Decoding Love (7 page)
Authors: Andrew Trees
A whole slew of different statistics confirms this sexual difference between men and women. According to a University of Chicago survey, 54 percent of men think about sex once a day, while only 19 percent of women do, and 40 percent of men masturbate once a week, while only 10 percent of women do. According to another study, 85 percent of twenty- to thirty-year-old men think about sex every fifty-two seconds (which makes you wonder how men manage to accomplish anything), while women think about it once a day unless they are ovulating, when that number rises to three or four times a day. The numbers vary from study to study, but in every single one men think about sex much more than women do.
Men also show a much stronger desire for sexual variety. In one study, college students were asked how many sexual partners they would like to have over various time intervals. Over the next year, women said they would prefer on average to have one sexual partner, while men wanted six. Over three years, women wanted two sexual partners, compared to ten for men. And over a lifetime, the average woman wanted four or five, while the average man wanted eighteen.
This desire for variety is so extreme in men that it can lead to some bizarre behavior. In 1995, Hugh Grant was dating super-model Elizabeth Hurley, and he still felt the need to solicit oral sex with a prostitute, although his subsequent arrest had no effect on his film career (which suggests that most Hollywood moguls must have an instinctive sympathy for the occasional need to solicit a blow job). There are countless recent examples of men, ranging from Bill Clinton to Eliot Spitzer, taking mind-boggling risks for sexual variety that are almost impossible to explain according to any sort of rational calculation. I think only evolutionary psychology has a satisfying answer, which is that some deep, instinctual drive created by thousands of generations of evolution—in this case, a man’s greater desire for sexual variety—was guiding their behavior. Even the clichéd idea of a man’s midlife crisis is an expression of this evolutionary urge. According to new research, a man suffers from a midlife crisis not because he is getting older but because his wife is. By coming to the end of her reproductive life, she ignites a deep-seated desire in him to attract a younger, reproductively active woman.
Perhaps the best indicator of differences in attitudes toward sex comes from a study of sexual fantasies by Donald Symons and Bruce Ellis, which explored what each sex dreamed about when they were freed from the usual societal constraints. Both men and women reported having and enjoying fantasies about sex, but the content of those fantasies was completely different. Men fantasized much more often and were much more explicit and more visual in their fantasies. Women, on the other hand, were more likely to include context and feelings, and they experienced emotional arousal (men’s fantasies turned more on physical arousal). The women’s fantasies were also more likely to contain affection and commitment. Perhaps the starkest difference, though, was in how they imagined their partners in the fantasies. Women were much more likely to include a familiar partner, and when it came to the number of different partners, men left women in the dust. Thirty-seven percent of the men reported that they had fantasized about more than one hundred different people, a threshold achieved by only 8 percent of women. A good proxy of these differences can be found in the kind of erotica that both sexes choose. Pornography—with its explicit visual content and large number of women to choose from—is almost entirely directed at men. Romance novels—with their emphasis on emotional connections and on the relationship between one man and one woman—are almost entirely directed at women.
It’s not just that men have a much greater willingness to have sex or that they seek a much wider variety of sexual partners. Their minds are also biased to perceive sexual interest from women when there may in fact be none. One of my favorite headlines from
The Onion
is, “Area Man Going to Go Ahead and Consider That a Date.” Any woman who has had a friendly conversation with a man only to have that man later accuse her of leading him on will know what
The Onion
is talking about. In a number of studies, men consistently interpreted actions on the part of women (such as smiling) as an indication of sexual interest. You can find this quick trigger interpretation even in mundane encounters. In another study, men and women listened to various taped conversations. Some of them were erotic, but many of them were routine. Although nearly all the participants became aroused during the erotic conversations, some of the men also became aroused during the regular conversations. And not only did they become aroused—their response was stronger than the female response to the erotic conversations. It’s enough to make a woman hesitant to offer up a neutral hello in conversation, for fear of sending men into a sexual frenzy.
