It's kind of bizarre to me that the only interpretation of this behavior by evolutionary psychologists is that males are "exchanging resources for sex." I give my boyfriend gifts all the time, and it's not because I'm exchanging goods for sex. It's because I'm expressing affection and bonding with my partner. Obviously humans are more likely to have sex with someone they are bonded to, and there is an evolutionary benefit to be had from bonding with other humans (sexual partners or otherwise), but it's not so simple as a trade of one resource for another. There are a lot of different ways to give a gift, especially in animals as complex as humans.

Whenever people try to use "science" to justify patriarchy, I just refer them to the scientists who said women would grow beards if they learned to read. Then I throw a hardcover Anne Fausto-Sterling book at them really hard.

samhita,

i'm not saying this study is authoritative or is definitely true or anything like that, but the fact that you just dismiss it out of hand because it doesn't jibe with your previous beliefs reminds me of...uh...like...creationists?

take this. You respond to a finding of an actual study by saying:

"No, an arranged marriage is a cultural norm designed to control women's sexuality and maintain a certain type of society. Men buying women gifts for sex isn't innate, it is learned behavior based on values that are determined by culture."

Er, okay. Thanks for letting me know. I mean, that's just a simple assertion, no doubt about it. if you want to cite other studies that suggest such a phenomenon, then you should do so. if you want to just call something "bogus" or "patriarchal" because it upsets your view of the word, then that's simply illiberal.

and you're engaging in the exact same type of thinking that I'm surely enrages you (rightfully) when it's directed toward abstinence-only education, reproductive rights or gay marriage. like, say a religious person responded to a study that homosexuality was largely innate by saying:

"No, homosexuality is sinful behavior specifically ruled as an abomination by the word of God and clearly a choice of the participant."

You would say "Wow, great point!" and dismiss the person's logic as an assertion based on dogma. I'm sorry, but your response, as long as it remains without factual backup, is in the same category.

And PLEASE people, don't call me a concern troll. I've posted here many times now and let me make it clear that I like this blog and Samhita a lot, I just happen to disagree very strongly on this issue.

montefiore, my main problem with your comparison is that creationists base their beliefs on faith alone, while there is a wealth of literature out there showing that a lot of the "findings" purported by evo-psych folks just aren't all that scientific. Samhita could've probably written a dissertation on this subject, but since this is a blog entry there really isn't that much space.

The example of evo-psych going wrong that I always think of is the study of redwing blackbirds from the 70's. Evo-psych folks would have us believe that females naturally seek the materially wealthy mate and are faithful to that male because they want their offspring to survive. However, a study of redwing blackbirds showed that while the females did indeed seek the materially wealthy male to mate with on a permanent basis, they also had sex with lots of other males, because genetically speaking a female doesn't want to put all of her eggs into one basket. She wants to make sure her offspring survive, so she wants a wide genetic pool to choose from. This flies in the face of what an evo-psych believer would tell you about women and faithfulness.

Evolutionary psychology is basically untestable and thus is rife with bias and misinterpretation.

This reminds me of a study showing that some primates "trade" grooming for sex. This was supposed to be analogous to prostitution, because it was speculated that grooming was equivalent to currency.

When you read further, the same authors in the same study admit that the same primates used grooming as a mechanism to bond with one another, including with offspring.

So, come again? On the one hand grooming is supposed to be like money, but then they groom the babies and the kids and their sisters and brothers, etc. Grooming to me sounds like a form of affection in this case, and not currency. But see how they interpret stuff?

Even the common "definition" of prostitution is biased against women. Technically the original sense of prostitution is to have sex with someone WHOM YOU WOULD NOT ORDINARILY HAVE SEX WITH in exchange for money.

Prostitution these days has been widened to basically include all heterosexual women, except with the newer fancier terms like ho and bitch; and has fostered the attitude from men that "men always pay for sex one way or another".

“Thanks for letting me know. I mean, that's just a simple assertion, no doubt about it. if you want to cite other studies that suggest such a phenomenon, then you should do so.�

Uh, you mean if for any bullshit study that comes out, that completely ignores cultural norms, and culturally enforced power dynamics, we don’t go and write a dissertation to debunk it, we are just like creationists who ignore well-established scientific facts?

The problem isn't so much that there this theory might be plausible on some level. The problem is when it is extended to a justification of societal "norms".

One of the main reasons I got married instead of simply co-habiting was to get a tax break. One of the reasons I co-habited instead of living in my own place was to save on our rent. I get lots of fun, companionship, intellectual stimulation out of my spouse, all I have to do is have sex with him. The exact same is true for him, though -- he wouldn't have the tax break, the rent savings, the human companionship from me if he wasn't putting out. So, sure, at a very very fundamental level, he and I have traded sex for "things."

This doesn't translate into anything meaningful, in my opinion.

Hmm, really don't agree that 'nuptial gifts' in other animals are like prostitution in humans. Nuptial gifts in non-human animals prove that the giver can provide for the receiver and any offspring they would have together. Then the female decides whether the giver is a sufficient provider for her future offspring and sex will occur or not. As far as I know, most men do not go to prostitutes hoping they will carry their children.

And as always with evolutionary psych (which I have a love/hate relationship with) even if this were evidence of the "naturalness" of prostitution, that doesn't make it ok. Because we have developed culture and morals/ethics we can and do shape our behaviour and our societal norms and something with a biological basis is not always a good thing and definitely be changed by culture.

montefiore,

I definitely understand your problems with Samhita's reasoning, but I'm okay with it, because of how I read it: she's doing the exact same thing these "scientists" are doing right back at them.

