Is Male Androphilia a Context-Dependent Cross-Cultural Universal?

Hames, Raymond; Garfield, Zachary H.; Garfield, Melissa J.

doi:10.1007/s10508-016-0855-7

Cited by 16 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Overall, reputations related to sexuality were rare in our data. Sexuality may have been a taboo topic in some ethnographic contexts, but the ethnographic record includes rich descriptions of human sexuality [60,61]. It is possible that our search strategy did not capture much of the ethnography of reputations related to sexuality.…”

Section: (B) Gender Differences In Reputation Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: a view from the evolutionary social sciences

Garfield

Schacht

Post

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Reputations are an essential feature of human sociality and the evolution of cooperation and group living. Much scholarship has focused on reputations, yet typically on a narrow range of domains (e.g. prosociality and aggressiveness), usually in isolation. Humans can develop reputations, however, from any collective information. We conducted exploratory analyses on the content, distribution and structure of reputation domain diversity across cultures, using the Human Relations Area Files ethnographic database. After coding ethnographic texts on reputations from 153 cultures, we used hierarchical modelling, cluster analysis and text analysis to provide an empirical view of reputation domains across societies. Findings suggest: (i) reputational domains vary cross-culturally, yet reputations for cultural conformity, prosociality, social status and neural capital are widespread; (ii) reputation domains are more variable for males than females; and (iii) particular reputation domains are interrelated, demonstrating a structure consistent with dimensions of human uniqueness. We label these features: cultural group unity , dominance , neural capital , sexuality , social and material success and supernatural healing . We highlight the need for future research on the evolution of cooperation and human sociality to consider a wider range of reputation domains, as well as their social, ecological and gender-specific variability. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

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Section: (B) Gender Differences In Reputation Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: a view from the evolutionary social sciences

Garfield

Schacht

Post

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Given the reproductive costs associated with this trait, one would predict that any gene associated with male androphilia should have become extinct due to the forces of sexual selection (Darwin, 1871). Nevertheless, male androphilia reliably occurs across diverse cultures (e.g., Hames et al, 2017) and has persisted for millennia (e.g., Crompton, 2003; Sweet & Zwilling, 1993).…”

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confidence: 99%

Facial symmetry of the sisters of Thai and Istmo Zapotec androphilic males.

Jiménez¹,

Skorska²,

Zahran³

et al. 2024

Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences

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Male androphilia (i.e., sexual attraction to adult males) is considered an evolutionary paradox because it reduces direct reproduction but is influenced by genetic factors, reliably occurs across cultures, and has persisted over evolutionary time. The hypergyny hypothesis rests on the premise that the female relatives of androphilic males possess physical traits that signal fertility, such as elevated symmetry. If this premise were true, such traits could help attract reproductive partners with higher socioeconomic status, thereby furnishing resources to produce and sustain multiple offspring. This, in turn, would help females to offset their androphilic male siblings' lack of reproduction. The present study examined whether the sisters of male androphiles have elevated facial symmetry compared with women without androphilic male siblings. Sixty-six women with androphilic male siblings and 271 women without androphilic male siblings were recruited from Thailand and the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Results demonstrated no significant differences in facial asymmetry between women with and without androphilic male siblings. In the absence of such a difference, this study, like previous ones, does not support the hypergyny hypothesis as a viable explanation for the evolutionary paradox of male androphilia. Public Significance StatementMales' sexual attraction to females and females' sexual attraction to males is perhaps the largest and most phylogenetically widespread of any psychological sex difference. The occurrence of exclusive male same-sex sexual attraction in most human cultures deviates from this common pattern. The present study is significant because it attempts to elucidate the evolutionary basis of male same-sex sexual attraction-a trait that has long perplexed evolutionists.

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