The New Science Of Female Attraction - Psychology Roundtable

1. 0:00 – 3:14

   Is This the Most Attractive Dance Move?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      I'm starting an OnlyFans and I'm s- selling merch. This has taken way too long and I'm very sorry, but it is so worth it. The designs are unreal. We've upgraded the blanks so they're even better quality than last time and this bursting heart design with Japanese text in the middle is just so beautiful. Also, your girlfriend's new favorite hoodie. I apologize to anybody who buys this because I get the sense that your girlfriend's just gonna steal it. All of it is available right now at mwmerch.com and it's only available for six days. So get it. Once it's gone, you won't be able to buy it again. That's it. Completely sold out, never to be printed in the future. mwmerch.com. Have you seen the type of dancing which is scientifically most attractive to women?

   2. RHRob Henderson0:39

      I've not seen this.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:40

      According to a study at Northumbria University, the dances found... This one. This is the dance that women found most attractive.

   4. RHRob Henderson0:47

      This is a man dance song. [upbeat music]

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00

      According to a study by Northumbria University, the dances women found most attractive were ones who moved their head, neck, and torso the most while also mixing up their moves creatively and showing more variation in rhythm. To test this, researchers used motion capture technology on 30 male dancers, turned their movements into computer avatars, and the best dancers were the ones who used their whole body naturally instead of awkwardly repeating the same arm and leg movements.

   6. RHRob Henderson1:22

      Hmm.

   7. MMMacken Murphy1:22

      Looks like dad dancing to me.

   8. RHRob Henderson1:24

      [laughs]

   9. CWChris Williamson1:24

      Yeah. Well, Asian people have got natural rhythm.

   10. RHRob Henderson1:27

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:27

       Rob, so I imagine that's how you dance.

   12. RHRob Henderson1:28

       What I was noticing is, uh, he was keeping his elbows close to the body, so it looks like he might be-

   13. CWChris Williamson1:32

       Protecting the femoral arteries. [laughs]

   14. RHRob Henderson1:34

       Yeah, he's, he's, he's a, he might be a trained boxer. You know?

   15. CWChris Williamson1:37

       Which could be you as well.

   16. RHRob Henderson1:37

       Keeping it to the ribcage.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:38

       Yeah. I didn't have a-

   18. MMMacken Murphy1:39

       Actually, I know the guy who, uh, know the guy who did this study. Uh, funnily enough, I was just at HBES with him. Uh, he's my friend Ismail, and, uh, one thing that he was actually talking about was that the dance is quite feminine, and this mirrors something-

   19. RHRob Henderson1:52

       Yeah

   20. MMMacken Murphy1:52

       ... that you sometimes see in, uh, facial attractiveness research.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:55

       Mm.

   22. MMMacken Murphy1:55

       Where the initial assumption is like, oh, masculinity is just gonna be amazing, as much masculinity as possible. But then in some areas with some traits, femininity is favored.

   23. CWChris Williamson2:06

       Mm.

   24. MMMacken Murphy2:06

       And I think it's, seems like dancing is in-

   25. CWChris Williamson2:08

       In dancing, femininity would be favored.

   26. MMMacken Murphy2:10

       Well, what would a masculine dance look like?

   27. CWChris Williamson2:11

       That's the question.

   28. MMMacken Murphy2:12

       Kind of like throwing yourself around at a, in a mosh pit. Is that particularly sexy?

   29. RHRob Henderson2:16

       That looks like thash dancing.

   30. CWChris Williamson2:17

       Shadow boxing.
2. 3:14 – 13:07

   Does Looksmaxxing Give Women the Ick?

   1. CWChris Williamson3:14

      [laughs] Uh, does looksmaxxing give women the ick, Rob?

   2. RHRob Henderson3:17

      I, I think it does. Uh, I'd be curious to hear Macken's thoughts, Steve as well, on this, which is, um, Clavicular, the looksmaxxing influencer, he became very popular, uh, you know, uh, through propagating this idea of looksmaxxing, bone smashing, optimizing. And, you know, he, he told The New York Times that he is now sterile because he's injected himself with so many chemicals. Uh, presumably he thinks it's worth it, though. I recently wrote a piece suggesting that this gives women the ick, and that people mistakenly think that Clavicular is attracting women because he revamped his physical appearance. I actually think that he, that most of that attention he's receiving from women is due to the fame. He got famous through promoting looksmaxxing, and people mistakenly think it's the looks and not the fame that draw the women to him. For an ordinary man, like a Clavicular fan, who's doing all of the same looksmaxxing protocol, the bone smashing, the injections-

   3. CWChris Williamson4:11

      But without any of the fame

   4. RHRob Henderson4:12

      ... the, the [laughs] the-

   5. MMMacken Murphy4:14

      Just quietly bone smashing

   6. RHRob Henderson4:16

      ... the, um, well, he recently I think got a nose job. I saw something going around on X.

   7. MMMacken Murphy4:20

      Yep, I saw that yesterday.

   8. RHRob Henderson4:20

      And an ordinary guy doing all of that stuff, optimizing for appearance, I think most women would find that kind of guy very vain, very self-centered. Uh, you know, someone who is maybe uninterested in a relationship and is more just interested in themselves. And so maybe it works for Clavicular because it made him famous. But for the average guy, I think that amount of looksmaxxing, um, would be counterproductive.

   9. CWChris Williamson4:44

      What do you think it signals?

   10. MMMacken Murphy4:46

       [clears throat]

   11. RHRob Henderson4:47

       I, I mean, I would say that it signals narcissism, vanity, um, maybe sort of short-term oriented mating orientation. Kind of, you're more interested in being, um, immediately attractive to someone rather than someone who you would be interested in forming a long-term-

   12. MMMacken Murphy5:01

       Yeah

   13. RHRob Henderson5:01

       ... bond with.

   14. MMMacken Murphy5:02

       Yeah. And some of it's just a bit weird as well, right? The bone smashing, that kind of thing is just odd.

   15. RHRob Henderson5:06

       Yeah. Yeah. Well, I s- I saw this clip recently. He was, Clavicular was in this interaction with this girl, uh, at this, this bar in New York, and he was telling her how reading is a total waste of time. And I don't read, that's ridiculous, that's absurd. And I, I couldn't help but comment at how shocking is it that the guy who hits himself in the head with a hammer isn't a fan of reading. [laughs]

   16. CWChris Williamson5:24

       [laughs]

   17. MMMacken Murphy5:24

       That's like, yeah.

   18. RHRob Henderson5:26

       Sometimes people surprise you.

   19. MMMacken Murphy5:27

       Yeah. Indeed.

   20. CWChris Williamson5:29

       That's funny. It actually, uh, it's funny that you say that because on the main forum, uh, looksmaxx.org, it actually, if I'm not mistaken, it used to say, "First rule of looksmaxxing, don't talk about looksmaxxing."

   21. RHRob Henderson5:41

       Right.

   22. MMMacken Murphy5:41

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson5:42

       Which reflects a open understanding, like, never say that you're doing any of this stuff. Like, looking good helps, uh, but being transparent about the things that you're doing to look good, uh, probably won't improve your life.

   24. RHRob Henderson5:55

       So is there a reason for that, though? So I'm, I'm, you know, I'm looksmaxxing but I don't tell you about it. Is that because, what? Like, to, to bypass all of the, um, what, the prejudices involved there? Like, I don't want you to think I'm vain, I just want you to think that I'm naturally good-looking. Is that the idea? That natural beauty is better-

   25. CWChris Williamson6:10

       Yeah

   26. RHRob Henderson6:11

       ... than artificial beauty.

   27. CWChris Williamson6:12

       Yeah. So I believe that that was part of it. Uh, and then a second facet was actually that they didn't want... I mean, a lot of the methods that they use are, are, such as bone smashing, already been mentioned, is pro- are probably very dubious. Um, but I think that part of it is that they wanted to protect it, uh, with the

   28. MMMacken Murphy6:29

       Honestly, a gr- a, a view that a lot of us might agree with, which is that the mating market is competitive, and so if everyone gets better looking, uh, it may be the equivalent of everyone st- like kind of-

   29. CWChris Williamson6:39

       Staying the same

   30. MMMacken Murphy6:39

       ... running faster but staying in the same place. Yeah
3. 13:07 – 16:52

   Why Do We Get the Ick?

   1. CWChris Williamson13:07

      be pretty evol- You know what would be great? An evolutionary, uh, theory of ick would be wonderful.

   2. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:13

      I've got a, I've got a PhD student who's working on it right now.

   3. CWChris Williamson13:14

      No fucking way.

   4. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:15

      [laughs]

   5. CWChris Williamson13:16

      Dude, I... Don't fuck with me on evolutionary psychology, dude. I'm on the fucking frontier.

   6. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:22

      There was a guy, I don't know if it was the same one, but he's, he, he was presenting a poster at HBES on-

   7. CWChris Williamson13:26

      Yeah

   8. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:27

      ... the evolutionary psychology of the ick. So it's something that people are, it's something that people are interested in for sure.

   9. CWChris Williamson13:30

      It's up and coming, yeah.

   10. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:31

       There's been a couple of publications on it already.

   11. CWChris Williamson13:33

       So much.

   12. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:33

       So it's my student, Louisa Lee.

   13. CWChris Williamson13:34

       Yeah, tell us.

   14. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:34

       There were no publications when she started, and then one, one has come out that, you know, she got scooped. We got scooped basically, but, uh, but yeah, she's doing some good work.

   15. CWChris Williamson13:42

       Well, what's the-

   16. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:42

       Yeah

   17. CWChris Williamson13:43

       ... what's the, what is the evolutionary psychology of the ick?

   18. SSSteve Stewart-Williams13:45

       Uh, she's trying to explain it in terms of, of a mate choice. She's predicting that 'cause women on average are choosier, women are more prone to the ick, which is, I don't think anyone would disagree with that intuition, and we've now got good evidence that that's the case. Um, yeah. Uh, and she's looking at it in terms of evolved disgust reactions.

   19. CWChris Williamson14:03

       Oh.

