...And afterwards, she feels guilty and violated and horrible about herself, even though it was her decision.
And, afterwards, Bob feels a lot less attracted to Sally, for reasons he can’t explain, and after a few months starts chasing someone else.
Genes influence us by emotions, and our genes and our memes often have goals that conflict. A lot of men appear to have something like a madonna-whore dichotomy: pursue women sexually, but dump women who let you have sex with them quickly, and marry the ones that hold out. This makes great sense from his genes’ point of view: a child you father but don’t have to raise is a pretty high benefit at low cost, and the expense of raising a child is so high he should make sure that the child is his (and sexually reserved women are less likely to cheat).
There seems to be a conflict between the strategy she consciously expects to work- have sex with whoever you want with only health consequences- and the strategy she unconsciously expects to work- sexual reserve is a finite bargaining resource, and she just misspent some of hers.
Should she discount the sexual reserve argument because that’s not her milieu, and no one will think worse of her for being sexually available? (How would she feel if she overheard Bob crowing about their encounter to mutual friends and acquaintances? What would she think about it?)
Should she discount the conscious strategy because it’s costly (if it’s possible) to overcome emotions? (Was the difference between Bob and a vibrator worth feeling terrible afterwards, and overcoming feeling terrible? If she knows having sex early on dramatically decreases her chances of a long-term relationship with Bob for emotional reasons, should she trust he won’t feel those emotions / can overcome them through thought?)
Supposing for the sake of inquiry that Sally is ambivalent about or indifferent to the presence or absence of sex in her relationships (but suitably enthusiastic once it’s been introduced), and just wants to minimize the probability that she’ll be dumped, what should she do? It’s hardly unheard of for women to be dumped for not putting out, even if the model you offer of Bob’s subsequent loss of interest is accurate.
Before even getting into any tactical considerations, Sally should try to make a cool-headed strategic judgment of whether there is in fact a significant chance of not getting dumped. For women, it’s easy to get delusional in this regard because as a general rule, the attractiveness of men a woman can get for casual sex and non-serious relationships is significantly higher than the attractiveness of those she can get to really commit. From what I’ve observed, women get dumped and heartbroken much more often because of such strategic blindness leading to relationships where they are doomed from day one than because of tactical missteps.
For women, it’s easy to get delusional in this regard because as a general rule, the attractiveness of men a woman can get for casual sex and non-serious relationships is significantly higher than the attractiveness of those she can get to really commit.
I think that this observation is probably correct. For instance, this study found that men were more interested in casual sex with friends than women (73% vs. 40%), even though the authors tried to spin the results to tell a story of no sex differences.
If women and men are roughly equally selective about long-term partners, but men are much less selective about short-term partners, then it will be a lot easier for women to get stuck in the “just friends with benefits zone”, just as it is easier for men to get stuck in the “just friends zone.”
Prior probability:
P( man wants relationship with random women ) = P( woman wants relationship with random man)
P( woman has sexual interest in a man ) < P( man has sexual interest in a woman)
Conditional probability:
P( man wants relationship with woman | they have mutual sexual interest) <
P( woman wants relationship with man | they have mutual sexual interest)
The cultural obscuring of this plausible sex differences actually does women a great disservice. You would think that feminists, as advocates for women, would be attempting to equip women with the tools to have satisfying dating experiences. The personal is political, right? Yet weirdly, the bias of many feminists against admitting sex differences trumps their concern for women’s heterosexual interests.
just wants to minimize the probability that she’ll be dumped,
I suspect that this is not the real objective function, as it can be trivally minimised by never going out with anyone.
Personally, if I was with someone who would dump me then I would prefer that it happened sooner rather than later to minimise my investement, especially emotional investment, in that relationship. I think the aim of the exercise is to find someone to whom you are compatible. Avoiding being dumped in this viewpoint could be counter productive as it could lead to being “stuck” in a less desirable relationship. Manipulating the other person into not dumping me does not seem like the sort of relationship that I want to be a part of.
Now I know that there is a stigma attached to being the one who is dumped. However, I have noticed amongst my aquaintances that have been in relationships that ended after a long time that the one who is dumped seems to recover quicker and get on with their life (next relationship—maybe marriage) while the dumper is still caught up with whether they made the right decision (a choice that the dumpee never had). Of course this is anecdotal and based on a very small sample.
Supposing for the sake of inquiry that Sally is ambivalent about or indifferent to the presence or absence of sex in her relationships (but suitably enthusiastic once it’s been introduced), and just wants to minimize the probability that she’ll be dumped, what should she do?
Roughly: be clearly and unambiguously sexually interested in Bob but delay sex itself for a couple of weeks. It can be more fun that way anyway… spreading out the ‘novelty’ phase of the relationship a bit longer. (It’s a good strategy for Bob, too.)
This varies to a ridiculous degree in context and things like age. But in general I’d say the ‘madonna-whore’ theory is overstated. Partially because I find the described preferences extremely hard to empathize with. My own experienced emotions and observed historical behaviors in no way reflect that pattern.
What’s your explanation/evidence for the viability of the strategy you describe? Also, what should Sally say when explaining her decision to delay? (Or Bob, for that matter, if it’s symmetrical?)
I like this sort of question. Based on my own field experience, I agree with wedrifid’s advice. Also, it’s not hard to delay sex a few weeks, especially if are only going out with the person once a week.
