Latest / Art of the Question / The Science of Cuckoldry - Prof. Todd Shackelford - #39

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The Science of Cuckoldry - Prof. Todd Shackelford - #39 · Art of the Question

• Julius Moorman: Thank you so much for meeting with me today. I ⁓ yeah, I really appreciate it. And I'm very much looking forward to our conversation, which is yeah, it's going to be an interesting one, I think. And for starters, I was interested to know ⁓ when did you first get ⁓ interested in evolutionary psychology and why? Yeah, well ⁓ I first got interested in evolutionary psychology actually as an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. And I went to New Mexico ⁓ just because they offered me a ⁓ a good scholarship to go there and it wasn't in Oklahoma, which is where I'm from. So I knew I wanted to get out of Oklahoma and I you know, bottom line is I stumbled into ⁓ Albuquerque and I didn't know it, but it was actually a hotbed of evolutionary psychology. ⁓ in psychology, biology, anthropology, there were many faculty who, you know, were doing this new kind of work. ⁓ and I took a class on human sexuality with a biologist called Randy Thornhill at ⁓ University of New Mexico, and he introduced ⁓ an evolutionary perspective and, you know, basically applying Darwin's theory of ⁓ evolution by natural selection to humans. And I mean, I was just blown away. ⁓ I had not I mean, of course I've heard of Darwin's theory of origin of origin of species and I've heard of his, you know, his work. But where I grew up, it was, you know, sort of the devil's hand kind of stuff. ⁓ it wasn't something that was taught in school. And so, ⁓ I, you know, I just I fell in love with it as a as an explanation for life and as an explanation for complexity. and I actually had an honors course in psychology, and it was taught by Believe it or not, it was taught by a creationist, but to his credit, he actually assigned ⁓ Darwin's origin of species, or at least parts of it. And I just, I mean, I was absolutely stunned, blown away that there was this entirely workable theory for, you know, the evolution of life and complexity in life. So that's how I got into it. And I met a guy called Steve Gangastad in psychology there at ⁓ New Mexico, and then other people in, as I mentioned, in anthropology and biology. And You know, I just I ⁓ I talked with him, you know, a couple of times a week. We'd sit down and talk about this. And he told me, you know, as I got a little further along, ⁓ he said, you know, you can actually study this. You can actually keep going. ⁓ and I said, Really? And he said, Yeah, there's here are the different programs you could go to. And so one of the places he recommended I apply to is the University of Michigan to work with David Buss, which is where he was at the time. And so that's what I did. I mean, I I loved what Bus's work. I loved what he was doing. This was in the early nineties. and so I applied to work with him. I went and visited and loved it. and I mean, you know, really I never looked back. That's awesome. And I mean, ⁓ yeah, the rest is is hift history, if you will, because since then, I mean, ⁓ the amount of papers you've published on on a great variety of topics is is incredible. So yeah, very excited to to get into ⁓ ⁓ the specifics of ⁓ specifics of things. ⁓ yeah one of the I guess the main topic of ⁓ today's discussion is about cuckholderry and how we see that in nature, how we see that in humans, ⁓ what are some of the evolutionary benefits to being afraid of being cuckolded? But then also how does that translate into some people having a fetish So there's a lot to unpack there. But I guess for starters, when did you ⁓ first get interested in this specific subtopic within evolutionary ⁓ psychology? Yeah, it's a great question. ⁓ it's probably about the same time that I was introduced to evolutionary psychology, as a matter of fact. ⁓ I learned I mentioned I took that class as an undergraduate with Randy Thornhill in biology, and one of and you know, part of the class was designed to apply to apply this thinking to humans, but as a biologist, he You know, he reviewed lots of work on non-humans and in particular work on birds ⁓ and sexual behavior in birds. And there's of course a long history of work on ⁓ cuckletry and sperm competition in birds. it had not been done in humans until ⁓ Robin Baker and Mark Bellis ⁓ did some of the earliest work with humans, and he and Randy Thornhill introduced this work in this class. This was like 1990, maybe. ⁓ And I could not believe it. I thought this is absolutely incredible. I mean, ⁓ well, first of all, I was just stunned by the work in birds and the fact that males were able to adjust their ejaculates as a function of the risk of sperm competition, the risk that their partner had basically had cheated on them. And birds, ⁓ I guess I'm implying this, but I should be explicit. Bird most birds are socially monogamous. They pair up like humans do. ⁓ but they also, ⁓ every socially monogamous bird also ⁓ with very, very few exceptions, is also ⁓ occasionally unfaithful. And so females occasionally have what are known as extrapair copulations, where they essentially copulate with a with a male besides their regular partner, collect the ejaculate of the sperm from that male, and then go back to their regular partner. ⁓ Now ⁓ we know now that ⁓ male birds ⁓ often use a variety of cues to detect if their partner has been unfaithful, including, for example, time spent away from him where he can't he can't track her. ⁓ and so under those circumstances, males often will upregulate the number of sperm they include in their next ejaculate with their partner. ⁓ and I just, you know, I mean the whole thing was just, you gotta be kidding me. I mean I could not I just thought it was just incredible. And so I started reading in that literature, the bird literature, and then ⁓ quickly discovered that Baker and Bellis had done this work with humans and, you know What they were finding was not at all surprising. They were finding that humans too, just like dozens and dozens of other species, you know, ⁓ that are socially monogamous and occasionally unfaithful, humans too. ⁓ human males ⁓ upregulate the number of sperm they inseminate into their partner as a function of the risk of sperm competition. So it's of course it's not surprising given the broader theory, but of course, when you apply it to humans, ⁓ there's a lot of freakout, you know, like what humans can't be this stupid or this simple. ⁓ But all of the evidence suggests that ⁓ it is so, and humans, like other socially anonymous species, ⁓ human males do appear to have adaptations designed to thwart infidelity or to we've often talked about correcting a partner's infidelity by adjusting the ejaculate ⁓ that they place in their partner ⁓ following a period of absence, for example. And ⁓ you know, but once you yeah, I mean you you raise the issue of you know. guarding against you may not use those words, but I