Inside the Current Issue

Rational Romance (or Systematic Sex)

Roderick Graham

I think its time we bring some order into all this mushy, vague, love and romance stuff. The whole process is way too random and unpredictable. While I'm currently taken, there was a time not too long ago when my dating life was riddled with anxiety. There were just too many unknowns out there, too much variation in who likes whom and why or who somebody is sleeping with. Somehow I got lucky, but I still think the whole process needs to be systematized and rationalized. Think about how much time and money could be saved if we invested our emotional dollars wisely.

Really, who needs all the guesswork? There has to be a strategy, a way to optimize the energy and time invested in the game of love. This is not so farfetched an idea if you compare this to other spheres of our lives. Most of our consumption options and opinions have been preplanned through intense market research, spin doctoring, and other forms of social engineering. I don't believe that the rational systemization of sexual consumption is too hard to believe. So, I went back into my old evolutionary psychology books to try and find some clues as to how we can streamline this whole process.

There is a market out there - a whole lot of sex is waiting to be consumed

For one thing, humans were certainly meant to have sex on a fairly regular basis. Evolutionary psychologists claims to predict the amount of sexual frequency in a species by the size of the males' testicles. The bigger the testicles, the more prone to sexual activity. The average weight of a man's testicles is about one-and-a-half ounces, or 0.079% of their body weight. By these numbers, this puts us ahead of orangutans and gorillas in predicted sexual frequency, but behind a chimpanzee (chimpanzees have big balls). Men, and by obvious implication women, have evolved to desire sex regularly. Thus, we have a good starting point. Our bodies are telling us we have to have it, so now we can work towards understanding who is most likely to have it with whom.

Also, humans are also meant to be slightly polygynous. Evolutionary biologists can predict the likelihood that a species is polygynous by comparing the size of the adult male to adult females--the bigger the male, the more polygynous the species. Adult men are 8% taller and about 20% heavier than adult women. Men would be slightly inclined to have more than one sexual partner at a time. In contrast, a male silverback gorilla--the alpha male--is 200% to 300% larger than the females. Silverback gorillas live in a highly polygynous society in which one male dominates a harem of females. Women readers may be thinking that this article is decidedly chauvinistic. But, believe it or not, polygyny actually harms - in a reproductive sense, on average - more men than women. In polygynous societies most women have access to the good genes of the alpha male, while numerous lesser males are left without a partner, and have to enjoy themselves by reading Maxim and Playboy.

Women by the numbers

So what is it about those alpha males that females like so much? Well, through various experiments and surveys (and just plain common sense) consistent themes appear. Women want men to show physical and social dominance: they like men who are three to four inches taller than they are with sturdy athletic builds, and are good in group situations at commanding attention and making people laugh. They also want men with mature, masculine features such as proportionately thin lips and eyes, wide face, square jaw. Personally, as a slouching loner, I was not happy when I first read this information.

But for those like me there is still hope. If you did not hit the Pick 6 in the genetic lottery (or, as in my case, you were left holding the short straw), you can still get by with the great equalizer - emotional investment. Women simply are not as sex crazed as us guys, and survey after survey has shown that they rate kindness and sincerity highest on their attraction list when considering a long-term partner. There is a reason why the guy looking like Cheech Marin is walking arm-in-arm with the Heidi Klum look-alike.

Men by the numbers

Well, what about men? This is easy. I know what I want, and I don't think I deviate too far away from the norm. Generally men want women who are 2.5 years younger. This is no surprise. Facially, they want women who exhibit the signs of youth: full lips, clear and smooth skin, and big, clear eyes. There is a reason why makeup works specifically on these areas - to mirror youth and fool men.

I think many men, the sober morning after, have experienced PMS - Post Makeup Stress. The bee-stung lips? ... gone. The rosy red cheeks? ... gone. The bright, clear skin that looks like sun is shining from beneath it? ... gone. There, in the naked light of PMS, you curse yourself and blame your stupidity (or your beer goggles). Trust me, I know. I have been there. But in actuality, your fate (and mine) was sealed by a collaboration between Samuel Adams and Mary Kay.

But I am getting off the subject. There is another, more profoundly interesting feature of men's attraction to women. Men want women with a hip-to-waist ratio, in which you divide the circumference of the hips into the circumference of the waist, of around 0.70 (a person with a ratio of 1 has hips the same size as her waist). This is even when controlling for body fat--whether you are big-boned or narrow-hipped, the hip to waist ratio can still predict attraction. So, when men with a healthy share of pigment in their skin (like myself) say that they want "a woman with meat on their bones", it does not mean we deviate from this 0.70 norm. Just check out the latest issue of King (the urban version of Maxim), and you will see what I mean. Those big booties are accompanied by relatively small waists.

Even though women are far more discriminating in their sexual and dating partners, men have developed a selection process of their own. They have a double standard when it comes to women: they prefer shyness and sexual inexperience in long-term partners, boldness, ostentation, and promiscuity in short-term partners.

Just like the men, women have some hope if they too find that they do not measure up to the pin-up models. Men also rate personality - kindness and humor - high on their attraction list. It looks like the women who did not get asked to the prom may get asked to the altar faster.

More Numbers

There is a very high 0.61 correlation for the length of the middle finger (a correlation of 0.0 would mean that there was no relation between the length of the man's middle finger and the woman's, and a man with a long middle finger would be equally likely to marry a woman with a short, medium, or long middle finger, while a correlation of 1 would mean that all women marry men with the same middle finger length as they). There are also correlations between length of earlobe, breadth of nose, and distance between eyes (though these are fairly low ... about 0.2).

So, what is the Equation? After reading all of this research and experimentation and theorizing, am I any closer to understand how to rationalize love? No. Not even close. Actually, if I were single, and took this research to heart, I would be paralyzed by thoughts of height differentials, middle finger sizes, and how much I can make people laugh in a crowd. It would be insane. I would be much worse off than I was in my past single life. At least back then I had a stable routine: I got rejected, had a few vodka tonics to forget, and prepared myself for another round of social self-flagellation.

My guess is that those who read this article were struck with feelings of incredulity and repulsion. Somehow, to all of us, the process of love, no matter how harrowing it is, is more appealing than the alternative I raised in the opening paragraphs. Why this uncertainty is more appealing is a question to be answered elsewhere. But my quick suggestion is that the incredulity and repulsion that may have been felt by reading this article speaks to our innate disdain for the systemization, and implied loss of liberty, of so many spheres of our life. Love is one of the few things in this world we cannot rationally control.

Roderick Graham is a PhD student in the Sociology program.