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In order to understand what is really going on with this phenomenon we need to stop projecting our male perspectives onto women. Actually this apparently annoying behaviour makes perfect sense when evaluated from the point of view of a woman.
One of the reasons that women engage in this ‘teasing‘ behaviour is because of their need to attract sufficient interested males to serve as potential mate selections, or choices. The problem for a woman is that for most of human history, sex all too often, meant a large investment of her reproductive availability, time, and energy in the genes of that particular male. For this reason alone, it has always been critical for a woman to make a good choice in the first place.
Because of this biological reality many female mammals have evolved the tendency to remain sexually unreceptive without at least the availability of choices. It becomes clear that the presence of choices is important for some women to have their sexual receptivity triggered at all. Other women may be triggered by outright competition for sexual access, such as dating many men or even getting them fighting. Ever wonder why so many women like guys fighting over them? They can be sexual triggers for a woman and some of them consistently instigate fights. Even with a highly desirable mate available, lack of sufficient choice can be sufficient for some women to remain sexually unreceptive.
Since the mere physical presence of males does not, on its own, provide a choice of mates for a female, it is the presence and availability of more than one interested male that triggers receptivity. So what should a woman do if she has an interested suitor and is in this psychology? Obviously, she should draw in others to compete with him.
Another reason that women engage in ‘teasing’ behaviour is because flirting is a sexual skill that has a useful purpose. However, this skill must be practiced just like any other, even if no mating results from it.
Women don’t actually set out to tease men. It just happens that attracting many men without mating with them is a sexual strategy that women have evolved to help them make the best of their biology. This behaviour evolved because it is successful. The fact that it makes the unsuccessful suitors uncomfortable is biologically irrelevant.
You might also enjoy reading:-
- The Female Mate Selection Process
- What’s Wrong With Romance?
- Peacocks may have lost their sexual attraction
- Mate Love
- Game theory applied to seduction
Posted by Scott in Psychology, Sociobiology