Change the Way You View Sex, Love, and Commitment Now With David Buss

Alexander McCaig (00:08):

Hey, David. Thank you for joining me today. And this show's going to come with your background already pre-written into it before people click on it, so I just have to start right out of the gate. Are you married? Have you been divorced? What have your own relationships been like, and then how did it lead you personally to writing this book with the scientific theory and approach to understanding this sort of co-evolutive process between male and female?

David Buss (00:39):

Well, those are personal questions. They're excellent questions, and I'll answer them briefly, but what drove me into this area was really not so much personal relationships or conflicts that I had, although of course I have had them, as have many of us or most of us, but is really the science and reading in the field of evolutionary biology of sexual conflict theory, which has mushroomed and become such an important theoretical edifice within evolutionary biology in the study of insects and fish species and rodents. And it's proved such a powerful theory, sexual conflict theory, in those domains, that I realized that it hadn't really been fully applied to humans. And we are a sexually reproducing species, and so there's no reason why sexual conflict theory shouldn't apply to humans. But let me back up and try to briefly answer-

Alexander McCaig (01:52):

Yeah, we need a personal narrative here, David, so people understand. Yeah.

David Buss (01:56):

Yeah. Well, personal narrative is, I'm... I don't know. I don't think I'm exceptional in my mating. I have been married in the past. I have two kids. I did get divorced from my first wife, married a second time for many, many years. And my second wife, unfortunately, she died an early death due to cancer, breast cancer, which metastasized. And that was pretty traumatic, but I picked myself up and have now been, since then, in a very... I'm not married, but I'm in a very happy long-term mating relationship, is the way I would describe it.

Alexander McCaig (02:46):

Awesome.

David Buss (02:50):

But I guess at a personal level, I have had many friends who have faced issues of sexual infidelity in their relationships, jealousy, sexual infidelity. I've talked to many close female friends who have suffered from sexual violence at the hands of men, ranging from incest, to date rape, to all kinds of horrific things. And so I guess I bring a lot of secondhand personal experiences to bear on the issue. And as maybe we'll get into, as a male... Well, let me back up for a sec. I think men and women have fundamentally different sexual psychologies, and there's this movement that pretends that we don't, that somehow men and women are identical, except by virtue of parents giving girls Barbie dolls and boys trucks and toy guns and stuff.

David Buss (04:04):

And people are worried about sex differences, especially evolved sex differences, for I think well-intentioned reasons, that as they're worried about, well, if there are sex differences in things like cognitive ability, then that will cause discrimination against women. And that's a legitimate concern. But here, what I'm dealing with is not sex differences in cognitive ability, but rather sex differences in our sexual psychology. And it's a no-brainer. I mean, I'm sure some of your listeners are aware of the, quote, replication crisis in psychology and the social sciences.

Alexander McCaig (04:38):

Yeah.

David Buss (04:38):

Well, these sex differences, which we can get into, are highly replicable, they're robust in magnitude, and they're, cross-culturally universal. And so to deny their existence and the theory that best explains their existence is really to engage in a science denialism or sex difference denialism. And so I mean, as a scientist, I have to face the scientific truth. As I mentioned to you earlier, I'd rather be scientifically correct than politically correct. And I realize that some of what I argue and present evidence for may offend some ideological sensibilities, but it's my job as a scientist to be scientifically accurate to the best of my ability.

David Buss (05:32):

And I think that in this case, sexual violence toward women is really at the core of the issue. And the way that I defines sexual violence, and that's why I cover many topics in the book, ranging from deception on internet dating, to conflict within relationships, to stalking in the aftermath of relationships, to intimate partner violence, financial infidelity, sexual infidelity, revenge porn, and all these forms of conflict. But what unites them is bypassing female choice. And so many of these forms of violence bypass female choice. And I regard that as the first law of mating.

Alexander McCaig (06:18):

Yeah. And so let's unpack this, then. And first of all, thank you for sharing your personal narrative and also bridging that into what you've done professionally. I know I hit it right out of the gate, but I'm interested in your own personal experience and how that carries over into what you do, and how you speak to the public, too, just so I have essentially the profile of understanding.

David Buss (06:39):

Sure, absolutely.

Alexander McCaig (06:41):

So if I understand this whole thing correctly, which leads to these aspects of violence, physical or nonphysical violence, maybe emotional violence, is that within mating itself, okay, whether for the male or female, what you say is that there is an optima for both of these parties.