mean, of course, one solution to the problem of partner infidelity is to thwart it, stop it from happening before it does happen, or to prevent it, that is. ⁓ and so that I think is the logic for at least in humans, ⁓ well, there's most of the work on jealousy is in humans. I think that's the logic for male sexual jealousy is motivating a male to prevent, to thwart, or ⁓ you know, in a worst case scenario, you know, a worser case scenario, to punish a partner's infidelity. ⁓ so I think that, you know, you can't understand male sexual jealousy without appreciating sperm competition in humans and an evolutionary history of of female infidelity, which placed the partners, the male partner sperm, into competition with the sperm of a rival male. And so I mean, I would argue that much of conflict in relationships can be attributable. at some level to ⁓ sperm competition and to attempts to prevent or thwart, or from the female perspective, ⁓ you know, to ⁓ incite sperm competition or to collect the sperm from a higher quality male ⁓ and then ⁓ attempt to you know secure resources from the regular partner. ⁓ all of that is of a piece with sperm competition theory. Yeah, it's i it's incredibly fascinating. And if we just look at the term cuckolding where it comes from, it stems from the cuckoo bird, right? Yes. Where sometimes, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but ⁓ the birds would ⁓ unknowingly raise or or breed the eggs of a different male bird. And that's where the ⁓ term comes from. When when someone unknowingly erases the offspring of another man in this in ⁓ in this case. Is is that correct? Is that where the term ⁓ stems from? Yeah, I mean that's how ⁓ cuckoos operate and other ⁓ brood parasites they're called. ⁓ these are birds that reproduce by placing their eggs in the nests of other birds. ⁓ yes and ⁓ ultimately they're investing in genes of another organism. Sometimes in fact oftentimes another species. ⁓ but in the case of humans, cuckoldry is ⁓ you know, refers to to when men are investing in offspring to whom they are genetically unrelated, unbeknownst to them. We're not talking about step parenting. I mean, that's a separate phenomenon. ⁓ but yeah, cuckoldry occurs when males are unknowingly investing in offspring of their partners, but that were sired by other men. Right. And, you know, and the rates vary remarkably across cultures. ⁓ I don't know if you want to get into this now, but ⁓ I I can mention ⁓ I on average it looks like ⁓ somewhere around, you know, I mean the the rates, you know, people argue about the rates of cuckaldry. ⁓ but I think, you know, somewhere between three and five percent on average ⁓ of offspring are sired by you know, males other than their social fathers. ⁓ I mean, it's been it's arguably as low as one percent in some cultures at some times, and it's as high as forty-eight percent in other cultures at other times. Wow. but I think on average you can s you know somewhere around three to five percent. So it's you know it's not zero. It's it's certainly not zero, and it's not a hundred percent. It's somewhere in between, probably closer to the low end. ⁓ I mean it's got to have been the the evidence suggests that It has to have been frequent enough, ⁓ you know, to have built psychological and physiological adaptations in human males to address this adaptive problem of, you know, potentially investing in a rival's offspring. Yeah, because it sounds logical, right? Like we we wouldn't want to raise the offspring of another man. Like if you you say that you're saying you're you're not saying anything crazy, but If we zoom in from an evolutionary perspective, why is it so expensive to invest ⁓ resources in in a different offspring? And why would nature want to prevent this by introducing precautionary matters? Yeah. Well, think yeah, and think of it this way: our ancestors, all of our, all modern humans, y you and I, all of our ancestors, our male ancestors. were not cuckled it. Our male ancestors were not those men who were like, Yeah, it's all good. You know, if you want to have sex with whoever you want to have sex with, that's fine. ⁓ I mean, for better or worse, our ancestors were, for whatever reason, very attentive to what their partners were doing, who they were with, why they were there rather than somewhere else, you know, how they were spending their time, who they were talking to. Our male ancestors succeeded in preventing their partners from cuckulting them. ⁓ you know, and again, it doesn't make it right or good. It just the fact is, you know, we are the descendants of males and early hominid males who were not pleased about their partner getting involved with someone else. ⁓ I mean, those earlier human males who didn't detect, you know, an infidelity are not our ancestors. Okay, because they would have invested in other males' offspring. ⁓ so I mean it's yeah, the the logic is ruthless. It's brutal, and it's it's you know, there's really no way to avoid, you know, the logic involved here. No, I I I see the logic and ⁓ then So so by definition we we are offspring of people who don't let this happen because the people who do let it happen do not have the offspring. ⁓ so yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's it makes a lot of sense in in that in that way. But it also would seem that it is expensive because humans, but some some other animals, some other species ⁓ may as well. But at least because we have we take a very long time to grow up, right? So ⁓ females are looking for a strong man who can protect them and their offspring throughout this entire process where they are v vulnerable. So that's why, in general, women seek out men that are resourceful, that can be muscular and strong in the physical sense, it can also be smart, it can also be prestigious. But anything that helps in order to pr protect this very fragile first couple of well s eighteen years is what we consider to be an adult, right? So in that sense, it takes a very long time, a very big part of our lives, a third, maybe maybe back in the day even more, ⁓ almost our entire lives, that the man invests invests in protecting this family and protecting his child but also ⁓ his his woman. So in that case it would be a terrible waste of resources if we do not see this happening and if we don't try to prevent this from happening. Is that is that accurate? Yeah, I mean ⁓ y you're right. I mean for humans and for any other paternally investing species, like many bird species, I mean Cuckledry is reproductively devastating. I mean, it's absolutely devastating. ⁓ arguably it's worse than death. I mean, with death, at least you're dead. I mean, you're dead and you're not, you know, investing further in another male's offspring. So, I mean, there's a case to be made that there's that it is literally the worst case outcome over the course of evolutionary history. ⁓ yes, because there's so much time, effort, attention, resources invested into this offspring. ⁓ Which is precisely why male sexual