Remember how last time I said these chapter summaries would start getting briefer? Um... yeah. This one might be the longest yet. It's full of really good stuff though, especially the info about why men tend to keep pursuing women who have rejected them, and why men are so confused when those women get upset by their continued affections. Male and female psychology and genetic urges could not be more poorly designed for peaceful coexistence in that arena.
For next time, the next three chapters in the book are much less interesting (to me) than the first seven, so I'll go over those much more quickly, before taking more time on chapter 11, Women's Hidden Sexual Strategies, since it's got some very juicy stuff. And, since there are only 12 chapters in the book, this write up will actually come to an end. Eventually...
Previous chapters
covered here.
Chapter Seven: Sexual ConflictThis chapter covers conflict between the sexes, or conflict caused by sexual desires, such as men competing to date the same woman. It's not outright "sexual conflict," like say, begging your wife for non-
surprise buttsecks. As Buss explains, "Conflict between the sexes is best understood in the broader context of social conflict. Social conflict occurs whenever one person interferes with the achievement of the goal o the other person."
Men compete over desirable women, women compete over eligible men, men want sex without putting in the requisite investment of resources, and so forth. The key aspect of these situations is that conflict is a negative. It serves no beneficial genetic purpose to get into fights over potential mates, or with a desired member of the opposite sex. Rather, conflict is an often unavoidable result of conflicting sexual goals. That humans get into such difficult conflicts is evidence that the goals are well worth fighting over, and humans have evolved numerous strategies to solve or avoid time and energy-wasting conflicts.
The most basic male vs. female conflict is over sexual access. Men want sex without spending a great deal of time or resources to obtain it, and they grow angry when their desires are denied. Women want a man to invest time and resources in exchange for reproductive access, and they grow angry when men are disinclined to cooperate. As always, this basic scenario is very caveman in its implications and origins, and here, as throughout the book, Buss glosses over or ignores the conscious actions and thoughts of actual human beings.
This tendency is easy to object to, but the book's argument are not intended to be bulletproof. Modern humans can think and choose to act counter to their instincts, and no one does what their genetics tells them to do all the time. However, free will aside, it's useful to consider the base evolutionary urges that remain within us, if only to understand why we often have to work so hard to resist doing things we know are stupid or pointless. So while it's easy to think of real people going against most of the arguments made in this book, they're best taken as general species-wide guidelines, rather than inescapable commandments chiseled into the stone of your genetic code.
Sexual Accessibility. Perceived desirability is an interesting component of sexual interaction, and one that frequently leads to conflict. Putting it simply, people who are hotter can command a higher quality partner; a fact that's seldom greeted enthusiastically by the lower quality partners they reject.
A woman who frequents singles bars reports that she is sometimes approached by a beer-drinking, T-shirted, baseball-capped, stubble-faced truck drivers or construction workers who ask her to dance. When she declines, the men sometimes get verbally abusive, saying, for example, "What's the matter bitch, I'm not good enough for you?" Although she simply turns her back, that is precisely what she thinks; they are not good enough for her. Her unspoken message is that she can obtain someone better, given her own desirability, and this message infuriates the rebuffed men. Differences between people's perceptions of their value as mates cause conflict.
Adding to this problem is the fact that men sometimes (usually) infer sexual interest when it does not exist. A lab experiment demonstrated this by showing volunteers a short movie of a female student asking a male professor for extra time to finish a paper. Neither actor acts flirtatious or provocative in the movie, though they behave in a friendly manner. Both men and women perceived friendliness in the female student's behavior, but most men thought she was behaving somewhat seductively, while almost none of the female viewers came to that conclusion.
Men apparently interpret simple friendliness and mere smiling by women as indicating some level of sexual interest, even when women report no such interest... When in doubt, men seem to infer sexual interest... If over evolutionary history even a tiny fraction of these "misperceptions" led to sex, then men would have evolved lower thresholds for inferring women's sexual interest.
Naturally, evolution conditioned women to respond to this tendency, and not just with disgust and lesbianism. No, women know instinctively that they can obtain special treatment by acting friendly or flirting, and while not every woman does this, quite a few do, at least some of the time. This obviously leads to sexual conflict, as men resent what they see as women leading them on, while women resent men being pushy in their sexual demands. They really resent it: in one study, researchers asked women to evaluate 147 potentially upsetting actions on a 1-7 scale. Women rated sexual aggression at 6.50; no other kinds of acts, including verbal abuse and nonsexual physical abuse, were rated as highly.
