Last fall I stopped talking about the economics of gender, and began talking about the economics of sex. It was wonderful.
So much can be discussed under the rubric of economics of sex. Take, for example, the pick-up artist phenomenon, described in books like The Game. It's like Cesar Millan's Dog Whisperer books, urging men to be alphas, take a leadership role, and ignore begging and requests for attention. The major difference as far as I can see is that pick-up artists aim to make women come to bed, rather than dogs come to heel.
One blog, Chateau Heartiste, particularly interested me, because it has a Dating Market Value Test. Twenty-six questions are used to assign men a value score from -26 to +26. What is fascinating about the test is the low weight it gives the obvious measures of desirability – good job, good income, high education, uncomplicated marital history. Any man who is reasonably fit, out-going, and risk-taking can get a high score, as long as he behaves like an "alpha".
People have a deep seated need to feel masculine or feminine; to feel that they are sexually desired and desirable. Once upon a time a man could feel like a man by getting married, having kids, buying a house and a pick-up truck. But we have been living, for some time now, in a Bruce Springsteen economy: these jobs are going boys, and they ain't coming back. So how does a man feel like a man?
A pick-up artist doesn't need money. Take, for example, this question from the men's dating value test:
20. You’re chatting up a pretty girl you just met in a bar. After a few minutes she asks you to buy her a drink. You reply:
(A) “Sure.”
(B) “I’m not an ATM.”
(C) “No, but you can buy me one.”
If you answered (A), subtract a point.
If (B), no points.
If (C), add a point.
The message: it's not about providing, it's about taking control. The message is reinforced in the women's test.
28. On a first date the check arrives for dinner and drinks. You:
Offer to split the check or even pay in full: +1 point
Smile and thank the guy when he pays for the check: 0 points
Forget to thank him after he pays for your ungrateful ass: -1 point
[The women's test is truly repugnant. If you're young or unscarred, please don't read it.] Ladies, you're expected to contribute economically – and you're lucky to get laid.
I can see that the pick-up artist movement, like Fight Club, reflects a genuine yearning to forge a new masculinity, that's not about jobs or how much money you have in the bank. It's about men giving themselves permission to be assertive. I'm sympathetic. But does masculinity have to involve being a jerk?
Competence matters. Respect matters. In my ideal world that would be earned, not by psychological mind games, but by real accomplishments – baking lemon squares, replacing a car battery, repairing a flat bicycle tire. It doesn't have to be about money or having a job or serving someone else's needs. It could be about being the best dancer or playing the meanest saxophone solos.
But we don't live in my ideal world.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
I am loving the desire to quantity these characteristics. It seems to me that this PUA test has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the marriage market. It is a means to gaining access to the short-term casual sex market. There have been several studies done showing that women have very different preferences for men based on the type of relationship they are seeking – short term or long term. Women seeking sort term relationships like the bossy, high testosterone guys but in for long term relationships they look for someone who has other qualities, like being more creative and caring. The observation that the test only focusing only on the short term relationship side is why income doesn’t matter in the test – the idea is to find someone to bang not someone whose children you will be providing for.
As a aside, I suggest that the whole “genre” is focused at men might never have access to the long term market even if that is what they are wanted. It seems to me that these guys are about two steps away from the looking for a wive on the mail order bride market.
rsj, I don’t understand your point. I think I said income was a measure of success and play acting the part of a puffed-up yobbo wasn’t.
If you have a daughter, imagine her as a PUA’s target. Do you feel a little bit of disgust now?
What would I feel disgust at?
A) That my hormone-filled daughter might be attracted to men who violate social norms — e.g. are aggressive or arrogant towards her?
B) That someone’s hormone-filled son, who is really a big sweetie, might feel pressured to act in such a way as to win my daughter?
C) That someone who really is aggressive and arrogant might succeed?
D) That my daughter is not attracted to these types of men but has to deal with them in social settings?