jealousy, I mean, for example, is the leading cause of wife battery and wife killing around the world in every culture for which we have data. Men kill women, we know this, ⁓ and typically it's men killing an intimate partner, and tip and also typically in every culture around the world, in every time period, it's men killing women that they think have cheated on them. ⁓ so in other words, the you know, the intensity of male sexual jealousy, the The dangerousness of male sexual jealousy speaks to the severity of the adaptive problem involved. ⁓ And you mentioned a couple times, I just wanted to circle back around real quick, ⁓ that I mean, for the evolution of male anti-cuckaldry adaptations to occur, it's it's it's not that our ancestors didn't want their partners to be unfaithful or that they tried to stop their partners from being unfaithful. It's that they did for whatever reason. I mean, in other words, Male birds behave very similarly to male humans. I mean, in fact, people there are avian researchers, people that do research on birds talk about domestic violence, they talk about sexual jealousy, they talk about partner rape. And it that it's the same, you know, they do the same things. And nobody would argue that, you know, that male birds, or maybe somebody would, but it's a harder argument to make that male birds are somehow figuring this out. ⁓ I don't think they they're operating on adaptations that were built you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of years previously. ⁓ and you know, they're you could think of them as, you know, they're machines. I mean, we're also machines, and, you know, the adaptations are just operating. Whether we're consciously aware of them or not, or whether we appreciate the evolutionary logic is a separate issue. Right. And you mentioned ⁓ a c a couple times there, ⁓ a male sperm competition, ⁓ which directly ties into this ⁓ subject. Can you maybe explain, ⁓ can we maybe dive into that and maybe explain ⁓ thoroughly w what that means and and what this ⁓ also means for for cuckoldry in general? Sure. So sperm competition theory, I mean, this is a theory that's been around for forty or fifty years within biology and has, I mean, there must be There may be thousands of studies, and there's certainly many, many hundreds of studies on sperm competition ⁓ in birds and other mammals. ⁓ Sperm competition occurs when ⁓ a female mates with more than one male within a sufficiently short period of time that there's literally a competition between the sperm inside her reproductive tract for fertilization of any available ova or eggs. ⁓ Now that creates an adaptive problem ⁓ for both males and females, but for males, ⁓ it creates the adaptive problem of potentially investing in offspring to whom the male is not genetically related. So we are talking about sperm competition often is framed in terms of socially monogamous species, where males are are investing in offspring ⁓ to some degree. It may not be as heavily as humans do. ⁓ It may even be heavier. ⁓ But what this means is that the ⁓ that places the male at risk of cuckuldry. ⁓ swarm competition places males at risk of cuckaldry. And there are various ways to quote solve this problem. ⁓ We had a pap we published a paper many years ago on preventing ⁓ you know, you can either prevent a female infidelity, the male can prevent female infidelity, can correct inf female infidelity, or can anticipate female infidelity. The bottom line is Female infidelity is the primary culprit of it is the primary generator of sperm competition. It's not the only generator of sperm competition, but it's the primary generator of sperm competition. So that is an adaptive problem that males that invest in offspring must have solved over our evolutionary history. And we can just talk about humans. ⁓ So that suggests that. Our ancestors are those males who did prevent a partner's infidelity. So what did they do? Well, they probably did things like guard their partner, spend time around their partner, ⁓ punish their partner for a suspected infidelity, punish her in the form of, you know, social with withdrawal of social resources or perhaps physical violence. ⁓ another way to address a partner's infidelity is to immediately place one's own sperm into a partner's reproductive tract. If a d if a Venibility is detected. Well, one potential solution is to hurry up and get your sperm in there so that, you know, you have some shot ⁓ at, you know, at fertilizing an egg or perhaps even overwhelming the sperm of another male. ⁓ and so something called ⁓ so sexual coercion or partner ⁓ sexual coercion, or what we study in humans, we just call it partner rape. ⁓ so this is something that's ⁓ not at all uncommon for men. ⁓ who suspect a partner's infidelity. Many men who suspect a partner's infidelity often report, yes, they feel angry and and they feel sometimes ⁓ they're obviously they're angry, they're mad, but they also, much to their surprise, are sexually aroused. ⁓ when men discover a partner's infidelity, they often find themselves, you know, incredibly sexually aroused ⁓ and will subsequently report having immediate sex ⁓ with her. This is often the same thing. ⁓ will occur if there's been a greater ⁓ a large percentage of time spent apart ⁓ since they last had sex. So these are some of the purported or hypothetical or potential evolved solutions to the problem of partner infidelity. Yeah. It's incredibly it's incredibly interesting. And what about women? Because w we ⁓ have mainly discussed man part of because it's I believe most prevalent in men also ⁓ we we're going to discuss ⁓ the the more yeah fetish fetishized ⁓ aspect of things later on but I believe it's more prevalent to exist in men than it is in women to have ⁓ these desires but of course ⁓ some women also have this so where where what about the women in this regard? Is there also some some explanation as to why some ⁓ women might guard against cockoldria. I mean not in the biological sense, in the sense of the offspring, because only ⁓ women ⁓ can get pregnant, of course. ⁓ but ⁓ still there seems to be s s something happening there or or do do we not have clear answers there? No, no, sure. I mean there's no doubt that we'll just stick with humans, ⁓ that both men and women In long term relationships, in socially monogamous relationships. by social monogamy, I mean there's a presumption of monogamy, but that doesn't mean there's genetic monogamy. ⁓ yes, both men and women in heterosexual relationships experience jealousy. They experience and they they engage in what's what we refer to in the field as mate guarding behavior. However, there's a lot of work now documenting that. Again, in in every culture for which we've collected data, men are far more upset by a partner's sexual infidelity or by the sexual aspect of the infidelity. Women are far more upset by emotional infidelity or by the emotional aspect of the infidelity. Women report being ⁓ you know, getting jealous and engaging in mate guarding behaviors