From Crotch-Grabbing to Demography

Ann Friedman declares that the video for Ciara's "Like a Boy" contains "the most successful execution of a move I'll call 'subversive crotchgrab in menswear' that I've seen in popular music since Madonna's 'Express Yourself' video."

Unfortunately for Ciara, though, a healthy share of the responsibility for the behavior she deplores seems to have deeper structural roots in the high rate of incarceration and low life expectancy of African-American men combined with the persistence of substantial social pressures against inter-racial dating. Note that "nationwide the Census Bureau calculates that among single non-Hispanic whites in their 20's, there are 120 men for every 100 women. The comparable figures are 153 Hispanic men, 132 Asian men and 92 black men for every 100 single women in their 20's of the same race or ethnicity." Insofar as people date intra-racially, that means African-Americans are facing a very different climate from whites, Asians, or Latinos.

Comments

So it should have been Gene Wilder saying "Where are the black women at?" to Cleavon Little.

Posted by Njorl | September 12, 2007 10:51 AM

Er, how is this possible? I can see that a lot of Hispanic twenty-somethings are immigrants and maybe mostly men. But what happened to all the Asian and white women? Do they all get married to thirty-somethings? This is a huge discrepancy.

Posted by Heath White | September 12, 2007 11:00 AM

The whole premise of your argument is making me cringe. I fear you're veering very close to a kind of condescending, paternalistic liberalism that doesn't actually, you know, listen to the black woman's complaint.

Posted by Antid Oto | September 12, 2007 11:07 AM

Although perhaps not phrased quite so harshly as that. I remember your interview with TPM in which you asserted that your commenters all hate you. I don't hate you.

Posted by Antid Oto | September 12, 2007 11:09 AM

It also assumes, incidentally, that she's claiming that the problem is with black men rather than all men. She doesn't say that. You made that leap.

Posted by Antid Oto | September 12, 2007 11:15 AM

Wow, that article is about the most offensive thing I've seen in awhile: "the statistical odds of finding a full-time partner are better if you're a woman. Unless you're a black woman."

Huh? Did I miss something in health class? Are Black women's ladyparts not compatible with non-black men's manparts? I thought we repealed those miscegenation laws, maybe the NY Times knows something I don't.

You know, it was in 1851 that Sojourner Truth famously asked "Aren't I a woman?"

Amazing that in 2007, the NY Times thinks it fine to suggest otherwise.

Posted by anonymous | September 12, 2007 11:36 AM

"But what happened to all the Asian and white women? Do they all get married to thirty-somethings? This is a huge discrepancy."

Yeah, that's exactly the explaination: Young women on average marry men older than themselves, resulting in young men facing a deficit of single women their own age. Which I suppose they could resolve by marrying older women...

For instance, I'm a 48 year old white male, and my wife is a 27 year old asian. And we're not that much of an oddity around here.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 12, 2007 11:44 AM

anonymous -

Matt specifically said: "combined with the persistence of substantial social pressures against inter-racial dating". There is still a very strong stigma in the black community for young black women to be dating young white men. It's less than it was when I was dating (oh so many years ago), but it seems like it's still there.

Brett Bellmore -

Which I suppose they could resolve by marrying older women...

No because in general those older women tend to be still married to even older men. And women who are old enough that their husbands have died off of old age are not usually interested in dating men so young.

Posted by NonyNony | September 12, 2007 11:56 AM

Anonymous,

You are not taking into account that black women are less likely to date and marry men outside of their race than white, Hispanic, and Asian women. Most interracial marriages and other romantic relationships between a black person and white person tend to consist of a black man and a non-black woman, instead of a black woman with a non-black man.

I don't know why black men are far more willing than black women to have inter-racial relationships, but this discrepancy does give black men more opportunities than black women to get married.

Posted by eltoro | September 12, 2007 12:07 PM

I don't know why black men are far more willing than black women to have inter-racial relationships, but this discrepancy does give black men more opportunities than black women to get married.

Maybe, just maybe, it's not that black men are more open-minded than black women. Exercise left to the reader.

Posted by Barbar | September 12, 2007 12:16 PM

I want to post something but do not know what... all those stats. single, married, black, white, asian, hispanic, hetro, gay,... inter-racial, extra-racial, ... i think it turns me on?