   20. SSSteve Stewart-Williams14:04

       Uh, and-

   21. CWChris Williamson14:04

       That's interesting

   22. SSSteve Stewart-Williams14:05

       ... yeah, it is interesting, right? And so looking at it in terms of, um-

   23. CWChris Williamson14:09

       Behavioral immune system

   24. SSSteve Stewart-Williams14:10

       ... uh, yeah, yeah, behavioral immune system and, uh, evolved disgust reactions in response or in response to sexual stimuli, uh, to sort of stuff that's gross, associated with disease and the like, uh, and moral disgust as well.

   25. CWChris Williamson14:25

       So I was gonna say-

   26. SSSteve Stewart-Williams14:25

       And personality disgust

   27. CWChris Williamson14:25

       ... is that maybe, maybe something in that women are more, uh, adept at reading social cues, which means that if a guy does something which is socially ungainly, he might be able to breeze through it, or his friends might be able to breeze through it, or if a woman was to do it that's the partner of a guy, he might not notice it, whereas if she's able to pay more attention more closely to how people are responding-

   28. SSSteve Stewart-Williams14:44

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson14:44

       ... understanding that, uh, sort of social, uh, hierarchy a bit more. So it's fascinating and, yeah, there's lots of things that you could do. B- being unhygienic, being unhealthy, being rude.

   30. SSSteve Stewart-Williams14:55

       Yeah.
4. 16:52 – 25:23

   Are Chads Stealing All the Women?

   1. SSSteve Stewart-Williams16:52

      Yeah

   2. CWChris Williamson16:52

      ... what's the... Uh, speaking of the sort of current world of Looksmaxxing guys trying to rise to the top of the level as much as they can, what's the myth of the Chad?

   3. RHRob Henderson17:01

      Hmm. Well, so, so I wrote this piece, The Myth of the Chad, and, uh, I think I dropped it in the, the, the group chat, which is, um, you know, for a long time we've heard this story. I think you and, you and I talked about this on a previous podcast, Chris, um, because it made some level of intuitive sense that, uh, as the dating marketplace has become more deregulated, people can meet each other more easily.

   4. CWChris Williamson17:22

      [laughs] I love the idea of a deregulated mating marketplace.

   5. RHRob Henderson17:24

      We, we live in sexual capital, late sexual capitalism.

   6. CWChris Williamson17:27

      Yeah.

   7. RHRob Henderson17:27

      Um, and so now you have, uh, you know, with dating apps, online dating, people can meet each other more easily. We are, um, you know, supposedly placing more value on looks as a result of social media and dating apps and so on. So the story was... And we saw some statistical trends that supported this notion, at least initially, that, uh, a small percentage of men were getting the majority of female attention-

   8. CWChris Williamson17:53

      Mm

   9. RHRob Henderson17:53

      ... and that men, uh, sort of on the lower end of, uh, mate value were getting, uh, increasingly less, uh, female interest. And so the story was, what was it? Like 20% of men are getting 80% of the attention. There's some truth to that, at least with regard to sort of, um, uh, match rates and swipe rates on Tinder and so on. But, uh, if you look at the actual data, you dig into it, and, and, you know, more statistics and findings have come out since, uh, you and I have had those discussions a few years ago, suggest that actually, that story isn't completely true. Um, that in fact, this, this has been going on for a long time, that very attractive men have always had the opportunity to mate with more women. Um, so when you look at the data, it looks like something like about maybe 18 to 20% of men, um, report having three or more sexual partners within the past year, and that really hasn't changed since about the year 2000, uh, which is as far back as I could find, uh, data on this. Uh, and so you might think, okay, well, that's, there you go. You got the Chads. The 20% of men are getting three or more partners a year. Those are the guys, you know, hogging all the women. But then when you look at the sexual behavior of women, you find essentially the same pattern, which is that something like 12 to 18% of women also report three or more sexual partners a year, and what this means is that the vast majority of men and the vast majority of women have relatively unexciting sexual lives. The most common response to the question of how many partners have you had in the past 12 months is one, followed by zero.

   10. CWChris Williamson19:20

       Mm-hmm.

   11. RHRob Henderson19:20

       So most sex is going on in relationships, followed by people not having sex at all, and then a small Fraction of men and a small fraction of women who are high in socio-sexual orientation, very promiscuous and open to short-term mating, they're having a lot of sex with each other

   12. CWChris Williamson19:34

       At least partly attractive as well, presumably

   13. RHRob Henderson19:36

       Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Physically attractive, and what I suggest is that because, um, dating apps have made this, uh, uh, uh, you know, sort of frictionless and because social media has created this kind of panopticon where, you know, men in particular, um, you know, they're... You got sort of the pickup artist and red pill guys who claim to be very successful with women bragging about how many women they've hooked up with, and then you have the incels on the other side of this w- who are, you know, not bragging, but, you know, I guess whining and complaining about how little sex they're having. This gives you the, the impression that, oh, wow, you've got one segment of guys who are having all of the sex, and then you have this other section of guys who are having none of the sex, and then women are just passive bystanders who are maybe getting, you know, duped by the, the pickup artist or the Chads or something. Uh, but what this suggests actually is that, you know, there is a kind of a Chad, but the, the myth of the Chad is that, um, yeah, that, oh, one segment of guys are having all of the sex with all of the women

   14. CWChris Williamson20:29

       With all of the women, yeah. Mm-hmm

   15. RHRob Henderson20:30

       And it's, it's not the case that, uh, there are, you know, there are femcels, there are women in relationships, there are women who are just uninterested in dating.

   16. CWChris Williamson20:37

       Mm-hmm

   17. RHRob Henderson20:37

       And, uh, and you kind of see the mirror image of this for men as well, that, and weirdly this suggests that men and women are more alike, uh, than, than many think

   18. CWChris Williamson20:45

       Yeah

   19. RHRob Henderson20:45

       Which is maybe a point to, to your book

   20. CWChris Williamson20:46

       It's one of, one of the key ideas in my book, yeah

   21. RHRob Henderson20:48

       Mm-hmm

   22. CWChris Williamson20:49

       And I think that, you know, the average, uh, number of sexual partners that men have, if you exclude sex workers and the like, is somewhat higher. Uh, but I do think it's a very important point that, yeah, among, among the guys who are having sex with lots of women

   23. RHRob Henderson21:03

       Mm-hmm

   24. CWChris Williamson21:03

       Generally having sex with the women who are having sex with lots of guys. And, uh, so yeah, I'm-

   25. RHRob Henderson21:07

       And that's the socio-sexual view, right?

   26. CWChris Williamson21:08

       Yeah, socio-sexual view

   27. RHRob Henderson21:09

       Alexander, Alexander Dane says

   28. MMMacken Murphy21:10

       Yeah, the, the promiscuous 10% is the-

   29. RHRob Henderson21:12

       Right.

   30. MMMacken Murphy21:12

       Is the kind of meme version of it
5. 25:23 – 31:00

   Is Marriage Affirmative Action for Men?

   1. RHRob Henderson25:23

      If there's, so if there's this Porsche polygamy, like Scott Galloway calls it, going on at the moment, at least even if it's in online dating, uh, even if it's not represented in who's getting laid and all the rest of it, but if there's some degree of big bucket of attention going towards small number of guys-

   2. MMMacken Murphy25:38

      Mm-hmm

   3. CWChris Williamson25:40

      Historically, does that mean that monogamous marriage was basically affirmative action for men?

   4. MMMacken Murphy25:45

      [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the, so this... There was a recent paper about this, uh-

   5. CWChris Williamson25:49

      Mm

   6. MMMacken Murphy25:49

      ... where they, they suggested that marriage was a, a affirmative action for, uh-

   7. CWChris Williamson25:54

      Sexual redistribution

   8. MMMacken Murphy25:55

      ... yeah, yeah, sexual redistribution of women. They also used the phrase DEI for men, um, that, uh, h- you know, uh, by definition most guys are not in the top 10% or top 20%. And so monogamous marriage was a way to, um, you know, sort of pair men up with women one-on-one, and it was a form of, sometimes tongue in cheek, call it sexual communism, sexual socialist- [laughs]

   9. CWChris Williamson26:16

      [laughs]

   10. MMMacken Murphy26:16

       For the deregulation of the, the, the dating marketplace.

   11. CWChris Williamson26:19

       Dating marketplace.

   12. MMMacken Murphy26:20

       Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and now that we've, you know, we- we've kind of lifted that norm-

   13. CWChris Williamson26:23

       Late stage sexual capitalism

   14. MMMacken Murphy26:24

       ... now we're in... [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, we went through a pha- I think, you know, maybe, maybe arguably starting in the 1960s we deregulated things, and now we're in the sort of the late stage. And I think now people on... Well, for a while on the right, the kind of, um, I don't know, the, the manosphere right have been, um, calling for some kind of a return, yeah, return with that, that V thing. And then, um, on the left increasingly, I think women are becoming fed up and they're, they're sort of, you know, finding ways to, you know, reinvent, um, you know... W- what's that phrase? Demisexual.

   15. CWChris Williamson26:53

       Oh, yeah.

   16. MMMacken Murphy26:53

       Have you heard of this phrase demisexual?

   17. CWChris Williamson26:55

       I'm only gonna sleep with people that I'm, uh-

   18. MMMacken Murphy26:56

       Emotionally

   19. CWChris Williamson26:57

       ... emotionally connected to.

   20. MMMacken Murphy26:58

       Yeah, conne- yeah, I'm not gonna have sex with a stranger.

   21. CWChris Williamson27:00

       Yeah.

   22. MMMacken Murphy27:00

       You know? It requires its own category.

   23. SSSteve Stewart-Williams27:01

       It's a special kind of sexual desire.

   24. CWChris Williamson27:02

       And then there's-

   25. MMMacken Murphy27:02

       Yeah, yeah

   26. CWChris Williamson27:03

       ... sapio- sapiosexual, that's being attracted to people that you're intellectually stimulated by.

   27. MMMacken Murphy27:08

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson27:08

       And then there's solo poly.

   29. MMMacken Murphy27:11

       I don't understand.

   30. CWChris Williamson27:11

       Solo poly, solo poly's my favorite.
6. 31:00 – 34:52

   Are Humans Meant to Be Serial Monogamists?

