new meme:

[drewkitty]

If you oppose the Bush regime or the War on Terror, post this to your journal or blog.

"Liberals don't let liberal friends sleep with conservatives. If they must be so very dense, let them settle for their own hands, closeted gays, and what passes for sexuality among conservative women."

Comments

Darwinian-Dawkinsian Evolutionary Reasons

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Now, as to your question:

Each gender has basically two possible extremes between which to pitch its mating strategy. These are not the same for males as for females, for the simple reason that females can easily be stuck with nearly the whole cost of childrearing, but it's much harder for males to wind up in this position. After Dawkins, I will label the male strategies "Faithful/Philanderer" and the female ones "Coy/Willing."

These strategies roughly correspond to, in the same order, "Cooperate With Partner/Betray Partner" in the Prisoner's Dilemna. In other words, the best payoff for both genders is the "Faithful/Coy" match (where the female only yields on proof of long-term commitment).

But the Prisoner's Dilemna symmetry breaks down because the male and female have different "victory conditions." The male wants to avoid devoting his resources to caring for the children of other males, the female wants to avoid bearing a child who no man will help her raise.

If she is Coy, the point of it (*) is to discourage Philanderers, who will not be willing to go through a long courtship when their intentions aren't that serious. If she is Willing, the point of it is to trick a Faithful male into supporting her children by other males as well as his own.

Likewise, the Faithful male is trying to mate with someone who will not have children by other males and hence make him waste some of his resources. So he looks for proof of her future faithfulness, and the most obvious sign is that she is behaving like a Coy rather than a Willing female, while still displaying interest in him.

And that, in short, is why men may dally with sluts, but marry nice girls. If they are wise.

And that, in short, is why being a "slut" -- or at least being perceived, as one, is a bad thing for a woman.

And no. It's not fair.

I refer you to Jareth the Goblin King on the matter of "fairness." :)

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(*) In the Darwin-Dawkins sense of "point." Obviously the emotions involved may be, and probably are, much more complex.