Sexual Selection - How to be Attractive to Women

I just finished Scott Ridley's "The Red Queen," and I've been reading Geoffrey Miller's excellent "The Mating Mind" this week - Here are my conclusions regarding human female mate choice as it relates to human male sexual display:

1) Why men think things like Rolexes and BMWs are attractive to women
2) Why they are ultimately NOT as attractive to women.
3) Why intangible things are the most reliable "ornaments" for reproductive fitness -

Intelligence, generosity, humor and kindness - aced in short

Let's take these one by one, and put them in the context of human mating drives:
First, if we accept that humans are moderately promiscuous (not completely monogamous) animals, then other species like birds and apes show mate selection tactics that are driven by female choice.

This is because females invest much more in sexual encounters than males in species where there is not perfect monogamy. Albatrosses are perfectly monogamous, and the male makes significant investment in child rearing because of this. Sage grouse males are promiscuous, one male may mate with 30 or more female at a "lek" ( ritualized mating gathering, much like a human nightclub) where male birds gather to display their sexual fitness. Without going into the genetic theories, suffice it say that females benefit greatly by only mating with the MOST extravagant male, who has the best plumage and grooming. This is because such an extravagant, wasteful display ( the plumage dramatically DECREASES the males odds of survival) sub-communicate genetic fitness to the female bird - robust health, freedom from disease and parasites. Her offspring will thus inherit this fitness.

The more wasteful the display, the better the fitness - Peacocks are an extreme example of this. None of this is news to the Seduction Community - Mystery coined the term "peacocking" many years ago to describe how dressing to attract attention will inevitably increase a human male's chances of finding a mate in a night-club or bar.

What Mystery and others have neglected are the mechanisms by which Peacocking works, and also what limits it. Peacocking is not fundamentally about attracting attention - it is about sub-communicating genetic fitness. A ridiculous hat or outfit will attract attention, but then the female will TEST the male. If the male folds, she will be disappointed, or perhaps get an ego boost, but he will get nothing. So what is the female REALLY testing for?

Let's back up a bit and discuss attraction. Attraction seems to be the focus of most courtship behavior, especially male to female attraction. But wishing to be attractive is PASSIVE. It implies that the attractive person can just sit back and choose who to mate with. When men focus on being attractive, they are being passive. Problem is, passive men are NOT attractive to most females! Oh, the irony....the very act of trying to be attractive sows the seeds of unattractiveness. This is the male courtship paradox.

Our consumer driven society exploits this paradox, a paradox driven by the false premise that attraction from female to male is needed in the initial stages of courtship. It is not (more on that later) Mass culture reinforces this myth of attraction by showing pictures of buff, good-looking celebrity males with buff, good-looking celebrity females. The assumption is that beauty marries beauty, but in fact celebrities marry celebrities the same way royals marry royals - it's a class thing. Celebrities tend to be rich and good looking, so people draw the wrong conclusions about cause and effect....Correlation is not causation.

But occasionally, a glitch in the matrix appears -

Billy Joel marries Christy Brinkley:

or Rick Okasic marries Paulina Porizkova:

Well, what is going on here? Why do these supermodels, who could marry literally ANY of the hottest male models settle for TROLLS like these guys? These guys do not have "game" either.

Something else is at work....

Let's look at sexual selection and ornamentation through the lens of Evolutionary psychology and biology. In particular, the fact that animals, males in particular seem to evolve sexual ornaments that are both wasteful and costly. Females on the other hand evolve ways to detect fake ornaments. It is like an arms race - men trying to project an image of greater genetic fitness and women trying to detect fraudulent posturing. I know this sounds cynical, but nature is brutal. A female's genes have a vested interest in mixing with the best genes they can find. So do male genes.

This is the fundamental problem with using external peacocking strategies - they are doomed to failure because they can be exaggerated and/or faked. Go ahead - spend $5000 on a Rolex. With so many guys wearing FAKE Rolexes, the woman will not be impressed. Buy that BMW - all it means is that you have good credit...and if it's more than a year or two old, maybe you got it used. Maybe it's a rental. You are trying to show off wealth in a vulgar way that can be easily faked. These displays are costly and wasteful ONLY if they are real. Therefore, they are indicators of fitness only to the degree the female buys into their authenticity.
Diamond rings, flowers, expensive dinners, vacations, etc.etc., etc... can all be bought on credit - or easily faked.