   1. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:00

      That's what-

   2. MMMacken Murphy31:00

      Are we serial monogamists, though? I mean, I've seen some-

   3. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:03

      Are we? Yeah, yeah

   4. MMMacken Murphy31:03

      ... ethnographies, hunter gatherers, where, you know, it's, it's common to pair bond with one person, maybe have a child, maybe two children, and then the kind of, uh, uh, you know, the, the romantic feelings can dissipate and then form a new relationship-

   5. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:16

      Yeah

   6. MMMacken Murphy31:16

      ... with someone else-

   7. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:16

      That is very common

   8. MMMacken Murphy31:17

      ... kind of swinging to-

   9. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:19

      That happens. Yeah, yeah. Very common. I've seen data as well. Um, in those kind of societies, though, um, often, like a, a small number, a small but, like, non-trivial number, 5% or so-

   10. MMMacken Murphy31:29

       Mm

   11. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:29

       ... of first marriages do last for life.

   12. MMMacken Murphy31:31

       Mm.

   13. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:32

       So, um, I think serial monogamy is probably more common. Uh, and I think we know that 'cause most people fall in love more than once in their lifetimes.

   14. MMMacken Murphy31:38

       Mm-hmm. Mm.

   15. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:39

       Um, but it does sometimes happen, and we have a polygynous streak as well, I think.

   16. MMMacken Murphy31:44

       Yeah.

   17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams31:44

       Um, but yeah, so when, when the guardrails are off and there are no strict rules-

   18. MMMacken Murphy31:49

       You tend to find that most relationships are pair bonds and largely exclusive pair bonds. Um, but you do also find that, uh, you have a small level of polygyny and a small level of, uh, and yeah, a small level of for life mating. But switching is not uncommon.

   19. CWChris Williamson32:04

       Jerry, can you, can you chat GPT, uh, how, how many people, how many romantic partners does the average person fall in love with across their lifespan?

   20. MMMacken Murphy32:15

       Hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson32:15

       Because until you had reliable contraception-

   22. MMMacken Murphy32:18

       Yeah

   23. CWChris Williamson32:18

       ... anybody that you fell in love with, presumably you were having sex with, and outside of either infertility issues or fertility compatibility issues, pretty much all of those people eventually would get pregnant if it was more than, I don't know, a couple of years, something like that. The honeymoon period typically lasts for around about that long.

   24. MMMacken Murphy32:34

       Yeah.

   25. RHRob Henderson32:34

       Yeah, it's like 85% fertility for a couple for one year, then it jumps up to in the 90s after two years of marriage.

   26. CWChris Williamson32:39

       Here we go. Uh, 2026 Kinsey Institute study of over 10,000 US adults found the average number of passionate love experiences is 2.05.

   27. MMMacken Murphy32:47

       Hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson32:48

       Uh, 14% reported never having been passionately in love. 28% reported being passionately in love once, 30% twice, 17% three times, 11% four or more times.

   29. MMMacken Murphy32:57

       Hmm.

   30. CWChris Williamson32:58

       Uh, measured passionate love, the intense falling in love experience, not long-term attachment or commitment. Some people can fall deeply in love only once. Others do multiple times. People al- also experience renewed feelings of love within the same long-term relationship, which is harder to count. So about two times on average throughout your life. So that would suggest, like if you don't have reliable contraception, if having sex leads to having babies, and if you're having sex when you're in love with somebody, you know, 11% of people just going through the machinate... Forget culture, forget anything over the top, like those people would have cycled through multiple partners across their lifespan.
7. 34:52 – 44:18

   How Rich Women Change Men’s Resourcefulness

   1. RHRob Henderson34:52

      and yeah.

   2. MMMacken Murphy34:52

      Yep.

   3. CWChris Williamson34:52

      What's this new study that shows preference for resourceful partners softens when women are richer?

   4. MMMacken Murphy34:59

      Uh, are, are you talking about, uh, the PNAS paper that we, that we did?

   5. CWChris Williamson35:03

      Yeah.

   6. RHRob Henderson35:03

      This is a real sexy new thing.

   7. MMMacken Murphy35:05

      Well, I mean, this is, this is something that I could talk about for hours, so please, you know, tell me to shut up after 30 to 50 seconds if you can manage it. Uh, but basically-

   8. CWChris Williamson35:12

      I thought you were gonna say 30 to 50 minutes. [laughs]

   9. RHRob Henderson35:14

      [laughs] I was gonna say there too. I was like, all right, I'm gonna kick back, crack open a tonic.

   10. MMMacken Murphy35:17

       [laughs] That's funny. Uh, yeah, so what, so there's been a longstanding debate over the last, I would say, 37 years. Um, I mean, it's been intense for 37 years, but it's, you know, it, it, it actually predates that even about the causes of sex differences in mate preferences. And a huge variable that people consider, uh, in this topic, probably the variable if you were going to pick just one, is gender inequality. And if you're gonna pick a second one, it's probably income. And basis-

   11. CWChris Williamson35:48

       What does gender inequality mean?

   12. MMMacken Murphy35:49

       Well, it, [laughs] I'm glad you asked because it means different things depending on which social scientist you're talking to. Uh, so there have been, so we know, and, and anyone who listens to this podcast has heard a million times that men have a stronger mate preference for looks on average, at least, uh, certainly in their stated mate preferences and in some revealed measures as well. And then women, um, have a stronger stated mate preference for resources. And then obviously there's the sex difference in age preferences where men have a preference for youth and then, and then women have a preference for slightly older than them throughout their lives. So you've got all those differences, and there's been this very long-standing debate over the extent to which this is explicable with reference to social and economic factors and the extent to which it's explicable by evolutionary factors. So what we did, uh, if you go through this debate, there's been tons of cross-cultural studies. Um, there's been, there's been seven, um, really, really big ones, and those have generally found that, I, I mean, in, in, in f- uh, five out of the seven have found something there with regards to mate preferences for resources and gender inequality. Um, all of the ones that checked age, um, found that when gender inequality is lower, age mate preferences and age gaps get smaller.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:10

       Hmm.

   14. MMMacken Murphy37:11

       Uh, and then the beauty basically doesn't move. In fact, there's even some evidence that it goes in the opposite direction in one of those analyses. So you've got this kind of mixed result there. And then you can look at the, uh, individual level studies as well, where you look at when people have more money, what happens to their mate preferences. And, uh, I, I could talk about that more. It's actually a bit controversial, so I, there's, there's different ways of measuring this. Um, but basically what it finds is, is that, uh, it, it does not move in the way that you would expect from the social role theory perspective, where it's like, oh, when women have more money, they're gonna start wanting young, gorgeous men. Uh, individual women who are rich, um- That, that doesn't seem to happen. However, there, there are some caveats there. So what we did, we've got all this cross-sectional data. Basically, you're hearing about correlational study, correlational study, correlational study-

   15. CWChris Williamson37:58

       Hmm

   16. MMMacken Murphy37:59

       ... until the cows come home. And we said, well, th- we're testing causal relationships, and we know what's happening correlationally, and there's been critiques both from the evolutionary psychologists and from the social role theorists about the correlational nature of these studies, depending on which ones they don't like, essentially.

   17. CWChris Williamson38:15

       Hmm.

   18. MMMacken Murphy38:16

       And so we said, okay, well, we'll, we'll do an experiment. And so we did a really complicated, uh... unfortunately complicated. Complexity is not a virtue, but it's just necessary for this sort of study design. We did a 45-condition experiment that varied people's individual income and local gender economic inequality, and then we tried to see how those variables would predict changes in mate preferences. So basically, participants were put inside of a virtual environment where their economics were different. Now, I've, I've... I'm sure the timer has probably gone for five minutes. I feel like I'm giving a massive speech here, uh, but it is just a complicated background to review. And what we found was actually something that was slightly inconsistent with the evo psych perspective, slightly inconsistent with the social role perspective, and actually most consistent with a perspective that's been common in behavioral ecology for a very long time, which is that people will adjust their mate preferences strategically based on what the environment incentivizes them to want. And what we found is that when people are poor, um, as in, as individuals they're poor, or as in the opposite sex is rich and their sex is disenfranchised, they upregulate their mate preferences for resources. So they want to, they want to... This is true in ranked preferences, in rated preferences, and also in hypergamous preferences, so desire to mate with someone who's richer than yourself.

   19. CWChris Williamson39:30

       And this goes for both men and women?

   20. MMMacken Murphy39:32

       For both men and women, yes.

   21. CWChris Williamson39:34

       Is the effect less for men than it is for women?

   22. MMMacken Murphy39:37

       The effect, it, it, it's really complicated and it depends on which specific measure you're talking about.

   23. CWChris Williamson39:41

       Hmm.

   24. MMMacken Murphy39:41

       Um, and, uh, a- and so, so it depends. We could, we could kind of go into detail on there. Um, our main analyses were, were testing the effects of the variables on b- on both sexes.

   25. CWChris Williamson39:50

       That's interesting, yeah.

   26. MMMacken Murphy39:51

       And, uh, we didn't find beauty preferences moved, which actually it didn't, wouldn't make sense to a social role theorist. Uh, it would make... Uh, but-

   27. CWChris Williamson39:58

       Can you explain?

   28. MMMacken Murphy39:59

       As in social role theorists, they generally say, oh, the reason that, uh, mate preferences for beauty are different is because there are social and economic gender differences. Um, but those experimentally, they... It doesn't really show up in the cross-cultural data to begin with, but also doesn't show up in the experiments. And then weirdly, the age differences didn't move. The age preferences, those didn't move, and I really expected them to, because the cross-cult- We pre-registered that we thought that that was gonna happen because that's what the cross-cultural literature showed. But it didn't. However, mate preferences for resources, which is really what you'd expect to move in this sort of experiment, because that's the, that's the strategic variable-

   29. CWChris Williamson40:33

       Hmm

   30. MMMacken Murphy40:34

       ... that's being adjusted, um, it makes a lot of sense. I think verbally, like, I could talk about the modeling work and I could talk about it in, like, a really obscure way, but at a very basic level, I find it very intuitive that it's like if I was poor and if women were rich, yeah, I would want to-
8. 44:18 – 55:34

   Abundance vs Scarcity: What’s More Attractive?

   1. RHRob Henderson44:18

      You know, this is generally sort of controversial, but the idea of the evolutionary adapted environments or the environment of evolutionary adaptation, um, it was, wasn't, wasn't scarcity more or less the norm?

