June 16, 2023 • 21 mins
Why can't you tell when a woman is fertile? Why did humans evolve to have concealed fertility? Let's talk Hidden Eggs!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Why is it that you can't tellwhen a woman is fertile? In fact,
she may not even know herself.I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. Concealed fertility
in humans has contributed to the sexualdouble standard good fathers and strippers who make
more money when they ovulate. Thisis Mating Matters. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh,
(00:21):
and this is Mating Matters, thepodcast that looks at human behavior through
a very sexy lens. You shouldknow that I'm obsessed with the science of
relationships. Understanding the biological, psychological, and social pressures on people makes me
enjoy life more. It makes memore understanding, more forgiving, more compassionate
(00:42):
to others and myself. And Iwant you to see life in the same
technicolor version that I do. Youknow, even when we're not thinking about
sex, our ancient programming makes usrespond to reproductive cues that impact just about
every decision we make. We arewired to reproduce. In today's episode of
(01:06):
Mating Matters Hidden Eggs, we askedthe question why did humans evolve to have
concealed fertility? All that means isno one knows for sure which magical Three
days each month a woman can becomepregnant, and most of the time not
even the woman. So how doesthis impact the way we relate to each
(01:26):
other? Well, why don't westart at the beginning, in the delivery
room greet. It is usually thehappiest moment in a couple's life. For
men, it's the culmination of thearduous task of finding a date, girlfriend,
(01:48):
or wife, getting her to matewith you, and hanging around for
nine whole months while female hormones ruledroost. For women, it's the sometimes
dangerous journey of finding a healthy matewho might even hang around for a few
years. If you've ever been asingle woman on dating sites, you know
how hard this is. But thenit gets physically challenging. Nine months of
(02:09):
pregnancy that might include morning sickness,bedrest, and crying jags that make PMS
look mild. And then there's laborand delivery. If I had to go
through this one hundred years ago,I don't know how I would have done
it without the help of pre doctorsand my nurses and my partner to get
(02:34):
through it ouch. But after allthat, women go through the pregnancy,
the labor, the delivery, atleast they're left with one reassuring fact.
There's no doubt who the mother is, but the father men can never be
too sure. That's because human femaleshave concealed fertility approximately three days in the
(02:59):
month, and women in their childbearingyears can become pregnant, and even women
aren't aware of when these three dayscome. Could it be that his sperm
reached the egg during that mysterious windowof ovulation? Could he be sure that
no other man gained access during thatmonth? You know, sperm or survivors.
(03:19):
They can live in a woman's vaginafor five days, waiting for the
egg to arrive, or standing readyto encounter another man's fighter sperm. Those
are the fastest swimmers. They're ejaculatedfirst with the sole mission to kill any
lingering men's sperm. So who won? Which guy is actually the father?
(03:49):
He makes these really cute faces sometimesthat remind me of my husband. It's
the chant of new mother's everywhere.If you ask any postpartum mother who she
thinks the baby looks most like,she's far more likely to say daddy instead
of mummy, no matter what thebaby looks like. It's always been speculated
that this worldwide female behavior evolved toelicit care and protection from a man who
(04:13):
might not be certain about his paternity. Now there's new research to show this
actually works. Professor of economics atBinghamton University, Solomon Policek and his partner
Marlon Tracy from Southern Illinois University studiedfour hundred and fifty six couples. Now,
these couples were not married, norwere they living in the same home.
(04:35):
These are called fragile families. Whatthey found was interesting. When the
baby looked like the father, thechild was healthier one year later, and
that's not always because of heartier malegenes. The researchers say that if a
father believed the child looked like him, he actually spent two and a half
(04:56):
more days a month caring for hischild and check in assessing the economic needs.
You see, men invest more ifthey believe a child is actually theirs.
