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Although I'm probably an "evolutionary psychologist" on some levels, I disagree with a lot of the far-fetched, seemingly politically-motivated conclusions of many of the most prominent voices in the field, and find the methodology behind a lot of the research to be cause for professional embarrassment. Still, it seems clear that the human brain and, to some extent, cognitive processes bear the mark of adaptive pressures. So, evolutionary psychology works as a way of interpreting some behavior, but a lot of evolutionary psychologists often appear to be more interested in attention than serious science (not all of course, but many).
It's kind of like being a Marxist but not a Communist: as a way of understanding, it works. As a way of advising people on how to live, it's tricky and tends to attract cranks.
Today this article jumped off the computer screen at me. "Wealthy Men Give Women More Orgasms." Yeah, right.
Researchers found a correlation between Chinese women's reported orgasmic frequency and the male's reported income: “Increasing partner income had a highly positive effect on women’s self-reported frequency of orgasm. More desirable mates cause women to experience more orgasms,” the scientists reported. Another article on the research breathlessly proclaims that, "Scientists have found that the wealthier the man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms. They believe that this 'evolutionary adaptation' is programmed into women which drive them to be 'gold diggers.'"
That's right ladies and gentlemen, the neo-Darwinian crowd says your mother's "programmed" to be a gold-digging whore. Welcome to the wonderful world of "objective science."
Aside from the very real possibility that men who tend to lie about their income may be attracted to women who fake and lie about their orgasms (They deserve each other!), what I love about this line of reasoning is the innocence underlying these conclusions.
Listen to famed evolutionary psychologist David Buss explaining the import of the study: "Female orgasms … could promote emotional bonding with a high-quality male or they could serve as a signal that women are highly sexually satisfied, and hence unlikely to seek sex with other men,” he said. “What those orgasms are saying is ‘I'm extremely loyal, so you should invest in me and my children’."
Forget real estate or government bonds. Invest in me, baby!
Is that what those orgasms are saying? Even if the methodology stands up to scrutiny (I haven't seen the paper, if it's been published yet), isn't there a much simpler understanding of what those orgasms signify?
Like women practically everywhere, Chinese women have been cut off from the means of taking care of themselves and their children for millennia. There are few places on earth where it's not at least a severe hardship to be a single mother. Being able to relax is itself a major source of female orgasmic potential, as this study suggests. Let's see if women in Sweden, where women don't need a partner to ensure the economic security of their children, are motivated by a sexual partner's income. Let's see whether women with no economic worries have as many orgasms with rich carpet salesmen as they do with brilliant, admired (but low-income) artists. Anyone wanna wager on that?
Another way to see how misguided this is would be to ask how women evolved to be "gold diggers" in an environment in which "gold" had no value.
The point is that studies like this one are conducted in a socio-economic context that simply did not exist in prehistory, when all this evolving supposedly took place. Yet the central conceit of mainstream evolutionary psychology is that these findings reflect some eternal truths about men, women, and the allocation of resources. The fact that there's a gaping hole in the center of their narrative doesn't stop them telling us what female orgasms are saying though...
(revised 1/22/09):
Just came across this quote from W.D. Hamilton, one of the 20th centuries greatest evolutionary theorists:
“Sometimes the ‘good genes’ imperative becomes so strong for reasons of changing parasite ecology, and… this causes infidelity to become so frequent, that monogamy breaks down altogether. The idea is that it might be a combination of parasite ecology and permissive states of ‘ordinary’ ecology that starts to create promiscuous [birds] out of their monogamous passeriform forebears. Of course, the ‘permission’ from ‘ordinary’ ecology in such cases would mean essentially that the female is able to rear a brood by herself… There is, of course, a very great deal of complexity in such a human situation that birds could never have. Particularly there is the transferable wealth, which to my mind overshadows even the role of rational thought.” (my emphasis)
Narrow Roads of Gene Land, Vol. 2, p. 707-710
(update #2 1/26/09):
Just read a fantastic piece in the New York Times on female sexuality and various scientists who are working in the field. You can read it here, if interested.
