The Evolution of Desire
How we choose - and lose - our mates has always been a source of fascination. This controversial book is the first to present a unified theory of human mating behavior. The Evolution of Desire is based on the most massive study of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide. If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question, we must look into our evolutionary past, according to David M. Buss. For in attracting, keeping, or even breaking up with our mates, we are closer to our ancestral forebears than many of us think. With examples ranging from "love bugs" to elephant seals, from the Yanomamo tribe of Venezuela to the characters in A Streetcar Named Desire and contemporary men and women at singles bars, the author tells what women want, what men want, and then explains why their desire differ radically. The book discusses casual sex and long-term relationships, sexual conflict, the elusive quest for harmony between the sexes, and much more. Buss's findings - which have been widely reported in both academia and the popular press - are provocative. He reveals, for example, why men lower their standards for short-term relationships but women maintain high standards for both casual sex partners and potential husbands. He explains why men worldwide prefer physical cues such as smooth skin and a particular waist-hip ratio.
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- The best resource on human mating strategies is David Buss, The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating.
Documented, empirical, and factually "cold".
- The cat vs. dog data is common knowledge in the online dating community. I would speculate that dogs evoke masculine associations because early species of dogs bred from wolves were used for hunting and that association is forever in our primal brains. Going out further on a limb I would speculate that the men showing dogs are not displaying poodles or shih tzus but rather dogs that were traditionally trackers and hunters like shepherds and pit bulls.
One thing that the release of dating site data like [1] has shown that we are replaying evolutionary dynamics using high tech apps. Which is _not_ surprising as our species is the product of evolution. For anyone in the dating market, male or female, I high recommend The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating by David Buss. Lectures by Dr. Gad Saad and Dr. Diana S. Fleischman on youtube are also interesting and worth the effort. More than anything else it allowed me to understand my mating preferences and those of my potential mates which often go against stated preferences.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IHS3XE2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- I’m not saying that promiscuous women always have issues, and I apologize if I hurt anyone by implying that, but I am saying that there’s just too much chance I will hurt a woman’s feelings if I had a sexual encounter with them without being open to having a relationship with them.
The fact that women by and large prefer long term relationships is well known in the evolutionary psychology community. See, for example, David M. Buss The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (ISBN 978-0465097760), which discusses this in great detail. Or, just go to https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/n.htm where we can see women have, on average, fewer sexual partners than men.
The study which has been used to argue that women secretly cheat on their man, the one where women supposedly wanted to be unfaithful when they were ovulating, had a lot of methodological problems and was debunked when they tried to replicate its results. Read https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/ovulation-research-wome... for a lay summary of the actual science behind this.
Another data point: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/science/extra-marital-pat... which shows cuckoldry is quite rare (and it’s amazing the number of people who don’t want to accept this science in the comments for the article).
In my own personal experience, I have talked to a lot of women who have struggled with promiscuity (i.e. they do not want to be promiscuous any more). The very consistently have had poor or non-existent relationships with their fathers and have issues with alcohol and/or drug abuse.
There are exceptions, of course, but the science on the matter indicates they are outliers.
