Why Aren't Men the Pretty Ones?
Like many animal species, human women are more sexually selective than men. But we are *also* the more adorned and groomed of the species. What went wrong?
Human sexuality differs from the sexuality of other animals in many ways. First of all, humans are some of the only creatures to partake in oral sex along with our primate cousins and more distantly sheep, squirrels and (I have major questions about this one) spiders.
But also, modern-day humans are largely monogamous, and while some people might criticize monogamy as “unnatural,” it is basically the best way for a civilization to function, especially a post-industrial one. As I wrote about before, polygamous societies are often more violent in part because of a huge number of sexually frustrated men. Yes, that’s right: pussy is a finite resource. Having multiple wives may be a fantasy for some men, but it is not “natural” for men at large because a society where some men have multiple wives is a society where many more men are horny, involuntarily celibate cannon fodder. And for gorillas, well, the incels just turn kinda gay.
But there’s one striking difference between humans and other animal species that I find perplexing: for many animals, it’s the males whose beauty is on display, while the looks of the females are unimportant. As a little girl, I was saddened to learn that all the beautiful teal-headed ducks I saw at the pond were boys, and the girl ducks looked like complete shit.
Peacocks are an even more obvious variation on this trend, where male peacocks are beautiful enough to inspire an entire aesthetic in 2009, complete with tiny fedoras on headbands adorned with peacock feathers, while female peacocks look like, how do I put it, the “Eileen Fisher version” of a peacock.
While less obvious, some mammals follow this pattern of the preening, colorful male and the dowdy female who selects mates. Take, for example, deer and their antlers as a show of male beauty. Or male mandrills, who display their bright red and blue facial markings, correlated with virility, to much plainer females. Lions’ manes display not only sexual maturity but attractiveness to females.
But modern-day Western humans are notably different—it’s not just that we don’t partake in this type of sexual dimorphism but we actually do the opposite. Women who want to be sexually attractive to men put far more time and effort into their appearance than men do. The more adorned, glamorous of the human species is quite obviously the female. And many are fine with this imbalance, even as the beauty gap has widened dramatically over time. People, especially men, will casually state that men’s value is in their status and resources, while women’s is in their looks, not giving this juxtaposition a second though (methinks it is more appealing to see yourself as attractive because of things you control, and therefore, most men understandably do not want to examine women’s physical preferences any further!)
But we have a severe imbalance now, in part because unlike birds, human females are also the more sexually selective of the species, making their primping and grooming kind of…extra. What’s the point of all this looksmaxxing if you’re already the sexually selective gender? Any bird who witnessed human sexuality would consider us crazy. And the weird part is: many olden-days humans might too.
How did we get ourselves into this ridiculous imbalance?