Day 1: meet, exchange numbers, kiss goodnight
Date 1: make out for a while
Date 2: make out for a while with hands roaming
Date 3: make out with some clothes coming off, dry humping, maybe one or both people get some manual stimulation
Date 4: oral, manual
Date 5: sexual intercourse
Spread out with a week in between, these 6 steps could take 1.5 months to complete. In my last relationship, the schedule was something like this, and it didn’t feel unnatural. It also helped that she liked to initiate things, so that I knew that she would initiate sex when she was ready; then I didn’t have to try to guess the right timetable for sex and risk being too fast or too slow.
Of course, some of these steps can be accelerated, and people might meet more than once a week. The point is that it should be easy to delay sex past the two week mark, while still doing more sexually each time.
Don’t be hanging out more than twice a week, or more than two days in a row. People shouldn’t be doing that anyway in the beginning, because it’s a great way for people to get sick of each other.
Have dates be activities where sex is logistically hard. Keep everything in dark corners of clubs, in parking lots, in cars, or out in nature. If the environment is a barrier to sex, then you won’t have to refuse it.
If you haven’t hit emotional hookpoint it yet AND YOU WANT IT, don’t put yourself in a situation where sex can happen and then refuse to have sex—just try to keep subtle control of logistics such that the rate at which you approach a possible hookup roughly corresponds to the rate at which his emotional attraction is growing. If you can’t think of a smooth, natural way to delay isolation until you’ve hit hookpoint, then you have to weigh your options and make a quick decision: would you rather bail on the interaction, or go for it and risk the possibility that you won’t hit hookpoint at all? I’d like to stress gently, here, that no matter what there are no guarantees. Some guys can hit hookpoint after sex. Some will immediately before. And some, no matter how long you have with them, never will. In either case, a smooth interaction is key—smoothly bail, or smoothly go with it. In general, I would avoid any kind of ‘status of the hookup’ talk or obviously artificial speedbump.
The most stylish solution would be to logistically delay sex without it feeling artificial for the other person. Yet if you are dating someone who is nerdy and/or capable of explicit communication around sex, explicitly trying to explain when you do or don’t want to have sex could work. And if they specifically ask you when you will want to have sex, or keeps trying to initiate it, then they may force your hand (but if they are playing stylishly, then they shouldn’t be trying to make you logically explain yourself).
Explicit negotiation can be very costly, and this cost isn’t recognized by people in culture who are always gushing about “communication” and “talking about it.” Setting up a date that makes sex difficult subcommunicates that you don’t want to have sex, which can often be superior to explicitly explaining it to your partner.
My problem with this model is that sexuality is extremely important to me and a guy pretty much has to prove that he’s sexually interesting in order to be worth my time. This is difficult to accurately gauge through conversation—even men who are in my sexual subcultures/etc can be less-than-ideal sexual matches. It might be good for me to follow a more strategic drawn-out pattern than sex on the first date, but that would require me to spend a lot of time on men who may not end up being sexually awesome (and also it removes the pleasure of having sex with them from the first few dates). I am currently working on ensuring that I hit emotional hookpoint with men on the first date, and then having sex on the first date. I seem to be relatively successful at this, but I’d like to be better at it.
I also think the model of delaying sex is overrated; I just wanted to describe how to do it, for someone who wants to do things that way. People vary in sociosexuality, so some people perhaps do need to delay sex due to the way that they are wired.
Yet I think the “wait for sex” cultural discourse may often go beyond people’s emotional needs, and encourage even more delay of sex, even for people who would otherwise want to. This discourse contains certain toxic notions, such as slut-shaming (e.g. women being devalued for being “easy”), and “why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free” (because the cow has more to offer than just “one thing,” duh).
A strategy of having sex within the first few dates, while also trying to get to know the person and connect with them, is probably most efficient, if you can comfortably have sex with that person during that timeframe while being willing to risk that a long-term relationship might not work.
As you note, sex is an important screening tool. It also can be useful for getting the sex out of the way. Then whoever is expected to initiate it (usually the guy) doesn’t have the mental overhead of wondering if/when it will happen, and if any of his behaviors are making it more/less likely. Sometimes, a guy will be acting differently after sex than before, and the only want to find out is to have sex with him.
Also, having sex means that no mental resources are spent delaying sex, and that date venues aren’t so restricted (for instance, my previous comment would advise against watching a DVD alone with someone you are dating if you want to delay sex, because that practice is often used to advance sex).
Once people stop doing a complex and cognitively-costly dance around delaying sex, then it’s a lot easier for them to focus on each other.
That does sound more effective at the task of forming a sexually satisfying relationship. Sally loses out a lot because she made her strategy about maximising her chances at having a relationship with Bob. Until you actually have a personal connection, let’s face it, potential attractive mates are basically fungible. There are plenty out there and there and there is no need to get all hung up about catching a specific target in particular.
I am currently working on ensuring that I hit emotional hookpoint with men on the first date, and then having sex on the first date. I seem to be relatively successful at this, but I’d like to be better at it.
Is there any particular tactic that works for landing the hook? (Well, apart from those tactics and techniques that add up to being so amazingly good in bed that no guy could help but come back for more!) The most obvious is extending the potential duration of the dates (to 7 or so hours if desired) and including multiple venue changes. The subjective experience of time is far more important than time itself.
I’ve been working on figuring out how exactly I establish intimacy through conversation, and getting better at it. One thing HughRistik once observed is that “expressing interest in their reality” is absolutely key, but that’s pretty basic.
You can check out the whole guide, but “emotional hookpoint” is a specific analogy to the normal pickup concept of “hookpoint.” The hookpoint is the time early in the interaction where the woman realizes that she is attracted to the PUA and/or wants him to stick around in the interaction (i.e. the PUA “hooked” her).