The studies they produce are able to say only a very few things. "Females and males often have sex", and "Males often give things to females". Offering an explanation for an observed behavior and claiming it as a result of your study is a horrible, terrible thing to do to science. First of all, I don't know how a study COULD imply that an animal was giving gifts "in exchange for" sex. (The in exchange for part is what throws me off: I don't even fill out that "For:" part on my checks all the time. How do you know I'm not just taking things from a store and giving money to someone out of the goodness of my heart?) Second of all, though it might not be everything Creationists chalk it up to be, there is a difference between observing behavior in animals and observing similar behavior in humans. We can't ASK an animal WHY it behaves a certain way. The dialog we can open with fellow humans means, to some extent, that we aren't inexorably tied to behavioral patterns, nor do we necessarily sanction them.

So I think Samhita's response was to point out that just because some data supports one opinion doesn't mean that opinion is Truth.

Let me make it clear that I LOVE evolutionary psychology. I think there are a lot of things we can learn about ourselves by looking at the behavioral patterns of our closest living cousins in an objective fashion.

It's also lovely learning from experiments designed to pit biochemical competition against social harmony (if anyone remembers the sperm-fruit fly experiment).

As for Erica B's statement, I would like to expand by saying my parents also give me things. Perhaps it's so that I'll take care of them when they get old. If my boyfriend gives me something, perhaps it's because he wants sex.

Evolutionary speaking, all these "wants" have translated into the creation of "love" in our brains. It's all entirely hypothetical of course, but it's interesting if it's GOOD science.

This study, however, is NOT. There are a myriad motivations, and any study that claims that a specific behavior pattern is borne out of desire FOR sex must be sure to isolate that motivation from all others. And this study has done a horrid job of doing that.

I think I read somewhere that both male and female bonobos exchange sex with the same gender (f and f, m and m)as a social exchange. Of course they would never write about that cuz thats not between a f and m, and would expose that sex exchange for goods is also used by males torwards females, and between the same sex. Its obvious theyre simply upholding gender stereotypes and male dominance assumptions to preserve their biases gender roles.

"Then I throw a hardcover Anne Fausto-Sterling book at them really hard."

Aaaaghhh, brilliant!

I gotta agree with montefiore.

Samhita: No, an arranged marriage is a cultural norm designed to control women's sexuality and maintain a certain type of society. Men buying women gifts for sex isn't innate, it is learned behavior based on values that are determined by culture.

Why should I believe that statement any more than I should some researchers' claim? Wouldn't siding with it be predicated on preexisting belief? Especially since it gives little more than a claim that a "cultural norm"* is at the heart of what we're discussing?

Samhita's confident dismissal of the study and claims about the origins of arranged marriage seem, at least from what she wrote and the way it was worded, no more scientific or reasoned than the study she dismissed wholesale as "bogus." Maybe, like another commenter said, there's a dissertation's worth of back-up for the disagreement waiting in the wings; maybe the skepticism only sounded knee-jerk. But the tone of the blog entry struck me as kind of willfully ignorant of disagreeable research.

(Also, re: the study, is it news to anybody that sex, like any other display of power, is used as currency, between people who identify as any gender?)

I don't believe that kind of thing is innate... but it may very well have begun a long time ago. I just take issue with people thinking that just because certain phenomena began ages ago, it must be part of our evolution.

I think that because of women's place in regards to men throughout history (and I'm not talking like, 1800s history, i'm talking like way back in the day history)... it became adaptive for women to trade sex for protection/resources etc. Because women were kept in positions of subordination (financially being a big one)... and because it was harder for women to be independent, they had to secure resources and protection from men. I can see where that kind of thing became adaptive... but that doesn't make it biological or innate.

If it happens now, I'd argue that it was because women are still often kept in positions of subordination... and also, mainly, because women are socialized to believe that their sexuality is a commodity with which they can obtain other things. This is an unhealthy behavior (e.g. "sleeping your way to the top" at your job) that women are wrongfully taught. But again, that doesn't make it innate.

Samhita: Men buying women gifts for sex isn't innate, it is learned behavior based on values that are determined by culture.

Can you prove that there is no innate disposition? I think we can all agree that culturally-learned values play a role. However, considering that other species, from birds to primates, have been shown to trade provisions for reproduction, how can you completely dismiss any genetic predisposition outright? That is just blatant dogmatism on your part.

noueux: We can't ASK an animal WHY it behaves a certain way.

However, if an animal is statistically more likely to reproduce with a mate after that mate has provided resources, can't we assume there is some correlation (if proper controls for other variables have been instituted)? If you think that studies on animal behavior are inaccurate because we can't ask animals "why" they behave in a certain way, you're saying that we might as well throw out all of ethology, most of primatology, all of Jane Goodall's work, etc.

Erica B: The problem isn't so much that there this theory might be plausible on some level. The problem is when it is extended to a justification of societal "norms".

Did the study authors try to justify societal norms with their results? NO. All they did was assert the existence of a correlation that they observed. I think that some of us are so accustomed to seeing scientific results used to justify specious societal norms, that we think we see it happening when it isn't. If you carefully read the Science Daily news article, or the original study, you won't see any implication that the results justify societal norms. A scientist who claims "X is true in the world" is not making the assertion that "X is therefore morally appropriate" or "because X is true in the world, X is the way things should be".

montefiore and everybodyever - OK, I'll give it a go. The author of the article CAANOT be right in his/her description of arranged marriage because it runs counter to the very definition of arranged marriage. Unless he/she is referring to the FAMILIES of the future spouses as the people reaching an agreement to share resources (in which case, the example is irrelevant), the sentance makes no sense. Arranged marriage means arranged by OTHER people! (especially in its traditional form. the modern version is more like familial matchmaking)

montefiore, I won't call you a concern troll but I will ask you how you can equate Samhita's statements (and many of the statements of those who agree with her) with creationism.

Creationism is based on a book that was written by humans 2000 years ago and has been translated and altered countless times according to the whims of whoever was in power at the time. It is based in a complete lack of skepticism about what that book says.

