ALSO BY DAVID M. BUSS: The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives (edited, with Neil Malamuth) The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature (with Randy Larsen) The Evolution of Personality and Individual Differences (edited, with Patricia Hawley) The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill Why Women Have Sex (with Cindy Meston) The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (edited) Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind Copyright © 1994 by David M. Buss Revised edition copyright © 2003 by David M. Buss Revised and updated edition copyright © 2016 by David M. Buss Published in the United States by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th floor, New York, NY 10107. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at Perseus Books, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Designed by Trish Wilkinson Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Buss, David M., author. Title: The evolution of desire: strategies of human mating / David M. Buss. Description: Revised and Updated edition. | New York: Basic Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016036547 (print) | LCCN 2016044407 (ebook) | ISBN 9780465093304 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sex. | Sex (Psychology) | Sexual attraction. Classification: LCC HQ21 .B95 2016 (print) | LCC HQ21 (ebook) | DDC 306.7—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036547 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition 1 Origins of Mating 2 What Women Want 3 What Men Want 4 Casual Sex 5 Attracting a Partner 6 Staying Together 7 Sexual Conflict 8 Breaking Up 9 Changes over Time 10 Harmony Between the Sexes Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition SINCE THE PUBLICATION of the first edition of The Evolution of Desire in 1994, the field has witnessed an explosion of new scientific research on human mating. Although neglected within mainstream psychology for decades, mating is beginning to command the attention it properly deserves. Nothing lies closer to the reproductive engine of the evolutionary process. Those who fail to mate do not become ancestors. Each living human, therefore, has descended from a long and unbroken line of successful mateships stretching back millions of years. If any one of our ancestors had failed to traverse the complex hurdles posed by mating, we would not be alive to ponder these improbable feats. Our mating minds—the glory of romance, the flush of passion, the triumph of love—are fortunate products of this evolutionary process. The original publication of Desire was greeted with a gratifying amount of attention, but it also provoked some strong emotions. The intensity of sentiment probably reflects the importance of the topic. Humans don’t seem well designed for dispassionate intellectual discourse about domains that have profound personal relevance. Some readers told me before the book was even published that the information it contained might be so damaging if it became widely known that it should be suppressed. Some refused to believe that gender differences in mating strategies exist, since the dominant dogma in social science for decades has contended that women and men are essentially identical in basic sexual psychology. Others acknowledged the formidable body of scientific findings, but refused to believe that gender differences have evolutionary origins. Many like to think that humans have been magically exempt from the processes of natural selection and sexual selection. It is encouraging that the hostility to this work has largely, although certainly not entirely, subsided. Mating research has entered the mainstream and is now known throughout the world; the first edition of The Evolution of Desire was translated into ten languages. The original publication of The Evolution of Desire shed some light on previous mysteries of human mating, but it also pointed to gaps in knowledge, notably those surrounding the complexities of female sexuality. These are now covered in greater depth. The new edition also deals with some enduring mysteries of mating. Why does homosexuality exist? Can men and women be “just friends”? How do people who pursue short-term mating strategies avoid entangling commitments? Do women have evolved anti-rape defenses? Are men and women hopelessly biased in reading each other’s minds? Some of these topics were briefly discussed in the original edition and addressed at greater length in two supplemental chapters added to the 2003 paperback edition. Now this material has been integrated throughout the book, which has been fully revised and updated from beginning to end to reflect the past twenty-two years of theory and research. Although I am aware of the cliché that if you give someone a hammer everything looks like a nail, I’ve come to believe that human mating strategies permeate nearly every human endeavor. I see them everywhere. They shape status hierarchies among women and foster sexual treachery among men. They delay male puberty early in life while causing premature death at the other end— both products of mate competition. They unite people in love’s embrace and drive mates apart with jealous rages and sexual infidelity. Human sexual psychology is deeply embedded in the fabric of our social endeavors, in all of its glorious and disturbing manifestations. 1 Origins of Mating We are walking archives of ancestral wisdom. —HELENA CRONIN, The Ant and the Peacock HUMAN MATING DELIGHTS and amuses us and galvanizes our gossip. In all cultures, few domains of human activity generate as much discussion, as many laws, or such elaborate rituals. Yet the elements of human mating seem to defy understanding. Women and men sometimes find themselves choosing mates who make them unhappy. Some abuse them psychologically and physically. Some live mating lives of quiet desperation. Efforts to attract new mates often backfire. Conflicts erupt within couples, producing downward spirals of blame and despair. Despite their best intentions and vows of lifelong love, nearly half of all married couples end up divorcing. Pain, betrayal, and loss contrast sharply with the usual romantic notions of love. We grow up believing in true love, in finding our “one and only.” We assume that once we do, we will marry in bliss and live happily ever after. But reality rarely coincides with our beliefs. Even a cursory look at the divorce rate, the 30 to 50 percent incidence of extramarital affairs, and the jealous rages that rack so many relationships shatters these illusions. Discord and dissolution in mating relationships are typically seen as signs of failure. Regarded as distortions or perversions of the natural state of mating life, they are thought to signal personal inadequacy, immaturity, neurosis, failure of will, or simply poor judgment in the choice of a mate. This view is radically wrong. Conflict in mating is the norm and not the exception. It ranges from a man’s anger at a woman who declines his advances to a wife’s frustration with a husband who fails to listen or help in the home. These pervasive patterns defy