>>I will admit, though, that the short term signal is much *stronger.*
I say like Unirt here below: How do you know it is a short-term signal, really? I can't open a newspaper without seeing a successful man next to a plantinum blonde bombshell with that typically post-plastic surgery nose and half a centimeter of make-up and revealing cl…
>>I will admit, though, that the short term signal is much *stronger.*
I say like Unirt here below: How do you know it is a short-term signal, really? I can't open a newspaper without seeing a successful man next to a plantinum blonde bombshell with that typically post-plastic surgery nose and half a centimeter of make-up and revealing clothes. Are such wives of high status men really signalling sexual availability? Or are they signalling that they are really, really valuable to the man who gets the privilege to have sex with them?
Women seldom change style abruptly when they enter a relationship and thereby aren't available for the short-term market anymore (I mean, most people actually intend to follow that rule). Instead, I think the style you call long-termist is more of a work-related compromise: Looking like a night-club queen is usually not appreciated in middle-class occupations. I had at least two acquaintances who ran the night-club look until about 30, when they sensed that it didn't make a good impression at work.
> Are such wives of high status men really signalling sexual availability? Or are they signalling that they are really, really valuable to the man who gets the privilege to have sex with them?
I think this can be explained in terms of mate-value matching. In evolutionary terms, we will always aim to mate with someone with a mate-value as close to our own as possible. When the mate-values of a couple gets out of balance, it is often a really bad sign for the relationship.
This is deeply embedded in our psychology. It is part of our language "she's out of your league", "marrying down", "he could do better". Even looking at a couple where there is obvious unbalance in mate-value makes us uncomfortable.
For better or worse, men can improve their mate value by increasing their status (by wealth, fame, etc...), while for women mate-value (in the evolutionary sense) is mostly improved by increasing their sexual desirability. So I can see how women in relationship with high status men can end up overcompensating on looks, as that is their main avenue to ensure they are matching in mate-value.
Yes. But there is more than one way of being a high-value woman. Being sexier than the others is one way, and being special in some other, less visible sense is another. Men who choose super-sexy women as wives do not only show they are high status. They also show they are playing in a league were sexiness is highly valued.
I think "less visible" is the key word here. Mate-value is also (primarily?) a social construct. We all use it to judge if people fit together, and to work for that it has to be visible in some sense.
When a high status man enters the room, there is a lot of subtle signals that we all pick up on, everything from how they dress, act and how others act towards them. We are rarely in doubt who is high status. I think most people can look at a group of people and roughly order them by status, especially if they have a bit of time to observe them.
The problem is how women can communicate status in a visible form. Youth and beauty are the classics, but you also see it communicated with things like $20,000 hand bags. The problem with those things (apart from the ridiculousness of attributing so much value to veblen goods) is that they only really work for status between women. It usually goes totally over the head of men, or if they do notice, it actually reduces their view of the woman.
So the question is, how do you as a women visibly show that your mate-value match that of your man (assuming your man is high-status)?
>>So the question is, how do you as a women visibly show that your mate-value match that of your man (assuming your man is high-status)?
I think the answer is: You don't. On the mating market, a high-status man is higher status than any woman. Women who marry high-status men face a choice:
1. Be sure enough he values your companionship that he will resist all polygynous temptations laid before him
2. Accept a precarious position
3. Look desperate in your attempts to match his visible status.
For the above reason, I have always suspected that high-status men aren't that attractive after all.
Well, I said I was going to write a post celebrating beta males as the pillars of civilization. Maybe I could write something about their excellent qualities as life partners too.
I was personally never interested in short term mating, only long term. And it could just be that when women dressed and acted like that, I immediately looked elsewhere.
Exactly. Night-club queens AND platinum-blonde rich men's wives seemed like a low-brow contingent to me (whether they actually were or not) and I didn't want anyone to accidentally place me into that bucket.
Yeah. I think women, and people in general, use their appearance to show for what they want to be valued. The sex-pot look indicates that a woman prioritizes to be valued as a sexual object. The less sexed appareance indicates the she hopes to be valued for other reasons. It says little about under which circumstances she actually wants to have sex.
