“Therefore, broadly speaking, males invest less and seek quantity of mates, while females invest more and seek quality of mates.”

—  Matt Ridley

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 3

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Matt Ridley 65
economist 1958

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“Human beings are an exception to many general rules in biology. In many species, female mate choice alone is important; in our species, male mate choice is important as well. In many species, males alone are showy and ornamented; in our species, females are as well. In many species, males alone compete for mates; in our species, females compete as well. In many species, males invest nothing other than sperm in their offspring; in our species, men typically invest a great deal. Not only are human beings exceptional in these ways, but they all tie together into a cohesive story.”

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“Throughout history, females have picked providers for mates. Males pick anything.”

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“Nothing indicts female allegiance to patriarchy more than the willingness to behave as though the problems created by cultural investment in sexist thinking about the nature of male and female roles can be solved by women's working harder.”

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“In songbirds, it is generally the male of the species that sings, and for some species, the larger the repertoire, the more likely it is to attract a mate.”

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“It is therefore a curious fact that our dominant mating system is more like the typical mating system of birds than that of most mammals, including our nearest relatives, the Great Apes.”

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“An adult male human that attempts to mate frequently but spends most of its time alone.”

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“Films of the mating behavior of most other species — a staple of public television of America — demonstrate that the female chooses.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Males pursue, show off, brawl, scuffle, and make general fools of themselves for love. A major failing of most feminist ideology is its dumb, ungenerous stereotyping of men as tyrants and abusers, when in fact — as I know full well from my own mortifying lesbian experience — men are tormented by women’s flirtatiousness and hemming and hawing, their manipulations and changeableness, their humiliating rejections. Cock teasing is a universal reality. It is part of women’s merciless testing and cold-eyed comparison shopping for potential mates. Men will do anything to win the favor of women.
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“Every fetus becomes female unless it is steeped in male hormone, produced by a signal from the testes. Before birth, therefore, a male is already beyond the female. But to be beyond is to be exiled from the center of life. Men know they are sexual exiles. They wander the earth seeking satisfaction, craving and despising, never content. There is nothing in that anguished motion for women to envy.”

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