The real kicker comes when considering the male reaction to the same act. Men rated unexpected sexual aggression on the part of women at just 3.02, or "lightly upsetting," and many men spontaneously wrote on the margin of the survey that they would in fact welcome such behavior from a woman. It's not that men enjoy being abused; they find verbal abuse and physical abuse just as upsetting as women do. It's that heterosexual men don't seem to even acknowledge that there is such a thing as unwanted sexual aggression, at least from a woman. Furthermore, men greatly
underestimate how upsetting women find their sexual aggression, while women greatly
overestimate how upsetting men find such acts when perpetrated by women.
It's a perfect storm of overlapping and conflicting beliefs about sexual persuasion. Men think women are asking for sex when they're not, and men don't think women really mind being pressed for sex, since most men would welcome that behavior from a woman. In fact, women are extremely upset by sexual aggression, and have no idea why men don't understand, since they think that men must be upset by it as well. It would be hard to create a system more perfectly designed to create conflict and communication difficulties. (Though I think Microsoft has managed it once or twice.)
I found this section of the book fascinating and enlightening, and but I think it would be even more useful for women. I couldn't count how many conversations I've had with female friends, including several recent ones with the IG, in which they asked me why guys were always pushing them for sex, why guys couldn't take a hint that they weren't interested, why guys expected them to put up with unwanted touching and other signs of affection, etc. And here's the answer: men really want it, but moreover men think women want it, or at least that they won't mind it, since from a man's frame of reference, he knows he'd love it if a woman did that to him. Furthermore, the more desperate to impress a man grows, the more likely he is to use a behavior that will cause the maximum offense to the woman he uses it on. It's logical in his brain; he's just doing to her what he'd most like her to do to him. Doesn't usually work out too well in reality, much to the annoyance of the woman and confusion of the man.
Humans can, of course, learn from experience, and grow to understand that the other gender wants different things. Also, some guys are insensitive, or outright assholes/pigs, and some women are teases/flirts, intentionally or otherwise, but both genders can be somewhat excused their incomprehension by the fact that our instinctual comprehension of the these delicate issues actually leads us in exactly the wrong direction. Understanding what the other gender wants and means in this area is a learned skill, and a tricky one to learn, since it goes so counter to our own wants and desires.
Worse yet, in this one the man is always going to be the metaphorical (and literal) bad guy. He will offend without meaning to, not understand why he's offending, and feel resentful and confused when offense is taken over something he wouldn't be offended by. Not only do women not inflict this type of unknowing offense, they might not even be capable of doing so. After all, women are offended by sexual aggression, so they expect that a man will be as well. Therefore, they are 1) would be much less likely to act in that fashion, and even if they do, they 2) wouldn't be surprised if/when it caused offense, which 3) it's highly unlikely to, since men welcome that sort of behavior and find it flattering, even if they choose not to take advantage of the opportunity.
Another source of conflict is sexual withholding. Men frequently complain that women say no to sex, tease and flirt without following through, and so on. These behaviors bother men quite a bit, rating a 5.03 on the 1-7 scale, substantially higher than women judge the upset (4.29). There's an evolutionary logic to sexual withholding, of course. There's an evolutionary logic to everything, according to this book. In this case, Buss points out that scarcity increases the value of anything. Including sex. By withholding sex from some men and awarding it to others, women create incentives for men to compete for sexual access. An individual woman can also boost her own perceived desirability by withholding sex, since more desirable women tend to be more selective about their sexual favors. Finally, withholding sex can make a man view a woman as a potential mate, rather than just a casual sex partner, due to the associations between female promiscuity and long term male attraction (discussed in earlier chapters).
Emotional Commitment. The level of commitment in a relationship is another source of conflict. Put simply, a woman wants a man to expend his total effort and resources on her. A man wants to expend as few as he can to keep her happy, while reserving the rest to devote to obtaining other mating opportunities or enhancing his social status. Resources, in this example, are not merely monetary, but emotional, temporal, and more.
