The red queen and other vaguely adult themes
The title of the book relates to The Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's 'Alice through the looking glass' who despite running stays in the same place - which Matt suggests is a bit like humans with regard to sex and humanity.
I read the book was reading as part of research for our seduction seminar - and I fully admit I'm looking at the topic from a male perspective. Some of the key points I noted are :
- We don't have control who falls for us and who we fall for
- Many women are attracted to men who lead and have (some) agressive tendencies
- Men and women have differrent fantacies
- Women are more likely to conceive with lovers than husbands
- Intelligence is attractive
- In addition the drive for greater intelligence is for us to persuade and stop others persuading us
I've taken some slighly edited 'sound bites' from the text to illustrate some of the points I noted,
Richard Dawkins of Oxford University effectively invented the notion that because bodies do not replicate themselves but are grown, whereas genes replicate themselves, it inevitably follows that the body is merely an evolutionary vehicle for the gene rather than vice versa. Only bodies that suit the survival of the genes will remain.
People are attracted to people of high reproductive and genetic potential - the healthy, fit and the powerful..... The although the consequences of this fact can be bizarre.....
Why has that man fallen in love with that women? Because she's pretty. Why does pretty matter? Because human beings are a mainly monogamous species and so males are choosy about their mates; prettiness is an indication of youth and health, which are indications of fertility. Why does that man care about fertility in his mate? Because if he did not, his genes would be eclipsed by those of men that did. Why does he care about that, he doesn't - but his genes act as if they do.
Why is that man a slave to his genes? He is not.....He has free will. He can say no.
Men have an aggressive nature because women have preferred them that way (or at least have allowed aggressive men to defeat other men in contests over women - it amounts to the same thing).
Poise, self assurance, optimism, efficiency, perseverance, courage, decisiveness, intelligence, ambition these are the kind of things that cause men to rise to the top of their profession. And not coincidentally, these are the things that women find attractive. They are clues to future status.
Just as it is foolish to deny the difference between the sexes (the data suggests that men are better at abstract and spatial tasks, women at verbal and social ones) so it is foolish to exaggerate them.
On every measure of objective memory and location memory, the women students did 60-70% better than the men. The old joke about women noticing things and men losing them may be true.
Male handsomeness is affected by the same trinity as female beauty - face, youth and figure. But in study after study, men consistently place physical features above personality and status when considering women; women do not when considering men.
Men had more sexual fantasies and fantasized about more partners. One in three men said they fantasized about more than 1000 partners in their lives; only 8% of women imagined so many partners. Nearly half of women said they never switch partners during a sexual fantasy; only 12% of men never switch. Visual images of the partner(s) were more important for men than touching, the partners response, or any feelings and emotions.
The reverse was true of women, who were more likely to focus on their own responses and less likely to focus on the partner. Women overwhelmingly fantasized about sex with a familiar partner.
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Baker and Bellis also did something brave. They asked their subjects about their extra marital affairs . They found that in faith full women about 55% of the orgasms were of the high retention type (that is the most fertile type). In unfaithful women, only 40% of the copulations were of this kind, but 70% of the copulations with the lover was of this fertile type. More over, whether deliberately or not, the unfaithful women were having sex with their lovers when they were most fertile. These two effects combined meant that an unfaithful women in the sample could have sex twice as often with her husband as with her lover but was still more likely to conceive a child by the lover than the husband.
In a block of flats in Liverpool, they found by genetic tests that fewer than four in every five people were the sons of their ostensible fathers. They did the same tests in southern England and got the same result.
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Indeed this book will end with astonishing theory that the human intellect itself is a product of sexual rather than natural selection, for most evolutionary anthropologists now believe that big brains contributed to reproductive success either by enabling men to out scheme other men (and women to out scheme other women) or because big brains were originally used to court and seduce members of the opposite sex.
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The game of social plot and counter plot cannot be played merely on the basis of accumulated knowledge, any more than a game of chess can. A person must calculate the consequences of his own behaviour and the likely behaviour of others.....and it was this need for self knowledge that drove the increase in conscious awareness.
Deception is common in humans ...deception and the detecting of deception would then be the primary reason for intelligence.
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And I end with with one of the strangest consequences of sex: that the choosiness of human beings has driven the human mind into a frenzied expansion for no reason except that wit, inventiveness, and individuality can turn other people on. It is a somewhat less uplifting perspective of humanity than the religious one, but it is also rather liberating. Be different.
The Red Queen - sex and the evolution of human nature, by Matt Ridley - which you can buy here.
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Thoughts for seduction? Or at least a direction
- Don't blame anyone for not falling for you - its not under their control
- Don't blame yourself - its not under your control either
- Be a leader in something you enjoy
- Wit, inventiveness, and individuality to turn other people on - can be learnt, developed and let out - do so!
Any questions give me a call. Or simply add a comment!
Michael(01908) 506563
PPI Business NLP Ltd
posted by Michael at
2:12 PM
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