The Onion
is, “Area Man Going to Go Ahead and Consider That a Date.” Any woman who has had a friendly conversation with a man only to have that man later accuse her of leading him on will know what
The Onion
is talking about. In a number of studies, men consistently interpreted actions on the part of women (such as smiling) as an indication of sexual interest. You can find this quick trigger interpretation even in mundane encounters. In another study, men and women listened to various taped conversations. Some of them were erotic, but many of them were routine. Although nearly all the participants became aroused during the erotic conversations, some of the men also became aroused during the regular conversations. And not only did they become aroused—their response was stronger than the female response to the erotic conversations. It’s enough to make a woman hesitant to offer up a neutral hello in conversation, for fear of sending men into a sexual frenzy.
With this in mind, women should keep a wary eye on their male friends. Remember the debate from
When Harry Met Sally
about whether or not men and women could be friends? Well, science has likely found an answer—they can’t. Or at least men can’t. According to the work of evolutionary psychologist April Bleske, men are twice as sexually attracted to their opposite-sex friends as women, and they consider potential sexual encounters with opposite-sex friends as 100 percent more beneficial. They also overestimate how attracted their female friends are to them. Again, this bias makes perfect sense from a Darwinian perspective. The male brain is not designed to maximize accuracy but to maximize mating opportunities. It’s in the man’s evolutionary self-interest to see more sexual interest than may actually be there. The downside is only social embarrassment. The upside is the possibility of another opportunity to pass along his genes. In this case, the male bias is not a design flaw but a distinct advantage. In fact, the more intelligent the man, the more likely he is to exhibit what one researcher has called the “she wants me” bias. In one study, men were asked to predict how women would respond to a personal ad soliciting no-strings-attached sex. The most intelligent men wildly overestimated how interested women would be. Revealing again how women are wired in fundamentally different ways than men, the most intelligent women show a very different sort of bias—they assume that a man will be far more distressed by a partner’s sexual affair than is actually the case.
When Harry Met Sally
about whether or not men and women could be friends? Well, science has likely found an answer—they can’t. Or at least men can’t. According to the work of evolutionary psychologist April Bleske, men are twice as sexually attracted to their opposite-sex friends as women, and they consider potential sexual encounters with opposite-sex friends as 100 percent more beneficial. They also overestimate how attracted their female friends are to them. Again, this bias makes perfect sense from a Darwinian perspective. The male brain is not designed to maximize accuracy but to maximize mating opportunities. It’s in the man’s evolutionary self-interest to see more sexual interest than may actually be there. The downside is only social embarrassment. The upside is the possibility of another opportunity to pass along his genes. In this case, the male bias is not a design flaw but a distinct advantage. In fact, the more intelligent the man, the more likely he is to exhibit what one researcher has called the “she wants me” bias. In one study, men were asked to predict how women would respond to a personal ad soliciting no-strings-attached sex. The most intelligent men wildly overestimated how interested women would be. Revealing again how women are wired in fundamentally different ways than men, the most intelligent women show a very different sort of bias—they assume that a man will be far more distressed by a partner’s sexual affair than is actually the case.
Of course, these fundamentally different attitudes toward sex set the stage for an enormous amount of conflict. Given men’s desire for a greater number of sexual partners and a social system built around marriage and monogamy, you would expect a fair amount of infidelity, and that’s exactly what we do find. David Buss, a leading researcher of evolutionary psychology, has estimated that 30-50 percent of American men have at least one affair over the course of their marriage. Even worse, it does not appear that the state of a man’s marriage has much to do with whether or not he is unfaithful. According to a survey, 56 percent of men involved in an affair still described their marriage as “very happy,” which is probably the most distressing marital statistic I have ever come across. Before women storm off in a huff and decide to foreswear men altogether, though, they should know that they lag only slightly behind men. Buss estimates that 20- 40 percent of American women will also have one affair during their marriage. Another researcher has estimated that the chances of at least one partner being unfaithful may be as high as 76 percent! As you can see, the estimates for the actual amount of adultery vary widely. Apparently, we not only like to cheat on one another, we also like to cheat on studies about adultery.
Women’s affairs do differ from men’s. According to another survey, most women who had affairs said that they were “very unhappy” in their marriages. Women were also much more likely to form emotional commitments. While 44 percent of the men in one study claimed that they had little or no emotional involvement with their affair partner, only 11 percent of women felt no emotional investment.