And really does a newborn look likeanyone when they were born? They
both look like me. Weirdly enough, my older son, when he was
about five, looked identical to mywife like there was some kind of weird
(05:18):
shift. And my younger son looksidentical to my father like. People always
say, he looks like your father, which he should look more like me,
right. Having concealed fertility isn't commonin all primates. Take Creasey's monkeys,
for example, how do they spota fertile female. It's all in
the face reading. Researcher James Highamof the German Primate Center in Gerdigan,
(05:42):
Germany, found that when a femaleRees's monkey is ovulating, her facial features
change ever so slightly, and eightyfive percent of the males can see the
difference. But there's a catch.Only if he knows her well. In
order to pick up the subtle cuesabout fertility, male Resea's monkeys need to
become friends first. Males who spendtime getting to no females tend to pick
(06:08):
up on sexual signals much better.Gives new meaning to friends with benefits.
For baboons, no mind reading orfacial decoding needed at all. One of
the most conspicuous of all signals ofprimate fertility is the large swellings displayed by
(06:29):
female baboons. The Ambaselli Baboon Projectin East Africa is one of the longest
running studies of wild primates in theworld. Researchers there have been studying baboons
for more than four decades. Specifically, they have studied the range and size
of female well but valva labia,let's just call them swellings. Look,
(06:50):
if you were glued to National GeographicMagazine as a kid, you've probably seen
these oversized, bright red, bulginglips that female baboons showcase, and biologists
hypothesize that the size of a female'sswelling contains important information for males to know
when to procreate. In fact,the scientists at the Ambassari Baboon Project found
(07:14):
that indeed, changes in swelling sizewithin each sexual cycle correspond with ovulation.
Unless you think we humans are sodifferent. Scientists even speculate that our human
preference for full lips, lip injectionsanyone or bright red lipstick are just one
primate copying another. But human beingsare different. Our faces don't change much
(07:43):
when we're ovulating, and as faras I know, our volva does not
balloon up like a baboon's red butt. For the most part, men can't
consciously tell that a woman is fertile. In fact, most women can't even
tell they are ovulating unless they havehelp from technology. I have no clue
when I'm olating. I use anapp for that. I don't think I've
ever really tried to track it.The only way I know I'm ovulating is
(08:05):
because I'm on birth control. Humanovulation, a state once thought to be
undetectable without medical equipment or an app, actually creates a range of subtle but
definitely observable behaviors, and these femalebehaviors are aimed at attracting the best possible
mate. For instance, researchers BornhardFink at the University of gotten And in
(08:28):
Germany, along with colleagues Benjamin Langand Nadine who Guilt, found that women's
bodies move slightly differently when they're fertile, and men can pick it up.
In this fun study, the researchersvideotaped forty eight women dancing to music.
Then they had two hundred men watchthe videos and rate them on a scale
(08:50):
of attractiveness. It's a feminist I'mnot so sure I like this hot or
not game, but it does providesome interesting information. Turns out, men
rated the obviating women more attractive.But do women notice anything different about themselves
when they're ovulating? I don't thinkI could tell if I'm fertile or not
no. I mean, maybe I'llcrave an extra cheesy pizza or something.
(09:11):
But besides that, I actually can'ttell when I'm ovulating. I definitely do
feel a little bit more attraction tomen, a bit more feminine, Like
I want to speak a little softerwith them, I want to come off
a little bit more sexier when I'mwalking past them. Wait did she say
(09:31):
she tries to make her voice softerand more breathy or could her voice be
changing naturally when she ovulates. ResearchersGreg Bryant and Marty Hazelton at the University
of California, Los Angeles set outto test this idea. Like all good
scientists, they began with an assumption. Their assumption that higher, more breathy
voices are more attractive to men becausethey signal youth and fertility. After all,
(09:56):
didn't Marilyn Monroe's breathy voice wow anaudience and the resident in nineteen sixty
two with a simple rendition of HappyBirthday, Happy Day two, Happy Birthday
two, Happy Birthday? Pressure areUCLA researchers didn't have Marilyn Monroe as a
(10:22):
test subject, so they used femalecollege students instead. They recorded the voices
of sixty nine women interesting number scientistsand gave the women hormone tests to determine
where they were in their menstrual cycle. The women were all asked to say
the same thing, Hi, I'ma UCLA student. Hi, I'm a
UCLA student. Hi I'm a UCLAstudent. Hi, I'm a UCLA student.