One of the most common complaints by women is that their partners do not express their emotions freely. (Women assume those free emotions would be to their liking, obviously. If a man is hiding the fact that he's sick of her and wants her to die, freely expressing that would probably be less welcomed.) This is largely a female complaint; 24% of newlywed men complain about it, compared to 45% of newlywed women. The numbers increase rapidly during a relationship; by the 4th year of marriage, 59% of women complain that men ignore their feelings, compared to just 32% of men. (The possibility/likelihood that these figures reflect reality; that 32% of women and 59% of men really do ignore their spouse's feelings by the 4th year of marriage, isn't addressed by the author. It doesn't especially matter though, since what counts in this case is whether the spouse perceived that they're being ignored, right or wrong.)
Cutting to the genetic aspect of things, Buss speculates on why this is. What are the benefits and liabilities of expressing one's emotions, from the male and female POV? One analogy provided is of a poker player. Men, in this view, are withholding their true feelings since they may be considering other sexual/reproductive options. After all, men are physically capable of fathering numerous children in short order, while women are much more limited in that capability. A woman who grants the wrong man reproductive access may have to live with that mistake for years, so it's strongly in a woman's interest to accurately assess her man's intentions. This requirement has caused further adaptations, turning women into much more intuitive psychologists. Women report spending far more time than men sifting through memories, evaluating what their partners said and trying to figure what he really meant by it, and prodding him to express himself clearly and honestly. The flip side of this is that while women complain about men being emotionally constricted, men feel that women are moody and unpredictable. (Reciprocal behaviors that are caused by the women trying too hard to figure out the uncommunicative men.)
Moodiness doesn't exist in a vacuum, of course. Men interested in preserving a relationship must invest time and emotional effort in trying to cheer up or reassure a vexed wife. Women may also use moodiness and other minor emotional upsets to test a man's continuing interest and emotional attachment to her.
Investment of Resources. Resources include money, but also things like time, emotional investments, and energy. "Among their common complaints are that men do not spend enough time with them, fail to call when they say they will, show up late, and cancel dates or other arrangements at the last minute." Objections such as these are far more common in men than women; 38% of dating women but just 12% of dating men complain that their partners sometimes fail to call when they say they will. (Again, it's not made clear if these facts reflect reality, or if women are just much more sensitive to being stood up on a date. And again, it doesn't really matter, since the key issue is how people tend to feel about perceived behaviors. I'm sure everyone has found out first hand just how well it works when you tell your partner to stop being so sensitive.)
I read this and expected Buss to speculate as to the evolutionary origins of the behavior. If in fact men do fail to call more often than women, why? Is there some adaptive purpose? Are men doing it semi-consciously as a way to spar with the tendency of women to flirt and tease, or to turn moody and shut men out? Perhaps, but it's not an issue Buss addresses. Instead, he goes right to the negative; men are distant because they're not that into the woman, and are conserving their resources, or spending them elsewhere.
Another possibility is that men and women just have very different needs in this area. Women want men to be with them more often than men want. That would follow reproductive logic; the man doesn't need to be there all the time, just often enough to have sex and be sure the woman is not straying on him, whereas the woman wants the man around much more often, to ensure that he's not straying or spending his resources on other women. Whatever the reason, 41% of newlywed women say their partner doesn't spend enough time with them, compared to just 4% of newlywed men. Naturally, there's a flip side to this coin. Men are far more likely to say their partners are clingy and dependent on them. Among married men, 36% complain that their wives demand too much of their time, compared to only 7% of married women.
Money is a factor as well, of course. More than 72% of couples fight about money at least once a year, though perhaps surprisingly, the issue of allocation is far more contentious than the total amount. Men frequently complain that women spend too much money on clothing; 26% of men voice this concern by the 4th year of marriage, compared to only 7% of women. The sexes are identical in one aspect though; by the 4th year of marriage, around 1/3 of men and women say their spouse spends too much money in general.
Deception. The most common form of deception by men is exaggeration of affection. As
Chef once sung:
When a man loves a woman, and a woman loves a man,
Actually, sometimes a man doesn't love a woman, but…he acts like he does, in order to get some action...
In a survey of 112 college men, 71% admitted to having exaggerated the depth of their feelings for a woman in order to have sex with her, while the other 29% said she was so drunk they didn't even have to lie. (I made up that 29% part, but you know it's true.) When women were asked if men had done this to them, 97% of them said yes. (Buss doesn't include any data on what percent of the time it worked.)
