What's wrong with women's taste in men? (Darwinian Edition)

Great Debates
1

As I often do, I’ve been thinking about life, consciousness, happiness and the other usual suspects when, suddenly, it occurred to me, in what I can only call a totally original thought that I promptly recognized as that unmistakable flash of genius that most of us get to experience only once in a lifetime, that I write really long sentences for no reason.

Later on, I ended up asking myself why women tend to feel sexually attracted to young, fit males as opposed to old rich ugly people (ORUP). I’m talking about innate physical attraction that people have no control over; the kind you can feel for a sexy picture. Of course women think about their partners, and have a wide variety of conscious criteria (is he reliable? Is he funny? Is he smart? Is he exciting? ad infinitum.) they use when dating or entering a relationship. We use our brain to make better decisions than what our gonads can.

But how many of you ladies masturbate thinking of Bill Gates’s wealth or smarts? I bet very few do (if any).

I’ve studied biology and evolution and it makes sense for a female to to be attracted to…

1- strong
2- attractive
3- young

…males to mate with (in that particular order).

1- Strong so he can bring enough food and defend them from predators.

2- Attractive since symmetry is apparently a sign of good hormonal balance (thus, healthier genes)

3- Young so he won’t croak on her too soon and leave her and her children unprotected. <- There might be more significant reasons. Maybe younger is less likely to have other children with another mother already?

There are many women who like older guys just fine. This is consistent with the trend in nature for human mothers (and most females of other species) to prioritize their offspring’s survival over their own and a man’s age does not seem to affect the quality of his sperm (and genes) much, despite the extra years the testicles were exposed to natural radiation.

Now some might point out that ORUP have no problems getting laid

And sure, there are women, ranging from material girls to golddiggers who will prioritize money over physical attraction but they are actually deliberately sacrificing one urge for another. But they WON’T actually feel attracted to the ORUP because of who they are or have sex with them for fun, never to seem them again. No, usually, it’s longer-term relationship/marriage deals where the principle is “I get sex and arm-candy and you get lots of money.”

Anyways, biologically speaking, an ORUP will provide a woman and her defenseless offsprings great safety and resources, possibly ensuring a much better offspring survival ratio. More money means more resources and the ability to
raise more children. With inheritance factored in and helping continue the cycle, the ORUP looks even better, procreationally speaking. Finally, wealth means the ORUP is more likely to be smart (or have had smart ancestors) which is always a positive.

Assuming nature’s goal is more and better offsprings:

How different would be the criteria for women over 100,000 years ago, what about 20k, 10k? 5k? 1000 years ago? 500 years ago? 100 years ago? If there is change, is the trend accelerating?

Are today’s women getting wet for the wrong reasons?

What should turn women on in the modern homo sapien world?

Discuss.

Note: I’m not an ORUP so this thread isn’t about me telling women they should want me. Also, there is no good reason why I singled out women in this thread. I’d welcome a mirror thread about men’s taste in women.

2

Biologically speaking, they “should” be attracted to a fit, but dirt-poor peasant. That’s the type of family unit that has the most offspring these days. Richer folks generally have the fewest.

There have been lots of studies showing that women look for super-masculine mates when they are ovulating, but for less masculine looking men at other times. They want the stud for his sperm, but the regular guy to hang around and help raise the rug rat. Or so the hypothesis goes.

3

The short answer is that up until the last handful of centuries, women wanted strong, healthy, virile mates to protect them and give them lots of babies. In the last handful of centuries, having money and access to sanitary facilities and medical care means that women have more to choose from. A guy with a lot of money can provide protection/security, and it’s been shown (where it hadn’t before) that most any guy can give a woman lots of babies, anyway. But it’s going to take a few thousand more years for them to know that instinctively. That’s why you have women who bang the studly types but marry the thoughtful provider types.

On the other side of the coin, men are attracted to women with exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics, and that has remained relatively unchanged. :smiley:

4

I think you are starting from some mistaken assumptions - like the idea that nature has goals, and the idea that there is a preferred outcome. If the species survives, it survives: when people need more children, they have them.

“Should” and “wrong” in terms of what?

5

They’re called ‘gold diggers’.

The concept of wealth is a very recent change in in our evolutionary history. Certainly well-to-do nobility in the recent past looked more at wealth than looks and age preciesly because a woman couldn’t generate her own income. The situation now has become more complicated.