Our arguments with ev-psych, on the other hand, are based on our own observations of our lives and society, as well as (for me and I'm sure for many others here) education in at least one of the many different subjects that ev-psych touches upon. I have seen UCLAbodyimage (I think that's his name - sorry if I got it wrong! I'm terrible with names) explain certain ev-psych ideas in a way that actually convinced me and a few others to accept them. That doesn't mean, however, that I automatically believe every ev-psych thing that gets published or (especially!) the way the media presents it. That would be akin to creationism.

No, an arranged marriage is a cultural norm designed to control women's sexuality and maintain a certain type of society. Men buying women gifts for sex isn't innate, it is learned behavior based on values that are determined by culture.

Hmm, thanks for that condescending, unqualified statement. I'm sure my mother, a psychiatrist and feminist herself, would be happy to hear from someone young, single and from a different country why she made the decisions she did. Especially since she CHOSE to have an arranged marriage after seeing her Mother's (also a doctor and feminist) "love marriage" not work out.

I get that you try to be all avant garde and radical as the sole minority on this site, but your repeated attacks on easter cultures are tiresome. Just because some women are oppressed doesn't mean that we are all some backwards misogynists. You seem to have a personal axe to grind with your background.

I'm a huge fan of evolutionary biology and would normally defend it. But this study is bullshit. And here's why: you cannot, as a scientist, examine the sex practices of animals merely as a "contract" without examining the broader role sex plays within the animal's own culture (yes, animals have culture).

The penguin, for example, only has sex during specific and discreet periods in which both sexes seek to reproduce. (The male penguin bringing pebbles to the female for her nest is more properly seen as evidence of a shared investment in the well-being of the offspring.) The sexual behavior of primates, however, is not limited solely to reproduction, and is not well-described as a "contract."

The researchers fail to account for sexual contact between adults and juveniles in primate populations. Some species of macaques will perform oral sex on crying infants to soothe them. Bonobos engage in sexual contact in all forms, heterosexual and homosexual. These contacts serve to reinforce social bonds and as reconciliation between rivals. Some Orangutang males, particularly smaller ones of low social stature, regularly rape Orang females.

The sex "contract," as it has been called, is further undermined by concealed estrus in humans. This is widely believed to have precipitated the patriarchal institutions we know today that seek to control female sexuality.

I could go on and on, but the point is that Sam's right to critique this article.

I, for one, first assume that any reasoning involving "evolutionary psychology", innate drives, essential natures, etc is total bullshit. That's a safe default assumption to proceed from. Adapting Minds, by David J Buller, is one book that will convince you.

It's interesting that an overwhelming majority of "we evolved that way" arguments, on a day to day basis, happen to be excuses for the creepiest most despicable behaviour we have to put up with. Never, "lower back pain ... we evolved like that". Always, "throwing moronic harassing remarks at a female passerby ... aww I can't help it man". Of course, it's nice to be able to add science to taste.

everybodyever, maybe sex is a "display of power" at your house, but at my house, it's a display of being horny.

@badnfluence -- If you carefully read the Science Daily news article, or the original study, you won't see any implication that the results justify societal norms.

I agree with you.

My statement was intended as a general observation of where a science study might go wrong -- the point at which either the scientists or the general public point to the results and say, "This then extends to [blah blah]". It did not happen in this article. (Interesting, though, that it is being discussed as though it had happened.)

"Especially since she CHOSE to have an arranged marriage after seeing her Mother's (also a doctor and feminist) "love marriage" not work out."

So because your mother was privileged enough to choose how she married, Samhita should just shut her face about the fact that other women do not enjoy such a privilege under this system? OK...

"If it happens now, I'd argue that it was because women are still often kept in positions of subordination... and also, mainly, because women are socialized to believe that their sexuality is a commodity with which they can obtain other things"

This might explain why women enter prostitution but it doesn't explain why men make use of the services.

Note I have no opinion one way or the other on the study - I could see some truth or maybe it's BS.

But I do not agree that prostitution from a consumer point of view is a result of the patriachy. The vast majority of men and women who use prostitutes do so not because they want to oppress women or men - but out of a simple desire to have sex.

If I have sex or seek a prostitute, it's not because I want to oppress anyone - it's because I really want to have sex and maybe I have no other way to do so consentually.

Given this, I am certainly open to the possibility that it could very well be an innate behaviour. Certainly in all of recorded human history it has been observed, and there definitely is *some* evidence to suggest animals do it too. And it seems very logical to me that most species would want sex alot and be willing to trade for it.

But again, I'm not saying this study is true. Really I just wanted to point out that I sometimes find on here we do not provide the correct reasons for why people do things, especially reasons as to why men do things. We tend to overcomplicate when male motivations are usually quite simple and straightforward.

Sure, I'd be willing to concede that an arranged marriage is a contract to exchange resources...it's just that one of the resources involved is a woman. Unless the people arranging the marriage are having sex with each other, though, I don't really see how this corresponds to squirrels bringing each other nuts or whatever.

Evolutionary arguments always seem very compelling, but I'm usually critical of them. As others have observed, they are usually cited to naturalize social behaviors. It is a long leap from observing a behavior and interpreting it as it applies to humans, and these interpretation are based on our cultural beliefs.
There are some underlying assumptions in this study that haven't been addressed in the comments: 1. That sex is a commodity. It is certainly treated as such in our culture, but I'm not sure that this is true in all cultures or among animals. 2. That females don't enjoy sex. Couldn't we interpret these observations to mean that males must provide both resources AND sexual gratification for the chance to pass on their genes? We could, but it doesn't fit with our cultural beliefs about women. 3. That humans maximize their offspring. This is the evolutionary strategy of, say, frogs, but not of humans. 4. That motivations for sex are singular. As others have pointed out, sex isn't just a "resource" or just for pleasure. It is social bonding, etc.
So, while the observation of primates may provide insights about humans, I think we need to be careful about our interpretations, and take into account those behaviors we aren't discussing -- such as the aforementioned homosexual activity among bonobos.

