Chapter 20: Mating Strategies

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Chapter 20: Mating Strategies

“Only about 3 percent of animal species are monogamous. A couple of penguins, some otters and a few other oddball critters. To these select few it comes natural to mate for life and never look at another member of the opposite sex. Humans are not part of that little club. Like the other 97% of species, humans are not monogamous by nature. We just pretend that we are.”

― Oliver Markus–

Let’s dive into another gloomy subject, since mating strategies are way darker than what you may think (this is not sarcasm!).

First, let me begin by stating some general knowledge. Researchers at the University of Oslo have found that there is a correlation between infidelity and the size of males' testicles in primates.

They said: [If the male will only fertilize one female and has no competitors, he only needs sufficient sperm to reach the egg. If the female mates on the side, it is smart to have as many cars as possible in the race. The testicles of humans are one and a half times larger than those of gorillas.

This testifies with abundant clarity to life in our flock. We can pledge our fidelity until we are blue in the face, but this is evidence that our females are cheating.

We are not like chimpanzees, where the female has four or five sexual partners every time she is in heat, but there is always a certain likelihood that the neighboring male has dropped by.]

Huge testicles that produce high quantities of sperm are useful to promiscuous species because in that case, one’s mate could easily be filled with another male’s semen, and in order to elevate one’s chance of impregnating as many females as possible, the males need to produce massive amounts of sperm. By doing so, one’s sperm might overwhelm the sperm already inside the female, ensuring that the individual male will have higher chances of impregnating multiple partners.

This strategy is a waste of energy for species that are not promiscuous, which is why they have tiny ball sacks.

When comparing the body to the size of the testes from humans and animals, we are kind of in the middle of the scale. We are far from having small family jewels, but we don’t possess the largest, which positions us on a slippery slide. Actually, we are more or less on a kind of giant pendulum that constantly sways right to left under the whim of our instincts. Now, let’s dig head first into the mysteries of mating strategies:

1- Rape: Rape is used as a last-ditch mating strategy. It happens more frequently when there is poverty, war, famine, or when females are scarce, and there are too many males (male-to-female ratio imbalance). It is a phenomenon that occurs a lot when environmental conditions are at their worst, and most rapists have lower IQ, they lack resources, and are generally unsuccessful with women. Rape is a serious offense that is punishable by law, it hurts people, and it is the worst mating strategy.

2- Spreading the seed / promiscuity: Screw as many women as you can and invest nothing in your children; this is the essence of spreading the seed. There is a short-term bonding mechanism present in a lot of men that is responsible for generating a strong chemical reaction of ‘‘love at first sight’’ in the initial phase of a relationship. It is not a conscious process, and this chemical reaction ensures that the man bonds really, really fast with his partner. This last generally long enough to allow the man to knock up his girlfriend, before eventually losing interest in her.

The chemical rush that affected him initially will quickly fade, and the man will find a new partner to fall in love ‘‘at first sight’’ once again. Vasopressin is a hormone linked with love and attachment in males, and the number of vasopressin receptors in a man can accurately indicate whether or not he is likely to adopt this mating strategy or not. Men with a high number of vasopressin receptors are mostly monogamous, while the others are prone to spread the seed. Other factors that encourage the spreading the seed strategy are an abundance of resources and promiscuous women. When resources are plentiful, men do not have to feel guilty about spreading the seed, and when women are promiscuous, men cannot easily ascertain paternity, which discourages paternal investment.

It doesn’t make biological sense to invest your time and resources into someone else’s child, and as more and more women are becoming promiscuous, fewer men are willing to be monogamous and offer their parental investment. It doesn’t matter if a particular woman is faithful and monogamous, as the actual risk of investing years or even decades of time and resources into a child that is not yours (when most women in your area are promiscuous) is enough of a deterrent for many men to choose the spreading the seed strategy. Since we live in a welfare state that gives plenty of support to single mothers, men won't feel too guilty when abandoning a woman, and since almost every woman has slept with multiple partners and are considered promiscuous in historical standards, we see more men begin to adopt this strategy. On the women’s side, promiscuity is an excellent way to get gifts and resources.

Most of the time, merely the prospect of sex is enough to entice a man into giving away money and resources, and having multiple ‘‘males orbiters’’, along with several sexual partners, can be a highly lucrative business for a woman. While spreading the seed and promiscuity seemingly procures a lot of advantages for both men and women, it is one of the worst methods one can use to raise children.