Besides, don’t ever think that behaviour and evolution are so cut and dried. People have been having sex for thousands of years and NOT wanted to concieve…shouldn’t that trait have died out long ago?

6

Is this even true? Serious question. While my wife is attracted to men of all ages, by far the majority of guys she swoons over (myself excluded, of course) are older, often much older. Even a guy 20 to 30 years older doesn’t automatically set off “eww, he’s old” alarms. However, a guy 5 years younger almost always sets off “eww, he’s a kid” alarms. While there is indeed the occasional Stella Got Her Groove Back moment, her tastes definitely skew towards older men – Brad Pitt, Pierce Brosnan, etc. I think it was only 10 years ago or so that the likes of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery were the cream of the crop.

Of course, the old guys still have to be attractive and not fat, but I think women are much more forgiving in those areas.

7

See, our bodies and brains evolved mostly back in the Pleistocene.

So the concept of a superwealthy old rich guy who could take care of you for the rest of your life even after he was dead didn’t even exist back then.

Sure, there was a certain amount of social and wealth stratification. Some people are natural leaders, some people are natural hunters, some people are talented. But if you’re living as a hunter gatherer there’s a limit to how wealthy you can be, because all your wealth is what you and your family produce for yourself, or what you steal from your neighbors, or what your personal charisma convinces other people to just give you. The wealthiest hunter gatherer isn’t much wealthier than the poorest hunter gatherer, and the wife of a wealthy hunter gatherer might not have to work as hard as the wife of a poor hunter gatherer, but she still has to work hard for a living.

So the dried up billionaire who marries Anna Nicole Smith can only exist post agriculture, where kings and priests can amass hundreds of times the wealth of a peasant, based purely on things like being born to the right father, or having the correct birthmark or what have you.

So men and women are typically sexually attracted to people who, if they were living on the Pleistocene savanna as hunter gatherers, would make lots of children and help raise those children to adulthood. There would be older high status males around, but the boost in status you would get from marrying a high status older male would end when the high status male died, because he’d be dead and no longer able to provide for you. Whereas the young healthy guy can both provide for you today, and also is likely to turn into a high status male later, and will be more likely to still be around.

8

I think your assertion that women don’t actually feel attracted to ORUP is flawed. Most women I know tend to find men more (or less) attractive, physically, based on their non-physical characteristics (sense of humor, ambition, etc.). Sure, some will settle for a millionaire grandpa they’re repulsed by, but just because you or others don’t find someone obviously attractive doesn’t mean their SO is fooling herself.

I’m also not on board with your criteria. Strong? Have you seen any skinny hipsters lately? Attractive? Okay, symmetry, but there are quite a few joli-laid celeb men out there. Young? Not if you look at these stats (though I don’t doubt this will change as women become more financially iindependent. Older woman-younger man couplings may be more common now – I have no idea – but it’s my impression that the women are looking for a fling, not a babydaddy).

9

That’s not really the way it works in primate social groups. Females may try and mate with younger males, but they are always going to look for the protection of the alpha male, if they can get it. The status of your offspring is determined largely by your own status, which in turn is determined by your relationship with the alpha male. And women aren’t fertile their whole lives anyway, so hooking up with an older guy isn’t as bad as it might seem. Basically, you want to have high status children who will then protect you as you get older and you lose your mate.

10

Actually the rich have the most children on average, and the richer they are the more they have. (Though that data is only for the United States, and it may be different in other countries.

11

I do not believe that any such attraction exists. Some urges are difficult to control, but there are none that people have no control over.

Let me ask, honestly, are you citing this as proof that there’s no cerebral component to the sexual preferences of heterosexual women? If so, I don’t think it proves anything. Women could very easily make a mental decision that a partnership with Bill Gates is a bad idea. The possible reasons are manifold.

On what grounds do you claim to say what all females think in this situation or any other?

12

I’m not a girl, but my general sense is that most women are turned on by money/power/prestige in a man.

I think it’s very common for women to fantasize (sexually) about advances from a man of high standing. For example, I once had a girlfriend who liked to fantasize that I was some kind of Arab prince and that I made her part of my harem.

13

And now to address the actual discussion topics.

[QUOTE=Gozu]
Assuming nature’s goal is more and better offsprings:
To reiterate what Marley said, nature has no goal. Each individual woman makes her own choices.

