Patri Friedman ponders which occupations women prefer in men here, and in the comments Hugh Ristik cites a thoughtful ’07 post at Gene Expression: The Common Side-blotched Lizard shows exactly these three types. The “sneaker” Yellow males, from afar, look just like females, allowing them to fly under the radar and copulate with numerous members of an Orange alpha-male’s harem. The monogamous Blue mate-guarders have only one female to watch, and they cooperate with each other due to green beard effects. …
I suppose the idea here would be that from an evolutionary psychology point of view, homosexuality might be a "ruse" to convince other members of the same sex that one poses no threat to their mating relationships. A ruse that to be convincing must be totally unconscious. So, just like irrational anger and irrational love serve game-theoretic purposes, so too does "irrational sexuality".
Another, related idea: is early childhood the "sampling window" in which one decides which sexual strategy to engage, based on the prevailing sexual strategies as indicated by one's parents?
These aren't my views, but fun to speculate about such things sometimes.
Shouldn’t this make long-term mates wary of strong mate attraction to dramatic stories?
Be careful. If the dramatic story is told in front of a group, like dramatic stories often are, the attraction of any individual female may be due to preselection not necessarily her personally being in short term mode.
> A man who had prestige, dominance, and resources would get the best short and long term mates – what men are these?
Politicians would certainly count, except for the incentives in the U.S. where an affair or "trading up" on spouses looks bad. But in other cultures, well, think of Sarkozy and Berlusconi.
Now can Robin do the same for Men? - there should be a complementary set of core archetypes characterizing what men look for in females.
Without even bothering to check scientific literature, and using only my fabled 'super clicker' intuition I will attempt to state what the core female archetypes are:
Disciples: The devoted and loyal follower Mother Hens: The nurturer and comforter Sirens: The sexy seductive beauty
Cross-pairing the archetypes, we see that they are indeed complementary:
Robin, glad you found that post as intriguing as I did. I'm glad to see status being differentiated into dominance-based and prestige-based status.
I'm going to continue making the case I was making at Patri's, which is that female attraction to males includes major factors other than status of either sort. There is an effect of good genes, as demonstrating by musical, artistic, and athletic ability, independent of status.
Female peacocks don't go for males with showy tails because the tails grant status in peacock society.
A subset of athletes are close to pure dom archetypes: 1 on 1 sport athletes with clear winners and losers and world champions, Mike Tyson, Brock Lesner, they're primarily dom.
Teams are pageants and thus team members can be more caddish: for example Dennis Rodman was primarily cad. But usually the guy at the top of the winning team is primarily dom (the MVP quarterback), it seems to me.
I agree the lawyer is primarily a dom archetype -particular solo judges, chief justices, and chief prosecutors/district attorneys.
I agre politcians are primarily dom archetypes.
Doctors, I think are primarily cad archetype, but I think they're very noisy signals. They're not generalized leaders or dominators so I don't think they're primarily doms. I think bad boys are a subset of cad, they're not a perfect conflation with the category.
There may be some reluctance to glorify cad type guys directly in the media, but there sure is a lot of glorification of bad boy chasing and general partying among young girls in popular music lately. Nelly Furtado singing about being promiscuous, Kesha singing about brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels and how the rush of falling in love with a bad boy is "worth the price I pay." And let's not forget Rihanna's recent # 1, Rude Boy, a raunchy ode to sex with street thugs.
Also, there may or may not be some diminution of promiscuity in certain sectors of society, but STDs are on the rise, so large swathes of society things are likely as crazy or crazier than they ever were.
I think the short-term value of Dom types isn't so much good genes (usually that's signaled by dreamy looks) as it is protection from physical violence. Women demand these types in their popular culture when violence rates shoot up, as we saw with Clint Eastwood during the '60s through the '80s.
(Cads also become popular because when violence surges, people discount the future more and are more interested in having short-term excitement with a rock singer type.)
Athletes are not Doms; they are Cads. They do not associate with other Doms, as lawyers, doctors, politicians, etc. do. They show off their genetic quality through performance before a rapt audience, and so are entertainers.
There has been no transition from a Dad society to a Cad/Dom society -- maybe for the period of the '60s through the '80s, but the counter-Countercultural revolution of the early 1990s did away with that. There are no more ballsy exciting rock singers or other fly-by-night charmers, and there are no more guys like Dirty Harry, Rambo, or Bullitt. Now the drabber but more long-term dependable Dad is in vogue.
Again probably due to the violence rate plummeting since the early '90s -- things whose value is slow to mature will be demanded more when the future looks safer.
I've always been confused by the right's virulent opposition to homosexuality, but I think this post suggests a theory. Gay men effectively occupy the "yellow" reproductive niche - they are always surrounded by babes, and trust me, many gay guys will take a few swings for the other team on occasional. Intolerance of homosexuality is just part of the right's general opposition to our society's transition from a Dad-heavy equilibrium to a Prestige-Cad/Dominance-Cad equilibrium.
My opinions on the morality of homosexuality remain unchanged, but at least now I understand that there is a cogent argument against them...
