Human Mating Strategies

• A friend was commenting on the news item about a man who had is wife murdered with a machete for trying to leave him. It got me to thinking and posting and thinking some more...
  
  Husband is jailed for ordering machete murder | UK news | The Guardian
  Women are choosy - look who they choose. This hit the papers today, several hours after I posted my headline. Can you understand my bemusement/bewilderment/bitterness even? I cannot understand why. It is shocking how pointlessly nasty some of them can be, yet look who they choose!

  Saturday at 12:00pm ·
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  Alva Gosson

  I imagine there is quite a lot of study on this ;-) We did this one in zoology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_son_hypothesis. It is not what is good for the woman but what is good for the kids - if they are like her husband and she matedwith him then by circular argument they will also get matings and so the gene spreads. It is true isn't it that mothers fancy their sons. I reckon there are at least two mating strategies in human females: the one for cash/territory/power to ensure a good environment for the kids and the one for "sexy" to actually get the kids (50% of kids are extra-marital in human genetic history - just enough to make it worthwhile for the home-making male to stay around: evolved before the days of genetic test and CSA ;-). Overly simple but there is no question the dominant strategy for men is be rich or be a hunk. That said a deer in Autumn Watch a few years back used to sneak away from the dominant male to mate with her long time favourite: that stag, despite not having territory, obviously did something she liked! So yeah its complicated I agree but then it would be boring if instructions came on the back of condom packets :-) Course the other thing is that sex and breeding usually aren't the point - its more about self-esteem as successful sex/matings are deeply intertwined with social status - which tragically is linked to chance of success so its circular - the more you get the more you get - but if u fail you can always get the big car out :-) Well that's my analysis anyway.

  Saturday at 2:56pm ·
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  Alva Gosson ooo can't believe I 4got this Groucho quote. Much more succinct. If a man could ever see thru a woman he'd be missing a lot! So I guess lets hope we never can ;-)
  
  Rather than continue the thoughts on his page I'll log them here...
  
  The exposition missed making clear the great battle that exists between the males and females of the human species. For females it makes sense to mate around, while for males it makes sense to control a woman so that she has your children only. Basically this is the structure of marriage and the feminist (when they take the time to understand why things are the way they are before they try to change them) are essentially arguing that they want to right to bring children into the family with other fathers than their husband. The genetic evidence shows that most women have children out of wedlock, but only a few males play along and are responsible; it was Scherezade that made me realise tho before the data. Males thus play the strategy of control of females and this is where the behaviour that produced the news article has a historical precedent. Not to say that Human's should behave like this but that is the legacy.
  
  Another point, gleaned while at college and forget the source, is that the same primitive brain pathways are used by males for sex and violence behaviours. It has always intrigued, worried me, that this is true and I worked this out analysing my own mind as a child. The very essence of "sexy" and of "violence" are linked - they are strong passions motivating compulsive behaviour directed toward someone else that in one case demands grasping and in the other demands hurting. Interestingly both involve thrusting something toward the other with great intent and strength and often into the body of the Other! Violence often also shows up in female definitions of "sexy" in men - men fighting, struggling physically for power and dominance, being physically strong, often being criminal also all occur in the structure of sexiness. The very sex act itself is better performed by physically strong individuals also and I am sure that the physical domination of women during sex is a great fetish and turn on (from discussions on the subject). This is not to say this type of sex is itself dominant, but it figures in the female concept of sexiness. The sex from a loyal, supportive partner would be expected to be different. So there are clearly many strategies and sex is not to be understood as a one horse race, I think that is the thing which confuses people who take the simple hegemonic view.
  
  Finally the realisation that I am becoming more convinced is true. Buddha says that the love for his son was so strong that it threatened his desire for enlightenment and so he left home. This I believe is the greatest love: that for one's children. A friend who is very disinterested in life in general, admits that to protect his children he would kill. That is a powerful emotion that in a way thankfully I haven't experienced and hope not to (since I don't like being controlled). Imagine the pain at losing ones children. In the BBC drama "Any Human Heart" running at the moment, it is becoming plain that it is the desire to reproduce that has driven the life of the man in question more than anything. Tragic that he leaves no children in the story. But as I was arguing with my sister what goes up must come down, and what goes down must come up: nothing ever changes, so I disagree with the premise of the program that life is about luck. You just need to watch stock markets to see that. When we love a girl what we are experiencing is not love for her, but a foreshadowing of the love for the children that she can entail. I thought homosexuality would disprove this but my sister argued that actually homosexual couples want children also. I don't know if this is just the force of social conformity or whether homosexual love is foreshadowing also. If it is however it blows homosexuality part because by definition it can't provide children. A gay friend decided he was infertile as a means to reconcile this point - the concept of fertility it is a problem for homosexuality as expounded in this blog before.
  
  As a closing line on this post and also very much on sexuality itself: the thing to realise is just how primitive and basic sexual reproduction is. There is nothing to comprehend. Bacteria, pigeons and plants have sex (sharing of genes) where is the problem for humans then! All the "romantic" art and philosophy that I have expended time in is actually just a displacement from the sordid reality. It is hard for the higher mind to comprehend that the body is involved in such base and humiliating activities. But then eating, sleeping, toilet, dying all come under that bracket also. Together the gradual realisation is that indeed our physical existence is actually rather sordid and dress it up as we may eventually this realisation breaks through and we discover that it is better to just accept it and let it go rather than pursue some reconciliation and mastery of it.
  
  It is interesting that last night I dreamed of "my muse". It is only the third time in 13 years and by coincidence I notice, looking at the calendar, that yesterday was the 13th anniversary of first speaking to her (I see now that it must be the Fri 5th of Dec because she was working Saturdays and Friday was her try out day; Wednesday 3rd the day I first saw her enter the shop and noticed something different about her - not my type sexually but something ethereal interested me). What was different in this dream was that she was trying to patch things up with me and there was a maturity to the relationship. In the very first dream we had a clumsy kiss where I fell off the chair - symbolic of the awkwardness and ill suiting relationship - second time years later she was angry and frustrated with me. This seems to be some reconciliation as finally we have grown up. I always thought it was she who had to grow up; I guess it was me. Certainly I'm sure she is just a part of me that I needed to express, nothing to do with her. She is dead so how can there be a reconciliation! That said it got me to thinking about the psychic link that lots of people report - the Kenobi-Alderaan moment (Star wars IV) when we know something terrible has happened. How did I know she was going to die? There are clearly things in this world very close to our hearts and lives that we have little understanding of! Maybe not all has been told yet...