ALSO BY DAVID M. BUSS: The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives (edited, with Neil Malamuth) The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature (with Randy Larsen) The Evolution of Personality and Individual Differences (edited, with Patricia Hawley) The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill Why Women Have Sex (with Cindy Meston) The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (edited) Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind
Copyright © 1994 by David M. Buss Revised edition copyright © 2003 by David M. Buss Revised and updated edition copyright © 2016 by David M. Buss Published in the United States by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th floor, New York, NY 10107. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at Perseus Books, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail
[email protected] Designed by Trish Wilkinson Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Buss, David M., author. Title: The evolution of desire: strategies of human mating / David M. Buss. Description: Revised and Updated edition. | New York: Basic Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016036547 (print) | LCCN 2016044407 (ebook) | ISBN 9780465093304 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sex. | Sex (Psychology) | Sexual attraction. Classification: LCC HQ21 .B95 2016 (print) | LCC HQ21 (ebook) | DDC 306.7—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036547 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition 1 Origins of Mating 2 What Women Want 3 What Men Want 4 Casual Sex 5 Attracting a Partner 6 Staying Together 7 Sexual Conflict 8 Breaking Up 9 Changes over Time 10 Harmony Between the Sexes Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition
SINCE THE PUBLICATION of the first edition of The Evolution of Desire in 1994, the field has witnessed an explosion of new scientific research on human mating. Although neglected within mainstream psychology for decades, mating is beginning to command the attention it properly deserves. Nothing lies closer to the reproductive engine of the evolutionary process. Those who fail to mate do not become ancestors. Each living human, therefore, has descended from a long and unbroken line of successful mateships stretching back millions of years. If any one of our ancestors had failed to traverse the complex hurdles posed by mating, we would not be alive to ponder these improbable feats. Our mating minds—the glory of romance, the flush of passion, the triumph of love—are fortunate products of this evolutionary process. The original publication of Desire was greeted with a gratifying amount of attention, but it also provoked some strong emotions. The intensity of sentiment probably reflects the importance of the topic. Humans don’t seem well designed for dispassionate intellectual discours