The author of the playette guide is using this concept to make an analogous observation for female pickup. By “emotional hookpoint,” I think she means the point where the guy starts becoming emotionally invested, and/or starts getting a “crush,” and/or starts wanting a relationship with the woman. (Of course, those aren’t all quite the same thing, so I don’t know exactly which she is referring to, but they often go together.)
I think this analogy is brilliant and quite accurate; I’ve felt myself hit the “emotional hookpoint” when I find myself thinking, “shit, I’m getting a crush on this girl.”
What’s your explanation/evidence for the viability of the strategy you describe?
Estimated mode among suitable strategies for a set of likely ‘Bobs’ based on an amalgamation of advice from experts of various levels of credibility and the findings of vaguely remembered behavioral psychology studies. Basically you asked a question that is ridiculously hard to optimize for but relatively easy to satisfice.
(Although I am reminded of an anecdote of a female lesswrong commenter who wrote “If the first date doesn’t go well [(ie. there is no sex)] what makes you think there
would be a second?”)
The explanation of the important element is that most (sane) guys will lose interest in a girl who isn’t displaying sexual interest. But for the majority of guys of the kind who are looking for long term relationships the displays of interest don’t need to be in the form of sex straight away. In fact, there is a whole baseball metaphor of things other than sex which can be of interest and that is only including basic physical boundaries.
Also, what should Sally say when explaining her decision to delay?
Say? Like… with actual words? I suppose she could do that. Just so long as she also conveys the right message with her actions, her eyes, the subtext and tone of her irrelevant conversation and her body language. But there are cliches for this kind of situation aren’t there? “I really like you, let’s not rush this” or, if she (or he) can stomach it, “I want our first time to be special”.
Just so long as the message conveyed is “I want to tear your clothes off and do nasty things to your body. But I’m not going to because I’m a good girl (or respectful self constrained guy or whatever). At least I’m not going to yet but if I do I will blow your mind. You should definitely keep courting me and increase your emotional attachment and psychological investment. If you have sunk that much cost into what is evidently a scarce resource then I must be worth it!”
I don’t know the numbers well enough to give solid advice, and the time-scale over which she doesn’t want to be dumped seems relevant. One of the factors of modern culture is that young people regularly change almost all of their social set- high school students going to college, college students going into the workforce, etc. - and many relationships don’t survive that transition. I don’t know how to plan around that. In absence of that, I suspect the optimal strategy for life-long relationships is sexual reserve (because the costs of getting a relationship to medium-term are so high).
Actually, something even more relevant than “not getting dumped” might be “percentage of pre-menopause time spent coupled.” Putting out seems like a good strategy for maximizing the second variable, or at least ensuring it doesn’t get too low. I would not be surprised if the timescale necessary to find a guy willing to wait 90 days to have sex is measured in years in some milieus, and that involves a lot of guys losing interest.
This strikes me as just-so story. It might, conceivably, work for a species that pair-bonds but has no other significant social structure; but for a species that’s spent most of the past half-million years or more living in tightly-knit bands, the relevant selective forces are likely to be rather different, and even cultural differences should exert a significant force on the way these instincts are expressed. Indeed, certain inconvenient facts unpredicted by this model—the proportion of women who actively seek out and enjoy one-night stands, just as one example—suggest that it simply is not an adequate explanation of the sudden disinterest some people feel after their first time with a new sexual partner.
ETA: It’s worth mentioning that, after a long history of short-lived and ultimately uninteresting relationships, interspersed with a few really long and meaningful ones, the best predictor I’ve found for becoming disinterested quickly is the predictability of my partner. The more they continually defy my expectations—the more they exhibit depth, subtlety, spontaneity, curiosity—the longer I remain attracted to them. If I’m not atypical in this respect—which, I know, is a big assumption, but let’s pretend here—then this suggests (surprise!) that intelligence and confidence and self-reliance are a lot more important in determining attraction than promiscuity or lack thereof.
It might, conceivably, work for a species that pair-bonds but without any other significant social structure, but for a species that’s spent most of the past half-million years or more living in tightly-knit bands, the relevant selective forces are likely to be rather different, and even cultural differences should exert a significant force on the way these instincts are expressed.
I don’t understand this objection. Doesn’t a social structure increase the value of sexual reserve as a resource? Notice that it does so for both women and men (though more so for women), as wronged women can now get back at the people who wronged them more effectively.
Regardless, let’s look at the basic argument. There are two basic strategies suggested for Sally: the strategy of having sex with anyone she wants to while trying to maintain her sexual health, and the strategy of not having sex until she has extracted a public, permanent commitment from someone she wants to have sex with. (Those are extremes- some combination of them is also possible, like the ‘don’t have sex for 90 days’ plan, which seeks to demonstrate sexual reserve without requiring the permanent commitment.)
What factors should she take into account when determining what strategy to pursue? It very well may be that she cares more about having enjoyable sex than having a long-term relationship, but humans are also pretty bad at knowing what will make them happy. It is unsurprising that her parents are giving her advice that will maximize the chance of grandchildren whose father is invested in them, and their advice should be taken with a grain of salt if trying to maximize her happiness.
But the main thing I was trying to inject into the conversation is the knowledge that, whatever baggage she has (be it genetic or memetic), Bob probably has similar baggage, and she might want to plan for that. If she needs to work through some negative emotions, she shouldn’t be surprised if Bob also has emotional issues he needs to work through, and that some things are harder to work through than others (it may be easier to overcome guilt than to become more attracted to someone, for example).
