Only women are hypergamous.

I've been seeing this a lot lately -- the claim that both men and women are hypergamous. I disagree.

Only women are hypergamous, because women are sexually attracted only to men who are higher status than they are. This is a feature which is peculiar to women. Men, on the other hand, are attracted to women across the SMV spectrum -- above them, at their level, even below them.

So men optimize, and women optimize, and both will try to upgrade. But women are sexually attracted only to those men who are above them. Only women do this. Men don't, and that's the difference.

Hypergamy means “only attracted to those who are more attractive than I am” — only attracted upwards, in other words. That is all it means.

Men are not attracted "only to those (women) who are more attractive" than they are as men. In fact a man can be attracted to women who are less attractive than he is.

It’s different from optimization. Everyone always tries to optimize everything. Everyone. In all phases of life. Everyone prefers better. That isn’t hypergamy.

The difference between hypergamy and optimization is that hypergamy is not attracted to individuals below itself (and in most cases, individuals below self+1). This is how women operate. Women are never sexually attracted to men below their own attractiveness level.

Men don't operate this way. Men optimize. Optimization (how men operate) prefers self+X, but is still attracted to self+0 and self-1 and even in some cases self-2. Women are never, ever, attracted to self-1 or self-2, and only in certain circumstances attracted to self+0. That’s the difference.

Both men and women will try to optimize based on what they are looking for. For sex, that means hottest, period, because it’s just sex. For LTRs/marriages, it means hottest with the rest of what I want/need on the list, which typically means compromising to some degree on hotness.

The trouble women uniquely face, due to hypergamy, is that most of them can’t marry men they are attracted to — there aren’t enough self+1, self+2 men available to meet the demand, and those who are in such demand will likely not need to opt for a self-1 or self-2 woman. So many women find themselves married to self+0 at best, and in many cases self-1, and are relatively unattracted to their husbands. That is due to hypergamy. And men don’t have that problem because either (1) their self-1 wife which they compromised for due to other qualities is still quite attractive to them or (2) they are the beneficiciary party in marriage which is self+0 or self-1 from the female perspective, meaning they are with a woman who is as attractive or moreso — more on the optimal side. (Keep in mind, this discussion is about “total SMV” and “total MMV”, and what that means, differentially, for each sex — not just comparisons based on relative physical attractiveness, although that is a key component).

So, yes, everyone is tempted to upgrade, if they can pull it off, but, no, that doesn’t mean men are hypergamous. Men are just as likely to have an affair with a sidegrade or a slight downgrade provided she’s above his attraction floor, whereas women don’t do this — they have affairs with upgrades, only, because they are not attracted to sidegrades and downgrades.

Discuss and debate.

EDIT:

Here's an easy to understand illustration of this concept.

The cheerleader fucks the quarterback instead of the captain of the chess team.

In addition to the cheerleader, most girls want to fuck the quarterback, and most of those same girls don't want to fuck the captain of the chess team.

The quarterback can and will fuck the cheerleader, the home ec student, the band girl, the choir soprano, and the Jesus freak girl.

The chess captain wants to fuck the cheerleader, the band girl, the choir soprano, and the Jesus freak, but might have a shot only at the home ec student.