The Advantage of Lust

Saturday, October 20th, 2007

The Advantage of Lust

There is a great article in The Economist regarding sexual differentiation, longevity, and the pursuit of women. Human females have a longer life span than men, but men can extend their life span, if they continue to pursue women. It also implies that men in long term relationships with women will live longer than men who have polygynous relationships. Ii also says that it appears that humans in the far distant past were polygynous along the lines of horses and deer; obviously that relationship has ceased in general.

If the conclusions from the study are correct, then I suppose that it would be best for men to have a few long term sexual relationships. It has already been shown that women in long term relationships tend to outlive their mates, and women often die within a few years of their mates. So it would be better for women to dump their mates before they die; and it would be best for men to dump their mates for young women when the prior mate reaches menopause.

Related studies have shown that high level of testosterone lead to greater general health and longevity. In fact, in the past testosterone was used as a life extender for both men and women; there were some side effects, especially in women, so that treatment was stopped. I would guess that women shouldn't have levels of testosterone that are too much higher than their natural level at times of sexual arousal, which is only about ten percent of the normal level of men. I would imagine that the treatments of women who are so foolish as to have sex change procedures would indicate the maximum safe level.