Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love (9 page)

Women have always wanted men with resources or the potential to gather resources, so they have developed cues not only to evaluate if a man could get resources but whether he would share them. Essentially, women developed a mental list of behaviors that show a man could be willing to dedicate his resources to her. Only human males share resources with females. Other primate females must find their own food and protection.

Evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists who study human mating strategies have found that women everywhere generally agree on the important characteristics they want in their men. Here are the top five things women say they want from men:

1. Love
   

2. Faithfulness
   

3. Kindness
   

4. Commitment
   

5. Education and intelligence
   

When you study the items on this list, they all add up to what women describe as “love.” A woman wants to be reassured every day that she is loved and adored, and she needs his words and intimacy as proof. The list of favorite things a woman want to hear includes “I love you,” said in as many ways as possible, such as “You’re beautiful,” “You cooked a wonderful meal,” “You did that well,” or an unexpected phone call to say he’s thinking of her. Showing appreciation of anything a woman does in the home is also decoded as an expression of love, and love implies a man will share his resources with her. In divorce cases, women regularly say that men take them for granted and never show appreciation of their efforts in the home. This is because a man feels that his efforts of being the main breadwinner (as most men still are), fixing broken things around the home, solving problems, or changing lightbulbs are sufficient proof of his appreciation and love.

Women believe that if a man really loves a woman, he should show it every day with his words
and
actions. Women want a daily demonstration of love. This is a difficult concept for a man to grasp because he shows the expression of his love by “doing things” for her. He’ll mow the lawn, paint the house, fix her car, take her to the movies, go to work, and pay
off the mortgage. The man’s brain is organized to measure his self-worth and contribution by what he does or achieves, not by what he says or feels.

In
Why Men Don’t Have a Clue & Women Always Need More Shoes
we showed how women’s brains are better organized for language skills than men’s and how words are a form of foreplay for women. Men need to understand that women need to hear actual words of appreciation and love to believe it is true, and to hear them daily. Remembering important dates like birthdays and anniversaries also rates highly on a woman’s measurement of a man’s love. Bringing gifts, however small, tells a woman a man loves her—and the simpler, the better: A small flower from the garden and a handwritten love note or card are winners. The point is that a man’s
actions
are the key, not the actual gift. Most men, however, feel that a gift must be large or expensive because that is how they measure the worth of gifts. For a woman, the gift of a handpicked flower from the garden carries more clout than receiving an electric toaster. Twelve roses may be perceived as a decoration for the home, but there is no doubt in a woman’s mind of what a single rose means.

Fidelity offers the promise that a man will continue to share his resources with a woman, but a woman’s definition of infidelity is very different from a man’s. A man is concerned that she might have sex with another man, which could result in
him investing his time in raising another man’s child. A woman’s chief concern is about the emotional connection between her man and his fling. This is why her first question is always “Do you love this woman?” In other words, “Will you commit your resources to her?” The actual sex he had with her is not her prime issue. If a man says, “No, it was just sex,” he will rarely be believed, because women cannot understand how you can have sex with someone without first having an emotional connection. But for men, it’s easy. Men can compartmentalize lust and love in the brain, so that sex is just sex and love is love. The bottom line for women is that sex equals love, which equals redirection of his resources. If a man says he’ll be faithful, a woman feels that he won’t share his resources with someone else.

According to Dr. Buss’s research, kindness ranks third most desirable by women in thirty-two cultures because it also symbolizes commitment. Reproductive resource is the key item a woman can offer, so she is discriminating about whom she will give it to, and love, sincerity, generosity, and kindness are her prerequisites. Ancestral women preferred generous men and avoided tightfisted men because the generous ones would provide resources and protection for her and her offspring, giving them a greater chance of their survival.

Women who have their own resources, status, and power still go for men with their own resources. Buss found that almost all women, regardless of culture, showed a strong preference for financially successful men and that financially successful women showed an even stronger preference for these men because they want a man who is stronger than they are. This is why you’ll rarely see a rich, powerful, successful woman with a man who is a total loser. We conducted a survey of 624 European female executives, and 86% said they would not be interested in men who were less successful than
themselves, 9% said they would consider the idea, and 5% felt it wouldn’t matter.

So how do the aging female movie stars who couple with much younger males fit these findings? These are usually older, successful women who have a string of younger, less successful men. First, from an evolutionary standpoint, these unions have no value, because the women have no reproductive value, whereas a sixty-year-old man and a twenty-five-year-old woman do. For every five women aged sixty, there are only three men of similar age available, so an older woman’s choices are more limited, whereas older men have a preference for younger women—they’d rather have a thirty-five-year-old woman than a sixty-year-old if possible. An older woman can feel young again with a younger suitor, but a younger man will enter this type of arrangement because of the benefits he can get—money, power, fame, and notoriety. In other words, she has resources—money, status, connections, and power—and he’d like to have some, please. This is not to say that a coupling between an older woman and a younger man can’t last—some do—but most don’t.