David Buss (07:01):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (07:01):

Now, within the evolution, biological evolution, chemical stimuli, everything that is occurring, certain traits are looked for, certain qualities within that other mate, whatever it might be, of the opposite sex that someone is looking for. But there's also a different spectrum of the time of arrival for when that mating is to occur or the start of that relationship itself, whatever those mechanisms are to engage in that relationship.

David Buss (07:27):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (07:28):

And when you find misalignments of those things, or people or individuals, whatever the mate might be, or people assume to be mates, not aligning on those principles, that you have factors of objectivity of women, making them objects, and also aspects of jealousy because of this time differential and people probably sitting somewhere on this bell curve of attractiveness that force people up to say, "Well, if I can't get what I want, well then let me circumvent sort of the cultural and biological systems that are happening with women themselves and put as much power as I can under my control to put this asymmetry back onto my side as a male." Am I kind of understanding that correctly?

David Buss (08:17):

Yes. Yeah. I would describe it using slightly different words, but I think that, in essence, captures it. So the way that I would describe it is that you're absolutely right. So when men and women, males and females differ in their optima, recurrently over evolutionary time, such as things like how much time you let elapse before seeking sex, or how much investment or emotional involvement you require before seeking sex, if males and females differ in those optima, which they do in that case, then there is conflict where evolution by selection will create adaptations in males to influence or manipulate females to be closer to their optimum, and then females will evolve adaptations to influence or manipulate males to be closer to their optimum.

David Buss (09:09):

So what you have is very much analogous to predators and prey, where you have co-evolutionary arms races, in this case, within a species between the sexes. And so this occurs not just for things like, let's say desire for sexual variety and time elapsed before seeking sex, but even things like mate value discrepancies. So if the guy is a six and the woman's an eight, we know one of the things I highlight in the book is that men tend to overestimate their mate value and their attractiveness, and some men do it more than others. So men who are high on narcissism, for example, tend to... They think they're hot, but they're not.

David Buss (09:49):

And if a guy, a six who thinks he's an eight approaches a woman who is an eight, he gets very angry when she rebuffs his attempts. Or even if he succeeds in attracting the eight, due to that mate value discrepancy, she's going to have opportunities to trade up in the mating market, and so she's more likely to dump him or be sexually unfaithful to him as a result. And same with men, by the way. If men are higher in mate value than the woman that they're with, they're more likely to commit infidelity and to trade up in the mating market. And so there are many of these domains or zones, what I sometimes called zones of sexual conflict, and so we have complex male and female sexual psychologies that are adapted to these recurrent conflicts between the sexes.

Alexander McCaig (10:44):

Right. Now, human beings have an interesting problem. And that being the fact, it feels kind of schizophrenic here, is that we coexist collectively, all of us, but there seems to be almost a lack of understanding or coexistence when it comes to the mating portion of our own biological evolution, where the biology feels like the asymmetry sits in that aspect, but the cultural aspects are demanding symmetry. And I feel that we're having some sort of rub or headache from a lack of understanding of the psychology of both of these parties, and then on top of that, the chemical basis for what's causing people to do certain things.

Alexander McCaig (11:40):

Not to use that as an excuse, but to say that I feel like the biological evolution is being far outpaced with where culture and society are going, but I'm not sure that there's enough of an understanding with where culture and society are headed to really fundamentally say, "This is the proper outlet for how we should view things or develop into," if we don't understand the fundamental base of what you're talking about. Right?

David Buss (12:07):

Yes. So the way I would put it is, rather than biological, I would say evolutionary psychological. So it's really in our evolved psychology. Of course, our evolved psychology is housed in our brains and our bodies, and so yes, it is supported by biological aspects like hormones, testosterone levels, which are 10 times higher in men than women, for example. And that leads to things like men having a higher sex drive and greater desire for sexual variety. But I think it's really the psychological level that we have to talk about, and the cultural aspects, which you very correctly allude to, sometimes push against these evolved psychological aspects. And so we create, for example, the cultural institution of... Sorry.

Alexander McCaig (12:58):

It's okay.