(10:46):
Then the researchers calculated how their voicewas different. Turns out women unconsciously
raise their voices when they're ovulating.Interesting, but do men pick this up?
A study that asked this question lookedat strippers. Jeff Miller, Joshua
(11:07):
Tiber, and Brent Jordan at theUniversity of New Mexico had to spend many
arduous weeks interviewing strippers about their ovulationschedule and helping them count their money at
the end of the night. Sureenough, exotic dancers who do not take
the birth control pill earn more moneywhen they're ovulating. On average, they
earn nearly four hundred dollars more pernight when they're ovulating. But what are
(11:31):
the men picking up on? Somesay it's scent. Pheromones may signal fertility,
but it could also be the conditionsof an average strip club. Strip
clubs tend to be loud, theytend to be dark, and strippers make
the most money not on stage,but by doing private lap dances. And
(11:52):
how do these ladies sell their labdances? Well, in a noisy,
dark club, there's only one way. They get real close and whisper in
a customer's ear. Boys, youlike a laptance. Dude gets a double
whammy of signals, both scent andvocal tones. And if she's ovulating,
he apparently is willing to dig deeperinto his pockets and pull out more money.
(12:16):
The list of human female behaviors thatsignal fertility goes on. Research has
shown that during ovulation, women fantasizeabout sex more often. They're more likely
to wear red or pink clothing,back to copying those red monkey butts,
and they're more flirty with bad boys. Also, college girls call their fathers
less. But what about the menwho can't pick up on these signals?
(12:39):
It's not a perfect science, andeven in the studies, some men fail.
Or what about the men who womendon't often choose for reproduction? The
movie The Forty year Old Virgin isevery Man's Worst Nightmare. Andy Stitzer has
lost a lot of girlfriends. I'msorry, but there's one thing he never
(13:03):
lost. Are you a virgin?Oh? You are hilarious. M this
is good. You're a virgin?How can you go? Forty years?
And I have set to prevent sucha calamity. Over the centuries, men
have created social systems that increase theirodds that they'll get to mate with a
woman and help to keep competitors away. You might have heard of one.
(13:24):
It's called monogamy. Evolutionary psychologists suggeststhat the only way a man could be
sure that his girlfriend or wife gavebirth to a baby that was his was
a blocker from other men. It'scalled mate guarding. And if you've ever
dropped by your mate's office to strutyour stuff in front of a new,
(13:46):
threatening, cute coworker, you've practicedmate guarding. Both genders do it by
sticking to one sexual partner. Monogamymay have evolved as a form of mate
guarding those gallivant in groups of gatherers, Females with children in tow along with
sisters, aunties, and friends wereconstantly moving. If a dude wanted to
(14:07):
be sure his lady was carrying anegg, that he fertilized, it better
stay close to her butt. Thus, you could say that men invented monogamy,
but they also invented a kind ofpsychological warfare to combat concealed fertility.
It's time to face the facts.How many relationships do I have to have
before I meet the right guy?Or an? America? Ninety six percent
(14:28):
of women who have been with twentyor more lovers and can't find a husband
twenty. That seems very high.No, it's low. The movie is
called What's Your Number because even Hollywoodknows that women worry about this. In
fact, the fear is pervasive thata woman will be shunned by all men
if she's revealed to be promiscuous.It's called the sexual double standard. That's
(14:54):
a social construct that gives men pointsfor sexual experience and gives women merit points.
Trust me, men invented this one. It's so psychologically crippling that women
are embarrassed to reveal their number.I don't ask them, they don't ask
me. I don't want to talkabout it. I don't want to know
who you've been with, and you, I'm sure you don't want to know
(15:16):
who I've been with. So let'sjust avoid it. Oh okay, so
the sexual double standard, Um,I think, yeah, I think that
definitely revealing your number, you thinkthat somebody's going to judge you by it
as a woman, So I thinkthat I probably avoid that conversation. Yeah.
(15:37):
I don't think I've ever had aman asked me what my sexual partner
number was. I think, atleast in my experience, that isn't a
question that comes up. It's almostlike, don't ask, don't tell.