These affairs are not simply matters of the bedroom but matters of the birthing room as well. Using a number of studies, scientists have estimated that roughly 10 percent of children are not fathered by their legal father. For obvious reasons, this question has not been studied in any systematic way, and other studies have produced numbers ranging from 5-30 percent. All of this has led one researcher to claim that adultery has been grossly underemphasized as a factor in human evolution.
Of course, when compared to the animal kingdom, we aren’t doing too badly because studies have revealed that even in the wild there is a great deal more cheating going on than anyone had imagined. Very few mammals are monogamous. One type of ape, the gibbon, was thought to be monogamous, but once scientists developed DNA testing, they found that gibbons also cheated on their partners. Many bird species form couples, which were once held up for admiration as exemplars of lifelong monogamy, but further research has shot down that heartwarming story. After using DNA testing for the birds, researchers discovered that roughly 30 percent of the offspring were not sired by the ostensible “father.” In some bird species, the number of offspring who were not sired by the “lifelong partner” reached as high as 76 percent. Even birds apparently covet thy neighbor’s wife. Scientists now believe that monogamy among birds is not due to any sort of romantic bond but is the result of the male’s attempt (often futile) to protect his paternity rights by guarding the female.
These paternity numbers came as a shock to most researchers. Although scientists have long thought that males are eager to spread their seed, they assumed that the role of the female was almost entirely passive. One researcher even claimed that copulation was “essentially a service or favor that women render to men.” The fact that females (including women) were also promiscuous came as a major revelation (that this was a revelation says a great deal about the power of our cultural biases to shape our thinking). We know why men are interested in multiplying sexual partners. Think back to the sperm and the egg. Sperm is cheap, and sleeping around increases the chances that the man can pass along his genes. But why are women also sleeping around? The egg is the precious resource, and the number of children a woman can produce is relatively small.
Ah, but the woman has her own genetic desires. She wants to find a good provider who will help her raise her children, but she also wants the best genes possible. And the two go together far less than you might think. A woman might only be able to get a man of middling rank to marry her, but if she is willing to have a one-night stand with no strings attached, she will be able to have sex with a much more attractive, successful man. By cheating on her husband, the woman can have her cake and eat it, too—she gets a husband who is a good provider and also gets the best possible genes for her child.
I know this sounds far-fetched. Women don’t cheat on their husbands with the express thought of getting their hands on better genetic code. Remember, though, that much of what we are talking about in this chapter occurs below the level of conscious thought. The skeptical among you might use this as a chance to dismiss what I’m saying, but you don’t have to take my word for it. You simply have to look at the human body itself. And what does it show? A constantly evolving arms race between men and women—only in this case the battle is waged not by us but by our proxies, our sperm and our eggs. What we have is a classic Red Queen contest where each side wants to gain an advantage. The man would like to impregnate every woman he sleeps with, while the woman would like to be able to choose who fathers her child. She might find a man who is good enough to marry but still want top-notch sperm from someone on the side. If what I’m saying is true, you would expect both men and women to develop measures to increase their chances. We’ve already seen one very successful strategy of women to thwart a man’s ability to police her fertility: concealed ovulation. But it doesn’t stop with concealed ovulation. Both men and women have developed a host of subtle and shocking measures to increase their chances of genetic success. These measures are both a sign of how deeply we have been shaped by sexual selection and also a disturbing indication of how we are unwitting pawns in a largely invisible genetic struggle. In short, we are a long way from the romantic story line now.
The clearest evidence of this battle comes from an ingenious study of the fruit fly, published by William Rice in 1996. What Rice did was allow male fruit flies—but not the females they were breeding with—to evolve for forty-one generations. This was a boon for the males. They gradually developed much more effective sperm so that when they mated with a female who had already mated with another of Rice’s evolved males, they were much more likely to impregnate her. The reason for their success? Much more toxic sperm, which basically killed off the rival sperm. That trait came with a cost, though, and the cost reveals quite clearly that sexual evolution is not a matter of both sexes cooperating—it’s usually a case of one sex developing a quality that is actually antagonistic to the other sex. Just how antagonistic? The sperm had grown so toxic that if a female fruit fly had sex with enough of these evolved males, the sperm had a good chance of killing her—talk about a toxic bachelor! Luckily, human sperm remain far from lethal, but an equally fierce competition is being waged every day between our sperm and our eggs.
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