Assuming you mean the criteria by which women choose their sexual partners, we can say a few things. In prehistoric times, we have no clue; we only have conjectures. During recorded history women have been pretty steadfast about remaining individuals and making individual decisions no matter who tells them which men to be attracted to. These individual decisions vary widely from one woman to the next.

“Right” and “wrong”, “should” and “should not” are moral judgements. Thus a discussion about biology can’t touch those topics.

Nonetheless, you are trying to lecture women about why they should want certain men, so it ought to be clear why many women would be insulted by this sort of thing.

14

And now to address the actual discussion topics.

[QUOTE=Gozu]
Assuming nature’s goal is more and better offsprings:
To reiterate what Marley said, nature has no goal. Each individual woman makes her own choices.

Assuming you mean the criteria by which women choose their sexual partners, we can say a few things. In prehistoric times, we have no clue; we only have conjectures. During recorded history women have been pretty steadfast about remaining individuals and making individual decisions no matter who tells them which men to be attracted to. These individual decisions vary widely from one woman to the next.

“Right” and “wrong”, “should” and “should not” are moral judgements. Thus a discussion about biology can’t touch those topics.

Nonetheless, you are trying to lecture women about why they should want certain men, so it ought to be clear why many women would be insulted by this sort of thing.

15

Could a moderator please delete the previoustwo posts?

16

And now to address the actual discussion topics.

To reiterate what Marley said, nature has no goal. Each individual woman makes her own choices.

Assuming you mean the criteria by which women choose their sexual partners, we can say a few things. In prehistoric times, we have no clue; we only have conjectures. During recorded history women have been pretty steadfast about remaining individuals and making individual decisions no matter who tells them which men to be attracted to. These individual decisions vary widely from one woman to the next.

“Right” and “wrong”, “should” and “should not” are moral judgements. Thus a discussion about biology can’t touch those topics.

Nonetheless, you are trying to lecture women about why they should want certain men, so it ought to be clear why many women would be insulted by this sort of thing.

Also we should note that there’s no evidence that a woman’s genome affects who she’s attracted to.

17

There are all kinds of women, and tastes seem to vary widely.

The most frustrating for me to watch is the attraction to the “bad boy”. I am guessing that their “nuturing” instinct kicks in, and she (subconciously) thinks that her love will change the guy into a better man.

18

Seemed appropriate to the question.

19

I’ll agree with this, I didn’t mean to say that women will hook up with the hot stud and reject the high status male. What I mean to point out is what makes someone a high status male in a hunter gatherer society. You can’t really accumulate wealth over the years in the same way you can in an agricultural society. And you can be born into a high status family, but the differential between a high status family and a low status family is not that great. You can inherit a social position, but you can’t inherit the equivalent of millions of dollars, you can’t even accumulate the equivalent of millions of dollars through your own efforts.

So there’s no way for a hot young HG woman to marry an incredibly rich old shaman, or some such, and then she inherits his fortune after he dies. Sure, the old shaman is a high status individual, but he doesn’t have a fortune, and after he dies he’s gone. That isn’t to say that the old shaman won’t get a hot young wife, he might very well have a hot young wife. But if he gets a hot young wife it will be due to what he continues to bring to the table today. If he’s a leader and everyone still listens to him and follows his advice, then he’s still high status, but he can’t coast on the achievements of his past for very long. He’s not going to get a hot wife because of his war exploits 30 years ago, unless he’s still a respected and effective war leader today.

My main point was that the agricultural and industrial societies have all sorts of weird ways to achieve high status/wealth that don’t map well onto what would bring high status in a hunter gatherer society. And women’s criteria for judging a guy’s hotness evolved during the 99% of our history when we were hunter-gatherers, so it’s no surprise to find that women often unconsciously judge a guy’s hotness by what that guy’s status would be if only we were still living in a hunter-gatherer society.

20

I heard some autor pushing a book on the radio say that the modern woman looks for two things when choosing a mate: Emotional security and Financial security.

Financial security in that he can provide for her and her offsprings physical needs. Food, shelter, healthcare, lifestyle, etc.

Emotional security in that he can provide for her mental needs. Love, empathy, sex, encouragement, etc.

If both these needs aren’t met the relationship will either end or she will be miserable in the relationship.