I think that they would get thisalpha male mentality and say that they can't
be with a woman who's been withother men. It can't visualize it because
it just kind of ruins the theidea of her as a pristine, proper,
(16:03):
clean woman. It just kind ofruins that idea in their head that
they've come up with. I thinkif I told a man I had a
high number, that he would thinkthat I was a slut. That would
make him feel that he doesn't oweme any kind of respect or he doesn't
owe me a quality relationship. Sowhat's a girl to do? On face
(16:25):
value? The reproductive system of havingconcealed fertility seems pretty cray kray. I
mean, what's the point men areworried about getting access to women and then
wondering if her baby's actually theirs,And women are worried that men will totally
reject them if they give access totoo many men. So why would this
system have evolved? What real reproductivevalue does concealed fertility give. To speculate
(16:52):
about the answer, we look nofurther than our closest primate relative, chimpanzee.
Chim Pansy males are dangerously brutal animals. When they come across a chimp
version of a milf a mother,I'd like to frolic with. The first
thing they do is murder the baby. It's true, baboons and guerrillas do
(17:18):
it too. It's very efficient evolutionarilyspeaking, I mean, baby killing rubs
out a competitor's genes while bringing onovulation in a nursing mother. But how
about human males. They don't murderbabies so often. In fact, for
the most part, men are greatdads to their own kids and to others.
(17:41):
I coach football, I volunteer alot at the school. I mean,
it's not like direct parents, andcoaching is probably an example of close
to direct parenting. For at leasta couple hours, and so you treat
these kids as if they are yourown. You want, you want to
make them as good as you canas football players. I like way.
One of the other coaches says that, and I adopted it myself. He
(18:02):
says, my first job is tomake you a better man. My second
job is to make you a betterfootball player. And I really like that.
I'm getting goosebumps right now. Man, I'm a sap. I am
such a sap. The end ofthis evolutionary story is a big score for
the girls club. Human males maybe physically evolving to pick up sights,
sounds, and sense of an ovulatingwoman, and they may have invented the
(18:22):
double standard to keep women from sharingher eggs with the team short of any
paternity test, which is just arecent tool in men's arsenal against hidden eggs.
Can't a man really be sure?Is the baby growing in her womb
really his? What if his fightersperm didn't do their job? What if
(18:44):
he got the dates wrong? Whatabout the dude in accounting? She always
mentions her trainer, her handyman,the milkman. You know you have that
seed of doubt. You're waiting anxiouslyin the waiting room. You're making sure
you trust the doctor or all thepreparation that takes place, you're doing the
breathing exercises, but that one seedof doubt that you have is not well,
(19:06):
what will the baby look like?But actually is the baby? Is
it really yours? It is it? Could it be somebody else's out there?
I would be lying if there wasn'ta part of me that was like
I would like to know. Idon't know if that's like an animal part
of me that lives inside, butit's a god's honest truth. I'm like,
I just want to be sure,Like, even though it would probably
destroy my entire life if there wasa mistake on the test or if I
found out the truth, my lifeis much better to live in ignorance.
(19:30):
But yeah, I was curious.I was definitely curious. If a man
can't be a hundred percent sure thatthe baby his wife or girlfriend is giving
birth to is his, he alsocan't be sure that it isn't his.
Men are wired to spread their seedaround the tribe, and if human males
(19:53):
spend time killing babies, they mighthave been killing their own genes or their
family genes, the genes of theirbrothers or cousins. That's the beauty of
hidden eggs. It makes human malesgood dads. They take care of all
(20:14):
babies because any one of them couldbe theirs. So you see, women's
intelligent bodies developed concealed fertility to increasethe chances that their babies would live.