E) That my daughter thinks of herself as disgusting because she is taught that she should want something she doesn’t, and shouldn’t be attracted to something that does attract her?
The only real concern here is D), and what would happen is that the PUA would try to impress my daughter by asking acting arrogant, and she would walk away, at which point they would look for someone who is attracted to that. With heterogeneous preferences, that’s the best you can hope for in a crowded bar. I would be much more afraid of the guy who acts nice but turns out differently.
Really, it’s better for everyone involved if we not be disgusted by anything to do with the occult practices of human dating. This is most important with parents, for whom it is hardest, so it would be an example of long term success at odds with visceral reactions.
But I live in San Francisco; Are you really polite all the time in Canada?
rsj – None of the above.
F) That she might get hurt.
G) That someone might try to hurt her.
Under F goes everything from date rape, nasty STDs, and pregnancy to generally unpleasant sexual encounters.
Marina: “I suggest that the whole “genre” is focused at men might never have access to the long term market even if that is what they are wanted”
Thanks for commenting, that’s a great insight.
B.t.w., Marina has a great book just out called Dollars and Sex, and her column is now being hosted by Psychology Today.
Marina: “There have been several studies done showing that women have very different preferences for men based on the type of relationship they are seeking – short term or long term. Women seeking sort term relationships like the bossy, high testosterone guys but in for long term relationships they look for someone who has other qualities, like being more creative and caring.”
Exactly. That observation is a commonplace on PUA blogs. But now think about it from the “creative and caring” “beta” male point of view. He waits around in the “Let’s Just Be Friends” zone until he’s in his late 30’s, while the young women of his age screw around with all the alphas. Then, when the young women realise they are about to hit the wall, and need to find a husband quick to be a good father and provider, they “settle” for someone like him to exploit.
Not such a great deal for the beta male, is it? It’s not what he wants. And is it any surprise that beta males realise it’s a raw deal, and try to do something about it, by learning to act like alphas?
“It seems to me that these guys are about two steps away from the looking for a wive on the mail order bride market.”
Standard feminist shaming tactics used to try to stifle dissent. Next you’ll be saying they all have small ccks. More likely, they are half a step away from looking for a better deal elsewhere, or else avoiding marriage altogether.
For once, try to realise that women like you no longer have a monopoly on the subject of sex and relationships, and try to understand that there might be a male point of view too. And that men are going to do what’s in *their interests.
Nick – Do you know Marina? Do you know anything about her? If not, don’t talk about “women like you”.
She is not trying to be judgemental, simply making an observation about the dating market. Not at all different from the types of observations you have been known to make from time to time.
O.k., maybe Marina is being a bit judgemental, but she does realize that there is a male point of view. And she certainly knows that men are going to do what’s in their interests!
I took time to explore Heartist and saw some fun things.
IQ over 160 is negative because “they have low social skills” which is untrue. The 160 don’t date in high school. They play a long game. As the story go (and Si non e vero, e bene trovato…), CalTech rallying cry is “Next year, you’ll work for us!”. But the concept of the 160 driving a Mercedes to his Silicon Valley mansion after floating his start-up is beyond the immediate dreams and understanding of the PUA prospects.
There is a story buried in the comments about a woman pining after some dark handsome guy at University to which she hopes ( and does ) losing her virginity. After which , of course he pump-and-dump her. She then settles for some “boring” guy with which she has two children and then divorce him. She also learns that the fdark tec is dead seemingly without issue. Not necessarily wanting to go Yanomano (and resurrect the Chagnon wars) where seemingly the most violent men breed young but die young while calmer types survives longer. Which of the two men had the best reproductive strategy?
“fdark tec” should read dark tec”
Frances: I don’t mind her being judgmental. I do mind when she suggests, based on no evidence whatsoever, that the men who hang out on PUA sites are unmarriageable except to a mail-order bride. That was an insulting put-down of a lot of men. She was calling us losers. It would be like saying that the women who read her blog are fat and ugly. It was also an attempt to shame men into disassociating themselves from the “genre” which competes with her own authority on the subject. And one of the things I have learned from PUA/manosphere sites is to recognise when women use that tactic.
