Claim: women's nature is to avoid commitment-free sex and sex with men who would make bad "husbands"/fathers.

Most of us are wired to pair bond, suggesting that a committed "husband"/father mattered throughout our evolutionary history (i.e. there weren't so many resources that children didn't need fathers, and children weren't raised equally by the whole tribe).
Without modern technology (i.e. throughout our evolutionary history) there was no effective birth control, so sex could be assumed to lead to pregnancy, though I suppose people could have killed their newborns as a form of birth control, but...
...without modern technology pregnancy itself is quite risky for the woman, she could die etc. Wasting a pregnancy (and remember without effective birth control sex leads to pegnancy, so might as well say "wasting sex") on a guy who is not committed or who would make a bad "husband"/father is something women should be wired to avoid.
On top of that, a pregnant woman could be weak, sick, and need someone to take care of her. An uncommitted man would not be there for her, a man who is a bad "husband"/father would not do a good job taking care of her.
Human children take a very long time to grow into adults, they need a lot of care. Women should want men who would be committed at least until the kids become fully grown adults, and perhaps even past that (the man could be committed to his adult children and their children or his grandchildren).
Having another man's kid would make a woman less desirable to a man who would make a good "husband"/father, and who would want to commit.
Also strength-related traits have strong genetic components, perhaps commitment/good "husband"/good father traits do as well. If a woman has kids by a man who doesn't want to commit, or who would make a bad "husband"/father then those kids would inherit those genes and perhaps would not take good care of their own kids. The genes of women who are willing to have casual sex should be at a long term disadvantage to the genes of women who select committed men who are good "husbands" and fathers.

These things lead me to the conclusion that women are wired to avoid commitment-free sex and avoid sex with men who would make bad "husbands"/fathers.

It is natural for women to seek out the best man she can get who is a combination of traits that signal strength/ability to take care of the woman and children, as well as the desire to do so, so things like commitment, loyalty, wanting to provide.

A weak guy couldn't take care of the woman and her children, a guy who is not committed could leave or cheat and divert resources to his mistresses/other children.

If women wanted to have lots of casual sex, they could easily do so, and you might have lots and lots of women with hundreds of sexual partners. This is not what the stats on lifetime partners that I've seen show.

Yet TRP talks a lot about the cock carousel, so maybe some women do "ride the carousel" (though really any woman who really spends her youth riding the carousel should rack up huge numbers of partners).

Assuming some women do truly want to have casual sex, I would argue that they've been brainwashed/peer-pressured by society to go against their natures. Maybe they are actively deceived by men who try to pass themselves off as potential strong and loyal mates, when in reality they just want to "pump and dump".

Then you get stuff like this:

http://totalsororitymove.com/is-it-possible-that-there-is-something-in-between-consensual-sex-and-rape-and-that-it-happens-to-almost-every-girl-out-there/

It wasn’t until he grabbed a condom that I really knew how I felt. I was not okay with this. I did not want to have sex with him.

But I did.

He slid inside me and I didn’t say a word. At the time, I didn’t know why. Maybe I didn’t want to feel like I’d led him on. Maybe I didn’t want to disappoint him. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with the “let’s do it, but no, we shouldn’t” verbal tug-of-war that so often happens before sleeping with someone. It was easier to just do it. Besides, we were already in bed, and this is what people in bed do. I felt an obligation, a duty to go through with it. I felt guilty for not wanting to. I wasn’t a virgin. I’d done this before. It shouldn’t have been a big deal–it’s just sex–so I didn’t want to make it one.

I stared at the ceiling the whole time, occasionally flashing him the fake smile reserved for people you accidentally make eye contact with in the grocery store. I don’t think I moved the entire time, and I didn’t care if he noticed. I just wanted it to end, and I knew it wouldn’t be long. I just had to suck it up for a few minutes, let him do his thing, and it would be over.

This is a person who didn't want to have sex but did because of... social pressure? Brainwashing?

I wonder how much casual sex/ONS that is had by women is like the above example, or is due to peer pressure and societal brainwashing, or being deceived by the guy into thinking that he's commitment material rather than genuine desire to do so.

If you look at the kind of thing women really want (i.e. the kinds of traits male leads in popular romances geared at women have, what women fantasize about) it is a Mr. Right who has the qualities that signal strength as well as loyalty, it's not a lot of one night stands and casual sex.

[–]Agharta15 7 points8 points9 points 11 years ago (23 children) | Copy Link

No, it means that women are wired to avoid reproductive behavior with men that are poor genetic material and avoid commitment with men who would make bad "husbands/fathers."

That's AF/BB in a nutshell. That's why plenty of men do have ONSs and that's why women are more likely to engage in ONSs while at their most fertile.

It is natural for women to seek out the best man she can get who is a combination of traits that signal strength/ability to take care of the woman and children, as well as the desire to do so, so things like commitment, loyalty, wanting to provide. A weak guy couldn't take care of the woman and her children, a guy who is not committed could leave or cheat and divert resources to his mistresses/other children.