For starters, in a tightly-knit community, everyone contributes to helping women through pregnancy, birth, raising the child, etc. Although parents may give preferential attention to their own children, this should still weaken the pressure on men to “fuck and run” (and, at the same time, the pressure for women to find a committed, monogamous partner). Furthermore, as NancyLebovitz has already pointed out, close social ties make it easier to enforce sexual selection for more attentive and nurturing partners, since you’ve got a reputation to maintain. Add in 500,000+ years of all kinds of complex and poorly-understood selective pressures from competition with other humans (believed to be by far the dominant pressures on the mind during that time) and you’ve got a situation that probably won’t boil down cleanly to a two-by-two game matrix.
The summary of Sex at Dawn that Nancy linked to below suggests that humans may actually be adapted away from strict monogamy. Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
For starters, in a tightly-knit community, everyone contributes to helping women through pregnancy, birth, raising the child, etc. Although parents may give preferential attention to their own children, this should still weaken the pressure on men to “fuck and run” (and, at the same time, the pressure for women to find a committed, monogamous partner).
If everyone contributes, and there is minimal preferential attention to their own children, then why would anyone do something besides fuck and run? Long-standing relationships come from male parental investment, across species.
Furthermore, as NancyLebovitz has already pointed out, close social ties make it easier to enforce sexual selection for more attentive and nurturing partners, since you’ve got a reputation to maintain.
It only matters whether your sexual partner is attentive and nurturing towards your children. Whether or not they’re attentive and nurturing towards you only determines their value as friends.
The summary of Sex at Dawn that Nancy linked to below suggests that humans may actually be adapted away from strict monogamy.
Human sexual behavior resembles avian sexual behavior rather strongly. Both women and men have incentives to cheat, but for rather different reasons. Strict monogamy makes lower-status men better off at the cost of higher-status men and most women.
Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
How does that impulse outcompete alternatives? If I feel a need to give the other guy a turn, and the other guy feels a need to monopolize his sexual partner, he will reproduce more than I will. Genes reproduce on the level of individuals, not societies.
Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
Be very skeptical of explanations that rely on group selection. As explained in the posts linked to from that wiki page, humans love to engage in motivated reasoning to explain why the alien god is nice. Sorry, evolution isn’t.
I’m not referring to group selection. If you’re living in a close community, then once you’ve had your chance to conceive, there’s not a lot of benefit in fighting off other suitors, since you’ll be helping raise the child anyway; conversely, rivalry against other males is risky and socially divisive—which, since your band is probably rather small, can have serious consequences for you as an individual. This is not to say that all men will simply flee the scene once they’ve consummated their desire: for starters, we’re a hell of a long way from evolutionary equilibrium, and even then it’s not clear that the game in question has a dominant strategy, especially once you factor in complicating influences from women’s sexual selection of men and from various social pressures. More likely we’d see a diversity of different strategies.
I’m not referring to group selection. If you’re living in a close community, then once you’ve had your chance to conceive, there’s not a lot of benefit in fighting off other suitors,
If its valuable for the other suitors its valuable for you.
since you’ll be helping raise the child anyway;
Yes, but you want to be as certain as possible about which children are yours so you can favor them. And, yes, even in a close knit community there are many ways to do that short of causing the tribe to break down.
More likely we’d see a diversity of different strategies.
I don’t know whether the Madonna-Whore complex is universal, and I bet you don’t either.
Your genetic explanation is a guess.
Sex at Dawn has a different batch of theories about human sexuality, and at least as plausible.
The relevant thing for Sally and Bob is that they’ve grown up in a culture which is influenced by the Madonna-Whore complex, and there’s some risk that it will affect the outcomes of their choices.
I don’t think people are infinitely malleable, but I think we can get farther by observing the people we’ve got without jumping into highly abstract theories too quickly.
I don’t know whether the Madonna-Whore complex is universal, and I bet you don’t either.
Hence, “a lot of,” “appear to,” and “something like.”
The relevant thing for Sally and Bob is that they’ve grown up in a culture which is influenced by the Madonna-Whore complex, and there’s some risk that it will affect the outcomes of their choices.
I’m not sure how valuable it is to talk about culture instead of memes and genes. There are a lot of specific elements we can talk about, and none of them are universal. Saying that the “culture” disapproves of pre-martial sex is as accurate as saying the “culture” approves of pre-marital sex, and since both X and !X are true, X might not be a good way to look at the situation. We could instead talk about the memes approving and disapproving of premarital sex (for men and women respectively), as well as the meme that men and women should be treated equally.
For example, I found this comment fascinating, because it highlights this interplay of emotions and memes. The meme of “don’t make sexual orientation a deciding factor” made him decide to block a neutral-win-win encounter because that would open up the possibility of a lose-win-win encounter, suggesting that in this case the meme’s effect was not benign. (I suspect that overall the meme is a beneficial one, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have negative side effects.)
It seems obvious to me that culture has complex patterns both whose underlying deep themes and surface manifestations can contradict, and that it is at the ultimate level a non-self-consistent jumble of these themes—which nonetheless span generations and form a recognizable whole. If that isn’t usefully called a culture, why not?
The reason I dislike talking about the culture rather than the memes is that it presents the culture as atomic, rather than the memes. If we know the culture has sex-positive and sex-negative elements, why not talk about those elements directly? They’re what’s interesting, and differentiating between them is valuable. The culture is what you get when you blend them together, and if we’re trying to analyze them then distinctness is valuable.
I tend to agree with respect to the importance of complex cultural patterns and deep themes. Culture is far more relevant than memes in this context. The more powerful ‘memes’ floating around here are the ideas Sally has about sexual liberation and health being the important factor—and they are far less important considerations than the underlying cultural and instinctive incentives that her emotions are trying to process for her.
