David M Buss is an American evolutionary psychologist. Our thanks to Peter for his review of Buss’s book The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (2016):

This book is a well-written and enjoyable read. It shows how, in the mating ritual, our choices and inclinations require no conscious deliberation, calculation or awareness. We have evolved these instincts because, for several hundred thousand years, they allowed humans to find a mate and have children; humans without these drives did not.

I was motivated to read this book because of the way feminists either deny human nature, or demand that we jettison our instincts. The book explains, en passant, why women sometimes ignore feminist diktats. In places the book is also sexually partisan: men are judged and found wanting; whereas women are just following their instincts, bless ’em. For this reason the book lost traction for me in the middle, but it had redeemed itself by the end.

1. Courtship (p.242). Women impose courtship costs on a man, namely, extended time, energy and money. This allows women to evaluate how committed a man is. Men just seeking sex will go elsewhere. This is a sensible strategy. But it is risky for men to persist nowadays. Later (p.248) the author says that when a man is repeatedly turned down for a date, then this amounts to sexual harassment. You can’t have it both ways! This is one of the ways in which feminism works against women’s interests.

2. Intimate Partner Violence (p.243). In the discussion of psychological abuse, it is disappointing to find Buss, an ostensibly serious scientist, using the word ‘mansplaining’ – this is a b.s. word taken straight from the feminist male-bashing lexicon. (He does have the good sense though to put it in quotes). Apparently it’s just men who resort to psychological abuse! Really? Hasn’t he heard of relational aggression? The book then proceeds to physical violence, which, if we are to believe Buss, is perpetrated only by men. This shrine of feminist mendacity caused me to doubt the depth of the author’s research, or his impartiality. If you lift the lid that feminists keep on this subject, you can quickly find that women initiate domestic violence to a considerable degree. Better-researched texts are ‘Domestic Violence’ by Donald Dutton, and ‘When Women Sexually Abuse Men’, Philip Cook and Tammy Hodo.

3. Infidelity (p.277) and infertility (p.279). Women’s infidelity and infertility are more responsible for divorce than men’s infidelity or infertility. Both of these discrepancies are, apparently, a ‘double standard’, since, as Buss tells us, ‘women are blamed more than men’. Buss is not, however, remotely censorious or judgemental whenever double standards work against men, of which there is certainly no shortage. For example, it is entirely in accordance with evolutionary psychology that men will prefer a certain female waist-to-hip ratio, this being a key indicator of fertility; but nowadays this preference is ‘sexist’. It is not sexist, however, for women to consider a man’s height. Give me a break.

4. ‘The Evolutionary Origins of Patriarchy’ (p.333). This title raised my hackles, but the chapter redeems the book to a large degree. (The label ‘feminist evolutionist’ says all you need to know about a scientist’s unpolitical stance. It is also specious – feminist engineering, anyone?) This chapter is yet another reminder, if any were needed, that if men control status and resources, then this is because, duh, women select men who have status and resources. Moreover, men strive to control resources mainly at the expense of other men, not at the expense of women. As the author says, ‘Women and men are both victims of the sexual strategies of their own gender and so can hardly be said to be united with their own gender for some common goal’. ‘Simple-minded views of a same-sex conspiracy have no foundation in reality’. I hope David M. Buss has his c.v. typed up, the feminist-industrial complex will be coming for him. We can’t have him going around telling the truth, it’s sexist.

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