“Men Do Everything To Get Laid” — Tiger Woods and Sexual Selection

“Men Do Everything To Get Laid” — Tiger Woods and Sexual Selection

by | Feb 2, 2021 | Dating & Mating Economy, Relationship Issues, Sexuality

Male status aspirations and power displays are a result of their adaptive success in attracting women.

I recently watched the HBO documentary on Tiger Woods. I found it captivating. The return and redemption of Tiger Woods is a modern-day hero’s journey with unique ingredients: freakish, savant-like talent, a psychologically absent father, personal injury, drug addiction, estrangement from childhood, compartmentalization of feelings, a repressed inner world, public idolatry, public humiliation, and endless sexual temptation. (Concerning sexual dalliances, Woods was more in search of a “new self” than a new partner, but I will save that discussion for a post on infidelity from the view of author and psychotherapist, Esther Perel.)

Winning Takes Care of Everything – Fallen Hero Returns

As a hero, Tiger Woods fell hard. But he did return. Woods had five more victories in 2013, regained his number one ranking in the world, and spawned a controversial “Winning Takes Care of Everything,” Nike ad. Then, Woods suffered a back injury in 2014 and his game collapsed. But the “phoenix” rose again. Woods came back to win the Masters in 2019. He achieved some healing with his former wife, Elin, and demonstrated a rededication to his kids. In the language of the hero’s journey, that is a lot of positive “elixir.” Now in 2021, he faces the challenge of recovery from a fifth back surgery. The journey continues.

Tiger Woods – Infidelity and Sexual Selection

There are many psychological dimensions in the Tiger Woods life story. But let’s take a look again at his infidelities through the lens of evolutionary psychology (EP), mate selection, and what was being said in 2009.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa wrote a series for Psychology Today in 2008 entitled “Men do everything they do in order to get laid.” A follow-up piece in 2009 was about the infidelities of Tiger Woods. Kanazawa asked, “why are we surprised?” Kanazawa was bold and brash in his statements about human mate selection using Tiger Woods as an example.

Kanazawa asserted that all male behavior is consciously or unconsciously a response to female choice in mate selection. (This is not that controversial in the EP literature.) Men do everything they do with the ultimate goal of getting sexual access to women. The word “ultimate” is essential to Kanazawa’s meaning; I will explain below.

Men Compete and Achieve for Sex

Kanazawa said men compete and achieve to have sex with women and that this behavior is mostly unconscious. Men don’t necessarily know that they do everything they do in order to get laid. They consciously think that they want to attain the highest political office in the state or the country; they want to become a successful businessman and make more money than anyone else; they want to practice and play hard so that they can become the best in their sport; they want to make America laugh so that they become the most successful entertainer. Men want to do these things because they are designed by evolution to compete and achieve, and when they do, women seek them out as sexual partners.

Successful Men Have Affairs

Highly successful men have sexual affairs, not because they want to but because women choose them. (If what men want mattered, all men would have a maximum number of affairs, says Kanazawa). Sex and mating among humans and other mammals is an entirely female choice, not a male choice; it happens whenever and with whomever women want, not whenever and with whomever men want. What men want doesn’t matter because it’s a constant. What matters is what women want. (Evolutionary psychologists, like Kanazawa, are very cognizant of rape and sexual coercion as exceptions to this assertion.)

It’s Not Like They Don’t Want Their Man to Cheat

Here’s where Kanazawa showed his stripes of political incorrectness. He said, “Elin Nordegren* and other ‘wronged wives’ cannot really complain about their husbands’ affairs. It’s not like women want their husbands to cheat on them, but then, it’s not like they don’t want them to cheat on them either.” He goes on, “they have chosen to marry these men precisely because they are the type of men who would cheat on their wives. If they were the kind of men who wouldn’t (and, more importantly, couldn’t), then they would not have been attractive enough for the wives to marry.”

Bill Clinton became the President of the United States, unconsciously, indirectly, and ultimately, so that he could get laid. David Letterman became America’s favorite entertainer, unconsciously, indirectly, and ultimately, so that he could get laid. Tiger Woods became the most successful golfer in history, unconsciously, indirectly, and ultimately, so that he could get laid. It would be a tremendous evolutionary puzzle if these men, after spending their entire lives attaining the status and resources they attained, then didn’t have affairs. And their wives married them because they were the kind of men who could cheat on them.

Ultimate vs. Proximate Causes

Now, to understand that last point I need to remind you (from my page on EP) that evolutionary psychologists examine proximate and ultimate causes of behavior. Proximate causes of behavior often include stimuli in the immediate environment of the organism or physiological mechanisms inside the organism. Ultimate causes of behavior evoke our ancestral past and address behavior or psychological processes that were adaptive for survival-based natural selection or reproduction-based sexual selection. Ultimate causes of a behavior pertain to our evolutionary (phylogenetic) history, addressing these questions:

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

EP seeks to understand both proximate and ultimate causes of species-typical psychological processes in light of basic evolutionary theory. Kanawaza’s argument is about the unconscious, ultimate causes of Tiger Woods’ idolatry from women, Elin’s choice to mate with him, and his pattern of infidelities.

Male Power is not an End in Itself

Male power is rarely (perhaps never) an end in itself. Male power is always a means to sexual access at the foundational level of evolutionary adaptation. Sex is always the ultimate end. “Trophy” wives or girlfriends are sought because of sexual attraction to them first and foremost, and they serve as status displays for sexual access to the next woman (“mate copying effect”). Male status aspiration and power displays are a result of their adaptive success in attracting women. This power can be abused. But here is the complexity: women also desire this power. It is needed for sexual attraction.

Hints of Dark Triad Attraction

As I have reported elsewhere on this site, men who have the dark triad traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy have earlier sexual experiences and more sexual partners than men of average or typical character. (This is a successful short-term sexual strategy for the “dark triad” man and a failed long-term sexual strategy for his female partner.) Tiger Woods does not fit the dark triad profile exactly, but there are some elements of agreement. On the golf course, at least, Tiger had “dark triad” confidence and exceptional one-pointed focus. More “proximately,” Tiger is rich, talented in a unique way, and very famous. He has resources and status at the highest level. The temptation with interested women was ubiquitous and on-going even before he discovered Las Vegas with Michael Jorden and Charles Barkley.

Creative Talent, Intellectual Genius, and Athletic Prowess

Male competition for mates and female choice is the “first cause” of most male behavior and ultimately the first cause of all human affairs. Nearly all male behavior can be linked to female choice in mate selection. Competition between men for sexual access to women undergirds male striving for power, status, and expressions of creativity, genius, and athletic prowess.

 Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller (The Mating Mind) argues that sexual selection may have played a more significant role than natural selection in shaping our species’ talents for storytelling, art, music, dance, humor, and leadership. The idea that music may have been shaped by sexual selection can be traced back to Darwin. There is plenty of sexual hysteria relating to rock stars, writers, artists — and athletes. Researchers Daniel Nettle and Helen Clegg found that professional male artists and poets had about twice as many sexual partners as other people. The effect was not true for female artists.

 Male Crime and Risk-taking

Young men engage in more criminal activity and risk-taking than older men. (See note below on “young male syndrome.”**) Tiger Woods’ escapades in Las Vegas and affair with Mindy Lawton in a church parking lot were hallmarks of risk-taking. And his car crash was a young male cliché.

 Male Creativity Peaks in Early Adulthood

Young men tend to produce more than older men and express more creative genius. This is a statistical correlation, not an absolute. The relationship to age and productivity (age-curve) among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists is called the age-genius curve. Being a creative genius is part of what men do to get laid.

Benefits of Being a “Tiger”

There are no reproductive benefits from competition before puberty because prepubescent males cannot translate their competitive edge into reproductive success. With puberty, however, the benefits of competition rapidly increase. Once men are reproductively capable, every act of competition (be it through strength, skill, athletic prowess, violence, theft, or creative genius) can augment their reproductive success.

Marriage and First Child Depresses Productivity

Male creative productivity peaks in early adulthood and then declines, especially with marriage and the first child. Marriage depresses both crime and genius production. The age-crime curve and the age-genius curve can be explained as the mathematical difference between the benefits and costs of competition. Young men rapidly become more violent, more criminal, and more creative in late adolescence and early adulthood as the benefits of competition rise. Then, their productivity just as rapidly declines in late adulthood as the costs of competition rise and cancel its benefits. As an example, Orson Welles was a mere 26 years old when he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in perhaps one of the greatest movies ever made. He declined after that. (Welles married Rita Hayworth at age 28.)

Tiger Woods peaked as a teenager and was a golf “phenom” before he turned pro. But Tiger Woods is now predictably and naturally more focused on his kids.

Mate Selection for Exceptional Genes

We select mates based upon traits that effectively discriminate good genes from the norm. For many traits in our species, genes are fixed and lead to little variation among people. However, some traits have great variability between people – like Geoffrey Miller’s list of talents. Creative talent or athletic skill signal positive genetic variability. These traits help a man get chosen as a sexual partner.

Male Height is a Common Genetic Preference

There is a lot of variability in the height of adult males in North America — ranging from approximately 5 feet 3 inches to 6 feet six inches. Females who prefer relatively tall males (a widespread preference) demonstrate a preference for specific genes – the genes coding for tallness over shortness. Thus, sexual choice for an observable feature of a potential mate selects certain genes to be more likely than others to propagate in the future. (Tiger Woods is 6 feet, one inch.)

Golf Talent is Rare

Tiger Woods’ talent hitting a golf ball is a rare and exceptional genetic expression. Almost no one can hit and direct a golf ball like Tiger Woods. Tiger’s father (Earl Woods) was obsessed with golf and orchestrated Tiger’s direct exposure to golf as a toddler. Earl Woods legitimately thought Tiger innately predestined to be the best golfer in the world — a perfect integration of nature (genetics) and nurture.

Tiger’s Ultimate Goal

Tiger Woods’ ultimate goal is to be the best golfer that every lived — he wants to beat Jack Nicolas’ record of 18 major championships. No other trophies or total wins will do. Tiger is learning the toughest lesson of the hero. Yes, “winning (pretty much) takes care of everything” for attracting sexual partners and selling products. Tiger’s competitive drive is natural, instinctive, hard-wired. But does that heal the soul of a hero? We shall see.

Notes

*Make no mistake, Elin Nordegren was (is) a gorgeous, genetic “celebrity” (former model) with the very highest mate value. She could essentially have any man she wanted and could successfully choose a man of high status, stature (athletic prowess), and financial resources. That is what she did. By all accounts – fame did not need to be part of her partner’s profile. Erin was mistreated and was emotionally traumatized by Tiger Woods. (Kanazawa examined her unconscious choices.) With a divorce from Woods, she was made inordinately rich ($100 million). She had a baby in October 2019 with her boyfriend, former NFL football player, Jordan Cameron, who is 6 foot, 5 inches tall and worth approximately 20 million.

**Young men enter mate competition with fewer resources to offer women. When young men face the peril of being shut out of the mating game, violent risk-taking has been an evolutionarily sensible strategy. Today, risk-taking and antisocial behavior are strongly associated with being young and male across societies worldwide, and men at their reproductive peak tend to be the most inclined to violence, a phenomenon known as young-male syndrome.