I have to fess up to not being able to get the ben folds cover of bitches aint shit out of my since reading this entry, damn it all

I agree w/ Nimue.

As I have *attempted* to express many times before, studies in evolutionary psychology and ethology can provide us w/ valubale insights, but when the conclusion is "hey, MY cultural norms are natural," then you'll almost always find that the conclusion hasn't been properly scrutinized. When the conclusion, by the nature of the data, must be subjective, then we (I mean we scientists) need to be sure to subject that conclusion to review by people with differing ideas of "normal."

badnfluence,

I'm definitely not saying these types of studies are inaccurate, I'm just saying I'm a mathematician who has severe difficulty when a scientist makes the leap from "these things are likely to happen, and here are some reasons why" to "this happens because of this reason, and therefore it is Right and Good".

Oh, and clearly I am agreeing w/ the most of the posters here, not just Nimue. But had to weigh in...as this discussion has gone in other directions w/ other commenters in the past.

IMHO, there are both natural, evolved factors and cultural, societal factors, in the explanation of the sex trade.

Why is it always overwhelmingly about men buying meaningless sex with women they don't even know or even necessarily find especially attractive, and not vice versa? It's because men want that sort of sex more than women do, and hence there's a market in women selling it to men. That's natural and evolved for reasons Evo Psych explains.

But there are also cultural factors to do with how sex and women are seen, how far prostitution is tolerated, how frequently women are in a position where they have to sell sex (there are many risk factors, including sex abuse history, drugs, economic, coercion) etc.

So the sex trade has both natural and cultural causes.

I blogged about this a few weeks ago.

http://qa2tp.blogspot.com/2008/03/economics-of-sex-work.html

@ Scribble

Never, "lower back pain ... we evolved like that"

Bad example - people often attribute the commonness of back pain to the evolution of bipedalism and the strain this puts on our spines.

It's interesting that some of you are claiming that men "naturally" want more sex. Only a few hundred years ago, it was assumed that women were the ones who were obsessed with sex and would do anything to get it. In fact, the common belief was that too little sex lead to any number of ailments in women. This idea that men want to have sex all the time but women don't only arose in the Victorian era.

Which is another example of why I'm skeptical of ev-psych explanations, because they so often seem to lack a grounding in historical developments of culture.

@ waxghost

Big surveys show that men want more sex, more quickly, with more people, in every society tested.

See here (pdf):

www.toddkshackelford.com/downloads/Schmitt-JPSP-2003.pdf

People might object that men report a higher sex drive, & women a lower sex drive, than they really have because that's what society expects. This effect has been tested, and it turns out that although men do report more (and women fewer) sex partners (etc.) when the survey isn't anonymous, compared to when it is, their reports about their preferences and attitudes don't change. That experiment is reported here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_1_40/ai_101530208/print

So I'm confident of the reliability of the data in the study I linked to, which is all about people's preferences and attitudes, rather than their actual behaviour.

Disclaimer: I'm a fan of evolutionary psychology.

I think the problem here is that scientists are horrible communicators, so they rely on journalists to do it for them (I haven't found the actual paper yet, but I'll keep looking). First of all, I don't think that prostitution is a particularly good analogue, and I doubt the scientists chose it. The better analogue would be courtship, where each partner gives gifts to prove their competence.

(Side note: a lot of people think this goes one-way, men giving gifts to women. Not true, even in "primitive" societies or the middle-ages. Think about a damsel in distress giving her knight a kerchief as proof of her ability to embroider, or a hunter-gatherer woman sharing the berries she gathered with her sweetheart, or one of my friend's girlfriend giving him a photo album of their weekend at the beach.)

Recall that "if [the subjects] were in committed relationships, they did not view the partnership as trading in reproductive currencies." This is very similar to animals choosing mates based on their ability to provide, as evidenced by gifts. Also, think of how forgetting anniversaries (a traditional gift-giving time) or never surprising your mate with a gift often ends relationships, and of the song "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." When evolutionary psychologists talk about things like this, they never mean that we consciously decide "my mate doesn't give me gifts, so he/she must not be a good provider and I don't want to have children with him/her," but instead we feel hurt, and subsequently fall out of love with our mate, and break up with them.

Oh, and seconded on the "evolved characteristics are not normative" thing. If people like Gandhi and MLK Jr. can get past our innate desire to respond to violence in kind, we ought to be able to get past our other evolutionary foibles. On the other hand, I like giving and getting gifts, so I don't know whether this is one I'd like to lose.

"Big surveys show that men want more sex, more quickly, with more people, in every society tested."

Interesting. The problem is that if we are considering a heterosexual population with relatively equal numbers of male and females, the only way men could report having more partners than women and not be lying is if there is a sizable number of women having sex with A LOT of men and/or a sizable number of males with few or no partners.

Or am I missing something?

"think of how forgetting anniversaries (a traditional gift-giving time) or never surprising your mate with a gift often ends relationships"

You've got to be kidding me, Jeffrey, I'd never end a relationship because of THAT! I've told my partner that if they ever bought me a "diamond ring" or expensive whatever, I'd be the first person back at the store returning it. I specifically tell my mate that I don't want any gifts. I'm sure I'm not the only person here that can't stand the obligations placed on couples by corporate money making holidays like "valentines day", "anniversaries", etc. All just excuses to buy more stuff. I'd rather spend quality time with my partner on a walk or making dinner than having them buy me a crappy present that I'll just forget about and let collect dust. That's just me.

@ spike the cat

Read what I wrote. I didn't say men have more sex than women. That can't be, obviously.

I said men WANT more sex, more quickly, with more different women.

I'm citin attitudes not behaviour.