David Buss (13:01):

We create cultural institutions such as, in the United States and Western culture, marriage and monogamy, where it is literally illegal to marry two people in America. So this is a cultural institution, but do people actually follow that? Well, they try to follow that, or some try to follow that, but we know that infidelity rates are high. So Kinsey estimated 50% infidelity rates committed by males and about 26% committed by females. We know that people engage in serial mating. Sorry.

Alexander McCaig (13:38):

No, you're all right.

David Buss (13:39):

I'm going to just put this phone away. I usually turn it off. I forgot to turn it off. Apologies for that.

Alexander McCaig (13:47):

No, no, you're good.

David Buss (13:49):

Okay.

Alexander McCaig (13:49):

Right? And you talk about that McKinsey study. All right. Now, if we look at the infidelity rates being so high, David, and then you use many examples in nature, whether it be the spider or other species. And even if we look at lions or primates, like gorillas and things of the sort that are closer to our own development physiologically, they copulate with many females. And what I find interesting is that they understand a natural asymmetry between the economics of their reproduction, and there seems to strike an interesting balance in terms of safety and longevity, whether it [inaudible 00:14:39] small group or the larger collective of those species out in nature. But we find a lot more difficulties in infidelity and headwinds with the cultural structures of monogamy that we have.

Alexander McCaig (14:52):

And it's interesting that you use a lot of the economics of nature to describe how the psychology has developed, but I feel like we stop the natural psychology... And I'm not saying it's right or wrong to be in polygamous relationships, right? I don't know. But when I know that I look to nature, it happens all the time in many, many different places, and for a lot of things that are closely developed to how we look. So if I try to understand that and then say we have these religious or cultural abutments that we come up against, that creates a lot of internal psychological turmoil for many people, right?

Alexander McCaig (15:28):

Maybe they may find that one partner, you have the relationship of trust and security and whatever it might be, or for the other partner, they work strictly on sexual attraction and nothing more, but it still strikes that sort of psychological balance for that individual. And it actually creates a psychological balance to the perceived asymmetries that they're living within. And so I'm saying there's interesting aspects to that.

David Buss (15:53):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And there are many interesting ways to understand cultural inputs into our evolved psychology. I mean, one... And there are different cuts. One cut is that we create cultural institutions that reflect our evolved psychology. Another is that because mating is inherently a competitive process that is desirable, mates are always in short supply compared to the number of people who desire the desirable mates. What that means is, there's going to be competition. And one thing we know about humans and other species, sexually reproducing species, is that we have evolved to interfere with the sex lives of other people, and we want to regulate them.

David Buss (16:38):

But another one is what I call sexual double standards. And most people, when they think about sexual double standards, they think of male versus female, or it's okay for guys or less morally shameful for guys to cheat than it is for women to cheat. But there are actually other interesting double standards, one that I call self versus partner. So okay if I covet my neighbor's wife, but not okay if my wife is sexually attracted to the neighbor's husband. And so there's a self versus partner, and self versus rivals also.

David Buss (17:15):

So we engage in a lot of moral hypocrisy in the sexual domain, where the morals that we espouse publicly are those, often, for other people to follow, and we don't always follow them ourselves. And so I think that it's a fascinating aspect of the interplay between culture and our evolved psychology that we play this out. And sometimes it's written in the form of laws, like laws against bigamy and so forth. But these cultural institutions change all the time. So for example, it used to be the case that it was against the law for a man to seduce the wife of another man, and so the husband could sue for punitive damages.

David Buss (18:04):

And these laws are still in the books in a few states within the United States, but mostly we've gotten rid of those. And so it was called the alienation of affection laws. But my key point is that the culture institutions we create reflect our evolved psychology. Cultural evolution, of course, as much more rapid than biological evolution. And so in the modern times, we're faced with... You asked, "Where we are removing culturally?" We don't know, but we do know that there's been a dramatic proliferation of online pornography. We know that there's been a dramatic proliferation of online dating.

David Buss (18:45):

So ancestrally, we would've had access to maybe a few dozen potential mates in our entire lifetime. Now we have access to potentially thousands or millions through the internet dating sites. We know that technologies like virtual sex and sex dolls that are increasingly realistic, those technologies are being developed very rapidly. But we invent things. We invent cultural institutions and technologies that are effective in parasitizing or hijacking our evolved sexual psychology. So it's not by chance that male pornography differs dramatically from female pornography, or the pornography that women prefer to consume.