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Long-term and Short-term Mating Strategies: Domain #2 of Male-Female Difference

Long-term and Short-term Mating Strategies: Domain #2 of Male-Female Difference

by | Sep 22, 2020 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Sexuality

“…to an extraordinary degree, the predilections of the investing sex —females, determine the direction in which the species will evolve. For it is the female who is the ultimate arbiter of when she mates and how often and with whom.” ~Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, The Women That Never Evolved, 1981

Would You Go to Bed With Me?

In a study on a college campus, confederate men walked up to women, and confederate women walked up to men and said:

“Hi, I’ve been noticing you around town lately and I find you very attractive.”

Then they (eventually) asked:

“Would you go to bed with me tonight?”

All the women said “no,” and were offended, insulted, and just puzzled by the request to go to bed.

Seventy-five percent of the men said “yes.” Many of the men who declined the offer were apologetic, citing previous commitments.

This is an often-cited series of experiments in social and evolutionary psychology conducted by Russell Clark & Elaine Hatfield. These experiments were replicated in France with the same results.

How Receptive are Men versus Women to Sexual Invitations?

In a study by Buss and Schmitt (1993), college men and women rated how likely they were to consent to sex with someone they viewed as desirable if they had known them for only an hour, a day, a week, a month, six months, a year, two years, or five years. Both men and women said they would probably have sex after knowing a desirable potential mate for five years. At every shorter interval, men exceeded women in the reported likelihood of having sex. After knowing someone for only one week, men were positive about consenting to sex.

Women Unlikely to Consent to Sex

Women, in sharp contrast, were highly unlikely to consent to sex. Men were only slightly disinclined to having sex with someone they had known for only one hour; for women, sex after one hour was a virtual impossibility.

Long and Short-term Mating Strategies — Differences Between Men and Women

The predominant theory in evolutionary psychology suggests humans have both long-term and short-term mating strategies. These studies unmask the differences between men and women in their mating strategies.

Second Domain of Differences in Sexual Psychology and Response

This is the second in a series of posts that explain the domains (see Appendix) of difference between men and women in their sexual psychology and response. Tendencies related to short and long-term mating strategies apply to the general population of male and female heterosexuals but do not predict the unique sexuality of a particular man or women. (See introduction to the series: Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology and Response.)

This post will explore the following differences:

  1. General psychological factors related to mating strategies
  2. Objectives, costs, and benefits of short-term and long-term mating strategies for men and women
  3. Relative importance of trait preferences for each strategy along three dimensions: physical attractiveness, resources, and character, illustrated by Venn diagrams.
At-a-Glance Summary of this Post
  •  A long-term mating strategy is essentially rooted in commitment and monogamy.
  • A short-term mating strategy allows or prefers casual sex with more than one partner.
  • Women’s predominant mating strategy is long-term vs. short-term by a wide margin.
  • Men’s predominant mating strategy is short-term but their long-term strategy is almost equal for reasons also tied to evolutionary benefits.
  • The human mating economy is primarily fueled (implicitly) by the intersection of men’s short-term mating strategy and women’s long-term mating strategy.
  • Men’s short-term mating strategy is emboldened by their perceived mate value.
  • Women’s short-term strategy is correlated with low self-esteem.
  • Lower mate value men benefit most from a long-term strategy.
  • High mate value women (commonly with high self-esteem) choose a long-term strategy and benefit most from that strategy.
  • Men have lower standards for short-term mates, requiring almost no traits other than physical attractiveness.
  • Women’s short-term strategy emphasizes physical stature of the man, with some concern for resources and character.
  • Women’s short-term strategy, while secondary, reveals complex motivations and is used to secure resources, access better genes, switch mates, and sometimes secure a long-term partner.
  • Men’s short-term strategy gives great emphasis to physical attractiveness, has a small concern for character, and no concern for resources.
  • Men’s long-term mating strategy has character requirements, some resource considerations, and an emphasis on physical attractiveness.
  • Women’s long-term strategy has a great need for resources and character, with physical attractiveness prioritized in a third position. Resources and character are often subject to trade-offs in mate selection.
  • Long-term and short-term mating strategies operate as concurrent functions (like dual processing switches) sensitive to context and environmental conditions.
  • Female choice in mate selection is the most powerful force on the planet – determining the mating strategies of both sexes.
General Sex Differences in Long-term and Short-term Mating Strategies

The above studies underscore several differences in male-female sexual psychology and response, as noted in: Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference.

  • Women have the psychology of choice and an abundance of sexual attention during their reproductive years; men mostly do not have choice or an abundance of mating opportunities.
  • Men (mostly) have the psychology of sexual scarcity.
  • Women have the psychology of caution and fear — sexual inhibition and “brakes” on sexual activity and the experience of risk. Women fear being physically hurt, left to fend on their own with a child, or suffering reputational damage.
  • Women are prone to have regret or guilt about what they did in the sexual and mating realm.
  • Men are prone to have guilt and regret about what they did not do.
  • Men fear being humiliated and rejected.
  • Men are driven by a spontaneous, initiating sexual psychology (spontaneous desire) and women are characterized by a cautionary, “response desire.”

Mating Strategies Introduction

“Today’s dating scene has become a global uncontrolled experiment in competing mating strategies. Men and women are locked in a run-away arms race of male sexual escalation tactics vs. female commitment escalation tactics. Science-minded singles have a new self-consciousness as fitness displayers, mate choosers, gene replicators, and social primates.” ~ Evolutionary Psychologist, Geoffrey Miller (YouTube – 2019)

Long-term Mating Strategies

A long-term mating strategy for men involves attracting and securing a mate who will provide sexual fidelity. A long-term mating strategy for women seeks sexual fidelity and provision of resources and protection of children over time. Women have predominantly a long-term mating strategy (and sex “drive”) that most often seeks a single-sex partner who is committed to her and the potential offspring that might result from their mating. A women’s long-term strategy creates caution and selectivity in accepting male advances. The desired benefits of a woman’s long-term strategy influence male sexual access and thus much of male behavior. (See Mate Selection Science.)

Short-term Mating Strategies

A short-term mating strategy attempts to maximize immediate sexual access and sexual partners. Men have evolved with mostly a short-term-mating strategy (and sex “drive”) but also employ a long-term strategy for several evolutionary advantages. A man’s short-term mating strategy fuels desire for contact with women for any possible chance of a romantic or sexual encounter. Although much less predominant, a woman’s short-term mating strategy may include a complex set of motivations. (See Why Women Have Sex.)

Dual Processing Switches

Long-term and short-term strategies for men and women operate as concurrent functions sensitive to context and environmental conditions. They are not binary operations but more like dual processing switches with a range or “volume” on each at any moment in time. They may function in parallel like a thermostat, modulating the influence of other mode to keep a particular sexual personality in balance or at its “set” point. Sexual strategies by men and women are influenced by age and especially a woman’s fertility window.

Big Cojones — Evidence of Short-term mating

Evidence of short-term mating is seen by the size of human male testes; they are larger than the highly monogamous gorillas and orangutans, but smaller than the more promiscuous baboons, bonobos, and common chimpanzees. Bigger testes mean more sperm competition and more short-term mating.

Sperm Volume

Also, sperm volume increases related to the amount of time a couple has been apart since their last encounter. This increase in sperm insemination is precisely what is expected if humans had an ancestral history of casual sex and marital infidelity. The fact that men carry a physiological mechanism that elevates sperm count when their wives may have had opportunities to be unfaithful points to an evolutionary history in which humans had extramarital affairs at least some of the time.

 
“Collision” of Strategies

The human mating economy is primarily fueled (implicitly) by the intersection of men’s short-term mating strategy and women’s long-term mating strategy (See Human Mating Strategies). This “collision” of a man’s short-term mating strategy and a woman’s long-term mating strategy continues to shape gender-specific sexual behavior in modern times and causes more selectivity, caution, and different sexual responses by women as compared to men. Mating strategy “conflict” is resolved by accommodation and negotiation in a process of mate value sorting within the mating economy. It is highly dependent upon individual context. Desire is mitigated by costs, benefits, and availability for both sexes.

Diagram #1: “Collision” of Mating Strategies

venn diagram: collision_of_mating_strategies
Subset Strategies

Humans also have “subset” mating strategies or mating behaviors that intersect with basic long and short-term strategies, including serial mating and extra-pair copulation (EPC) – i.e. infidelity or consensual non-monogamy. Which mating strategy is adopted very much depends on individual mate value. Those higher in mate value can more easily implement their preferred mating strategy. In general, higher mate value women focus even more on a long-term strategy and higher mate value men may focus even more on a short-term strategy. Mating strategy can also be influenced by the sex ratio in the local mating pool and operation of social/cultural norms in the local environment.

Humans Employ Strategic Pluralism

Ultimately, what people want in a long-term mate can be quite different from what they want in a short-term mate. Humans employ “strategic pluralism” — a variety of strategies and tactics when it comes to mating. There are multiple routes to mating success.

Women’s Long-term Strategy

Women’s long-term mating is driven by genetic characteristics and interests of our species: internal fertilization, an extended period of gestation, prolonged infant dependence on mother’s milk, and the need for relatively “high” male parental investment compared to other primates. In addition to protection and a provision of resources, a woman’s long-term strategy seeks character traits that ensure stability and loyalty to her and her children over the long-term.

Trade-offs Between Resources and Character

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

Diagram #2: Women’s Long-term Mating Strategy

Venn diagram: women's long-term mating strategy

Benefits of Women’s Long-term Mating Strategy

  • Significant resources from mate
  • Parental investment
Costs of Women’s Long-term Mating Strategy
  • Restricted sexual opportunity
  • Sexual obligation to mate

The benefits far outweigh the costs and have pre-eminent value in female mate selection — and thus overall power to influence sexual access and all domains of male behavior.

Women’s Short-term Strategy

Women are found to prefer features related to muscularity, strength, fitness, and masculinity – traits associated with symmetry, in their short-term mates. They also look for stable character traits (minimal levels of generosity and kindness) and a fair amount of resources. While the following gives considerable attention to the complexities of a woman’s short-term strategy, it bears repeating that this strategy is not dominant in female mate selection; it is secondary and selective.

