I've been attempting to make a list of worthwhile books to read on the topic of sex/sexuality, and this is proving to be a somewhat surprisingly, fairly difficult task given the importance of the matter in most of our lives. So, I recently picked up, "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating" by David Buss, PhD Evolutionary Psychologist, UT Austin, University of Michigan.( My point in highlighting his professional credentials is that I wanted to be able to find fault in his research technique as I read along, but overall I found it pretty solid, and I also found his own perspective on the results to be reasonably thoughtful, even-handed, and objective. IOW, he made his personal bias clear, and made it easy to correct for his personal bias, etc.)
It's difficult to read a work that outlines research on what humans generally find attractive in other humans, because there are bound to be revelations that make us personally feel either a bit smug or a bit defensive, because we are all quite vulnerable in this realm. Anyways, here's a bit that popped out at me for obvious reasons:
One key benefit of casual sex to women is immediate access to resources. Imagine a food shortage hitting an ancestral tribe thousands of years ago. Game is scarce. The first frost has settled ominously. Bushes no longer yield berries. A lucky hunter takes down a deer. A woman watches him return from the hunt, hunger pangs gnawing. She flirts with him. Although they do not discuss any explicit exchange, her sexual enticements makes him more than willing to provide her with a portion of the deer meat. Sex for resources, or resources for sex- the two have been exchanged in millions of transactions over the millenia of human existence...
Modern women's preferences in a lover provide psychological clues to the evolutionary history of the material and economic benefits women gained from brief sexual encounters. Women especially value four characteristics in temporary lovers more than in committed mates- spending a lot of money on them from the beginning, giving them gifts from the beginning, having an extravagant lifestyle, and being generous with their resources. Women judge these attributes to be mildly desirable in husbands, but quite desirable in casual sex partners. Women dislike frugality and signs of stinginess in a lover; these qualities signal that the man is reluctant to devote an immediate supply of resources. These psychological preferences reveal that securing immediate resources is a key adaptive benefit that women secure through affairs."
Similarly, men prefer signs of chastity/fidelity in a long-term committed partner, but prefer signals of more easy sexual availability from a short term partner. However, men also do not prefer frigidity in a long-term partner. IOW, in terms of the most sex variant properties of attraction, both sexes (in heterosexual relationship) when shopping for a long-term partner prefer one with a goodly supply of the resource they desire and a strong willingness to share within the relationship, and a strong reserve against sharing outside of the relationship. Of course, as Buss notes over and over again, although his results hold up quite well cross-culturally, humans are highly adaptable, so they may vary a good deal based on context. For example, in Scandanavia, men hold a much lower than average preference for long-term partners who are chaste, because Scandanavian women don't have to be chaste, so they choose not to be, so there aren't very many chaste Scandanavian women to choose. In a sense, the Scandanavian governments provide most of the benefits of long-term sexual partner, so Scandanavian women might be more likely to choose for the features more preferred in short-term partners such as short-term resource generousity, and highly masculine features and behavior.
Anyways, psychological tendencies inherited through evolution aren't a law on human behavior. You can choose to transcend them, to the extent that you first accept them for what they are on the level that they do exist. For example, Bus goes into great detail about how the unpleasant emotion of jealousy was likely adaptive, but notes that within the context of those who practice polyamory it may be transcended to some extent.
IOW, when seeking either short-term or long-term heterosexual female partners, signaling that you have resources and you are willing to share those resources is a key factor in acquiring a mate according to the best research available. The frugal man is better able to signal willingness to share over the long run with a long-term partner rather than over the short term with a short term partner. However, this problem could also likely be solved with some creativity and consciousness of context and as noted by many above through seeking those who are more compatible in resource preferences and sharing mechanism preferences. For example, since overtly mascuiine features and behavior are also more preferenced by women in short term relationships (maybe because primitive women sometimes looked to men for protection in the short term or maybe because more overtly masculine behavior is less desirable in long-term nesting together context, or ??) working on evincing more overt masculinity might be another successful strategy for attracting women for short-term engagements. OTOH, another interesting note was that men who are successful "mate poachers", obtaining sex from women who are already in a committed relationship, sometimes succeed by exhibiting more stereotypically feminine traits. Another strategy that would likely be successful would be to place yourself in a context where although you are frugal, the other men around you are actually impoverished.
IMO, the most high functioning, consistent way to transcend this as a frugal man would be to display your skill-set as a resource (fanning your WOG out like a peacock's tail) along with signaling a willingness to share those resources in exchange for sexual access, but not in a manner that will make you seem uncouth due to your lack of subtle charm. For example, having the willingness and ability to pull over on the side of the road and help an attractive female fix her car problem will increase your attractiveness and your access. Behaving as though you deserve sexual favors for fixing a flat will have the opposite result. This is why mentioning or overtly behaving as though you believe in SMV will also have opposite result. It's like if a woman with large breasts were to walk into a bar and declare "I have large breasts! Who wants to buy me a drink?" Okay, no, on second thought, that analogy does not exactly work....but I think you can see what I mean.
Also, in practical terms, the fact that most modern women view educational attainment as a resource, and more women than men attend college thesedays, puts any man with an advanced degree (many/most members of this forum) well ahead of the pack on that basis alone. It might be interesting to pool the experiences of the FIRE/ERE groups towards perhaps determining whether heterosexual females respond more to the attainment or active ambition in the various forms of resources. The general evidence would seem to point towards a preference for men at or near the peak of their performance in resource acquisition in terms of age alone. IOW, men are viewed as most attractive around the age range they could likely most successfully hunt based on terms of both vigor/strength and skill/experience, whereas women are viewed as most attractive around the age of peak fertility. This is likely why generally men exhibit relatively much lower concern about their potential female partner's financial resource base. It would have only rarely been a successful evolutionary strategy to form a long-term relationship with an older female with an extensive resource base. In fact, when men are attracted to older women it is generally because of perception of increased sexual availabilty rather than due to increased resource base. And, we can also see little evidence of the frugal, hyper-rational heterosexual men on this forum choosing to follow such a strategy, even though it could obviously greatly speed up their progress towards FI. IOW, the fact that you can't completely rationalize desire holds true even for the hyper-rational.