In a perfect world, you find both strength (genetic fitness) and commitment (provisioning) in the same guy at the same time.

In the real world, genetic fitness is preferred when it's most beneficial (when women are younger, and at their most fertile at any other age) and commitment is preferred when it's most beneficial.

Contra much of what TRP sub says, women are rational actors. It makes sense to engage in a ONS with, say, Jeremy Meeks and it makes sense to settle down with the boring middle manager.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago* (19 children) | Copy Link

Commitment is part of genetic fitness as I argued in point 7), and which you didn't address.

7) Also strength-related traits have strong genetic components, perhaps commitment/good "husband"/good father traits do as well. If a woman has kids by a man who doesn't want to commit, or who would make a bad "husband"/father then those kids would inherit those genes and perhaps would not take good care of their own kids. The genes of women who are willing to have casual sex should be at a long term disadvantage to the genes of women who select committed men who are good "husbands" and fathers.

Also, as I said in point 6)

6) Having another man's kid would make a woman less desirable to a man who would make a good "husband"/father, and who would want to commit.

Having a kid from an "AF" would jeopardize a woman's ability to secure commitment in the future. How many men who are good husband/father material are going to line up to commit to put in their resources and energy into raising other men's kids? Sexual jealousy is there for a reason. Some cultures today will kill women for adultery. Men really don't want to invest into other men's DNA.

Even if a man did commit to a woman with a kid from an "AF", would he want to take care of that kid?

As I mentioned in point 3)

3) ...without modern technology pregnancy itself is quite risky for the woman, she could die etc. Wasting a pregnancy (and remember without effective birth control sex leads to pegnancy, so might as well say "wasting sex") on a guy who is not committed or who would make a bad "husband"/father is something women should be wired to avoid.

What level of good genes would an "AF" need to have for a woman to risk her life on a kid by him, when that kid is not going to get the benefits of a committed husband/father, and would potentially ruin that woman's ability to get a committed husband/father in the future?

You haven't really addressed any of the points I made. AF pre-modern birth control would lead to women becoming single mothers... this is kind of what's happening in the US black community where as I understand most children are born outside of wedlock. If you removed government assistance, how well would that be working out for the women and their children? Even with government assistance those kids are severely disadvantaged vs. the kids being born into families with committed men who are good husbands and fathers.

Now think of how people would have been living in our evolutionary history, with most of our time spent during an ice age. No modern medicine, no modern birth control. How about during famines? How about during illness or weakness due to pregnancy? What level of so called "good genes" in an AF would be worth being a single mother?

Plus, where are the women with the huge numbers of partners? Lifetime median for women is in the low single digits. Even in the modern culture which has separated sex from pregnancy and in some ways promotes promiscuity, not that many women are actually doing it to the extent that TRP seems to say they do.

[–]Agharta15 4 points5 points6 points 11 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

That is why women's relatively low libidos are helpful.

But the 'risk' is not as great if the BB guys have reason to believe it might be their kid. And that's why the increased attraction to "alpha" qualities during peak fertility within a woman's cycle + hidden estrus are so important in understanding human behavior.

Two aphorisms explain nearly everything about sexual behavior in humans:

Sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive
Mommy's babies, Daddy's maybes

We don't need to get into evo psych for all this, of course. Plenty of women just do engage in casual, commitment-free sex. When they do so, it's overwhelmingly with men with more masculine/alpha qualities.

So, to borrow from another thread: Jeremy Meeks would have no problem getting lots of commitment-free sex. Pajama Boy is going to be in serious trouble if he wants commitment-free sex.

When I was younger and wilder, plenty of women had no problem having NSA sex with me. There was simply indication that they were looking for 'commitment' and just used sex as a means to snare me. They didn't think of me as a guy who truly wanted commitment with them. We don't need to abstractly theorize about what women should want - we all have firsthand experience attesting to what many, many, many women actually want.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] -1 points0 points1 point 11 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

This is an argument for why cheating exists, not for AF/BB. I agree that in one way it would be advantageous to the woman to get better genes or simply different genes and pass the kid off as her mate's, but on the other hand this is incredibly risky (as I already mentioned, some women get killed for this) and it would make sense for women to have evolved traits that discourage cheating/suppress the sexual attraction to other men. If a woman is in love with her mate, she is going to feel guilty if she cheated on him. This could be an evolved trait to discourage cheating as cheating could lose a woman her life, it could lose her her mate. It's a great risk. But yes, it exists, and male sexual jealousy may have well evolved in response to cheating.

When I was younger and wilder, plenty of women had no problem having NSA sex with me. There was simply indication that they were looking for 'commitment' and just used sex as a means to snare me. They didn't think of me as a guy who truly wanted commitment with them.