Diagram #3: Women’s Short-term Mating Strategy

venn diagram: women's short-term mating strategy
Benefits of a Woman’s Short-term Strategy

Women have a short-term mating strategy that brings several benefits. According to David Buss (Evolutionary Psychology, The New Science of the Mind, 1999), there are three classes of benefits (among a few other hypotheses) that are supported by research:

  1. Resource acquisition. Women could engage in short-term mating for the immediate exchange of meat, goods, or services. Ancestral women may have also engaged in short-term mating in order to obscure the paternity of her offspring (“paternity confusion”) and elicit resources from more than one man. In addition, short-term mating may have brought protection (a resource) from other males when the primary mate was not present.
  2. Genetic benefits. Short-term mating potentially brings enhanced fertility. It may also bring superior or diverse genes from a high-status male, thus giving offspring a better chance of survival against environmental change. Also, the “sexy son” hypothesis suggests that male progeny of such men are very attractive to women in the next generation, thus securing a positive genetic legacy.
    • Physical Stature Equals Genetic Fitness. Women’s prioritization of physical features in short-term partners is consistent with strategic pluralism theory that says women may seek genetic fitness in short-term partners. (Gangestad and Simpson, 2000). According to this “good genes” theory (Thornhill and Gangestad, 1993), women are attracted to men who effectively advertise having genes that are resistant to local pathogens.
    • Ovulation and Short-term Mating Success. Research has found that women value such characteristics (including the scent of symmetrical men) even more around the time of ovulation. As a result, symmetrical and muscular men have greater short-term mating success compared to their relatively asymmetrical and non-muscular peers. They have more sexual partners and are more desirable as affair partner.
  3. Mate Switching Hypotheses. While preferences for traits associated with high-testosterone (muscularity, strength and facial symmetry) tend to support the hypothesis that women seek genetic benefits in short-term mating, recent research and DNA evidence has cast some doubt on this as a motivation and has drawn more attention to the “mate switching hypothesis.” (See Mate Switching Hypothesis).

David Buss (Evolutionary Psychology, The New Science of the Mind, 1999) identifies three reasons for a woman’s short-term mating strategy (infidelity or extra-pair copulations) that confirm a mate switching hypothesis.

Hit the Road Jack

One study found that extra-pair mating made it easier for a women to break up with their current partner — what Buss calls “mate expulsion.” David Buss and Cindy Meston report (Why Women Have Sex, 2009) that women have affairs to test the waters to see if there is someone better out there for them, in an attempt to “trade-up” for a better partner. Women have affairs if they think their relationship may be dissolving. And women cultivate “back-up mates.” As Buss likes to joke in quoting a female research participant, “men are like soup; you always want to have some on the back burner.”

From a Short “Flight” to a Long “Flight”

According to “sexual strategies theory” (Buss and Schmitt, 1993), by being open to short-term relationships, women can increase their options for long-term ones. They can solicit the interest of many men and use this wider net to evaluate long-term mates, or they may be able to turn short-term relationships into long-term ones. If women use short-term mating to assess or attain long-term relationships, they may prioritize the same traits in short-term partners that they prioritize in long-term partners.

More Clues to Mate Switching and Sex Differences

There are other clues to explain the infidelity (short-term mating strategy) of women as reported by Buss –clues that fortify a mate switching objective.

  1. Women who are sexually or emotionally unhappy have affairs. This is not true for men. Men do not often report marital unhappiness as a reason for an affair. According to Buss, men can be relatively happy in their marriage and still have affairs. The issue of emotional dissatisfaction appears to be specific to women.
  2. 70% of women become emotionally involved with or fall in love with their affair partner. In contrast, only about 30% of men do.
  3. As stated above, qualities desired by women in an affair partner are often similar to the qualities desired in a long-term mate. Women want character traits (e.g. kindness) and resources in an affair partner, just not as much as in a long-term mate. This is not true for men. For example, women usually want intelligence in an affair partner. For men, intelligence in an affair partner is mostly irrelevant. Desiring the same qualities in an affair partner further supports a view that the female long-term mating strategy is significantly more adaptive in evolution than the short-term mating strategy.
Self-esteem in Women

Studies have shown that a woman’s self-esteem is a significant predictor of short-term-mating. Women scoring low on self-esteem tended to have a greater number of sex partners, one-night stands, and a preference for short-term sexual relationships.

Costs of Women’s Short-term Strategy
  • Risk of a sexually transmitted disease
  • Risk of pregnancy
  • Reduced value as long-term mate
  • Greater risk of physical and sexual abuse
  • Risk of withdrawal of resources from husband

While the benefits noted above seem compelling, the costs of a woman’s short-term mating strategy far outweigh the benefits and produce a “response desire” and “braking” pattern of female sexual response. These costs directly influence female sexual response and sexual psychology. (See Spontaneous and Response Desire – the Underbelly of Heterosexual Mating.)

Men’s Short-term Strategy

“There seems to be no question but that the human male would be promiscuous in his choice of sexual partners throughout the whole of his life if there were no social restrictions. The human female is much less interested in a variety of partners.” ~ Alfred Kinsey

Evolutionary adaptation has dictated a preference by men for a short-term mating strategy. Trivers’s (1972) theory of parental investment and sexual selection provides a powerful reproductive basis for expecting sex differences. Men, more than women, are predicted to have evolved a greater desire for casual sex and a variety of partners. The same act of sex that causes a woman to invest nine months of internal gestation obligates the man to practically no investment.

Premium On Female Beauty

Men’s short-term strategy puts an immense premium on physical beauty and fertility. Character traits required of a woman are minimal (i.e. “don’t be dangerously crazy”) and resources are not required at all. Men’s short-term strategy is more predominant than their long-term strategy, but the difference is less pronounced behaviorally in modern times.

Diagram #4: Men’s Short-term Mating Strategy

venn diagram: men's short-term mating strategy
Restraints on Men’s Short-term Mating Strategy

Although men could potentially conceive more offspring if they were promiscuous instead of monogamous, there may have been at least two restraining factors of evolution against male promiscuity. Reproductive success depends on the survival of one’s offspring. Children have a better chance of survival if two parents contribute. Men who were highly promiscuous may not have been able to support all their offspring, and thus may not have been as genetically successful as more monogamous men.

Women Have to Consent

As suggested by Roy Baumeister and Dianne Tice (The Social Dimension of Sex, 2001), a second possible restraining factor on male promiscuity is an obvious one: the question of whether a male can get a lot of potential mates if females won’t consent to mate with him.

Promiscuous Male At Possible Disadvantage

Men not predisposed to mate in long-term relationships might not have left enough offspring for a totally promiscuous genetic tendency to proliferate. According to Baumeister and Tice, males thus evolved to mate in long-term relationships to raise their children to adulthood, and also evolved a tendency to be more open than females to a wider variety of mating opportunities. Perhaps this greater need for compromise between monogamy and promiscuity can also explain why men have a greater variety of sexual practices and interests than women.

Put A Ring On It

David Buss suggests (Evolutionary Psychology, The New Science of the Mind, 1999), that men, even in ancestral times, who failed to commit might not have attracted any women at all. Women’s requirement for consenting to sex could have made it costly for men to pursue a short-term strategy exclusively. In the economics of reproductive effort, the costs of not pursuing a permanent mate may have been prohibitively high for most men.

High Mate Value Men Like Short-term Mating

High mate value men (on the “Self-perceived Mating Success Scale”) tended to have sex at an earlier age, a greater number of sex partners, and more sex relative to their lower mate-value counterparts. And high mate value men scored higher on the “Sapiosexuality Inventory” suggesting that they are pursuing a short-term mating strategy. These are measures of the holy grail of sexual turn-on for women: self-confidence. This is what “cocky” really means. (BTW, penis size does indeed contribute to this self-confidence — to being “cocky.” (See Undiscussables.)

Men Lower Their Standards

Buss and Schmitt (1993) found that men desire more partners and lower their standards for short-term mating. Men in this study expressed lower standards than women on forty-one of the forty-seven characteristics named as potentially desirable in a casual mate. For brief encounters, men required a lower level of charm, athleticism, education, generosity, honesty, independence, kindness, intelligence, loyalty, sense of humor, sociability, wealth, responsibility, spontaneity, cooperation, and emotional stability.

Closing Time Phenomenon

Relatedly, men shift perceptions of attractiveness near closing time in a singles bar regardless of how much alcohol they have consumed. With this “closing time phenomenon,” women just look better and better as the night wears on. In contrast to men, most women can obtain a desirable temporary mate without having to relax their standards at closing time.

Sex Ratio Effect on Short-term Mating for Both Sexes

Men shift to brief encounters when more women are sexually available (positive sex ratio), satisfying their desire for variety. Correlated to that, women on college campuses today will shift toward more short-term mating because the surplus of women causes more intra-sexual competition. When there is a surplus of men, in contrast, both sexes shift toward a long-term mating strategy marked by stable marriages and fewer divorces.

Benefits of Men’s Short-term Strategy
  • Potential to reproduce; more sex partners
  • No parental investment
Costs of Men’s Short-term Strategy
  • Risk of sexually transmitted diseases
  • Some resource investment
  • Less protection for genetic children
  • Acquiring a reputation as a womanizer
  • Suffering violence from husbands, brothers or fathers
  • Retaliatory affairs by wives or a costly divorce

The benefits of the male short-term mating strategy have shaped the evolution of male neurology and physiology and influenced male behavior, especially sexual initiation and intra-sexual competition. But costs do mitigate this strategy, especially in modern times.

Men’s Long-term Strategy

For long-term mates, men still put a premium on physical beauty and markers of health and fertility for initial attraction. Buss and Schmitt (1993) studied 37 cultures and confirmed the universal desire for physical attractiveness in a long-term mate. But men also want a woman who is faithful and kind. Resources are considered but are usually a distant third in importance. As stated above, men who are willing to commit to a long-term relationship have a wider range of women from which to choose.

Marriage in the U.S. Favors Men With Resources

As discussed in Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference, marriage patterns in modern America confirm the fact that men with resources are most able to actualize their preferences.

Diagram #5: Men’s Long-term Mating Strategy

venn diagram: men's long-term mating strategy
Benefits of Men’s Long-term Strategy
  • Increased paternity certainty
  • Improved social competitiveness of children
  • Sexual and social companionship, especially for “beta” males
Costs of Men’s Long-term Strategy
  • Restricted sexual opportunities
  •  Heavy parental investment
  • Heavy relationship investment

The benefits of men’s long-term mating strategy tend to outweigh the costs in most cultures in modern times. Pair-bonding and relative monogamy is the norm in most modern societies.

References

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

Buss, D. M. & Schmitt, D.P. (1993) “Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating.” Psychological Review, 100, 204-232.

Clark, R. D. & Hatfield, E. (1989). “Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers.” Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, 2, 39-55.

Dibble, et al (2015, June 11). “Simmering on the back burner: communication with and disclosure of relationship alternatives.” Communication Quarterly, 63(3), 329-344.

Gangestad, S.W. & Simpson, J.A. (2000). “The evolution of human mating: Tradeoffs and strategic pluralism.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 573-587.

Li, P. (2008). “Intelligent Priorities: Adaptive Long- and Short-term Mate Preferences,” in Mating Intelligence, eds., Geher, G., & Miller, G.

Thornhill, R., & Gangestad, S..W. (1993). “Human facial beauty: Averageness, symmetry and parasite resistance.” Human Nature, 4, 237-269.

Trivers, R. L. (1972). “Parental investment ad sexual selection.” In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, (pp.136-179).

