#biology #evolution # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought # Sex ![[Epistemic warning - PC]] >If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. >~ [[Aristotle Onassis]] Sex is a major player in all human and animal behaviours, I think I remember [[Matt Ridley]] saying that most human wars was because of sex. >There are conditions that minimize conflict and produce harmony between the sexes. Knowledge of our evolved sexual strategies gives us tremendous power to better our own lives by choosing actions and circumstances that activate some strategies and deactivate others. >~ [[David M. Buss]] In an [[Utilitarianism|utilitarian]] mindset, understanding our evolved behaviour helps us avoid harming our mates and those around, be more [[Rationality|rational]] towards [[Relationships|relationships]], and using more our [[Neocortex|new brain]] rather than our [[Monkey Brain|old brain]]. >Why has that man fallen in love with that woman? Because she's pretty. Why does pretty matter? Because human beings are a mainly monogamous species and so males are choosy about their mates (as male chimpanzees are not); prettiness is an indication of youth and health, which are indications of fertility. Why does that man care about fertility in his mate? Because if he did not, his genes would be eclipsed by those of men who did. Why does he care about that? He does not, but his genes act as if they do. Those who choose infertile mates leave no descendants. Therefore, every body is descended from men who preferred fertile women, and every person inherits from those ancestors the same preference. Why is that man a slave to his genes? He is not. He has free will But you just said he's in love because it is good for his genes. He's free to ignore the dictates of his genes. Why do his genes want to get together with her genes anyway? Because that's the only way they can get into the next generation; human beings have two sexes tha must breed by mixing their genes. Why do human beings have two sexes? Because in mobile animals hermaphrodites are less good >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] ## Sexual selection ![[Sexual selection]] ## Long-term vs short-term optimisation >There is a fundamental conflict between these different sexual strategies: men cannot fulfill their short-term wishes without simultaneously interfering with women’s long-term goals. An insistence on immediate sex interferes with the goal of a longer courtship phase. The interference is reciprocal, since any delay also obstructs the goal of those seeking short-term sex. >~ [[David M. Buss]] It makes sense? Men want to propagate the [[Selfish gene|selfish gene]], while women have to ensure the survival of the survival machine emerging from the copulation. >There has been no genetic change since we were hunter gatherers, but deep in the mind of the modern man is a simple male hunter-gatherer rule: Strive to acquire power and use it to lure women who will bear heirs; strive to acquire wealth and use it to buy other men's wives who will bear bastards. It began with a man who shared a piece of prized fish or honey with an attractive neighbor's wife in exchange for a brief affair and continues with a pop star ushering a model into his Mercedes. From fish to Mercedes, the history is unbroken: via skins and beads, plows and cattle, swords and castles. **Wealth and power are means to women; women are means to genetic eternity.** >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] Women look for wealthy are powerful men, so men seek wealth and power (as a means to genetic eternity), they go into business. >Likewise, deep in the mind of a modern woman is the same basic hunter-gatherer calculator, too recently evolved to have changed much: Strive to acquire a provider husband who will invest food and care in your children; strive to find a lover who can give those children first-class genes. Only if she is very lucky will they be the same man. It began with a woman who married the best unmarried hunter in the tribe and had an affair with the best married hunter, thus ensuring her children a rich supply of meat. It continues with a rich tycoon's wife bearing a baby that grows up to resemble her beefy bodyguard. **Men are to be exploited as providers of parental care, wealth, and genes.** >Cynical? Not half as cynical as most accounts of human history. >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] Men look for beautiful and healthy women, so women go to the gym, become model, eat broccoli and do surgery. >Although there are many exceptions and individual differences, **men generally have lower thresholds for engaging in sex**. For example, men often express the desire and willingness to have sex with an attractive stranger, whereas most women refuse anonymous encounters and prefer to know something about the potential mate prior to sex. >~ [[David M. Buss]] Women look for parental care, men for spreading their genes >A woman who preferred to mate with a reliable man, one willing to commit to her over the long run, was more likely to have children who survived and thrived. Over thousands of generations, a preference for men who showed signs of being willing and able to commit to them evolved in women, just as preferences for mates with adequate nests evolved in weaverbirds. This preference solved key reproductive problems, just as food preferences solved key survival problems. >~ [[David M. Buss]] >Because