I don’t see a wide difference between culture and memes (or at least bunches of associated memes), but I do think that memes/culture are more accessible for us than genetic effects on emotions and behavior.
I think Vaniver’s point is that the word “culture” brings to mind a monolithic entity, whereas the word “memes” brings to mind many different and possibly mutually contradictory, well memes.
Supposing for the sake of inquiry that Sally is ambivalent about or indifferent to the presence or absence of sex in her relationships (but suitably enthusiastic once it’s been introduced), and just wants to minimize the probability that she’ll be dumped, what should she do?
Roughly: be clearly and unambiguously sexually interested in Bob but delay sex itself for a couple of weeks. It can be more fun that way anyway… spreading out the ‘novelty’ phase of the relationship a bit longer. (It’s a good strategy for Bob, too.)
This varies to a ridiculous degree in context and things like age. But in general I’d say the ‘madonna-whore’ theory is overstated. Partially because I find the described preferences extremely hard to empathize with. My own experienced emotions and observed historical behaviors in no way reflect that pattern.
And, afterwards, Bob feels a lot less attracted to Sally, for reasons he can’t explain, and after a few months starts chasing someone else.
Genes influence us by emotions, and our genes and our memes often have goals that conflict. A lot of men appear to have something like a madonna-whore dichotomy: pursue women sexually, but dump women who let you have sex with them quickly, and marry the ones that hold out. This makes great sense from his genes’ point of view: a child you father but don’t have to raise is a pretty high benefit at low cost, and the expense of raising a child is so high he should make sure that the child is his (and sexually reserved women are less likely to cheat).
There seems to be a conflict between the strategy she consciously expects to work- have sex with whoever you want with only health consequences- and the strategy she unconsciously expects to work- sexual reserve is a finite bargaining resource, and she just misspent some of hers.
Should she discount the sexual reserve argument because that’s not her milieu, and no one will think worse of her for being sexually available? (How would she feel if she overheard Bob crowing about their encounter to mutual friends and acquaintances? What would she think about it?)
Should she discount the conscious strategy because it’s costly (if it’s possible) to overcome emotions? (Was the difference between Bob and a vibrator worth feeling terrible afterwards, and overcoming feeling terrible? If she knows having sex early on dramatically decreases her chances of a long-term relationship with Bob for emotional reasons, should she trust he won’t feel those emotions / can overcome them through thought?)
Betrayed. Like it’s time to recalibrate her judge of character.
Supposing for the sake of inquiry that Sally is ambivalent about or indifferent to the presence or absence of sex in her relationships (but suitably enthusiastic once it’s been introduced), and just wants to minimize the probability that she’ll be dumped, what should she do? It’s hardly unheard of for women to be dumped for not putting out, even if the model you offer of Bob’s subsequent loss of interest is accurate.
Before even getting into any tactical considerations, Sally should try to make a cool-headed strategic judgment of whether there is in fact a significant chance of not getting dumped. For women, it’s easy to get delusional in this regard because as a general rule, the attractiveness of men a woman can get for casual sex and non-serious relationships is significantly higher than the attractiveness of those she can get to really commit. From what I’ve observed, women get dumped and heartbroken much more often because of such strategic blindness leading to relationships where they are doomed from day one than because of tactical missteps.
Vladimir_M:
I think that this observation is probably correct. For instance, this study found that men were more interested in casual sex with friends than women (73% vs. 40%), even though the authors tried to spin the results to tell a story of no sex differences.
If women and men are roughly equally selective about long-term partners, but men are much less selective about short-term partners, then it will be a lot easier for women to get stuck in the “just friends with benefits zone”, just as it is easier for men to get stuck in the “just friends zone.”
Prior probability:
P( man wants relationship with random women ) = P( woman wants relationship with random man)
P( woman has sexual interest in a man ) < P( man has sexual interest in a woman)
Conditional probability:
P( man wants relationship with woman | they have mutual sexual interest) < P( woman wants relationship with man | they have mutual sexual interest)
The cultural obscuring of this plausible sex differences actually does women a great disservice. You would think that feminists, as advocates for women, would be attempting to equip women with the tools to have satisfying dating experiences. The personal is political, right? Yet weirdly, the bias of many feminists against admitting sex differences trumps their concern for women’s heterosexual interests.
I suspect that this is not the real objective function, as it can be trivally minimised by never going out with anyone.
Personally, if I was with someone who would dump me then I would prefer that it happened sooner rather than later to minimise my investement, especially emotional investment, in that relationship. I think the aim of the exercise is to find someone to whom you are compatible. Avoiding being dumped in this viewpoint could be counter productive as it could lead to being “stuck” in a less desirable relationship. Manipulating the other person into not dumping me does not seem like the sort of relationship that I want to be a part of.
Now I know that there is a stigma attached to being the one who is dumped. However, I have noticed amongst my aquaintances that have been in relationships that ended after a long time that the one who is dumped seems to recover quicker and get on with their life (next relationship—maybe marriage) while the dumper is still caught up with whether they made the right decision (a choice that the dumpee never had). Of course this is anecdotal and based on a very small sample.
Note that she can do the dumping herself if she decides she wants out of a relationship.
Roughly: be clearly and unambiguously sexually interested in Bob but delay sex itself for a couple of weeks. It can be more fun that way anyway… spreading out the ‘novelty’ phase of the relationship a bit longer. (It’s a good strategy for Bob, too.)