Appendix

 
Domains of Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology

1. Behavioral dynamics in the mating economy

2. Long-term vs. short-term mating strategies

3. Trait preferences and priorities for mate selection

4. Physical attraction and perceptions of beauty

5. Concordance between physiological response and psychological desire

6. Spontaneous desire vs. response desire

7. Sex and love-making that fuels desire

8. Accelerator vs. brake: sexual excitation and inhibition systems

9. Brain structures: sexual pursuit and visual stimuli

10. Hormonal differences

11. Variety and novelty

12. Sexual mentation and “sex drive”

13. Influence of context

14. Female competing intentions and imposed double bind 

15. Sexual orientation (and preference) fluidity and response variability

16. Orgasm – purpose and characteristics

17. Meta emotions

18. Romance and desire, together and apart

19. Psychology of monogamy

20. Infidelity – reasons and response

21. Jealousy – triggers, tactics, and consequences

22. Sexual fantasies

 

*Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk
  • Men and Women have similarities as human beings, and aggregate differences from each other, 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”.
  • Men and Women have differences that we must acknowledge and understand in order to have satisfying heterosexual (romantic and sexual) relationships.
  • Men and Women have differences that we must acknowledge and understand in order to bring clarity to the “politics” of sex and gender.
  • Men and Women need “straight talk” (radical honesty) in order to uncover and accept our differences.
  • Men and Women need straight talk about our differences in order to empower one another for co-creative relationships.

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Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference

Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference

by | Sep 8, 2020 | Dating & Mating Economy, Sexuality

“There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among them is the Mercedes-Benz SL500.” ~ Lynn Lavner

Twenty-two Domains of Difference (See list in Appendix)

This is first in a series of posts that will explain the twenty-two domains of difference between men and women in their sexual psychology and response. (See introduction to the series: Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology and Response.) Differences are based on statistical aggregates of all men and women from authoritative research studies. These are tendencies that apply to the general population of male and female heterosexuals but do predict the unique sexuality of a particular man or woman. It may be instructive, however, to understand our foundational “wiring” – the evolutionary adaptations that remain active in modern human mating. Most of these domains of difference can affect the equilibrium of our relationships.

Behavioral Dynamics in the Mating Economy – Domain #1
This post will explore differences related to:

  1. General psychological sex differences in the mating economy (an overview)
  2. The influence of money, status, and resources in the mating economy
  3. The operation of the mating economy as a market place – the haves and have-nots
  4. The nature and influence of the “bargain” of exchange between men and women
  5. The psychological difference between the pursuer and the one pursued

General Sex Differences in the Psychology of the Mating Economy:

  • Women have the psychology of choice and an abundance of sexual attention during their reproductive years (this is mostly good, but sometimes bad); men mostly do not have choice or an abundance of mating opportunities. Beautiful women have immense choice in the mating economy and rich men have the greatest opportunity to be chosen.
  • Men (mostly) have the psychology of sexual scarcity and activation of the sympathetic nervous system as pursuer and competitor with other males.
  • Women have the psychology of caution and fear — sexual inhibition and “brakes” on sexual activity and experience of risk. Women fear being physically hurt, left to fend on their own with a child, or suffering reputational damage.
  • Women are prone to have regret or guilt about what they did in the sexual and mating realm.
  • Men are prone to have guilt and regret about what they did not do. (Lack of courage to initiate toward a woman.)
  • Men have fear of humiliation and being rejected. This fear is “existential” in its impact – it evokes the very essence of manhood and worth because it goes to the core of evolution: male sexuality and the passing on of the genetic code. Men’s fear of humiliation is mostly understood by women but the male psychology of existential threat is not acknowledged, understood, or given an empathic ear.
  • Men have anger that comes from this threat and the lack of sexual access; there are no easy answers to this in the mating economy. The psychology of the haves and have-nots is ubiquitous across many domains of social life in the West.
  • Some women experience their own existential angst related to the need to have a child; this too is encoded into sexual expression. The female sexual “instinct” interfaces with the maternal/care-taking instinct.
  • Women also have fear, anger, and grief about being over-looked or no longer being desired by the men that are acceptable to them as mates. This is a loss of “erotic power.”
  • Women often experience a significant trade-off problem in their mate selection decision-making between choosing a man of status (financially successful) and choosing a man with a loyal and generous character. Both trait profiles are required. Men do not have this particular trade-off dilemma in their mate selection psychology nor any other trade-off problem as significant as that in their long-term mating strategy. (This will be explored in a future post, Domain #3: Trait Preferences and Priorities in Mate Selection.)
  • Men are driven by a spontaneous, initiating sexual psychology (spontaneous desire) and women are characterized by a cautionary, “response desire.” (See Spontaneous and Response Desire – the Underbelly of Heterosexual Mating.) I will explore this in Domain #6: Spontaneous Desire vs. Response Desire.
  • Finally, the psychology of the mating economy is haunted by the undertow of the erotic-economic bargain: the exchange of beauty and fertility for resources and protection. The dynamic of this exchange is anchored in the fundamental objectives of human mating strategy and reproduction. In modern times, it is characterized by motivated reasoning used to deny its existence. This is the psychology of collusion, rationalization, and avoidance. The erotic-economic bargain has political implications.

Supply and Demand Forces in the Mating Marketplace
In the human mating economy, men mostly sell and women mostly buy; this is the predominant evolutionary dynamic. The buyer (female chooser) significantly controls the marketplace.

All behaviors of mate selection (intersexual selection by women and intra-sexual competition primarily by men) are driven by supply and demand forces for sexual access to the best (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 in the human population: more women have sex and reproduce in the general population than do men, as shown by genetic studies (see below).

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 in great supply 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 vs. Pursued

The 180% difference between a buyer and a seller in the mating-sexual economy is dramatic in its psychological impact. It affects motivation, 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.

Male intra-sexual competition (men competing against one another) has unique behavioral and psychological dynamics. The psychology of female intersexual selection (preferential mate choice) – the experience of being pursued, is a mixed bag. It can be exhilarating to be adored and desired, until it is not. Women’s intra-sexual competition (women competing against one another) for male attention is a different behavioral phenomenon than male-on-male competition. (I will explore intra-sexual competition in Domain #2: Long-term vs. Short-term Mating Strategies.)

Erotic-Economic Bargain – the Ultimate Exchange in the Mating Economy

The exchange of physical beauty and fertility (erotic power) for economic power (and/or protection) is the perennial bargain of human mating over eons of time. This bargain is rooted in the willingness and capacity for parental (economic) investment from the man and the reproductive (sexual) access allowed by the women in response to that investment.  It is the unconscious infrastructure of heterosexuality.  The ability of a man to protect and provide for children is the key ingredient and evolutionary force driving this mate preference by women; it is the trigger for her sexual availability. Her youth and fertility is her erotic power — a power that controls and influences male aspiration for social dominance, economic power, and competition with other men. Female erotic power fuels the fire of male sexuality. Sexual access to women is the penultimate motivation and prize. The strength of a man’s preference for physically attractive women and a woman’s preference for financially successful men works conjointly in relationship to their mate value. At the upper end of their respective mate value, there is an assortative pairing of the beautiful with the rich.

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

 Foundational Collusion
Although the exchange of sex for resources is a shared agreement, it is often implicit and “secretly” held – that is what is meant by “collusion.” Men and women have vastly different parts to play in holding the agreement in place. This foundational collusion of exchange influences all other pieces of the heterosexual “puzzle.” To be clear, even though the erotic-economic bargain is often not explicit or conscious, it fertilizes (sorry for the pun) the soil of human reproduction.  The erotic-economic bargain is largely “undiscussable.”

Mate Value is the “Currency”

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. Narratives in comedy, television, literature, and film often use mate value mismatches as fodder for entertainment.

Assortative Mating is the Visible Part of the Iceberg

Assortative mating is the tendency to be attracted to someone who is similar in age, socio-economic status, educational attainment, geographic location, physical appearance, and facial attractiveness. Someone who is “in our league.” Linked to mate value, assortative mating is the dominant process in the mating market. Assortative mating is the part of the iceberg that is visible above the water; below the surface is the erotic-economic bargain that may influence how things sort out.

Definition of a Good Deal

Assortative mating demonstrates the power of “mate value” attributions about self and others. These value assessments fuel strategic mating behavior toward the people we desire, or at least determine who we actually end up with. People self-sort according to their mate value; traits and priorities are unconsciously or consciously ranked and considered as a whole. The mate value of most people is limited, so one cannot attract a committed partner who is at the maximum of every desired trait. Trade-offs are made. But the definition of a “good” deal in the mating game can be traced to how well the erotic-economic bargain is maximized in the favor of each person, considering their individual mate value and the availability of potential partners in the local mating pool.

Mate Value Sex Differences and Assortative Mating
Assortative mating is a neutral process with regard to sex differences over-all. Men and women seek similarities along many dimensions of background, and the market naturally brings them a partner with an equal mate value. The assortative mating process does match for equivalent mate value, but the mate value of a woman is powerfully defined by her physical beauty, and the mate value of a man is largely based on the size of his financial resources.

Trait Preferences and Perceptions of Attraction

Mate selection research has documented many shared preferences of men and women; they seek love, kindness, intelligence, and good health in their mates (as they uniquely define those traits). When entering a relationship, women place greater emphasis on the immediate access to resources in order to assess a potential mate’s willingness and ability to invest in her; if a man does show immediate investment in a relationship, the woman is typically more likely to have sex with him. (Spreecher, Sullivan, & Hatfield, 1994).

“The two sexes often engage in this exchange of reproductive currencies with men looking to exchange investment for sex and women preferring to exchange sex for investment.” (Kruger, 2008).

Emphasis on Attractiveness and Financial Prospects

Males and females rate the characteristics of physical attractiveness and financial prospects differently. The degree of emphasis that women place on the importance of a man’s financial prospects has been well documented (see references). The different valuation of these two traits is consistent throughout the world, with men placing a higher value on physical attractiveness and women placing a higher value on financial prospects. Men are generally indifferent to the financial prospects of women (Buss, 1989). But a woman’s preference for a mate with financial prospects also influences her perception of a man’s physical attractiveness.

Money and Beauty are Directly Correlated

Psychological researchers Richard Urdy and Bruce Eckland did a study of men and women to predict marital and socio-economic status fifteen years into the future. They used attractiveness ratings based on high school annual pictures. Results showed that a man’s level of resources was directly correlated with the level of physical attractiveness of his partner. Attractiveness allowed females to secure highly educated husbands with a high income. Money and beauty were correlated in a positive and linear relationship. 

The Car Makes the Man

Gregory Shuler & David McCord (Western Carolina University) used subject ratings from the website “Hot or Not” and found a linear and positive relationship between the value of a man’s car and the degree of attractiveness perceived by women. A man was depicted with three different cars: a decrepit Dodge Neon, a Ford Focus, and a Mercedes C Class C300. He was rated most “hot” when pictured with the Mercedes.

As reported in the British Journal of Psychology (April, 2009), researchers Michael Dunn and Robert Searle found that men positioned with a high-status, silver Bentley Continental GT were rated significantly more attractive than when the man was positioned with a red Ford Fiesta ST. When the conditions were reversed by sex, men did not rate women as more attractive in the high status vs. low-status condition; it had no influence. 

“Costly-signaling” by Men

Since women have a preference for men with resources, men have evolved strategies for the purpose of demonstrating this characteristic for women. Strategies include boasting about one’s resources, the derogation of a competitor’s status, ambition or resources, and displaying conspicuous consumption when in potential mating scenarios. Men tend to increase spending on luxury items (like a car) that indicates “costly-signaling” as a display of expendable income that could be potentially be allocated to a mate.

Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend

Other studies have shown a positive and linear correlation between female physical beauty and the monetary values of engagement and wedding rings. The value and expenditures for courtship and nuptial gifts increase with the physical attractiveness of the female. In a study by researchers Jaime Cloud and Madalyn Taylor (“The Effect of Mate Value Discrepancy on Hypothetical Engagement Ring Purchases”), women desired greater resource investment to compensate for a lack of physical attractiveness in their male partners.

Reproductive Variance: the Haves and the Have-nots

“Reproductive variance” refers to the variability of reproductive success for human males and females. 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.

DNA studies by Jason Wilder and colleagues revealed that approximately 80% of women in human history have reproduced compared to approximately 40% of men. The human population is descended from twice as many women as men. Author and influential social psychologist, Roy Baumeister, (Is There Anything Good About Men), says reproductive variance between men and women was probably even greater through much of human history, and especially human prehistory. “In many animal species, close to 90% of the females but only 20% of the male reproduced. In modern times, human monogamy has spread across the globe. But in past eras, polygamy (one husband, multiple wives) was the norm, the reproductive imbalance would have been more severe” than 80% to 40%.

Most Men are Losers in the Mating Game

Put another way, a woman’s odds of having a line of descendants down to the present is double those of a man. Most women who ever lived to adulthood probably had at least one baby and in fact have a descendant alive today. Most men did not. Baumeister again: “Most men who ever lived, like all the wild horses that did not ascend to the alpha males’ top spot, left behind no genetic traces of themselves. Of all the humans ever born, most women became mothers, but most men did not become fathers.” Baumeister considers this “the single most underappreciated fact about the difference between men and women.”

The Super-Haves – Men at the Top of the “Economic”- Status Hierarchy

One of the greatest conquers in world history (13th century), Genghis Khan, is reported to have sired hundreds and possibly over a thousand children. In 2003, an international team of geneticists published a DNA analysis of central Asians. Researchers found that one in twelve men in Central Asia had the same Y chromosome. Genghis Khan had roughly 16 million descendants in 2003. 

Other Males Who Got More than Their Share

Other male all-stars in the genetic/Y chromosome reproductive hall of fame are: Middle Age king, King Nail. One in 12 in Ireland are genetically linked to King Nail, possibly 2-3 million worldwide. Manchu ruler (17th century), Nurhaci, or perhaps his grandfather Giocangga, has 1.6 million descendants alive today. Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif, a warrior King who ruled Morocco from 1672-1727, had 500 concubines and 888 children. King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Idi Amin, Ugandan despot in the 1970s had 4 wives and 30 children. Large harems were the order of the day for the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Aztec kings, the Turkish sultans, the African kings, and the Chinese emperors. (Laura Betzig, Despotism and Differential Reproduction).

Incas Allocated Women According to Status

Inca law allowed male aristocrats 50 women apiece; the leaders of vassal nations (Inca feudal territories) were allotted 30, the heads of 100,000 men were given 20 women, and so on down to leaders of ten men, who were allotted 3. The men at the bottom often went unmarried (Sex and War, Malcom Potts and Thomas Hayden, p. 18-19). 

Erotic and Economic Power – the Age of Celebrity

At the high end of male and female mate value, rich men and beautiful women find each other. The erotic-economic bargain is commonly demonstrated by the preference and ability of older men to partner with significantly younger women – women usually in their fertile years at the time of the union. Take a look at the list below (Appendix) of high status, celebrity, rich men, and their wives. You will see up to 60+ years of age difference. Money can allow men to “mate down” decades to find beautiful women who will choose to partner with them.

Of course, many of these celebrities have attractive intellectual, physical, and emotional qualities (i.e. their talent), but what they have most importantly is high status and great wealth.

 Undeniably we see evidence of:

  • the power of fame and money to attract younger women – with relative doses of charm, talent, and physical attractiveness.
  • how resources, prestige, and status drive the mating system and female choice.
  • how men, given options literally “afforded” them, will naturally pursue the most beautiful women.
  • how the resistance against age difference, proclamations of “he is too old,” are relative to the degree of fame and money the man possesses.

All the men included here are rich and famous. All the women are beautiful. The erotic-economic bargain in stark terms.

 

Appendix

 
Age Differences of Male Celebrities and their Partners – The “Haves” of Erotic-Economic Exchange
Jay Marshall and Anne Nicole Smith 62 years
Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris 60 years
Dick Van Dyke and Arlene Silver 46 years
Mick Jagger and Melanie Hamrick 43 years
Robert Duval and Luciana Pedraza 41 years
Patrick Stewart and Sunny Ozell  38 years
Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Deng 38 years
Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill 36 years
Clint Eastwood and Dina Ruiz  35 years
Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn 35 years
David Foster and Katharine McPhee 34 years
Doug Hutchinson and Courtney Stodden 34 years
Lee Majors and Faith Noelle Cross 34 years
Gary Grant and Dyan Cannon 33 years
Dennis Quaid and Santa Auzina 33 years
Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy 33 years
Billy Joel and Alexis Roderick  33 years
Bing Crosby and Kathryn Grant  33 years
David Lynch and Emily Stofle 32 years
Billy Joel and Katie Lee  32 years
John Cleese and Jennifer Wade  31 years
Ronnie Wood and Sally Humphreys 31 years
Jeff Goldblum and Emilie Livingston 30 years
Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow 30 years
William Shatner and Elizabeth Anderson 30 years
Alan Thicke and Tanya Callau  28 years
Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster 27 years
Eric Clapton and Melia McEnery  27 years
Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel 27 years
Larry King and Shawn Southwick  26 years
Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Thomas 26 years
Bill Murray and Jenny Lewis 26 years
Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield 26 years
Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall  26 years
Dane Cook and Kelsi Taylor  26 years
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall 25 years
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones 25 years
Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter 25 years
Kelsey Grammer and Kayte Walsh 25 years
Bruce Willis and Emma Heming 24 years
Rene Angelil and Celine Dion 24 years
Donald Trump and Melania  24 years
Christopher Knight and Adrianne Curry 23 years
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard 22 years
Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart 22 years
Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin 22 years
Kevin Costner and Christine Baumgartner  22 years
Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren 22 years
Glen Campbell and Kim Campbell 21 years
Floyd Mayweather and Raemarni Ball 20 years
Prince Albert of Monaco and Princess Charlene 20 years
Warren Beatty and Annette Bening 19 years
Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-W. 19 years
Anthony Hopkins and Stella Arroyave  19 years
Eddie Murphy and Paige Butcher  19 years
Jason Statham and Rosie Hunington-W. 19 years
Dominic Purcell and AnnaLynne McCord  18 years
Christian Slater and Brittany Lopez 18 years
Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky  18 years
Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell 18 years
Jerry Seinfeld and Jessica Sklar 17 years
Oliver Sarkozy and Mary-Kate Olsen 17 years
George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin  17 years
Bradley Cooper and Suki Waterhouse 17 years
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes 16 years
Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates 16 years
References

Buss. D. M. & Schmitt, D.P. (1993) “Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating.”  Psychological Review, 100, 204-232.

Buss, Shackleford, Kirkpatrick & Larsen, (2001). “A half century of mate preferences: the cultural evolution of values.”  Journal of Marriage and Family, 63 (2), 491-503.

Dunn, M. &  Searle, R., (2009). “Effect of manipulated prestige-car ownership on both sex attractiveness ratings.”  British Journal of Psychology, 101, (Pt 1) 69-80.

Gangestad, S.W. & Simpson, J.A. (2000). “The evolution of human mating: Tradeoffs and strategic pluralism.”  Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 573-587.

Kruger, D. J. (2008). “Young adults attempt exchanges in reproductively relevant currencies.” Evolutionary Psychology, 6(1), 204-212.

McAndrew, F., “Costly Signaling Theory,” Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Science, 2019.

Shuler, G., & McCord, D. (2010). “Determinants of Male Attractiveness: “Hotness” Ratings as a Function of Perceived Resources,” American Journal of Psychological Research, Vol. 6, No. 1.

Spreecher, S., Sullivan, Q., & Hatfield, E. (1994).  Mate selection preferences: Gender differences examined in national sample.   Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(6), 1074-1080.

Udry, J.R. & Eckland, B.K. (1984).  “The benefits of being attractive: Differential payoffs for men and women.” Psychological Reports, 54, 47-56.

Wilder, J.A. et al, (2004). “Genetic evidence for unequal effective population sizes of human females and males.”  Molecular Biology and Evolution, 21, 2047-2057.

 
Domains of Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology

1. Behavioral dynamics in the mating economy

2. Long-term vs. short-term mating strategies

3. Trait preferences and priorities for mate selection

4. Physical attraction and perceptions of beauty

5. Concordance between physiological response and psychological desire

6. Spontaneous desire vs. response desire

7. Sex and love-making that fuels desire

8. Accelerator vs. brake: sexual excitation and inhibition systems

9. Brain structures: sexual pursuit and visual stimuli

10. Hormonal differences

11. Variety and novelty

12. Sexual mentation and “sex drive”

13. Influence of context

14. Female competing intentions and imposed double bind 

15. Sexual orientation (and preference) fluidity and response variability

16. Orgasm – purpose and characteristics

17. Meta emotions

18. Romance and desire, together and apart

19. Psychology of monogamy

20. Infidelity – reasons and response

21. Jealousy – triggers, tactics, and consequences

22. Sexual fantasies

 

*Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk
  • Men and Women have similarities as human beings, and aggregate differences from each other, 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”.
  • Men and Women have differences that we must acknowledge and understand in order to have satisfying heterosexual (romantic and sexual) relationships.
  • Men and Women have differences that we must acknowledge and understand in order to bring clarity to the “politics” of sex and gender.
  • Men and Women need “straight talk” (radical honesty) in order to uncover and accept our differences.
  • Men and Women need straight talk about our differences in order to empower one another for co-creative relationships.

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Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology and Response

Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology and Response

by | Aug 25, 2020 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Sexuality

Over the millennia, men and women have evolved with different objectives and strategies of sexual psychology and response – strategies related to choosing a mate, reproduction, and parental investment. For the next several months, this blog space will address twenty-two “domains” of difference in sexual psychology and response between cisgender men and women with an emphasis on a heterosexual orientation.* (See “Assumptions” below.)

Here is a narrative summary of these differences followed by a list of the twenty-two domains. 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.

General Differences between Men and Women in Sexual Psychology and Response
  • Women have their own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and vary more than men in anatomy, sexual response, sexual mechanisms, and the way 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 their 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 are more influential on 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.
  • Men and women differ in visual orientation for physical attraction and the traits preferred in a mate.
  • 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 (mostly) and women buy (mostly) in the mating economy; this is the predominant evolutionary dynamic. The psychology of the sexual initiator and pursuer is vastly different than the psychology of the one pursued and the one who chooses among her pursuers.
  • The psychology of male intra-sexual competition is quite different than the psychology of female intersexual selection (preferential mate choice.) Also, women’s intra-sexual competition (women competing against each other) for male attention is a different behavioral phenomenon than male-on-male competition.
Domains of Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology

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

Each domain will be examined as a distinct phenomenon of difference although some will be addressed as correlated or parallel in physiological or psychological response. This blog series will not necessarily run continuously – as other topics (some in a series, some not) will also be posted.

