I do think women are genetically wired to pursue commitment more than men--we haven't lost that part of our monkey brains yet. But many women can overcome that impulse or are less interested in commitment due to their circumstances growing up. Personally, I don't know why any woman wants to have a baby, but then again, I didn't play with dolls growing up.

Biochemically, romantic love acts on the brain like crack.  If you want to understand the evolution of romantic love and its effects on our brains, try checking out Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist. Many videos and scientifically oriented articles can be found on that site, including her talk at the 2006 TED conference. I don't think you can understand love (and the drive for commitment) without understanding a little about how evolutionary and neurochemistry influences it.

Men seem evolutionarily drawn towards the feminine, week, and needy for some reason. The more independent and strong and educated you are, the more intimidating you are to men. But there are men out there who like them.

You are a 21st Century woman Ana and I think you will do fine.

by desertpear on 01/23/2009 01:40:35 PM EST

I, like you, come down on the side of evolutionary biology/psychology. I don't go with just my gut or experience.

Facts are facts and research is research, even when (scratch that, *especially* when) we don't like the results.

It's always important to keep in mind that while society can technically override biology to an extent, it's much, much more likely that society will simply exaggerate our natural biological tendencies.

It's not society that teaches men to like large breasts, but it IS society that reinforces and exaggerates the desire. It's not society that reaches everyone to like clear skin, but it IS society that reinforces and exaggerates the desire.

Same story with the role of men and women. The root of our interactions IS based on genes and evolutionary history, but sure, over time people can distort, exaggerate and take advantage of the relationship and interaction. Maybe I'm biased but I think that's the more realistic and productive view, rather than saying it's ALL genes or ALL society.

PS---Ladis is right, Mandy Moore is super cute. Super cute means she looks like a sweet, smart *and* attractive girl you could bring home to mom. This isn't the same as "super hot". Then again...

by Tom Hanc on 01/23/2009 03:21:03 PM EST

[ Parent ]

Society reinforces and exaggerates pre-existing instincts.

And billions of dollars are made by corporations who cater to those amped-up instincts.

by knixphan on 01/24/2009 10:39:27 AM EST

[ Parent ]

"but then again, I didn't play with dolls growing up."

Of course you did; it's just that you called them "action figures," because, you know, only girls play with dolls.

"The more independent and strong and educated you are, the more intimidating you are to men."

Sounds to me like men need to "man up" and get over it.

Complete fail on understanding evolution, btw. If evolution has selected for any trait in humans, it's adaptability: the ability to change our behaviors to suit our needs. Virtually nothing is hard-wired into one gender that isn't also in the other (need to eat, sleep, seek out pleasurable sex). The idea that an entire gender is "evolutionarily" drawn to any set of individual traits is laughably unsupported.

by QED on 01/23/2009 04:29:36 PM EST

[ Parent ]

It's true--I had no dolls. or action figures (there actually weren't that many of those aside from Barbie and GI Joe when I grew up). I liked animal toys and reading. Maybe that is why I became a biologist.

Got some links to support your assertions? The word "adaptable" by itself doesn't make any sense to me. In what way specifically are you talking about? Diet? Habitat? Flexible mating strategies? Sure, we are adaptable, as are lots of species, but that doesn't mean it completely overrides hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

You think mate choice in humans is driven by God or what? Sorry, but sexual selection still has a very strong influence, even if other (conscious) factors are involved. And whether you are conscious of these drives or not doesn't mean they do not exist.

Here are some articles with which you can educate yourself.

If mate choice was purely random, we would probably never have evolved at all.

Do you not believe in sexual selection at all? Or just in humans? And why would we be so different?