This varies to a ridiculous degree in context and things like age. But in general I’d say the ‘madonna-whore’ theory is overstated. Partially because I find the described preferences extremely hard to empathize with. My own experienced emotions and observed historical behaviors in no way reflect that pattern.
What’s your explanation/evidence for the viability of the strategy you describe? Also, what should Sally say when explaining her decision to delay? (Or Bob, for that matter, if it’s symmetrical?)
I like this sort of question. Based on my own field experience, I agree with wedrifid’s advice. Also, it’s not hard to delay sex a few weeks, especially if are only going out with the person once a week.
Day 1: meet, exchange numbers, kiss goodnight
Date 1: make out for a while
Date 2: make out for a while with hands roaming
Date 3: make out with some clothes coming off, dry humping, maybe one or both people get some manual stimulation
Date 4: oral, manual
Date 5: sexual intercourse
Spread out with a week in between, these 6 steps could take 1.5 months to complete. In my last relationship, the schedule was something like this, and it didn’t feel unnatural. It also helped that she liked to initiate things, so that I knew that she would initiate sex when she was ready; then I didn’t have to try to guess the right timetable for sex and risk being too fast or too slow.
Of course, some of these steps can be accelerated, and people might meet more than once a week. The point is that it should be easy to delay sex past the two week mark, while still doing more sexually each time.
Don’t be hanging out more than twice a week, or more than two days in a row. People shouldn’t be doing that anyway in the beginning, because it’s a great way for people to get sick of each other.
Have dates be activities where sex is logistically hard. Keep everything in dark corners of clubs, in parking lots, in cars, or out in nature. If the environment is a barrier to sex, then you won’t have to refuse it.
See the amazing Playette FAQ:
The most stylish solution would be to logistically delay sex without it feeling artificial for the other person. Yet if you are dating someone who is nerdy and/or capable of explicit communication around sex, explicitly trying to explain when you do or don’t want to have sex could work. And if they specifically ask you when you will want to have sex, or keeps trying to initiate it, then they may force your hand (but if they are playing stylishly, then they shouldn’t be trying to make you logically explain yourself).
Explicit negotiation can be very costly, and this cost isn’t recognized by people in culture who are always gushing about “communication” and “talking about it.” Setting up a date that makes sex difficult subcommunicates that you don’t want to have sex, which can often be superior to explicitly explaining it to your partner.
My problem with this model is that sexuality is extremely important to me and a guy pretty much has to prove that he’s sexually interesting in order to be worth my time. This is difficult to accurately gauge through conversation—even men who are in my sexual subcultures/etc can be less-than-ideal sexual matches. It might be good for me to follow a more strategic drawn-out pattern than sex on the first date, but that would require me to spend a lot of time on men who may not end up being sexually awesome (and also it removes the pleasure of having sex with them from the first few dates). I am currently working on ensuring that I hit emotional hookpoint with men on the first date, and then having sex on the first date. I seem to be relatively successful at this, but I’d like to be better at it.
I also think the model of delaying sex is overrated; I just wanted to describe how to do it, for someone who wants to do things that way. People vary in sociosexuality, so some people perhaps do need to delay sex due to the way that they are wired.
Yet I think the “wait for sex” cultural discourse may often go beyond people’s emotional needs, and encourage even more delay of sex, even for people who would otherwise want to. This discourse contains certain toxic notions, such as slut-shaming (e.g. women being devalued for being “easy”), and “why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free” (because the cow has more to offer than just “one thing,” duh).
A strategy of having sex within the first few dates, while also trying to get to know the person and connect with them, is probably most efficient, if you can comfortably have sex with that person during that timeframe while being willing to risk that a long-term relationship might not work.
As you note, sex is an important screening tool. It also can be useful for getting the sex out of the way. Then whoever is expected to initiate it (usually the guy) doesn’t have the mental overhead of wondering if/when it will happen, and if any of his behaviors are making it more/less likely. Sometimes, a guy will be acting differently after sex than before, and the only want to find out is to have sex with him.
Also, having sex means that no mental resources are spent delaying sex, and that date venues aren’t so restricted (for instance, my previous comment would advise against watching a DVD alone with someone you are dating if you want to delay sex, because that practice is often used to advance sex).
Once people stop doing a complex and cognitively-costly dance around delaying sex, then it’s a lot easier for them to focus on each other.
That does sound more effective at the task of forming a sexually satisfying relationship. Sally loses out a lot because she made her strategy about maximising her chances at having a relationship with Bob. Until you actually have a personal connection, let’s face it, potential attractive mates are basically fungible. There are plenty out there and there and there is no need to get all hung up about catching a specific target in particular.
Is there any particular tactic that works for landing the hook? (Well, apart from those tactics and techniques that add up to being so amazingly good in bed that no guy could help but come back for more!) The most obvious is extending the potential duration of the dates (to 7 or so hours if desired) and including multiple venue changes. The subjective experience of time is far more important than time itself.
I’ve been working on figuring out how exactly I establish intimacy through conversation, and getting better at it. One thing HughRistik once observed is that “expressing interest in their reality” is absolutely key, but that’s pretty basic.
What’s this “hookpoint” you quote of?
You can check out the whole guide, but “emotional hookpoint” is a specific analogy to the normal pickup concept of “hookpoint.” The hookpoint is the time early in the interaction where the woman realizes that she is attracted to the PUA and/or wants him to stick around in the interaction (i.e. the PUA “hooked” her).