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | September 12, 2007 1:32 PM

Where's Steve Sailer?

Posted by blah | September 12, 2007 1:36 PM

No kidding, Sailer explained it all years ago.
http://www.isteve.com/IsLoveColorblind.htm

Posted by beowulf | September 12, 2007 2:13 PM

Look, there's little accounting for taste, and I certainly am not going to tell anyone that they can't decide who they want to hook up with. But this is all a great reminder that antideluvian social strictures, cultural and religious pressures and presumptions, etc., that say that women have to date and marry older men of higher status, men have to date and marry younger women, and everyone has to marry within their racial and religious groups actually have really bad macro effects.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 12, 2007 2:23 PM

This is among the reasons I"m really interested to follow the immigration-driven conversion of LA's southern ghettos from overwhelmingly black to black-and-brown - I'm really curious how this dynamic will respond to an injection of young, unattached, hardworking males who could really benefit from marrying a citizen.

Posted by Senescent | September 12, 2007 3:07 PM

Senescent asks a good question, but I haven't seen many Hispanic male-black female couples on the street in LA. I've seen more of the reverse: black male-Hispanic female couples, just as there are more inter-racial couples with black men and white women or Asian women than the reverse with a black woman with a white man or Asian man. (Asian man-black woman couples are extremely rare, although more common than in the past. I've seen about one per year in this decade, as opposed to none ever until 1999.)

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 4:15 PM

So, despite the shortage of young black males in the interracial dating marketplace due to the high percentage who are in prison or dead, black males do very well for themselves in attracting partners of other races. Why is that? (Answers that follow Occam's Razor get bonus points.)

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 4:18 PM

As the inveterate party-pooper who brings data, here are the numbers from the 2000 Census:

The Census Bureau confirmed black women's complaints that white women were more likely to marry black men than white men were to marry black women. In 2000, African-American men had white wives 2.65 times more often than black women had white husbands. In other words, in 73 percent of black-white couples, the husband was black and wife was white.

(This interracial gender gap is even sharper among black-white couples who cohabit without being married. Five times as many black men live with white women as white men live with black women.) ...

To keep things simple, all these ratios are for non-multiracial and non-Hispanic individuals.

Like most guys, Asian-American men are fairly reticent about admitting any frustrations in the mating game. But the news for them was even worse. Asian women had white husbands 3.08 times more often than Asian men had white wives. That means 75 percent of white-Asian couples featured a white husband and Asian wife. ...

In 2000, the white-Asian inequality was somewhat less severe among unmarried partners: 2.09 times as many white men cohabited with Asian women as Asian men cohabited with white women.

The inevitable flip side of the lack of interracial marital opportunities felt by black women and Asian men is that black men and Asian women find themselves more in demand as spouses.

Black-Asian couples, such as the one that produced golfer Tiger Woods, are still rare, but they are even more unbalanced than interracial pairings involving whites. There were 6.15 times more couples where the husband was black and the wife was Asian than where the husband was Asian and the wife black.

Few whites comprehend the impact on minorities of these interracial husband - wife disparities.

That's partly because whites don't intermarry all that much. While the number of interracial couples is steadily increasing, currently 96.5 percent of married non-Hispanic whites are wed to another non-Hispanic white.

Also, among whites, interracial marriage hasn't impacted one gender much more than the other. Although white women hunting for husbands, for example, suffer more competition from Asian women, they also enjoy increased chances to acquire a black mate. Thus, among non-Hispanic whites, for every 1,000 white women who are married, 1,006 white men are married. On a national level, this imbalance is close to imperceptible.

Although the bitterness that some black women feel over intermarriage is well known, the imbalance rests even more heavily on Asian-American men. For every 1,000 Asian women with husbands, only 860 Asian men had wives, leaving a large number of Asian bachelors left over. In contrast, for every 1,000 black women who were married, there were 1,059 black married men.

http://www.isteve.com/2003_Census_Interracial_Marriage_Gender_Gap.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 4:25 PM

So, any suggestions on why black males are so much in demand as husbands and (especially) boyfriends, despite high rates of imprisonment and violent death? Bonus Occam's Razor points if your explanation can also explain strong black male performance in hip-hop, the NFL, and the NBA as well.