   2. MMMacken Murphy44:30

      The norm, yeah. Mm-hmm.

   3. RHRob Henderson44:30

      And so this idea that we have an evolved module to detect scarcity versus abundance, I mean, everyone was roughly equally poor because in these communities, people shared just about everything. Yes, you had talented hunters, but generally my understanding is they shared their, uh, spoils. And, you know, it wasn't until after the agricultural revolution that we were able to stockpile large amounts of resources.

   4. MMMacken Murphy44:52

      Yeah. Well, this, yeah, this is actually something that's controversial in anthropology because it's true that if you go off of modern hunter gatherers, then you do get this impression that like, oh, scarcity is the norm.

   5. RHRob Henderson45:00

      Mm-hmm.

   6. MMMacken Murphy45:01

      But all the good places became agricultural.

   7. RHRob Henderson45:03

      Yeah.

   8. MMMacken Murphy45:03

      So it's like there could have... Like you look at, uh, there are animals where it's like they're in environments that they're very well adapted to.

   9. RHRob Henderson45:09

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MMMacken Murphy45:09

       And they're not really struggling. And I would say that there-

   11. CWChris Williamson45:11

       But would that have been around for long enough for us to have been able to develop modules that would be baked in to be adapted to?

   12. MMMacken Murphy45:16

       Well, again, I personally don't have an opinion on the module thing, so it's not something that I'm, I'm... It's not, it's, it's actually not something that I think is true. It's just something that I'm kind of putting out there. Like I'm, I'm genuinely open about mechanisms. I could hear any side of the story. Um, but I do think that it's... Like there are, there is some, there is some interesting shit here. Like for example, um, there's the studies that we've talked about before where when men are primed with scarcity, um, such as when they're hungry or when they're acutely poor or whether, when there's a local famine, they shift to preferring larger women, right?

   13. RHRob Henderson45:48

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MMMacken Murphy45:48

       And it, that seems to suggest that there may have been some fluctuations in how valuable larger women were that selected for some-

   15. CWChris Williamson45:55

       And also it suggests that there was fluctuations in how large women were.

   16. MMMacken Murphy45:59

       Yeah, exactly.

   17. CWChris Williamson45:59

       That there were times, we spoke about this earlier on.

   18. MMMacken Murphy46:01

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson46:01

       There were times of surplus to the point where people could at least gain a little bit more body fat.

   20. MMMacken Murphy46:06

       Yeah. And there are very realistic depictions of obese people in prehistory. I know it's, I know it sounds surprising, but it's like-

   21. CWChris Williamson46:11

       Dude, if you, if you managed to be fat in prehistory-

   22. MMMacken Murphy46:14

       [laughs]

   23. CWChris Williamson46:15

       ... that is a real accomplishment.

   24. MMMacken Murphy46:16

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson46:17

       Real accomplishment.

   26. MMMacken Murphy46:18

       Yeah. So I, I think that there probably were some, I think that there probably were some cases of people.

   27. CWChris Williamson46:21

       Some fatties.

   28. MMMacken Murphy46:21

       I don't... You won't find it in modern hunter gatherers because they've been pushed out by the agriculturalists to these places that are really difficult to live for the most part. But-

   29. CWChris Williamson46:29

       Oh, that's so fucking interesting. Okay. So when we do studies of modern hunter gatherers by design, they're not in the desirable locations.

   30. MMMacken Murphy46:36

       No, they're, they're usually in... Yeah.
9. 55:34 – 1:05:03

   Do High-Earning Women Have Higher Standards?

   1. CWChris Williamson55:34

      what we're after.

   2. RHRob Henderson55:34

      [laughs]

   3. CWChris Williamson55:34

      Going, going back to the, the sort of inequality thing, what is the state of the gender pay gap in big cities now? 'Cause I saw some data. It's been for a while, it was 29 that women were out-earning men by about 1,000 pounds. I think now it's up to 31, 32. Does anyone know this?

   4. MMMacken Murphy55:49

      Yeah. Don't know the exact numbers, but I do know that in a lot of cities it's reversed, and that, um, young women are earning more than young men.

   5. RHRob Henderson55:55

      Yeah. Ma- major, uh, metro areas in the US.

   6. MMMacken Murphy55:57

      Yeah.

   7. RHRob Henderson55:57

      So, uh, New York, DC, Boston-

   8. MMMacken Murphy56:00

      LA

   9. RHRob Henderson56:01

      ... LA, I think Seattle as well. I don't, I don't know the state of Austin, but it wouldn't surprise me if Austin, uh-

   10. MMMacken Murphy56:05

       Yeah

   11. RHRob Henderson56:05

       ... I'm sure the, the, the same pattern as well.

   12. CWChris Williamson56:06

       Totally.

   13. RHRob Henderson56:06

       For, for under 30s.

   14. MMMacken Murphy56:07

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

   15. RHRob Henderson56:08

       Maybe.

   16. CWChris Williamson56:08

       I think it's squeaking into the 31s, 32s now.

   17. MMMacken Murphy56:12

       Mm.

   18. RHRob Henderson56:12

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson56:12

       And that's what's gonna be really interesting. Like, yeah, maybe you're right, and we've managed to, uh- Preference for resourceful partners has reduced w- as women have gotten richer. There was some studies a little while ago, Vincent Harinam, um, put this one out in his paper from like, well, his article from like six years ago, that suggested that h- very high-powered career women had an increased preference for more high-powered men.

   20. RHRob Henderson56:38

       Yeah. Mm.

   21. CWChris Williamson56:38

       So ambitious people desire more ambitious partners.

   22. RHRob Henderson56:41

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson56:41

       Uh, specifically women to men. Uh, the, the, uh, effect didn't reverse.

   24. RHRob Henderson56:46

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson56:46

       Uh, but it seems that what you're suggesting here, maybe for the middle bit of the bell curve, perhaps when you get to the top-

   26. RHRob Henderson56:53

       Mm

   27. CWChris Williamson56:54

       ... 10% of hyper ambitious people, they... That somehow flips because they have s- they've warped so much of their sense of self-worth around ambition that inevitably it's gonna bleed into what they find sexually attractive too, or the desirable in a partner, or maybe they- they're such an outlier that they breach some threshold of being able to talk to the normies about what they're going through. You know what I mean? Like, all of these things. Like, an elite athlete would, would probably be good if their partner at least understands how the game of American football's played.

   28. RHRob Henderson57:21

       Mm.

   29. MMMacken Murphy57:21

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson57:22

       Right?
10. 1:05:03 – 1:10:36

    Can Surveys Accurately Measure Sex Differences?

    1. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:05:03

       necessarily.

    2. MMMacken Murphy1:05:04

       Well, what about the, uh, what would you, could you, I don't know if you've been following, uh, Paul Eastwick's work-

    3. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:05:09

       I have, I have

    4. MMMacken Murphy1:05:09

       ... on stated versus revealed preferences.

    5. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:05:11

       Yeah. Yeah.

    6. MMMacken Murphy1:05:11

       I've, I've been, you know, I've been reading a, a lot of his, uh, scientific work. I haven't read his, his book yet. Uh, but I would love a rejoinder to his, uh... So he makes the claim that essentially I'll, I'll summarize it and then maybe you can-

    7. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:05:22

       Yeah

    8. MMMacken Murphy1:05:22

       ... tell me what you think about it. Um, but he makes the claim that, yes, in survey data, you see these consistent sex differences in what men and women want.

    9. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:05:32

       Mm-hmm.

    10. MMMacken Murphy1:05:32

        But when you measure it through speed dating or through how these stated preferences predict romantic evaluations of partners, well, then women care a lot more about looks than they say, and men care a little more about resources than they say, such that there's essentially no sex difference. And I think I even saw an excerpt from his book where he says, "Well, how could, how could these sex differences in preferences have evolved if, uh, they don't result in behavior, if they're just resulting in survey items?" I know I don't necessarily buy-

    11. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:06:02

        Yeah

    12. MMMacken Murphy1:06:02

        ... uh, that, that kind of s- I, I buy his data. I don't necessarily buy the follow-up part of the argument, but I'd love to hear what's your, with your billion years of sex differences background, what's the, what's your rejoinder?

    13. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:06:11

        Yeah. Well, first of all, let me say I think he's a, he's a great scholar.

    14. MMMacken Murphy1:06:13

        Mm.

    15. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:06:13

        I don't, I don't agree with him on this, but I do think he's a very good scholar and he's worth taking seriously and reading his work. Um, so I think he, he seems to be, he seems to focus a lot on the two lines of evidence that don't show sex differences in mate preferences, um, and exclude pretty much everything else. So one thing he focuses on the speed dating data that he's personally done, um, and often doesn't find the differences that you might expect. Um, I'm not sure if it's, uh, representative samples for a start. Like a, a lot of the studies that he'd done, he's done have been university students, all of whom are quite possibly, uh, I mean, presumably do have pretty good career prospects. So there's not going to be a huge amount of variance there necessarily. Um, in a speed dating context, you don't get to know somebody, uh, particularly well, so their looks are going to be a large part of what shapes your assessment of them. Um, he points out that, uh, a lot of the data that evolutionary psychologists look at, dating, uh, app data, for instance, is evolutionarily novel. So speed dating, it's, it's an evolutionary novelty. It's nothing like what happens in reality. Um, but he's happy there because you don't find the differences you, that you expect to find. Um, so he focuses on that. And actually there is some, um, uh, speed dating research that does show some of the standard differences.

    16. MMMacken Murphy1:07:31

        Hmm.

    17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:07:32

        Um, Rob Kurzban I think did one study that did find it. So it's, it's mixed rather than showing no effect at all of the standard, uh, evolutionarily, uh, psychology predicted stuff. Um, with the revealed preferences, I think that, um, well, it do- I don't know. It's also, I'm a bit dubious about it, uh, partly just because it goes against the 90% of other, or 95% of other research, including real world data, uh, that does find directions, uh, uh, effects in the direction you'd expect. Like women are more likely than men to leave a guy who is unemployed, who becomes unemployed or, uh, fails to earn a decent living. Um, and actually that's one, one reason that the revealed preferences data might not be accurate, is that when you're looking at how, how important it is in a relationship that the guy is earning quite a bit among current couples-

    18. CWChris Williamson1:08:27

        Those are current couples and, and there's gonna be a bunch of, uh, couples who... partnerships that have dissolved already. And-

    19. MMMacken Murphy1:08:33

        Oh, you've got to catch them as they lose their job.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:08:35

        Yeah, or before they do.

