral environment. There is evidence that less empathy among men has fitness benefits. A lack of empathy has utility in male mate competition and for killing in warfare. Natural selection doesn’t care what traits get passed on. Sometimes the advantage can involve empathy, and at other times, suppressing it. It is not difficult to imagine how suppressing empathy would help in the heat of battle. In a similar vein, intolerance for ambiguity would be useful in dangerous environments such as combat. When the stakes are life and death, it makes more sense to think in black and white terms.

Conclusion of Post #1 — The Roots of Our Political Divide

The differences found between men and women related to cognition, affect, language, social behavior, and brain morphology, strongly mirror the same differences between liberals and conservatives and are directly correlated to male and female mating strategies. “Stereotypes about liberalism having a feminine quality and conservatism a masculine one, have empirical backing and are rooted in our neuropsychology, which was shaped by selective pressures of the natural and social environments of our ancestors. In turn, our evolved political orientations reflect those pressures. While there have been many explanations for what drives our political stances, few have as much explanatory power as the strategies we employ to survive and reproduce” (Sex, Power and Partisanship. p.64-65).

Stayed tuned for Post #2 in this Series, the Roots of Our Political Divide

In the next post (#2 of “Roots”), I will address social dominance orientation (SDO), right-wing authoritarianism, the politics of sexual control, and much more. After that, I will unveil the brilliant work of Jonathan Haidt on the moral foundations of liberalism, conservativism, and libertarianism, and address related issues of motivated reasoning in the post-objectivity era.

References

Gerber, A. et al., (2010). “Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts,” American Political Science Review, 104.

Graham, J. et al., (2011). “Mapping the Moral Domain,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101.

Kanai, R. et al., (2016). “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults,” Current Biology 21, no. 8.

McCue, C. & Gopoian, D., (2000). “Dispositional Empathy and the Political Gender Gap,” Women & Politics, 21, No. 2.

McDermott, M., (2016). Masculinity, Femininity, and American Political Behavior.

Schreiber, D. et al. (2013). “Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans,” PLoS ONE 8, no. 2.

Van Heil et al., (2010). “The Relationship between Social-Cultural Attitudes and Behavioral Measures of Cognitive Style: A Meta-Analytic Integration of Studie,” Journal of Personality 78, no. 6.

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