Jacques Rene: “There is a story buried in the comments about a woman pining after some dark handsome guy at University to which she hopes ( and does ) losing her virginity. After which , of course he pump-and-dump her.” <a href=http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/five-minutes-of-alpha-fifty-years-of-pining/Here’s the full story, as interpreted by Chateau Heartiste. It is disturbing reading. I feel sad for all the parties involved. More ugly truths.
Curses! I screwed up the link. Here’s the full story, as interpreted by Chateau Heartiste
Nick, I’m going out with the usual suspect, it may be better if we drop this.
Under F goes everything from date rape, nasty STDs, and pregnancy to generally unpleasant sexual encounters.
A gem. A girl asks a guy “do you want to buy me a drink?” and he answers “no, but you can buy me a drink” — suddenly he is a rapist?
This whole debate is about men feeling the need to act tough, when they are not really tough, because if they don’t they will have a lower chance of dating success. It is the opposite of date rape, when a man acts nice on the outside, but changes later on.
But I think this is a common theme, because as soon as any social norms are violated in the dating world, a certain conservative segment cries out “rape! danger! think of our daughters!” — Not because if the man isn’t on his knees holding flowers, the he must be a rapist, but because they have internalized a set of “good behavior” and “bad behavior” based on social custom, and anyone engaging in the bad behavior must really be a dangerous person. This is exactly why PUA works, and has been going on for a long time.
Girl brings home a guy with long hair, and the parents are up all night worried about rape or the girl getting “in trouble”. Because the parents view the boy as dangerous, the girl is more attracted to him. Then more boys grow their hair out while parents decry that they just want their daughter to be “treated nicely”.
You have to admit that there is a certain humor to all of this.
rsj – Do you deny that the PUA aim to get women to have sex with them, and to get women in a position where sex could happen? If so, then this clearly is the source of our misunderstanding, because I was under the impression that the whole PUA movement was about increasing men’s chances of having sex.
Unfortunately casual sex is risky. More sexual partners = more risk. It may be intoxicating, exciting, addictive, and all sorts of other things, but it’s risky.
IIRC You wrote a post Frances where you mentioned that a girl’s incentives in picking dating partners may not line up with her parents’ incentive in approving them. In particular you mentioned that dating a bad boy provided short-term utility to the girl that was not shared by her parents (who only enjoy the utility of her long-term partners). This seems very similar to some of the current discussion, but the context on your conclusion are different. I tried to find this post with Google and failed, so I apologize if I am putting words in your mouth.
PUA largely seems to be about tricking oneself into overcoming instincts, learned behaviors, and social anxiety in favor of behaviors that are more conducive to achieving a desired goal. In this way it strikes me as being similar to Cognitive Behavior Therapy with a layer of gimmicky marketing on top.
When we look at what bothers people about PUA we might see:
1) It encourages the use of spammy pick-up tactics
2) practitioners turn it into a way of thinking that colours their view of the world outside of just achieving their goal
2a) the process encourages thinking of women as automota and the goal encourages thinking of women as sex toys. This may be conducive, but there should at least be a disclaimer that this is a useful but willfully inaccurate approximation. There may be a parallel in treating men like meal tickets, but that’s a separate discussion.
2b) it encourages bizarre values (eg smart women are undesirable)
3) it may be seen as promoting dischonesty
It seems like most of the potential harm of PUA comes from the layer of gimmicky marketing. I don’t like to tell people “x is bad,” and I think people dismiss this as moralizing when others do so. I prefer to offer “y is better than x.” In this case I might refer men to cognitive behavioral therapy as a means of overcoming social anxiety and naivete.
IMO the best way to deal with spammy pick-ups is to teach women better signalling. It’s absurd to blame men for spammy pick-ups when it’s the only available strategy.