    21. MMMacken Murphy1:08:36

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:08:36

        Exactly. And so you're just looking at the subset that remains-

    23. MMMacken Murphy1:08:39

        Mm

    24. CWChris Williamson1:08:39

        ... after, after those kind of processes have happened. So you're gonna have reduced variance in terms of ability to make a living and, and earn a good wage. And reduced variance therefore means that the, uh, the correlation's going to be weaker and other things are gonna, um, become more important, seem- seemingly more important. But maybe that's a problem with the data rather than the fact that women actually don't care more about that after all-

    25. MMMacken Murphy1:09:00

        Mm

    26. CWChris Williamson1:09:00

        ... than men.

    27. MMMacken Murphy1:09:02

        Did you see the, uh, worldwide preference matching paper?

    28. CWChris Williamson1:09:05

        I think I did, yeah.

    29. MMMacken Murphy1:09:06

        Yeah.

    30. CWChris Williamson1:09:07

        Yeah. Uh, last year, right?
11. 1:10:36 – 1:16:53

    Are Dating App Users Worse Partners?

    1. MMMacken Murphy1:10:36

       Mm.

    2. RHRob Henderson1:10:36

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:10:36

       Uh, did you see, uh, Jake Kozlowski from Keeper AI put up the m-, uh, ask men if they'd marry down on three axes?

    4. MMMacken Murphy1:10:44

       I think I DM him every time he tweets out new AI. [laughs]

    5. RHRob Henderson1:10:47

       [laughs]

    6. MMMacken Murphy1:10:47

       I'm like, "Can I get another look at that?"

    7. RHRob Henderson1:10:49

       I see a lot of his.

    8. MMMacken Murphy1:10:49

       "Can I get a little bit closer on the..."

    9. CWChris Williamson1:10:50

       Dude, I mean, Jake, Jake's got the possibility to be a, a really fascinating source of stated preferences-

    10. MMMacken Murphy1:10:57

        Mm

    11. CWChris Williamson1:10:58

        ... with real world results.

    12. MMMacken Murphy1:11:00

        That's it, yep.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:11:00

        Real, real world incentives. So for the people that don't know, Keeper AI is an AI matchmaking service. It's 50 grand. The guy pays, the women don't. It's five grand per date for the first, for each date for the guy but that's-

    14. RHRob Henderson1:11:12

        On top of the 50... hundred, yeah

    15. CWChris Williamson1:11:13

        ... it's credited against it, but it's only credited against it up to the first five. So if you have like 10 dates in order to get there, then you're gonna pay 75. Anyway, uh, they have a pretty comprehensive psychometric evaluation, personality testing, all of these sorts of things.

    16. RHRob Henderson1:11:29

        Wow.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:11:29

        Uh, pull up the, uh, Keeper AI website, Jared. It's kind of, it's kind of fun. And, um, anyway, because he's got this raw data and he's happy to aggregate it, and presumably the terms of, terms and conditions just say like, "Hey, fucking open this, uh, open this sucker up." Uh, asked if they'd marry down on three axes, women say no far more than men every time.

    18. MMMacken Murphy1:11:46

        Right.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:11:46

        Earns less, women are 12 more likely, 12 times more likely to refuse. Less intelligent, six times more. Less educated, four times more. Marrying down is a near deal breaker for women and a non-issue for men, consistent across all three.

    20. MMMacken Murphy1:11:58

        Mm.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:11:58

        Right? So especially when you bundle those together, like that is a real fucking covariate bastard, but... A multivariate bastard. Uh, what I realized thinking about Eastwick's stuff, if you're in a world where the new ecology involves this ability to s- sterile autistically design what it is that you want, like stated preferences become revealed preferences.

    22. MMMacken Murphy1:12:23

        Yep.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:12:23

        Does this make... Am I saying-

    24. MMMacken Murphy1:12:24

        Yeah, no, it makes sense, and what's funny is that I actually DMed Jake that exact, um, that exact point where it's like- [laughs]

    25. CWChris Williamson1:12:29

        Don't fuck with me, dude. I'm on the fucking level of the academics.

    26. MMMacken Murphy1:12:35

        [laughs] You-

    27. CWChris Williamson1:12:36

        All day. I'm on fire today

    28. MMMacken Murphy1:12:37

        ... you actually are.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:12:37

        One and a half Neutonics. Don't fuck with me.

    30. MMMacken Murphy1:12:39

        [laughs] You've been anticipating a lot of things. Um, and uh, it's interesting 'cause it's, uh, it's not r- I don't really think it is a stated preference in the traditional sense because it's a stated preference with consequence. And if you actually look at the traditional-
12. 1:16:53 – 1:20:46

    What Matters More: Height or Looks?

    1. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:16:53

       right? They're just points in a direction.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:16:54

       Did you see the, that, uh, Whitmer study looking at, uh, facial attractiveness was 12 times more influential in swiping behavior than height is?

    3. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:03

       Facial attractiveness?

    4. CWChris Williamson1:17:04

       Yeah. Yeah.

    5. MMMacken Murphy1:17:04

       Yeah.

    6. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:04

       Yeah.

    7. MMMacken Murphy1:17:04

       So they did. So I, I, I tweeted that and someone replied, um, photo competition app shows photos are the most important factor.

    8. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:11

       Yes. Yeah, yeah, I was looking at it.

    9. MMMacken Murphy1:17:11

       And I was like, oh, you did kind of get in there.

    10. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:13

        Yeah.

    11. MMMacken Murphy1:17:13

        But it, but it is an interesting, it is an interesting study, right? So what they-

    12. CWChris Williamson1:17:16

        Trying to find some white pills.

    13. MMMacken Murphy1:17:17

        Yeah.

    14. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:17

        Yeah.

    15. MMMacken Murphy1:17:17

        So what they did was they tried to [laughs] so what they, what they did was they tried to essentially set up a gamified, um, dating app. Importantly, there was no height filters on this app.

    16. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:28

        Hmm.

    17. MMMacken Murphy1:17:28

        So the f- so that's usually how people see height in a dating app. That's usually how it has, in a real dating app, that's usually how, how it has an influence. And I'd actually be interested in Rob's opinion on whether, uh, uh, uh, kind of testing the intuition of whether a height filter is a stated or revealed preference.

    18. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:42

        Hmm.

    19. MMMacken Murphy1:17:43

        Um, because that's also kind of in between.

    20. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:17:45

        Hmm.

    21. MMMacken Murphy1:17:45

        Uh, but yeah, they set up this game and then they... And it was, it was very sophisticated. I had a lot of people come back to me asking, including really prominent scholars coming back, like kind of challenging the study, and I had to open the study back up again and check. And I was like, "No, they actually thought of that too." And yeah, they found that essentially face was everything, and anything else was... You could put anything in your bio. You could have any height, and it wouldn't really make that much of a difference-

    22. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:18:10

        4'8"

    23. MMMacken Murphy1:18:10

        ... with the caveat. [laughs]

    24. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:18:12

        Right.

    25. MMMacken Murphy1:18:12

        With the caveat that fi- filtering for height, um-

    26. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:18:15

        Yeah

    27. MMMacken Murphy1:18:15

        ... wasn't an option.

    28. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:18:16

        Yeah.

    29. MMMacken Murphy1:18:16

        And then it had a typical dating app interface. So it's like if you're looking at 50 different faces as a, as a participant in this study.

    30. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:18:22

        Hmm.
13. 1:20:46 – 1:31:27

    Why Male Beautification is Exploding

    1. CWChris Williamson1:20:46

       What about that, um, mate budget study that Norm Li did? Because that was about trade-offs, right? And typically, uh, some people generally have good things that come along with good things. But for the most part, there are, there are some sorts of trade-offs with, with someone's spent an awful lot of time dedicated on one thing that maybe neglected another part of another area.

    2. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:21:06

       It's an interesting study though, right? So basically-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:21:07

       Can you explain for the-

    4. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:21:08

       Sure

    5. CWChris Williamson1:21:09

       ... normies?

    6. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:21:09

       Sure. Um, so-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:21:10

       The Normlies. [laughs]

    8. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:21:12

       [laughs] So yeah, Norm Li. Norm Li, he, uh, did a, did a study where he gave people a budget of mate dollars and then asked them, "Create, create the, um, ideal mate that you can with this budget." Some people got a big budget, and where that was the case, men and women, they both, um, wanted everything. They, um, they wanted good looks. They wanted, uh, they wanted, uh, like a good job, high status, blah, blah, blah, the, the works. Um, but if they had a smaller m- mate budget, which I think is probably more like most people's situation in life, no offense, um, if they had that, they, um... Sex differences be- became more pronounced, and so people, uh, men would spend more to get an attractive partner, uh-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:21:56

       Mm-hmm

    10. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:21:56

        ... whereas women would, would spend more to get a, um, a partner with resources and status.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:22:01

        Hmm.

    12. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:22:02

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:22:02

        Hmm.

    14. MMMacken Murphy1:22:03

        Yeah. He also did a study where he had people a- allocate for themselves, if I'm not mistaken, and it-

    15. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:22:08

        Presumably, yeah

    16. MMMacken Murphy1:22:09

        ... it mirrored the, uh, it mirrored that ig- that same pattern, where it's-

    17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:22:12

        Yeah

    18. MMMacken Murphy1:22:12

        ... like when men were kind of RPG style building their own character. I think it was him. I, I don't, I don't mean to give him credit if it wasn't. But, um, basically men tried to make themselves richer relative to women-

    19. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:22:23

        Yeah

    20. MMMacken Murphy1:22:23

        ... and women tried to make themselves prettier relative to men. So yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:22:26

        Well, I mean, that's the reason why we don't see women turning up in supercars with expensive Rolexes at a nightclub-

    22. MMMacken Murphy1:22:30

        Hmm

    23. CWChris Williamson1:22:30

        ... or guys spending tons of time doing the beautification thing.

    24. MMMacken Murphy1:22:34

        Hmm.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:22:35

        Like we know, we have a, an intuition about what is effective.

