A Homo sapiens male seeks a female of the same species with maximum future breeding value. Must be young, with fair skin, symmetrical facial features, chest-hip ratio of 0:7, shiny hair and preferably without wounds and scars.
Robert Winston
A man is looking for a woman
Sex begins with the search for a partner. Most homo sapiens put the potential partner through a series of tests, which will determine if he is suitable or not. The tests refer, of course, to an ideal partner, making compromises with reality. But for the majority of human males around the world there is an astonishing consensus regarding the definition of a sexually attractive female.
"Future cultural value" is an elegant formulation for a practical question: how many children will the woman be able to bear in the future. A young, fertile and healthy woman has better chances of giving birth to many children who will be successful and reproduce as well. The infant and child mortality rate must have been very high in the Savannah. Man's most dangerous journey is the one that is only ten centimeters long. That journey down the birth canal, which could be blocked very easily due to the precise fit of the human skull to the mother's hip pelvis, must have caused, in the absence of any medical help, a high rate of death or fatal injuries in newborns (this is the case to this day in many primitive societies). Disease, drought, starvation and predators were a constant threat to any vulnerable baby. In genetic terms, it was therefore critical that the male make sure that his partner was capable of giving birth to many babies, so that at least one or two of them would survive and reach adulthood.
Perhaps as a result, men in all cultures find younger women more sexually attractive. This is the case, for example, with the Yanomamo people living in the northern Amazon forest, in Brazil and Venezuela. They live in almost complete isolation. This is essentially a pre-Columbian society numbering about twenty-three thousand people, one of the last human groups untouched by the "civilization" of modern man. Anthropologists find them of great interest, because they tell us something about the nature of man "in nature". Unfortunately, the constant damage to the rainforest threatens these wonderful people.
Ben Yanummo will say that he prefers "moko dude", loosely translated as "ripe fruit", meaning a young woman, sexually mature, who does not have children. Reality does not always allow this human desire to be satisfied—more than once, potential partners are chosen from within the age group, and the sexual competition also reduces the possibilities. However, the age difference between married couples in several different countries is three years on average, when the man is the older partner. This is a particularly interesting finding, especially against the background of the fact that males are more exposed to death from disease and trauma, and worldwide their life expectancy is shorter than that of women. However, of course, unlike men who can impregnate their partners even when they are eighty years old, women begin to enter menopause at some point after reaching the age of forty, when fertility declines steeply.
Natural selection of thousands of years must have caused a preference for men looking for healthy and fertile women. Unfortunately, men cannot determine a woman's fertility rate by appearance alone; They have to rely on other clues. Flawless skin, shiny hair and full lips seem like signs of good health, but they don't say much about fertility. Youth on the other hand is usually a reliable sign in this regard, and humans, men and women, are remarkably good at estimating a person's age based on looks alone.
Of course, looks matter. Males are more attracted to symmetrical faces and can easily detect abnormalities, even very slight ones, in the symmetry of the face. This has to do with our innate ability to easily recognize different faces, and it seems that men use this ability, later in life, to choose suitable partners. In fact, there is a fairly accurate formula for determining the perfect female face. It was given by the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras. Pythagoras believed that for someone to be considered beautiful, the ratio of the width of the mouth to the width of the nose should be 1.618 to 1. It should also be the ratio between the width of the mouth and the width of the cheekbones. If you measure the face of your favorite movie star or supermodel, it is likely that they will fit the Pythagorean formula.
Does our culture teach us the accepted characteristics of what is called beauty? Today we are bombarded daily with images of supermodels and Hollywood stars who must have the perfect figure to succeed professionally. In a study conducted at the University of Texas, three-month-old newborns were shown a series of photographs of female faces. The newborns' reactions to each photograph were measured. All newborns responded much more strongly to faces that met the accepted cultural standards for defining beauty. There is no doubt that in their selection of three-month-old newborns, the authors of the study could be sure that these did not watch the Oscar ceremony and did not read "Vogue". This research reinforces the claim that we are born with instinctive perceptions of beauty, perceptions reinforced by cultural learning as we grow up.
While working on the TV series on Instinct I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Peter Hammond from the "Eastman" Institute of Dentistry in London. Hammond scans human faces with the help of computerized photographic sampling and can compare human faces in health and disease and during aging. Its powerful computer is able to examine the shape and dimensions of the face it scans and analyze changes caused by various genetic characteristics. I asked Professor Hammond to show me average human faces at different ages. His computer quickly examined 200 faces and pulled out the faces of an average six-year-old and an average teenager. What was particularly fascinating to me was that these faces, with their "perfect" proportions, looked amazingly identical to the cherubs painted by Renaissance artists such as Bellini or Titian.
Let's assume for a moment, what about the female body shape? As we know from popular culture and fashion, men find the ratio between a woman's hips and waist to be arousing. It turns out that the hourglass shape does have an evolutionary significance.
It is true that different men and different cultures are attracted to different types of female bodies, but there is something that has universal appeal. Men all over the world choose partners whose hips are larger than their waists. It seems that the ratio between hips and waist remains constant, 0.7. This attitude is the same for Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn and Kate Moss. It is also true of the twenty-five thousand year old "Venus" figurines, the small stone statues of women found throughout Europe and Asia and apparently related to fertility rituals. Although many of these figures are deformed and very fat, they all retain the "golden" attitude.