We lie to kids all the time. This includes but is not limited to telling kids what they should look for in a relationship and how to achieve it. As Frances notes in her original post, this is linked to identity. I view it as being similar to telling kids that marijuana is a “gateway drug.” I think everyone would be better off if we lied less.
oblivious – I don’t remember saying that, but then I say a lot of different things.
I agree with much of what you say. The Susan Walsh site that Nick referred to earlier, hookingupsmart, is about teaching women how to deal with this culture.
Dear Nick and Frances,
I have been a long time reader of you guys AND Roissy. I strongly recommend you spend some time reading his blog as far back as you can. You will probably find him repulsive, but I have NEVER anywhere read anyone with as much insight into the fundamental dynamics of male/female relationships. Plus he’s hilarious.
Best regards.
JoeMac – Had a chat with Nick about this today. I still find Roissy repulsive, Nick still thinks he has NEVER anywhere read anyone with as much insight into the fundamental dynamics of male/female relationships. But at least the two of us have, I think, come to respect each other’s views.
For a counterpoint/antidote to the PUA/MRAery (really, Nick?), here is David Futrelle, bête noire of Internet PUAs everywhere. Also, in cartoon form, A Voice for Pierre.
–Your friendly neighbourhood political correctness warrior.
Frances,
OK, now I see the source of the misunderstanding. You are worried that if the men know what women want than they will be more successful in their search — the market will clear. You don’t want the market to clear — you want the women and men to be frustrated in their attempts to find a sexual partner, with the men being misled about what the women are looking for and the women frustrated at a shortage of desirable men. Kind of like telling employees that employers want the opposite of what they really want in order to decrease success rates in labor market matches.
I was assuming that you wanted the market to clear — gains from trade and all — and that the dispute was whether men really are misled about what women want.
If thwarting sex is your goal, then there are other ways to do it. Why not lock your daughter in the house? That has to be preferable to an environment in which men have to have their heads filled with lies so that the number of successful matches in the sexual market is reduced.
Mandos: before I click on it, does David Futrelle speak to what men want, and how men can get it? Because I can read any number of things in the MSM, from supermarket shelves to university reading lists, about what women want, and how women can get what they want, and what people think men ought to want. Does he present a masculinist perspective?
rsj: I think you are probably right. But those of us who have daughters might nevertheless be concerned about where it will all lead. And you do see more than one view on that question, even in the comments on CH.
David Futrelle? Absolutely not. It’s basically a very caustic critique of the genre from a gender-egalitarian perspective, criticising the essentialist stereotypes of “what men what, and how men can get it”, as though men and women were different species, or most of these things were not just a product of patriarchal straight-jacketing.
And yes, I am one of those people.
Nick,
From the point of view of the daughter’s parent, a better strategy is to teach the nice boy to act tough so your daughter will pick him, rather than standing on your front porch with a shotgun trying to chase the bad boy away.
I can’t help but think that there is a belief that the nice boy will stop being nice if they are successful at finding women. Or equivalently, that they are nice because they can’t find women, and are therefore powerless. Give them some power, and they will turn into monsters. In which case PUA is ruining the stock of nice boys, turning them into predators, rather than teaching them a skill, like a dance step. If so, this means the parents share the same bias as the daughter, identifying male desirability with aggression at a fundamental level, rather than as a type of display.
Perhaps this is so deeply rooted that we can’t see it any other way. If a women has multiple partners, then she must be a slut, and if a man has multiple partners, then he must be dangerous.
Mandos: Then David Futrelle will fail. Because men will want to read people who try to figure out what men want in sex and relationships and try to figure out how men can get what they want.
Sneering at Cosmo, and the women who read Cosmo, doesn’t stop women buying and reading Cosmo. At most it just makes them read it furtively and guiltily. The only thing that can defeat Cosmo is a better Cosmo. The only thing that can defeat a PUA blog is a better PUA blog.