Here's one proposed explanation from Dr. William Aiken, the head of Urology at the University Hospital of the West Indies and president of the Jamaica Urological Society:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/11/black-athletes-and-testosterone.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 5:18 PM

SFX: Silence reigns. The only sound is crickets chirping. Then, someone coughs uneasily.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 5:43 PM

Nobody likes you. Get off the stage.

Posted by Antid Oto | September 12, 2007 6:02 PM

Then, someone coughs uneasily.

Check the batteries in your hearing aid. That was me, throwing up.

Cleanup on aisle 4!

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | September 12, 2007 6:17 PM

Crushing scientific rejoinders!

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 6:19 PM

Triple Occam's Razor bonus points if your explanation for all these phenomena can also account for the high prostate cancer rates among black males.

As Dr. William Aitken, Jamaica's top urologist, says:

"I wish to propose a hypothesis that addresses not only the aspect of Jamaica's raw athletic talent, but also encompasses an explanation of seemingly diverse phenomena as our high incidence of prostate cancer (one study found it to be by far the highest in the world at 304 / 100,000 men / year), our high crime rate (murder capital of the world status earlier this year), our high road traffic accident and fatality rate, and our alleged high levels of promiscuity."

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061122/health/health4.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 6:22 PM

Not exactly a reality-based community around here, is there?

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 6:29 PM

Steve, I am going to have exactly the same response to you that I have to just about every essentialist argument. And that is, I don't doubt that there are all sorts of racial and gender differences and that we have only scratched the surface in finding them, but how do you possibly assume that these differences, rather than cultural issues, explain the phenomena you are pointing to?

Specifically, on the interracial mating issue, you really think that there aren't various cultural stereotypes about black men, black women, asian men, asian women, etc.? As well as cultural presumptions about whether interracial dating and marriage is acceptable, and if so, what kinds?

Similarly, Jamaica's an island nation. It's probably got a relatively cohesive population. How can you know that whatever the tendencies are with respect to promiscuity, crime, and traffic fatalities are due to biological rather than cultural factors?

You can't simply cite a bunch of statistics and declare what "reality" is when it comes to social trends. It is very hard to tease out nature and culture with respect to these trends, and many people have a huge bias towards assuming that it is nature.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 12, 2007 6:45 PM

Dear Dilan:

Those are very good questions. That's why I answered them in detail back in the 1990s. May I suggest you begin with my 1997 article in National Review on interracial marriage: "Is Love Colorblind?"

http://www.isteve.com/IsLoveColorblind.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 6:56 PM

I'd next recommend you read a couple of my 1990s articles on track, which is a crucial sport to study to understand race and sex differences because it is so universal and because we have a lot of data on the impact of adding male hormones to runners (e.g., we now know all about the East German steroid-doping system of the 1970s and 1980s).

Here is "Track and Battlefield" from National Review in 1997:

http://www.isteve.com/gendrgap.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 6:59 PM

And for a general introduction to how to think about the race differences in sports that we see everywhere around us everyday, here's my 1996 National Review article "Great Black Hopes:"

http://www.isteve.com/blackath.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 7:02 PM

And, for a good introduction to the crucial subject of hormone differences, I recommend Matt's fellow Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan, whose 2000 NYT Magazine article "The He Hormone" explained how Sullivan revived his punditry career in the late 1990s by getting a prescription for synthetic testosterone:

http://www.bluffton.edu/~mastg/The%20He%20Hormone.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 7:06 PM

Interesting read from Sailer, though I'll admit to trying to crunch it in. I may have missed something.

But as a 40-year old black man who has never dated a black woman (1/2 black, 1/2 Puerto Rican was as close as I got), I don't think the man is as out to lunch as some are suggesting.

Posted by David | September 12, 2007 7:21 PM

I agree that Sailer is an interesting read. He is consistently willing to pee on the third rail.

His argumentation style is annoying, though. Pointing debaters to your previously written material isn't even helpful when it's pastors pointing at the Bible. At some point, you have to engage.

Aitken's hypothesis about testosterone receptors is interesting, but I'd have to see the underlying literature. I'm not much of a molecular biologist, but I'd want sequence homology in order to really believe it.