I just had a long comment deleted, so I'm reposting a shorter version:

It makes perfect evolutionary sense that men want more sex than women. Men don't get pregnant, so as long as they keep having sex with different people, they can continue producing more offspring. Over time, men with higher sex drives would have produced more offspring, so that higher sex drive in males is evolutionary advantageous and would thus become a selected trait. Of course, modern life is an evolutionarily new environment, in which old behaviors and traits are not necessarily helpful.

Women, meanwhile, get pregnant, so a high sex drive for them would be a waste of resources: why waste energy on trying to have sex when you can't conceive?

As a result, men have a higher demand for sex than women would normally supply. This creates a shortage which is then filled by force [social sanctions for not 'putting out' on one end to rape on the other] or through the market. On the market, women sell sex to men in exchange for goods they couldn't otherwise get.

As this shows, it's not prostitution itself that's evolutionary, but the conditions for it are fairly clearly the result of evolutionary pressures.

The problem I have with extrapolating from animal societies to human ones is the role of "culture" in the two. Animal societies are organized purely to ensure survival of the species. All behaviors develop as a result of their potential to maximize reproduction and maintain the species. [I think even behaviors such as altruism within a group and whatever animal 'love' there is developed to achieve these goals.]

Humans, however, develop cultures whose goals are not always the maximization of reproduction and saving the species. While I believe that most human behaviors trace their origins to those motivations [including the patriarchy, whatever meaning that has for different people on this blog], there are other values that can cloud the picture. When we say "exchange goods for sex" in an animal setting, that behavior may be evolutionarily advantageous: goods signal to the female that the male has some merit, while the male gets to try to impregnate her - win-win. In humans, however, the male sex drive, an evolutionary remnant, leads him to want sex but for cultural reasons not want children. The exchange of money for sex in that case is the result of similar evolutionary pressures, but is different because a modern human society is different from an animal one.

Okay, so it wasn't any shorter. Still.

@Ethylene, my bad. I was looking at your article which stated that men consistently report having more partners in surveys...but now I see that the authors went on to talk about the statistics of why this was inaccurate. I kinda jumped the gun.

Cool.

ethylene - thanks for providing the survey, but i have to add just a grain of skepticism. after all, even in anonymous surveys, people lie sometimes, right? or what if being conditioned that women aren't supposed to want much sex results in suppression of sexual urges so that some women actually want less sex for that reason? just saying.

anyway, foxtrotuniform--one thing i'm not getting-- if it's biologically wasteful for women to want to have sex when they can't conceive, WHY AREN'T WE ONLY IN THE MOOD WHEN WE'RE OVULATING??? wouldn't it just make more sense to feel like having sex for only those days out of every menstrual cycle?

"If I have sex or seek a prostitute, it's not because I want to oppress anyone - it's because I really want to have sex and maybe I have no other way to do so consentually."

Actually, the notion that another human being can be bought as a good, seems acceptable to a lot more men than women. A lot of prostitutes, like the street-walker type, are abused by pimps and not treated well. These issues are where the "patriarchy" arguments come in.

"Women, meanwhile, get pregnant, so a high sex drive for them would be a waste of resources: why waste energy on trying to have sex when you can't conceive?"

Actually, then wouldn't it just make sense to not be horny when you're pregnant, and very horny when you're not pregnant? But it doesn't work that way... The Kinsey Institute, a reputable sex research institute, has studies that find that overall men want sex slightly more often than women, but because of the huge range within male individuals and within female individuals, there's a huge amount of overlap. You can't just look at one study and draw results -a college-level science professor would give you a D.

"As a result, men have a higher demand for sex than women would normally supply. This creates a shortage which is then filled by force [social sanctions for not 'putting out' on one end to rape on the other] or through the market. On the market, women sell sex to men in exchange for goods they couldn't otherwise get.""

Correction: men who have a regular, reliable source of sex are as likely to rape as men who do not. Men who are married and have girlfriends sometimes still rape other women. Rape /is not/ about men being desperate for sex. Rape is usually about power, and in some rare situations rape is about men who are turned on by enacting violence on a woman.
Biologically, physiologically sexual "needs" can be alleviated by simple masturbation. Which is why so many sane men can go for long periods of time without sex and not turn into controlling, desperate assholes.

By the way, I feel like some other website must have linked to feministing, because I've noticed a recent influx of new posters who aren't very versed in feminist theory.

Anyway,

On prostitution and exploitation:
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/prostitution-regulation-exploitation-and-death/

Sexual objectification:
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/faq-what-is-sexual-objectification/

Blitzgal,

"So because your mother was privileged enough to choose how she married, Samhita should just shut her face about the fact that other women do not enjoy such a privilege under this system? OK..."

You are assuming that Arranged Marriage equals forced marriage for people of lesser means in India. Do you have any evidence to back that up or is this your personal opinion.

"No, an arranged marriage is a cultural norm designed to control women's sexuality"

I know about it being a cultural norm that is still very popular but controlling women's sexuality. That's the first time I have read that interpretation of arranged marriage.

"By the way, I feel like some other website must have linked to feministing, because I've noticed a recent influx of new posters who aren't very versed in feminist theory."

I'm definitely not versed in feminist theory, but I'm a longtime reader and I was fairly sure that contrasting/differing viewpoints were welcome in the comments.

"anyway, foxtrotuniform--one thing i'm not getting-- if it's biologically wasteful for women to want to have sex when they can't conceive, WHY AREN'T WE ONLY IN THE MOOD WHEN WE'RE OVULATING??? wouldn't it just make more sense to feel like having sex for only those days out of every menstrual cycle?"

Yes, that would make sense, if that evolutionary decision occurred in isolation. But it doesn't: the sexual behavior of a species it the result of many trade-offs.I recommend Jared Diamond's "Why Is Sex Fun?" for a readable explanation of why certain species turn out the way they do, including ours. Chapter 4 addresses recreational sex and hidden estrus.

""So because your mother was privileged enough to choose how she married, Samhita should just shut her face about the fact that other women do not enjoy such a privilege under this system? OK..."