Conversely, the famous union of Anna-Nicole Smith and her eighty-seven-year-old billionaire husband made sense—he was in it for the glamour and sex with a busty young blonde, and she was in it for the power, prestige, and resources. He told her he loved her, and he showed kindness and pledged fidelity by marrying her. It’s unlikely she would have married an eighty-seven-year-old man on a government pension who lived in a nursing home. If he had few resources, he would most likely
only have married an eighty-seven-year-old female pensioner and that would be mainly for company. Interestingly, all studies demonstrate that men everywhere show little preference for a woman’s economic status, regardless of how many resources they have personally. In other words, the CEO of a huge corporation is likely to be attracted to the same woman that the male junior clerk in the company is attracted to. Think of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

A man who promises commitment pledges he will continue to provide resources. Women everywhere accuse men of being commitmentphobes and love escapees. When you consider what commitment means from an ancestral woman’s viewpoint, it makes perfect sense. A sexual liaison for her would involve a commitment for ten to fifteen years to carry and raise a child to self-sufficiency. For a man, however, the same encounter would cost only a small amount of time—maybe just a few minutes—and then he’d be off to his next venture. Because a man is wired to spread his genes as often and widely as possible, many men fear commitment to one woman and dread the idea of eternal monogamy, and most men understand that commitment means sharing their resources.

“I want him to show commitment” is the cry of women everywhere. It takes nine months for a woman to bear a child and at least another five years to raise the child to a minimum level of self-sufficiency for basic survival. Compare this to a baby chimpanzee, which can survive alone after only six weeks of life. As a result, women’s brains became hardwired to search for males who will commit to stay around for a minimum period of six years to participate in the provision of food and protection for them and their offspring. On a subconscious level, men and women recognize this phenomenon and it is often called “the seven-year itch.” It is detrimental to infant survival for a woman to couple with a male who makes
her pregnant and leaves or offers no support, so women became hardwired to closely scrutinize what any male can offer to raising the next generation. To most women, marriage is still seen as the ultimate indication a man can give that he intends to stick around. Being the childbearer, a woman makes a total commitment to the creation and nurturing of the next generation, and she wants a male who will commit to the same. This is why trust is such a critical factor to women in a relationship. From a biological standpoint, a woman doesn’t want a male to be involved in the procreation and rearing of another woman’s offspring but to dedicate his efforts solely to her offspring. This is why being monogamous is a prerequisite in a relationship for nearly all women in contemporary societies. When a woman’s trust is broken, it can be difficult to repair the relationship, and women who suffer several broken relationships can become cynical about whether any man can be trusted.

It’s much easier today to get information on a man’s current or possible resources, but if he’s not prepared to commit them to a woman and her children, then this is seen as a liability, because without this support, she’d have to fend for herself. The prime criterion a woman will use to measure a man’s potential for commitment is … love. As we said earlier, research on love has shown that it exists in every culture in the world where love studies have been conducted. In the study by Buss, he collated a list of 115 “acts of love” as described by the women in his research project. The number-one item on this list was any act of love that demonstrated commitment. These acts included avoiding or giving up romantic relations with other women, talking about marriage and children, listening
to her problems, being there for emotional support when necessary, and the giving of gifts.

Sincerity is the most sought after attribute by women in personal ads. Women ask for sincerity four times more often than men ask for it. Sincerity is another word for commitment, and commitment carries the promise of resources.

A man with higher education and intelligence is seen as being more capable of acquiring resources. Higher education means he’s likely to hold more senior positions in the workplace and therefore have more power, status, and resources. Higher intelligence promises the potential for the same things.

Although women today are still hardwired to be attracted to men who are financially secure, they also strive for financial security for themselves. In past generations, this was not an issue, because marriage meant
forever
and the man would always be there to provide for the woman and her children. And because past generations had large families, they also had the benefit of a large support network. Today, there is no guarantee that a man will be there for a woman tomorrow. For example, the number of families in Britain headed by a solo mother is 19.67%; that’s one in five families.
³
This compares to 2.16% solo male heads of family, so personal financial security has become a real issue for women.

This is not to say that every woman wants to marry a millionaire, but she definitely doesn’t want a man who gambles, takes unnecessary risks with money, or spends too much on himself. Past generations of women had little choice but to tolerate financial recklessness and “stand by their man,” but twenty-first century women see this behavior as irresponsible and read it as a sign that he doesn’t love or respect them.

When a man wants to capture a woman’s heart for the long term, he does it with a ring. And the bigger or more expensive the ring is, the more it signals to her—and to all other women—that the man intends to commit his resources to her. Put simply, the more outstanding the ring is, the bigger his commitment of resources to that woman is seen to be by
all
women. Even if a man is short on cash, he is better to take a loan and buy a significant ring than to give a woman a small or insignificant one. This is a point most men don’t understand. A woman will look at her rings regularly, and they remind her of a man’s commitment to her. Female friends also look at each other’s rings to gauge men’s commitment. Even if the couple live in a modest home and drive an old car, the woman’s ring was purchased specifically for her and is seen by women as a public declaration of the size of his love and commitment to her.