"Before we go on to look at the relevance of sexual selection theory to human evolution, we need to address the question; why female as opposed to male choice? In order to explore this, it is worth introducing the term parental investment. Parental investment (PI), an idea first introduced by R. L. Trivers, is defined as any investment by a parent in one of her (his) offspring that increases the chance that the offspring will survive at the expense of that parent’s ability to invest in any other offspring (alive or yet to be born). PI then includes the provision of a wide range of resources such as food, energy and time expended obtaining food and maintaining the home or nest; time spent teaching children and risks taken to protect young. In terms of PI, there is a fundamental asymmetry between the sexes – females have an initial investment in their offspring far greater than that of males because female gametes (eggs) are much more costly to produce than those of males (sperm). This means that a female can have only a limited number of offspring, whereas a male can have a virtually unlimited number, provided that he can find females willing to mate with him. Thus females generally need to be much choosier about who they mate with. The criteria for what constitutes a good choice of male will vary considerably from species to species, but the basic point about female choice remains."

by desertpear on 01/23/2009 06:17:28 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I think you're both missing the point, I mean both camps, the nurture/nature debate here. I know it is already off/topic of Ana's post and I always go off/off/topic and take it too far, but I think the real point is that evolution isn't a dead process, like, say history. It is taking place right now. As a matter of fact, men are, every generation becoming less "masculine" because of degeneration to the y chromosome. This isn't the only part of evolution, but it is an important, oft overlooked one. When apes and chimps and neanderthal split off, I mean any time a species, well, becomes a species, it is often as not because of this process.

Its funny, if you think about it like say Woody Allen, sort of neurotically, if you think about say John McCain or about the Bush father son team, about the so-called greatest generation, you think about Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, men have these impossible archetypes to become, filling your father's shoes, that sort of thing. Woody Allen might envision it as the future of sex with the orgasmatron, others envision it as all men becoming neutered (I think he had something on that too, didn't he) or asexual, perhaps Morrissey was a signal in this direction. All sort of aseptic and white and clean like a hospital. If you think about certain elements of Apple design and how chic and futuristic it looks, well, we have the metrosexual, you know. Then again we have shows like Mad Men which envision a sort of middle ground between today's metrosexual and the John Wayne, Greatest Generation Humphrey Bogart types. But they're all just images, John Wayne wore women's panties and Rock Hudson was flaming. But I think the issue of being gay and these archetypes might be two separate ideas, not sure if they are mutually exclusive or not.


My point is that humans might be currently evolving, if you mention this in a bar or at a superbowl party in the context I've stated the room becomes quiet, you'll get an "oooooKK" and people looking at you funny, then the guys will start burping and chest bumping to prove how manly they are. A beer or truck commercial will come on and they'll all high five or fist bump and then people are reassured when things return to normal. Whatever normal is.

But it is a scientific fact. What does it mean exactly? I'm not quite sure. But if you took this fact solely with certain trends you might come up with some either terrifying and disturbing or enlightened and hopeful conclusions based upon your own outlook and stereotypes and gender biases. If you look at it with birth control, cloning, same sex marriage, women's rights, the glass ceiling, you might start to draw the conclusion that Maureen Dowd did, are men really necessary. In bee colonies they protect the queen, one gets chosen to mate her, the rest look for flowers and dance. Sounds a lot like clubKids. Fabulous.

But these things always come in waves and then reactions to the waves, backlashes and it tough to tell sometimes which direction things are really going in. Men have been threatened by women's grab for power in politics and the home and the workplace, and have reacted by creating sports dens, sports bars, we pump ourselves up with Viagra and steroids, we cloister together to watch football and connect to virtually kill online in hunting packs over high speed broadband, we fantasize en masse with baseball and Jenna Jameson, or whomever the latest hottest porn star is, we retreat to man caves to find solace in the mundane, from ranking our favorite softcore tit wanking hardbody glam pinups to checking scores and updating links and watching Arnie and Stalone and now even Jamiee Fox shoot stuff and blow shit up.

Saying no girl likes to be lied to is actually insulting to women, it is an absolute statement that does not take into account, well, psychosis for one thing. Perhaps an addendum differentiating girls and women as a woman would be self-actualized and not a lil girl, but then you get the whole bag of defining a woman, which well, I won't even touch. I have enough trouble defining myself let alone men and I've obviously barely got a clue here right. But ya, most, 99 percent of women not only don't want to be lied to they don't deserve it, I've been as guilty as any man of lying to women to get laid or to someone how other try to manipulate the situation to however you want to say it, better serve my own needs or agenda. It always backfires.
That's life.

