CHAPTER THREE A Closer Look at the Standard Narrative of Human Sexual EvolutionRead more at location 836
Homo sapiens evolved to be shamelessly, undeniably, inescapably sexual. Lusty libertines. Rakes, rogues, and roués. Tomcats and sex kittens. Horndogs. Bitches in heat.1Read more at location 841
these preconscious impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point, the zero in our own personal number system.Read more at location 844
Willpower fortified with plenty of guilt, fear, shame, and mutilation of body and soul may provide some control over these urges and impulses.Read more at location 845
there are costs involved in denying one’s evolved sexual nature,Read more at location 849
They are paid in what E. O. Wilson called “the less tangible currency of human happiness that must be spent to circumvent our natural predispositions.”2 Whether or not our society’s investment in sexual repression is a net gain or loss is a question for another time.Read more at location 850
Why is conventional marriage so much damned work?Read more at location 856
We don’t claim that men and women experience their eroticism in precisely the same ways, but as Tiresias noted, both women and men find considerable pleasure there. True, it may take most women a bit longer to get the sexual motor running than it does men, but once warmed up, most women are fully capable of leaving any man far behind. No doubt, males tend to be more concerned with a woman’s looks, while most women find a man’s character more compelling than his appearance (within limits, of course). And it’s true that women’s biology gives them a lot more to consider before a roll in the hay.Read more at location 859
Perhaps for many women libido is like the hunger of a gourmand. Unlike many men, such women don’t yearn to eat just to stop the hunger. They’re looking for particular satisfactions presented in certain ways. Where most men can and do hunger for sex in the abstract, women report wanting narrative, character, a reason for sex.Read more at location 867
The relatively weak female libido Male parental investment (MPI) Sexual jealousy and paternity certainty Extended receptivity and concealed (or cryptic) ovulationRead more at location 877
The standard model posits that sexual exclusivity is crucial because in evolutionary times this was a man’s only way of ensuring his paternity. According to evolutionary psychology, this is the grudging agreement at the heart of the human family.Read more at location 881
Men offer goods and services (in prehistoric environments, primarily meat, shelter, protection, and status) in exchange for exclusive,Read more at location 883
So, if a woman becomes pregnant by a guy who has no intention of helping her through pregnancy or guiding the child through the high-risk early years, she likely is squandering the time, energy, and risks of pregnancy.Read more at location 887
Steven Pinker calls this way of looking at human reproduction the genetic economics of sex: “The minimum investments of a man and a woman are…unequal,” explains Pinker, “because a child can be born to a single mother whose husband has fled but not to a single father whose wife has fled. But the investment of the man is greater than zero, which means that women are also predicted to compete in the marriage market, though they should compete over the males most likely to invest…”3 Conversely, if a guy invests all his time, energy, and resources in a woman who’s doing the nasty behind his back, he’s at risk of raising another man’s kids—a total lossRead more at location 890
This is why evolutionary psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly argue that men take a decidedly proprietary view of women’s sexuality:Read more at location 897
As attentive readers may have noted, the standard narrative of heterosexual interaction boils down to prostitution: a woman exchanges her sexual services for access to resources.Read more at location 903
The Adapted Mind, a book many consider to be the bible of the field, spells out the sex contract very clearly: A man’s sexual attractiveness to women will be a function of traits that were correlated with high mate value in the natural environment…. The crucial question is, What traits would have been correlated with high mate value? Three possible answers are as follows: The willingness and ability of a man to provide for a woman and her children…. The willingness and ability of a man to protect a woman and her children…. The willingness and ability of a man to engage in direct parenting activities.Read more at location 912
in his now classic work The Evolution of Human Sexuality, psychologist Donald Symons confidently proclaimed that “among all peoples sexual intercourse is understood to be a service or favor that females render to males.”Read more at location 929
natural selection encourages “an undiscriminating eagerness in the males and a discriminating passivity in the females.”Read more at location 933
Hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have claimed to confirm the flaccidity of the female libido.Read more at location 935
The objective of the game is to send your genetic code into the future by producing the maximum possible number of offspring who survive and reproduce. Whether or not this dispersal leads to happiness is irrelevant.Read more at location 947
This perspective on life incorporates the Protestant work ethicRead more at location 953
Ethologist/primatologist Frans de Waal, one of the more open-minded philosophers of human nature, calls this Calvinist sociobiology.Read more at location 955
“Women’s reproductive resources are precious and finite, and ancestral women did not squander them on just any random man,” writes evolutionary psychologist David Buss. “Obviously, women don’t consciously think that sperm are cheap and eggs are expensive,” Buss continues, “but women in the past who failed to exercise acumen before consenting to sex were left in the evolutionary dust; our ancestral mothers used emotional wisdom to screen out losers.”Read more at location 958