Posted by Klug | September 12, 2007 7:26 PM

Steve Sailer, no one really cares because you live in your own little world where you think you're a scientist and statistician. What is it like to have completely wasted your life?

"For instance, I'm a 48 year old white male, and my wife is a 27 year old asian. And we're not that much of an oddity around here.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 12, 2007 11:44 AM"

Congrats, bro. (Seriously)

Posted by Reality Man | September 12, 2007 7:41 PM

"Pointing debaters to your previously written material isn't even helpful when it's pastors pointing at the Bible. At some point, you have to engage."

I've heard every argument a hundred times and have engaged with them a dozen times. I could continue to sit here and play Whack-a-Mole with all the bad arguments that everybody would bring up, which would be fun for me and drive all the anti-knowledge anti-reality folks even closer to apoplexy. But if anyone out there is seriously interested in _learning_ about a hugely important aspect of how the world works, then I'd suggest you first read my 1990s articles. I'd be pleased to discuss them further with anyone who has read them.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 12, 2007 7:56 PM

Here's a suggestion guaranteed to make everyone nervous.
In New York, where I live black man, white woman couples are commonplace and outside of a few enclaves of the white underclass no one would hassle them. However I have seen white men with a black woman get a real hard time from black men who were hanging out on the street. Some of these men were very large and very angry. Although no one would want to admit it, I think that is a factor.

Posted by dSmith | September 12, 2007 8:05 PM

"For instance, I'm a 48 year old white male, and my wife is a 27 year old asian. And we're not that much of an oddity around here."

Are we talking mail-order here?

Posted by Juan Carlos de Borbon Y Borbon | September 12, 2007 9:18 PM

"I've heard every argument a hundred times and have engaged with them a dozen times. I could continue to sit here and play Whack-a-Mole with all the bad arguments that everybody would bring up, which would be fun for me and drive all the anti-knowledge anti-reality folks even closer to apoplexy. But if anyone out there is seriously interested in _learning_ about a hugely important aspect of how the world works, then I'd suggest you first read my 1990s articles. I'd be pleased to discuss them further with anyone who has read them."

*rolls eyes* The only person who thinks you actually engage is you. You lack self-awareness.

Posted by Reality Man | September 12, 2007 9:22 PM

"Steve Sailer, no one really cares because you live in your own little world where you think you're a scientist and statistician. What is it like to have completely wasted your life?"

What an elegant refutation, Reality Man. Q.E.D.

Posted by Fred | September 12, 2007 9:25 PM

Steve,

High testasterone levels are only part of the explanation why many black man are able to have interracial dating and marriages to such a high degree, especially in comparison to black women. Many non-black women, especially white ones, who are open to interracial relationships do believe (at least on an unconscious level) in the Mandingo mystique (that black men possess sexual prowess far in excess of men of other races, especially white men.) Like many mystiques, there is some reality to it, but there is also some exagerration to it. What is important is that enough Asian, white, and Latina women believe in the mystique sufficiently to be attracted to black men of various stations, whether it is your Cliff Huxtable types or your Snoop Dogg types. Throw in the taboo factor about black men having sexual access to white women, and you have powerful cultural incentives for many non-black women to cross the color line and date and/or marry black men.

BTW, Steve, If pay a visit to your local adult video store, you will notice that a preponderance of today's porno studs are black males, who are not limited to sex scenes with black women. Black porno studs are frequently partnered with white, Asian, and Latina porno actresses, and black ones as well. Moreover, they tend to be the most popular and in-demand porno studs. As a result, the dominance of the porno industry by white studs in the mold of John Holmes or Ron Jeremy is over.

So now you can add the porno industry to your list of fields where black men dominate, and where testasterone is clearly a major factor.

Posted by eltoro | September 12, 2007 9:45 PM

Mr. Sailer,

Did you think that the argument would be more convincing coming from a black guy?

Ironically, the same argument (about being able to survive long sea voyages) has been invoked to explain why Polynesians tend to have high rates of obesity. So we have people arguing that selection to survive sea voyages selected out the thin people, and another saying that the need to survive sea voyages selected out the fat people. It seems like the hypothesis needs a little work.

