Short-Term Sexual Strategies PDF

6 ShORT-TERM SExuAL STRATEGiES The emotion of sexual disgust is also linked to short-term mating—a logical connection because high levels of sexual disgust would interfere with a strategy of casual sex with multiple partners. Two studies found that people who pursue a short-term mating strategy te...

6 ShORT-TERM SExuAL STRATEGiES The emotion of sexual disgust is also linked to short-term mating—a logical connection because high levels of sexual disgust would interfere with a strategy of casual sex with multiple partners. Two studies found that people who pursue a short-term mating strategy tend to have lower thresholds for sexual disgust (Al-Shawaf, Lewis, & Buss, 2015). Another study found that women and men who pursue short-term mating, combined with a low threshold for feeling sexually disgusted, were more motivated to use the dating app Tinder for seeking casual sex partners (Sevi, Aral, & Eskenazi, 2017). Other studies have examined masculinity. One found that sexually unrestricted women tended to have a more masculine facial appearance (Campbell et al., 2009). A second study found that unrestricted women tended to have higher scores on interviewer-rated physical masculinity and behavioral masculinity, as well as self-reports of childhood gender nonconformity (Mikach & Bailey, 1999). A third study found that facial masculinity was linked with a short-term mating strategy only in men, not in women (Boothroyd, Jones, Burt, DeBruine, & Perrett, 2008). Future research is needed to resolve this apparent discrepancy. Other potentially observable cues to sexual strategy might reside in the mate preferences of those who pursue short-term mating. An excellent pair of studies documented that sexually unrestricted women have stronger preferences for men with masculine faces and bodies— preferences expressed in ratings of male photos as well as in behavioral choices in a laboratory “speed dating” study in which the women met and interacted with men who difered in masculinity (Provost, Kormos, Kosakoski, & Quinsey, 2006). Men who tend to pursue a short-term mating strategy, compared to more long-term oriented men, allocate more attention to physically attractive women in laboratory studies (Duncan et al., 2007). Unrestricted men, more than restricted men, also showed a stronger preference for women with a low WHR—another fnding that supports the hypothesis that men who pursue short-term mating prioritize cues to fertility. Other Contexts Likely to Afect Short-Term Mating Everyone knows some men who are womanizers and others who would never stray. Everyone knows some women who enjoy casual sex and others who could not imagine sex without commitment. Individuals difer in their proclivities for casual mating. Individuals also shif their mating strategies at diferent times of their lives and in diferent contexts. These variations in sexual strategy depend on a wide variety of social, cultural, and ecological conditions. Father Absence and Stepfather Presence The absence of a father while growing up has been reliably linked with the pursuit of a short-term mating strategy. Among the Mayan of Belize and the Ache of Paraguay, for example, father absence is correlated with men stating that they are unwilling to commit the time, energy, and resources needed to sustain a long-term mating relationship (Waynforth, Hurtado, & Hill, 1998). Other studies of both women and men have found that those growing up in father-absent homes are more likely to reach puberty sooner, to engage in sexual intercourse earlier, and to pursue a short-term mating strategy (e.g., Ellis, McFadyen-Ketchum, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1999; Surbey, 1998b). Poor or harsh parenting, especially from the father, as well as father absence is associated with daughters having an early age of reaching puberty (Tither & Ellis, 2008), having a larger number of sex partners (Alvergne, Faurie, & Raymond, 2008), and an increased likelihood of early reproduction (Cornwell et al., 2006; Nettle, Coall, & Dickins, 2010). One particularly harsh family environment occurs when girls are victims of 181 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 182 sexual abuse. Childhood sexual abuse is associated with early age of puberty and early onset of sexual activity (Vigil, Geary, & Byrd-Craven, 2005). There is currently controversy about whether these efects are solely the result of adaptations in females to shift their reproductive strategy as a function of a harsh family environment or whether there might also be a genetic component such that fathers who are poor or absent parents pass on genes for a short-term mating strategy to their daughters (see Mendle et al., 2009; Tither & Ellis, 2008). Intriguingly, one study found that stepfather presence, even more than biological father absence, may be a critical factor promoting early sexual maturation in girls—a likely precursor to a short-term mating strategy (Ellis & Garber, 