when they suspect that their partner is becoming emotionally involved with another woman. ⁓ they're not I'm not suggesting that women are happy that their partner's having sex with other women, or that men are happy if their partner's falling in love with another man but not having sex with him. ⁓ it's just that there's a clear and replicable sex difference in the features of that infidelity that are more upsetting with men. And this is beautifully predicted. ⁓ it was actually these hypotheses were presented back in the late 70s by a guy called Don Simons, ⁓ who's an anthropologist. He predicted that ⁓ that Men will be more upset by a partner's sexual infidelity, women will be more upset by a partner's emotional infidelity. But as you mentioned, women do not risk cuckaldry. I mean, maternity is certain. ⁓ there is no question. ⁓ so ⁓ what's not certain, however, is the male's investment and, you know, ⁓ consistent political support, social support, resource investment. And so what women appear to have evolved is ⁓ sensitivity to a partner's diversion of resources. And so what women will report is that, yeah, I mean, both sex and emotion are upsetting, but if you got if if I have to say one, it's the emotional stuff that really burns me up. Did he, did you tell her you loved her? You know, did you take her to our restaurant? You know, th these kinds of things. ⁓ there's a phenomenon within clinical psychology known as obsessive review. And this is what when couples are in therapy for infidelity, ⁓ You find a sex difference in the things that the partner who's been cheated on, what that partner obsesses about in terms of their partner's infidelity. So men obsess about how many times did you have sex with him? Where were you when you had sex with him? Did you have an orgasm? Is he better than me? Is his penis bigger? ⁓ women are are obsessive about things like, do you do you love her? You know, did you, you know, did you take her? Out for dinner, you know, where did you go? Did you buy her things? ⁓ and so you can see a sex difference there in terms of the underlying psychology that's motivating this upset. That's so incredibly interesting. And as I understand it now, is that this asymmetry between the biology between men and women, where men are at risk of racing someone else's offspring, directly translates into being more focused on the sexual aspect of things. And the the the women are more scared in what happens after ⁓ with the resources being made available and and the partner sticking around to raise the kid in a protective environment. That's exactly right. And again, that's not to suggest that women aren't upset, are not upset by a partner's sexual infidelity. They are. ⁓ it's just that ⁓ my hypothesis is that that, you know, that concern about a partner's sexual infidelity is part of a You know, they're using that as a cue to a partner's emotional interest in that other woman. Right. Similarly with men, I I would imagine that men get upset about a partner's emotional, you know, falling in love with another guy because that's likely to translate into having sex with him as well. Yeah. And okay, so we I I think we've established that cuckoldry is from an evolutionary point of view, basically the worst thing that can happen to a man. you mentioned it in some it might be worse than death in in in some cases. So that sounds like something we would want to avoid. However, there are men out there and women, we'll we'll get into that, I'm sure, as well, but let's focus on men for now who get aroused by the idea of actually seeing the act of their partner being with another man. That really surprises me and it's what prompted me to dig deeper into this topic because I am just interested in in human behavior and this is something I could never wrap my head around. I'm currently not in a relationship. I do not have a partner. But the just the idea of someone sleeping with my fictional partner that I again do not have at the moment enrages me. It it would not turn me on. I I I get physically ill just by thinking about it. So for me it's very difficult to understand that there are people out there that would actually enjoy such an experience. So I guess my question is how do we reconcile these two things? That on the one hand it is the worst thing that can happen, but that not for everyone, but I believe it was fifty-eight percent according to one study. Of men sometimes fantasize about their woman being with another man. It's just it seems interesting to me. Absolutely. And I too have often been interested in this as well. ⁓ I I mean the short answer is neither I nor anyone I'm aware of has, you know, the explanation. But there's no doubt that for some portion of men, and it may be, as you mentioned, it may be as high as 58%. I mean. ⁓ you know, fantasizing about it ⁓ can be incredibly sexually aroused can be incredibly sexually arousing. That doesn't mean that they're not also disgusted. I mean, men can be simultaneously disgusted, enraged, homicidal, and incredibly sexually aroused. ⁓ so it is possible to experience these emotions. I mean, by men's own reports. ⁓ yeah, but there clearly is ⁓ you know, I mean, there are lots of websites out there, you know, lots of And there's lots of pornography that focuses on, you know, basically ⁓ What men watching their partners having sex with other men. ⁓ and they do find this sexually arousing. I think what's going on here, and this is just my hypothesis, is sort of like ⁓ how some people really enjoy doing dangerous things like bungee jumping or you know, doing life-threatening things under uncontrolled circumstances. These will be things that'll kill you, jumping off of a cliff, jumping off of a bridge, riding a roller coaster. you know, that goes upside down. I mean, these are things that in real life, anything comparable to this in in the real world would kill you. ⁓ but people find it incredibly exhilarating and exciting. And ⁓ you know, ⁓ and I believe what's happening is you're sort of you're activating the underlying machinery of mind, the evolved mechanisms that motivate fear and excitement and, you know, ⁓ concern about life, you know, and and am I gonna live? ⁓ I think something like that is going on with men who expose themselves or fantasize about their partners having sex with other men. It's it can be very, very exciting and sexually arousing. ⁓ precisely because you're you're poking a bear. I mean you're playing with fire. ⁓ now ⁓ Typically the the fantasy ends there. It's the sex with the partner. ⁓ it's not they don't fantasize about investing in in another man's offspring. They don't fantasize about, ⁓ you know, such a sweet little boy. You know, that's typically it doesn't run all the way through that. But yes, the the initial emergency of a male having sex with one's partner ⁓ is equal parts disturbing, anger inducing, and sexually arousing for men who pursue this. Yeah, and and doesn't it also tie in with what you mentioned earlier about men being aroused after they