You would think that development of upper-body muscle strength takes a fair amount of testosterone, as well. How come the world's best weight-lifters and wrestlers tend to be Eastern European or ex-Soviet types, nary a black guy among them. I seem to recall a few years ago people like you were invoking testosterone to explain why world class boxers tend to be black. Funny, now that all the heavyweight champions are ex-Soviet white guys, i don't hear that too often anymore.

I don't deny that East Africans may have a genetic advantage in long distance running, they probably do. But any hypothesis about testosterone levels probably doesn't explain it, given the data point about ex-Soviet weight lifters and wrestlers.

And by the way, East and West Africans do not fall into some cohesive 'black' racial group. Our knowledge of genetics today tells us that, at least the non-Bantu people of Kenya, are the most distinct of any in the world after the Khoisan; in other words the family tree of humanity is the Khoisan and many East Africans on one side, and West Africans along with Asians, whites, etc. on the other.

If genetic differences between racial groups are so marked, then how come the high-achieving South Asians of the US come from the same ethnic stock as the Gypsies of Eastern Europe who display social pathologies that make anything in the US look like small potatoes.

I don't think that speculation about any and all racial differences is necessarily out of line, or racist. But I think that the history of speculation on this topic is so laden with bad arguments, exploded 'facts' as well as tied intimately with a racist and imperialist agendas, that a very high burden of proof is on you.

I also believe that Colombia now has the world's highest murder rate, not Jamaica.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | September 12, 2007 10:31 PM

"So now you can add the porno industry to your list of fields where black men dominate, and where testasterone is clearly a major factor."

Actually, black men don't dominate porn. No men dominate porn -- it is a woman-dominated industry. Women get paid much more than male porn stars.

Posted by Juan | September 12, 2007 10:32 PM

"How come the world's best weight-lifters and wrestlers tend to be Eastern European or ex-Soviet types, nary a black guy among them."

Hmm... could it be that the pool of black guys with the required size and strength would rather play football than appear in some strong man competition that ESPN 2 broadcasts at 3am?

Posted by Fred | September 12, 2007 11:42 PM

Most people's aesthetic standards of attraction are clearly biased by race in ways that only make them unhappier in the long run. In this, as in all else, we must learn to follow Homer Simpson's example:

Oh I could love a million girls
And every girl a twin
Yeah I could love a Chinese girl
An Eskimo or Finn
I could dig a Deutschland chick
A girl with golden curls
In fact I think that we could love...about a million girls!

Posted by brooksfoe | September 13, 2007 1:47 AM

Dear Hector Dauphin-Gloire:

Thanks. Excellent points, all of which I've dealt with in the past. Please read my articles from the 1990s that I've linked to above for starters. They'll answer many of your questions.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 13, 2007 4:30 AM

"Are we talking mail-order here?"

No, of course not, international online dating. Though I suppose some people, rather inaccurately, call them mail order brides, that dramatically misunderstands how it actually works.

The truth is, my wife picked ME out... Maybe we should call it "mail order husbands"?

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 13, 2007 7:07 AM

Steve:

The problem is you are extrapolating from athletics-- where genetic difference is most meaningful (although even there, not the full story; distance runners come out of Oregon as well as Kenya, which suggests a cultural influence even in that field)-- to social trends, where culture is far harder to separate.

Again, you are arguing against a straw man. Nobody says genetics aren't relevant. What people object to is essentialism-- the idea that once we establish differences in behavior and differences in physiology, that's all that needs to be proven and culture can be ignored and minimized.

In fact, there is simply NO WAY one can analyze mating behavior without acknowledging the huge impact of culture on this area, including our cultural presumptions about race and gender. You are letting your own biases-- what you would like to be true about racial and gender differences-- blind you to this key point.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 13, 2007 3:12 PM

Dilan Esper says:

"there is simply NO WAY one can analyze mating behavior without acknowledging the huge impact of culture on this area,"

Which is absolutely true which is absolutely why I acknowledge the huge impact of culture on this area. May I suggest that rather than continue to make up stuff about what you think I'm saying, that you read my ten year old article "Is Love Colorblind?"

