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What do women want?

Discussion in 'Break Room' started by NewsBot, Feb 16, 2014.

  1. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
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    Press Release:
    What do women want? It depends on the time of the month
    UCLA researchers publish landmark meta-analysis of sexual preferences at ovulation
    http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/what-do-women-want-depends-on-249813.aspx
     
  2. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    Interesting meta-analysis. However, Chaucer could have informed them 600 years ago - see the Wife of Bath's tale!

    Cheers

    Bill
     
  3. wdd

    wdd Well-Known Member

    ........ women’s preferences for mates change throughout the menstrual cycle. Their findings suggest that ovulating women have evolved to prefer mates who display sexy traits – such as a masculine body type and facial features, dominant behavior and certain scents – but not traits typically desired in long-term mates.

    Does that mean that women who are in 'long term' relationships with males who' display sexy traits' are less likely to 'stray'?

    Is this characteristic constant throughout a woman's reproductive life?

    So, desires for those masculine characteristics, which are thought to have been markers of high genetic quality in our male ancestors, don’t last all month – just the few days in a woman’s cycle when she is most likely to pass on genes that, eons ago, might have increased the odds of her offspring surviving and reproducing.

    I am sure that 'those characteristics, which are thought to have been markers of high genetic quality' are markers of some qualities that are important for family, ie the survival of all her offspring or even group survival. I wonder if this characteristic is more pronounced before the first child is born to the 'long term' telationship? My logic is that it might increase the probability of survival of family members including siblings if the 'dominant' or 'fitest' in survival terms was the oldest child

    I would be suprised if the characteristic doesn't become less pronounced if or after the woman gives birth to a male?/female child possessing the symmetrical, etc characteristics whether the father is her long term partner or a 'sexy male'.

    My feeling is that the survival of her children depends upon the genetic make up of the children and the environment they are brought up in. It might be that this female behaviour allowed her to create some control over her environment that was likely to increase the probability of survival of her other children, ie the dominant (if this is the important characteristic) would be able to protect the family, especially his siblings as they are growing up and possibly into adulthood. Possibly for our ancestors having one child in a familywho was dominant, etc, increased the likelyhood of survival of the whole family including his/her siblings. Possibly having a whole family of dominants might decrease the likelyhood of survival of the family?

    One would imagine that there is a proportion of dominant/submissive (or other characteristics) children within a family that is likely to maximise the probability of long term survival of the family?

    Bill

    PS I think it would be interesting to know what the factors are that increase or decrease the likelyhood of a woman acting upon this 'monthly' attraction for the'sexy male'.
     
  4. Orthican

    Orthican Active Member

    I think the factors acting upon monthly attractiveness are "truthfulness" "respect" and "reliability". There is direct relationship where these factors are concerned regarding relationship stability and longevity. At least that's what my wife says.
     
  5. I think this all comes down to the differences between the structure of the female vs the male brain. ;)
     
  6. wdd

    wdd Well-Known Member

    I think that 'truthfulness', 'respect', and 'reliability' are nice, civilised, socially acceptable, even desirable words that don't really say much about the tremendously complex and suble forces at work but I wouldn't want to disgard these descriptors as 'the truth' might be extremely selfish and unpalatable.

    At least that's what my wife says!

    Bill
     
  7. Rob Kidd

    Rob Kidd Well-Known Member

    Its an interesting one. Sexual dimorphism - which has essentially nothing to do with sex - is incredibly complex and describes far more than "size" - whatever size is.

    However, cut the crap and get down to it, SD occurs in three guises: size, (whatever that is), shape (whatever that is), and variation. In nearly all primates, but include H Sap, males are larger than females, the two sexes have different shapes (that is - you look at a female, and know they are female as a result of a summation of huge numbers of pieces of information - a sort of qualitative multivariate analysis. Also, the female of the species is more variable than males. Wind back to a harem society - eg Gorilla, Chimp, where there is one sexually active male, and perhaps 20-25 females, we explain this easily. Males are larger because they beat the crap out of any competition - thus "big boy" genes are passed on. It also explains why females are more variable - there are ~25 sets of females genes in the pool, but only one male. Now this is glaringly obvious in apes; so why is it true in humans? It is not as obvious, but it is there - everywhere you look. The natural variation associated with simple summary measures eg femoral length are more variable in male than female humans....... When I have this conversation with the med sci students it gets a bit stilted now - the implication is clear. And it has been suggested - sorry, do not have the ref, that the male that she chooses for a life long partner, is not necessarily the same one as to be the father of her children. Other works (again sorry, do not have the refs) has suggested that a significant number of men are bringing up kids that they think are theirs, but are not. This is incredibly common in some species of birds. The message to us is interesting: do not emotions get in the way of biology. Rob
     
  8. wdd

    wdd Well-Known Member

    Males are larger because they beat the crap out of any competition - thus "big boy" genes are passed on.

    I have always thought that the survival advantage of male size came less from advantge in physical conflict (physical conflict is dangerous as even though size may see you through it may signifcantly weaken you in the short term and may have cumulative long term sequelae) and more from psychological dominance, ie looking big and menacing is enough discourage ninety percent of the opposition. After that being the one to initiate an unexpected and devastating attack is likely to confer winner status and throwing the first punch is not something many men seem to do naturally. I have a sense that commonly smaller men can do it more easily than bigger men?

    But almost invariably it is less risky to huff and puff than it is to throw punches. However if punches must be thrown then throwing them first and with conviction would seem to be good survival characteristics. Being gifted in the berserk department might also go a long way in terms of survival.

    I suppose I am just echoing what you said Robb, ie it is tremendously complex area, and focusing on any single feature will of course always be an over simplification.

    Bill
     
  9. Rob Kidd

    Rob Kidd Well-Known Member

    Its certainly true that the "opposition" are psychologically castrated - once they have been flattened (if they challenge in the first place). My point, which I hinted at (as you well know, tact is not my strong point), is that the inference is clear; Hypothesis 1) Home sapiens would appear still to live in an Alpha Male society - visions of Primia Nocta (sp?). However, Hypothesis 2) we are playing evolutionary catch up - what our morphology says today, is reflective of yesteryear. That is, it may take several thousand years for the genotype and the phenotype to talk the same language and we could be looking at a skeletal morphology reflective of hunter gatherer society. It does cause some disquiet, however. There is every evidence that in human hunter gatherer society, food (male gathered), changed (changes?) hands for sexual favours - isn't that sort of the same argument? Rob
     
  10. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    I've been asked to elucidate on 'The Wife of Bath's Tale'. The outcome was that what every woman wants is her own way (dominance over the male), which is what Rob, Bill and the o/p posted in much more intellectual terms.

    Cheers

    Bill
     
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