Human mating strategies are very diverse and often change over time. Some mating relationships last for only a few hours some for a whole lifetime, some people a very monogamous some are very polyamorous, most of us have changing strategies in different periods of our life depending on our moral beliefs, life-situation, cultural background etc. However, there are some general characteristics of men and women’s mating strategies.
Men want youth, women want money
The selection criteria’s are different across cultures. In many Asian countries, both men and women are supposed to be virgins in order to be a potential marriage partner. In the western world, this is not important even though it is a bit more important to Americans than it is to Europeans – in particular for American women.
However, some criteria’s are universal. Across culture’s women find men’s financial prospects very important for long-term relationships, while men don’t place much importance on women’s financial prospects.
In general, men prefer women who are younger than they are (more fertile), and women prefer men who are older than they are (more resources). This is supported by a study of personal ads. Women who emphasizes their youth and physical attractiveness and men who emphasizes excellent financial resources get more responses.
In another study, they found that men on a date would display their financial resources and at the same time denigrate their rivals by accusing them of lack of ambition and goals in their lives. Women on the other hand will put a lot of effort in to their appearance and talk negatively of their rival’s physical flaws. Again, youth/physical attractiveness and financial resources are important universal selection criteria’s and both sexes seem to know what the other want.
Casual sex
Numerous studies support the fact that men want many sex partners and women want fewer. When asked about how many sex partners you want for a life time men answer in average 18 and women answer 4.5.
In a study that have been replicated many times they investigated how long you wait from you meet a sexually desirable partner until you are ready to have sex with him or her. Men are prepared to have sex much sooner than women are. Almost no women are ready to have sex with someone after knowing them less than a week, where some men are ready to have sex after just an hour. Actually, the number of men ready to have sex after an hour equals the number of women who wants to wait at least a month. This difference is the reason you find so many men “hunting” for seemingly “unwillingly” women in nightclubs. We simply don’t have the same willingness to engage in casual sex. Several studies find that women very often are shamed when they do have casual sex and that this is a major reason for their reluctance to it. Therefore, this might tell us more about our cultural expectations of men and women’s sexuality than it tell us about the difference in our sexual desire.
Another difference between the sexes is that men lower their standards and are prepared to exaggerate the depth of their feelings in order to get casual sex. They also lose interest in the woman shortly after sex. Women conversely increases their standards and want better looking more assertive men when they do engage in casual sex. When women cheat on a partner it is often with someone, whom they believe in the situation is a better partner than the one they aleady have at home. This often leads to regret when these feelings are not returned by the casual sex partner.
Mate poaching and infidelity
Mate poaching is defined as the attempt to lure someone in a long-term relationship either for casual sex or in to a new relationship. Especially men try to lure married women in to casual sex. This mate poaching strategy obviously increases the risk of infidelity among married couples.
For men sexual infidelity is the most upsetting and damaging type. Many researchers find that this is because it subconciously questions whether the man is actually the father of his children a problem women don’t face. When men believe there is a risk of infidelity they will often display their resources to look more attractive and they may be violent towards rivals. Men with young and/or physical attractive wives tend to react more vigorously in case of suspected infidelity.
For women emotional infidelity is the worst kind. They fear losing his time, resources and commitment. Women react more vigorously when they are married to men in good jobs, with high income and high social status. Women who fear infidelity will enhance their physical appearance and start flirting with other men in order to win back the attention of their husband.
The old rich guy and the young beautiful model
It is obvious that men don’t only chose women on the basis of their looks and women don’t only chose men based on income. But it is clear that these criteria’s are important across cultures and that they affect not only our choice of partner in the first place but also our willingness to fight for the relationship e.g. in the case of infidelity afterwards.
It is also clear thet the criteria’s are different when it comes to casual sex. For men the sex in itself is so appealing that they don’t put much emphasis on the women’s look or personality. The will do or say anything just to get laid. Women on the other hand don’t care so much for the man’s financial status in the case of casual sex. Instead, they increase the standard on looks and behavior quit a lot and often chose the dominating or assertive “bad boy” for sex. The consequence is that men wanting casual sex vastly outnumbers the number of men who women want to join for casual sex.
Source:David M. Buss: Strategies of Human Mating
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