You are assuming that Arranged Marriage equals forced marriage for people of lesser means in India. Do you have any evidence to back that up or is this your personal opinion. "

Arranged marriage is not just the cultural norm in India. I know that in many Indian families arranged marriage allows for some amount of choice by the bride.

However, in anthropology class for instance, we read about the situation in Nepal, where brides got virtually no choice in the matter until the 1960s or so. Many places in the middle east, brides still get no choice.

So I would say, it depends on the conditions of the arranged marriage, and in what culture it's occuring. But I think what we in western culture have traditionally referred to as "arranged marriage" implicitly did not take into account the desires of the bride-to-be.

Ninapendamaishi

"However, in anthropology class for instance, we read about the situation in Nepal, where brides got virtually no choice in the matter until the 1960s or so."

Good point. I do not know about Nepal but in the Indian marriage system,the groom doesnt get a choice either. At least not in the most traditional settings.
I think it ties into the communitarian identity that was greatly valued and still is. Individualism bad, community good. Marriage is not about you, its about all of us together.
My view is that the traditional version of marriage has nothing to do with romance or the like. Its more about whats good for a particular community.
I think Samhita is right on that count. But Blitzgal made a different point.

Also, I felt that Samhita was talking the Indian(Hindu) Marriage system as she is of Indian Origin.

Okay, there are so many things I thought deserved responses, and they're so long, that I decided I needed an entire post. So here it is.

On a separate point that I didn't cover, I've always felt like an arranged marriage wouldn't be so bad (presuming both of us could refuse after we met). My attractions are so often wildly off the mark that it would make things a lot simpler. Plus, the one time my mom asked me "why don't you ask her out?" I later decided I was an idiot for not doing so.

"...arranged marriage is a cultural norm designed to control women's sexuality and maintain a certain type of society."

Actually, this idea actually isn't inconsistent with evolutionary psychology.

Before DNA testing came about, a man really could never be 100% sure that his offspring was indeed really his.

So, I think the patriarchy arose from this simple fact. If a man can own and control the woman, he has a better chance of ensuring that the kids are his.

The thing is that in a way, some arranged marriage schemes, child marriages, encouraging virginal brides, genital mutilation, etc are all means by which female sexuality is controlled such that men can achieve this ownership of women.

And of course these restrictive patriarchal systems really only "work" if there is also a steady supply of "whores" to kind of close the gap in demand for sex, which has actually been made 1000X worse by the same system that restricts women in the 1st place.

I've read that some matrilineal societies allowed the children to stay always with the mother; both men and women were relatively free to be promiscuous; and men furthered their genes (well, at least some of their genes) by helping raise their sister's children.

So it does beg the question, can women really be sexually free in a patriarchy?

I don't think that arranged marriage is meant to control women's sexuality per se, but I do think it is meant to control women. All you have to do is read any of the number of articles about the recent FLDS raid in Texas to see how arranged marriages can be used to subjugate women.

Even in a freer society than that, however, arranged marriage with little or no input from the bride (and/or groom) would still not be ideal. If my family had had the power to force me into a marriage arrangement, I would have ended up with one of the awful guys that they suggested to me over the years.

Jeffrey Collins, why don't you just ask your mom to arrange a date? You make it sound like parents can only arrange marriage, but would you really want the choice and the ability to get to know each other well before marrying taken away from you like that?

Patriarchal culture has a natural selection logic of its own.

Patriarchal society does involve an exchange of male wealth and status for female beauty. I don't think anyone doubts that?

I don't know much about genetics and the spread of beauty among the population, but I'd think the result would be that high status or high wealth males would have children who were more attractive (depending on what the norms of physical attraction were in a given society).

Similarly, beautiful people would, over time, tend to be among the more intelligent of the species.

"Our thought processes are less “x gave me an expensive present, therefore he/she is the person I want to share genes with� than “x is so generous, I’m head-over-heels in love for him/her.�"

Well, I think some people on this thread were making the point that material things like this don't even cause us to love someone, particularly. At least not just so far as to how much things cost. Maybe if a lot of effort had to be put into making something, then it's kind of endearing, but only if you really liked the person first.

Anyway, I agree with a lot of what you wrote in your long post Jeffrey.

But, what you don't at all take into consideration is that historically and even somewhat today there /are/ evolutionary psychologists who try to prove broad generalizations as true, and do what some of us might call "cruddy science". Even moreso, there are people writing science books for a popular audience, that seek to perpetuate things that you've termed "outlandish notions" about how x, y, z thing our society does that the feminists don't like is actually just natural and evolutionarily-based.

If the general American audience was science literate and capable of really good critical thinking, this would be less of an issue.

Also, the reason that we sometimes like to discuss personal experiences Jeffrey, is b/c you really just need anecdotal evidence to /bring into question/ broad generalizations. I don't think anyone here is stupid enough to think you can /prove/ broad generalizations based on anecdotal evidence. But as you admitted, all science studies have some level of imperfection and bias in them by virtue of how the individual scientist chooses to construct them, and any assumptioins they may make in trying to interpret the results, and traditionally scientists have been male. So smart women might have different interpretations.

And finally, you rightly point out that evolution has never been a testible theory. True. And this is probably why Darwin's original conception of evolution contained some flaws and many gaping wholes, and over time people have continually added to and revised how we believe the process to work. And you can in fact examine the genetic/cellular process of certain parts of evolution under a microscope. And you can in fact observe changeds in the proportion of certain types of alleles in certain populations over brief periods of time, such as when there is an environmental disastor. You may or may not know this, but there is an old couple out on the Galapogos Islands who has dedicated decades of their life to monitoring the populations and the length and shape of the birds' beaks, and how they change from year to year.
So, many aspects of evolution can be and have been carefully examined.

Evo psych on the other hand, is not exactly "observable" in the same sense, b/c it discusses primarily behavior which is less concrete than physiological changes...