Thanks for reading what is coming to Mating Straight Talk. Comments are encouraged!

*Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk
  • Men and Women have similarities as human beings, and aggregate differences from each other, 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”.
  • Men and Women have differences that we must acknowledge and understand in order to have satisfying heterosexual (romantic and sexual) relationships.
  • Men and Women have differences that we must acknowledge and understand in order to bring clarity to the “politics” of sex and gender.
  • Men and Women need “straight talk” (radical honesty) in order to uncover and accept our differences.
  • Men and Women need straight talk about our differences in order to empower one another for co-creative relationships.

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Assortative Mating and Indian Match-Making — “Caste” in Stone?

Assortative Mating and Indian Match-Making — “Caste” in Stone?

by | Aug 11, 2020 | Dating & Mating Economy, Steven's Story, Women's Issues

Often described as one of the architectural wonders of the world, the stunning 17th-century white marble Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz who died giving birth to their 14th child. Mumtaz was Shah Jahan’s third and favorite wife, and their love story is legendary. The Taj Mahal is a symbol of Indian love and marriage that is congenial to prescribed gender roles. Yet some historians believe Mumtaz wielded considerable political power and influence. She was not exactly a dutiful wife despite being pregnant all the time. Reportedly, she was an excellent chess player and was ambitious, if not ruthless. Apparently, imperial women in the Mughal period exercised significant political authority.

Hold that thought. (I will get back to the Taj Mahal.)

 
Indian Matchmaking on Netflix

Television comedies, dramas, and reality shows almost always contain stories about love, romance, and the challenges of finding a mate. I have always found narratives and situations that explicate evolutionary psychology and mate selection science in these shows. These past two weeks I found myself fascinated by the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking. This show demonstrates “assortative mating” through the lens of Indian culture.

Indian Matchmaking is a reality-based “confection” (filmed in pre-Covid, 2019) that tastes pretty good on the tip of the tongue as entertainment but has layers of after-taste that are disheartening about marriage-making in India and in the American desi community. Indian Matchmaking has more than a hint of satire and perhaps a political message of self-deprecation. It can be quite educational to American audiences who are mostly ignorant (like myself) of Indian culture, although critics caution that it is an incomplete view of modern Indians. Released on July 16, Indian Matchmaking was a top 10 Netflix series in the U.S. for weeks, and number one in India.

 

 What is Assortative Mating?

Assortative mating is the tendency to pursue and be attracted to someone who is similar in age, socio-economic status, educational attainment, geographic location, religion, physical appearance, and facial attractiveness. Assortative mating is the dominant force in the mating market around the world—with some unique cultural expressions, as we shall see.

 

What is Caste?

Caste is a form of social stratification characterized by hereditary status and the custom of marrying only within the limits of a local community, clan, or tribe (endogamy). Caste includes stratification by occupational status in a hierarchy and social exclusion based upon cultural notions of purity. Modern India’s caste system is based on colonial imposition on the four-fold system (Varna) found in ancient Hindu texts. There are five levels of caste if you also count the lowest group, the Dalits (untouchables). Scholars believe the Varna system was never truly operational in India society . The practical division of society has always been in terms of birth groups (Jatis) which are not based on any religious principle, but could vary from ethnic groups, to occupations, to geographical areas. However varied and amorphous in its application, caste remains as an idea of social stratification that is a function of hereditary status. (See below for thoughts about caste in the U.S. spurred by the just published, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson.)

 

What is Colorism?

Colorism is the discrimination people face, usually within their own racial group(s) where lighter skin tones/complexions are seen as more desirable than darker skin tones. With this prejudice, people are treated differently based on the social implications and cultural meanings that are attached to skin color.

 

Mate Selection and Assortative Mating – Indian Style

Assortative mating is the utilitarian workings of a mating marketplace – to “buy, sell, and deal.” The objective is to get the best deal available in an ever-moving landscape (chessboard) of mating game dynamics. It is the musical chair you are in when both people decide to decide. Assortative mating is the conscious and unconscious sausage-making of finding a partner within the boundaries of a person’s mate value and opportunities in a mating pool.

A match-making show is based on the long-term mating strategy for both sexes – the search and intention to create a life-long pair bond. In Indian Matchmaking, the male short-term sexual strategy is nearly absent. While attraction is understood, sexual chemistry is barely implied or acknowledged.

 

An Interesting Variation

Assortative mating “Indian style” is an interesting variation. Here we see the usual assortative dynamics of the match-making process superseded by the requisites of the culture itself. Assortative mating means sorting by caste, socioeconomic standing, religion, (they all overlap), and parental preference. Indian Matchmaking uses short-cut phrasing such as “family background” to capture all of this.

 

Power of Parental Choice

What stands out with Indian match-making is the immense power of parental choice (especially the mother) and the need to join two families in a marriage partnership. This has a long tradition in human cultures, especially with the merging of families of power or royalty. The influence of a 3,000-year Indian caste system is veiled but literally shows its “colors” on Indian Matchmaking. And the conversation about caste generated in response has powerfully dove-tailed into the current “awakening” of race in America. More on that later.

 

Major Sociological Themes in Indian Matchmaking

Here is the panoply of themes to be found in this “playful” reality TV show:

  • Generational divide – old world vs. new, parent vs. child
  • Tradition and/or modernity
  • India vs. the wider diaspora in the U.S. and Canada
  • Agency of adult children vs. paternalism
  • Influence of caste and colorism (shadeism)
  • Class, religion, and ancestral region (“family background”)
  • Female equality and aspirations
  • Destiny, fate, and influence of cosmological forces
Major Themes of Mate Selection in Indian Matchmaking (see definitions below)
  • Assortative mating
  • Trait preferences in a long-term mating strategy
  •  Mate value (especially physical attractiveness and “family background”)
  • Mate value trajectory
  • Mating economy and marketplace
  • Mating Intelligence or lack thereof
  • Mating pool

Time and space do not permit me to cover all of the above themes, but if you watch the show (again), look for these themes to increase your interest.

 

“Caste” of Indian Matchmaking

Indian Matchmaking compares and contrasts match-making inside of India vs. the United States. Here are the main characters:

  • Sima (Mumbai): Professional matchmaker. Hindu. (F)
  • Aparna (Houston): Lawyer. Hindu. Sindhi. (F)
  • Pradhyuman (Mumbai): Jeweler. Hindu. Marwari. (M)
  • Akshay (Mumbai): Businessman. Hindu. (M)
  • Nadia (New Jersey): Event Planner. Hindu. Guyanese. (F)
  • Vyasar (Austin): H.S. Counselor. Hindu. Kshatriya. (M)
  • Ankita (Delhi): Businesswoman. Hindu. Baniya. (F)
  • Rupam (Denver): Divorced mom. Sikh. (F)
  • Richa (San Diego): Unknown. (F)
Trait Preferences – An Indian Long-term Mating Strategy

Indian Matchmaking reveals and verifies tenets of male sex appeal and female sex appeal from an evolutionary perspective. Female clients (and especially their parents) are looking for a tall, ambitious “boy” who must make as much or more money than the woman, if she is working. Male clients (and especially their parents) are looking for a relatively tall, pretty, fair-skinned “girl” who has a pleasing and “flexible” personality.

As writer Sonia Saraiya noted in Vanity Fair, “matchmaking quite literally regulates reproduction by determining the bounds of their descendant’s gene pool. It diminishes the individual’s personal choice in favor of the collective stability.”

 

“The Boys Just Want Pretty Girls”

Indian Matchmaking has been criticized (see below) for its portrayal of the criteria of physical attractiveness in choosing a mate. This preference is a cultural universal, but we actually see quite a bit of flexibility shown by the show’s hopeful clients. Less so by their parents.

Ankita is told by her parents and others that “boys just want pretty girls.” The show seems to view this as shallow or at least unfortunate. Ankita jokes that she would like to find someone who looks like David Beckham or the Indian film star, Abhay Deol. To her credit, Ankita knows this is a severe “mate value mismatch” given her own level of physical beauty. (Sima describes Ankita to a fellow matchmaker saying “she is not photogenic.”) Ironically, we see Ankita in Delhi working with gorgeous female models to display and sell her garments.

Overall, the show does not focus on “pretty girls” or handsome men. Vyasar finds his matches to be pleasing even though they are quite overweight. His second match, Rashi, admits in one scene that “it takes a lot to make this look good. Beauty is pain.” Vyasar seems to unconsciously know his own mate value given his financial resources and level of physical fitness.

 

Beauty as Cultural Universal

Human beings share universal, hard-wired preferences for physical traits that are pleasing to the eye — traits we find sexually attractive and aesthetically pleasing, or “beautiful.” Beauty is highly prized in prospective mates because it is a proxy for reproductive fitness and genetic strength. It is more than mere aesthetics. Beauty is nature’s shorthand for health and fertility, for reproductive capacity — visual cues that a woman or man has the potential to bestow good genes on future generations. Attraction and beauty are mostly inseparable from each other and from sexual selection generally.

“Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but those eyes, and the minds behind the eyes, have been shaped by millions of years of human evolution.” (David Buss, The Evolution of Desire, p. 53)

Ideal Beauty is Rare

It is notable that Indian Matchmaking has only one example of “ideal” female beauty. Pradhyuman takes fashion model and actress, Rushali (former Miss Delhi), riding at a horse stable. When he first sees her bio-data picture, he asks Sima, “why have I not seen someone like this before? Now you are on the right track.”

 

Mate Value

Finding a “workable” match with the highest mate value is the job of the matchmaker. Sima knew intuitively who rated a “5” and who rated a “9” or “10”. While considering the client’s and family’s desire for everything on the criteria list (the “best deal”), she had to start with the basics – a match “sorted” by physical attractiveness/stature, socioeconomic class, and caste background. In business decision-making, it is known that some criteria are more important (weighted) than others. So it is with human mating. Attractiveness for the women has a criteria weight that is 2-5 times greater than her career. For the man, his career and financial security are rated 2-5 times more than his personality or his physical appearance. “Chemistry” or “clicking” cannot be predicted absolutely and is part of match-making magic, or destiny in its most benevolent form.

 

Mate Value Trajectory

Most of the mate value matching attempts were sorted correctly by Sima. But there were a couple of mismatches because of the influence of poor mate value trajectory – a criterion applied almost exclusively to men.

Vyasar is an affable, engaging, sensitive person with great communication skills and a penchant for over-sharing early in the process (certainly early if this was a normal dating environment). He is a high school counselor and no doubt has the weakest financial and family profile of any of the male clients. While it starts out promising, there seem to be a host of incompatibilities with his first match, Manisha, who is a Research Health Analyst in North Carolina. Manisha finally admits to the deal-breaker: Vyasar’s poor mate value trajectory and ambition. “You can be a nice person, but that is not going to pay the bills five years from now.” Sima acknowledges on camera that Manisha “did not find Vyasar’s earnings sufficient.”