My point is that cultural factors alone can't explain the dual pattern of interracial marriage with more black men and East Asian women having white spouses than black women and East Asian men have white spouses. Cultural factors would point in the opposite direction. All cultural factors that have been advanced to explain either the black situation fail utterly to explain the Asian situation, and vice-versa. You have to wield Occam's Butterknife to believe those rationalizations.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 13, 2007 5:33 PM

Re: Hmm... could it be that the pool of black guys with the required size and strength would rather play football than appear in some strong man competition that ESPN 2 broadcasts at 3am?

Maybe with regard to people in the US. But look at, say, West Africans. Wrestling is traditionally a popular sport in much of Africa, with a prized place in the culture; how come the Olympic wrestling champions tend to be northern Eurasians rather than, say, Nigerians. I think even the Sailer article made some concession to the idea that upper body strength might not be so developed in African people as foot speed.

The strength of a scientific hypothesis is that it's open to falsification, to be tested and proven false. (A hypothesis can be worthy of belief, and not be 'scientific'. My religious belief in God is not susceptible of disproof, nor is my economic belief in ownership by worker's cooperatives. Sailer's hypothesis claims to be a matter of social science rather than a matter of faith or morality, so it ought to be testable).

A testable prediction was made a few years ago when it was claimed that the reason heavyweight boxing champions tended to be black, was due to genetic factors, and that black people were inherently better boxers than white people. A few years later, the hypothesis was disproved when a bunch of ex-Soviet boxers won all the heavyweight titles. This would tend to suggest that Sailer needs to refine his argument a little bit before it can be convincing.

What do you have to say about Russian boxers, weightlifters and wrestlers, Sailer? Or about East Indians vs. Gypsies?

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | September 13, 2007 8:27 PM

Wow, the Jamaican Daily Gleaner. Takes me back. I mean, if those buck Rastas hadn't been self-medicating with all that ganja, just imagine...

No, I don't want to engage with a ten-year-old article; I've got to go count the spoons; and after that I've got to fondle my check from George Soros; and then watch The Decider on the teebee with the sound turned down.

Those VDARE links on Steve's original site sure are interesting, though.

Posted by lambert strether | September 13, 2007 9:04 PM

"The truth is, my wife picked ME out... Maybe we should call it "mail order husbands"?"

How long have you been married to her?

"Maybe with regard to people in the US. But look at, say, West Africans."

African Americans tend to be larger and more muscular than West Africans, perhaps due to selection effects associated with slavery here. Also, the admixture of 10-20% of Caucasian genes among African Americans may give them some advantages over West Africans.

Posted by Fred | September 14, 2007 1:32 AM

My point is that cultural factors alone can't explain the dual pattern of interracial marriage with more black men and East Asian women having white spouses than black women and East Asian men have white spouses. Cultural factors would point in the opposite direction.

Really Steve? I can figure out some of the cultural factors in 10 seconds:

1. Black men are stereotyped as virile, great lovers, bigger penises, all hypermasculine characteristics desired by many women. Black women's stereotypes with respect to dating and mating are not nearly as strong or desired by men.

2. East Asian women are stereotyped as submissive, compliant, thinner, and more likely to hold their looks as they get older, all characteristics desired by many men. Asian men not only don't have these favorable stereotypes; they have unfavorable ones instead. Small penises, nerdy, short.

Thus, cultural stereotypes favor black men and east asian women in the dating marketplace, whereas they hurt east asian men and don't help black women any. Add to that mix the fact that whites have, on average, greater social influence and power in society than members of racial minorities, and a comparatively large number of white men are able to get something they desire (an asian wife) and a comparatively large number of white women are able to get something they desire (a black husband).

I am not saying this is the gospel. This is clearly exactly the sort of gross reasoning that can overlook the complexities of life. But the idea that there's no way the cultural factors can explain dating patterns is false. They clearly CAN, even if genetics didn't matter at all.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 14, 2007 6:06 PM

Dilan Esper,

Genetics determines ---> Higher Testosterone levels = "Hyper-Masculine" characteristics; "Hyper-Masculine" characteristics ---> cultural stereotypes about hyper masculine characteristics. It's not a cultural illusion that the average black man is more masculine than the average Asian man, or that whites tend to be in the middle on the masculinity scale.

Posted by Harry | September 14, 2007 6:22 PM