Men are pigs

[One Brow]

Would you be willing to describe yourself in terms of age, location, demographic and who you're partnered with, if anyone currently?

If you look at actual social data (as opposed to anecdotes and your own personal admonitions), you'll see that when women choose a long-term male partner and ultimately marry, they rarely deviate from some very specific criteria -- including physical criteria and status/success within social hierarchies. Women rarely choose men who are not at least as tall (or at least nearly as tall) as they are, who do not have equal or at least near-equal status within social hierarchies as they themselves do, and who do not meet certain standards for physical appearance that they themselves meet. There may be a few exceptions to these general rules, and you can argue that these are culturally learned or transferred attitudes if you want, but they are nonetheless consistent from culture to culture.

Jordan Peterson is one clinician who has covered related topics in his lectures. This is an example.

Mid-50s, Midwest, which of the 50 or so are you interested in, and my wife, who is early 50s and, oddly enough, lives in the Midwest. I came from a lower-class background, she came from an upper-middle-class background.

I see we have moved on choosing long-term mates as opposed the preferences from biology. I don't blame you there, you were foundering in that discussion, and you probably think you will do better in a different field. Your invocation of Jordan "Lobster" Peterson is an indication that you won't. For example (from his video), "youthful appearance" is a failure as a measure of fertility, but it's a great measure of the ability to dominate a relationship by virtue of superior experience and assumption of a partially parental role in life. That's the sort of mistakes those steeped in patriarchy, and unaware of that bias, tend to make.

The cultural norms of patriarchy affect women just as much as men, and so their socially-instilled response is to follow those norms. They are consistent across many cultures because patriarchy is consistent across many cultures. However, in the few exceptions of non-patriarchal cultures, these preferences are often absent.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Mid-50s, Midwest, which of the 50 or so are you interested in, and my wife, who is early 50s and, oddly enough, lives in the Midwest. I came from a lower-class background, she came from an upper-middle-class background.

I see we have moved on choosing long-term mates as opposed the preferences from biology. I don't blame you there, you were foundering in that discussion, and you probably think you will do better in a different field. Your invocation of Jordan "Lobster" Peterson is an indication that you won't. For example (from his video), "youthful appearance" is a failure as a measure of fertility, but it's a great measure of the ability to dominate a relationship by virtue of superior experience and assumption of a partially parental role in life. That's the sort of mistakes those steeped in patriarchy, and unaware of that bias, tend to make.

The cultural norms of patriarchy affect women just as much as men, and so their socially-instilled response is to follow those norms. They are consistent across many cultures because patriarchy is consistent across many cultures. However, in the few exceptions of non-patriarchal cultures, these preferences are often absent.

People's preferences in choosing long-term partners are rooted in real biological and economic reasoning, not just cultural indoctrination (as you seem to claim here). If a person is dating with an eye for building a longer term relationship, then their short-term preferences might well be the same as their longer term preferences. I'm not trying to change the subject whatsoever, just explaining the logic that people normally use to select a partner, especially if the plan is ultimately to have children.

You seem to be suggesting here that men prefer young, attractive women (with youthful features), not because it signals health and fertility, but because men will likely find these women somehow easier to dominate, as though the man's goal here is to simply make the woman to submit to their will. If that's the case, I find that to be quite a reach. Some people will also likely find that offensive. You're the first I've heard make that type of argument.

You also seem to be suggesting that women are inclined to choose men in possession of equal or greater resources and status (at least you haven't disputed data to that effect), not because the women value comfort, security and stability in a partner, but because the women, like men, have been culturally indoctrinated with a belief that they should submit to whatever the man wants. Again, it's your patriarchy claim.

You are certainly entitled to your unique point of view and you may have a unique set of circumstances, but to dismiss mainstream studies and other people (whom you know little about) with the blanket claim of "patriarchy" is foolish.

 

[One Brow]

People's preferences in choosing long-term partners are rooted in real biological and economic reasoning, not just cultural indoctrination (as you seem to claim here).