Aparna is hard to please almost to the point of satire. Her mother not only wanted her to have three degrees but tells Sima that money is not secondary for her prospective mate; the man must not be less successful than her. We come to know the degree to which Aparna has been conditioned for achievement by her mother and has “inherited” her mother’s failed-marriage trauma. She sees her mother every day. Aparna has a good date (especially for her) with a guy named Srini. He is very affable and articulate, a public speaker and author of three books. But Srini admits to financial insecurity and lack of clarity about what happens next in his career. Aparna immediately glazes over. No trajectory. Srini is seen as a loser. Aparna jettisons him quicker than you can say “Bollywood.”

 

Mating Pool

The entire enterprise of match-making in desi communities is affected by a restricted dating pool. Aparna acknowledges this directly (she is, if nothing else, rational) referring to her age in the first episode: “At 34, there is not a huge pool for me.” The pool is even more restricted for Rupam who is divorced with a daughter. This is “two strikes” in any dating scenario, let alone a culture where divorce is historically frowned upon. Sima knows it will be tough to find her a match. Rupam ultimately finds another Sikh man on Bumble.

 

Mating Intelligence (MI)

Vyasar says he “does not know how to make romance.” Although he has preoccupations of a quintessential “beta male” (dungeons and dragons among them), he actually is quite romantic and has a fair amount of mating intelligence. But he does lack confidence – the most important MI trait for a man.

Akshay is quite deficient in MI. He has never really had a girlfriend and is probably a 25-year-old virgin. That apparently is a possibility even for a successful urban millennial male in India. One culture writer even ventured that Akshay is actually in love with his cousin Mansha, who gets quite a bit of screen time.

Sex?

It is worth noting (again) that sex and sexual experience is nearly absent on this show. The astrologer brings it up once, as does the life coach. It seems this topic is mostly “undiscussable.” One or two of the older, arranged-married couples playfully allude to sex.

Then there is Nadia and Vinay. She goes out with him six or seven times. What was their sexual connection? He “ghosts” her for dubious reasons, although that seems to be a source of ongoing debate, post-production. Nadia is the “full package.” She has an adorable personality, infectious laugh, and is very pretty. And she is Guyanese. Hmm. We are left to wonder about caste, but mostly in this case, about sexual chemistry inside the Indian match-making equation.

 

Female Equality, Agency, and Aspirations – Modernity Faces Paternalism

Anna Purna Kambhampaty reported (Time, July 24, 2020) that “approximately 90% of all Indian marriages [in India] are arranged. About 74% of Indians between the ages of 18 and 35 prefer it that way.” Yet, there are a few intersecting sociological issues revealed in Indian Matchmaking:

  • Tension between the traditions of older Indians and the desi community, versus the perspectives and needs of their more modern, adult children.
  • The apparent paternalism of the Indian family structure and its effect on the agency and choices of their adult children.
  • Equality, independence, and empowerment of Indian and desi women and how they navigate the expectations for marriage held by their families and community.
Go Ankita!

In Indian Matchmaking, Ankita holds the vision of female empowerment inside of India, but she also struggles to stay connected to her family. “Just because you are independent does not make you non-marriageable, or stubborn, or arrogant,” she says. “I do not need a man’s support.” And yet, Ankita still lives with her family in Delhi. Her father describes her as ahead of her time but later agrees with his wife that Ankita is rebellious.

Ankita has strong commitment to her career but wants a relationship, at least in the beginning of the show. She joked to friends about the match-making process: “This is like Tinder premium, but the family is involved. Families also have to swipe right.” Sima cautions, “things don’t work out without the guidance from the parents.”

 

Aspirations and Real Choice?

Indian women have aspirations but the match-making process and family involvement seem to mitigate against real choice. Sima says more than once, “in India nowadays, the boy and girl can refuse. They have full freedom.” Really? The language of paternalism is always present – the words “boy”, “girl”, and “auntie” (Sima).

An opening vignette of an older arranged-married couple complains that “girls are so independent; boys want their wife to be submissive.” Ironically, in most of these older couples the woman does most of the talking. One husband underscores a well-worn cliché: “happy wife, happy life.”

 

Overbearing is an Understatement

The archetypal overbearing Indian mother is Akshay’s mother, Preeti. Preeti says the “girl” must be flexible and adjust in order to join her family and her home. Under tremendous pressure from Preeti, Akshay almost marries the “Udaipur girl,” Radhika, who hardly said a word when they were together with the parents. However, when alone with Akshay, she said she wanted to be a working woman. Akshay thought he wanted a women who was also modern, but on this issue, he opined: “I don’t think she is enough like my mother.”

 

Negative but (mostly) Her Own Agent

Aparna was portrayed as “Ms. Negativity” with absolutely no intention to “improve” for any man. She famously said after one date: “It’s a big deal that I don’t hate him.” Sima retorts: “I think she has a block in her energy.” The astrologer said Aparna was “fickle-minded” and “rude in speech.” I found her redeemable and interesting. And she has had defenders (nearly all women) in the social media sphere. She too is seen as exhibiting female aspiration and agency in spades. Aparna has started a travel business as a side hustle called  My Golden Balloon, which should improve her outlook.

 

“Caste-ing” Aspersions – Indian-American (Women) Thought Leaders

Since its debut, Indian Matchmaking has drawn criticism from Indian and U.S. media for sidestepping issues of colorism, dowry, sexism, body shaming, and caste. The strongest voices have come from female writers in the desi community.

 

The Atlantic (Culture) — Yashica Dutt

Yashica Dutt, writing for The Atlantic, said “caste appears on almost every criteria list that the marriage hopefuls lay out. By coding cast in harmless phrases such as ‘similar background’, ‘shared communities’, and ‘respectable families’, the show does exactly what upper-caste Indian families tend to do when discussing this fraught subject: it makes caste invisible.”

“The caste system is an active form of discrimination that persists in India and within the Indian American diaspora.” Dutt criticized Indian Matchmaking for not portraying couples who identify as Muslim, Christian, or Dalit — communities that represent 40 percent of India’s 1 billion-plus population.

 

Sanjena Sathian — New York Times

Sanjena Sathian takes a hard look at the show’s idea of “adjustment” for brides-to-be.  “The show asks us to consider whether adjustment connotes open-mindedness or gender imbalance. The unsettling answer seems to be that it’s both.”

 

Sonia Saraiya — Vanity Fair

Sonia Saraiya reports that India’s National Family Health Survey (2005) found 37 percent of women in India had experienced some kind of physical or sexual abuse. She says women are often cut off from access to household funds. She says Indian marriages are frequently unhappy and unequal. On a personal note she concludes: “the price of belonging to an Indian culture is to leave some of your individuality behind – and for me at least, it was a price I was not willing to pay.”

 

Scaachi Koul — Buzz Feed News

Koul says the representation from Indian Matchmaking isn’t wrong, it’s’ just one version of the story. “These stories are always about middle-class, or outright rich people, Brahmin Hindus, the people who live in big cities like Mumbai and Delhi. I don’t feel burdened by my South Asian identity, by my family’s often archaic and frustrating rules, or by my big nose and consonant-heavy name. Rather, I feel burdened by the white supremacy that taught me not to go into the sun lest I get dark and by the sexism my father showed when he wanted me to get an arranged marriage.”

 

Mallika Rao – Vulture

“Hindus are largely casteist. Much of India, today, leans Hindu supremacist. Marriage is a business and a game, whether in India or America, and grotesque from many angles.”

 

In America: “Caste is the Bones, Race the Skin”

In her recently published book, Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson asserts that the Indian system of caste hierarchy explains more about the racial divide in America than does the idea of race alone. “Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones, race the skin.” Reviewing the book in The New Yorker, Indian scholar Sunil Khilnani writes: “Underlying and predating racism, and holding white supremacy in place, is a system of social domination: a caste structure that uses neutral human differences, skin color among them, as the basis for ranking human value.” Wilkerson says a caste system tends to promote dehumanization and stigmatization of lower castes and a belief in the superiority of the dominant caste.

 

Revisiting the Taj Mahal

Indian Matchmaking did not start the discussion about caste but it has given it resonance. A cringe-worthy reality show on Netflix about choosing mates has played a part in getting our attention to face the human predilection for hierarchy and the way to get past it. Creator of the show, Smriti Mundhra, said she hoped the show “will spark a lot of conversation that all of us need to be having in the South Asian community with our families – that it’ll be a jumping-off point for reflections about the things we prioritize and the things we internalize.”

There does seem to be a convergence of new awareness in the mind of American and Indian viewers. Certainly, the conversation about caste in America is just beginning.

Endogenous marriage is not the worst societal outcome of the caste system, but there must be a sweet spot for South Asian women that includes modern expressions of power and influence, while also holding respect for traditional culture. Ankita is the heroine carrying the torch for modern womanhood, especially inside India. “It is time to be equal,” says Ankita.

Just ask Mumtaz Mahal. You know where to find her.

 

Appendix: Definitions relevant to Indian Matchmaking

Most of the definitions below come from the Terms & Definitions section of Matingstraighttalk.com.

cultural universals
Cultural universals are evolutionary processes of sexual selection and natural selection that appear with little variation in any and all human cultures, past or present. Known also as “human universals,” cultural universals are behavior traits that are universal across human populations.

desi
A person born or living in another country whose ancestry is from India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh.

diasporic community
A widely dispersed community as a result of a natural disaster, politics, etc. Diaspora – a dispersion of people from their original homeland or the community formed by those people.

long-term mating strategy
Mating strategy to attract a mate to ensure sexual access and fidelity (especially for men) and the provision of resources and protection of children over time (especial for women.) A long-term strategy is predominant for women and forms the basis of our ancient pair-bond and tendency toward a monogamous (albeit serial) human culture.

mating economy/marketplace
Interaction between mating strategies of men and women given their individual mate value, mating priorities, trade-offs, and conditions/sex ratio of the local mating environment. Subject to a “collision” between a woman’s long-term strategy and a man’s short-term mating strategy, the mating marketplace commonly “sorts” by similarities (see assortative mating).

mating intelligence
Entire set of universal cognitive processes (mating mechanisms) that underlie human mating psychology: assessing one’s mate value and the mate value of others, modifying one’s mating behavior as a function of ecological conditions, displaying one’s self in an attractive manner, assessing the mate relevant thoughts of a potential partner and discriminating dishonest mating signals from honest ones. Mating intelligence also includes (more recently in EP) individual differences in creativity (courtship display mechanisms) such as musical ability, artistic ability and sense of humor.

mating pool
Available, “suitable” mates (by standards of similarity; equal mate value or above) in the local, proximate physical environment and/or in the digital environment that can be reliably accessed.

mate value
Degree of attractiveness a person embodies as perceived by potential mates, relative to the local mating pool. Men with resources, status and larger physical attributes (height and v-torso) have greater mate value than men who are less successful and smaller. Women who are physically beautiful (signaling fertility) have greater mate value than average looking women. Creativity, humor, generosity, and intelligence also influence value attributions. Mate value rankings of 1-10 are in colloquial usage with moderate reliably and agreement. Mate value drives the initial mate selection process.

mate value mismatch
Usually a temporary condition of unsuccessful courtship behavior. When a person (most commonly a man) romantically pursues another person who has significantly higher mate value. A mating strategy that is strategically and evolutionarily unsustainable.

mate value trajectory
Assessment of future mate value, most commonly made by a woman about a man, given his socio-economic family background, education, career track, education, and traits of industriousness and ambition.

paternalism
The policy or practices by people in positions of authority that restrict the freedom and responsibilities of subordinates supposedly in the subordinate’s best interest.

short-term mating strategy
As an evolutionary adaptation, men’s short-term mating strategy seeks more immediate sexual access and variety of partners to garner genetic fecundity. Men’s short-term strategy is more predominant than men’s long-term strategy but the difference is less pronounced behaviorally in modern times. A woman’s short-term strategy seeks short-term mating in order to secure resources for survival and higher quality genes to pass on to potential offspring. A woman’s short-term strategy is decidedly less predominant than her long-term strategy.