I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. Thanks forlistening to Maiden Matters. Next time we'll
(20:38):
be looking at the trouble with testosterone. Mating Matters with Doctor Wendy Walsh is
produced by iHeartMedia. It is researched, written and hosted by me, doctor
Wendy Walsh, and produced and editedby the fabulous Brooke Peterson. Follow us
on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,and Instagram at doctor Wendy Walsh. Listen
(21:02):
to Mating Matters on the iHeartRadio appor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Why is it that you can't tellwhen a woman is fertile? In fact,
she may not even know herself.I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. Concealed fertility
in humans has contributed to the sexualdouble standard good fathers and strippers who make
more money when they ovulate. Thisis Mating Matters. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh,
(00:21):
and this is Mating Matters, thepodcast that looks at human behavior through
a very sexy lens. You shouldknow that I'm obsessed with the science of
relationships. Understanding the biological, psychological, and social pressures on people makes me
enjoy life more. It makes memore understanding, more forgiving, more compassionate
(00:42):
to others and myself. And Iwant you to see life in the same
technicolor version that I do. Youknow, even when we're not thinking about
sex, our ancient programming makes usrespond to reproductive cues that impact just about
every decision we make. We arewired to reproduce. In today's episode of
(01:06):
Mating Matters Hidden Eggs, we askedthe question why did humans evolve to have
concealed fertility? All that means isno one knows for sure which magical Three
days each month a woman can becomepregnant, and most of the time not
even the woman. So how doesthis impact the way we relate to each
(01:26):
other? Well, why don't westart at the beginning, in the delivery
room greet. It is usually thehappiest moment in a couple's life. For
men, it's the culmination of thearduous task of finding a date, girlfriend,
(01:48):
or wife, getting her to matewith you, and hanging around for
nine whole months while female hormones ruledroost. For women, it's the sometimes
dangerous journey of finding a healthy matewho might even hang around for a few
years. If you've ever been asingle woman on dating sites, you know
how hard this is. But thenit gets physically challenging. Nine months of
(02:09):
pregnancy that might include morning sickness,bedrest, and crying jags that make PMS
look mild. And then there's laborand delivery. If I had to go
through this one hundred years ago,I don't know how I would have done
it without the help of pre doctorsand my nurses and my partner to get
(02:34):
through it ouch. But after allthat, women go through the pregnancy,
the labor, the delivery, atleast they're left with one reassuring fact.
There's no doubt who the mother is, but the father men can never be
too sure. That's because human femaleshave concealed fertility approximately three days in the
(02:59):
month, and women in their childbearingyears can become pregnant, and even women
aren't aware of when these three dayscome. Could it be that his sperm
reached the egg during that mysterious windowof ovulation? Could he be sure that
no other man gained access during thatmonth? You know, sperm or survivors.
(03:19):
They can live in a woman's vaginafor five days, waiting for the
egg to arrive, or standing readyto encounter another man's fighter sperm. Those
are the fastest swimmers. They're ejaculatedfirst with the sole mission to kill any
lingering men's sperm. So who won? Which guy is actually the father?
(03:49):
He makes these really cute faces sometimesthat remind me of my husband. It's
the chant of new mother's everywhere.If you ask any postpartum mother who she
thinks the baby looks most like,she's far more likely to say daddy instead
of mummy, no matter what thebaby looks like. It's always been speculated
that this worldwide female behavior evolved toelicit care and protection from a man who
(04:13):
might not be certain about his paternity. Now there's new research to show this
actually works. Professor of economics atBinghamton University, Solomon Policek and his partner
Marlon Tracy from Southern Illinois University studiedfour hundred and fifty six couples. Now,
these couples were not married, norwere they living in the same home.
(04:35):
These are called fragile families. Whatthey found was interesting. When the
baby looked like the father, thechild was healthier one year later, and
that's not always because of heartier malegenes. The researchers say that if a
father believed the child looked like him, he actually spent two and a half
(04:56):
more days a month caring for hischild and check in assessing the economic needs.
You see, men invest more ifthey believe a child is actually theirs.