Funny and friendly (nothing sexual ) = "Let's just be Friends"
Direct and Sexual (no rapport ) = Maybe fuck-buddies or one night stand
Sexual and Playful (+ Rapport) = Boyfriend
I suppose the idea here would be that from an evolutionary psychology point of view, homosexuality might be a "ruse" to convince other members of the same sex that one poses no threat to their mating relationships. A ruse that to be convincing must be totally unconscious. So, just like irrational anger and irrational love serve game-theoretic purposes, so too does "irrational sexuality".
Another, related idea: is early childhood the "sampling window" in which one decides which sexual strategy to engage, based on the prevailing sexual strategies as indicated by one's parents?
These aren't my views, but fun to speculate about such things sometimes.
Shouldn’t this make long-term mates wary of strong mate attraction to dramatic stories?
Be careful. If the dramatic story is told in front of a group, like dramatic stories often are, the attraction of any individual female may be due to preselection not necessarily her personally being in short term mode.
An interesting thought.
All this deep social insight is overwhelming. I'm going to need a bigger armchair if I hope to keep up.
Shouldn’t this make long-term mates wary of strong mate attraction to dramatic stories?
Unless one is merely assuming a role of long-term mate to engage the interests of other short-term mates who are attracted to the machismo-dad.
> A man who had prestige, dominance, and resources would get the best short and long term mates – what men are these?
Politicians would certainly count, except for the incentives in the U.S. where an affair or "trading up" on spouses looks bad. But in other cultures, well, think of Sarkozy and Berlusconi.
Now can Robin do the same for Men? - there should be a complementary set of core archetypes characterizing what men look for in females.
Without even bothering to check scientific literature, and using only my fabled 'super clicker' intuition I will attempt to state what the core female archetypes are:
Disciples: The devoted and loyal follower Mother Hens: The nurturer and comforter Sirens: The sexy seductive beauty
Cross-pairing the archetypes, we see that they are indeed complementary:
Dom - DiscipleDad - Mother HenCad - Siern
no such thing as fake machismo unless you're caught.
Robin, glad you found that post as intriguing as I did. I'm glad to see status being differentiated into dominance-based and prestige-based status.
I'm going to continue making the case I was making at Patri's, which is that female attraction to males includes major factors other than status of either sort. There is an effect of good genes, as demonstrating by musical, artistic, and athletic ability, independent of status.
Female peacocks don't go for males with showy tails because the tails grant status in peacock society.
A subset of athletes are close to pure dom archetypes: 1 on 1 sport athletes with clear winners and losers and world champions, Mike Tyson, Brock Lesner, they're primarily dom.
Teams are pageants and thus team members can be more caddish: for example Dennis Rodman was primarily cad. But usually the guy at the top of the winning team is primarily dom (the MVP quarterback), it seems to me.
I agree the lawyer is primarily a dom archetype -particular solo judges, chief justices, and chief prosecutors/district attorneys.
I agre politcians are primarily dom archetypes.
Doctors, I think are primarily cad archetype, but I think they're very noisy signals. They're not generalized leaders or dominators so I don't think they're primarily doms. I think bad boys are a subset of cad, they're not a perfect conflation with the category.
Congratulations Robin, you have figured out women.
There may be some reluctance to glorify cad type guys directly in the media, but there sure is a lot of glorification of bad boy chasing and general partying among young girls in popular music lately. Nelly Furtado singing about being promiscuous, Kesha singing about brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels and how the rush of falling in love with a bad boy is "worth the price I pay." And let's not forget Rihanna's recent # 1, Rude Boy, a raunchy ode to sex with street thugs.
Also, there may or may not be some diminution of promiscuity in certain sectors of society, but STDs are on the rise, so large swathes of society things are likely as crazy or crazier than they ever were.
The bad boy lives.
I think the short-term value of Dom types isn't so much good genes (usually that's signaled by dreamy looks) as it is protection from physical violence. Women demand these types in their popular culture when violence rates shoot up, as we saw with Clint Eastwood during the '60s through the '80s.
(Cads also become popular because when violence surges, people discount the future more and are more interested in having short-term excitement with a rock singer type.)
Athletes are not Doms; they are Cads. They do not associate with other Doms, as lawyers, doctors, politicians, etc. do. They show off their genetic quality through performance before a rapt audience, and so are entertainers.
There has been no transition from a Dad society to a Cad/Dom society -- maybe for the period of the '60s through the '80s, but the counter-Countercultural revolution of the early 1990s did away with that. There are no more ballsy exciting rock singers or other fly-by-night charmers, and there are no more guys like Dirty Harry, Rambo, or Bullitt. Now the drabber but more long-term dependable Dad is in vogue.
Again probably due to the violence rate plummeting since the early '90s -- things whose value is slow to mature will be demanded more when the future looks safer.
A man who had prestige, dominance, and resources would get the best short and long term mates – what men are these?
Wilt Chamberlain comes to mind so maybe these are professional athletes.
I've always been confused by the right's virulent opposition to homosexuality, but I think this post suggests a theory. Gay men effectively occupy the "yellow" reproductive niche - they are always surrounded by babes, and trust me, many gay guys will take a few swings for the other team on occasional. Intolerance of homosexuality is just part of the right's general opposition to our society's transition from a Dad-heavy equilibrium to a Prestige-Cad/Dominance-Cad equilibrium.
My opinions on the morality of homosexuality remain unchanged, but at least now I understand that there is a cogent argument against them...