It seems weird to expect that men are sexually attracted to traits that are desirable from a evolutionary point of view, but that women aren’t. Being attracted to older men is a fetish, not the norm, in our society, so there’s probably a more optimal group for young women to be attracted to. In a way I buy the “looking at the group which benefits most” solution, but paying attention to young women, not older ones—most young women are either with hot boys their age, or have strong opposition to sex before marriage/love/whatever at all, so they’re mostly not available to older men.
Furthermore, I suspect that a more relevant question is of how birth control has changed the concept of sexual fitness. If a man’s trying to reproduce, he’s got a vastly better shot with a woman his age, regardless of whether a younger woman’s willing to have sex with him—what few sixteen-year-olds who are willing to be mothers in the modern day are much less prepared for the task than their nineteenth-century counterparts, because that’s not a thing we teach young women, because the default action in a woman’s life is to be in school until she’s twenty-two or twenty-four.
TL;DR birth control makes it feasible for women to not reproduce indefinitely long, and most of them would rather be in school attaining their own status and banging hot young men than obtaining status from men and taking care of babies.
Absolutely, but since empirically most young (18-22) women don’t get with older men, they either prefer the tradeoff (valuing status in the “little pool” of college social life more than global status, in return for being with an attractive young man) or there’s something else at work here.
Your framework says that men are mostly attracted to reproductive fitness, and women are mostly attracted to status. This appears basically true, but it seems to me like women have much more interest in reproductive fitness in their partners, than men do in status. Nearly all of the straight men I know are neutral to or anti-interested in status in a mate, whereas evo-psych seems to consistently under-predict for women’s sexual interest in physical attractiveness.
evo-psych seems to consistently under-predict for women’s sexual interest in physical attractiveness
I suspect this might be a societal effect (akin to the now-widespread evolutionarily nonsensical male preference for very thin women). Does anyone have data on whether women in pre-industrial (or even just pre-mass media) societies cared about men’s looks less than they today?
Why do you assume that all men given the choice would prefer to be with college girls? And why do you seem to think of younger women as pawns whose fates are decided solely by the wills of older men?
Perhaps it is because they actually married them when they were young, but at any given time your average “trophy wife” will by in her 30′s?
This is a complex problem. I’m not sure the answer can be found without some in-depth statistical analysis.
Also, Rubix seems to be looking at things from the wrong perspective. It’s not that women don’t get with older men, it is likely the case that all the older men, and the men of status are taken. The younger men are not. Looking at it from the older men’s point of view: what is the likelihood of an older, successful, single man getting together with women of a given age? I would guess it is much higher for younger women.
It seems weird to expect that men are sexually attracted to traits that are desirable from a evolutionary point of view, but that women aren’t. Being attracted to older men is a fetish, not the norm, in our society, so there’s probably a more optimal group for young women to be attracted to. In a way I buy the “looking at the group which benefits most” solution, but paying attention to young women, not older ones—most young women are either with hot boys their age, or have strong opposition to sex before marriage/love/whatever at all, so they’re mostly not available to older men.
Furthermore, I suspect that a more relevant question is of how birth control has changed the concept of sexual fitness. If a man’s trying to reproduce, he’s got a vastly better shot with a woman his age, regardless of whether a younger woman’s willing to have sex with him—what few sixteen-year-olds who are willing to be mothers in the modern day are much less prepared for the task than their nineteenth-century counterparts, because that’s not a thing we teach young women, because the default action in a woman’s life is to be in school until she’s twenty-two or twenty-four.
TL;DR birth control makes it feasible for women to not reproduce indefinitely long, and most of them would rather be in school attaining their own status and banging hot young men than obtaining status from men and taking care of babies.
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Absolutely, but since empirically most young (18-22) women don’t get with older men, they either prefer the tradeoff (valuing status in the “little pool” of college social life more than global status, in return for being with an attractive young man) or there’s something else at work here.
Your framework says that men are mostly attracted to reproductive fitness, and women are mostly attracted to status. This appears basically true, but it seems to me like women have much more interest in reproductive fitness in their partners, than men do in status. Nearly all of the straight men I know are neutral to or anti-interested in status in a mate, whereas evo-psych seems to consistently under-predict for women’s sexual interest in physical attractiveness.
I suspect this might be a societal effect (akin to the now-widespread evolutionarily nonsensical male preference for very thin women). Does anyone have data on whether women in pre-industrial (or even just pre-mass media) societies cared about men’s looks less than they today?
[comment deleted]
Why do you assume that all men given the choice would prefer to be with college girls? And why do you seem to think of younger women as pawns whose fates are decided solely by the wills of older men?
Perhaps it is because they actually married them when they were young, but at any given time your average “trophy wife” will by in her 30′s?
This is a complex problem. I’m not sure the answer can be found without some in-depth statistical analysis.
Also, Rubix seems to be looking at things from the wrong perspective. It’s not that women don’t get with older men, it is likely the case that all the older men, and the men of status are taken. The younger men are not. Looking at it from the older men’s point of view: what is the likelihood of an older, successful, single man getting together with women of a given age? I would guess it is much higher for younger women.