And really does a newborn look likeanyone when they were born? They
both look like me. Weirdly enough, my older son, when he was
about five, looked identical to mywife like there was some kind of weird
(05:18):
shift. And my younger son looksidentical to my father like. People always
say, he looks like your father, which he should look more like me,
right. Having concealed fertility isn't commonin all primates. Take Creasey's monkeys,
for example, how do they spota fertile female. It's all in
the face reading. Researcher James Highamof the German Primate Center in Gerdigan,
(05:42):
Germany, found that when a femaleRees's monkey is ovulating, her facial features
change ever so slightly, and eightyfive percent of the males can see the
difference. But there's a catch.Only if he knows her well. In
order to pick up the subtle cuesabout fertility, male Resea's monkeys need to
become friends first. Males who spendtime getting to no females tend to pick
(06:08):
up on sexual signals much better.Gives new meaning to friends with benefits.
For baboons, no mind reading orfacial decoding needed at all. One of
the most conspicuous of all signals ofprimate fertility is the large swellings displayed by
(06:29):
female baboons. The Ambaselli Baboon Projectin East Africa is one of the longest
running studies of wild primates in theworld. Researchers there have been studying baboons
for more than four decades. Specifically, they have studied the range and size
of female well but valva labia,let's just call them swellings. Look,
(06:50):
if you were glued to National GeographicMagazine as a kid, you've probably seen
these oversized, bright red, bulginglips that female baboons showcase, and biologists
hypothesize that the size of a female'sswelling contains important information for males to know
when to procreate. In fact,the scientists at the Ambassari Baboon Project found
(07:14):
that indeed, changes in swelling sizewithin each sexual cycle correspond with ovulation.
Unless you think we humans are sodifferent. Scientists even speculate that our human
preference for full lips, lip injectionsanyone or bright red lipstick are just one
primate copying another. But human beingsare different. Our faces don't change much
(07:43):
when we're ovulating, and as faras I know, our volva does not
balloon up like a baboon's red butt. For the most part, men can't
consciously tell that a woman is fertile. In fact, most women can't even
tell they are ovulating unless they havehelp from technology. I have no clue
when I'm olating. I use anapp for that. I don't think I've
ever really tried to track it.The only way I know I'm ovulating is
(08:05):
because I'm on birth control. Humanovulation, a state once thought to be
undetectable without medical equipment or an app, actually creates a range of subtle but
definitely observable behaviors, and these femalebehaviors are aimed at attracting the best possible
mate. For instance, researchers BornhardFink at the University of gotten And in
(08:28):
Germany, along with colleagues Benjamin Langand Nadine who Guilt, found that women's
bodies move slightly differently when they're fertile, and men can pick it up.
In this fun study, the researchersvideotaped forty eight women dancing to music.
Then they had two hundred men watchthe videos and rate them on a scale
(08:50):
of attractiveness. It's a feminist I'mnot so sure I like this hot or
not game, but it does providesome interesting information. Turns out, men
rated the obviating women more attractive.But do women notice anything different about themselves
when they're ovulating? I don't thinkI could tell if I'm fertile or not
no. I mean, maybe I'llcrave an extra cheesy pizza or something.
(09:11):
But besides that, I actually can'ttell when I'm ovulating. I definitely do
feel a little bit more attraction tomen, a bit more feminine, Like
I want to speak a little softerwith them, I want to come off
a little bit more sexier when I'mwalking past them. Wait did she say
(09:31):
she tries to make her voice softerand more breathy or could her voice be
changing naturally when she ovulates. ResearchersGreg Bryant and Marty Hazelton at the University
of California, Los Angeles set outto test this idea. Like all good
scientists, they began with an assumption. Their assumption that higher, more breathy
voices are more attractive to men becausethey signal youth and fertility. After all,
(09:56):
didn't Marilyn Monroe's breathy voice wow anaudience and the resident in nineteen sixty
two with a simple rendition of HappyBirthday, Happy Day two, Happy Birthday
two, Happy Birthday? Pressure areUCLA researchers didn't have Marilyn Monroe as a
(10:22):
test subject, so they used femalecollege students instead. They recorded the voices
of sixty nine women interesting number scientistsand gave the women hormone tests to determine
where they were in their menstrual cycle. The women were all asked to say
the same thing, Hi, I'ma UCLA student. Hi, I'm a
UCLA student. Hi I'm a UCLAstudent. Hi, I'm a UCLA student.
