Got a cite for this? Or this another figure pulled at random outta your ass?
I am glad you took some time to read the article, Giggle Gaggle. I would be happy to clarify. First, I would highlight some of the text you quoted.
I believe that your error is teleological, for you mistake the principle of “survival of the fitted” for some kind of reified, providential Logos of Evolution. In other words, the survival and propagation of our species is not the purpose of evolution so much as its natural result.
The article says further, from the selection that you highlighted:
You appear to be arguing just this, that the function of human sexual interaction is ultimately reducible to natural selection. I disagree, and evidently, this article does as well. I do not believe that there is anything wrong with taking an evolutionary perspective in human psychology. To apply selective teleological interpretations to this kind of analysis, however, is to commit a grave error.
Giggle Gaggle, I’m no Gould or anything, but it doesn’t take a PhD to see why exactly your opinion is faulty.
If men are biologically hardwired to gravitate toward the same set of characteristics, and these charateristics are merely phenotypic expressions of genes, it stands to reason that by this time, just about all women would have D cups, long legs, big hips, and tiny waists. Natural selection would have saw fit to bring this about, if there indeed was an instinctual mandate for men to seek out these particular features to the exclusion of others.
Well guess what? Most women are not large breasted (by most standards) and long legged barbie doll figures are very much in the minority. You yourself admitted to prefering small breasts to large ones, but that doesn’t necessarily make you an aberration. Take a look around at the general public, and you’ll see that you are clearly not alone in liking smaller boobs. Natural selection would have long ago culled small-breasted genes from the gene pool if your particular preference was an outlyer. Apparently it’s not, since a great many women carry small breast genes along with short leg genes and narrow hip genes.
So you can theorize all the live-long day about what men are programmed to like, but nature provides us with the answers if we just look at it. Go to a Walmart one day. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
So how is my attraction to other men “motivated by evolution,” not to mention my particular attraction to particular men who have particular qualities and characteristics?
And I beg to differ, but reason very often gives you wood. One of my former BFs wasn’t even remotely my “type,” and at first there was no turn-on whatsoever. But in time, I learned about all his wonderful inner qualities - and, voila: wood! I’ve also known some gorgeous guys who turned out to be assholes - and, voila: no wood!
Our power of reasoning tells us all kinds of things about a person, that can totally alter our emotional response to them.
** Jack Batty**
[Moderator Hat ON]
We are NOT in the Pit, and everyone will refrain from namecalling in this thread, understood? Sheesh. Y’all know better.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Well, there are a lot of logical holes being highlighted in Giggle’s arguments here. But I’d like to introduce another.
He’s talking about a predisposition for virgins. However, without speech the only way to determine that a woman is a virgin is, what, to check the hymen? (And even that won’t always tell you the truth, but I digress). And if we’re talking evolved wants then we are definitely talking about pre-speech man, since there hasn’t been anywhere near long enough for a prediliction to evolve since we learned how to present complex concepts in speech.
But pre-speech man most certainly would not have been able to conceptually connect a hymen to virginity, or even necessarily understand the concept of virginity. Therefore what we’re really talking about is not the evolved instinctive desirability of virginity, but the evolved instinctive physical desirability of the secondary characteristic of an intact hymen.
Do I really need to point out that there is no evidence whatsoever that there is any significant market for “hymen porn”?
To summarise: there has been no time for the “virginity-desirable heuristic” to evolve, only for a “hymen-desirable heuristic” and there is no evidence that this is present in anything other than a tiny minority.
I can only conclude therefore that your hypothesis is false.
pan
Though I agree with your argument completely, unfortunately a quick Google search reveals that this assertion is perhaps false. I do not suggest that you verify my findings independently, even in the name of science.
Do any of these categories bias towards people who intrinsically prefer or dislike virgins? If not, then why would the SDMB be biased either way?
(And if you even try to connect #5, I’ll slap…no, I won’t slap you. But I’ll think real hard about it.)
Obviously you don’t search much porn. I’d wager 99.9% of those sites are link farms or otherwise non-content offering. My point was that there are 12 million sites trying to lure people in with pregnant porn, and only 9 million trying virgin porn. If men intrinsically prefer virgins, as you say, why would this be so? Are the pornographers and parasites out of touch with human sexuality?
Google “extroverts 75%” without the quotes, for a shitload of cites.
You could try, but you’d be wrong. A poster earlier received from Google 900,000+ results for the search string “virgin porn” even though virgin porn is difficult and costly to produce, because
- You only get one shot with any girl.
- Girls who are still virgins over the age of 18 tend not to be ethically and sexually comfortable starring in porn.
And against these odds, we still have all this virgin porn. Clearly, something’s up.
Giggle Gaggle, how many times do we have to tell you-YOU make a claim, YOU provide the cites!
:smack:
You’re playing semantic soccer here. Whether we call the propagation of the species the purpose of evolution, or whether we take a more laidback approach and disclaim any purpose to evolution whatsoever, and simply say that fittest organisms survive depending on the environmental challenges, what we’re basically doing is taking the idea of successful propagation and calling it fitness.