David Buss (19:32):

So with males, for example, it's multiple partners, it's no context, no emotional involvement. It's basically, woman comes into the room, sex starts happening right away. Whereas women's pornography, there's more context, plot, emotional involvement, psychological investment, and so forth, and plays out in a very different context. And so you could say these are cultural creations, but they're cultural creations that reflect our evolved psychology, and in turn, hijack our evolved psychology.

Alexander McCaig (20:10):

So because of what I would understand is the wide availability, access to the internet and an abundance of this sort of pornography, the pornography speaks much more closely to the evolutionary psychology of the individuals. And outside of the very physical realm of being with someone and searching for them, whether it's in your geographic domain or what have you, you have the availability to access it across many different spectrums, and many different flavors, if you would designate it that. So it allows people to dive into it, and that sort of hijacking occurs because of the ease of access. So if I think about the economics, if I were to describe it like that for how you would use it in the book for the time and the energy value of how it happens in nature, I have to walk and search and do labor and do all these things.

Alexander McCaig (20:59):

So hijacking does not occur, really, in that sort of format. You have to put in a sense of effort and searching that goes into it rather than type behind the keyboard and instant access, right? It's like, I get all the dopamine hits here in sort of this false thing that plays through, but in nature, there's work that's required. So I feel like the asymmetries themself call for that energy to be used, which it almost acts as a natural filter where this other technological world sort of unfilter things and just makes it all completely unanimous and available for everybody. And I think that that actually may be hindering our psychology because of how available it might be.

David Buss (21:39):

Yes. Yeah, no, I think that's an excellent point. And that is in fact happening. There are people who are spending hours and hours and hours a day on online pornography, and in real life, sexual relationships have declined. Marriage rates have declined. And so I think that that's part of that hijacking, where if you don't have to put in the effort, you don't. And it's an interesting thought experiment. And this is where virtual reality sex is what we're moving toward.

David Buss (22:16):

If you could have virtual sex that was far superior to anything that you could get in real life, but it's just totally virtual so you could be, I don't know, having sex with Scarlett Johansson, or if you're a woman having sex with, I don't know, Ryan Gosling or whoever the... But would you do that and give up the in real life sex? And it's an interesting thought experiment to see whether we would do that. I think some people would, and in essence, some people are with online pornography right now.

Alexander McCaig (22:53):

So now I'd ask you this, because I'm not an expert in it. As the availability and hours watched of pornography increases for both sexes, is there a decrease in sexual violence that we see happening?

David Buss (23:08):

Well, that's an interesting question, and I don't know of any research directly on that. So for example, do rape rates or sexual assault rates go down in cultures where there's easy access to pornography?

Alexander McCaig (23:24):

Right. Because now I have technological access, so whatever pent-up psychological feelings or states that I have could be expressed through a technological medium rather than having to go out and obstruct some individual's free will to actually get what I want.

David Buss (23:42):

Right. Right. So I don't know of any studies that have examined that issue directly, but there are studies that have looked at other issues like sex ratio imbalance. So when there's a surplus of men relative to women, violence committed by men tends to go up, rape rates go up. And that's actually one of the downsides of a polygenist culture. So in cultures where one man can have four wives, for example, that means there are three men who have zero wives. And so when you have a large pool of young males who don't have sexual access to females, that creates a lot of problems, and sexual violence increases in those sex ratio imbalanced cultures.

Alexander McCaig (24:32):

So this leads me to one of the studies you spoke about in the book, and I was laughing hysterically, because when you were describing men physically vibrating in their chair with anger about the fact with the women being the contraceptive and being okay with the fact of another man or male having sexual intercourse with their wife, knowing that they won't get them pregnant, anything of that sort, so there's nothing for you to worry about, no reason to be jealous, but that's going to occur. Could you explain psychologically what is occurring there, and what is it that is causing sort of this idea of ownership of women being some sort of object or thing that someone has choice over the control of how the woman chooses to use their body, causing them so much to create a physiological response of anger, increased heart rate, sweating, things of that sort?

David Buss (25:31):

Yeah. Well, so at the broadest level, we are all descendants of ancestors, all of whom successfully mated. So we're all evolutionary success stories. In our species, and this is where your comment earlier I think is relevant. Our species has a mating system, or mating systems, which differs from many other species. So we have not just short-term mating, we also have long-term committed mating. And that's actually very, very rare. This pair bonded, committed mating occur only in about three to 5% of mammalian species.