I have studied evolutionary biology, and I've been a big fan of non-sexist ev psych for years (yes, it does exist.) But to me, most ev psych is ignoring a gigantic elephant in the room, and we need a better explanation than we have for this phenomenon, and ev psych hasn't offered one yet. ANd it seriously affects this particular study.

The logic that "women need men to provide for them to take care of their children, and thus men are interested in making sure that when women reproduce, the father is known" hs a huge gaping hole in it... namely, that in hunter/gatherer cultures where we all evolved, shit ain't like that. In a hunter/gatherer culture, the women gathering provide about 80% of the group's nutrition. The men hunting provide only about 20% and it's handed out communally -- men don't provide for their own children, they provide for all the children of the tribe. Men also protect the group, but they do that communally as well. Women are responsible for all child care tasks, usually until the kids are about 7 or so and then the boys go off to be raised by the men, which may also be done communally -- a boy may know who his father is, but his uncles and older cousins (and unrelated, or rather more distantly related, guys in the tribe, who he'd *call* uncle or cousin because tribes are based on kinship) have as much to do with raising him as his father does.

From a strictly evolutionary perspective, therefore, there is NO NEED for males to prove they would be a good provider before a female lets them have sex. They need to prove their genetic qualities, yes -- prove they're strong, smart, fast, clever, have the ability to rise to high status (expressed by actually *being* of high status), etc. And generosity in many hunter/gatherer cultures was a mark of power -- look, I am so good, I can get so much extra stuff that I can freely share it with you. But the need for a man to *provide* is not present. And the need for a man to know who his children are is also not present.

There is thus no *evolutionary* reason for specifically sexual jealousy (as opposed to envy -- you have something I want and I don't have it -- or the kind of jealousy we all feel when someone we want to spend time with is spending time with someone else -- I mean that the *specific* "you fucked someone else! I hate you now!" thing makes no evolutionary sense.) Human brains have not evolved since we were hunter/gatherers. *All* of patriarchy, *all* of male providing for individual females, *all* of men needing to know that "their" woman isn't fucking another man, is newer than our brains are. So there is NO EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATION for behavior like "women need men to prove they are good providers before having sex." That is not how our close relative primates, the chimps and bonobos work, and that is not how human hunter/gatherers work.

So why would affluent human women in college demand gifts as tokens of affection? (Not payment for sex, assholes. Affluent college women aren't prostitutes.) Hmm, maybe because OUR CULTURE INSISTS THAT MEN GIVING WOMEN GIFTS IS A TOKEN OF AFFECTION? Maybe because, given that women were property traded between men for centuries, the idea that a woman would have property to give a man to demonstrate her love made no sense, so she gave her services -- her skill at cleaning, cooking, raising his kids, her willingness to have sex with him -- instead? And since men don't do jack for women in terms of services (please do not mention the "honey-do's", they do not compare to the constant services women provide to men in traditional marriage), men must provide property and material items instead? So we have a culture in which men show women they love them by buying them stuff and women show men they love them by doing stuff for them, and either way, sex often ensues?

How about this study: observe how often women cook for men they have not yet had sex with, and how often they end up having sex later. Conclude that men exchange their sexual services to women for food.

It doesn't matter that these women have money. They have been taught that the way to show their love to a man is to do stuff for him, and the way he shows his love to them is to give them presents. (Or mere affection, if "love" is too charged a term.) People have sex with people they feel affectionate toward, so if the woman does nice things for the guy and the guy buys nice things for the woman, they will probably both feel "hey, this person really likes me" and develop affection, leading to sex. If the women had been taught that the way to show a man you love him is to buy him stuff, then they would be giving their boyfriends more presents. If the study had been looking at exchange of *services*, not material goods, my guess is that women are much more likely to offer services as a sign of affection. But no, it must be evolutionary, because these women are rich and don't need presents. It has nothing to do with all the fucking diamond ads they've been seeing on billboards and watching on TV since they were 6.

In my experience as a scientist in the US, both the left and the right are anti-science. It is just different parts of science that they are anti.

The basic leap in logic in such research is the notion of "transaction". Transaction is only one possible form of cooperation, and a peculiar one at that. In the absence of legal system, cooperation can be achieved either by a measure of reciprocity, or by force, or a group tradition involving a division of tasks.

As far as men rather giving things and women doing something for a man, there may be such a tendency or cultural inclination, but it is not a norm. Moreover, in a primitive society, as for our ancestors, what is the difference between the two? Say, Eskimo men hunted, Eskimo women spent most of their time making apparel. In Arctic, both are necessary for survival.

In more contemporary setting, I was interested in patterns of "nonrandom similarities" between homeworks, and if you get pairs, my impression is that pairs with mixed sexes were more frequent that pure chance would suggest. Because blantant copying is strongly discouraged, one can actually decipher who wrote a particular solution, and who copied introducing alterations and mistakes. My sample is really to small to generalize, but boys using girls' work was not a clearly predominating pattern.

Piotrek, from my personal experience, it is *always* girls who do homework for boys. My mother did my uncle's work, my friends did their boyfriends' work, and even I have been known to "help" a guy I liked. Even the metric you're using doesn't always work; I did work for a boy I had crush on once and did a *better* job on his than on mine, because I didn't want him to be accused of copying and given the choice between making mine worse and his worse, I chose to denigrate myself. I suspect this is a choice many smart girls would make.

Of course both of us have nothing but anecdotal evidence... but girls have been outstripping boys at almost every level of formal education for years now, and boys who are very smart and academically gifted are often marginalized as "geeks" and "nerds" while the boys who are proudly dumb are the ones who actually have girlfriends. So girls copying the homework of boys they like doesn't actually make much sense in most modern schools, because the girls are usually doing better than the boys they like.

"People wonder why I have beef with evolutionary psychology."