find out they can feel angry after they found out their partner cheated on them, but they also report unexpectedly to sometimes feel aroused, which again ties into the ⁓ sperm competition ⁓ theory. Absolutely. I mean that's it precisely Right. That's how I understand men's reports of sexual arousal upon detecting a partner's infidelity ⁓ or suspecting a partner's infidelity. I mean, this it's very common. I mean, men are often, you know, they don't understand what's going on. Their own experience is they feel like they're, you know, in a you know, like they're almost detached from their bodies. I mean, they're experiencing this incredible arousal while also being absolutely furious with their partners. But you see, our ancestors Are those men who look, they may have been furious, they may have even been nearly homicidal, but I'll tell you what, they were very likely sexually aroused because that motivated them to immediately place their sperm into competition with any sperm that might be there from a previous male. ⁓ and, you know, statistically, that would have meant the difference. Right. And w ⁓ what is interesting to me about the the fetish part of things is that d I can understand when we discuss the the the sperm ⁓ competition theory and ⁓ the immediate contradicting, conflicting emotions that one would feel, which is anger, but perhaps also arousal. I can understand that. But there are men who seek this out on a regular basis, and maybe in the heat of the moment I would be able to understand it, like still not really, but I mean, given what we've just discussed, like I I get it. But the aftermath of things would would sting. I mean, ⁓ you get aroused in the moment, but that's pretty temporary, whereas the negative thoughts and the jealousy I like I've been jealous in my life, and jealousy is just it's not something that goes away after five minutes. I can be angry for five minutes, but jealousy usually tends to linger on and I can be ⁓ have like slightly jealous feelings for for weeks or even months. Yeah, no, it's a great point. And I mean, there is a literature on, well, for example, like open relationships or wife swapping or partner swapping relationships. And it's very often men who want to do this. ⁓ they want to have sex with other women and they often find it initially very exciting, ⁓ sexually rousing when their partner's having sex with other men, but it's men who cannot deal with it. mean these things fall apart remarkably, you know, consistently. I mean, open relationships are notoriously unstable. ⁓ they don't work. I mean, polyamorous relationships, these kind relationships are, you know, are just all but doomed. ⁓ and often it's because of male sexual jealousy. Not always, but often. ⁓ yes, so it's the aftermath. ⁓ So my guess is for most of I don't know of any work specifically on men who watch their partners have sex with other men. ⁓ but my guess is yeah, it may well be very sexually exciting, but ⁓ I also suspect that things fall apart more often than not in these relationships. It's all fun and games until, you know, once and often once the a male has ejaculated, you know, things look different. Yeah, and I think also if if we're talking about open re relationships, it seems to be more favorable for women, given what we've just discussed, because an open relationship, if I just think of what people mean by having an open relationship is like the intimate part of the relationship is with their partner, but then sometimes they get ⁓ the opportunity to sleep with someone else, right? So given what we've just discussed, that ⁓ men care more if their partner has sex with someone else or are are more devastated by that, and women care more about the emotional part, it seems that open relationships are favored towards women. Yeah, I think that's probably true. Although, you know, from the female side, what you you know, where where women are Cause of open relationships not working out, they can't get past, you know, their suspicions that their partner is actually developing an emotional connection, you know, falling in love. I think a lot of this is it's one thing on paper, and often these relationships are guided by an extraordinary number of rules. ⁓ you know, and so there's good intentions and, you know, ⁓ but again, I mean, they just don't last. mean this is not the way the mind was designed to operate in these open relationships where there's investment, you know. ⁓ so, you know, I think they're generally speaking, into a first approximation, those relationships are doomed. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you can make it work, all the power to you. But yeah, we couldn't I could never I could never ⁓ imagine being involved in ⁓ in something like that. ⁓ something I ⁓ read during my ⁓ preparation ⁓ of our conversation today is that you did an analysis on the covers of DVDs, ⁓ of adult DVDs. Can you maybe explain what you did there and what was the outcome of your analysis there? Sure. Yeah. ⁓ that was ⁓ yeah, we did a study. ⁓ so basically ⁓ we got access to the sales figures for ⁓ Different for DVDs, ⁓ which is no small feat. I mean, they're so protective about this, ⁓ the companies that produce these pornography ⁓ videos. ⁓ anyways, and so and it was very simple given what we had access to. We had access to the covers, which gave which depicted a particular picture, and we had access to the sales figures. And so, you know, we can I mean methodologically it's not great, but you know, you got what you got what you got. And so what we found is that ⁓ those DVDs that presented ⁓ episodes of sperm of you know, they referenced or ⁓ episodes of sperm competition. So there were two males and one female, those were the DVDs that sold the highest. the DVDs that depicted sperm competition. And you look, we're not arguing that that proves anything, but we were arguing that it says something about the underlying evolved psychology of men. They there's something interesting, there's something arousing, there's something captivating about episodes of sperm competition. Those DVDs sold better than DVDs depicting two women together, than DVDs depicting a man and a woman together. it was the DVDs whose covers depicted episodes we you know we can infer of sperm competition that drove higher sales. And that was that was our ⁓ that was our hypothesis, and that's what we found. We've also I don't know if how much you looked at ⁓ back at our work, but we've actually collected ejaculates now for the last ten years. We have couples come into the lab. we have couples, sometimes we we study couples and they we ⁓ we just finished a study of of couples where they came into the lab seven times and they brought in three copulatory samples and four masturbatory samples. So the men, you know, masturbated to produce an ejaculate. ⁓ but we also had them collect copulatory samples. So they they used a condom, had sex with the condom, then brought the condom in, and then we're able to do, so long as they bring it in within one