I couldn't agree with this more!! Nobody wants to be in a relationship with a leech. Someone that challenges you is so different than someone that edifies you. That was well put.
If having the Y chromosome were the only differentiating factor between males and females, mate selection would not occur. Every encounter between a male and a female would then be a mating opportunity (provided that they are both of mating age). Given that there are roughly as many males as there are females in the world, meeting someone of the opposite sex is not a limiting factor. Having sex with a female could then be modeled as a fair coin toss: 50% chance she will, 50% chance she won't. If you plot the count of men that have a certain number of sex partners against that number of sex partners, it would then be a perfectly symmetric binomial distribution. If we assume 100* interactions in a lifetime** , the mode/mean/median would be 50 sex partners. Very few would have sex with 0 partners, very few would have 100 partners all consenting to sex. Crucially, it would all be down to luck. However, this is not what happens in real life. Look up Natsal-III, a comprehensive statistical study of sexual habits in the UK. I have reported the table with the proportions of sex partners that people have in a lifetime below: What leaps to the eye is that the median for both men and women is way lower than the mean. This means that the distribution is very right-skewed: few people have had many sex partners, most people have had some, and someone (not many) have few. Crucially, men have on average more sex partners than women. Now, we could claim that this is due to the well-known tendency of men to overstate how much sex they have, and women's tendency to understate it. However, this assumption in and of itself would be evidence of an aspect of masculinity (pride in sexual conquest) and one of femininity (sexual modesty). The theory that there is no difference apart from the Y-chromosome would already be rejected. If we also assume that there is a real effect that explains this distribution's skewness, it becomes possible to posit other differentiating factors. You have mentioned that looks play a role. I agree. In fact, I bundle them under "masculinity", because certain looks make a man more attractive. Other factors like power, money (which is a consequence of power) and social intelligence increase the chances of finding a sex partner. Risk taking increases the chances of interaction (e.g. asking a girl out), and this in and of itself is mostly a masculine quality. The overarching theme is that right-skewed distributions are, in human sociology, invariably related to a social structure with very few leaders, many followers and a few misfits: for example, salaries are right-skewed because those with the highest income occupy leadership positions. When it comes to sex, the same patterns emerge: a few inept males, many somewhat competent males, and very few extremely sexually fit males. Mind you: I haven't proven that what causes skewness in the distribution is masculinity, because that cannot be proven mathematically, given the complex nature of masculinity itself - you'd have to find a way to measure masculinity using numbers. However, I have proven that your claim of men and women differing merely by a chromosome, with no consequences on their behavior, does not explain the data observed in the real world. * I have chosen 100 interactions arbitrarily, but even if the average number of interactions were 50, or 63, or 144, the symmetry would be preserved. That depends solely on the probability, which is 0.5. ** I am not calling them "dates" because the term implies mutual evaluation of fitness. In a hypothetical world where the only difference between male and female is the Y-chromosome, such an evaluation does not occur.
And why should the difference of overstating/understating sexual encounters between men and women point to a presumed difference beyond having the Y chromosome ? In case you want to attribute the difference to a biological cause of course. Is it the only possible answer to consider ? Aren't there any other alternatives that would explain it better ? We need to take into consideration the roles attributed to each sex , the ideas of men being default providers and women needing to rely on them, are lingering and still alive even these days. It would be foolish to jump into a vague conclusion where masculinity is behind the skewness, while there are two masculinities : a pure biological and relative cultural one. All these calculations you made only reflect the resulting consequences of centuries of male dominance over all vital sectors, and the views induced by it. As well as how masculinity became associated with many traits, amongst them financial prowess.
It's funny to me how the same data can be used to confirm opposite biases. I think all it really says is men and women are different. Whether the differences are consequent of biology or cultural expectation isn't defined. All I want is to do my own thing without being treated with suspicion, just because my pants are packing heat.
