Quotes from David M. Buss

Women's reproductive success has historically been limited not by the number of mates they can accumulate but, rather, by the genetic quality of a single mate, by his ability to accrue resources, and by his willingness to funnel those resources to her and her children. All modern women have inherited these mating desires from their successful maternal ancestors.

Men who were indifferent to the sexual contact that their wives might have with other men ended up raising their rival's children more often than men who didn't tolerate their mates' indiscretions. So modern men have descended not from these indifferent men, but from men who strived, and succeeded more often than not, to maintain exclusive sexual control of their mates.

Since men prize fidelity, women do battle with other women both to display signals of fidelity and to disparage their rivals by impugning their fidelity.

In sum, the empirical status of the father-absent hypothesis is mixed and points to the possibility of gene x environment interactions in predicting the effects of father absence on female sexual development.

La inversión que la mujer anhela es precisamente la que el hombre guarda más celosamente. El acceso sexual que el hombre busca es precisamente el recurso que la mujer entrega de forma más selectiva.

Women's heavier reproductive investment in producing their offspring means they are by far the more valuable reproductive resource. As a general rule, the more valuable the resource, the more people compete for access to it. Men must compete with each other for sexual access to women. Women can afford to be choosy since they are in greater demand when it comes to sex.

Most women are unwilling to settle for men who are less educated, less intelligent, and less professionally successful than they are. Men are less exacting on precisely these dimensions, choosing to prioritize youth and appearance. Women who make more money than their husbands tend to leave them.

The fact that women who are engaged in casual sex as opposed to committed mating shift their mating desires to favor a man's extravagant lifestyle, his physical attractiveness, his masculine body, and even his risk-taking, cocky "bad-boy" qualities tells us that women have specific psychological mechanisms designed for short-term mating.

Quienes no se emparejan no se convierten en antepasados. Cada ser humano, por lo tanto, desciende de una línea larga e ininterrumpida de otros que se emparejaron con éxito a lo largo de millones de años. Si uno de nuestros antepasados no hubiera conseguido salvar los complejos obstáculos que supone el emparejamiento, no estaríamos vivos para reflexionar sobre tales hechos improbables.

Nuestros pensamientos relacionados con el emparejamiento -lo maravilloso del idilio, el arrebato de la pasión, el triunfo del amor- son el producto afortunado de ese proceso evolutivo.

el conflicto en la pareja es la regla, no la excepción.

Women of striking beauty are desired by many men, but only a few men prosper in attracting them. The qualities of kindness, intelligence, dependability, athleticism, looks, and economic prospects are all present rarely in the same person.

Quienes en nuestro pasado evolutivo no consiguieron emparejarse de forma adecuada no se convirtieron en nuestros antepasados.

Pervive en nosotros el legado sexual de esas historias de éxito.

permanecer con un mal compañero no contribuye a que una persona transmita sus genes con éxito. Descendemos de quienes supieron cuándo cortar la relación.

The romantic fallacy occurs when we see ourselves through the lens of utopian visions of what we want people to be.

La falacia antinaturalista tiene lugar cuando nos contemplamos a través de las lentes de la visión utópica de cómo querríamos ser.

Men deceive women by feigning an interest in commitment to achieve a quick sexual score. They also feign confidence, status, kindness, and resources that they lack. Men try to abscond with the sexual benefit without paying the cost of commitment.

Evolution operates by the ruthless criterion of reproductive success, no matter how repugnant we may find the strategies produced by that process, and no matter how abhorrent the consequences of those strategies may be.

The fact that there has never in history been a single case of women forming a war party to raid neighboring villages and capture husbands tells us something important about the nature of gender differences—that men's mating strategies are often more violent than women's.

Men have evolved particular mate preferences for sexual loyalty, a psychology of jealousy centered on sexual infidelity, and a proclivity to withdraw commitment when cuckolded.

La convergencia de intereses durante toda la vida de dos personas que no comparten los genes es tal vez la hazaña más sobresaliente de la historia evolutiva humana.

common phobias of heights and snakes can be cured relatively easily through short-term desensitization therapy.

Women who succeed appear reproductively valuable by embodying physical and behavioral cues that signal their youth and physical attractiveness. Women who fail to fulfill these qualities lose a competitive edge. Because men place a premium on appearance, competition among women to attract men centers heavily on enhancing their physical attractiveness along youthful and healthful lines.