One fundamental sociobiological consideration is just of the cost of sex. Thus, a male can impregnate a female and then disappear. Before paternity suits, and even after, this minimized the cost of reproduction for males and thus could be a possibly effective reproductive strategy (all that really counts evolutionarily). If a male could impregnate enough females, then, even if the solitary females with children would have less chance of survival, the sheer numbers might outweigh the drawback of those cases. On the other hand, the cost of sex for a female, before birth control and safe abortion, would be high indeed. Burdened with pregnancy for months and then with children for years, a female's life would be powerfully and probably permanently affected.
For many mammals this would not make that much difference. Tigers, for instance, are solitary animals, and the males and females do not live together. The female is thus left with the cubs, but then they grow up quickly. Lions are rather more sociable, but the females give birth off on their own and care for the young that way for a while. The males would help provide some protection to the group once a female returns with her cubs, but they do not otherwise make any contribution to rearing the young. Humans are different, mainly because humans are not individually very strong in the first place (not many animals want to mess with a female tiger or lioness), females are rendered acutely more vulnerable while pregnant (not true for many mammals), and the children are helpless for many years, requiring much more care and protection than any other mammal young. Human evolution thus passed up solitary motherhood altogether.
Because of the cost of sex, males and females most sensibly would pursue different courtship practices. A male determines the attractiveness of a female quickly and wishes to mate quickly. Since the only way to determine attractiveness quickly is through appearance, that looms large in the estimation of the male. On the other hand, females do not want to mate until the male exhibits a more durable commitment, lest they face the consequences of pregnancy alone.
Now, since cost sets up a real economic dynamic, it is not hard to imagine human institutions responding to it through cultural evolution without there being an innate and genetic component. It would violate Ockham's Razor to gratuitously posit innate propensities if learned ones would already account for human institutions. This can be tested: If courtship behaviors are culturally created, then we would expect them to change if the costs of sex are dramatically changed. There appears to be some evidence of this. In a regime of "welfare rights," where the government supports any children women may have, we have seen male responsibility all but evaporate and many women, "welfare mothers," indulge in much of the same kind of irresponsible promiscuity that was supposed to be characteristically male. While this is a recent phenomenon, there is also some older evidence of it. As examined in more detail elsewhere, Pacific island cultures have often been more tolerant of pre-marital sex and pregnancy. There costs were lowered through institutions that allowed for easy adoption (hânai adoption in Hawai'i), so that pre-marital pregnancy did not impose serious costs (apart from the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth) on girls. Indeed, at least one pre-marital pregnancy, in some places, was seen as evidence of fertility, enhancing prospects for marriage.
Does this kind of evidence simply establish that courtship behavior is cultural rather than innate (gender rather than sexual)? No, for a couple of reasons. One is that innate differences are not expected to result in fixed and inflexible behaviors. They are about potentials that result in a statistical spread of behavior. That is how evolution works, through random variation, a range of characteristics, and then the differential success of some variations. Thus, if the evolutionary environment changes, e.g. through the removal of the costs of sex for females, then the behaviors, out of the range of variation already present, suited for that new environment, will flourish. Women who already have an inclination for promiscuity can achieve great reproductive success by becoming "welfare mothers" and having all their children supported by the government. If the new environment persists, then over time any genetic component for that promiscuity will become more widespread. That is how evolution works.
The value of the evidence about "welfare mothers" for the argument therefore depends on the statistical size of the phenomenon. In a welfare state regime, how many women become promiscuous "welfare mothers"? Nowhere near a majority, though even this itself is confused by variations, since some communities have much higher illegitimacy rates than others and this likely due to varying cultural and economic factors within those communities. Thus, it would help to have some other kinds of evidence as well. The cumulative weight of that evidence does seem to be against the purely "cultural" thesis. This has been examined in many studies, from The Evolution of Human Sexuality by Donald Symons (Oxford, 1979) to popular presentations like "Boys & Girls Are Different -- Men, Women, & The Sex Difference," an ABC television special with reporter John Stossel (1995, MPI Home Video, 1995). A recent book on the issue is Gender Gap, The Biology of Male-Female Difference, by David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton (Transaction Publishers, 1997, 2002 -- a physician & psychologist couple at great pains to display their feminist bona fides despite the evidence they present for male-female differences).
For example, one kind of evidence considered by Symons and Barash & Lipton is what happens when homosexuality becomes socially acceptable. The existence of homosexuality is itself strong evidence of natural variation in behavior, since nothing could be more of a dead end as a reproductive strategy than homosexuality. Given a homosexual group, then, we do have a natural experiment in sexual behavior where only the propensities of one sex are involved. Where heterosexual courtship involves an interaction of men and women, homosexual courtship enables each sex to exhibit behaviors unaffected by those of the other. The results are persistant and interesting. Homosexual men (gay men) seem to be much more promiscuous and sexually active than homosexual women (lesbians). Lesbians do not even seem to be as sexually active as heterosexual women, who are, of course, often responding to the desires of their mates. Sexual promiscuity has even been valorized in much gay ideology as a salient and ennobling characteristic of the "gay lifestyle." But when it became clear that bathroom and bathhouse promiscuity was spreading new and dangerous venereal diseases, ultimately meaning AIDS, there was, and is, great resistance to the idea that prudence alone should rule out that characteristic of the "lifestyle." "Safe sex" became the way of preserving promiscuity while preventing disease. Unfortunately, sex with condomns does not feel like sex without them, and "unprotected" gay sex has continued, even, by 1999, increasing again, resulting in infection rates that have ceased to drop.
[Note that the "Ruby" image for Ruby's Diners, displayed at right, has now been modified by the company to eliminate the curve of the posterior that previously has been visible under her skirt. This certainly was criticized for being too sexually suggestive, which, of course, is exactly why it was nice -- despite its irrelevant and perhaps disturbing juxtaposition with food. The shoes, however, remain with the sort of heels that would be hell to any actual waitress.]
By contrast, AIDS is all but non-existence in the lesbian community, where the idea of anonymous sex in toilets is about as disagreeable as it is to heterosexual men and women. An interesting anecdote in that respect is what happened to radio "shock jock" Howard Stern when he ran his "lesbian dating game." Stern wanted to match up lesbians for dates and then hear afterwards about their sexual activities together. To his disappointment, the lesbians often did not have sex at all on their dates; and one woman even told him that "lesbians only have sex after they've dated for six months." Now, the idea that women are not as naturally promiscuous and not as sexually driven as men is one of the oldest gender stereotypes in the book, while no one in society is as hostile and militant about "gender stereotypes" as politicized lesbians. One might expect, therefore, that radical lesbians, even if they didn't feel it, would be at some pains to celebrate and practice promiscuity just as much as gay men simply to demonstrate the falsehood of the stereotype. But this is not what we see. It is hard not to conclude that they really l160 Prancingwifenaked O Prancing Fi Profile Pavladoljska Vlasnica Brenda Kpgs Prancing Wife Naked Wife Exposing Bare Naked Public Prancing Naked Outdoor Exhibitionist Gender Stereotypes and Sexual Archetypesz l Gay n160 Prancingwifenaked O Prancing Fi Profile Pavladoljska Vlasnica Brenda Kpgs Prancing Wife Naked Wife Exposing Bare Naked Public Prancing Naked Outdoor Exhibitionist Gender Stereotypes and Sexual Archetypesy Escort Prancing Wife Naked Wife Exposing Bare Naked Public Prancing Naked Outdoor Exhibitionist