Now if David Futrelle ran his own PUA blog, that gave sex and relationship advice for men based on the assumption that gender is all a social construct, that would be an interesting competition to watch. Would he succeed? Would lots of men read him? “Look guys, the way to get laid is to recognise that women are really deep down exactly like you.”
(You lost me on that “one of those people” bit. I clicked on the link, but still don’t know what you meant.)
rsj: I tend to agree. (Though I have read that a better strategy for fathers is to pretend to be pleasant to undesirable boyfriends, but make them look beta in front of the daughter. Though that’s maybe easier said than done.)
I think that the root of the problem is related to that post Frances did on the conflict between behavioural economics and welfare economics. How can we identify what’s in people’s interests if they don’t make choices that reflect their interests?
That assumes that there is a knowable prior understanding of what people (male or female) want, and the whole PUA edifice isn’t merely a huge exercise in confirmation bias and cultural reinforcement among a small group of people that, like many of these things, leeches out via marketing into stereotypes and cultural expectations. This goes back to Frances’ “culture” post. The accusation is that the PUA business is (a) not actually helping its followers build more fulfilled lives, via a pseudoscientifically (evpsych) misconceived misdiagnoses and (b) poisoning the cultural well in a manner harmful to women (by, e.g., reinforcing the “memes” that underlie rape culture). Even Frances expresses discomfort with the PUA bloggery…why is that?
By those people, I meant that I occasionally write posts for a feminist blog and have definite opinions on the idea that “the only thing that can defeat Cosmo is a better Cosmo”, because people desires and incentives exist in a knowable manner exterior to their, well, culture.
Just to disambiguate, I’m saying this sarcastically and mean to imply that I don’t believe that there is a sexual “prior” to “culture”, to which cultural products will eventually conform.
Nick: “How can we identify what’s in people’s interests if they don’t make choices that reflect their interests?”
We’re wired to get a big charge out of sugar so that we face and bees and get the honey. But in a world where we’re surrounded by high-sugar sodas and doughnuts etc 24/7, our desire for sugar has negative consequences for our health.
I would argue the same is true of sex: our brains are wired for a time when people were relatively few and far between, hence opportunities to have a new sexual partner were rare. Exogamy (partnering with someone outside your community) is good because it introduces genetic diversity, so it makes sense that people have evolved to get a huge enormous kick out of having new partner.
Also, sure, it makes sense that our brains are wired to be attracted to people who are at the peak of their reproductive fitness, which is basically what the female DMV test is about.
The PUA culture, it seems to me, is urging men to go out there and get lots of young, hot sexual partners, and degrades other types of female accomplishments (though I did receive a comment via email that pointed out that the PUAs are not threaten by economically successful women, which is good thing).
However the data suggests that multiple short-term relationships isn’t what, in the long-run, makes for happiness. The people who are in long-term relationships have the highest level of happiness (yes, there’s an endogeneity problem, but I think the results are relatively robust).
Mandos: Most of us think that human male/female differences are x% nature and 100-x% nurture, where x is strictly between 0 and 100, and we argue about how big or small x is. The only people I can imagine who could consistently argue for 100% nurture would be some sort of new world creationists: “That Darwinian stuff might work for lions and monkeys, but God created men and women identical 6,000 years ago, and any apparent differences are just us messing with God’s plan.”
Frances: OK, but if LTRs are what bring men the most happiness (which could well be right, and I vaguely remember even Roissy saying that might be true, with the right woman), what that suggests is a market for PUA blogs that tell men how to pick up LTRs (and the right women for LTRs) and how to maintain LTRs. And, while I acknowledge that LTRs are not the main focus of PUA blogs, there definitely is some attention paid to the subject, and I think it is growing over time, as the genre (along with its readers) matures.
Yes, the “Who buys the meal/drink?” bit is sort of ironic. Because one of the themes of modern feminism is that women should be more economically equal, both in rights and responsibilities, which means that feminists should likewise object to women demanding men buy them drinks and meals, and should be pleased if Roissy says that high DMV men and women should do it the other way around. (Though they might think that 50-50 is better in the long run, and that what Roissy is saying is reverse discrimination, which could only be justified on a temporary basis.)