How do you know that those women weren't doing what they were doing with the ultimate goal of getting a committed partner? Did you tell them straight out that you were just using them for sex and commitment was not on the table (assuming that's what you were doing), or were you charming them and displaying your attractive qualities while leaving open the possibility that you might be interested in a relationship?

[–]Agharta15 3 points4 points5 points 11 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

This is an argument for why cheating exists, not for AF/BB. I agree that in one way it would be advantageous to the woman to get better genes or simply different genes and pass the kid off as her mate's, but on the other hand this is incredibly risky (as I already mentioned, some women get killed for this) and it would make sense for women to have evolved traits that discourage cheating/suppress the sexual attraction to other men.

Risk/reward. The existence of a risk just means that people will have constrained behavior in a number of ways, not that the reward/incentive no longer exists. Women do cheat, they cheat at roughly the same rate men do, and they're more likely to cheat with good looking and muscular men. We can say "women shouldn't cheat - there are risks there!" all we want. Those risks don't nullify the fact that women actually do cheat.

"I don't really do the relationship thing."
"You want me to come over tonight at 2 AM to 'watch movies?' Cool, have some beer ready."
"You've got a boyfriend? Cool, guess that keeps things from getting messy."

Women engage in casual sex. Women have sex drives. Women will have casual sex with men they find attractive. I can't believe this point is being seriously debated.

[–]Agharta15 3 points4 points5 points 11 years ago (15 children) | Copy Link

Plus, where are the women with the huge numbers of partners? Lifetime median for women is in the low single digits. Even in the modern culture which has separated sex from pregnancy and in some ways promotes promiscuity, not that many women are actually doing it.

Two explanations, again deriving from "sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive."

(1) Women typically only engage in casual sex with men they find highly sexually attractive; they only find a small number of men highly sexually attractive. Even in these cases, their libido is demonstrably lower than most males.

Men are not so constrained - they are typically willing to engage in casual sex with women they consider 'only' attractive. They also find many more opposite sex members 'attractive.' Their libidos are higher.

We're damned by our preferences. There aren't a lot of highly attractive men out there.

(2) Self-reports are demonstrably poor ways of deriving accurate numbers for sexual partners. There are at least two studies showing that men show great consistency between simple self-reporting and self-reporting when attached to what they believe is a polygraph machine. On the other hand, women's numbers tend to dramatically increase when hooked up to an ostensible polygraph.

Women have a great incentive to downplay their number of sexual partners. This incentive is so great they tend to do it even in the context of anonymous self-reports.

Hooking up with Bob the Bartender might not "count" for Reason x, y, or z. Doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago (14 children) | Copy Link

There are plenty, and if they are willing to have lots of casual sex, all the young and at least moderately attractive women should have their shot with them, no? So any woman who is not straight up ugly should be able to accumulate say 100 partners if she actually wanted to.

For example, in a public university there might be thousands or tens of thousands of students. With 10k students, that's 50 men in the top 1% of attractiveness, and 500 men in the top 10% of attractiveness.

And modern women have access to many more men than that via Tinder, online dating and the like. A woman who lives in a city and uses Tinder would have access to countless "highly attractive men". Any moderately attractive woman who truly wanted to ride the cock carousel could have sex with huge, huge numbers of men.

Does this happen?

There are at least two studies showing that men show great consistency between simple self-reporting and self-reporting when attached to what they believe is a polygraph machine.

The male lifetime median is 6.1.

[–]Agharta15 2 points3 points4 points 11 years ago (13 children) | Copy Link

I'm not sure how that contradicts what I said in any way. Men tend to self-report consistently and, when they lie, they exaggerate upwards. Women self-report inconsistently and, when they lie, they exaggerate downwards.

I think I agree with you that superplayers tend to accumulate a higher number of partners than even the biggest 'whores.' The remaining men average numbers below that of the average women. That's consistent with AF/BB.

She probably could, if she consistently wanted to and found enough men attractive. I'm saying - the threshold female preference for guys for ONSs is really high.

And saying "women want to engage in casual sex with men they find highly attractive" is not equivalent to saying "women always want to engage in casual sex with men they find highly attractive."

Because of the risk/reward nature of it, and the shifts in sexual desire across a cycle, the desires are both constrained and inconsistent.

I just find it totally totally crazy that people here are suggesting that all women merely desire commitment from men, or only want sexual relations with men within the context of a committed relationship. It's like I've lived on a different planet all my life when I read stuff like this.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] -1 points0 points1 point 11 years ago* (12 children) | Copy Link

Okay I agree that mentioning the male median wasn't so useful, it would have been if it was the average though. Since male and female averages rather than medians should be the same.

Still, say women exaggerate downwards. Do you think they are exaggerating downwards from 10 or say 50 or 100?

Unless they are exaggerating downwards from something like 50 or 100, I would ask why so few AF?