(10:46):
Then the researchers calculated how their voicewas different. Turns out women unconsciously
raise their voices when they're ovulating.Interesting, but do men pick this up?
A study that asked this question lookedat strippers. Jeff Miller, Joshua
(11:07):
Tiber, and Brent Jordan at theUniversity of New Mexico had to spend many
arduous weeks interviewing strippers about their ovulationschedule and helping them count their money at
the end of the night. Sureenough, exotic dancers who do not take
the birth control pill earn more moneywhen they're ovulating. On average, they
earn nearly four hundred dollars more pernight when they're ovulating. But what are
(11:31):
the men picking up on? Somesay it's scent. Pheromones may signal fertility,
but it could also be the conditionsof an average strip club. Strip
clubs tend to be loud, theytend to be dark, and strippers make
the most money not on stage,but by doing private lap dances. And
(11:52):
how do these ladies sell their labdances? Well, in a noisy,
dark club, there's only one way. They get real close and whisper in
a customer's ear. Boys, youlike a laptance. Dude gets a double
whammy of signals, both scent andvocal tones. And if she's ovulating,
he apparently is willing to dig deeperinto his pockets and pull out more money.
(12:16):
The list of human female behaviors thatsignal fertility goes on. Research has
shown that during ovulation, women fantasizeabout sex more often. They're more likely
to wear red or pink clothing,back to copying those red monkey butts,
and they're more flirty with bad boys. Also, college girls call their fathers
less. But what about the menwho can't pick up on these signals?
(12:39):
It's not a perfect science, andeven in the studies, some men fail.
Or what about the men who womendon't often choose for reproduction? The
movie The Forty year Old Virgin isevery Man's Worst Nightmare. Andy Stitzer has
lost a lot of girlfriends. I'msorry, but there's one thing he never
(13:03):
lost. Are you a virgin?Oh? You are hilarious. M this
is good. You're a virgin?How can you go? Forty years?
And I have set to prevent sucha calamity. Over the centuries, men
have created social systems that increase theirodds that they'll get to mate with a
woman and help to keep competitors away. You might have heard of one.
(13:24):
It's called monogamy. Evolutionary psychologists suggeststhat the only way a man could be
sure that his girlfriend or wife gavebirth to a baby that was his was
a blocker from other men. It'scalled mate guarding. And if you've ever
dropped by your mate's office to strutyour stuff in front of a new,
(13:46):
threatening, cute coworker, you've practicedmate guarding. Both genders do it by
sticking to one sexual partner. Monogamymay have evolved as a form of mate
guarding those gallivant in groups of gatherers, Females with children in tow along with
sisters, aunties, and friends wereconstantly moving. If a dude wanted to
(14:07):
be sure his lady was carrying anegg, that he fertilized, it better
stay close to her butt. Thus, you could say that men invented monogamy,
but they also invented a kind ofpsychological warfare to combat concealed fertility.
It's time to face the facts.How many relationships do I have to have
before I meet the right guy?Or an? America? Ninety six percent
(14:28):
of women who have been with twentyor more lovers and can't find a husband
twenty. That seems very high.No, it's low. The movie is
called What's Your Number because even Hollywoodknows that women worry about this. In
fact, the fear is pervasive thata woman will be shunned by all men
if she's revealed to be promiscuous.It's called the sexual double standard. That's
(14:54):
a social construct that gives men pointsfor sexual experience and gives women merit points.
Trust me, men invented this one. It's so psychologically crippling that women
are embarrassed to reveal their number.I don't ask them, they don't ask
me. I don't want to talkabout it. I don't want to know
who you've been with, and you, I'm sure you don't want to know
(15:16):
who I've been with. So let'sjust avoid it. Oh okay, so
the sexual double standard, Um,I think, yeah, I think that
definitely revealing your number, you thinkthat somebody's going to judge you by it
as a woman, So I thinkthat I probably avoid that conversation. Yeah.
(15:37):
I don't think I've ever had aman asked me what my sexual partner
number was. I think, atleast in my experience, that isn't a
question that comes up. It's almostlike, don't ask, don't tell.