hour, we're able to do a a very an analysis that takes about 75 seconds that we can get ⁓ 17 clinical parameters of ejaculates. ⁓ you know, swimming speed of sperm, number of sperm, ⁓ shape of sperm, you know, morphology. And so this was our efforts to begin to replicate some of the earlier work by Mark ⁓ Bellis and Robin Baker, where they found that males ejaculate a you know greater number of sperm under conditions of ⁓ female infidelity or suspected female infidelity. And so we're basically able to replicate some of that work. I mean, we have this this work is just deadly difficult to get couples to come in and do this. And so we have a sample our sample is a grand total of 35 couples, you know, coming in seven times. So it's hard to know where we didn't find support. ⁓ it's hard to know that we really had a sufficient sample size. ⁓ but at any rate, it is possible to do this kind of work and we continue to do this kind of work collecting ejaculates, and it's very interesting. And ⁓ you know, we're not doing anything odd in terms of sperm competition, ⁓ because all this work has been done in non-humans. But of course, with humans, you know, it's you know, people for a variety of reasons, you know, get weird about it. Yeah, and is there if we talk about the distinction between humans and animals, I I think humans are animals too, just more sophisticated ones. do we see we we know that it's For both humans and animals, incredibly dangerous and ⁓ evolutionary destructive to allow your woman to be with another man. However, we've also established that there are a lot of men out there who get aroused by the idea of seeing their woman with another man sometimes So much so that they actively engage in this behavior and and seek it out and literally invite other men to to sleep with their woman, right? Is this behavior, the more fetishized thing, ⁓ side of things, something we only see in humans, or is it something we see in animals as well? That's a great question. I think the problem is we can't really ⁓ We have no way to know. Like birds are probably the best, ⁓ you know, the best representative in terms of parallels. ⁓ it it certainly male birds actually what the biologists call this behavior is forced copulation. They don't use the word rape. They call it forced copulation. That's often what you see in the non human literature is the that they'll change the name so that it's something more clinical. But males engage in forced copulation and birds, if they detect or witness their partner having sex with another male. ⁓ now I, you know, I don't know if birds also ⁓ you know, if well, we do know that males who ⁓ they do these studies, they've done this with mice and other mammals, other rodents, where they separate them. There's a glass, so the male and his partner on one side, ⁓ and then there's a rival male on the other side. There's a glass right here, and then they'll move the female over to the rival male, they'll and they'll basically force the male. partner to watch, you know, his partner having sex with another male. And then as soon as he's back, she's back with him, immediately he wants to have sex. There's no, you know, he attempts to copulate. There's no ⁓ preparatory behaviors. There's no, I mean, what do we know? I mean, we can't ask the mouse or the rat what he's feeling, but it certainly seems as if witnessing his partner having sex with another male was incredibly arousing. Now whether male rats You know, for example, or birds. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. It's it's very it's notorio notoriously difficult to ⁓ communicate ⁓ with animals. It would be ⁓ would be very interesting if we could just ask. I I recently did an episode ⁓ about ⁓ a woman who is actually building artificial intelligence systems to hopefully one day be able to communicate with animals better. But she is ⁓ sh yeah, she caveated the whole thing by animals have just such a different world view, different context. Like even if we would be able to like perfectly understand them, it would probably be very different than than the way we communicate. So yeah, I think ⁓ these these would be ⁓ it will be very difficult to ⁓ to know this but Maybe there was ⁓ there was some ⁓ some example. And we've we've spoken about ⁓ the the ⁓ female point of view briefly before in the more ⁓ evolutionary ⁓ context. ⁓ what about the ⁓ fetishized context? Because we can get into that study. ⁓ I I saw one study ⁓ that was done that around fifty eight percent of men ⁓ sometimes have ⁓ desires or thoughts about their woman having sex with another man. ⁓ and it was around 30% for women. So it was a lot less, but it was still a pretty big number. Yeah. What do we what do we know about that? Also given the fact that they are generally more likely to be scared about the emotional side of things. But sometimes they a third of women at least sometimes seem to fantasize about this sexual aspect as well. Yeah, no, it's interesting. ⁓ I mean, I don't know, do do you recall if they were specifically referring to their partner ha literally having sex with another woman? I mean, that's all it was. They were they were viewing they were fantasizing about him having sex with her? I think so, yeah, yeah. I I I hope I I hope I'm not butchering it, but I I I believe I believe that was generally what it was about, yeah. Yeah, I mean, because the comparable fantasy would be women fantasizing like a masturbatory fantasy, or maybe they're having sex with with their partner. You know, they might be fantasizing about their partner, you know, ⁓ emotionally sort of communicating, you know, emotionally investing in another woman. And I can imagine, perhaps, that that might generate feelings of sexual excitement ⁓ in women. But of course, the underlying, you know, biology is different. I mean, in men The sexual excitement is designed to motivate men to place their ejaculate in the par in their partner's reproductive tract. In women, that sexual excitement excitement might be motivated to ⁓ I mean it might be motivated to, you know, it might be ⁓ designed to motivate them to be become more sexually available for their partner. I mean, I there's I'm not sure it's ⁓ it's a one to one sort of comparability there. ⁓ but ⁓ I can imagine, I mean, anytime you have mechanisms in place, there are there are circumstances in which you can get those mechanisms activated in ways that, you know, they weren't intended to be activated, but can be activated. ⁓ and so I can imagine women fantasizing about sex with with ⁓ you know their partner having sex with another woman. ⁓ you know, it could be I mean, I'd have to know more about the research, but one possibility too is that women do find it both frightening and arousing when other women find their partners attractive. ⁓ You know, ⁓ because it's it's, you know, it it it perhaps in part because it motivates them to behave in ways that ensures that their partner stays focused on them. ⁓ and it's also a reflection on oneself. I mean, to the extent