Re: how many bastards are there, anyway?

Bryant (mycol1@unm.edu)
29 Aug 1996 15:00:22 -0600

[Note: cross-posting reduced]

In article <3224D997.69B4@compuserve.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <103305.62@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>I don't like this explanation because it relies on fairly dubious
>assumptions.
>(That attractive men have genes that make them able to survive better.)

I'm not sure it's fair to refer to these studies as "assumptions." In a
thumbnail sketch, here's what empirical study has shown:

*Developmental stability is heritable.

*Developmental instability is related to disease and malnutrition

*More developmentally stable guys inspire more female orgasms while
investing less in relationships before gaining sexual access

*More developmentally stable guys are rated as more attractive by
heterosexual women

*More developmentally stable guys are more physically aggressive with
rivals

*More developmentally stable guys (and gals) have higher IQ

Attraction to and sexual responsivity to developmentally stable men may
have had some considerable fitness benefits for women, evolutionarily.
Like kids better able to resist disease and sons better able to attract
lots of mates.

>The more conventional and more likely explanation is that females have
>orgasm to attract them to the act of sex, which results in procreation.

Then why not orgasm with every fellow? Why the pattern between
developmental stability in mate and incidence of copulatory,
sperm-retaining orgasms?

>Hugh Gibbons

Bryant