This mating strategy produces an epidemic of single mothers, and children from single-mother households tend to have lower IQs, be poorer, drop out of school, abuse drug, and alcohol, be incarcerated, become ``teen mom`` or single mothers themselves, or become rapists! In fact, prisons are packed with delinquents that originated from single mother households, and around 70% of rapists come from fatherless homes.

Conclusions, spreading the seed and promiscuity have pros and cons, but are arguably immoral.

3- Sneaky male / sneaky wife: The sneaky male strategy is when a man impregnates someone else’s wife, leaving her and the woman’s husband to raise his kid. Unlike most animals, women do not exhibit any particular signs of fertility when they ovulate, and a man can never be sure if his partner his actually pregnant with his child or if she is pregnant by someone else’s seed. If a woman is impregnated by another man that bears a resemblance to her husband, it is possible that he won’t suspect anything and that he will devote a significant part of his life to this offspring.

For the ‘‘sneaky male’’ this is the ideal scenario. He gets to pass down his DNA, his child will receive a lot of parental investment and will most likely be successful in life, while he himself only had to leave his semen inside of a married woman. While it is highly advantageous for the sneaky male, it is also a good thing for the sneaky wife, as she can potentially get impregnated by a man with superior genes that she couldn’t get to commit and settle down with, while her husband continues to provide for her.

This situation is at the expense of a good man that will blindly work for an untrustworthy wife and a bastard child without a single clue as to what is transpiring. Another kind of sneaky male is the ‘‘beta sneaky male’’.

In contrast to the previous example, the beta sneaky male is not genetically superior to the current husband of the wife, but he parades a lot around her and offers his time and resources. He is the ‘‘high-school friend’’ that the wife goes to when she is depressed and wants some comfort. Since this man gives her more attention than her successful husband that is away on business trips most of the time, the sneaky wife will eventually open her legs up for the beta sneaky male.

The first type of sneaky male is an alpha male that spreads his seed without giving anything to women, because he is the ‘‘hot stuff’’. The second type is the beta male that does the same thing with the help of time and resources, acting as a kind of secondary provider for the woman. This is also to the benefit of the sneaky wife, as she gets gifts, attention, and emotional comfort for free. As a side note, more than one in four DNA paternity test results in the husband not being the father of the child, so this mating strategy is a lot more prevalent than we may think. Conclusion, the sneaky male/sneaky wife is arguably immoral.

4- Polygamy: Polygamy is when a man marries several women. To a successful and wealthy man, polygamy is a perfect mating strategy because he can spread his DNA and throw in a stable amount of resources and parental investment into every single one of his children. Not only will he have a lot of children, but he can also raise them to his image and ensure that they will have a successful life. Each time one of his wives grows older, he can add a new one to his harem and easily satisfy his sexual needs. On the women’s side, even though they have to share a husband, the women all get their hands on a highly successful man with superior genetics; biologically speaking it is a good thing, and they also get a stable provider who is rich.

Since the man is allowed to add new members to his harem, the fear of being tossed away and replaced by younger women is negated, which can be highly reassuring for a woman. The first wife can have a lot of influence in the family, and she can enjoy the privileges of her seniority. While the younger wives do not have that status, they will get more attention from the husband because of their youth and beauty. For successful males and most women, this scenario is an ideal mating strategy, but for the average man, it is catastrophic.

On a broad spectrum, if say the 20% top men monopolized all the women, what would be left for the other 80%? The answer is nothing! This would cause violent outbursts of unrest in the male populace, which would likely take form in higher numbers of violent crimes and rape. Polygamy may seem advantageous for the top men and for many women, but it disregards the well-being of the average man completely. Unless there is a shortage of males (and too much females), the benefits derived from polygamy do not outweigh its drawbacks.

5- Monogamy: At first glance, lifelong monogamy is seemingly a good idea. It gives a woman to every man, and we all get a chance to reproduce, which is nice. It is also a mating strategy that ensures a lot of parental investment, which is good for the children. Women get a stable provider and a person to raise their children with, which also seems right. But if we look at it more closely, pure monogamy is incredibly risky. If we take all other mating strategies out of the equation and focus entirely on monogamy, things are not looking too good for both women and for men.

First, if the average woman cannot be a sneaky wife and cannot join a polygamous harem, then she can completely forget the idea of being together with a highly successful man. She will have to lower her standards, commit for life and bear the child of a beta male. The majority of women will have to make that choice since only a handful of the most attractive women could ever hope to settle down with a top man. Since the average woman couldn’t be the sneaky wife in this scenario, she also wouldn’t be able to bear the child of such a desirable man.

