In what follows, I will argue that sexual selection liberated sexual dominance from its coercive, ancestral demons. Specifically, I posit that ancestral women, when faced with the prospect of mating with a coercive and dominant man, a non-coercive and non-dominant man, or a non-coercive albeit dominant man, usually opted for the third option.
The first reason for this is the value of male dominance in competition with other males. Specifically, if a man exhibits dominance during courtship and copulation, he is signalling his ability to successfully compete with other men for social status in male hierarchies. Women are attracted to high-status men because such men are either genetically superior, have the resources necessary to invest in a woman and her children, or both. Although some degree of sexual conflict between men and women is expected, a man’s non-coercive dominance during courtship and copulation may say something about his ability to stand his ground in interactions with other men.
The second reason that women prefer dominant men is the fact that other women prefer dominant men. This is not a tautology. My high school American History teacher, Ms. Gibbs, once told us an anecdote about Benjamin Franklin. It was said that old kite-flying Ben would surround himself with average looking women at dinner parties so as to grab the attention of the more attractive ones. Whether true or not, Ben Franklin’s supposed exploits are supported by research on what makes men attractive. Specifically, women are attracted to men whom other women — especially physically attractive women — find attractive. So, if other women find dominant men attractive, it would benefit a woman to mate with a dominant man because any son born of such a union would inherit his father’s dominance and thereby help to spread his mother’s genes. This hypothesis — the so-called sexy-son hypothesis — suggests that whatever other benefits a man might accrue through his dominance, it is simply enough for women to consider it “sexy” for it to be sexually selected into the male line of our species.
Most of the time, however, traits that are preferred by members of the opposite sex communicate something important about the bearer of those traits in addition to sexiness per se. As I will elaborate in my discussion of sexual subordination, sexually selected traits are often selected by prospective sex partners because they are honest, costly signals of an individual’s genetic status. So, for example, a man who is capable of exhibiting dominance, while curbing it just enough to not come off as coercive, may be communicating something important about his physical and psychological state. Specifically, if a man is able to toe the fine line of sexual dominance (and even exhibit a certain amount of passionate aggression) without veering over into the danger-zone of coercion, he may be a good catch, indeed. The subtlety, tact, and finesse required to accomplish this should not be dismissed. As it happens, being a successful “dom” (i.e., a sexually dominant or sadistic individual in the BDSM scene) requires such subtlety, tact, and finesse. As Philip Miller and Molly Devon write in Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns:
The ideal [dominant] controls himself, so that he might control his submissive. He will, as a stern dominant, cause tears to flow, and as lover, kiss them away … He understands that to own a woman, one must court the mind with intelligence and humor; win the spirit with compassion and warmth; and take the body with determined strength … He is the honorable sadist who uses pain to extend the bounds of pleasure, vigilant that no harm comes of the hurt.
Understanding the evolution of consensual sexual dominance is half the battle. As BDSM practitioners are never tired of saying, the “sub” (i.e., the submissive or masochistic individual in a BDSM interaction) is just as active a participant as the dom. Some further assert that the sub actually controls the scene and that it is the dom who has to read or intuit the needs, desires, fears, discomforts, and pleasures of the sub.
Gregory Gorelik, “What Sadomasochism Can Teach Us About Human Sexuality”, Quillette, 2017-04-04.
January 2, 2022
QotD: Female preference for dominant males
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