As a man I know myself fairly well.  A gorgeous woman with a fair personality will get my attention more easily than a fair looking woman with a fantastic personality.  I may eventually not continue with the gorgeous woman (after a lot of sex) but the fair looking woman is probably the better choice long term.  Do women think this way?  (I don't think so).  Is there some evolutionary explanation for this male vs. female difference (assuming I am correct)?

Population genetics demands evolution which strictly defined is the allele frequency of genes in a specie population.

I know that seems jargon, but it means those genes which provide the best chance for survival through SEXUAL reproduction are the ones most likely to be perpetuated.

Biology shows us in the animal kingdom that the males, though stronger, are less numerous by percentage within a specific specie. Thus they have to attract the females and do so by being more colorful. You especially see this in birds. But mammals exhibit it to. The lion with his mane is more colorful than the lioness. In humans it is also true. Human males when stripped of clothing are more colorful than females. They have body hair and beards.

However, in humans, an evolved brain and self awareness allowed critical thinking and the ability to change the environment. This led to language, culture and what we know as society, and caused some of the behaviours to reverse or change because humans can make choices. (Lower animals, are instinctual.)

Also, humans live longer now (because of that evolved brain again) and males have a longer time to increase the frequency of alleles by having a series of mates that are physically attract, and also be attracted to those females which may not have their progeny but can provide comfort and pleasure in other ways.

Females don't behave that way. Especially mammals which carry the progeny inside them and which needs protection after birth. They are attracted to the strong male who can provide for the child. they want the security.

But that darn evolved brain has mess it up again. the female doesn't just get to pick the most colorful and strongest individual male to have a child by, so females have CULTURALLY adapted and started to become more colorful by using make-ip, clothing, and doing their hair.

Remember...  men can safely reproduce into their 70s. Women only through their 30s. That also changes the behaviour of women drastically.

So blame it on that darn evolved brain!  

So that's why you are attracted to the more colorful female and want to have sex with them one after the other. You want to increase those good genes. But also why you eventually want to hang with the one with character, you live longer.


The Cog

Flames =======>  dev/null

Dear Brad Pitt [oh plumed one, LOL]

Of course Cognitive Dissident is completely right. I'll just put a little different, simpler spin on the answer to your question: Actually, recent evolutionary theories put a much smaller difference on male-female human mating behavior than previously assumed. The key is the Short Term Mating Strategy that both males and females employ. You are describing it in terms of your own behavior - for immediate screwing, a more gorgeous female will do; for a long-term investment, i.e. care for the parental offspring, a less gorgeous but more 'resourcefully adapted' [read educated, brainy] female will be more fitting to your purposes.

In earlier evolutionary psychology, we assumed that women ignored gorgeous Brad Pittians and went more for homely Ross Perotians in every case possible. We assumed that the parental investment theory in terms of resources, protection and ability to provide for the offspring was always in force for women. An ugly rich man would always win over a poor gorgeous man [as Brad Pitt once was.] Now we know that it's not true. Repeated studies have shown that when women ovulate, they are drawn to faces more like Brad's than Ross's. The reason:  it is assumed that more masculine looking men will generate babies that are stronger, fitter and have more of a chance to survive. Later, in a woman's luteal phase (when ovulation has taken place and she's heading toward her menses,) we have observed that women select someone with more diffuse facial features and an absence of many morphologically hypermasculine traits. Such features have been associated with beta-males, less stridency and perhaps more nurturing. So Brad may lose out to e.g. Tom Hanks in the end, especially if a woman has missed her window for baby-making and is more focused on her own survival and that of the existent offspring. Less hunk, more cash. Of course, Brad Pitt is a bad example, since he's got both...but picture Brad in his 20s, as in "Thelma and Louise." Poor, gorgeous, with washboard abs. Tom never looked that good...but you know he wouldn't stray either. He'd show up on the dot outside the cave with some dependable bounty. Means a lot to a strapped cave woman!

Now in Short Term Mating strategies, women will be less choosy in terms of parental investment, and more apt to pick whatever is advantageous to them in the immediate situation. They may pick the cave man who perhaps is older and toothless, someone who represents less genetic fitness but may be carrying a bauta piece of meat with him. This enables the female to distribute extra resources, either to her offspring or simply to herself. If she's had trouble conceiving, she may indeed pick Brad Pitt, only because she thinks she'll have a better chance at generating another clan member immediately. Short Term mating is undertaken for selfish purposes by both men and women.

In the end, I do believe men and women are more alike than different, however, women do put a much higher premium on offspring in the long term. And depending on the man's own resources and genetic fitness, he may mix and match, only because he's a 'cave man player' and can have many wives. Just observe someone like Donald Trump. His first wife [fair looking with fantastic personality, the Czech accent notwithstanding] produced the heir to his fortune. He spent just enough time with her to ensure that his offspring would be nurtured until they emptied the nest. When he was done with their mother, he married one gorgeous bimbo after another. And, since they were thinking long-term, they ignored the comb-over hairstyle and focused on his millions instead. But for Short Term mating, who's to say that Marla and/or Melania aren't screwing their hunky gardeners?

In Woody Allen's words from the film "Husbands And Wives" (1992):
"The heart raged, grew melancholy and confused. And toward what end? To articulate what nitwit strategy? Procreation?
It told him something. How millions of sperm competed for a single egg, not the other way around. Men would make love with any number of women even total strangers, while females were selective. They were catering to the demands of one small egg, while males had millions of frantic sperms screaming "Let us out, let us out!"