I think that they would get thisalpha male mentality and say that they can't
be with a woman who's been withother men. It can't visualize it because
it just kind of ruins the theidea of her as a pristine, proper,
(16:03):
clean woman. It just kind ofruins that idea in their head that
they've come up with. I thinkif I told a man I had a
high number, that he would thinkthat I was a slut. That would
make him feel that he doesn't oweme any kind of respect or he doesn't
owe me a quality relationship. Sowhat's a girl to do? On face
(16:25):
value? The reproductive system of havingconcealed fertility seems pretty cray kray. I
mean, what's the point men areworried about getting access to women and then
wondering if her baby's actually theirs,And women are worried that men will totally
reject them if they give access totoo many men. So why would this
system have evolved? What real reproductivevalue does concealed fertility give. To speculate
(16:52):
about the answer, we look nofurther than our closest primate relative, chimpanzee.
Chim Pansy males are dangerously brutal animals. When they come across a chimp
version of a milf a mother,I'd like to frolic with. The first
thing they do is murder the baby. It's true, baboons and guerrillas do
(17:18):
it too. It's very efficient evolutionarilyspeaking, I mean, baby killing rubs
out a competitor's genes while bringing onovulation in a nursing mother. But how
about human males. They don't murderbabies so often. In fact, for
the most part, men are greatdads to their own kids and to others.
(17:41):
I coach football, I volunteer alot at the school. I mean,
it's not like direct parents, andcoaching is probably an example of close
to direct parenting. For at leasta couple hours, and so you treat
these kids as if they are yourown. You want, you want to
make them as good as you canas football players. I like way.
One of the other coaches says that, and I adopted it myself. He
(18:02):
says, my first job is tomake you a better man. My second
job is to make you a betterfootball player. And I really like that.
I'm getting goosebumps right now. Man, I'm a sap. I am
such a sap. The end ofthis evolutionary story is a big score for
the girls club. Human males maybe physically evolving to pick up sights,
sounds, and sense of an ovulatingwoman, and they may have invented the
(18:22):
double standard to keep women from sharingher eggs with the team short of any
paternity test, which is just arecent tool in men's arsenal against hidden eggs.
Can't a man really be sure?Is the baby growing in her womb
really his? What if his fightersperm didn't do their job? What if
(18:44):
he got the dates wrong? Whatabout the dude in accounting? She always
mentions her trainer, her handyman,the milkman. You know you have that
seed of doubt. You're waiting anxiouslyin the waiting room. You're making sure
you trust the doctor or all thepreparation that takes place, you're doing the
breathing exercises, but that one seedof doubt that you have is not well,
(19:06):
what will the baby look like?But actually is the baby? Is
it really yours? It is it? Could it be somebody else's out there?
I would be lying if there wasn'ta part of me that was like
I would like to know. Idon't know if that's like an animal part
of me that lives inside, butit's a god's honest truth. I'm like,
I just want to be sure,Like, even though it would probably
destroy my entire life if there wasa mistake on the test or if I
found out the truth, my lifeis much better to live in ignorance.
(19:30):
But yeah, I was curious.I was definitely curious. If a man
can't be a hundred percent sure thatthe baby his wife or girlfriend is giving
birth to is his, he alsocan't be sure that it isn't his.
Men are wired to spread their seedaround the tribe, and if human males
(19:53):
spend time killing babies, they mighthave been killing their own genes or their
family genes, the genes of theirbrothers or cousins. That's the beauty of
hidden eggs. It makes human malesgood dads. They take care of all
(20:14):
babies because any one of them couldbe theirs. So you see, women's
intelligent bodies developed concealed fertility to increasethe chances that their babies would live.
I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. Thanks forlistening to Maiden Matters. Next time we'll
(20:38):
be looking at the trouble with testosterone. Mating Matters with Doctor Wendy Walsh is
produced by iHeartMedia. It is researched, written and hosted by me, doctor
Wendy Walsh, and produced and editedby the fabulous Brooke Peterson. Follow us
on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,and Instagram at doctor Wendy Walsh. Listen
(21:02):
to Mating Matters on the iHeartRadio appor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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