theorists believe that Homo sapiens is uniquely high in male parental investment (MPI) among primates. They argue that our high level of MPI forms the basis for the supposed universality of marriage.Read more at location 964
“In every human culture in the anthropological record, marriage…is the norm, and the family is the atom of social organization. Fathers everywhere feel love for their children…. This love leads fathers to help feed and defend their children, and teach them useful things.”Read more at location 966
Biologist Tim Birkhead agrees, writing, “The issue of paternity is at the core of much of men’s behaviour—and for good evolutionary reasons. In our primeval past, men who invested in children which were not their own would, on average, have left fewer descendents than those who reared only their own genetic offspring.Read more at location 969
A hunter could refuse to share his catch with other hungry people living in the close-knit band of foragers (including nieces, nephews, and children of lifelong friends) without being shamed, shunned, and banished from the community.Read more at location 979
Not only have males evolved to compete for scarce female eggs; females have evolved to compete for scarce male investment.”Read more at location 986
Conventional theory suggests she’ll marry a nice, rich, predictable, sincere guy likely to pay the mortgage, change the diapers, and take out the trash—but then cheat on him with wild, sexy, dangerous dudes, especially around the time she’s ovulating, so she’s more likely to have lover-boy’s baby. Known as the mixed strategyRead more at location 993
Their hypothesis holds that if males and females have conflicting agendas concerning mating behavior, the differences should appear in the ways males and females experience sexual jealousy.Read more at location 998
These researchers found that women were consistently more upset by thoughts of their mates’ emotional infidelity, while men showed more anxiety concerning their mates’ sexual infidelity, as the hypothesis predicts.Read more at location 999
According to the standard model, the worst-case scenario for a prehistoric woman in this evolutionary game would be to lose access to her man’s resources and support.Read more at location 1004
From the man’s perspective, as noted above, the worst-case scenario would be to spend his time and resources raising another man’s childrenRead more at location 1008
The male’s mixed strategy would be to have a long-term mate, whose sexual behavior he could control—Read more at location 1016
Meanwhile he should continue having casual (low-investment) sex with as many other women as possible, to increase his chances of fathering more children.Read more at location 1017
cheat on his pregnant wife while being insanely—even violently—jealous of her.Read more at location 1019
The woman’s mixed strategy would be to extract a long-term commitment from the man who offers her the best access to resources, status, and protection, while still seeking the occasional fling with rugged dudes in leather jackets who offer genetic advantages her loving, but domesticated, mate lacks.Read more at location 1023
basic underlying dynamic between men and women is mutual exploitationRead more at location 1031
a foundational premise of the standard narrative is that men have no way of knowing when a woman is fertile.Read more at location 1047
Among primates, the female capacity and willingness to have sex any time, any place is characteristic only of bonobos and humans. “Extended receptivity” is just a scientific way of saying that women can be sexually active throughout their menstrual cycle, whereas most mammals have sex only when it “matters”—that is, when pregnancy can occur.Read more at location 1050
If we accept the assumption that women are not particularly interested in sex, other than as a way to manipulate men into sharing resources, why would human females have evolved this unusually abundant sexual capacity? Why not reserve sex for those few days in the cycle when pregnancy is most probable, as does practically every other mammal?Read more at location 1052
What anthropologist Helen Fisher has called “the classic explanation” goes like this: both concealed ovulation and extended (or, more accurately, constant) sexual receptivity evolved among early human females as a way of developing and cementing the pair bond by holding the attention of a constantly horny male mate.Read more at location 1056
Note: PRIMA TEORIA. GUDAGNARSI UN ATTENZIONE COSTANTE DEL PARTNER E NASCONDERE MEGLIO IL TRADIMENTO Edit
because she was always available for sex, even when not ovulating, there was no reason for him to seek other females for sexual pleasure.Read more at location 1058
because her fertility was hidden, he would be motivated to stick around all the time to maximize his own probability of impregnating her and to ensure that no other males mated with her at any time—Read more at location 1059
“Silent ovulation kept a special friend in constant close proximity, providing protection and food the female prized.”18 Known as “mate guarding behavior” to scientists, contemporary women might call it “that insecure pest who never leaves me alone.”Read more at location 1061
Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy offers a different explanation for the unusual sexual capacity of the human female. She suggests that concealed ovulation and extended receptivity in early hominids may have evolved not to reassure males, but to confuse them. Having noted the tendency of newly enthroned alpha male baboons to kill all the babies of the previous patriarch, Hrdy hypothesized that this aspect of female sexuality may have developed as a way of confusing paternity among various males. The female would have sex with several males so that none of them could be certain of paternity, thus reducing the likelihood that the next alpha male would kill offspring who could be his.Read more at location 1064
Note: SECONDA TEORIA. CONFONDERE E NN STERMINARE I FIGLI DELL ALTRO