    26. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:22:38

        Yeah.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:22:39

        It's the, the failures just continue to stack up in really interesting ways.

    28. MMMacken Murphy1:22:43

        Well, this is something that we proposed actually in our PNAS paper. Uh, in the discussion section, we talked about this, where it's like it is interesting and quite conspicuous, but also quite circumstantial, that over the 1900s, there's pretty good data from David Buss. It's hard to do. It's hard to gather this survey data, but it does seem that over time, throughout the 1900s, um, especially in the period after women's kind of financial emancipation, let's call it, uh, mate preferences converged quite a bit-

    29. CWChris Williamson1:23:11

        Mm-hmm

    30. MMMacken Murphy1:23:11

        ... between men and women.
14. 1:31:27 – 1:35:22

    Do Women Prefer Formidable Men?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:31:27

       Going back to the clavicular thing, it, it's kind of fascinating, the weightlifting being the biggest change, because-

    2. MMMacken Murphy1:31:32

       Mm

    3. CWChris Williamson1:31:32

       ... I don't know whether guys increasing their upper body strength makes a bigger impact on attractiveness or formidability. Like, if you were to just to rank it starting at a baseline of this, and you do, uh, you gain 10 pounds of, of lean muscle mass, are you more attractive or more, more formidable to other guys? That would be fascinating to work out, because I don't know what the net gain is. Now, obviously you get both, and that's what's great.

    4. RHRob Henderson1:31:58

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:31:58

       But certainly when we look at sort of the myth of Chad and, and, uh, Louis Theroux's documentary, and sort of the caricature of hypermasculinity at the moment, a lot of what guys are doing, it's the male-to-male transsexual-

    6. RHRob Henderson1:32:10

       Yeah. [laughs]

    7. CWChris Williamson1:32:10

       ... as Mary Harrington calls it. It's, like, the most caricatured parts of, of, uh, the masculine look to the point where that hypermasculinized face we know from tons and tons of data is not as attractive as a average or slightly feminized face-

    8. RHRob Henderson1:32:24

       Mm

    9. CWChris Williamson1:32:24

       ... on a man is to women. And- All of these other things to me seem to be just signaling formidability.

    10. RHRob Henderson1:32:32

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:32:32

        Signaling status and formidability to other men. It's the handbag of the face [laughs] .

    12. RHRob Henderson1:32:37

        Mm-hmm. Is it the, the David Buss work would suggest it's more about formidability, or, or rather the, the, the increase in formidability would outpace the, the increase in attractiveness, yes.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:32:44

        Do you wanna just read us... I mean, we've dropped it on the show, like, 10 times, but it's the fucking [laughs] ... It is just-

    14. RHRob Henderson1:32:48

        The frat boy study? [laughs]

    15. CWChris Williamson1:32:49

        ... the best. Can you do... Do you know it? Do you know this one?

    16. RHRob Henderson1:32:52

        Yeah, yeah, I know it. Yeah, yeah, I can do it. Uh, so David Buss, uh, and his colleagues famously did this study, uh, where they brought in, uh, a group of men and recorded them in these videos, uh, and you know, very, very short clips. And then they brought in a, a different group of men to watch the men, uh, in these videos, and then they asked these men who were watching these other men in the clip, um, you know, they asked them a question which is, uh, "How likely is it that this man that you're watching in this clip could beat a man in a physical fight?" Uh, and it was a range from very likely to very unlikely. Uh, and then they showed, um, a group of women these videos as well, of these men in these short clips, and they asked these women, "Okay, this man in this video, uh, how sexually attractive is this man?" And then, uh, these researchers followed up with those men in the videos 18 months later and, um, you know, collected data on them, including how many sexual partners they'd had over the previous 18 months, and they found that how formidable they were, uh, predicted how many sexual partners they had.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:33:57

        Better.

    18. RHRob Henderson1:33:57

        Whereas how sexually attractive they were to these women, uh, had no relationship at all.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:34:02

        Right.

    20. RHRob Henderson1:34:02

        So formidability predicted-

    21. CWChris Williamson1:34:03

        That's the most fucking insane study.

    22. RHRob Henderson1:34:06

        Now as, you know, a- as we've mentioned, this is, uh, this, this was on, um, college students, you know, fraternity, uh, members, but, uh-

    23. CWChris Williamson1:34:14

        It was, like, a specific frat, wasn't it? [laughs]

    24. RHRob Henderson1:34:16

        Oh, was it?

    25. CWChris Williamson1:34:17

        I think so. I'm not sure.

    26. RHRob Henderson1:34:18

        It was a specific... Okay. But, um, you know, this is consistent with David Buss' other work, showing that formidability seems to have this huge effect on sexual success.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:34:26

        This is my take.

    28. RHRob Henderson1:34:27

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:34:27

        This is my take on clavicular-

    30. RHRob Henderson1:34:29

        Yeah
15. 1:35:22 – 1:42:56

    The Rise of Female Teacher Sex Scandals

    1. RHRob Henderson1:35:22

       Yeah.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:35:22

       Well, haven't you been studying female teacher sex scandals?

    3. RHRob Henderson1:35:25

       [laughs]

    4. CWChris Williamson1:35:26

       Studying.

    5. RHRob Henderson1:35:27

       That was, that was behind the paywall, but I love Chris Williamson and I love Modern Wisdom, so, you know, let's, uh-

    6. CWChris Williamson1:35:31

       Bring it out. [laughs]

    7. RHRob Henderson1:35:31

       Yeah. Yeah. This is, uh, this was my, you know, kind of, this is my conjecture. I, I don't have hard evidence for this, but I was building on something that Louise Perry had written. I believe this was in The Spectator. You know, she was kind of riffing on this idea of, of OnlyFans and how sexual attention for women can be as satisfying as, um, as, you know, actual sex can be for men. So you know, men really like to have sex, women really like sexual attention.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:35:58

       Mm.

    9. RHRob Henderson1:35:58

       And these can be sort of equally powerful incentives. And you know, in, in the context of OnlyFans, it's this supernormal stimulus in the way that porn is for men. So porn, you know, you get novelty, all these different naked women, and so on. It's very exciting for men, whereas OnlyFans as a creator can be very exciting for women, 'cause you're getting large, huge amount of sexual attention from thousands of men, and all of them are praising you and telling you how beautiful you are. You could imagine this would be, uh, extremely, uh, enjoyable for some women. Now, this, the female sexual scandal thing, the female teacher sexual scandal I should say, um, you know, every few months we see these stories come out of some surprisingly attractive female teacher who sleeps with a male student, some 15, 16-year-old kid, and, you know, all these, you know, all the, the online discourse around this always goes crazy. Um, it's also important here to remember that male teachers are still far more likely to, um, uh, commit this transgression of sleeping with an underage student than female teachers are. The reason why those stories go viral is because, again, they're anomalous. Um, my suggestion for at least in some cases why these female teachers sleep with their male students is because the response that they get from the male student is, is a one-of-a-kind, unique sort of supernormal stimulus, where, you know, if you're an attractive 25-year-old woman and you get naked in front of, you know, your typical 28-year-old guy who's seen naked women before, whatever look on his face, whatever attention he gives you is not going to be nearly as potent as when you undress for the first time [laughs] and you see, um [laughs] and you see a, uh... [laughs] Now, now that look-

    10. CWChris Williamson1:37:37

        Wait, you look like a chef.

    11. RHRob Henderson1:37:37

        That look, that look with your-

    12. CWChris Williamson1:37:40

        Race.

    13. RHRob Henderson1:37:40

        Yeah. Half, half Latino, half Asian.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:37:42

        Does not scream captain of the ship when it's facing backward.

    15. RHRob Henderson1:37:46

        What do I look like?

    16. CWChris Williamson1:37:46

        I don't know what it is.

    17. RHRob Henderson1:37:47

        [laughs]

    18. CWChris Williamson1:37:47

        You look like, you look like the guy out of Tintin.

    19. RHRob Henderson1:37:50

        [laughs] Wait, I don't know this. What?

    20. CWChris Williamson1:37:52

        Pull up the fucking-

    21. RHRob Henderson1:37:53

        Yeah

    22. CWChris Williamson1:37:53

        ... pull up the dude from Tintin in the Hat. But you can keep going for now.

    23. RHRob Henderson1:37:56

        Um, oh, I lost, uh... Okay. So, um, you know, y- so, so the response, right? So you're, you're an attractive 25-year-old woman. You get naked in front of a 25-year-old guy. You know, the response is, you know, he's gonna be like, "Wow, cool," 'cause, you know, women, men like seeing naked women. But a 16-year-old male who has seen very few naked women in his life, he sees a fully grown, you know, woman at the peak of her fertility and so on for the first time.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:38:21

        Mm-hmm.

    25. RHRob Henderson1:38:21

        The attention he gives you is going to be extremely potent.

    26. CWChris Williamson1:38:24

        Yeah.

    27. RHRob Henderson1:38:25

        And it's the kind of look and level of attention that most people wouldn't have access to.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:38:31

        The reason this is interesting-

    29. RHRob Henderson1:38:32

        And, yeah

    30. CWChris Williamson1:38:32

        ... is what is the motivation for these female teachers to do it? For male teachers, we- Have at least a little bit more of an understanding
16. 1:42:56 – 1:47:32

    Is Being Desired What Women Want Most?

    1. RHRob Henderson1:42:56

       chances.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:42:56

       Hmm.

    3. MMMacken Murphy1:42:56

       Did- didn't you have a Twitter poll o- o- on this regarding, um... It was, it was a really interesting would you rather where you found a big sex difference on like would you rather sleep with someone very attractive or someone who's very attracted to you?

    4. RHRob Henderson1:43:08

       Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, I put it, uh, two different, uh, polls on Twitter. Um, first, uh, uh, for men, and I asked, you know, this is a forced choice, this contrived scenario. Uh, would you rather sleep with someone who you find, uh, intensely attractive but they are not at all attracted to you, or would you rather sleep with someone who finds you very attractive but you are not attracted at all to them? So I administered that poll first to men and to women, and literally got the exact opposite, where something-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:43:37

       Hmm

    6. RHRob Henderson1:43:37

       ... like 75% of men were like, "Give me the hot person who finds me ugly."