Well you sought out casual sex, so you found the kinds of women who were into it as well. I don't think that all women are the same way, I mean there are women who are straight out prostitutes, some are porn stars, some are in polyamorous relationships, there are likely some who have 100s of partners because they are really into casual sex.

I think if a significant women truly wanted casual sex and wanted it frequently, they could easily rack up a number like 100 partners and the fact that the vast majority don't seem to suggests to me that women really aren't all that into casual sex.

The "cock carousel" stuff gives the impression that TRPers think women are sleeping around with the top 20% (or whatever %) of men quite a lot. That they spent their whole youth doing it. If this is what was really going on, you'd see lots and lots of women with huge numbers of partners. Is this what you see? How much do you think they lied in that CDC data?

[–]Agharta15 2 points3 points4 points 11 years ago (11 children) | Copy Link

The "cock carousel" stuff gives the impression that TRPers think women are sleeping around with the top 20% (or whatever %) of men quite a lot.

It's overwrought rhetoric. The idea is really this: women are sexually attracted to a small number of men, whom they tend cycle through in short term relationships and hook-ups and one-night-stands and friends-with-benefits arrangements.

The larger point isn't even that women are actually sleeping with these guys; it's that these are the only guys that women want to have sex with and this is manifested by the fact that these are the men they engage in NSA-sex with when and if they do engage in NSA sex.

A lot of women do, occasionally, engage in NSA sex. The less commitment is involved or expected, the more attractive (physically and personality) the guy needs to be.

Thought experiment:

Bartender who looks like Channing Tatum Jr.
J. Howard Marshall (Anna Nicole Smith's 89 year old billionaire husband)

Which guy is more likely to receive commitment from a woman? Which guy is more likely to have a no strings attached one-night-stand with a woman?

The answers are intuitively obvious. J. Howard Marshall could buy sex from just about any woman in the world (if every one has their price, etc). Our handsome bartender can do something he can't - he can create ignite genuine sexual attraction.

It's not that women are sleeping around a ton. It's that when women DO engage in more casual sex, it's with certain guys. When they're interested in relationships/commitments, they are less constrained by their demanding sexual preferences.

Move across the spectrum: ultra handsome and socially dominant dude ---------------------------old, weak, ugly, passive and supplicating dude.

Most fall somewhere in between here. The closer to the right you are, the more commitment-worthy qualities (read: money, emotional investment, etc) you need. Sexual attraction v. Sexual exchange. AF/BB.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago* (10 children) | Copy Link

The purpose of sex is ultimately for our genes to pass themselves on, so it makes sense for women to want sex with (the best available of) whatever traits help their genes pass themselves on into future generations.

The whole point I was making in my OP is that casual sex is something that women should have evolved to avoid because in the absence of modern technology sex=pregnancy and pregnancy is a big risk, also human children take forever to raise and need resources, and to the extent that commitment itself is influenced by genetics you want to have the kinds of kids who will be in turn committed to their families and so on.

It doesn't mean that women 100% avoid casual sex, it makes sense for cheating to exist and male sexual jealousy/possessiveness could be an evolved response to female cheating. But for an unattached woman risking one's life (due to possible pregnancy) by having sex with a guy who is not going to stick around and on top of that make the woman less desirable to men who would make good husbands/fathers sounds like behavior that should hurt the successfulness of that woman's genes.

I think it makes sense for the kinds of traits that would have made hunter-gatherer men good husbands/fathers to be sexually attractive, so things like physical fitness, health, resilience, intelligence, but IMO also commitment and loyalty.

Yes maybe in the modern word, which is not natural, you could have men who in hunter-gatherer societies would have been unable to feed themselves much less other people making a lot of money (or simply inheriting it), so you could have a man who is a good provider in the modern world but who is not sexually desirable because we didn't evolve in the modern world.

Although, there is the question of what women evolved to find attractive... particular traits, or the actual resources being given to them and their kids? If the latter, an ugly billionaire could do quite well. Anna Nicole Smith may well have been sexually attracted to he man in your example.

Also the kinds of traits that made hunter-gatherer men good husbands/fathers still make men good husbands/fathers today. Physical fitness would enable a man to do physical work (including some highly paid one such as in the oil fields), emotional/mental strength and health would obviously make him better able to take care of his wife and kids, likewise for intelligence, that is useful in anything, and likewise for commitment and loyalty without which a man will not be dedicated to his family.

[–]Agharta15 2 points3 points4 points 11 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

The protection scheme is just this: women have a lower libido, on average. You can't, however, insert all these sophisticated forebrain considerations (planning for pregnancy, will he really stay, etc) into hindbrain considerations (he's hot, I want to f*ck him).

Are you familiar with the sexy sons theory? Picking a good looking man is itself a fitness-enhancing trait, as it makes it more likely that other women will want to bang your sons (or other men bang your daughters). That's how something like the peacock's elaborate tail is attractive - it's attractive because it's attractive because it's attractive.