Lying about this isn't such a problem amongst married couples, but women still need to be vigilant since preserving their relationship is such a high stakes game, especially if they've already had children with the man. Men have high stakes as well, but amongst our ancestors, the man who had had children with a woman had essentially already won. Women needed to keep the man around, and they could raise their odds of this by picking the right man in the first place. To that end, women are far more active in trying to look into the man's character. Women report spending far more time analyzing their man's behaviors and motivations, and often discuss these with their female friends. Men report this behavior far less often.
While women are more concerned with a man's deception in emotional matters, men place the utmost importance on knowing about a woman's age and sexual history. Since sexual infidelity is the biggest worry for men, and reproductive fitness is the most important attribute in a mate, men tend to be highly observant of signs of age or loss of health, as well as inquisitive and investigative into a woman's past sexual history, since a promiscuous past can be a sign of a straying future.
Abuse. Unsurprisingly, physical and verbal abuse of women by their men is usually connected to infidelity, or at least the man's fears about it. Buss cites various studies from Canada and the US and finds a very high correlation between male accusations of infidelity, and abuse. Most of the men in these studies were determined to be "controlling," and "jealous." The women leaving the house, maintaining friendships with other men or women, or behaving in ways their husbands couldn't control set off morbid jealousy and incidents of violence.
It's pretty clear, from what's come before in the book, where Buss will go with this. What genetic purpose can wife-beating serve? Where does the urge come from? That second one is pretty easy to figure, actually. The studies show that upwards of 90% of abusive husbands cite fears that their wives are being unfaithful, and this book has provided plenty of evidence that infidelity is the trait men most dislike and fear in their wives. So is wife-beating just an overreaction to fears of infidelity? Fears that come about from the genetic male need to be certain that his mate's offspring are his? Perhaps, but why are some men comfortable letting their wives live their own lives, while other men are terrified into becoming control freaks? And why does their fear turn into violence? Isn't that likely to be a maladaptive solution to the problem; more likely to drive the woman away than to force her to curtail her infidelities? (Especially if the infidelities are entirely in the head of the jealous husband.)
Buss offers no solutions or explanations. He does point out that most abusers flash from anger to profuse apologies, "crying, pleading, and promising that never again will they inflict such costs. These actions may be attempts to void the risks of defection inherent in using abuse as a tactic of control."
Sexual Harassment. Men are far more likely to be the harassers, and they're far more likely to harass young, attractive women. Not exactly a shocking revelation there, but someone had to tally up the statistics to prove it, I guess. In a study of 10,644 federal employees, 42% of women and 15% of men had experienced sexual harassment at some point in their careers. As for actual case filings, in two years in Illinois 76 women and 5 men filed complaints. In Canada, 93 women and 2 men filed sexual harassment cases. Hugely disproportionate numbers, but Buss points out an interesting fact; given that women are far more likely than men to be seriously offended by unwanted sexual attention, it's quite possible that something a man would laugh off or even be flattered by would infuriate a woman. As always, he means not to excuse or apologize for bad behavior, but to analyze it in genetic, behavioral terms.
Reactions to persistent attention vary by the identity of the pursuer too, of course. In one study women ranked how upset they'd be with a man's repeated attempts to date them on the usual 1-7 scale. Construction workers (4.4), garbage collectors (4.32), and gas station attendants (4.13) better learn to take no for an answer. Meanwhile, rock stars (2.71), pre-med students (2.65), and graduate students (2.80) can ask every day. (Man, my grad school aspirations are looking better every day!) The type of attention affects things greatly, too. Sexual overtures, such as inappropriate touching, were judged very harshly. In contrast, romantic or friendly approaches, such as "a co-worker telling a woman that he sincerely likes her and would like to have a coffee with her after work was judged to be only a 1.5, where a 1.0 signified no harassment at all."
(That's cute and all, but um... who has coffee after work? It's late, you're hungry, and you need to get the dry cleaning on the way home. Still, apparently it's inoffensive to make the invitation, so keep that one in mind, guys, if you want a date idea that will almost surely be declined, but at least won't piss her off.)