Have fun mating, Brad,
the Love Goddess

It sounds like women are basically "hard-wired" to consider as many angles as possible when it comes to "mating" whereas men have basically one (to a point (g)).

Now if only we could get the far-righters to understand and acknowledge the fact that humans are, by nature, polygamous animals and that monogamy is something that's been beaten into us by societal norms, predominantly the church.

Indeed, NDGeekboy,

You're on to something. In 2005, the journal Nature, published some startling studies on the second X chromosome of women - the one previously thought "silent." But this chromosome may account for the 'unpredictable' variation in women..and the more solipsistic expression of genes in men.
For every man who thinks women are complex, there's new evidence they're correct; at least when it comes to their genes.

Men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, the latter being responsible for the characteristics that make men male, including the male sexual organs and the ability to produce sperm. In contrast, women have two copies of the X chromosome. But, because the X chromosome carries a bigger instruction manual than the Y chromosome, biology's solution is to largely inactivate one X chromosome in females, giving one functional copy of the X in both men and women. But the study found that the "inactive" X in women wasn't so passive after all. The effects of these genes from the inactive X chromosome could explain some of the differences between men and women that aren't attributable to sex hormones.

Depending on the gene, having two active copies can matter very little, or very much. When genes on the inactive X escape inactivation and are expressed, that can create a stronger overall concentration of particular genes. The study determined which genes were escaping inactivation and where they were located on the inactive X chromosome. They found that most of the wayward genes were grouped together.

A two-lab system was developed to investigate the inactive X chromosome. Using primary skin cells,  gene expression was compared between the X chromosome and the inactive chromosome for 94 genes spanning the X chromosome in 40 human samples. It was found that only 65 percent of the genes were inactive in all samples. Twenty percent were inactivated in some samples and not in others, and 15 percent escaped inactivation in all samples. In addition, many of those from the inactive X that were expressed were only partially expressed.

The second laboratory system used other cell lines to compare inactive to active X chromosomes and recorded genes expressed from inactive X chromosomes. Six hundred twenty-four genes on the chromosome were tested with this system and also showed that 16 percent of genes on the inactive X escaped inactivation, confirming the results in the first laboratory model.

Although this data was collected from cell culture experiments, it neatly explains that there is more variability among females than scientists thought.

The data also suggests that the female genome now differs from the male genome in at least four ways. First, previous studies had shown that the Y chromosome gives males several genes that are absent in the female. Second, this study shows the fact that some genes on the inactive X are expressed means that about 15 percent of the genes are expressed at higher levels in females than in males. Third, this study also shows an additional 10 percent of genes on the inactive X show variable expression levels in females, whereas men have only a single copy of these genes. And finally, scientists had already known that random nature of X-inactivation shows that females, but not males, are mosaics of two cell populations with respect to X-linked gene expression.

It can be concluded that these differences should be recognized as potential factors for explaining normal differences between the sexes but also gender differences in how certain diseases are manifested, progress and respond to treatment.

So what does this mean in real life - well, it could mean exactly what you're suggesting. Me, I always get this little tune playing in my head [from Verdi's  1851 opera Rigoletto] "La Donna e mobile qual piuma al vento.." transl: Woman is fickle like a feather in the wind!

Tralalalallalaaa,
the Love Goddess

-- Modified on 7/27/2006 1:19:11 AM

-- Modified on 7/27/2006 1:19:58 AM

Il Trovetore, also by Verdi.  Especially the anvil chorus.  

This is an awful lot to digest.

I find it much simpler to follow my instincts in love.  Usually  works.

RUN! RUN! RUN!

Holy shmagoley.  Nature does play a heavier hand in a person's psychological make-up than I expected.  Not that Nurturing doesn't play its fair share but...wow.

There was an article I read about ten years ago, while I (im)patiently waited for my laundry to dry; have to say that I really like (and subscribe to) that evolutionary biologists take on things: Men and Women are basically two different species that happen to be able to breed.

Heya CD.

While I agree that men do have their plumage, I also have to say that women have theirs.  Normally in animals, the sex organs are around the posterior.  When it's time to mate, phermones and colors and what have you explode to life.  But when humans started walking upright, the rules of the game had to change a little bit.  The female sex organs weren't quite so exposed anymore so what developed to catch the eye of the male?

Breasts.

As strange as it sounds, one theory put forth suggests that the breasts of the human female developed as a sort of...counterpart to the posterior, as a means of attracting males basically coming and going.

There are strategies - mental "plumage," so to speak - that are hardwired into a person as well.  Flirting is probably the biggest example.  A friend had noticed that her little girl, maybe two years old at the time, was giving "coy" eyes to one or two of the men about her.  Where does a girl that young learn how to flirt - unless it's something that is hardwired into the person?  I've seen episodes on Animal Planet as well, where researchers have noticed that sometimes a female will essentially instigate a courtship battle between two viable males.  (Wish I could remember what species this was but it was still enough to make me go, "Well...wow.")

The evolved brain might be something to behold but the animal portions of it are still something to beware.

"They are attracted to the strong male who can provide for the child. they want the security."

Only for marrying. They will mate with the one that suits them physcially and use the "security" male to help raise the offspring. In the US, one in 10 children does not belong to the man that thinks it is his, and that statistic has been constant since the 1940s.