Women could also forget about all the gifts, money, and attention that they would get from promiscuous behaviors, which means even less benefit for them. Settling down with a beta male, bearing his children, and saying goodbye to gifts, money, attention, and the highly attractive and successful men may not be as bad as it sounds if a woman gets a reliable provider, a loving husband, and a caring father for her kids, right? But, there is a catch. In a monogamous relationship where religion and the government are not involved, the woman is taking an enormous risk.

Once the woman grows old, and her sexual market value is at its lowest, since she lost her youth, beauty, and fertility, it is entirely possible that her husband will lose interest in her and replace her with a younger woman. The thrown-out woman that already lost her looks, youth, and fertility would never be able to find a man of the same caliber as her ex-husband.

Since her sexual market value would be at its lowest since she was born, she would most likely end up alone, or she could always dramatically lower her standards and find an unsuccessful man. This is an incredible risk for a woman! Biologically speaking, lifelong monogamy makes no sense, which is why most women always have male orbiters, or if you will, a ‘‘Plan B’’, ‘‘Plan C’’ and sometimes a ‘‘Plan D’’.

With lifelong monogamy, a woman put all her eggs in the same basket, and if that basket breaks she stands to lose everything. Monogamy goes against some of our most primal instincts, and it could never be a successful system unless society and religion were heavily involved in regulating the life of married couples. Monogamy is a system that can only work with the ‘‘help’’ of rigid external forces, and even when we are surrounded by myriads of regulations and laws that ensure that we do not divorce each other, we break it anyways.

In nature, species that are monogamous will naturally form lifelong unions, and they do not need a religion, a state, or a community to help them do so; they naturally pair bond, and they stay together for life. For them, an external force that would pressure them into lifelong commitment would be completely useless. This is why I argue that humans are not designed for monogamy. Since we need a myriad of regulations just to stay together, doesn’t that mean that we are forcing ourselves to do it? If we were like birds, wouldn’t we form lifelong relationships without the need for institutions like marriage, civil unions, or common law marriage? Yes, we would, which means that we are somewhat monogamous, but not entirely.

Normally, women would potentially have more to lose in a monogamous relationship than a man, but as I already explained in previous chapters, in the modern era men have way more to lose because of the current laws, which is a reversal of natural tendencies. As a matter of fact, men are avoiding long-term relationships at an alarming rate because of this reversal and the birth rates of developed western countries are all below replacement levels. To recapitulate all of this, in a type of monogamy that is free from regulation, women would have too much to lose and will instead resort to other mating strategies to balance things out, and we have seen earlier that these other mating strategies are more or less immoral.

In ‘‘traditional monogamy’’, both men and women are heavily regulated by law, communities, and religion, which means that they are tied to their relationship until death. This takes advantage of young and impressionable people who are under the influence of intense hormones rushes to tie them together for life, and the purpose of this is to create powerful countries.

The truth is, this state of affairs disregards the individual’s wishes completely in order to favor the creation of families, which compels men to work more, paying more taxes in the process, and it ensures that women will produce numerous children, which secure a high birth rate. All of this must be rigidly maintained by the state, community, and religion or it will break apart like a fragile castle of cards, which only goes to show the fact that it is manufactured.

Finally, in modern monogamy where men have everything to lose, we see catastrophic birthrates that are below replacement levels, and that may just spell the doom of our society…

It could either be doomed by a destructive kick in the nuts to our economy, which couldn’t be maintained by a decreasing population, or by mass immigration that would stabilize the workforce at the price of completely wiping out our culture. Since immigrants tend to have large families while we can’t even maintain our own population, we would eventually be heavily outgrown in numbers, and our country would become entirely different, for better or for worse. In this case, we would have to let go of our culture, and there would be no going back.

Cultures that promote high birth rates are exclusively patriarchal ones, which mean that as they outgrow us, the immigrants would bring back a rigid system of traditional monogamy to our country.

We are a species that hangs between two extremes, never to land on safe ground. Like a pendulum, we periodically swing from spreading to seed to monogamy, or from the sneaky male and wife to polygamy. No matter how we look at it, every mating strategy is flawed in some manner.

Although it may be uncomfortable, be sure to question yourself about what you want and on what really matters. I hope that this chapter will serve as an eye-opener to many and that this glimpse into human nature will help you to realize that things are not always as they seem to be. Also, mating strategies are purely meant for procreation, which is why I didn’t include lifestyle choices like polyamory or open relationships, as they are not related to this particular subject. Sperm banks would simply be classified in the promiscuity and the spreading the seed mating strategy because in this scenario males get to have children with minimal involvement, and women can access the sperm of an endless number of men.

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