>>I will admit, though, that the short term signal is much *stronger.*
I say like Unirt here below: How do you know it is a short-term signal, really? I can't open a newspaper without seeing a successful man next to a plantinum blonde bombshell with that typically post-plastic surgery nose and half a centimeter of make-up and revealing clothes. Are such wives of high status men really signalling sexual availability? Or are they signalling that they are really, really valuable to the man who gets the privilege to have sex with them?
Women seldom change style abruptly when they enter a relationship and thereby aren't available for the short-term market anymore (I mean, most people actually intend to follow that rule). Instead, I think the style you call long-termist is more of a work-related compromise: Looking like a night-club queen is usually not appreciated in middle-class occupations. I had at least two acquaintances who ran the night-club look until about 30, when they sensed that it didn't make a good impression at work.
> Are such wives of high status men really signalling sexual availability? Or are they signalling that they are really, really valuable to the man who gets the privilege to have sex with them?
I think this can be explained in terms of mate-value matching. In evolutionary terms, we will always aim to mate with someone with a mate-value as close to our own as possible. When the mate-values of a couple gets out of balance, it is often a really bad sign for the relationship.
This is deeply embedded in our psychology. It is part of our language "she's out of your league", "marrying down", "he could do better". Even looking at a couple where there is obvious unbalance in mate-value makes us uncomfortable.
For better or worse, men can improve their mate value by increasing their status (by wealth, fame, etc...), while for women mate-value (in the evolutionary sense) is mostly improved by increasing their sexual desirability. So I can see how women in relationship with high status men can end up overcompensating on looks, as that is their main avenue to ensure they are matching in mate-value.
Yes. But there is more than one way of being a high-value woman. Being sexier than the others is one way, and being special in some other, less visible sense is another. Men who choose super-sexy women as wives do not only show they are high status. They also show they are playing in a league were sexiness is highly valued.
I think "less visible" is the key word here. Mate-value is also (primarily?) a social construct. We all use it to judge if people fit together, and to work for that it has to be visible in some sense.
When a high status man enters the room, there is a lot of subtle signals that we all pick up on, everything from how they dress, act and how others act towards them. We are rarely in doubt who is high status. I think most people can look at a group of people and roughly order them by status, especially if they have a bit of time to observe them.
The problem is how women can communicate status in a visible form. Youth and beauty are the classics, but you also see it communicated with things like $20,000 hand bags. The problem with those things (apart from the ridiculousness of attributing so much value to veblen goods) is that they only really work for status between women. It usually goes totally over the head of men, or if they do notice, it actually reduces their view of the woman.
So the question is, how do you as a women visibly show that your mate-value match that of your man (assuming your man is high-status)?
>>So the question is, how do you as a women visibly show that your mate-value match that of your man (assuming your man is high-status)?
I think the answer is: You don't. On the mating market, a high-status man is higher status than any woman. Women who marry high-status men face a choice:
1. Be sure enough he values your companionship that he will resist all polygynous temptations laid before him
2. Accept a precarious position
3. Look desperate in your attempts to match his visible status.
For the above reason, I have always suspected that high-status men aren't that attractive after all.
That seems like a controversial topic worth exploring in depth. Maybe worth its own blogpost?
Well, I said I was going to write a post celebrating beta males as the pillars of civilization. Maybe I could write something about their excellent qualities as life partners too.
I was personally never interested in short term mating, only long term. And it could just be that when women dressed and acted like that, I immediately looked elsewhere.
Exactly. Night-club queens AND platinum-blonde rich men's wives seemed like a low-brow contingent to me (whether they actually were or not) and I didn't want anyone to accidentally place me into that bucket.
Yeah. I think women, and people in general, use their appearance to show for what they want to be valued. The sex-pot look indicates that a woman prioritizes to be valued as a sexual object. The less sexed appareance indicates the she hopes to be valued for other reasons. It says little about under which circumstances she actually wants to have sex.