Ever wonder why women obsess over whether the diamond is "real"?
A cubic Zirconium sparkles just as brightly, but costs just a fraction of a flawless diamond. It's because the diamond is WASTEFULL and USELESS that it has VALUE in courtship. If a man can afford to waste money on such a frivolous thing, he must be fit genetically, and the fact that he has given such a costly, wasteful thing to her means he is committed to helping her raise children - he is generous and trustworthy.

But wait you say... what about Rick and Billy above? How did they, with their awful, horrible, monstrous looks out-compete male actors and models with much better looks, and similar or even greater amounts of money?

HMMMMMMM????? HOW?????? I mean WTF, Right?

Ahhhh...Evolutionary thinking regarding the development of the human brain offers a way forward:

Ridley and Miller propose a striking suggestion- That human consciousness, art, science, and basically all creativity are the result of sexual rather than environmental pressure. Stated another way, Survival of the fittest is bullshit - what counts is sexiness. The human mind is thus the product of sexual rather than natural selection, due to an accidental preference of ancient females for clever males. If this is true, the implications are staggering. Rolexes denote "fitness" with regard to environmental pressure. The wearer has achieved a certain rank or status, in his environment (modern culture) and the timepiece reflect this.

Problem is, it can be easily faked.

Guess what CANT be faked?

Intelligence. Creativity. Humor. Kindness. Acceptance. Compassion. Empathy. Detachment...

lol...

So you see, females sexually select based on traits that are RELIABLE indicators of sexiness, because these traits are COSTLY and WASTEFULL. Monkeys do just fine in jungles with their puny little monkey brains - put any modern man up in a tree in a rain forest, and he will be screwed - big brain and all.

Put a monkey in a city, and I'll bet he does pretty well - just ask the Mayor of Deli, the Capital of India:

http://tinyurl.com/4mdffx

Oh, wait, you can't, because he is DEAD... The monkeys killed him.... =(

Humans do not need big brains for SURVIVAL - they evolved big brains for sexual selection as indicators of genetic fitness - at least this is Miller's claim.

Well, what does this have to do with Billy and Rick, or all the smart, lonely guys in the world? How did those horrible Ugs outcompete the buff, good-looking competition?

The question itself has a flawed premise - that females respond to physical beauty in the same way that males do. This is WRONG. Human females select for intelligence, creativity kindness, leadership, etc (not all females of course - just most). Physical attributes of "beauty", even "attractiveness" itself are irrelevant - she has a different set of biological imperatives than males, who seek to mate with as many women as possible of the highest fertility and fitness. Her fitness indicators are not the same as his, and thus she responds to different things.
So Rick and Billy get to marry supermodels because they are both in the right social caste, AND most importantly, are much more TALENTED and INTERESTING than the rich, pretty boy, brain dead actors and models that fill the supermodel's world.

This is fundamentally the mechanism by which Community tactics operate - it is NOT the tactics themselves that create "attraction" in the female, it is the way that skillful employment of them communicates that the user has a big, sexy brain. The fact that a man can learn this is even sexier! - what an expensive, wasteful endeavor! .....Years of study and field work...All to seduce a ME! He must LOVE women..... and he must be REALLY fit, and smart, confident, and tenacious to have mastered such a complex thing as human courtship and mating.
Cocky/funny, Speed Seduction, Mystery Method, etc, etc, etc are just ways of showing the woman how clever you are (sexual display). Add in Acceptance, Compassion, Empathy, and Detachment, and you will win her heart completely. Remember - women also select for moral and emotional leadership in males. Give her aced, and she will stick around for much more than a one night stand.

So get out there you geeks, and show off that sexy brain of yours to the women! Forget about the Rolex, the Gym, and the BMW....any idiot can do THAT. Make women happy, and good things will happen....I promise.

=)