Alexander McCaig (26:10):

Wow.

David Buss (26:10):

So we are actually statistically rare on that. But when you do commit, when a male commits and invests a tremendous amount in one woman and her children, then from an evolutionary perspective, it would be disastrous if those children were sired by a rival rather than you, who's committing those two decades or more of your resources to those children. And so males have evolved sexual jealousy, and what Margo Wilson and Martin Daly call male sexual proprietariness, which is kind of a cumbersome phrase, but it basically means exactly what you alluded to, that men view women that they invest in as theirs, and from an evolutionary...

David Buss (26:56):

So from a psychological point of view, we have this jealousy machinery which is designed to keep partners faithful and to ward off rivals, to prevent infidelity, to prevent defection from the relationship, and to fend off mate poachers. And so this evolved psychology gets activated in males when they're accused of sexual infidelity, because it is sexual infidelity that would've compromised the man's certainty in paternity, certainty that he is the actual father. And so it's not cognitively penetrable, for the most part. In ways, it's almost like visual illusions. You can present someone with a visual illusion. You can explain to them, "This is actually an illusion," but you still experience the illusion.

David Buss (27:48):

Or it's like when you put sugar on your tongue, you will always experience that as sweet. It's hardwired at that level, and male sexual jealousy is one of them. And yeah, we found that men, when they even contemplate their partner, their romantic partner, having sexual intercourse with another man, especially if they have a good imagination, it drives them crazy. Their heart rate goes up, their skin conductance goes up, they start frowning, they start, as you said, vibrating, because it is so... And people say, "Well, maybe men find these images happy." No, they don't. They're upset about them. They find them extremely upsetting.

David Buss (28:34):

And we know that cases of female sexual infidelity, these are big triggers of male sexual violence, physical violence, and sexual violence. And the physical violence I view as sexual violence, because it gets back to that issue of controlling female choice. So the physical violence, intimate partner violence, is often directed toward keeping the woman sexually faithful. And one of the things I think that women should take away from the book is some predictors of when they might be in a dangerous situation as a result of male sexual jealousy.

David Buss (29:13):

So namely, if he's undermining their psychology, putting them down with verbal insults, cutting off her relations with friends and family, and importantly, monitoring her time, insisting on knowing where she's going to be at all times, these are statistical predictors that he's going to engage in physical violence, which in turn is sexual violence, because it curtails her ability to choose when, where, and with whom she has sex.

Alexander McCaig (29:44):

Yeah. Okay. This is immensely interesting. And I will share from a personal stance, I'm currently in a relationship. I have a fiance. And I also do think about the fact that she has had previous sexual partners, not currently with me at this specific time. So I don't think about it in the stance of her being with someone and going through that sort of thought experiment you speak about, but when I consider that, I look at it in the view of respecting that people, women, or my partner in general, has the choice to go through that and evolve and be through those relationships. But I shouldn't be jealous of the fact that they've gone through that or look at them differently because they've made choices. You know what I mean?

David Buss (30:28):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (30:29):

And I feel like there's this strange psychological imbalance that individuals have where they'll look at someone else, but won't flip, essentially, the mirror on themselves to even say, "Well, what about me? How would they perceive it on myself if I've had multiple sexual partners up to this point?" And I found that an understanding through communication within the relationship itself, say for instance, if both of us are walking through New York City, and there's an absolutely, physiologically beautiful human being that walks by. We both know and communicate the fact that that person is extremely sexually attractive. They're very, very good-looking.

David Buss (31:10):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (31:11):

And I feel that... Yeah, I know, but I find this interesting because it helps me understand the psychology of my partner in that sense, what they look through and what they look for, but also the fact that through that level of understanding, I understand that sort of choice, but also how things can be reflected back on myself, right? Well, what else is that I find sexually attractive? And what I found is that the understanding of an individual's choice and respecting that choice and making sure that it's okay for other people to find people sexually attractive, but it doesn't mean that they still want to just jump ship and go over with that other individual. It doesn't need to create that jealousy, right? I think people need to have a natural understanding that we can find many, many people sexually attractive within our own biology or psychology, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to immediately have a trigger of jealousy.

David Buss (32:09):

Right. Absolutely.

Alexander McCaig (32:09):

Right?