Nick “what that suggests is a market for PUA blogs that tell men how to pick up LTRs (and the right women for LTRs) and how to maintain LTRs”
One of the best things about the PUA genre is that it teaches assertiveness, so it’s an antidote to passive-aggressive behaviour, which just vacuums the life and happiness out of human relationships.
This is an excluded-middle fallacy that could only be committed in the absence of clear ideas about cognition. There isn’t a clear separation of nature and nurture, especially if by nature, you mean “DNA”. We do not have a good mapping of any but the coarsest behavioural trades to DNA…or for that matter neural structures in the brain. It could well be the case that the brain only encodes very high-level capacities…and that evolution has endowed us with an enormous amount of plasticity.
There’s lots of anthropological evidence to show that many dating/mating practices that are taken for granted in modern society are but culturally contingent. The idea that someone has discovered by…economistic deduction? the science of gaining advantage in human interaction, sexual or otherwise, is selling you a bill of goods, and/or appealing to confirmation bias. It’s only a shade better than the Neuro-Linguistic Programming business. We simply do not have enough information about the mind, and what we do have suggests that the right model is a sort of structured plasticity, where the structuring is not “incentives” but management of sensory input processing and workload.
I was for a time seduced by “Pinkerist” evolutionary psychology, but realize that it could only be supported if one deploys a form of deductive reasoning that excludes some crucial premises that should not logically be excluded. Instead, the PUA genre makes it harder to deprogram men and communities of the cultural assumptions that make e.g. Steubenville possible.
This is, in a sense, exactly my complaint about Frances’ “culture” post.
Here’s Berwick and Ahouse’s now-classic critique of Pinker that lays out many of the same arguments that can be deployed against what underpins the PUA genre, and in fact the entire functionalist body of thought that attempts to reduce human cognition to the process of responding to incentives.
Mandos: you are simply not right. I hade a longer behavioral evolution post about this yesterday that got eaten in spamfilter.
Generally evolution has a lot to do with how animals and humans behave. You can even tie physical traits of species to sexual behaviour. For instance if you see huge physical differences between males and females in species, like males being larger, stronger etc it is strong indication of the it belonging to so called “trophy species”. Here males are selected by females purely for their genes. They cannot expect any help with parenting so it is what they end up with. And males are focused on maintaining dominance and fending off other males. Also since reproduction bears almost no cost for males there is no reason to be picky, especially if their reign may not last for long. For a trophy species male best strategy is to mate with all and every female around indiscriminately.
On the other side you have species where it is sometime outright impossible to differentiate between males and females on sight. These so called pair-bonding species select their partners carefully, as many stay together for the rest of their lives. One of the most important traits females seek is an ability of male to care for progeny – in some species (like with Dayak fruit bat) males go as far as to lactate and nurse thier progeny
So how about humans? “Unfortunatelly” we are quite confused and we occupy the middle between these two types of sexual behaviour. And it can even change in time. But the general pattern stays. So for example as far as I understand PUA sites we define male “alpha” as an individual who has very frequent sex with large amount of females and alpha female as an individual who has ability to pair bond with any male, even some “pair bonding alpha”. This is reflected in PUA scores. Males on average tend to select more for physical traits while females are on average are more sensitive to males ability to provide. And the good thing is that all this could be reasonably deducted if scientists would examine human bones.
PS: just to note, the whole alpha and beta vocabulary supposedly comes from how wolves behaviour. Interestingly enough wolves are pair-bonding species and majority of packs are actually families formed around pack’s core “alpha” father and “alpha” mother with 2-3 year old offspring.
