Comedian Jerry Seinfeld sums it up in terms of fire and firemen: “The basic conflict between men and women, sexually, is that men are like firemen. To men, sex is an emergency, and no matter what we’re doing we can be ready in two minutes. Women, on the other hand, are like fire. They’re very exciting, but the conditions have to be exactly right for it to occur.”
Perhaps for many women libido is like the hunger of a gourmand. Unlike many men, such women don’t yearn to eat just to stop the hunger. They’re looking for particular satisfactions presented in certain ways. Where most men can and do hunger for sex in the abstract, women report wanting
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narrative, character, a reason for sex. In other words, we agree with many of the observations central to evolutionary psychology—it’s the contorted, internally conflicted explanations for these observations that we find problematic.
Still, there are simple, logical, consistent explanations for most of these standard observations concerning human sexuality—explanations that offer an alternative narrative of human sexual evolution that is both parsimonious and elegant; a revised model that requires none of the convoluted mixed strategies and Flintstonizing intrinsic to the currently accepted story.
The standard narrative paints a dark image of our species over a much brighter—albeit somewhat scandalous—truth. Before presenting our model in detail, let’s take a closer look at the standard narrative, focusing on the four major areas of research that incorporate the most widely accepted assumptions:
• The relatively weak female libido
• Male parental investment (MPI)
• Sexual jealousy and paternity certainty
• Extended receptivity and concealed (or cryptic)
ovulation
What does the winning male suitor supposedly get for all his preening and showing off? Sex. Well, not just sex, but exclusive access to a particular woman. The standard model posits that sexual exclusivity is crucial because in
evolutionary times this was a man’s only way of ensuring his paternity. According to evolutionary psychology, this is the grudging agreement at the heart of the human family. Men offer goods and services (in prehistoric environments,
primarily meat, shelter, protection, and status) in exchange for exclusive, relatively consistent sexual access. Helen Fisher called it The Sex Contract.
Economics, often referred to as the dismal science, is never more dismal than when applied to human sexuality. The sex contract is often explained in terms of economic game theory in which she or he who has the most offspring surviving to reproduce wins—because her or his “return on investment” is highest. So, if a woman becomes pregnant by a guy who has no intention of helping her through pregnancy or guiding the child through the high-risk early years, she likely is squandering the time, energy, and risks of pregnancy. According to this theory, without the help of the father, chances are much better that the child will die before reaching sexual maturity—not to mention the increased health risks to the pregnant or nursing mother. Prominent evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker calls this way oflooking at human reproduction the genetic economics of sex: “The minimum investments of a man and a woman are ... unequal,” explains Pinker, “because a child can be born to a single mother whose husband has fled but not to a single father whose wife has fled. But the investment of the man is greater than zero, which means that women are also predicted to compete in the marriage market, though they should compete over the males most likely to invest .”
Conversely, if a guy invests all his time, energy, and resources in a woman who’s doing the nasty behind his back, he’s at risk of raising another man’s kids—a total loss if his sole purpose in life is getting his own genes into the future. And make no mistake: according to the cold logic of standard evolutionary theory, leaving a genetic legacy is our sole
purpose in life. This is why evolutionary psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly argue that men take a decidedly proprietary view of women’s sexuality: “Men lay claim to particular women as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill, or as people of both sexes lay claim to valuables,” they write. “Having located an individually recognizable and potentially defensible resource packet, the proprietary creature proceeds to advertise and exercise the intention of defending it from rivals.”4
“Baby, I love you like a lion loves his kill.” Surely, a less romantic description of marriage has never been written.
As attentive readers may have noted, the standard narrative of heterosexual interaction boils down to prostitution: a woman exchanges her sexual services for access to resources. Maybe mythic resonance explains part of the huge box-office appeal of a film like Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere’s character trades access to his wealth in exchange for what Julia Roberts’s character has to offer (she plays a hooker with a heart of gold, if you missed it). Please note that what she’s got to offer is limited to the aforementioned heart of gold, a smile as big as Texas, a pair of long, lovely legs, and the solemn promise that they’ll open only for him from now on. The genius of Pretty Woman lies in making explicit what’s been implicit in hundreds of films and books. According to this theory, women have evolved to unthinkingly and unashamedly exchange erotic pleasure for access to a man’s wealth, protection, status, and other treasures likely to benefit her and her children.
Darwin says your mother’s a whore. Simple as that.
Lest you think we’re being flip, we assure you that the bartering of female fertility and fidelity in exchange for goods and services is one of the foundational premises of evolutionary psychology. The Adapted Mind, a book many consider to be the bible ofthe field, spells out the sex contract very clearly:
A man’s sexual attractiveness to women will be a function of traits that were correlated with high mate value in the natural environment.. The crucial question is, What traits would have been correlated with high mate value? Three possible answers are as follows:
• The willingness and ability of a man to provide for a woman and her children..
• The willingness and ability of a man to protect a woman and her children..
• The willingness and ability of a man to engage in direct parenting activities.5
Now let’s review some of the most prominent research founded upon these assumptions about men, women, family structure, and prehistoric life.
The female... with the rarest exception, is less eager than the male....
CHARLES DARWIN
Women have little interest in sex, right? Despite Tiresias’s observations, until very recently, that’s been the near-universal consensus in Western popular culture, medicine, and evolutionary psychology. In recent years, popular culture has begun to question women’s relative lack of interest, but as far as the standard model is concerned, not much has changed since Dr. William Acton published his famous thoughts on the matter in 1875, assuring his readers, “The best mothers, wives, and managers of households know little or nothing of sexual indulgences.. As a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits to her husband, but only to please him.”6