It is possible that the hip-waist ratio tells a man something about a woman's health. After puberty, estrogen causes many layers of fatty tissue to accumulate in the thighs, buttocks and breasts of women - fat that was once considered essential for the survival of the mother and the baby in conditions of scarcity. Even today, when a woman's fat layers fall below a certain percentage of her body weight, she will stop ovulating. The classic example is anorexia nervosa. Young women who, for unknown psychological reasons, starve themselves, become amazingly thin. When body weight drops below a certain level, ovulation stops and sometimes the period as well. Pregnancy in such circumstances is practically impossible, and what is interesting is that various medications to strengthen ovulation will not help either. If, despite everything, a woman becomes pregnant under these circumstances, the chances of miscarriage are extremely high. Even a smaller, non-pathological weight loss may cause severe fertility disorders. Athletes, ballerinas, models and bodybuilders suffer from menstrual disorders, and are often infertile. It is therefore possible that if a man sees that a woman's hips are wider than her waist, he can be more than sure that her body is healthy, functioning and above all - fertile. This must have been true under the conditions that were apparently common in the Savannah. If men think that women with an hourglass shape are sexy, it is likely that they will choose one as a partner. This will increase the chances of giving birth to many healthy and strong children, who will inherit a tendency for women with narrow waists. Repeat this for thousands of years and you will understand why most men on the planet are turned on by rubs.
Contrary to popular belief, men are not only interested in a woman's face and figure, and I'm not talking about personality. Men look for behavioral cues, for example, a woman's posture, or whether or not she seems vital and energetic. In evolutionary terms, it's all about being able to give birth successfully. In addition to all these physical characteristics, a sought-after partner should also have a reputation - or actually be devoid of a certain kind of reputation. Why do the Yanomamo attach so much importance to a woman who looks modest and who does not have children? Because there are greater chances that a modest woman will be a virgin, and less chances that she has a past of sexual debauchery.
Many cultures place enormous value on virginity. An ad that appeared years ago in an African newspaper testifies to this: "A 30-year-old European bachelor, salary of 200 pounds, seeks to marry an educated and cultured virgin, an unimportant nationality." What is the source of the obsession with regard to sexual purity, lack of sexual experience? In evolutionary terms, the worst situation a man can find himself in, is a situation where he mindlessly raises someone else's children. The evolutionary results for such a man would be devastating. He will devote time, resources and energy to caring for a child who does not carry his genes. On the other hand, a competitor who impregnates someone else's partner enjoys the fact that he is passing on his genetic heritage without having to worry about the baby and the mother. The safest bet for a male who is worried about his partner's infidelity is to choose a woman who looks modest. The security of paternity is a matter of utmost importance. It is therefore possible that sexual jealousy is in general a basic feature of human sexuality.
The male desire for modest women is incompatible with the fact that men are almost always more interested than women in having sex. Robert Wright (Wright) writes in his book The Moral Animal that the more permissive a woman is in her sex life, the less likely she will show loyalty to a permanent partner - at least that's how the jealous male sees it. seductive men; They convince women to get into bed, but if she agrees - and in any case, too soon - they classify her as an uncertain bet about the future. This is the Madonna-whore dichotomy. There is a constant tension between the desire for sex and the need for a faithful partner. Wright says that men have developed a kind of "test" to build potential couples. They convince women to have sex with them, to see if they practice self-restraint.
The value that men attribute to youth and chastity is an instinct, manifested in the extreme fringes of society as a sexual obsession with young girls, which leads to horrific cases of sexual abuse. The Internet has turned out to be a fertile ground for pornography, an expanding market of pedophiles attracted to girls, children and sometimes babies. The underground groups that have been uncovered and investigated to date, reflect the magnitude of the phenomenon and the efforts that these people are willing to invest in order to find children and abuse them. The "cult" of virginity is also reflected in dangerous modern phenomena. In South Africa, where the rate of AIDS carriers is one of the highest in the world, there is a widespread belief that intercourse with a virgin can cure the AIDS patient. Pagan doctors throughout the country spread these ideas, and as a result there was a horrific increase in the rape of little girls, including babies. It seems that man's deepest sexual instincts can have horrific consequences.
On an everyday level, millions of years of evolution do not guarantee that our sex lives will be harmonious, or that our sexual preferences will perfectly conform to modern morality. The "shopping list" of desired qualities in a woman seems to fit the age-old stereotype of selfish, lecherous male lust. Doesn't the sensitive modern man choose a partner based on more rational, more intellectual considerations? What about the importance of a sense of humor, a similar approach to life, shared political or moral positions? And what about the emotional or spiritual "connection"? Physical attraction is definitely not the whole story. We are looking for more than that - indeed, we are looking for love, friendship, intelligence, spiritual connection - but these and similar components of choosing a partner lie beyond our most basic sexual instincts.
It is important to emphasize one point. The sexual engines of men and women run on different types of fuel. David Buss (Buss), an American evolutionary psychologist, conducted several pioneering studies regarding the sexual preferences of men and women. His research shows that, in general, men and women attach increasing importance, in the last fifty years, to a good physical appearance. This, as a result of the incessant bombardment of images of attractive people, which modern culture constantly showers upon us. The everyday look of the bra wonder girl or Hollywood action hero has raised the bar of our standards; Given that there are no supermodels and movie stars in our courtship circle, this becomes a catch. But the basic difference between men and women remains the same: physical attractiveness is much more important to men than to women.
To the first part of the chapter "Sex and the Savannah" from the book Human Instinct
To the third part from the chapter "Sex and the Savannah" from the book The Human Instinctי