Go back a little farther, and a low bodyfat, highly symmetrical, strong, socially aggressive, high testosterone guy is more likely to survive to reproducing age. These traits are survival enhancing in and of themselves. It's not that they help men become good protectors of women - that's great too, but that's not the primary end here - it's that they help men survive to reproducing age. If a man has those traits, his sons (and daughters, for that matter) are more likely to survive to reproducing age. That's why the traits are attractive.

Again, this is evo psych stuff, but we don't need to look that far.

Lots of women would have a NSA one night stand with a bartender who looked like Channing Tatum, Jr.

Very few (no) women would have a one NSA night stand with J. Howard Marshall.

You know this, I know this.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

I think I might have changed my post a fair bit after you responded and it addresses some of what you raised in your response.

Specifically:

I think it makes sense for the kinds of traits that would have made hunter-gatherer men good husbands/fathers to be sexually attractive, so things like physical fitness, health, resilience, intelligence, but IMO also commitment and loyalty.

Yes maybe in the modern word, which is not natural, you could have men who in hunter-gatherer societies would have been unable to feed themselves much less other people making a lot of money (or simply inheriting it), so you could have a man who is a good provider in the modern world but who is not sexually desirable because we didn't evolve in the modern world.

Although, there is the question of what women evolved to find attractive... particular traits, or the actual resources being given to them and their kids? If the latter, an ugly billionaire could do quite well.

Regarding

it's attractive because it's attractive because it's attractive

What's attractive is whatever helps the genes propagate (or helped in the environment in which we evolved, modern society is recent and quite different from that).

You're focusing almost entirely on appearance, and sure it's part of it, physical fitness would have been pretty important in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. A hunter-gatherer man wouldn't have been much of a provider if he was too unfit to go out and get food, too unfit to fight off whatever threats there might have been and so on. But physical fitness is not the only important thing. Intelligence, resourcefulness, emotional strength would have also helped, and I would argue are also sexually attractive. Commitment and loyalty would have been important as well. "Sexy sons" who die because their father didn't bring them food won't do much to propagate a woman's genes.

[–]Agharta152 points 11 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

A hunter-gatherer man wouldn't have been much of a provider if he was too unfit to go out and get food, too unfit to fight off whatever threats there might have been and so on.

You see, you seem to think being a 'provider' is the most important thing here. It's not.

A male provider is great and helpful and it's necessary if you have no way to provide for yourself and you also have no non-mates who can help with provisioning (ie, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, mother, father).

And there's no reason the guy who is the genetic father has to be the provider - those guys are often separate. Mommy's babies, daddy's maybes. You can call it "cheating" but that only makes sense in the context of well-defined socially-enforced monogamy.

I'm not focusing almost entirely on appearance, though I think that's huge. Just as important is social dominance and aggression.

"Sexy sons" who die because their father didn't bring them food won't do much to propagate a woman's genes.

Which is one reason women have a lower libido.

http://www.ftape.com/media/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/DavidGandy.jpg

http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/anna%20nicole%20smith%20and%20j%20howard%20marshall.jpg

One of these guys had/has an easy time getting NSA sex. One doesn't. Are you seriously disputing that, or disputing which is which?

[–]myfatbrokethewall2 points 11 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Well, human kids are weak and helpless for a very long time. It takes us a very long time to grow into adults. Since sex and everything related to it is ultimately about the survival of genes, providing is pretty damn important.

And if you think of what it took to provide as a hunter-gatherer, I think it corresponds pretty well to what is sexually attractive. Strength/fitness are testosterone-related and enable a man to kill food, possibly kill other men if they threaten his woman/kids. Intelligence/resourcefulness help in survival. Social skills, ability to lead could help him get other people to help his kids and so on and so on.

If human kids were born self sufficient providing wouldn't be needed, but as it is it's needed for years and years and years. If a man and a woman have several kids somewhat spaced apart, his commitment, providing, protection and all that would be needed for a very long time. Loyalty is important.

As I said in the OP:

Most of us are wired to pair bond, suggesting that a committed "husband"/father mattered throughout our evolutionary history (i.e. there weren't so many resources that children didn't need fathers, and children weren't raised equally by the whole tribe).

I mean if a male provider wasn't all that important, why fall in love and bond at all? Why not just have a harem of women and one male with the absolute top genes to impregnate them all. Don't other mammals do it that way? Why do human beings form pair bonds, which are sometimes life long?

"Often" separate? How "often"? If a woman can trick her main mate that a kid is his, sure he will provide, as he thinks it's his. But how many men will consciously want to provide for other men's kids? Why are men so sexually jealous? And despite all the liberalism, it seems that modern men (including, and perhaps especially TRPers) are really put off by "sluts" when it comes to selecting women as their long term partners. Why all this if not to avoid wasting one's resources on another dude's genes?