    7. CWChris Williamson1:43:41

       [laughs]

    8. RHRob Henderson1:43:42

       Uh, that's way more preferable than, uh, sleeping with an ugly person who finds me hot.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:43:46

       Yeah.

    10. RHRob Henderson1:43:46

        Whereas women, it was the opposite. Women were... About 75% of women said they would rather sleep with someone who they find ugly who finds them attractive than to sleep with a hot person who is unattracted to them.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:43:55

        Hmm.

    12. RHRob Henderson1:43:55

        Um, so it's almost like men and women were made for each other.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:43:57

        This was something that... This was a mess-up that I [laughs] ... This is a mess-up that I did in my conversation with Esther Perel, uh, where she said something to the effect of, "When have you ever..." She was talking about desire and what wa- makes a woman feel desired. She said something to the effect of, "When have you ever heard of a woman being turned on because her partner was, like, aroused in front of her?" Like, women need to be wooed. And I, I was just, like, in... I wasn't in my EP hat. I was in my relating and she's the expert hat. And, uh, I should've just said, "Dude, like, being desired is probably the number one thing that women want as a turn-on. Uh, or the other thing that women want as a turn-on. Just put this hat back on backwards for me. I've worked out who it is that you look like. I got it wrong."

    14. MMMacken Murphy1:44:36

        I thought that was the other thing as well.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:44:37

        "Put it on backwards. Put it on backwards."

    16. RHRob Henderson1:44:38

        Hold on. I got a, you know, I got a big dome, man.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:44:40

        You do. Both of you do, actually. I couldn't believe it. No, no, no. So There it is. So I thought that it was, uh, Tintin.

    18. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:44:47

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:44:47

        It's not Tintin, it's Indiana Jones, and it's this [laughs]

    20. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:44:51

        [laughs]

    21. CWChris Williamson1:44:53

        I'm just glad you picked up the skinny.

    22. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:44:53

        Is that not you?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:44:55

        I mean, no. Oh, wait, but don't I have to wear it like this?

    24. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:44:58

        Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:44:59

        No. He's got it on backwards. Does he not?

    26. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:45:01

        No, he's got it the right way. There.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:45:02

        Okay. Well, it's not a captain's hat. Anyway, I knew that I was right. Um, yeah, I, uh... Wait, that's Tintin?

    28. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:45:10

        No, no.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:45:11

        Oh.

    30. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:45:11

        It's fucking the kid from Indiana Jones.
17. 1:47:32 – 1:50:46

    The Dangers of Minimising Sex Differences

    1. RHRob Henderson1:47:32

       Yeah.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:47:32

       How much do you think a denial of sex differences at the moment has led to the current mating crisis?

    3. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:47:38

       Hmm.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:47:39

       Is that something that you've drawn a lineage through?

    5. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:47:43

       Hmm. You're looking at me because I'm talking quite a bit in my book about the denial of sex differences, but I can't see a direct line from that to the-

    6. RHRob Henderson1:47:50

       I mean, you've, you've talked about in your book, um-

    7. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:47:53

       Yeah, yeah

    8. RHRob Henderson1:47:53

       ... Superb, you, you discuss-

    9. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:47:54

       Okay

    10. RHRob Henderson1:47:54

        ... the dangers of, um, ignoring, minimizing-

    11. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:47:58

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah

    12. RHRob Henderson1:47:58

        ... sex differences. Um, but you, you, you also sort of, uh, acknowledge that, that, uh, historically people have sort of overstated the sex difference.

    13. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:06

        Indeed.

    14. RHRob Henderson1:48:06

        The dangers of overstating-

    15. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:07

        Yeah

    16. RHRob Henderson1:48:08

        ... um, can be, uh, you know, particularly harmful to women, but to, to, to men as well.

    17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:12

        Indeed.

    18. RHRob Henderson1:48:12

        And so, so what... Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm curious, what, what are the dangers of minimizing and, and then overstating?

    19. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:17

        Uh, the dangers of minimizing, so we talked about this, right? Um, so one danger is that just as people used to, uh, try to force boys and girls and men and women into, um, traditional gender roles-

    20. RHRob Henderson1:48:30

        Hmm

    21. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:30

        ... even if they didn't quite fit them, uh, you can get, you can get the reverse.

    22. RHRob Henderson1:48:33

        Hmm.

    23. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:33

        If you minimize or deny sex differences and just think that they're due to discrimination, you're gonna think that actually, uh, we should be trying to minimize them, we should be trying to push, uh, boys and girls and men and women out of traditional, uh, uh, gender roles, and that is a problem if they don't f- fit into them.

    24. RHRob Henderson1:48:48

        Hmm.

    25. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:49

        That's, that's one problem. Uh, another one if you minimize sex differences is that you might, uh, fail to, to notice physical problems and psychological problems-

    26. RHRob Henderson1:48:58

        Hmm

    27. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:48:59

        ... that present differently in one sex than the other. So a classic example is cardiovascular problems like, like heart attacks. The symptoms are different for men and women, um, and the male symptoms are better known, so the pain in the sort of chest and down the arms-

    28. RHRob Henderson1:49:14

        Hmm

    29. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:49:15

        ... is quite well known. Um, that's much less common in women. Uh, shortness of breath is a much more common, uh, symptom in women. People don't tend to know that. Uh, they oft- often in the past especially just didn't know that, and so women would have heart attacks and not be aware of it until they'd progressed quite a long way down the road and so, you know, it cost lives and by, by not noticing sex differences rather than, than noticing them.

    30. RHRob Henderson1:49:36

        On, on that point, like-
18. 1:50:46 – 1:52:20

    The Latest Evidence on Mate Switching

    1. CWChris Williamson1:50:46

       What's happening with the dual mating and mate switching ... hypothesis race at the moment. Has there been any update? Do we know if there's anything new?

    2. MMMacken Murphy1:50:52

       Um, I, I, I, I ca- I can't spoil their party unfortunately, but there is, there's new s-... I, I heard s-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:50:57

       Oh, fuck you, dude

    4. MMMacken Murphy1:50:58

       I genuinely can.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:50:59

       Behind the scene, under the bus us because you've got special behind the scenes access.

    6. MMMacken Murphy1:51:02

       No, it's, it's not, it's not that. It's just that I recognize that when people present work that's, you know, like at a, at a conference, uh, it's like, oh, it's preliminary. Oh, we're gonna have to roll it out in its own kind of time.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:51:11

       This is the modern wisdom conference.

    8. MMMacken Murphy1:51:13

       So, but it, I know, I know.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:51:14

       Okay, I get what you mean.

    10. MMMacken Murphy1:51:14

        I mean, I'll happily, I'll happily tell you the full kind of update, uh, of, of this conference.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:51:18

        All right. Well, you're like, when a... You, you know what it's like, it's like when I bring Navy Seals on and they go, "Dude, I know exactly what happened with the summit," and they can't tell you on air.

    12. MMMacken Murphy1:51:26

        [laughs]

    13. RHRob Henderson1:51:26

        [laughs] Fuck.

    14. MMMacken Murphy1:51:26

        Well, it's, it's, it's not me trying to aura farm or anything like that. It's literally just like I know that-

    15. RHRob Henderson1:51:30

        Is it gonna be interesting?

    16. MMMacken Murphy1:51:30

        I know that, I know that-

    17. RHRob Henderson1:51:32

        Is it interesting?

    18. MMMacken Murphy1:51:32

        ... I know, uh, I know that, uh, Ryan Dobson and, and his party are, are gonna be rolling out some cool research pretty soon. Um, so.

    19. RHRob Henderson1:51:39

        Is it not public once it's been, uh, put out at a conference?

    20. MMMacken Murphy1:51:42

        Uh, well, I, I was told by Candice, no.

    21. RHRob Henderson1:51:45

        Okay.

    22. MMMacken Murphy1:51:45

        But maybe that, that's kind of a social intuition that's wrong.

    23. RHRob Henderson1:51:48

        Come on, Candice.

    24. MMMacken Murphy1:51:48

        That's, uh... But I, I, I'm a, I'm a new academic, so to say.

    25. RHRob Henderson1:51:51

        So you better... Yeah.

    26. MMMacken Murphy1:51:52

        So I don't necessarily have the impression of social cues.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:51:53

        This is the, so this is the issue, this is the issue that Macken's got. Macken and William's the same, and I don't understand it, but I kind of get it. There's sort of the mafioso of the human behavior and ecology world.

    28. RHRob Henderson1:52:04

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:52:04

        And you don't want to step on the toes of anybody-

    30. RHRob Henderson1:52:06

        Oh, yeah
19. 1:52:20 – 1:56:40

    Why Marriage Kills Women’s Sex Drive

    1. CWChris Williamson1:52:20

       Yeah, it is.

    2. RHRob Henderson1:52:20

       Yeah. Okay.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:52:20

       Okay. Well, I've got, I've got a question that I've never been able to work out. Why do you think women's sexual desire declines faster than men's in relationships?

    4. RHRob Henderson1:52:29

       Hm.

    5. MMMacken Murphy1:52:30

       [sighs] I, I genuinely don't know. I tweeted it as a question. I'm hoping that maybe Steve or, um, Rob here c- have better answer to that.

    6. RHRob Henderson1:52:36

       I genuinely don't know either. I was-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:52:38

       Bro, if I was three for three here-

    8. RHRob Henderson1:52:40

       ... as Dave and Chris looked to the answers of

    9. CWChris Williamson1:52:40

       ... this is fucking money. I mean, would it not make sense that-

    10. RHRob Henderson1:52:43

        Busted

    11. CWChris Williamson1:52:44

        ... women at the peak of fertility would have the strongest desire for sex? I mean-

    12. RHRob Henderson1:52:49

        Yeah

    13. CWChris Williamson1:52:49

        ... for, for reproductive aims and-

    14. MMMacken Murphy1:52:50

        But this isn't, but this isn't, this isn't... So that effect exists as well.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:52:53

        Yeah.

    16. MMMacken Murphy1:52:54

        But this effect is even more peculiar, where [laughs] if they remate again later, the sex drive goes up again.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:53:01

        Oh, it does?