One problem is that if you admit it, then you get dumped on by both women and men. Men suddenly kick you out of their secret men only women haters club (see the little rascal for details) with the secret hand shake and unspoken understood misogyny. And women point you out and say, see, he admits it, hang him. Or they just assume you're gay if you are trying to get more in touch with your feelings. 

So I think, to get back to the original post and not my tangent, that perhaps you need to redefine the terms of the discussion. Men feel betrayed that a woman will say she wants the honest straight shooter, but when the guy tries to come clean he's either a sleaze bag for his past indiscretions or he's gay for trying to get in touch with his emotions. Women will say, no we just want honesty and that is sexy. The man says, OK, then I think you're hot let's get it on, show me some bikini shots. Ew don't be gross and childish. See, I told you, you don't want me to be honest. No, I want you talk about your feelings. They guy talks about his feelings the woman says he's whining. Or being weird. So the man ends up with the conclusion that women are either lying themselves or they are clueless about what they really want, or that they like to be lied to. Because they are in effect saying that what the woman wants, an honest guy who's straight, handsome good looking clean cut likes sex no emotional issues grown up commitment friendly blah blah blah does not exist, no such animal, that this is an image they've created in their minds, and what they settle for at the bar, or on the eSite or whatever is some version of this they project onto the guy that he readily fills if it gets him what he wants (playa, playa) and they inevitably end up disappointed when the horrid truth comes out.

Eh, well, I guess that's one version, but people still get married, settle down, have kids, right?

Personally, I think it would be interesting to see what would happen in a world dominated by women, there is evidence to suggest that society was ruled by women perhaps from 120,000 years ago until very recently, as in the past 5 or 10 thousand years. Then again look at Ape culture and the silverbacks, But then again we didn't descend directly from apes, and Bonobos for instance have lesbian tea parties all the time.

I don't know, I mean it is probably be careful what you wish for, some sort of dark nightmare vision from Heinland or Philip K. Dick or something like the handmaiden's tale, a sort of immature prepubescent fantasy with dominatrixes in vinyl and platforms, serving milk at the clockwork orange Korova titty bar, while ruling from on high.

I understand women aren't asking for that and don't want it, if you believe Sex in the City they just want more closet space (OK I probably took away the wrong message, sue me); they, you, want equality, fairness, working together, honesty, I know I know. But things often don't work out that way. Rock the boat don't rock the boat baby, tip the boat don't tip the boat over. There is the law of unintended consequences. Who's to say where same sex marriage, higher pay for women, in vitro and cloning, estrus and the pill, women's rights and politics could all lead in a hundred years. Women certainly gained certain advantages whenever they started getting 13 periods a year, instead of mating in one season, but mention that to any woman and she'll punch you in the gut a few times and ask you how that feels. And obviously men gained a few advantages too, there was a lot more sex.

Men are "degenerating" regardless of science. But as science continues to improve on technology, women might eventually have 100 percent control over the reproductive process, legality often is slow to keep up with technology. But as women slowly take more political power this will change too. So that 100 years from now it might be normal to have families of lesbians raising children and being completely accepted in society. But why stop there, this is already the case in some areas (the acceptance part), why not envision entire towns (sometimes people segregate out of choice because they are not accepted elsewhere). Of course I've gone back on my tangent.

Think about it, if guys could just be honest you wouldn't have to be reading my insane lunatic rant which seems to have no end and less point.

As for us men and our tendency to cling to certain anti-social behaviors like lying, the way we retreat to our men caves and in general act like Neanderthals, I find it ironic that at the same time, we (as in society) mock cavemen (Geico, the flintstones) and laugh at how backwards they are. The typical look is bigger, slower, slow as in less witty more dull, more muscular, a big dope. I mean it was the degeneration in the species so to speak, the degeneration in the y chromosome, where we probably had less of these characteristics we think of as so male, I don't know enough about the effects of the y chromosome on testosterone to talk with authority on it, but just in general it seems like, well wait a minute. Isn't that exactly the same thing that is going on now? Shouldn't we be happy to get in touch with our more sensitive side, turn into metrosexuals or whatever, hand in our mens only women's haters club cards for NOW membership and become more progressive? Wouldn't we be happier? Then wouldn't we simply look back and laugh at how ignorant and backwards we used to be?