children from previous unions are usually seen as burdens rather than benefits when it comes to mating, a woman’s ability to attract a desirable mate often suffers more than a man’s. Consequently, fewer divorced women than men remarry, and this disparity gets larger with increasing age. >~ [[David M. Buss]] ## Ensuring fidelity >One psychological strategy that evolved to combat infidelity was jealousy. Ancestral people who became enraged at signs of their mate’s potential defection and who acted to prevent it had a selective advantage over their nonjealous peers. People who failed to prevent a mate’s infidelity had less reproductive success. >~ [[David M. Buss]] ### Religions as an excuse for concealment >Claustration, or the concealment of women to prevent their contact with potential sexual partners, provides a vivid example of mate monopolization. Historically, Indian men have secluded women in the interior of dwellings. Arab men have concealed the faces and bodies of women with veils or burkas. Japanese men have bound the feet of women to restrict their mobility. >~ [[David M. Buss]] ## Mankind has no matting system >Mankind is a polygamist and a monogamist, depending on the circumstances. Indeed, perhaps it is foolish even to talk of humans having a mating system at all. They do what they want, adapting their behavior to the prevailing opportunity. >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] ## Men - female >The result is that males compete for the attention of females, which means that males have a greater opportunity to leave large numbers of offspring than females and a greater risk of not breeding at all. >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] ## Two sexes >Why do human beings have two sexes? Because in mobile animals hermaphrodites are less good at doing two things at once than males and females are at each doing his or her own thing. Therefore, ancestral hermaphroditic animals were outcompeted by ancestral sexed animals. >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] ## Why sexuality >I mean why do earthlings have sex? Why don't they just clone themselves as we do? Why do they need two creatures to have one baby? Why do males exist? Why? Why? Why? ~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] Sexuality is a trick to maintain [[Philosophy/Rationality/Models/Exploration vs exploitation|Exploration vs exploitation]] Having two or more sexes triggers the [[Biology/Evolution/Red Queen|Red queen effect]] which maximize fitness of the gene pool. Without competition, we would not advance? ## Prosperous males attract more females If a male has success with females, it will [[Halo effect|attract more females]]. >Male elephant seals strive to monopolize harems of females, and the winners remain victorious for only a season or two, whereas many humans form enduring unions that last for years and decades. But men and male elephant seals share a key characteristic: both must compete to attract females. Males who fail to attract females risk being shut out of mating. >~ [[David M. Buss]] [[Halo effect]] ## Why men prefer thin women Despite [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] theories, and suggestions that it's new, that men like fat women in middle-age, I'll propose my simple logic: Thinness is a sign of healthiness, also it's easier to see muscles, which are important health factor. So men prefer thin women because they are most likely to successfully give birth. ## High fitness women is a low waist to hip ratio >The relatively brief period dur ing which women have hourglass bodies-from fifteen to thirty five, say is a sexually selected phenomenon. It owes more to competition to attract men than to any other biological need. Men have been unconsciously acting as selective breeders of women. ~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] ## Preferences shape the behaviour of mates >If females did not mind mating with smaller, weaker males, then they would not alert the dominant male, and there would be less intense selection pressure for size and strength. Female preferences, in short, determine many of the ground rules of the male contests. >~ [[David M. Buss]] >Each gender uses its own preferences to guide its own behavior. Experiments show that men think women care about physique much more than they actually do; women think men care about status cues much more than they actually do. So perhaps each sex simply acts out its instincts in the conviction that the other sex likes the same things as they do. >~ [[Biology/Matt Ridley|Ridley]] ## Two gender We don't need two [[Gender]]. As long as we can reproduce [[Biology/Evolution/Meiosis|meiosis]] artificially, a bit like [we have grown animals from unfertilized eggs](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23415540_Hoechst_33342_The_dye_that_enabled_differentiation_of_living_X-and_Y-chromosome_bearing_mammalian_sperm), and we can ensure genetic cooking, improving the gene pool, if possible. %% ## Marriage is a child rearing institution Only humans practice marriage, it is an evolutionary trick to ensure genetic eternity, to ensure that the child will be taken care of both parties, not only the female while the male is promiscuous, because men are, by nature, polygamous and monogamous (sometimes). %% Similar topic links: [[Biology/Sex]] [[Gender]] [[Evolutionary psychology]] [[Feminism]] [[David M. Buss - The Evolution of Desire Strategies of Human Mating]]