
Why women stray - q-base
https://aeon.co/essays/does-the-mate-switching-hypothesis-explain-female-infidelity
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IgorPartola
For a counter theory, try reading Sex at Dawn. It's far from perfect. The
authors accuse "the establishment" of picking and choosing evidence to show
that men stray to spread their genetic material, while women are glorified
prostitutes: seeking shelter, food, and security from men, while trying to
obtain superior genetic material by cheating. They then turn around and pick
and choose their own evidence to support the theory that humans aren't and
were never genetically monogamous, and that we stray because we are trying to
force monogamy as a fundamental human condition. Nevertheless, the evidence
they do present is compelling enough to show that monogamy isn't fundamental
to humans or our closest relatives.

For an even better read, try Mating in Captivity which talks about sex and
intimacy from the point of view of examining couples whose sex life has died
away. This is better place to start if you want to understand cheating.

~~~
jseliger
_For a counter theory, try reading Sex at Dawn. It 's far from perfect_

It's worse than far from perfect; the authors misread, misconstrue, or make up
evidence, and they ignore countervailing evidence:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2010/07/21/sex-at-dawn-
christopher-r...](https://jakeseliger.com/2010/07/21/sex-at-dawn-christopher-
ryan-and-cacilda-jetha)

~~~
IgorPartola
> The book argues that humans are not “naturally” monogamous. That might be
> true. But Sex at Dawn doesn’t prove it. The data are ambiguous.

Exactly. I still found it a stimulating read, but my "the evidence they
present isn't justified" senses were going off from chapter 1.

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hitekker
Related article, [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/why-
hap...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/why-happy-people-
cheat/537882/?single_page=true), which gave an empathetic and intriguing
perspective on cheating, without being too forgiving of the cheaters
themselves.

~~~
q-base
Thanks! That was actually better than the one I posted.

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Mz
This article and its hypothesis are both just so incredibly, horribly bad. I
don't even know where to begin, and I feel ill equipped to comment in a way
that isn't some scathing, scoffing violation of HN guidelines. Geez.

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cko
Can evolutionary theory even be taken seriously? It seems some people,
especially in the ‘manosphere’ accept it as Gospel. It used to attract me
because ‘oh what a convenient explanation for everything’ but later I started
thinking that’s all it was - something fun to think about but not a foundation
for policy or practical action.

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DoodleBuggy
> Can evolutionary theory even be taken seriously?

As opposed to what? Are you a proponent of creative design or young earth
creationism?

> especially in the ‘manosphere’ accept it as Gospel

What is a "manosphere"?

~~~
cko
No, I wasn’t careful with word choice. I was referring to highly theoretical
field of evolutionary psychology.

The manosphere is a place where male bloggers try to understand the dynamics
of mating and sometimes evolutionary psychology is used as evidence.

~~~
mercer
My impression is that evolutionary psychology is largely all the worst parts
of psychology made appealing because, well, who can argue with evolution.