2000). Another potential cause is that biological fathers do more “daughter guarding,” engaging in behavior that prevents their daughters from engaging in sexual intercourse early (Surbey, 1998b; Perilloux, Fleischman, & Buss, 2008). Finally, poor attachment to one’s parents was linked to sexual promiscuity for both sexes (Walsh, 1995, 1999). Transitions Across Life Casual sex is also related to people’s developmental stage in life. Adolescents in many cultures are more prone to temporary mating as a means of assessing their value on the mating market, experimenting with diferent strategies, honing their attraction skills, and clarifying their own preferences (Frayser, 1985). Afer they have done so, they are more ready for marriage. The fact that premarital adolescent sexual experimentation is tolerated and even encouraged in some cultures, such as the Mehinaku of Amazonia (Gregor, 1985), provides a clue that short-term mating is related to one’s stage in life. The transition points between diferent committed mateships ofer additional opportunities for casual sex. After a divorce, for example, it is crucial to reassess one’s value on the current mating market. The presence of children from the marriage generally lowers the desirability of divorced people, compared with their desirability if they had no children. The elevated status that comes with being more advanced in a career, on the other hand, may raise their desirability in comparison with the last time they were on the mating market. Sex Ratio Another critical circumstance that afects the likelihood of pursuing a short-term sexual strategy is the abundance or defcit of eligible men relative to eligible women—the sex ratio in the relevant mating pool. Many factors afect sex ratio, including wars, which kill larger numbers of men than women; risk-taking activities such as physical fghts, which more frequently afect men; intentional homicides, in which roughly seven times more men than women die; and diferent remarriage rates by age, whereby with increasing age women remarry less ofen than men. Men tend to shif to brief encounters when many women are sexually available because the sex ratio is in their favor and they are therefore better able to satisfy their desire for variety (Pedersen, 1991). Among the Ache, for example, men appear to be highly promiscuous because there are 50 percent more women than men (Hill & Hurtado, 1996). When there is a surplus of men, in contrast, both sexes appear to shif toward a long-term mating strategy marked by stable marriages and fewer divorces (Pedersen, 1991). Indeed, a surplus of males also predicts polyandry—a form of mating in which one woman 6 ShORT-TERM SExuAL STRATEGiES marries more than one man, ofen brothers (Starkweather & Hames, 2012). In the most comprehensive cross-cultural study of sex ratio and sexual strategies, involving 14,059 individuals in 48 nations, people in cultures with a surplus of women were more likely to endorse attitudes and behaviors associated with a short-term mating strategy (Schmitt, 2005). Moreover, experiments that create a context for a relative surplus of women cause men to shif to stronger desires for short-term mating and, if they are in a relationship, create stronger intentions for infdelity (Arnocky, Woodruf, & Schmitt, 2016). Conversely, a scarcity of women is linked to lower inclinations for short-term mating (Kandrik, Jones, & DeBruine, 2015; Moss & Maner, 2016). A recent trend in the increasing imbalance of enrolling in colleges and universities within North American and Western Europe is also afecting the sex ratio. Aside from engineering schools, more women than men are enrolling and obtaining college educations and degrees. At Texas Christian University, for example, the enrollment is 60 percent women and 40 percent men. The rise of the hook-up culture on many college campuses may be partly traced to a surplus of women in these mating pools (Buss, 2016b). Mate Value, Masculinity, Body Type, and Personality One context that may afect short-term mating is mate value, one’s overall desirability to members of the opposite sex. The self-perceived mating success scale (Lalumiere, Seto, & Quinsey, 1995; Landolt, Lalumiere, & Quinsey, 1995) assesses mate value. Sample items from this scale are: “members of the opposite sex notice me”; “I receive many compliments from members of the opposite sex”; “members of the opposite sex are attracted to me”; and “relative to my peer group, I can get dates with great ease.” Scores on the mate value scale were correlated with the reported sexual history of the participants, both males and females. The results were strikingly diferent for the sexes. High-mate-value men, relative to their lower-mate-value counterparts, tended to have sexual intercourse at an earlier age, a greater number of sex partners since puberty, a greater number of partners during the past year, a greater number of sexual invitations within the past 3 years, sexual intercourse a greater