Human Sexual Conflict from Molecules to Culture

Abstract

Coevolutionary arms races between males and females have equipped both sexes with mutually manipulative and defensive adaptations. These adaptations function to benefit individual reproductive interests at the cost of the reproductive interests of oppositesex mates, and arise from evolutionary dynamics such as parental investment (unequal reproductive costs between the sexes) and sexual selection (unequal access to opposite-sex mates). Individuals use these adaptations to hijack others' reproductive systems, psychological states, and behaviors-essentially using other individuals as extended phenotypes of themselves. Such extended phenotypic manipulation of sexual rivals and opposite-sex mates is enacted by humans with the aid of hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters, emotions, language, mind-altering substances, social institutions, technologies, and ideologies. Furthermore, sexual conflict may be experienced at an individual level when maternal genes and paternal genes are in conflict within an organism. Sexual conflict may be physically and emotionally destructive, but may also be exciting and constructive for relationships. By extending the biological concept of sexual conflict into social and cultural domains, scholars may successfully bridge many of the interdisciplinary gaps that separate the sciences from the humanities.

Of Mice and Men

“…Context includes both environmental-level input and individual-level input (e.g., availability of resources and one's own value as a mate, respectively). Such input serves to shift behavioral preferences to maximize reproductive success (see Goetz & Shackelford, 2006a, 2009Gorelik & Shackelford, 2011). As with defensive behavior, a simple positive or negative evaluation of a target is not enough for predicting mating behavior.…”

Female Genital Cutting Restricts Sociosexuality Among the Igbo People of Southeast Nigeria

“…Women may obtain benefits from extra-pair matings (e.g., a higher number of children : Scelza, 2011; food for children : Scelza, 2013;and offspring protection and survival: Hrdy, 2000). FGC is costly to women and potentially beneficial to men, indicating that the origin and maintenance of FGC is partially attributable to sexual conflict over reproduction (Gorelik & Shackelford, 2011).…”

“…Men and women have sometimes conflicting reproductive interests (Arnqvist & Rowe, 2005;Parker, 1979;Trivers, 1972) that have produced sex-specific adaptations wherein one sex manipulates the reproductive interests of the other sex (Arnqvist & Rowe, 2005;Gorelik & Shackelford, 2011). For example, a woman may commit sexual infidelity, which allows her to receive benefits from her in-pair partner (e.g., protection, resources, and paternal care for offspring; Hrdy, 2000;Scelza, 2011Scelza, , 2013, while receiving different benefits from her extrapair partner (e.g., a sire with ''good genes'' for her offspring; see Gildersleeve, Haselton, & Fales, 2014).…”