Evolutionary Sexology. Has it ever been so present in the popular media as it has been in the past few years? Or was it always lurking, exposed now only because of the prevalance of Digg, which is essentially a big group of nerds driving content ratings?
Maybe we just need it now. Modernism, Postmodernism, post-post modernism have come and gone. So where are we now? Are we so utterly tired of looking for the causes of our behavior in that amorphous, undefined “society” that we’ve turned in frustration back to science in search for answers? We identify more and more chromosomes every day. If they can find the one for Downs Syndrome, surely there must be a cheating chromosome! And man, do we love studying the whole smell-out-your-mate theme.
The article’s premise is this: according to “studies,” men and women with dissimilar MHC genes are more likely to have successful relationships, while those with similar MHC’s become dissastified with their mates. In this study, non-pill women blindly chose similar and dissimilar MHC mates at about 50%.** Once on the pill, those same women were overwhemingly attracted to those with similar MHCs. The handy evolutionary biolgical answer? Pills are like being pregnant. Pregnant women don’t need to search for new mates, and in fact would probably seek out those who are genetically similar, like relatives who might help rear the offspring.
Whew! I’m resisting the urge to make a lame joke likening that conclusion to hamstring stretches. Lets just say that, like most conclusions of this sort, I’m left with a vaguely uneasy feeling.
** Anyone notice that this isn’t really all that impressive? If women who aren’t on the pill can only choose mates that are supposedly compatable half the time, then aren’t we just screwed anyway, pill or no pill? I wonder if this has anything to do with the 50% divorce rate in the US. Woah! Check that out! See? I can use unrelated data to make sexy conclusions too!