number of times, and do not feel a need to be attached to a person before having sex. High-mate-value men tended to score toward the high end of the SOI (Clark, 2006), suggesting that they are pursuing a short-term mating strategy. Several other indicators of male mate value are linked with success at short-term mating. First, men who are high in status and resources—key indicators of men’s mate value—tend to have a larger number of sex partners, indicating success at short-term mating (Kanazawa, 2003a; Perusse, 1993). Second, men high in social dominance—a predictor of future elevation in status—tend to be more unfaithful, indicating pursuit of short-term mating (Egan & Angus, 2004). Third, men with a higher shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR)—an indicator of men’s bodily attractiveness discussed in Chapter 4—have sex at an earlier age, have more sex partners and more extra-pair copulations, and are more likely to have sex with other people’s mates (Hughes & Gallup, 2003). Fourth, men who compete in sports, and especially men who are successful athletic competitors, report having had a larger number of sex partners (Faurie, Pontier, & Raymond, 2004). Fifth, men who have attractive faces and masculine bodies have more short-term sex partners (Rhodes, Simmons, & Peters, 2005) and express an especially strong preference for women with high facial femininity, a cue to attractiveness (Burriss et al., 2011). Men high in handgrip strength (Gallup, White, & Gallup, 2007) and who have high circulating testosterone (van Anders, Hamilton, & Watson, 2007) tend to pursue a shortterm mating strategy. Men with a mesomorphic (muscular) body build tend to have higher 183 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 184 reproductive success, as gauged by ofspring count (Genovese, 2008), which may refect a shortterm strategy. The fndings for a link between women’s mate value and sexual strategy are more mixed. Some fnd no association between women’s self-perceived mate value and the pursuit of a short-term mating strategy (e.g., Lalumiere et al., 1995; Landolt et al., 1995; Mikach & Bailey, 1999). On the other hand, women with a low WHR tend to follow a more unrestricted (shortterm) mating strategy and are perceived by others to be more promiscuous and less trustworthy (Brewer & Archer, 2007). One speculation is that bodily attractiveness, rather than facial or overall attractiveness, may be linked with a short-term mating strategy in women—a speculation that remains to be more rigorously tested with future research. Personality characteristics also predict mating strategy. A study of 13,243 individuals from 46 nations found that the traits of high extraversion, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness predicted an interest in short-term mating, attempts at poaching the mates of others, and succumbing to the lure of mate poaching by others (Schmitt & Shackelford, 2008). The “Dark Triad” of personality—narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism—also predict exploitative short-term mating strategies, including willingness to engage in sex with others while in a relationship, particularly in men (Adams, Luevano, & Jonason, 2014; Jonason, Li, & Buss, 2010; Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009; McDonald, Donnellan, & Navarrete, 2012). For both men and women, those scoring high on Dark Triad traits express a stronger preference than those scoring low for “booty calls,” “friends with benefts,” and one-night stands (Koladich & Atkinson, 2016). These contexts—from mate value to sex ratio to personality—do not exhaust the possible circumstances that incline people who shift mating strategy. Other possibilities include the level of parental care available from kin and other sources, the resource abundance or scarcity in the local ecology, the degree to which women are economically dependent on men’s resources, and the magnitude of danger from predators and other humans in the local environment (e.g., Price, Pound, & Scott, 2014; Thomas & Stewart-Williams, 2018). Future research will undoubtedly discover more precisely which circumstances and personal qualities cause individuals to shift to a short-term or long-term mating strategy. Summary The scientifc study of mating over the course of the 20th century has focused nearly exclusively on marriage. Human anatomy, physiology, and psychology, however, betray an ancestral past flled with afairs and short-term mating. The obvious reproductive advantages of short-term mating to men may have blinded scientists to their benefts to women. In this chapter, we frst considered men’s short-term mating. According to Trivers’s theory of parental investment and sexual selection, the reproductive benefts to ancestral men as a consequence of short-term mating would have been direct—an increase in the number of children produced as a function of the number of women successfully inseminated. The empirical evidence is strong that men do have a