Nanocyborgasm has allmost left nothing to add (as in being both very right and to the point). I'll none the less give it my own take.
Title is misleading. Promiscuous non-committed people have the upper hand in sexual economy, according to article.
Yes, except women age worse than men, so men can go on being promiscuous for longer without the same consequences.
And that's without talking about the negative social stigma that hits girls harder than it hits men.
Hygro, what you said is (most likely) not correct and at least not what the text cheetah quoted says.
It was allready mentioned that women are supposed to have the upper hand. They do - when they are young. Essentially women age 20 have all the men in the world to choose from. They can have the men that are 20 as well as the men that are 40 (with "have" i mean start a serious relationship etc.).
As long as one compares a woman and a man age 20 the woman pretty much has the upper hand. With age that changes: Some of the men age 40 are not availably, they are either on some woman age 20 instead of some guy age 20 who plays WoW in his mom's basement or are playing WoW in their mom's basement themselves.
And for the rest she has to compete with all the other women that are age 40. That's a very unfavorable market. If that woman age 40 was a hottie when she was young, she has royally screwed up.
What's fairly debatable though is: Why do all these women not have men? They could have easily gotten a rather decent one when they were young but didn't do so.
I neither believe this is all about "promiscuity" - women equally fail at this no matter whether they are promiscuous when they are young or not - nor do i believe this is all about women getting a better education and better carreers today.
It's probably simply a result of the erosion of marriage as an institution itself. Barry Schwartz** had it right: "In the old days" everybody settled**. Everybody was expected to be married at 22 at the latest and to stick with their partner.
In really bad cases people divorced and people age 40 expierienced a fairly small but rather even market, provided the woman wasn't to dependent on the men's resources (which of course she often was). As a wealthy widow, 41, it was way easier to get a decent long term partner several decades ago than it is today.
That chain of expectations from parents, peers etc. was considered uncomfortable by both men and women for very good reasons and i don't want to argue here that we should get it back. But it was an excellent tool to trick human biology and essentially increase the overall quantity of "husband*" or "potential husband*" available to the woman age 40 at the expense of the freedoms (and said value) of the woman age 20.
So the market has changed to:
If you are a man, stay single until you are 40 and only drop out of the race when you get some very attractive young woman.
If you're a woman, you have to think really fast, learn really fast and make a very wise choice preferably at age 22 (or something).
Good luck with that.
It's not that women don't want to find a long term partner at 22. Imo most of them do. It's not that their education keeps them from doing so. They simply fail to make a decent choice in time - mostly
because they have so many options (i.e. men) to choose, which makes the choice much harder than it has ever been for anyone else (sex/age groups, not individual people of course).
*replace with "long term partner" if you want to
True on both accounts, though as we come to respect more and more women in high places, as women who we don't view as overcompensating for their femininity but just as power persons who are women, I think their attractiveness changes somewhat (does Hillary Clinton have more sex appeal now at 60ish or when she was first on the national scene at 40? botox helps but that doesn't overcome 20 years. it's a cultural shift) Combine that with cougar culture, and you have a move in the direction of accepting older women.
First of all:
Since you mentioned cougars, please, let's not confuse casual sex and long term pair bonding here. Sure Stifler's mom has no trouble getting laid. But her prospects in marrying (or whatever) a high school senior are a totally different matter.
None of what you said is wrong. But huw does it matter?
I agree that Mrs. Clinton's authority and competence do make her more attractive than she would be if she would have been confined to be a homemaker all her life.
But i still can't see a majority of men choosing her over a woman that is young, healthy (and not exactly super-fat).
Just to be sure what we are talking about with regard to the overwhelming majority of men's preferences:
We could have a poll.
**
Actually this could perfectly well explain civ_king's numbers, since they are most likely not objective but some sort of self-rated thing.