David Buss (32:10):

Now, of course, some people do, but yeah. I mean, one of the interesting things is that both men and women, even if they're in happy relationships, find other people to be sexually attractive.

Alexander McCaig (32:22):

Sure. Yeah.

David Buss (32:25):

And it may be disturbing, especially for men to realize that their partner might find some other men to be sexually attractive, but it's a fact. But it's driven by different features of sexual psychology in men and women. So for women, it's often a function of creating backup mates, which in other words, something ancestrally, or even in modern times, something bad could always happened to your primary relationship, and a woman who had cultivated a backup mate would be in a much better position to re-mate if something bad happened to her relationship. And from men's point of view, I think it's driven more by desire for sexual variety. So I got an email recently by a guy who read my book. By the way, I don't know if you mentioned the title of my book. It's called When Men Behave Badly [crosstalk 00:33:15]-

Alexander McCaig (33:14):

When Men Behave so Badly.

David Buss (33:15):

... the hidden roots of sexual deception, harassment, and assault. But anyway, an 85-year-old man read my book, this most recent book, and he said that his brain punishes him. Every day he walks down a New York City block and passes six women, and his brain punishes him because it forces him to evaluate them on how sexually attractive they are. Now, I don't even know if he has a sex life at all, but it's kind of a testament to the fact that this male desire for sexual variety is not necessarily a good thing, because what evolution has created is these desires that can never actually be met in real life.

Alexander McCaig (33:57):

Correct. Yes.

David Buss (34:00):

So many of us live lives of the proverbial lives of quiet desperation, where we have these desires that are not met. Now, of course, a few people can meet them. Maybe if you're Mick Jagger or George Clooney or Leonard DiCaprio, then you can more effectively implement your desires. But for most normal people, we can't. And that applies to women as well.

Alexander McCaig (34:28):

But do you feel that there could be a decrease in the amount of infidelity, sexual violence, emotional violence of men on women if the desire is communicated, but then there is a realization through the actual relationship itself that the needs should take precedent over the desire itself? And I feel like there's an inversion where people are just so driving on desires, whether it's for money, sex, fame, power, any of those things, that it doesn't really look at what our evolutionary needs are, an understanding of unity and having a proper relationship that actually allows us all to coexist and co-evolve properly.

David Buss (35:12):

Yes. Yeah, no, I think that is very articulately put, because the flip side of this is we have evolved long-term pair bonding as a mating, and some would argue a primary mating strategy, and these are cooperative relationships. But in terms of bridging that gap, I think, and this is what I hope my book is used for, is that deep knowledge of our sex differences and our evolved sexual psychology is critical, and that knowledge allows us... So for example, it allowed a man that I talked to who said that, "I find myself attracted to other women, and I originally interpreted that to mean that I didn't love my wife."

David Buss (35:56):

But he realized, "No, that's my evolved desire for sexual variety. It doesn't mean that I don't love my wife." And so it caused him to be more sexually faithful, preserving his relationship because he correctly interpreted it. Evolved love and pair bonding and attachment, one set of mechanisms. Evolved desire for sexual variety, a different set. And you don't have to act on your desires. I mean, all of us have desires that we... If everyone acted on their desires, life would be very crazy in large cities.

Alexander McCaig (36:28):

And I think that desire sometimes acts in a sense of illogic, but our evolutionary psychology and biology works in a very, very logical format. If it didn't, it would fail on itself. And that's an obvious-

David Buss (36:45):

Well, yeah. That we are descendants of ancestors who evolved adaptations to succeed in mating is the bottom line. And so they were all reproductively successful, otherwise we wouldn't be here even having this conversation. And so it's stood the test of thousands or millions of generations of successive filters, and what makes it through those filters is successful mating. And that's why successful mating is the key. What leads to successful mating differs historically for males and females, and that's why we need education about each other's sexual psychology to bridge those gaps.

Alexander McCaig (37:31):

I love that. Thank you for articulating that, because I feel like that's what occurs in my own personal relationship... I feel like I'm having an online therapy session here... is that we educate each other on those aspects of the sexuality, what the attractiveness is, all those things, so that we can better understand and broaden our knowledge of the other half. Because through that understanding, we have a decrease in arguments, whatever those things might be, or even a decrease in any amount of jealousy that might occur, because we really, truly, deeply understand what is going on in the mind of the other individual. And I got to share, we recently did a study through our data marketplace, and we surveyed many people all over the world, and I was frankly astonished at the amount of women that have been through some sort of sexual violence, whether it was from a family member themselves at a young age, old age, didn't even matter, or somebody outside of that.