greater desire for short-term mating than do women. Compared to women, men express a greater desire for a variety of sex partners, let less time elapse before seeking sexual intercourse, lower their standards dramatically when pursuing short-term mating, have more sexual fantasies and more fantasies involving a variety of sex partners, report having a higher sex drive, fnd cues to sexual exploitability to be attractive for short-term mating, experience more sexual regret over missed sexual opportunities, have a larger number of extramarital afairs, are more likely to seek hookups and friends with benefts, and visit prostitutes more often. Although a few psychologists 6 ShORT-TERM SExuAL STRATEGiES continue to deny these fundamental sex diferences, the diference between men and women in the desire for sexual variety is one of the largest, most replicable, and most cross-culturally robust psychological sex diferences ever documented (Schmitt et al., 2003; Petersen & Hyde, 2010). Mathematically, however, short-term mating requires two. Except for forced copulation, men’s desire for short-term sex could not have evolved without the presence of some willing women. We looked at the evidence that some women historically have engaged in short-term mating some of the time. The existence of physiological clues in men, such as testicle size and variations in sperm insemination, suggests a long evolutionary history of some modest level of sperm competition—in which the sperm from two diferent men have inhabited a woman’s reproductive tract at the same time. From an evolutionary perspective, it is unlikely that women would have recurrently engaged in short-term mating without reaping some adaptive benefts. There are potentially fve classes of adaptive benefts to women: economic or material resources, genetic benefts, mate switching benefts, short-term for long-term goals, and mate manipulation benefts. Based on the studies that have been conducted, the empirical evidence supports the hypothesized functions of mate switching, resource acquisition, short-term for long-term mating goals, and access to good genes or sexy son genes and does not at all support status enhancement or mate manipulation benefts. Individuals difer in whether they tend to pursue short-term or long-term mating strategies. Interestingly, these individual diferences can be detected, at least partially. Women with a short-term mating inclination show more eyebrow fashes and glances when interacting with men; dress more provocatively at ovulation; are perceived to be somewhat masculine in appearance, and are attracted to men who have especially masculine faces and bodies. Men who prioritize shortterm mating tune their attention to attractive women more than their long term–oriented peers, and also show a stronger preference for women with a low WHR—a well-established cue to fertility. The fnal section of this chapter examined various context efects on short-term mating. Sex ratio is one context—a surplus of women tends to promote short-term mating in both sexes. Another important context is mate value, one’s desirability to members of the opposite sex. Men high in mate value, as indicated by status, dominance, high SHR, success in sports, facial attractiveness, and masculine features, are more likely to pursue short-term mating, as refected in measures such as younger age at frst intercourse and a larger number of sex partners. The link between women’s mate value and preferred sexual strategy is more mixed. Some studies show no relationship between women’s self-perceived mate value and sexual strategy. Others show that women with a low (attractive) WHR are slightly more inclined to pursue a short-term mating strategy and are perceived by others as somewhat more sexually unrestricted. Finally, personality characteristics predict sexual strategy. Those high on extraversion, low on agreeableness, and low on conscientiousness are more inclined to short-term mating. Those who score high on the Dark Triad—narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism—also tend to pursue an exploitative short-term mating strategy. Critical Thinking Questions 1. Men, compared with women, desire a larger number of sex partners, let less time elapse before seeking sex, and more ofen consent to request to have sex with total strangers. Explain how these psychological proclivities facilitate the success of a short-term mating strategy for men. 2. A key predictor of the contexts in which women have extramarital afairs is when they are dissatisfed with their primary relationship. Explain which hypothesis of short-term mating this fnding supports. 3. Women in short-term mating ofen prefer men who have masculine features. Describe how these fndings support the “good genes” hypothesis of women’s short-term mating. 4. If a large number of men suddenly moved into a small town, creating a surplus of men relative to women, how would this change in sex ratio likely infuence mating strategies? 185