Comments on: Interesting research on mate selection

By: Pelle Billing

Pelle Billing — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:56:52 +0000

Thanks Andrea.

Sure, arranged marriages would not reinforce the tendencies we’re talking about. But let’s remember that humanity has been around for 200,000 years, and arranged marriages only make sense once you have some property to look out for. Agrarian farming arose 5-7000 years ago, and it was then that humanity started creating a significant surplus for the first time.

Humans may also have inherited characteristics from earlier hominids, and then we’re talking several hundreds of thousands years more of forming our “attraction blueprints” - without any arranged marriages present.

By: andrea

andrea — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:26:09 +0000

But, did women in “biblical times”, or any other era before the modern one, really have much of an opportunity to even practice mate selection? I was under the impression that marriage was more a matter of the transferal of property between a girl’s father and another man or as an alliance builder between two families ( in which case neither party has much choice).

I’m rather new to the evolutionary psych conversation, but I find it very interesting. I’d love to know how you all think arranged marriages fit into the whole equation.

I also just stumbled onto this blog this morning. Nice work, Pelle.

By: Pelle Billing

Pelle Billing — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:35:20 +0000

Agreed, but there’s a difference in degree, which is significant.

By: ProudMisanthrope

ProudMisanthrope — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:05:07 +0000

Men have to stay healthy too. Poor health and insane risk taking eventually make sperm retarded or completely inept. Men also have their own standards of beauty because why would a woman, say in biblical times, want to marry a leper man?

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:39:01 +0000

“Burkley and Parker speculate that single women may be more drawn to attached men because they’ve already been “pre-screened” by other women and found to be satisfactory as a mate, whereas single men are more of an unknown quantity.”

Sure thing. And then again it just may be the psychological equivalent of group sex.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:46:21 +0000

“Therefore they are chosen to be “boyish” without too much body fat.”

I think they are chosen to be girlish, in line with the current obsession with youthfulness. Girlishness plays into claims of victimhood and pleas for provison and protection, so it can be a very attractive and high pay-off pose to adopt.

I don’t think any of these modesl look especially boyish, at least not like boys that most boys would recognoze as boyish.

By: hieronemus

hieronemus — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:29:23 +0000

The female models shown in mainstream media are meant to appeal to other women. Therefore they are chosen to be “boyish” without too much body fat.

By: Pelle Billing

Pelle Billing — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:30:27 +0000

I agree with what Danny and Jim say about women and body fat. The ideal women in the media, is not the ideal woman for a company producing porn. And since porn producers are in the business of trying to connect to the most primal sex drive in men, perhaps they are less influenced by cultural tides than the mainstream media. I don’t know whether that last part is true, but I do know that symmetrical facial features seem to be universally attractive, while desirable amounts of body fat varies between cultures.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:12:45 +0000

But if you are referring to depictions of women in art and so on, yeah, I think it’s pretty indisputable that modern depictions are much skinnier than in the past, as recently as the 50’s.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:11:11 +0000

“I would certainly have thought that men went for women with significantly more body fat than what we’re seeing today.”

I think they still do go for women with more body fat than than what we are shown today, as opposed to what we are seeing. There’s an unbridgeable chasm between fashion publications - porn directed at women, and then on the other hand porn directed at straight men. The porn directed at women is more socially accpetable, natrurally, and that’s what we are shown.

Then again, the question may be what you mean by “go for”. Men may be going for skinny women for one thing, and more substantial women for another - the Whore/Madonna divide.