I don't think a dude that's almost in his grave is more sexually attractive than a fit young man. I think I expressed my views on what is sexually attractive pretty well above.

[–]Agharta151 point 11 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

No, you've conflated two positions:

1) Women are more likely to be sexually attracted to men with good provider traits (masculine, strong, aggressive, etc).

2) Women's nature is to avoid commitment-free sex

There's nothing in the first that implies that women attracted to men with good provider traits won't want to have commitment-free sex with them.

You've confused the source of sexual attraction (in your view, provider traits) with non-sexual considerations (women won't want to have commitment free sex with men).

I'm not denying that there's a risk/reward factor with casual sex for women that's absent for men. In fact, that's part of "eggs expensive, sperm cheap." But there is a reward and the reward is embedded in the hindbrain: attractive guys are attractive. That's why David Gandy (male model pictured above) can go to a bar and get a ton of one night stands.

You've jumped from "Women don't want casual sex" to "Women engage in casual sex with attractive men because those men are sexually attractive and they are sexually attractive because they exhibit provider-type physiques and attitudes ."

I don't think I've argued for 1) --> not 2), where are you getting that from?

What I am "conflating" is AF and BB. I don't think they are separate. You really believe AF/BB so you assumed that when I was talking about what is sexually attractive I was talking about what women prefer for casual sex, I wasn't. I was talking about what women prefer for their partners. I don't think what women prefer for long term relationship and what women want to fuck are two distinct things. I think they are one and the same. Modern society has separated sex and babies, but this not the conditions under which we evolved.

Without modern technology sex=babies and I think women are sexually attracted/want to have sex with those men that have the qualities that give the women's genes the highest chance of propagating into future generations (IMO some of these genes are loyalty/commitment genes, assuming loyalty/commitment have genetic components), with the caveat that the modern lifestyle is very recent and whether we're adapted for hunter-gatherer or farming lifestyles (just looked at the link given here: http://www.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/2jb5jz/claim_womens_nature_is_to_avoid_commitmentfree/cla41b9), I doubt we're adapted to the lifestyle that emerged in the past 100-200 years.

My argument for why I think women's nature is to avoid commitment free sex is in the OP. But I will say that I think cheating is part of women's nature (and men's), but I think sneaking around in a committed relationship is less risky for a woman than being the local slut. Successful cheating (not being caught) has potential rewards of better/different genes, the kid would be passed off as her mate's kid. The risk is in getting caught. (And maybe because of that risk women would evolve things like guilt at the thought of being disloyal. While a lot of people cheat, I think the stats are that most do not cheat.) My OP was really about unattached women having casual sex, not cheating.

That's why David Gandy (male model pictured above) can go to a bar and get a ton of one night stands.

Something on one night stands: http://www.livescience.com/2678-realities-night-stands-revealed.html

Among the findings: Women were not hooking up in an effort to secure a long-term beau, but because they felt flattered by the overnight proposition.

Then

"Often [women] said things like, 'I felt so flattered, so happy that he found me attractive. It was so nice to be wanted,'" said researcher Anne Campbell, a psychologist at Durham University in England. "What women don't seem to see is that men drop their standards massively for a one-night stand."

And later

Campbell surveyed more than 3,300 individuals, most of whom were between the ages of 17 and 40. Of the heterosexual respondents, more than half reported a one-night stand, about evenly split between men and women.

Overall women's morning-after feelings were more negative than men's. While 80 percent of men had overall positive feelings, just 54 percent of women had positive feelings.

Women predominantly reported "regret at being used," with additional comments including: "I felt cheap," "horrified afterward," and "I felt degraded. Made myself look cheap and easy. Total regret."

Contrary to popular belief, women said they didn't view casual sex as a prelude to a long-term relationship.

"It's not that they wanted the man to whisk them off and marry them," Campbell told LiveScience. "It's that they wanted the man to understand that they weren't like this normally. That they were doing this for him on this night as a particular event."

This is sounding like women (possibly with low self esteems?) wanting to feel better about themselves by having men find them attractive, and then nearly half of them had negative feelings after the fact. Maybe like the quote of the woman I mentioned in the OP, who seems to have gone through sex she didn't want because X?

How much of this one night stand stuff is due to cultural brainwashing/peer pressure/whatever. Maybe some people are pretty gullible, and think one night stands are what they should be doing where their natures are opposed to it and they feel bad afterwards?

They do say:

However, promiscuity does offer natural advantages for women from an evolutionary perspective, Shackelford said. These advantages could explain why women participate in one-night stands even though they feel so lousy afterward.

Flings provide women with the potential to snag the best genes for offspring or they could be spurred by a chemical nudge at the peak of the menstrual cycle.

and

They could be collecting healthy genes for their offspring. So even if a woman can't score a lengthy relationship with a guy whose sperm could offer, say, disease-resistant genes or genes for a particular kind of intelligence, her thinking might be, "Why not grab the guy for sex?"