Or have I been co-opted and brainwashed by Maureen Dowd (and now Ana)? Hmm...

Well, as in the Amish, I think there will simply always be pockets of groups in society which simply refuse to keep up with the times and decide that they are going to hide their heads in the sand and simply act as if the changes in society have not happened because they refuse to see them.

Whatever you do, don't click this link (studies show you're more likely if you shouldn't)

by tiggerporn on 01/24/2009 07:10:48 PM EST

[ Parent ]

If you can see the differences over just 2-3 generations, it's very unlikely that genetic evolution is the cause.

This whole post is just shot through with some dude's insecurity about his masculinity. It's not genetics that are changing, it's not the Y chromosome "degenerating;" it's societal expectations and culture which are changing and obsoleting _your_ idea of what masculinity is. Genetics and evolution have fuck-all to do with this.

This is a perfect example of what I am talking about when I say that a lot of "evolutionary psychology" is just putting your own personal irrational beliefs in science-y clothes. No one who actually understood how evolution works could have written this post.

by QED on 01/27/2009 01:11:30 PM EST

[ Parent ]
WTF?!? Are you a newbie or just a troll??!? I had to check your profile (which I am loathe to do usually) just to make sure you weren't KenTX in disguise. Get a fucking clue and please try and be more polite in the future.

You are an absolutist, where as I am far more of a relativist. You say things with complete certainty, where as I'm more interested in raising questions. I try not to use terms like "no one" (as in "no one who actually understands...), never, always etc.

You come off really rude and authoritative and it makes you sound ignorant. Of course you are right, genetics has nothing to do with anything, it is all society and upbringing. You are 100 percent right, right? Because you can't have any doubt in there, it might make your whole argument collapse.

If I wrote a perfect example of what you were talking about, then you too exemplified my argument, that whenever a guy tries to be honest about his feelings, suddenly he's just a dude shot through with insecurity. Please try and separate my self-deprecating humor in a comment section describing men as self-loathing dogs who just want to lie and fuck and lie, and my comments on the evolutionary process. And maybe just maybe realize that I'm self-aware of writing in that style and more secure in my masculinity than you realize. In other words secure enough to expose the insecurity.

Genetics are changing, the y chromosome does mutate, these are simply facts. Can I ask you a question, what grades did you get in math and biology and chemistry? Another? Have you ever read Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" or "On the Origin of Species " ? These might be good places to start for you to try and get a basic grasp. Are you sure there is no way I could understand the evolutionary process? You're sure?

The Y chromosome is devolving through mutation, the rate at which it is devolving is increasing and at an exponential rate. But I also posed this, if you reread it, in terms of a millennial scale, and no where did I say that it is solely happening over 2 or 3 generations. Yes the rate at which it is happening has increased over the past 100 years, but it has been going on for 100,000 years.

Think of a damn into which you pour water, the rate at which you pour it ever increasing. At some point it hits a critical stage where it is going to burst the damn. It might take 100,000 drops, but as the rate increases exponentially, eventually it is no longer dropping but flowing and you cannot pinpoint precisely when or where which drop of water is the one that causes the damn to final break. We are at or approaching that point now, on the cusp of evolutionary change.

I completely believe in societal change, in the changing role of women in the home and workplace effecting changes in politics which reverberate back. But to say that genetics has nothing to do with anything is just silly.

If you'd like to continue this I wouldn't mind but please don't attack me personally anymore and please read up on some modern genetics, there have been so many advances in the past few years, you really ought to check your facts and make sure that you understand the evolutionary process yourself before making blanket statements about other's knowledge. Thanks.

Whatever you do, don't click this link (studies show you're more likely if you shouldn't)

by tiggerporn on 01/27/2009 09:41:00 PM EST

[ Parent ]
"You think mate choice in humans is driven by God or what?"