that your partner is the object of desire, it suggests that you yourself are a high, a reasonably high quality mate that can secure this partner who is the object of others, you know, sort of ⁓ attractions. So I mean my guess is, I mean, without knowing the the research, my guess is there might be some interesting th interesting things going on there, ⁓ you know, at the fantasy level, you know, what is it they specifically are excited about? Yeah, and I think what you said there is is interesting as well, right? Because ⁓ I don't know if this is backed by del literature, but I I do feel like ⁓ the women are more likely to show off their partner and look at my handsome man and and look at how good he looks. And I mean, of course, guys are proud of their partners as well. There are many men who are very proud of who they married or who they're with. ⁓ but I wouldn't say they like show ⁓ as prominently as as some women may do. But that's just my gut feeling. But is is there any science done on on that topic as well? That's a good question. ⁓ I mean I probably would have had the I mean, in terms of show off and display, I mean, we know that men's, you know, mate preferences are more keyed into a partner's physical attractiveness and youth. ⁓ women's partner preferences are more keyed into their partner's social status, financial stability. and so I might have guessed, I might suspect that men may be slightly more likely to display their partners. ⁓ not because they I mean, it's a double-edged sword, not because they're trying to entice other men, but because they want to say, look what I can get. Look what I can do. ⁓ but yes, I mean, you be it's a dangerous, potentially a dangerous game. ⁓ you know, making a show of of your partner. Similarly for women, ⁓ I mean, when I say that, you know, men around the world, we know, ⁓ are more interested in a partner in a long-term partner, they're more interested in a partner's youth and physical attractiveness. That's not to say that Men aren't also interested in a partner's kindness and intelligence. They certainly are, but there is this sex difference with men, you know, their top few ranked preferences will include physical attractiveness and youth. For women, those preferences are there, but they're lower. It's, you know, there's a there's a sex difference in the placement of these these preferences. So I don't know, it's a good question. I mean, it's certainly the case that both men and women do engage and make display. But, you know ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ I mean it's also the case that women are a lot more forgiving of a partner's physical attractiveness. ⁓ you know, I mean what you're displaying is access to resources, more so than access to reproductive value. Right. Yeah. I I I think I think I've I've I've seen that. I mean if ⁓ if if I if I look at ⁓ some very, very ⁓ influential, very famous, very wealthy man who doesn't necessarily look like ⁓ a movie star, for example. They are generally still ⁓ able to to get a very attractive ⁓ partner, whereas the other way around, I'm I'm not so sure if that's ⁓ if the same can be said. I mean there's always exceptions, right? That's that's ⁓ that's difficult. But I think in general that's that's accurate. That ties into to this as well? Well absolutely. I mean, ⁓ you know, w women are more forgiving of a of a man's physical attractiveness so long as he has the resources, you know, that are a larger part of his value as a prospective long term mate. ⁓ for men, you know, physical attractiveness and youth loom larger than social status, you know, And again, depending on the context, may may loom just as large as kindness and cooperativeness. And ⁓ I mean, there is work showing like there's work looking at preferences in long-term mates versus short-term mates. And and I mean, for a short term mate, from men's perspective, you know, just a one night stand, ⁓ men, I mean, basically, you know, in the words of the evolutionary psychologist Chris Rock, you know, men just need a crease. You know, and men can be ruthlessly forgiving of a woman's attractiveness so long as we're talking about just a one night stand. ⁓ not so when we're talking about a long term partner. ⁓ you know, men tend to be much less forgiving of older age and physical unattractiveness. Yeah. In a way, that's not true for women going the other way. No, no, I think so. ⁓ that that that does seem to align with My my general understanding. I was I was also curious to ⁓ kind of hear your take on this because of course the term ⁓ cuckold cuckoldry it's decades old, but I feel like it's gotten really popular over the last decade, if you will, and especially the last few years, ⁓ people are are using this term to describe people. that aren't n literal cucks, but are are types of guys that would enjoy something like that as a yeah, term to discredit them, if you will. So it's it's a very popular popularized term. When you see this term being thrown around as often as it currently is, is there something that you think a lot of people misunderstand about what it means or or or the science in general? Some things that annoy you or or perhaps make you laugh? Yeah, no, I mean I think ⁓ I don't think they're aware of what they're saying. I think cuck now seems to be a word like loser or, you know, ⁓ screw up, you know. I mean, if I'm understanding the term correctly. It's yeah. And so you you it's not a far cry from a cuckolded man. I a cuckled man is cross-culturally ⁓ made fun of, belittled, laughed at. I mean, it's not only is it reproductively devastating, it's socially devastating. To to be known to be a cuckold is disastrous. Your mate value plummets, you become less interesting as a prospective mate. I mean you're just, you know, you're in many cases your better option is just bail and find another community. ⁓ so I think there's, you know, in terms of use of that term. You know, it's it's not a far cry from, you know, you know, using cuck as a as like a loser. ⁓ it that's almost always that that's that's used for men too, right? It's not something you wouldn't call a woman a cuck. No, not really. No. Right, right. ⁓ yeah, so it seems to be just ⁓ you know, it seems to have, you know, linked into, you know, the emotional correlates of cuckaldry. But it is yeah, I think you're right, though, there does seem to be some kind of upswing in the use of that term. And I I don't I don't know why that is. I don't understand it. Unless it has something to do with I mean, the last ten, twenty years is where I mean the internet has become just y diabolically available all over and you know, and it may be that, you know, I mean, all the cuckoldry porn and ⁓ you know, there's a significant genre of pornography associated with cuckaldry. so at any rate, ⁓ Yeah, I don't I don't have any better explanation than just you know Yeah, no, it's it's it's interesting to me what you said about the social aspect of it, right? Because ⁓ we've we've mainly discussed the dynamics between ⁓ man and woman, but we haven't really touched on the social aspect of it, which I think is r is also a big part of it, because I'll give you an example. There's this Dutch television show at the moment. And it's reality TV and basically people live inside a house and ⁓ they have to do all these challenges and then they're literally in this house for six months or very, very long period of time, and the last man or or woman standing wins a hundred grand. it's on t it's on television every single day, and ⁓ there's this one girl who's in there and she's constantly flirting with another man. And ⁓ her boyfriend is calling in and he's desperate and he's literally begging her to come home and he's just like, Sweetie, what are you doing? Like this isn't it obvious to you that what this guy is trying to do, and she is being very selfish and she she doesn't want to come home, and then she says d she's also trying to gaslight him in the sense like nothing's happening, and then everyone obviously everyone has eyes, can see that there is definitely something going on. So she's not very popular at the moment. But also the guy, and I even if I just if I'm just speaking for myself here, I'm literally I I I I see clips of this show. I've never watched an entire episode, but I see clips of it on social media. I'm literally screaming at my screen, like, dude, get rid of her. Like drop her. Like, what are you what are you still doing under? I feel kind of emotional when I look at that footage and I'm just raging inside. It was like just d don't be such a wuss, man. Just get rid of her. Tell her tell her to to fuck off, you know? So excuse my French, but that's what it instills in me, you know? So that's very interesting to me that it is also bi relational and not just between the men and the woman, but that it also instills something in me. Wha wh why do you think that is? Well, I mean I mean you're right. There's I don't know how much empirical work there is on this phenomenon, but I mean, certainly anecdotally and, you know, cross-culturally. I mean, ⁓ I mean, men who are known to be cuckled are banished from male coalitions. I mean, nobody wants to be around someone who is, you know, deceived in this way, ⁓ you know, who allows this to continue. ⁓ so i you're right. I mean, the social costs are profound. And that's something that may be That may be uniquely human. I don't know. I don't know of any other work. Like I don't know work in birds. Birds are typically, I mean, they're very social, but they're less social in some ways than humans. But yes, it seems to be people infer various things about someone's traits and preferences, ⁓ on the basis of, you know, a partner's infidelity. ⁓ and to be associated with someone who's known to be a cuckold ⁓ is, you know, can be socially, you know, problematic. ⁓ you know, it can, my guess is, you know, for other men who were part of the same group of that man who's being cuckolded, ⁓ they all experience some decrement in social value. ⁓ and one way to solve that is to ostracize him, get rid of him, get out. ⁓ and ⁓ but often men will I mean, you know, it's a tug of war in terms of social relational sorts of issues, but Sometimes it takes other men saying, This is insane, dude. You gotta let this go. ⁓ and sometimes men will respond, you know, to their male close friends saying, Fix this, man. I'm not living like this. I mean, they're the ones that are acting like it's happening to them. But see, but men also appreciate that and men are like, All right, all right, all right. You know, and so it might it may take their male friends or brothers or, you know, some their male relatives. ⁓ But it does, you're right. It it reveals something very interesting about ⁓ human psychology, ⁓ that these are events that occur that have a cascade of consequences. you know, the most severe of which we can suggest are the risk of, you know, cuckaldry, but then it just flowers, you know, into all sorts of, you know, peripheral consequences. Right. And I mean, it's all this was This is incredibly interesting. We are nearing the end of our dis discussion, I guess. Is there something that you would like to mention or or something we haven't touched on that is very important that we still do ⁓ before we ⁓ wrap it up today? Well, I I wish well, I think we've tackled a lot of some of the most interesting issues. I it's a shame that there aren't more people doing work on sperm competition in humans. ⁓ I mean, as far as I know, we are the only lab in the United States that's doing work on, you know, collecting ejaculates ⁓ with humans. ⁓ there are other researchers in other parts of the world who are doing research on human sperm competition. These are people like Lee Simmons who built a career on studying sperm competition in in insects. And then he basically, you know, was he wanted to see if he could replicate some of the work that was done with humans. ⁓ and he was able to replicate ⁓ you know, much of that work. But that was sort of incidental, ⁓ to his other work. For whatever when it's not for whatever reason, I mean it it is a, you know, you gotta have thick skin to do this kind of work and, you know, you have to and it it is time consuming and can be expensive. ⁓ but it's getting less expensive. ⁓ even just since I've been doing this work, the mach the, you know, the medical technology involved is, you know, it's smaller, it's more efficient, it's less expensive. ⁓ but I do wish that more people would pick it up. but whatever. It's not for everyone. Yeah. No, I mean I th I at least I think it it's incredibly interesting. So I'm ⁓ yeah, really appreciative of of all the work that you're doing. Where can people go if they want to keep up with ⁓ with with your work and ⁓ the articles you're publishing and and perhaps you're you're posting on some other channels as well? Yeah, the best place to find all of our work, ⁓ articles, book chapters, books, ⁓ you know, more about the students in our lab is at our lab website, ⁓ which is ⁓ my name. So it's w dot toddk shackleford dot com. And there you can find we posted, you know everything we've done unless a publisher freaked out, you know, and said they didn't want it there. But basically it's all there. And you can learn about all the things we've been doing and ⁓ you know, and conference presentations and all of that. And I'm happy to, you know, to hear from people and and I'm always interested in chatting with people about about our work or about related work. Awesome. Well I'll make sure to to put it in the in the show notes. Thank you so much, ⁓ Todd. This was absolutely fascinating and I yeah, I learned so much and It was ⁓ yeah, I I think ⁓ there there there isn't like you say, like in the in the in the literature, but I think in general there is just isn't a lot on this ⁓ topic out there. So I'm ⁓ I'm happy that we could contribute today to ⁓ to getting ⁓ some more info ⁓ out there to hopefully a general ⁓ public. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Julius.