Archive for the ‘The Cult Of St. Joseph’ Category
The Rule Of Thumb
It is a rule of thumb in zoology that the bigger the male of the species in relation to the female, the more that species’ reproductive system is about harem-keeping by a dominant male, and the more equal the sizes of the sexes, the more it is about monogamous pair-bonding. The relative sizes of modern […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
Sneakers And Dashers
In the animal world there are three strategies to counter the strategy of harem-holding, that is, the attempted monopolisation of all the females by the dominant male. One is called Dasher, because the animal nips into the harem when the bull male isn’t looking, gets a quick copulation and runs for his life. For one […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
The Augustus John Strategy And Its Complement
One of the problems with the popular debate over evolutionary psychology appears to be that some journalists are stuck in 1980 models of the science. We hear an awful lot about the Trivers theory that the greater female parental investment means greater female choosiness, implying a hardwired female fidelity, and nothing at all about the […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
Orgasms, Fidelity And False Advertising
David Buss at Austin has suggested that the true evolutionary function of the female orgasm is to demonstrate a woman’s commitment to an attractive man, convincing him that she is satisfied and therefore loyal. An orgasmic woman would therefore be less likely to be abandoned, he suggests, and so her children, also bearing the modification […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
Indoor Competition
As we emerge from the dark age of human self-knowledge, namely the Fifties to the Seventies, when it was holy writ that we came into the world as blank slates for parents, teachers and self-appointed social engineers to write on, we have discovered more and more about natural mammalian abilities to govern reproduction. We all […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
The Kicker
As Matt Ridley comments, even a woman who has no need to have sex with many men in order to protect or support herself has one very good reason to have sex with one man other than her husband. Namely, that his sperm will be better. “This is because her husband is, almost by definition, […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
The Wisdom Of The Ancients
In its passion for “emotional truth”, the twentieth century may actually have been stricter about fidelity than earlier ages, or tried to be. The Elizabethans took it absolutely for granted that all wives were incessantly unfaithful, and this seems also to be the world of Les liaisons dangereuses. Now, shame-based cultures don’t care what you […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
What Man Is Not Meant To Know
Baker and Bellis DNA-tested children in housing estates first in Liverpool and then in Guildford, finding that only around 80 per cent were the offspring of the men they thought were their fathers. That is, the cuckoo rate was about one in five. As far as I know, this work has never been repeated elsewhere […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
Pricing Commitment
An error-management approach to the chat-up scene suggests that the chronic male misinterpretation of female friendliness in terms of sexual interest is – despite all the female complaints – highly rational. For trying it on and being rejected is less costly than missing a reproductive opportunity. For women, however, the calculus points in the opposite […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
What’s Really Going Down In The Shrubbery
Crude applications of evolutionary biology make out that the female strategy is quality in reproduction, while the males go for sheer quantity; that is, the males are supposed to mate with anything that moves. In fact there is a huge constraint on male promiscuity, namely the necessity of having to guard the females and protect […]
In: WHAT WOMEN WANT, The Cult Of St. Joseph