Rape. Buss defines rape as "the use of force, or threat to use force, to obtain sexual intercourse." The stereotype of rape, a stereotype that seems to mostly exist in the mind's of anti-feminists of both genders, is the "she was asking for it" fallacy. Some drunken bimbos in a miniskirt stumbling down a dark alleys to her inevitable doom. In reality, the vast majority of rapes are committed by men the women know; most often their husbands or boyfriends.
One study found that almost 15% of college women had experienced unwanted sexual intercourse in the context of dating situations. Another study of 347 women found that 63% of all instances of sexual victimization were perpetrated by dates, lovers, husbands, or de facto partners. The most extensive study of rape in marriage found that of nearly a thousand married women, 14% had been raped by their husbands.
When it comes to heterosexual rape, men are almost always the perpetrators, and women almost always the victims. The question then, is "whether rape represents an evolved sexual strategy of men, or is better understood as a horrifying side effect of men's general sexual strategy of seeking low-cost casual sex." After all, rape is quite common in the animal world, where it is almost always found in the context of attempted impregnation. It's also clear that men are aroused by sexual activity of all types. Lab tests have exposed men to audio and visual displays of consensual and non-consensual sexual activity, and the men have usually become aroused by both. "Men apparently are sexually aroused when exposed to sexual scenes, whether or not consent is involved, although other conditions, such as the presence of violence and a disgust reaction from the woman, appear to inhibit the sexual arousal of the men."
These studies don't prove the question about rape being an evolved sexual strategy or a side effect, though. They merely show that men become aroused when presented with sexual stimuli. Something that might shed light on that are statistics on which women are raped. The same ones that men are genetically predisposed to want to breed with. 85% of female rape victims are under the age of 36. Women between 40-49 are just as likely to suffer an aggravated assault as women 20-29, but the younger women are far more likely to be raped. This doesn't prove the point either; just provides more evidence (not that any was needed) that men prefer sex with younger women.
Buss concludes that there's not enough evidence yet to make a judgment about genetic reasons for rape. The only conclusion that can be drawn at this point is that men are willing to use force and violence to obtain things they want, including sexual access to attractive young women. Men use violence often; on other men more often than on women. Men kill other men four times as often as they kill women. "Men are clearly the more coercive and violent sex and are responsible for most of the socially unacceptable, illegal, and repugnant behavior in the world."
The book next discusses female reactions to rape. Old stereotypes about women who "want to be forced" have been pretty conclusively demolished by now, but Buss cites some studies to that effect. Interestingly, in surveys of female reactions to being raped, women of prime reproductive age experience much more lingering trauma than younger or older women. This seems to stem from genetic fears of unwanted impregnation. Buss takes this as a data point that women have evolved behaviors to deal with rape, which seems to indicate it's long been a tactic used by men.
In another survey, men were asked if they would force sex on a woman if they were sure they would get away with it, had no risk of disease, no damage to their reputation, etc. Two surveys of this nature got 35% and 27% of men admitting that they'd do it. "Although these percentages are alarmingly high, they also indicate that most men are apparently not potential rapists." So that's the good news, ladies. You've only got a 1/3 chance of being raped by a man if he thinks he can get away with it. Yikes! To help in your 2/3 profiling, Buss lists some common attributes of rapists.
They tend to be hostile towards women, endorse the myth that women secretly want to be raped, and show a personality profile marked by impulsiveness, hostility, and hypermasculinity, combined with a high degree of sexual promiscuity. Studies of rapists show that they also have low self-esteem.
Interesting that rapists are usually promiscuous men; basically they seem to be guys who want sex all the time, and who frequently get it, but who aren't above using force if it's denied them. Seems the stereotypes about loners and losers whose only interaction with women is attempted rape are inaccurate. Also, watch out for poor guys. Male rapists tend to come from lower socioeconomic classes. "Men scorned by women because they lack the qualities for attracting desirable mates may develop hostility toward women, an attitude that short circuits the normal empathic response and so promotes coercive sexual behavior."
Also, try to stay off the losing side in wars; rape is almost always epidemic in those situations, and as Buss puts it, "rape occurs when the costs incurred by the rapist are generally minimal or absent." Doesn't that go for every type of crime, though? In short, there are no answers for why men rape, other than that some men will do whatever they can, if they can get way with it. Encouraging news, eh?
Next time. Chapter Eight: Breaking Up.
Labels: the evolution of desire