I think that you really have a beef with the naturalistic fallacy. That is, with people saying that something is "right" "good" "acceptable" or "the way it should be" just because it's natural. Needless to say, not all natural things are right, good, acceptable or the way it should be. And besides, "natural" is kind of hard to define anyway.

AlaraJRogers, your awesome displays of knowledge and reason have made me want to have your babies.

Samhita, your argument doesn't make any sense. Of course goods are exchanged for sex in the animal world. The animal world is brutal, survival-driven place, and animals do what it takes to survive, whether that means coupling with a more powerful animal or murdering their own children in times of hunger. "Animals do it, too," should never be used to justify any sort of behavior. Animals rape each other all the time. I once had a hampster who ATE A DOZEN OF HER OWN BABIES. These things are natural and instinctual -- but that doesn't mean we should tolerate them in the human world.

A lot of people like to look at humans as uniquely sinful -- as though our culture and upbringing is responsible for all of our flaws, as though we've been corrupted from some pure animalistic/child-like state by discourse. In fact, humans are morally superior to animals in every possible way. You don't have to pretend that the animal kingdom is a magical realm of gender-equality to fight for the rights of women in this one. Of COURSE prostitution and rape are "natural." That doesn't make them in any way okay.

In Samhita's defense, I think you can call bullshit on poor studies without falling into the "naturalistic" fallacy.

For example:

"Students in the study were 18-26 years old. For exchange attempts made, 27 percent of men and 14 percent of women reported attempts to trade investment for sex...."

Hold up. You mean to tell me that the difference between male and female attempts here is only 2 to 1? So where are all the male prostitutes hiding? And how about those mail order grooms?

"...5 percent of men and 9 percent of women reported attempts to trade sex for investment."

Hmmm. The ~2:1 pattern here again.

"Of exchange attempts initiated by others, 14 percent of men and 20 percent of women reported that someone else attempted to trade investment for sex with them, and 8 percent of men and 5 percent of women reported that someone else attempted to trade sex for their investment."

Hmmm.Now the gap here is even smaller folks.

And this data is supposed to represent "nature". Plus they claim that in a larger and older population the frequencies should be bigger.

If I am to take this data and it's conclusion seriously, I should expect to at least see a way greater amount of male prostitution than is predicted in this study. I should expect more cultures demanding "nuptial gifts" for grooms as well.

cough*bull*cough**cough*shit

what a great discussion! folks interested in this topic may be interested in the book "Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives" - it attempts to bridge the gap between feminist theory and evolutionary psychology - by David Buss and Neil Malamuth.

i think evolutionary psychology is pretty interesting; the objection i have to it is when people use it to justify neanderthal-ish behavior. biology is certainly a powerful drive in us humans, but we do also have FREE WILL. we are not/do not have to be puppets/slaves to our biology.

what a great discussion! folks interested in this topic may be interested in the book "Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives" - it attempts to bridge the gap between feminist theory and evolutionary psychology - by David Buss and Neil Malamuth.

i think evolutionary psychology is pretty interesting; the objection i have to it is when people use it to justify neanderthal-ish behavior. biology is certainly a powerful drive in us humans, but we do also have FREE WILL. we are not/do not have to be puppets/slaves to our biology.

... boys who are very smart and academically gifted are often marginalized as "geeks" and "nerds" while the boys who are proudly dumb ...

are typically not making the cut for a school of engineering. My experience is deep in the geek territory.

To be fair, because of dearth of girls, my sample was very small, and most of cases of cooperation were multilateral. Lastly, the only case I later knew with all the facts was actually a case of a girl helping a boy with the same ethnic background without any romantic reasons. So, the most cautious conclusion would be that the reproductive strategies of geeks are largely unexplored, but, potentially, they could offer needed balance to overly broad anthropological generalizations.

Regarding the 'Naturalistic Fallacy';

Be sure then, to admit the same truth when Fred Phelps proclaims homosexuality to be 'unnatural'.

Or when someone points out that obsesity is unknown in non-domesticated (diet constrained and physically active) animals.

Or when the advocates for "abstinence only" education point out that just because teenagers are having sex it doesn't mean they 'should'.

All that these studies show is that the story of mammalian (and primate) sexuality is much more complicated than the 'love you monogamously for life' story. Or -- technically -- that Darwin's model of 'sex selection' is incomplete.

Another way to interpret these results is as support for comprehensive sex-ed, as a counter-weight to 'marriage is one man, one woman, one life' advocates, and support for the D.H. Lawrence's contention that 'If a woman hasn't got a tiny streak of a harlot in her, she's a dry stick as a rule.'

I remember reading this article and thinking "eh, not that convincing" and moving on.

I don't really have a problem with people bashing this article. I do have a problem with people taking this one article as somehow indicative of the quality and diversity of research done in the ev psych community and using it to bash the field as a whole. Every field, from sociology to women's studies to biology, publishes articles of varying quality.

As a footnote, this article is published in the online journal "Evolutionary Psychology". It's basically the lowest ranked of all the ev psych journals and where you submit your work if you a) can't get it accepted at a more rigorous journal or b) think your findings are important but doesn't fit well with the existing journals.

So the quality of the articles in the journal vary quite dramatically - some very good, some not so good.

here's MY beef with evol. psych. I BELIEVE it, but that doesn't mean I condone it. I believe that men (and other males in other species) are driven to procreate with many women, women way younger than them, etc. but here's the thing, WE'RE SUPPOSED TO USE LOGIC, NOT PHYSICAL DRIVE to make decisions. Yes, male dogs hump inappropriately, but aren't we supposed to be 'higher' in intelligence than animals?? We were given logic and choices to COMBAT innate urges. I bet these people who use evol. psych to 'justify' cheating on a spouse wouldn't take the evol. psych. view of killing your competitors as a justification for murder. So why is it that SOME evol. psych things (like a 30 year old man wanting a 15 yr old girl) gets the "it's natural" speech, but murder (which is also natural in the Darwinian world) is co