I'll grant you economic reasoning, as that is a part of the cultural indoctrination. As for biological reasoning, 10,000 years ago there was no such thing a long-term partners; they don't form these relationships in hunter-gatherer lifestyles. 10 millennia is far too short a time for these biological preferences to have formed.

If a person is dating with an eye for building a longer term relationship, then their short-term preferences might well be the same as their longer term preferences. I'm not trying to change the subject whatsoever, just explaining the logic that people normally use to select a partner, especially if the plan is ultimately to have children.

The result of a logical argument is only as good as the initial conditions you feed into it. You are using faulty initial conditions, based primarily in the projection of 1950s stereotypes.

You seem to be suggesting here that men prefer young, attractive women (with youthful features), not because it signals health and fertility, but because men will likely find these women somehow easier to dominate, as though the man's goal here is to simply make the woman to submit to their will. If that's the case, I find that to be quite a reach. Some people will also likely find that offensive.

It's a good thing I'm not posting around a bunch of snowflakes, eh? As for what you find a reach, since the fertility argument is counter to reality (quick example: the best predictor of fertility is the existence of prior children, but it seems widows and single mothers are not high of the list of desired mates), I would like to hear your alternative explanation.

You're the first I've heard make that type of argument.

Really? It's explicitly stated by some members of movements like Quiverfull. Perhaps you need to expand your knowledge base a little.

You also seem to be suggesting that women are inclined to choose men in possession of equal or greater resources and status (at least you haven't disputed data to that effect), not because the women value comfort, security and stability in a partner, but because the women, like men, have been culturally indoctrinated with a belief that they should submit to whatever the man wants. Again, it's your patriarchy claim.

Most men also value comfort, security, and stability in a partner over one is difficult, untrustworthy, or unstable. However, they are not taught to look for that in their wives.

You are certainly entitled to your unique point of view and you may have a unique set of circumstances, but to dismiss mainstream studies and other people (whom you know little about) with the blanket claim of "patriarchy" is foolish.

The general features of my point of view my seem unique to you, in whichever sanctum you have been keeping yourself, but they are neither rare nor unsupported by mainstream scholarship. Do you really think Jordan 'I choose the pronoun I want' Peterson is somehow a new revelation for me, whose words I have never read nor examined?

 

[Siro]

Decent discussion. One Brow winning. Hopefully other contenders jump into the ring.

 

[LogGrad98]

IMO the short-term biological imperative is to spread our genetic material as far and wide as possible, as with all organisms that reproduce through sharing of genes (i.e. sexual reproduction). And most organisms have developed specific traits to attract another of the species with whom they can mate. Baboons have red asses, peacocks have big feathery asses, etc. So what are the physical traits that attract humans to each other? In all likelihood there is something there that attracts us to one another, on the basis of biology. It would be hard to explain why our general shapes (men with broader shoulders, generally larger overall, women with narrower waist, wider hips, generally smaller, etc.) have evolved the way they have if not for some form of selection based on biological attraction going on. To imply that what humans find attractive has nothing to do with biology and is driven entirely by our patriarchal society is short-sighted.

By the way, there is evidence of long-term pairing in hunter-gatherer societies, whether biological or not:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3083418/

Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for most of our species' history hence cultural variation amongst recent hunter-gatherers may be useful for reconstructing ancestral human social structure [8]–[10]. In a comparative study of 190 hunter-gatherer societies, Apostolou [11] showed that arrangement of marriage by parents or close kin is the primary mode of marriage in 85% of the sample; brideservice, brideprice, or some type of exchange between families is found in 80% of the sample; and less than 20% of men are married polygynously in 87% of the sample. The prevalence of marriage practices in hunter-gatherers suggests a deep history of regulated marriage. Brideservice and brideprice are often crucial economic components of regulated mate exchange, and low levels of polygyny indicate evenness of such exchanges. Here we further investigate marriage variation by adding time-depth via phylogenetic analyses in order to better formulate evolutionary sequences of derived human traits surrounding marriage (e.g., mate exchange, meta-group social structure, etc.).