Seminar Two
Evolution of sexuality
Human sexuality in an evolutionary perspective
Behavioral scientists are sometimes accused of making up whimsical stories, like the “just-so stories” by Rudyard Kipling. “Just-so stories” are superficial explanations or analogies which seem not to be well thought out.
An example is one psychiatrist's attempt to explain the higher incidence of agoraphobia (fear of open places) in women on the basis of our past hunter-gatherer division of labor in which women stayed at home and men wandered afar to hunt! Always bearing that risk in mind, we will venture into the tricky waters of human behavior.
In an oft-cited study, the psychologist David Buss at the University of Texas at Austin studied the mating preferences of over 10,000 men and women in thirty-seven cultures. Buss concluded that the following are valid cross-cultural differences in the mating preferences of men and women:
- Most men seek greater sexual variety
- Men seek more short-term sexual relationships than women
- Men seek pornography with more erotic visual appeal, whereas women seek imagery depicting an intimate and caring relationship
- Masturbation by men centers on visual fantasies, and by women more on relational fantasies
- Men tend to value looks and youth in women, whereas women are more likely to emphasize achievements and status in men.
Needless to say, many of us will challenge Buss's conclusions. Others will agree that some of these differences seem real.
