Friday, April 04, 2008

The Mating Mind: Choosing Mr. Right

Men Court, Women Choose


Geoffrey F. Miller visualizes our ancient sisters in his book "The Mating Mind."


"When you picture ancestral females facing predators, do not imagine Marilyn Monroe whimpering and cowering. Imagine Steffi Graf brandishing a torch in place of a tennis racket."


One of the premises of the book is that men court (dance, give gifts, advertise and flaunt their talents in the arts and sciences) and that women choose the most desirable partner during the mating process. Fitness indicators such as height, physical fitness, kindness, generosity, witty conversation, intelligence and a sense of humor are clues to the quality of a man’s genes; Women respond to these indicators and this has helped shape the course of human evolution.


He has this to say about the male penis:


"The large male penis is a product of female choice in evolution. If it were not, males would never have bothered to evolve such a large, floppy, blood-hungry organ. Ancestral females made males evolve such penises because they liked them… larger penises led to better orgasms by permitting more varied, exciting and intimate copulatory positions."


Miller questions the traditional view that females needed males to protect them from predators because females moved around in larger groups than males while they were foraging for food. He writes that women had "many eyes and many hands to offer mutual vigilance and protection. An ancestral female would be much safer in a group of a dozen sisters, aunts, and female friends than with a single man in a nuclear family. The same group-protection effect would have guarded females against sexual predators."


The book explores fascinating possibilities involving the evolution of the human mind through sexual selection and our choice of partners. If Miller’s ideas are valid, we have the power of choice my sisters, but haven’t we always understood that reality in our heart of ancient hearts.


Miller received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Stanford University and adapted his dissertation on how sexual choice shaped the human mind for a mainstream audience.


Finally, a male biologist who attempts to see the clitoris from a woman’s perspective: 




The inconspicuous design of the clitoris


"combined with its exquisite sensitivity suggests that the clitoris is important not as an object of male mate choice, but as a mechanism of female choice. It helps to select for males who provide pleasurable foreplay, copulation, and orgasms, and such discriminative power is just what we should expect from an organ of female choice."




From a sexual selection viewpoint,




"clitorises should respond only to men who demonstrate high fitness, including the physical fitness necessary for long, energetic sex, and the mental fitness necessary to understand what women want and how to deliver it. The choosy clitoris should produce orgasm only when the woman feels genuinely attracted to a man’s body, mind, and personality, and when the man proves his attentiveness and fitness through the right stimulation."



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