    18. MMMacken Murphy1:53:01

        It's just that it's like, oh, the first year or two-

    19. CWChris Williamson1:53:04

        Well, would that not just be sort of a, a, a mate retention strategy, right? You're in a new relationship-

    20. MMMacken Murphy1:53:07

        Mm

    21. CWChris Williamson1:53:07

        ... so you would want to sort of boost your sexual, uh, uh, you know, whatever libido to, you know, to get the male partner.

    22. MMMacken Murphy1:53:12

        So you're getting a, you're getting... It's an adaptation-

    23. CWChris Williamson1:53:14

        You have to lock them in

    24. MMMacken Murphy1:53:14

        ... to get them on the hook-

    25. CWChris Williamson1:53:15

        Yeah

    26. MMMacken Murphy1:53:15

        ... to say, "If you mate with me, there'll be sex all the time."

    27. CWChris Williamson1:53:18

        Yeah.

    28. MMMacken Murphy1:53:18

        But then as soon as-

    29. CWChris Williamson1:53:18

        But once you have a guy locked in and you've been married for 20 years-

    30. RHRob Henderson1:53:21

        You're just kidding
20. 1:56:40 – 2:03:34

    How Do We Determine Human Nature?

    1. MMMacken Murphy1:56:40

       one.

    2. RHRob Henderson1:56:40

       I wanted to ask something, um, you know, and then you can tell me if this is taking us too far afield here. Um, on our earlier discussion something occurred to me, which is, you know, like what, what's the question we're interested in, uh, like regarding sex differences?

    3. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:56:53

       Mm.

    4. RHRob Henderson1:56:53

       Is it, um, you know, how interesting that men are different now than they were decades ago? Or how interesting is it that sex differences are larger in this context but smaller in that one? Or are we interested in, um, you know, what, what's like the true sex difference? You know, you strip away everything, and like once you really drill down, here's what it is. And I remember I had this conversation, um, I think I was in college, uh, working a- as an RA years ago.

    5. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:57:17

       Mm.

    6. RHRob Henderson1:57:17

       And, um, you know, we were reading about WEIRD societies, Western educated industrialized rich democracies. And, you know, there was this thing going on, both of you, all of you are aware of this, of like, oh, we can't really learn anything about... I mean, I'm simplifying somewhat. We can't really learn much about human psychology studying WEIRD societies because this is a very sort of peculiar time in history. These are very strange, you know, weird societies in both senses of the term. Um, and so we need to collect data from other countries and other, uh, uh, parts of the world and, you know, look, look historically and so on. Um, and I, I wondered like, like when we're trying to study psychology and we're trying to study human nature, um, what is more reflective of human nature, too? Is it, um, you gotta look at the hunter-gatherers, you know, whether extant hunter-gatherers or hunter-gatherers, you know, uh, uh, in pre-agricultural times when they were sort of scattered all over the world and had access to different kinds of land and territory and so on. Um, we gotta study the hunter-gatherers in environments of relative scarcity, uh, because that's what humans, uh, that's how humans lived for most of our evolutionary history. That's what human nature is. Or is it, um, that can't be human nature because they lived in relative scarcity and they're b- they're only behaving that way because they're stuck in this kind of, you know, archaic pre-industrial, pre-literate society. And actually we should be studying rich societies because now that you have all of your needs met, now sort of the true underlying, uh, uh, traits and attributes and characteristics can finally emerge and, um, you know, uh, instantiate themselves.

    7. MMMacken Murphy1:58:44

       So it's kind of like the gender, gender inequality paradox kind of except with-

    8. RHRob Henderson1:58:47

       Kind of like that

    9. MMMacken Murphy1:58:47

       ... it's like the abundance paradox, let's say. We're becoming-

    10. RHRob Henderson1:58:50

        Yeah

    11. MMMacken Murphy1:58:50

        ... you know.

    12. RHRob Henderson1:58:50

        Like, like what, what, what-

    13. MMMacken Murphy1:58:51

        Interesting

    14. RHRob Henderson1:58:51

        ... I mean, yeah. Or, or, or does the question not even make sense? That there is no real true human nature and that it'll always kind of interact with environments in weird ways.

    15. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:58:58

        Yeah. Uh, both of the ideas came to my mind as you were, as you were saying that.

    16. RHRob Henderson1:59:03

        Mm.

    17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:59:03

        Uh, in terms of what the evolutionary push is just directionally I think it's good to look at all the different, uh, types of societies.

    18. RHRob Henderson1:59:09

        Mm.

    19. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:59:09

        Do you find it in hunter-gatherers? Does it persist even in WEIRD societies? Like sometimes that's quite good evidence of, in WEIRD societies often you have a push against traditional sex differences, and they often emerge anyway.

    20. RHRob Henderson1:59:20

        Mm-hmm.

    21. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:59:20

        Suggesting that, that there is an innate nudge. Um, yeah. If they get bigger in, uh, abundant societies, it may be that they're, um, expressing themselves more than the level for which they were selected to be expressed.

    22. RHRob Henderson1:59:37

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

    23. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:59:37

        So it could be that, uh, human nature is able to express itself to an unnaturally extreme degree.

    24. RHRob Henderson1:59:44

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    25. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:59:45

        Uh, potentially. Yeah. Does that...

    26. RHRob Henderson1:59:48

        Yeah. No, yeah, that's quite interesting.

    27. SSSteve Stewart-Williams1:59:49

        Yeah. If there is... Yeah. That makes sense.

    28. MMMacken Murphy1:59:50

        Yeah, I mean, I spoke to, um, the anthropologist William Buckner about this, and he actually had a real gripe about, uh, the evo psych studies on, um, on sex differences and mate preferences, and his gripe was that if the logic is that the EEA is what forged these, then they really should be more consistent-

    29. RHRob Henderson2:00:10

        EEA?

    30. MMMacken Murphy2:00:10

        The environment of evolutionary adaptedness, which isn't, which is, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's-
21. 2:03:34 – 2:05:57

    What Do Lesbians Find Attractive?

    1. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:03:34

       at.

    2. CWChris Williamson2:03:34

       It just occurred to me, uh, Steve, in your book, I think you, you point out, uh, you know, one, one line of evidence for, uh, you know, the, the sex differences being, um, you know, sort of evolutionary in origin, uh, and not entirely socially constructed is, uh, the way that, that gay men, what they find attractive-

    3. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:03:51

       Yeah

    4. CWChris Williamson2:03:51

       ... appearance and youth and so on. But, um, do gay women, um... Like, what are they attracted to? Do they like resources and status in their female partners? Does anyone know this?

    5. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:02

       Uh, yes, I think that they do. I don't- And I don't think they put a, like, huge amounts of, uh, weight on, on appearance-

    6. CWChris Williamson2:04:08

       Yeah

    7. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:08

       ... even though they're evaluating women rather than men.

    8. CWChris Williamson2:04:10

       Yeah, I... Yeah.

    9. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:11

       Yeah.

    10. CWChris Williamson2:04:11

        That, that makes sense to me-

    11. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:12

        Yeah

    12. CWChris Williamson2:04:12

        ... because I've seen, you know, gay men tend to be very fit and so on-

    13. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:14

        Indeed. Yeah, yeah

    14. CWChris Williamson2:04:15

        ... and, and gay women less so. But then what, what... Uh, are they attracted to the kinds of things that, that heterosexual women are attracted to in a partner?

    15. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:22

        Like resources and status.

    16. CWChris Williamson2:04:22

        You know, career ambition and success and those kinds of things.

    17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:24

        Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson2:04:24

        You know what I would love to see?

    19. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:25

        I don't think so. No, no.

    20. CWChris Williamson2:04:25

        I would love to see a sex toy study between what straight women like and what gay women like.

    21. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:33

        Hmm.

    22. CWChris Williamson2:04:34

        Hmm. Because, like, there's no reason that the sex toys should in any way resemble a male.

    23. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:39

        Yeah. Except for female anatomy.

    24. CWChris Williamson2:04:41

        Yes.

    25. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:42

        Yeah.

    26. CWChris Williamson2:04:42

        But it do- the, the way that it's put together, the humanness of it-

    27. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:46

        Yeah

    28. CWChris Williamson2:04:46

        ... right, shouldn't actually matter.

    29. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:04:47

        It wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt.

    30. CWChris Williamson2:04:47

        Unless you manage to show that... Well, and this is true. The penis is the optimal vagina penetrating machine, right?
22. 2:05:57 – 2:06:48

    Where to Find the Guys

    1. CWChris Williamson2:05:57

       Heck yeah.

    2. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:05:57

       Nice.

    3. CWChris Williamson2:05:57

       Boys, I appreciate you all. You're all awesome. Uh, what do you want to plug? Where should people go to check up to you, Rob?

    4. SPSpeaker2:06:02

       Uh, Rob Henderson's newsletter on Substack, robkhenderson.com, and the paperback of my first book, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.

    5. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:06:08

       Nice. Uh, my new book, A Billion Years of Sex Differences, my previous book, The Ape That Understood the Universe, uh, and my Substack, which is the Nature Nurture Nietzsche Newsletter.

    6. CWChris Williamson2:06:17

       Yeah. Macken?

    7. SPSpeaker2:06:17

       Nothing to sell. Follow me on TikTok. [laughs]

    8. CWChris Williamson2:06:20

       Yeah, you do.

    9. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:06:20

       Yeah.

    10. CWChris Williamson2:06:20

        Uh, ham- @hamsterman on TikTok or @mackenmurphy.

    11. SPSpeaker2:06:23

        [laughs]

    12. CWChris Williamson2:06:23

        Uh, boys, I appreciate you all. These roundtable things are so fucking fun. It's the best. It's the best. I love you all. Thank you for coming.

    13. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:06:29

        Thanks, Luke.

    14. CWChris Williamson2:06:30

        See you next time, everyone.

    15. SPSpeaker2:06:31

        Bye.

    16. CWChris Williamson2:06:31

        Boys. Yes.

    17. SSSteve Stewart-Williams2:06:32

        All right.

    18. SPSpeaker2:06:33

        We've done it. [outro music]

    19. CWChris Williamson2:06:35

        Congratulations. You made it to the end of a full podcast episode. You are not so TikTok brained that you've completely dissolved into nothingness. Why not watch another one? Right here. Go on, press it.

Episode duration: 2:06:49