Photo Credit: shalender kumar from Pixabay 

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Spontaneous and Response Desire – the Underbelly of Heterosexual Mating

Spontaneous and Response Desire – the Underbelly of Heterosexual Mating

by | Jun 16, 2020 | Biological Difference, Dating & Mating Economy, Relationship Issues, Sexuality

 

John met Sarah at a happy-hour event. She was surrounded by a group of men, but John got some eye contact from her and shared a quick introduction and small talk.  It was apparent she was not “with” any of these men, although each one was interested in her.  John was enamored by Sarah’s bright eyes, her smile, her gestures, her voice – by everything about her. He felt compelled (an urgency in his body) to get a moment with her as she walked toward the door to depart.  He gave her his card.  (He knew that was lame.) Of course, she did not call him.  He saw her weeks later at the same event.  He asked for her number and declared his interest.  She said she “was not dating right now.” John expressed understanding and acceptance. But he did not really understand if Sarah was just not into him or if this was actually a “bad time” (whatever that meant) for her.  John had done his part to initiate but did not know Sarah’s “situation” or what she was actually thinking and feeling.  And he never would.

What Are ‘Spontaneous’ and ‘Response’ Desire?

“Spontaneous” and “response” desire are research terms related to the sexual psychology of men and women.  They reflect behavioral expressions of biological sex differences (hormones and brain), evolutionary mating strategies, sex “drive” differences, differences in sexual “context” setting, and functioning of the modern-day dating and mating economy.

When the spontaneous desire of men encounters the response desire of women, misunderstanding and frustration may ensue.  This blog explores research on sexual desire by Emily Nagoski* (Come As You Are, 2015) and is a companion to the blog post “Is Your Sexual Foot on The Accelerator or Brake?”   I will address issues of spontaneous vs. response desire related to long-term committed partners and supply and demand in the mating economy for initial mate selection and briefly return to John and Sarah before concluding.  But first, let’s revisit some of the science.

Sexual Excitation System (SES) and Sexual Inhibition System (SIS)

Emily Nagoski suggests both men and women have an excitation system (accelerator) and inhibition system (brake) for sexual activity.   She calls this the “dual control model.”  Think of this dual control as biological mechanisms for approach and avoidance.

Men Operate From Their Accelerator

Men operate primarily from their accelerator, or sexual excitation system (SES), constantly scanning the environment for anything sexually relevant.  The SES turns-on with anything a man sees (especially), hears, smells, tastes, or imagines.  The SES operates proactively — it approaches, pursues, and initiates spontaneously.

Women Are “Brake” Dominant

 The inhibition system or brake (SIS), in contrast to the SES, notices all potential threats in the environment and sends a signal to turn-off.  It is associated with fear of consequences and self-consciousness.  Women are decidedly SIS-dominant.  They respond to sexual opportunities only in the right context and when safety is assured.  They are quite content to rest in a cautious or neutral zone until the right stimulus is presented.  Out of sight, out of mind is the default position of response desire.

Spontaneous Desire is the Signature Feature of the Male Sex Drive

“Spontaneous desire” happens when the SES is fully activated.  The SES fuels spontaneous sexual pursuit with a sense of urgency and eagerness.   Male sexuality is “accelerator-dominant” and spontaneous by nature; it reacts, more than women, to sexually relevant stimuli independent of context and more commonly initiates.  Spontaneous desire is the signature feature of the male sex drive, fueled by testosterone and brain structures.  (See future blogs for further discussion of sex drive, sexual thoughts, and fantasies.)

When Arousal Meets a Great Context

“Response desire” occurs when one is willing to receive sexual interest although not initially feeling desire or sexual arousal.  The SES accelerator system is quiet; the SIS braking system is alert but not overly triggered. With sufficient sexual stimuli and appropriate context, response desire allows one (usually a woman) to move from a place of neutrality to being aroused and desirous of a sexual connection.   Because women are more “brake-dominant” in their sexual response, their desire more likely happens, in Nagoski’s words, “when [physiological] arousal meets a great context.”  For many women, subjective desire comes after physiological arousal, not before.  Rosemary Basson (author and Director of the University of British Columbia Sexual Medicine Program) says for many women, desire is not the cause of love-making, but rather the result.

Eighty-Five Percent of Women Are Response-Desire Dominant

According to Nagoski, 30 percent of women never experience spontaneous desire for sex, while 75 percent of men mostly experience spontaneous desire.   She says 55 percent of women experience a relative combination of spontaneous and response desire but ultimately concludes (Come As You Are, p. 307) that 85 percent of women are response-desire dominant.

Context Is Everything for Women

Nagoski says context for women is made of two things:  

1) the circumstances of the present moment – whom you are with, where you are, whether the situation is novel or familiar, risky or safe, and

2) a woman’s brain state in the present moment:  whether she is relaxed or stressed, trusting or not, loving or not, at that moment. 

“The evidence is mounting that women’s sexual response is more sensitive than men’s to context, including mood and relationship factors, and women vary more from each other in how much such factors influence their sexual response.”  (Come As You Are, p.  75).  For women, a great context can create subjective arousal; a bad context can prevent it entirely.

Desire Patterns in Long-term Relationships

The “collision” or “collaboration” of these two desire patterns can create interesting challenges in heterosexual sexual relating, especially in sustaining desire in long-term monogamous relationships.

For maintaining mutual desire in a long-term monogamous relationship, Esther Perel, (author of Mating in Captivity and leading expert in couple’s psychotherapy) recommends developing autonomy “inside of” the relationship in order to create a space for “wanting” what you don’t have.   John Gottman, in contrast, recommends (The Science of Trust) deepening intimacy as a doorway to the erotic life in a long-term monogamous relationship.   Perel says “build a bridge to cross” fueled by “wanting” and Gottman says “build a bridge together” fueled by “having.”

Increase Activation of Accelerator and Decrease Activation of the Brake

Nagoski says either of these strategies may accomplish the same overall goal:  increasing activation of the accelerator and decreasing activation of the brake.  The goal of both approaches is to sustain curiosity.  Perel suggests we sustain curiosity about our partner when we view them from a distance.  Gottman suggests we sustain curiosity about the nature of pleasure in the context of commitment.

Take Control of the Context

It is clear that passion does not happen automatically in a long-term relationship. But passion can happen if the couple takes deliberate control of their context.  Neither the strategy of distance nor the strategy of deepening intimacy by itself will nullify the foundational, biological difference between spontaneous male desire and response-oriented female desire.

Spontaneous and Response Desire in the Brain

Differences in brain structure between men and women relate to the spontaneous and response desire systems.  Men, in general, have a higher baseline of activity in the older part of the brain, the limbic system, which makes them particularly alert during the first stage of seduction, according to the renowned physician and author, Marianne Legato (Why Men Die First).

Area of Sexual Pursuit is 2.5 Times Larger In Males

The medial preoptic area (MPOA), found in the hypothalamus, is related to sexual pursuit and is 2.5 times larger in males, according to neuropsychiatrist, Louann Brizendine (The Male Brain).  Men also show greater activity in the visual cortex when perceiving erotic pictures, reflecting a gender-specific visual mechanism for sexual selection.

Female Amygdala and Cautious Sexual Response

The brain’s danger and alert system is the amygdala.  While larger in males, the female amygdala seems to be more sensitive to the fear of consequences, modulating a more cautious sexual response.

Fear of Punishment and Sexual Anxiety in the Female Brain

Another part of the brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), creates a more response-dominant neurological foundation for women.  According to Brizendine, the ACC is the worrywart, fear-of-punishment area, and center of sexual performance anxiety.  It weighs options, detects conflicts, and motivates decisions.  The ACC is also the area for self-consciousness; the ACC is bigger in women.

Spontaneous and Response Desire is Predicted in Human Mating

The difference in male and female desire patterns is extremely relevant to the operation of the dating and mating economy.  Spontaneous desire and response desire are aligned with the short-term mating strategy of men, the long-term mating strategy of women (respectively), and the biological foundation of the sexual accelerator and brake.   Spontaneous desire for men and response desire for women are predicted by human mating strategies as defined in the fields of evolutionary psychology and biological science.

A man’s short-term mating strategy fuels desire for contact with women for any possible chance of a romantic or sexual encounter.   A women’s long-term strategy creates caution and selectivity in accepting male advances.  The reasons for this evolutionary adaptation are central tenets of mate selection science.   (See Human Mating Strategies and What is Mate Selection Science? pages.)

Supply and Demand of Spontaneous and Response Desire

Men (mostly) sell.  Women (mostly) buy.  In the human mating economy, the buyer (female chooser) significantly controls the marketplace; men spontaneously pursue, women respond when ready.  The difference between buyer and seller in the sexual marketplace determines motivation, behavior, and the experience of sexual scarcity or abundance.

Sex is (Relatively) an Abundant Resource for Women

Sex for most women (during their fertile years) is an abundant resource; it is not in short supply.  It is a need (subject to self-imposed selection preferences) that can almost always be met.  Therefore, there is no need to attend to it (out of sight, out of mind).  There is no need to respond to any particular man if conditions are not perfect and that man is not preferred (in that moment) over other men available in her dating pool.   At another moment in time, Sarah might respond to John. 

Conclusion

Sexual relating between men and women often hinges on the “dance” between spontaneous desire and response desire – the “undercurrents” of strategy and preference in dating and mating.   Desire patterns are biologically based with evolutionary roots (human mating adaptations for reproduction and survival of children).  Understanding sex differences in spontaneous and response desire is a pathway for awareness, empathy, and behavior change that will improve heterosexual relationships.

Notes

Emily Nagoski is the former Director of Wellness Education at Smith College where she taught Women’s Sexuality.  She is a respected author and expert in the field of sexuality — writing, speaking, and training internationally.

If you are tracking along with these blogs (in addition to reading pages on the main menus!), you will notice I have cited (so far) male-female differences related to:

  • subjective vs. physiological arousal,
  • sexual excitation vs. inhibition,
  • spontaneous vs. response desire,
  • sex “drive,” 
  • influence of situational context, and
  • overall mating strategies.

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