The author of the playette guide is using this concept to make an analogous observation for female pickup. By “emotional hookpoint,” I think she means the point where the guy starts becoming emotionally invested, and/or starts getting a “crush,” and/or starts wanting a relationship with the woman. (Of course, those aren’t all quite the same thing, so I don’t know exactly which she is referring to, but they often go together.)
I think this analogy is brilliant and quite accurate; I’ve felt myself hit the “emotional hookpoint” when I find myself thinking, “shit, I’m getting a crush on this girl.”
Estimated mode among suitable strategies for a set of likely ‘Bobs’ based on an amalgamation of advice from experts of various levels of credibility and the findings of vaguely remembered behavioral psychology studies. Basically you asked a question that is ridiculously hard to optimize for but relatively easy to satisfice.
(Although I am reminded of an anecdote of a female lesswrong commenter who wrote “If the first date doesn’t go well [(ie. there is no sex)] what makes you think there would be a second?”)
The explanation of the important element is that most (sane) guys will lose interest in a girl who isn’t displaying sexual interest. But for the majority of guys of the kind who are looking for long term relationships the displays of interest don’t need to be in the form of sex straight away. In fact, there is a whole baseball metaphor of things other than sex which can be of interest and that is only including basic physical boundaries.
Say? Like… with actual words? I suppose she could do that. Just so long as she also conveys the right message with her actions, her eyes, the subtext and tone of her irrelevant conversation and her body language. But there are cliches for this kind of situation aren’t there? “I really like you, let’s not rush this” or, if she (or he) can stomach it, “I want our first time to be special”.
Just so long as the message conveyed is “I want to tear your clothes off and do nasty things to your body. But I’m not going to because I’m a good girl (or respectful self constrained guy or whatever). At least I’m not going to yet but if I do I will blow your mind. You should definitely keep courting me and increase your emotional attachment and psychological investment. If you have sunk that much cost into what is evidently a scarce resource then I must be worth it!”
I don’t know the numbers well enough to give solid advice, and the time-scale over which she doesn’t want to be dumped seems relevant. One of the factors of modern culture is that young people regularly change almost all of their social set- high school students going to college, college students going into the workforce, etc. - and many relationships don’t survive that transition. I don’t know how to plan around that. In absence of that, I suspect the optimal strategy for life-long relationships is sexual reserve (because the costs of getting a relationship to medium-term are so high).
Actually, something even more relevant than “not getting dumped” might be “percentage of pre-menopause time spent coupled.” Putting out seems like a good strategy for maximizing the second variable, or at least ensuring it doesn’t get too low. I would not be surprised if the timescale necessary to find a guy willing to wait 90 days to have sex is measured in years in some milieus, and that involves a lot of guys losing interest.
This strikes me as just-so story. It might, conceivably, work for a species that pair-bonds but has no other significant social structure; but for a species that’s spent most of the past half-million years or more living in tightly-knit bands, the relevant selective forces are likely to be rather different, and even cultural differences should exert a significant force on the way these instincts are expressed. Indeed, certain inconvenient facts unpredicted by this model—the proportion of women who actively seek out and enjoy one-night stands, just as one example—suggest that it simply is not an adequate explanation of the sudden disinterest some people feel after their first time with a new sexual partner.
ETA: It’s worth mentioning that, after a long history of short-lived and ultimately uninteresting relationships, interspersed with a few really long and meaningful ones, the best predictor I’ve found for becoming disinterested quickly is the predictability of my partner. The more they continually defy my expectations—the more they exhibit depth, subtlety, spontaneity, curiosity—the longer I remain attracted to them. If I’m not atypical in this respect—which, I know, is a big assumption, but let’s pretend here—then this suggests (surprise!) that intelligence and confidence and self-reliance are a lot more important in determining attraction than promiscuity or lack thereof.
I don’t understand this objection. Doesn’t a social structure increase the value of sexual reserve as a resource? Notice that it does so for both women and men (though more so for women), as wronged women can now get back at the people who wronged them more effectively.
Regardless, let’s look at the basic argument. There are two basic strategies suggested for Sally: the strategy of having sex with anyone she wants to while trying to maintain her sexual health, and the strategy of not having sex until she has extracted a public, permanent commitment from someone she wants to have sex with. (Those are extremes- some combination of them is also possible, like the ‘don’t have sex for 90 days’ plan, which seeks to demonstrate sexual reserve without requiring the permanent commitment.)
What factors should she take into account when determining what strategy to pursue? It very well may be that she cares more about having enjoyable sex than having a long-term relationship, but humans are also pretty bad at knowing what will make them happy. It is unsurprising that her parents are giving her advice that will maximize the chance of grandchildren whose father is invested in them, and their advice should be taken with a grain of salt if trying to maximize her happiness.
But the main thing I was trying to inject into the conversation is the knowledge that, whatever baggage she has (be it genetic or memetic), Bob probably has similar baggage, and she might want to plan for that. If she needs to work through some negative emotions, she shouldn’t be surprised if Bob also has emotional issues he needs to work through, and that some things are harder to work through than others (it may be easier to overcome guilt than to become more attracted to someone, for example).
For starters, in a tightly-knit community, everyone contributes to helping women through pregnancy, birth, raising the child, etc. Although parents may give preferential attention to their own children, this should still weaken the pressure on men to “fuck and run” (and, at the same time, the pressure for women to find a committed, monogamous partner). Furthermore, as NancyLebovitz has already pointed out, close social ties make it easier to enforce sexual selection for more attentive and nurturing partners, since you’ve got a reputation to maintain. Add in 500,000+ years of all kinds of complex and poorly-understood selective pressures from competition with other humans (believed to be by far the dominant pressures on the mind during that time) and you’ve got a situation that probably won’t boil down cleanly to a two-by-two game matrix.