[–]Agharta15 2 points3 points4 points 11 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

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[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

What makes you think that?

The fact that we pair bond, it's obvious that people fall in love, genuinely want to be in exclusive relationships. Why did this behavior evolve if all children were equally raised by everybody?

Also, many men are attached to their own children and not so much other men's children. You see this now, hard to believe that hunter-gatherer men wouldn't have had a preference for their own.

Men are sexually jealous, suggesting a defense mechanism against investing resources into other men's kids. Why would there be sexual jealousy if all kids got equal treatment from everyone?

Hunter-gatherers may have been far more egalitarian than modern society, but if the tribe's children were the whole tribe's children why did we evolve pair bonding, sexual jealousy, why would men feel attached to their children more than the children of say their friends or even their siblings?

Plus, some of hunter-gatherer egalitarianism was due to circumstances. You can't have much inequality if you don't have much to begin with. The fact that we have formed such drastically unequal societies once we acquired more "stuff" says something about our nature as well. Once we got the opportunity to have unequal societies, that's what we made. Kings and slaves. Billionaires and third world poor.

[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

Referring to my OP, do these sound like "retrospective assumptions" to you:

2) Without modern technology (i.e. throughout our evolutionary history) there was no effective birth control, so sex could be assumed to lead to pregnancy, though I suppose people could have killed their newborns as a form of birth control, but...

3) ...without modern technology pregnancy itself is quite risky for the woman, she could die etc. Wasting a pregnancy (and remember without effective birth control sex leads to pegnancy, so might as well say "wasting sex") on a guy who is not committed or who would make a bad "husband"/father is something women should be wired to avoid.

We spent most of our evolutionary history as hunter gatherers, so it makes sense for me to think of what's natural for us in those terms.

But human nature is human nature. So you can look at humans today and say something about our nature (including what humans were like back then). Sure modern society is very "unnatural" compared to the environment in which we spent most of our history as a species, but IMO there are some basic things (like say love, sexual attraction) that I suspect are pretty hardwired. I doubt things like falling in love and sexual jealousy are the result of modern society rather than our nature.

That’s … that doesn’t even make sense. Your typical primate has much less than hunter-gatherers ever had and they’re still not egalitarian at all.

You're comparing different species with different biologies. Sure some species could have nothing at all and be far more hierarchical than humans. This doesn't mean that how much stuff a human group has will have no impact on how hierarchical the human society is going to be. A group of hunter gatherer humans who have no stuff might still form a hierarchy based on say who is the best hunter, or who is the most beautiful woman. A group of humans who have huge amounts of wealth and great numbers could form hierarchies with huge disparities, where some are billionaires and kings while others are slaves who have nothing. The basic nature might have always been hierarchical to an extent, but without complex societies and great wealth you couldn't have the kinds of disparities we have today.

My original claim was that the fact that humans pair bond (or fall in love, commit to each other, marry, whatever) is evidence that a father's investment into his children mattered. If fathers didn't matter, why would something like romantic love have evolved? Why not have a tribe where every woman breeds with one male (the one with the best genes, like some other mammals do it)? If the father's resources for the child didn't matter, this would make sense. There would be one genetically top male who got every single female. The fact that this is not what humans do suggests that the father's commitment and resources mattered.

And consider two married brothers with children, an uncle might care about his nieces and nephews, but I bet he would care about his own far more. Maybe this is a feature of modern society, but I am skeptical. I would put the feelings towards one's children in the same "hardwired" category as sexual attraction, jealousy etc.

[–]homo_homini_lupus 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

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[–]myfatbrokethewallNon-Red Pill[S] 2 points3 points4 points 11 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

People fall in love, sometimes obsessively, are crazy about each other. Plus, these days a lot of the brainwashing and social engineering promoting monogamy is gone. Divorce is fairly accepted. Yet if you look at some subgroups of people (say college educated whites in the US), their divorce rates are quite low. There are plenty of people who are forming life long pair bonds, and these days no one is forcing them to.

Plus if you consider entertainment type media as a reflection of what people want, there is a lot about romance, falling in love, finding the one.

Even many relationships fail, you can't deny that many people seek monogamous relationships, love. And for the purposes of

1) Most of us are wired to pair bond, suggesting that a committed "husband"/father mattered throughout our evolutionary history (i.e. there weren't so many resources that children didn't need fathers, and children weren't raised equally by the whole tribe).

I think it's good enough.

Modern society is maybe in some ways detrimental to pair bonding too. I expect it was easier in the past when there wasn't so much temptation. If you're living in a small community there simply isn't much opportunity to cheat or have serial relationships. These days many of us live in cities with huge populations and more options than people in the past could have dreamed of. And with online things like Tinder/OkCupid the temptations/opportunities are huge. Yet in spite of this, plenty of people still want their special someone to share their life with.