First off, choice of sex partner is not the same thing as choice of mate, as should be obvious to anyone who has even read about humans. People have sex all the time with other people who they would NEVER want to procreate with. (And of course nonprocreative sex is pretty much the only kind gays and lesbians have.)

Setting that aside, sex-partner-choice is driven primarily by upbringing (including, but not limited to, culture) and an individual's personal history.

Don't get me wrong - there ARE certain characteristics that we are hardwired to find attractive. Clean skin, symmetry of facial features, etc. The problem is that many many people such as yourself fall into the delusion that whatever characteristics they personally find attractive, or whatever most people in their society find attractive, somehow reflects some deeper genetic truth.

It doesn't. Whenever you hear someone bloviating about breast size, for example, that person is 99% of the time talking out of their ass. Breast size does not correlate well (if at all) with milk production, the typical excuse given when some guy is trying to dress his personal opinions up in the guise of science.

What's more, the fact that standards of beauty vary WILDLY across region, society, culture, and class indicates that very few traits actually correspond with any "hardwired" attractiveness. Truly hardwired features are common across all history, across all human societies. 

If reproductive fitness were actually the major determinant of sexual attraction, the most-desirable women would be somewhat muscular, stocky, with what used to be referred to as "child-bearing hips," and a healthy amount of fat tissue. This is so obviously not the case that it's absurd to even suggest.

The explanation which best fits the evidence (a phrase that should have not a little import to you if you're actually a biologist) is that sexual attraction is overwhelmingly determined by environment. Men ARE programmed to find certain features attractive; it's just that it's cultural and social programming, not evolutionary programming.

(P.S. Your animal toys were somehow not dolls?)

 

by QED on 01/27/2009 02:36:31 PM EST

[ Parent ]

Whatever you do, don't click this link (studies show you're more likely if you shouldn't)

by tiggerporn on 01/27/2009 09:59:29 PM EST

[ Parent ]

"I do think women are genetically wired to pursue commitment more than men--we haven't lost that part of our monkey brains yet. But many women can overcome that impulse or are less interested in commitment due to their circumstances growing up."

I agree that this is true and I think multiple mates is a strong evolutionary directive in men.  Interestingly (and you've probably heard this), studies of bonobos and chimps have shown that the females, while establishing long term partnerships with a male, will have sex on the sly with males that are socially and physically "superior" but will raise the offspring with their mate.  They increase their chances for dominant offspring this way.  So the evolutionary sword cuts both ways when it comes to cheating.  Maybe that will make Ana feel a little better about  the whole thing. 

"Men seem evolutionarily drawn towards the feminine, week, and needy for some reason."

Well, naturally toward the feminine.  There are certain physical characteristics that are going to make any woman more successful at finding a mate no matter what.  There's no getting around this -  it's hard-wired into the male brain. 

I don't know about "weak" though.  That isn't it.  Can't a woman be both feminine and strong?  That idea is what really trips the trigger for me.  I would phrase it more like this:  Men seem to have an evolutionary predisposition to dominate.  I think they just tend to be more successful at this with a weaker woman and so they settle for it.

by bfaul on 01/23/2009 06:34:51 PM EST

[ Parent ]

Except that what a person considers to be feminine characteristics is heavily, if not entirely, influenced by the environment in which they're brought up.

desertpear's post contains a perfect example of this, which you've noticed: he (she?) considers weakness to be a feminine trait. This belief is at odds with reality.

And now I'd ask you to extend that skeptical line of questioning to your own assumptions. Do men actually have an evolutionary predisposition to dominate? The evidence weighs against that conclusion. There's an awful lot of child-rearing that teaches boys to be dominating, and girls to be submissive. If the urge to dominate were really so genetically hardwired, we wouldn't need any of this. The fact that we have to teach these behaviors indicates that it's NOT hardwired to do so.

You're committing a very common fallacy, which is to think, "Because I feel something strongly, it must be hardwired into me." It's the same fallacy that the religious make: because they feel better when they pray, they are then convinced that their god or gods must be real, or how else would they get these good feelings?

by QED on 01/27/2009 01:37:41 PM EST

[ Parent ]