Organisms survive in an environment as long as they live long enough to produce offspring who themselves live long enough to produce offspring. Any organism that fails to do this simply disappears off the evolutionary competitive landscape. Sure, the organisms are not consciously thinking “I must breed more, faster, with mates more likely to produce more offspring”, they’re just going along with a combination of genetic heritage and developed skills, but organisms with more useful combinations of the aforementioned end up spreading more and more across the gene pool, so the end result is the same.
Giggle Gaggle, if men should be attracted to virgins and, it appears from your arguments, exclusively to virgins, then surely your statement in another thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=208444
is false?
Of course, I believe your statement is false in any case, since there are many men who would not use the services of a prostitute, and you can’t get any “surer” than that.
Julie
Giggle Gaggle, if men should be attracted to virgins and, it appears from your arguments, exclusively to virgins, then surely your statement in another thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=208444
is false?
Of course, I believe your statement is false in any case, since there are many men who would not use the services of a prostitute, and you can’t get any “surer” than that.
Julie
I never said that men are attracted exclusively to virgins. Where did I say that? Cite?
I outlined arguments as to why men prefer virgins. Try addressing my arguments rather than putting words in my mouth. Thanks.
You said that the OP is normal. He is attracted exclusively to virgins. You defended that attraction claiming an evolutionary advantage.
So, the OP is a man.
The OP is, in your view, normal.
The OP would turn down a “sure shot at sex” if it were offered by a non-virgin.
Therefore, normal men would turn down a “sure shot at sex” if offered by a non-virgin.
Yet you claim: “Men will not turn down a sure shot at sex.” And you make no qualifier that it must be a sure shot at sex with a non-virgin.
So, which is it?
Julie
There are multiple things going on here. I will summarize.
Men prefer virgins. Any large enough population exhibits a certain amount of variance – in this case, in how strongly men prefer virgins over non-virgins. A certain amount of variance is to be expected and tolerated. In addition to this, certain factors may overpower this preference, as in the case of freely offered, no-strings-attached sex – a rare opportunity for men who usually have to expend time, energy, and/or money securing sex.
A man will respond to sex on the basis of how much he is attracted to the woman (which includes her physical characteristics, what he knows about her sexual history, about her medical history, and to a lesser extent her social standing as well as other similar factors), how easy it would be for him to fuck her, what sorts of resources he is expected to expend (including time, effort, money, and the like) and what risks he might face should he fuck her. It’s a multivariable equation. If you make it very easy and risk-free for a man, he is very likely to respond.
Of couse, under average circumstances, it is never easy or risk-free for a man to fuck a woman, so the other factors assert themselves more strongly.
Do any of these categories bias towards people who intrinsically prefer or dislike virgins? If not, then why would the SDMB be biased either way?
(And if you even try to connect #5, I’ll slap…no, I won’t slap you. But I’ll think real hard about it.)
Obviously you don’t search much porn. I’d wager 99.9% of those sites are link farms or otherwise non-content offering. My point was that there are 12 million sites trying to lure people in with pregnant porn, and only 9 million trying virgin porn. If men intrinsically prefer virgins, as you say, why would this be so? Are the pornographers and parasites out of touch with human sexuality?
I’ll ask again, since you haven’t come through yet. Cite?
So, which is it? Men will turn down a sure shot at sex? Men won’t? Some men will? Some won’t?
You keep speaking in generalities and when cornered you attempt to CYA. Wouldn’t it be easier to stop speaking in generalities in the first place?
“Very likely” isn’t the same as “men will not turn down a sure shot.”
So, men will often “turn down a sure shot” under “average circumstances”? What happened to it being “very likely”? What happened to “men will not turn [it] down”?
I haven’t seen this much backpeddling since the time I rode the swan boats at the fair.
Julie
When a man has to expend resources or undertake risk in order to have sex, it is not a sure shot. In such cases, one cannot speak of a man turning down a sure shot.
When I speak of a sure shot, I speak of a woman coming up to a man and offering sex with no stipulations: That she will not demand money, that she will not require a monogamous commitment, that she will not fall in love or intentionally become pregnant or demand marriage or press charges or threaten blackmail, that she will not tell her other partner(s) and lead to a physical, legal or other sort of confrontation, that she will not give him an STD, and a whole bunch of other possible strings.
I speak of a woman who, even if sex with her poses none of the aforementioned risks or stipulations, will not demand courting, dating, dining, wining, and other expenditures of time, energy and money, before offering sex.
This is what I mean by a sure shot.
This doesn’t happen very often, if at all. So men are very likely to take up such an opportunity when it does happen. Mens’ preference for virgins being variable across a large enough population, some men might prefer virgins strongly enough over non-virgins that even a sure shot at sex might not appeal to them all that much i.e. the OP might still find that his preference for virgins trumps his preference for easy, no-strings sex. But, as I said, it’s a multivariable equation, and the result will turn out different depending on the slightly different coefficients from person to person.
In any case, the question is largely academic because women mostly do not offer sure shots at sex.