That which is can be; there's a lid for every pot.

*******
Of the book:

1. About 420 sources for the bibliography.
2. 286 pages of prose/ 12 chapters. ≈24pps/chapter
3. Reading time ≈6 hours

*******
As I read through this cholent of ideas, I would have to say that there's not really much that I haven't read before scattered throughout many other books/articles on sexual evolution (concealed ovulation, etc); It's just that this has a bunch of ideas about sexual selection all in one single place with:

1. A Psychology bent;
2. Comparisons across cultures;
3. Some limited comparisons to others in the animal kingdom.

The revised edition of this book is 20 years old, and the original publication is 28 years old this year.

In some sense, that's not really relevant and that's because evolutionary speculation (and let's be clear that that's what it is--because nobody observed it in real time, nor can they set up the conditions to engineer a certain type of human being) is mostly just a bunch of Just So Stories.

And they all follow the format: "We observe X in nature, and therefore X must have had a selective advantage over some long period of time. And here are explanations a/b/c" (which fall in or out of favor dependent on what's currently in vogue).

For example (p.284): "Voluminous evidence supports the hypothesis that people are not merely not sexually attracted to close genetic relatives, but experience sexual aversions to them."

It's like he almost didn't notice that first cousin marriages are still today extremely common in Middle Eastern countries/ within Hasidic dynasties. Up until very recently, they were very common within European Royal families. (The Habsburgs inbred themselves out of existence. And for that matter, so did the multiply deformed King Tut--who married his own half sister.)


The book is essentially repeatedly telling us that That Which Is Can Be--even though there may be multiple explanations for a single observed phenomenon. (And if we are just describing things that already exist, is it more than intellectual curiosity to know the mechanism of action?)

It may have been beyond the scope of the book, but one thing that I did not see was even any discussion of molecular genetics/ polygenicity/genetic.

Given that the author is a psychologist.... I may have been expecting too much for him to give a little bit of molecular/population genetic discussion--and that is unfortunate, because authors like Robert Plomin have described a lot of these things in terms of polygenicity. (Human behavior is therefore on a continuum and there's no reason to look for "the" cause of a given phenomenon.)

*******
This book also goes over a lot of data that anybody should know who is 25 years old or older and in the dating game. (Really, people even in high school know who is in or out of their league/ the dating game is a cutthroat Hobbesian jungle.)

Who didn't know that:

°°°Men with money/ practical intelligence take the best looking /youngest women?

°°°Men without money or intelligence take what they can get? (And that has to be the explanation called up every time you see a Morbidly Obese Brood Sow with 4 or 5 children and wonder "Who the hell knocked her off?")

°°°Men will get it in where they can fit it in/ All the girls get prettier at closing time? (p.83)

°°°Dating/meeting strategies are tailored to the contexts that one encounters because you can only choose from the options that are actually available. (p.95)

°°°80% of women are after 20% of men?

°°°Mama's baby Papa's maybe? (p. 236); All those episodes that you watched of "Paternity Court" are not extraordinary cases, and maybe every 10th person has a father that's not the one that he thought.

°°°Male homosexuality and lesbianism aren't the same thing, but that the roles of same-sex couples roughly parallel those of heterosex couples? (p. 255)

°°°Making friendships with women is a high risk stepping stone to mate poaching (two guys in my high school got killed in separate incidents trying to poach someone's girlfriend). (p. 266)

So, in that way all of the figures and Repetition of Obvious Things really didn't add all that much value.

*******
Where this book does get interesting however is that it does take a scientific-method/ empirical approach to explaining / deconstructing why it is that some things are attractive and others are not.

-No, it's not because of the patriarchy.

-No, it's not because of the White Male Power Structure.

-No, it's not because of Racist Hollywood Devaluation of Black Bodies.

There has to be a reason that people like Janna DeVylder/Ficki Fiona/ the Antifa women are so repulsive.

Or that black guys who are interested in white girls find their most ready takers among Baby Elephants.

Or that mass movements are essentially sexual strategizing by reproductive losers. (The persistent instability of Africa is parsimoniously explained by noting their penchant for polygamy: if you have enough young men hanging around who cannot find women, what else are they going to do?)

Honestly, I don't know why it is so controversial to observe that mating preferences must have some biological substrate.

*******
I think if enough time passes, this book is going to be reinterpreted as hate literature.

He says such "inflammatory" things as:

1. Biological sex really does exist;

2. Is very easy to explain gendered behavior in terms of evolutionary strategies/differential reproductive success.

*******
Newer Tidbits of information:

1. Homosexuality is not one single thing. Gay men are closer in their preferences to straight men the same as lesbians are closer to straight women. (p.84)

2. Porn is bad idea for men because they'll want what most can't have and not want what most have got. (Nothing about morality.)

3. Porn is really bad for women too, because they will see themselves in comparison to these actresses and not to women on the street.

4. (p.256) An average prostitute has 694 customers per annum. (Ouch.)

5. Westermark Effect; Error Management Theory
*******
Similar/alternative books:

1. Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population. Valerie Hudson.

2. The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. Jared Diamond.

3. The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Matt Ridley.

4. Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. Robert Plomin.


Verdict: Recommended.