Why women stray | Hacker News Reader

Why women stray

aeon.co

28 pointsq-base17 comments

For a counter theory, try reading Sex at Dawn. It's far from perfect. The authors accuse "the establishment" of picking and choosing evidence to show that men stray to spread their genetic material, while women are glorified prostitutes: seeking shelter, food, and security from men, while trying to obtain superior genetic material by cheating. They then turn around and pick and choose their own evidence to support the theory that humans aren't and were never genetically monogamous, and that we stray because we are trying to force monogamy as a fundamental human condition. Nevertheless, the evidence they do present is compelling enough to show that monogamy isn't fundamental to humans or our closest relatives.

For an even better read, try Mating in Captivity which talks about sex and intimacy from the point of view of examining couples whose sex life has died away. This is better place to start if you want to understand cheating.

For a counter theory, try reading Sex at Dawn. It's far from perfect

It's worse than far from perfect; the authors misread, misconstrue, or make up evidence, and they ignore countervailing evidence: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/07/21/sex-at-dawn-christopher-r...

> The book argues that humans are not “naturally” monogamous. That might be true. But Sex at Dawn doesn’t prove it. The data are ambiguous.

Exactly. I still found it a stimulating read, but my "the evidence they present isn't justified" senses were going off from chapter 1.

I don't think that any society where monogamous relationships are the norm has ever justified this arrangement on the grounds that humans are naturally predisposed to monogamy. Everyone has always known that for most people it's very difficult to be monogamous over a long period. But then, we have all kinds of social structures that discourage us from doing what we'd otherwise be disposed to do.

I have both in my "Saved for later" bucket on Amazon but never really got around to actually buying them. I'm just not sure whether they will be interesting and dense enough or you actually have got the whole message by reading a comment like yours.

Sex at Dawn basically boils down to this: when humans evolved to be what we essentially are right now, we were polyamorous and sexually promiscuous. Everyone had sex with everyone all the time because tribe mentality was not what we picture it to be today (strong had all the things, weak had to look to the strong for food, shelter, and protection; in exchange they offered sex). The authors claim that this shift happened much later, about 10k years ago when we switched to predominantly agricultural societies. They offer evidence in the form of Bonobos, who are as related to humans as chimps but are much more promiscuous and less territorial and violent, and in the fact that we have big penises with lots of sperm, meaning evolutionary selection happens primarily through sperm competition, not through sexual partner selection (e.g.: females have sex with lots of males, but only one sperm survives.) There, that's basically the whole book. There are interesting tangential things in the book if you are a factoid junkie, but this is the main argument.

Mating in Captivity is much much harder to summarize like this, and is a better book. It talks about a whole lot of different situations and solutions that did and didn't work for specific couples as their sex life started to dwindle. It touches on non-monogamy, but also proposes other solutions to the problem of decreased sex in long term relationships. If you are choosing between the two, do this one.

Related article, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/why-hap..., which gave an empathetic and intriguing perspective on cheating, without being too forgiving of the cheaters themselves.

Thanks! That was actually better than the one I posted.

This article and its hypothesis are both just so incredibly, horribly bad. I don't even know where to begin, and I feel ill equipped to comment in a way that isn't some scathing, scoffing violation of HN guidelines. Geez.

Can evolutionary theory even be taken seriously? It seems some people, especially in the ‘manosphere’ accept it as Gospel. It used to attract me because ‘oh what a convenient explanation for everything’ but later I started thinking that’s all it was - something fun to think about but not a foundation for policy or practical action.

> Can evolutionary theory even be taken seriously?

As opposed to what? Are you a proponent of creative design or young earth creationism?

> especially in the ‘manosphere’ accept it as Gospel

What is a "manosphere"?

No, I wasn’t careful with word choice. I was referring to highly theoretical field of evolutionary psychology.

The manosphere is a place where male bloggers try to understand the dynamics of mating and sometimes evolutionary psychology is used as evidence.

My impression is that evolutionary psychology is largely all the worst parts of psychology made appealing because, well, who can argue with evolution.

> What is a "manosphere"?

I don't know but it sounds... sweaty.

I just re-read my comment. Sounded like I was questioning evolution itself. I was referring specifically to the behavioral bits, like:

> From an evolutionary perspective, male infidelity is fairly straightforward. Men have evolved a strong desire for sexual variety, stronger than women’s on average, due to the large asymmetries in parental investment. Men can reproduce with as little effort as it takes to inseminate a fertile woman. Women require a metabolically costly nine-month pregnancy to produce a single child.

... and using that to explain human behavior or psychology. I guess the field is known more as behavioral or evolutionary psychology.

It's a good thing we don't reject scientific theories simply off them being too convenient then.

Not that it makes evo psych valid, but I've yet to see good papers from either side, and I doubt there ever will be, since mating strategies will always remain a highly contested topic, regardless of what science says.

Science doesn't work the way you think it works.

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