Your entire premise is flawed because you are projecting the nuclear family (husband+wife+kids) into the past, when the reality is that the proto-tribal arrangement would have been built around a lack of knowledge of fathers.

I'm not projecting the nuclear family into the past, I'm saying fathers mattered. Fathers can be very important in the context of a tribe, nuclear family is not necessary for them to be important. And by the way, here is a bit about !Kung who are (were?) hunter gatherers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C7%83Kung_people#Gender_roles_and_regulations

Marriage was generally between a man in his twenties and a girl in her teens (14–18 years old). Newlyweds lived in the same village as the wife's family so that she had family support during her new life. Often, young wives would return to their parents' houses to sleep until they become comfortable with their husbands. During this time, the husband would hunt for his wife's family (bridewealth). If the couple never became comfortable, divorce was acceptable, prompted by either gender. If they did become a stable couple, they could reside with either family, settling with which ever was beneficial at a time. Divorce remained possible throughout marriage. Extramarital sex wasn't condoned, but was equally acceptable for each spouse. Domestic violence was prevented because villages were small and close and houses were open so that neighbours and relatives could intervene as needed.[9]

Fathers seem important, they even had marriage.

For most of human history, humans did not understand that sex caused pregnancy. They had sex all the time, and sometimes babies popped out of the women.

Do you really think that humans, with our incredible ability to recognize patterns (think of all that we've discovered about our world), would not have noticed that sex leads to babies? How about discovering plants with medicinal properties? If people can do that, you think they cannot notice that you need sex to get pregnant?

Also, say you're right about this, I don't think you need conscious awareness of fatherhood to evolve to provide for your kids. Birds do it, I doubt they have self awareness that they are feeding their offspring. If some men had the genes that made them provide for kids that "popped out" of the women they fucked, those genes would have a better chance to succeed, and the genes of women who chose to fuck such men would have a better chance to succeed. Genes that led to men not providing or women choosing men who didn't provide would be at a disadvantage.

The early proto-tribe probably consisted a kin group of related females, an alpha father who "owned" the females (who were either his mates or his daughters) and other males who were attracted to his band by the presence of his daughters. Those males who contributed to the success of the whole band would be permitted access to the females, males who did not contribute would be driven off.

What are you basing this on? That "alpha father" would be one guy, he wouldn't be able to fight off multiple males if they didn't feel like asking for his permission. One guy + many females is not a stable system without drastic inequalities or a social system that prevents the use of force, as female-less males would quickly end it. This kind of thing can emerge in modern-ish society where rich guys/kings and the like can hire a security force to protect their resources from those who would otherwise easily take them, or where the government has a police force, violence is a crime, people go to jail (and a guy can find females who are willing to share him).

Not to mention that the females might prefer to have a male all of their own, who uses all his energy to get resources for them and their kids rather than share one male with lots of other females.

In such a situation, monogamy would be of limited value. What would be more valuable is serial pair-bonding with a strong tendency towards hypergamic liasons.

Then why do so many of us strive for monogamy? Why would tendency evolve if it wasn't useful?

[–]MissPearlEditor of frequent typos.0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I think the fundamental problem is that the nuclear family model we treat as a default is more abnormal than extended family.

Pre-farming women, even with children, don't really need mates purely for stuff- if humans in the past were anything like modern hunter gatherers, the reality is not a tidy hunting men/veggies from women and the women in these cultures appear to gather more calories than their male counterparts and animal protein, while needed, is not the be all and end all- even with perfectly sex divided labour men will die of starvation living purely on game. So you see more of an exchange.

Most significant to trying to theorize about how past challenged shaped the present day, humans would have been living in tribal groups of your close genetic kin and practising things like communal nursing- with the added bonus of sub fertility among lactating women. Betabucks makes little sense when your baby raising is going to be related to your social capital in relation to getting babysitting.

But there is one other piece of the puzzle that gets left out- the protective promiscuity displayed in non-procreative sex by mammals, where copulation with males prevents them from murdering your baby, regardless of the paternity.

Chimps do this as a safety measure, leaving their territory to go on a fucking spree before they are fully fertile, because if there is an invasion, the incoming invaders won't murder their offspring, regardless of how much time has elapsed.

So theoretically a woman having a lot of non-procreative sex in her youth is simply protecting her eventual kids. And being a stepfather is hardly a ghastly outcome when your breeding pool means the kid may be at worst, your cousin.

Title	Claim: women's nature is to avoid commitment-free sex and sex with men who would make bad "husbands"/fathers.
Author	myfatbrokethewall
Upvotes	2
Comments	38
Date	October 15, 2014 11:47 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/2jb5jz/claim_womens_nature_is_to_avoid_commitmentfree/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/claim-womens-nature-is-to-avoid-commitment-free.284606 https://theredarchive.com/post/284606

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