The summary of Sex at Dawn that Nancy linked to below suggests that humans may actually be adapted away from strict monogamy. Wildly speculating here, but maybe the anxiety and disinterest men sometimes feel after their first time with a new partner is “meant” to remove them from the situation so the next guy can have a turn?
(Edited to add scare quotes around “meant”.)
If everyone contributes, and there is minimal preferential attention to their own children, then why would anyone do something besides fuck and run? Long-standing relationships come from male parental investment, across species.
It only matters whether your sexual partner is attentive and nurturing towards your children. Whether or not they’re attentive and nurturing towards you only determines their value as friends.
Human sexual behavior resembles avian sexual behavior rather strongly. Both women and men have incentives to cheat, but for rather different reasons. Strict monogamy makes lower-status men better off at the cost of higher-status men and most women.
How does that impulse outcompete alternatives? If I feel a need to give the other guy a turn, and the other guy feels a need to monopolize his sexual partner, he will reproduce more than I will. Genes reproduce on the level of individuals, not societies.
Be very skeptical of explanations that rely on group selection. As explained in the posts linked to from that wiki page, humans love to engage in motivated reasoning to explain why the alien god is nice. Sorry, evolution isn’t.
I’m not referring to group selection. If you’re living in a close community, then once you’ve had your chance to conceive, there’s not a lot of benefit in fighting off other suitors, since you’ll be helping raise the child anyway; conversely, rivalry against other males is risky and socially divisive—which, since your band is probably rather small, can have serious consequences for you as an individual. This is not to say that all men will simply flee the scene once they’ve consummated their desire: for starters, we’re a hell of a long way from evolutionary equilibrium, and even then it’s not clear that the game in question has a dominant strategy, especially once you factor in complicating influences from women’s sexual selection of men and from various social pressures. More likely we’d see a diversity of different strategies.
If its valuable for the other suitors its valuable for you.
Yes, but you want to be as certain as possible about which children are yours so you can favor them. And, yes, even in a close knit community there are many ways to do that short of causing the tribe to break down.
Well, yes this is in fact what one observes.
Could it be worth Sally’s while to be in a social network so that she has some information about how Bob has behaved in previous relationships?
Of course- hence the increased value of sexual reserve for men I discussed in my first paragraph.
I don’t know whether the Madonna-Whore complex is universal, and I bet you don’t either.
Your genetic explanation is a guess.
Sex at Dawn has a different batch of theories about human sexuality, and at least as plausible.
The relevant thing for Sally and Bob is that they’ve grown up in a culture which is influenced by the Madonna-Whore complex, and there’s some risk that it will affect the outcomes of their choices.
I don’t think people are infinitely malleable, but I think we can get farther by observing the people we’ve got without jumping into highly abstract theories too quickly.
Hence, “a lot of,” “appear to,” and “something like.”
I’m not sure how valuable it is to talk about culture instead of memes and genes. There are a lot of specific elements we can talk about, and none of them are universal. Saying that the “culture” disapproves of pre-martial sex is as accurate as saying the “culture” approves of pre-marital sex, and since both X and !X are true, X might not be a good way to look at the situation. We could instead talk about the memes approving and disapproving of premarital sex (for men and women respectively), as well as the meme that men and women should be treated equally.
For example, I found this comment fascinating, because it highlights this interplay of emotions and memes. The meme of “don’t make sexual orientation a deciding factor” made him decide to block a neutral-win-win encounter because that would open up the possibility of a lose-win-win encounter, suggesting that in this case the meme’s effect was not benign. (I suspect that overall the meme is a beneficial one, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have negative side effects.)
It seems obvious to me that culture has complex patterns both whose underlying deep themes and surface manifestations can contradict, and that it is at the ultimate level a non-self-consistent jumble of these themes—which nonetheless span generations and form a recognizable whole. If that isn’t usefully called a culture, why not?
The reason I dislike talking about the culture rather than the memes is that it presents the culture as atomic, rather than the memes. If we know the culture has sex-positive and sex-negative elements, why not talk about those elements directly? They’re what’s interesting, and differentiating between them is valuable. The culture is what you get when you blend them together, and if we’re trying to analyze them then distinctness is valuable.
I tend to agree with respect to the importance of complex cultural patterns and deep themes. Culture is far more relevant than memes in this context. The more powerful ‘memes’ floating around here are the ideas Sally has about sexual liberation and health being the important factor—and they are far less important considerations than the underlying cultural and instinctive incentives that her emotions are trying to process for her.
I don’t see a wide difference between culture and memes (or at least bunches of associated memes), but I do think that memes/culture are more accessible for us than genetic effects on emotions and behavior.
I think Vaniver’s point is that the word “culture” brings to mind a monolithic entity, whereas the word “memes” brings to mind many different and possibly mutually contradictory, well memes.
That’s plausible.
I’m apt to think of cultures as made of many subcultures, but I don’t think I was when I was replying to Vaniver.
s/valuable/convenient/
You are looking for your keys under the streetlamp.
Roughly: be clearly and unambiguously sexually interested in Bob but delay sex itself for a couple of weeks. It can be more fun that way anyway… spreading out the ‘novelty’ phase of the relationship a bit longer. (It’s a good strategy for Bob, too.)
This varies to a ridiculous degree in context and things like age. But in general I’d say the ‘madonna-whore’ theory is overstated. Partially because I find the described preferences extremely hard to empathize with. My own experienced emotions and observed historical behaviors in no way reflect that pattern.