Alexander McCaig (38:35):

And what I would like to see at the end of all of this is that we really understand our psychological evolutionary roots, we understand the logic for what's occurring, and use that to help us tailor our desires to something that makes a lot more sense, that increases the safety of relationships, the safety of women, and we can still respect the fact that they have that choice. They go through the burden and effort of carrying children, birthing those children, giving them their energy, nutrients, resources. All of those things have to occur, that I want that level of violence to go down as we have an increase in human understanding, right?

David Buss (39:16):

Exactly.

Alexander McCaig (39:16):

That's what I hope for.

David Buss (39:18):

Yeah. And that's the purpose of my book, is to provide the knowledge and the tools for reducing sexual violence and reducing conflict between the sexes. And I think it can be done. I mean, there are encouraging signs. But kind of burying our heads in the sand and pretending that sexes are identical really harms precisely the half of the population that is most at risk of sexual violence. So that is exactly what I hope people use the book for.

Alexander McCaig (39:52):

Yeah. And you put the labor into the book, you drive that understanding that education has to start somewhere with these sorts of conversations, and making sure it goes out to the world at large, these are the things that are important. And you and I may not see it in our lifetimes, but we would hope that through the catalyst of effects for what you have created, what we get to speak about, that it actually does lead to some sort of research and decrease in violence and an increase in understanding amongst us all.

David Buss (40:20):

I'm optimistic that it will, even in our lifetimes. I mean, a number of women have told me that they're going to be giving my book to their teenage daughters.

Alexander McCaig (40:29):

Love it.

David Buss (40:30):

And some have argued that every college freshman should be equipped with the knowledge that's in this book. And so I mean, knowledge is power. It's a cliche, but it's true in this case. And we don't have that knowledge. I mean, you think in our educational systems, we go through it, and people hit adulthood and they hit mating and reproductive competition, and they've never experienced a single course or education in how to have a good relationship. But I'm optimistic, maybe foolishly so, but I don't think so. I think that knowledge can be used to good effect in this domain.

Alexander McCaig (41:09):

I love that. I really do. And beyond the book itself about men behaving badly, and you and I trying to prevent that, where would someone go to find out more about that sort of research? Yourself? Anything else that they can use, especially resources for women that have been in some sort of sexual violence? Are there any outlets that people should look towards that you know?

David Buss (41:33):

Yes. So first of all, I would direct people to my website, my lab website. It's just my name, DavidBuss.com. So if people Google DavidBuss.com, my website will usually come up as the first link there. And on that, I have both links to my books, the most recent one about sexual conflict, and also The Evolution of Desire. I also have links to the original scientific research articles, and those can be downloaded for free. And in terms of tools for women, we've developed, and this is with a former student of mine now, a professor, Josh Duntley, we developed a website called Stalking Help dot O-R-G. And it's to provide victims of stalking with information about what to do about it legally and personally, and which tactics are most effective.

David Buss (42:28):

I also have a chapter in my new book on that, and with advice on which defenses against stalking are most effective and least effective. So that's where I would start. And we're also in the process of developing another analogous website to the Stalking Help dot O-R-G to preventing sexual violence. So I devote a whole chapter in the new book toward women's... Women have about a dozen different defenses to prevent becoming a victim of sexual violence, and so I have a discussion in the book about which tactics are most effective and which are least effective in preventing becoming a victim. So I would direct people to those resource as a start.

Alexander McCaig (43:17):

Fabulous. No, listen, David, I sincerely appreciate the work you're doing. I love the fact that you're being scientifically correct rather than politically correct. I think it's a fantastic logical approach that's going to lead us in the right direction, and I commend you for writing a book and coming on here and speaking about it.

David Buss (43:35):

Well, thank you. It's been a delight to chat with you, and I appreciate your psychological insights into this battle of the sexes.

Alexander McCaig (43:43):

Anything I can do to help, right? We're all trying to evolve.

David Buss (43:46):

Yes, exactly.

Alexander McCaig (43:47):

Thank you.

David Buss (43:48):

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (43:56):

Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?