Mandos: “There isn’t a clear separation of nature and nurture, especially if by nature, you mean “DNA”
Actually there is a pretty clear connection between behavior and hereditary traits. And there is even more, just by studying bones scientist can say something about sexual behavior of species. For instance if we see a lot of physical difference between males and females, like males being substantially larger it is very likely that we are observing so called “trophy species”. In these species females select males solely based on their genetic traits. Number one responsibility of male is to be strong and cunning enough to fend off competitors. Females cannot expect much in terms of childcare from males. Since mating is almost costless for males the best reproduction strategy is to mate indiscriminately with as many females as possible as long as males reign lasts.
But for some species it can be really hard to see a difference between male and female. Males have to be selected for some other capacity. And true enough, females of these so called pair-bonding species select mostly for males capacity to provide for progeny. For some species like Dayak fruit bat it goes as far as males lactating and nursing their offspring. As you probably deducted, since pair-bonding species stay together for much longer (generally until children mature, sometimes even for life) partner selection is more complicated process ridden with many rituals where males show how capable providers they are.
So where do humans stand? Humans are right in the middle – neither pure trophy species, neither pair-binding we are constantly confused. But even here one can observe some underlying patterns. If PUA blogs talk about male alpha, it is about individual having sex with many females. And if PUA blogs speak about female alpha it is about individual having large selection of potential pair-bonding partners to form relationship. So unsurprisingly men on average tend to select mostly for women physical traits while women on average care more about child-providing capability of men. And funnily enough, this is something scientist could say just observing human bones.
For some reason I cannot post any comment. It does not contain any links or bad words so IDK. Can you look at it?
JV – if something is caught in spam, email me directly and I can fish it out for you. Or break it up into multiple shorter comments. It looks like the length was a trigger for the spam filter here. Do you want me to see if I can find yesterday’s behavioural evolution comment?
Strongly disagree. The connection is clearer if, e.g., you are looking at species where the “brain” is not much more than a ganglion or three, but even then…it tends to pertain to information processing. Otherwise, there is a great deal of sociobiology/ev-psych selective validation on this subject. For example, the alpha and beta thing re wolves has been recanted by its proponents: in the “wild”, the “alpha” male and female are just more often daddy and mommy to the “betas”.
So no, it is not at all clear-cut.
I just saw your other post where you deploy the wolves argument in the service of opposite ends.
Actually I followed closely the subject of behavioral evolution (e.g. prof Sapolsky) and there exists pretty convincing evidence that not only our physical traits, but also our behavior has a strong hereditary component. And it is actually much easier to prove it for sexual behaviour. Anyways I would say that observing other animals would give you more explanatory power as for why males pupils dilate, heartbeat quickens and for why they often act like crazy when in presence of young females in short skirts – than for instance perfect knowledge of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
But if anything there can be actually a good argument made against the PUA site generalization of what is “correct” male and female alpha behaviour. Identifying “attractive” male solely in trophy species categories – such as how many females walked away with his genetic material – could sound weird for pair bonding species. If bull males “want” something different than swan how can we really say that poor swan male did not have such a wonderfull life of sexual promiscuity of a prime bull?
To be honest I also disagree with Nick about identifying PUA with what males “want”. I would say that it makes the same sense as observing some powerful men and coming to a conclusion that all of them really “love” to wear suits, tightly buttoned shirt collars, ties and uncomfortable boots. For some men acting like alpha males goes beyond their actual sexual need – it is as much about status and recognition – and there are some pretty ridiculous rules when it comes to that. It goes as far as homosexuals pretending to conform with these rules in order to be successful. So here I agree with Frances, men could actually benefit if general perception of what it means to be successful male shifts somewhat from that obsession with sex.
On reading sites like Heartiste, one find the comments fast sinking to you’re a highBMI-anorgasmic-notmale oriented-female mate of a dog or you are a weakly-constituted-not-very-capable vague imitation of a man. The lack of verbal skills is rather surprising considering that women usually highly value such verbal skills…
It seems in fact that thse sites are mostly for a “leader” to find followers whio think themselves equal to the leader.
The usual con of political movement: follow me, you will be as good as you think I am. Follow me and you will be a leader..
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