In this article, we’re going to discuss the power-dynamics of dating and sex on an intersexual level. While most of this stuff is based in evolutionary psychology, you will also find that we included some anecdotal evidence based on experience and observation.

Let’s dive in.

Why power dynamics exist between men and women

On the most rudimentary level, and based on facts from evolutionary psychology, the basis of power dynamics between the two genders are the following:

• Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap (anisogamy)

Women only produce so many eggs over their lifetime to ensure procreation, while men’s sperm is abundant and produced in large manners. Female cells (eggs) are much larger, more costly to produce and scarcer. Consequently, women’s eggs matter more in the grand scheme of things.

This means that women are worth “more” when it comes to reproduction and mating in general.

• Women need to invest more when it comes to reproduction

Consider the fact that women have to invest more time and resources in order to reproduce and are at greater risk in doing so. This is called female internal gestation and refers to the period in which a woman is pregnant. In addition to this, women are much more vulnerable during pregnancy and have a need for additional nutrition.

This means that women evolved to be attracted to, seek out and lock down supportive men

• Women invest more time and resources when it comes to the rearing of the child

Speaking from a general point of view, women (mothers) are needed for the babies survival, while a father is not mandatory for survival. This fact has likely led to women also developing more feelings and a deeper connection with her children.

This means that women are worth more when it comes to reproducing and nurturing the future generations of humans.

In an evolutionary sense, the species that survives the longest and reproduces the most is rewarded by being on top of the food chain (see humans today). In addition to this, evolution has led to the following differences between the genders:

1: Women are very careful and risk averse: Mistakes surrounding reproduction or the danger of an unsuccessful pregnancy are much costlier to women then to men. This has led to women being more cautious regarding dating and sex

2: Women are much pickier than men: Since women are at risk of losing much more by mating with the wrong man, they tend to choose mates more carefully (if they succeeded or failed in doing this during the modern times is questionable. However, they still are pickier than men.)

3: Women tend to invest more into their children: Children mean much more to women than to men (higher parental investment), which is why women tend to be more protective and nurturing towards their children.

In other words, a man gains much more by having sex with many different women and as many women as possible. With this strategy, he can spread his seed more efficiently and have more genetic variety. A woman on the other hand does not gain by having many different partners, as each new partner poses potential risks for her.

These biological differences mean that men are always ready and willing to have sex, while women are much more careful and selective.

Men are salesmen, women are consumers (and marketers)

The dynamics present themselves like this:

1: Men are salesmen (offer):

Men are generally more willing to have sex as much as possible, so they are trying to sell themselves to women.

2: Women are the consumers:

Women are generally more risk-averse, careful and have much more to lose, which is why they are more selective and often test the offer before choosing. In addition to this, women don’t “pitch” in the way that men do, but they put themselves in situations where men are able to “sell themselves” to them. This includes online-interactions.

Of course, there are differences in the sexual marketplace when it comes to time and place. The sexual marketplace 100 years ago was much different than the one today, which is on a global level due to social media.

However, the biological differences between men and women make the sexual marketplace a consumer market favoring women. Remember that this is in general, exceptions definitely exist.

Therefore, over a whole population and on average, women have more power in dating.

However, if you’re a man, don’t worry. You’re on this website to become high-value. As soon as you have reached the upper 20% of men regarding the five pillars of self-improvement, this dynamic changes drastically.

You don’t have to care about the whole population as you can always work yourself at a point where this dynamic does no longer apply to you. This website (among many others) will help you to do that.

If you’ve ever listened to Myron from fresh and fit, you will probably know this:

“I had to bust my ass to buy this yacht and you get invited simply because you look a certain way. Men and women are different”

Exceptions: Where generalities are not as important

The paragraph above represents the general power dynamics of dating.

However, general rules mean little to those who seek to maximize their dating effectiveness.

1: To begin with, general rules apply mostly to the middle of the bell curve (ie.: “average folks”) and to average environments. If you’re working to become the best version of yourself, you don’t have to worry about general power dynamics, as you’re far more advanced than this.

2: Don’t overstate the differences because there are also many similarities: men and women for example become far more similar when they seek long-term partners.

3: There is a big difference between simply mating and truly seducing and taking someone’s heart – or even simply mating or having a great relationship-.

We will dive into those at a later time.

Women want commitment and resources

On the simplest level, parental investment defines how much parents invest into their offspring. There is also such a thing as “male parental investment” (MPI), which refers to how much the male of a species invests in their offspring.

To prevent confusion: “Investing” when it comes to humans refers to generally sticking around and helping each other both emotionally, with resources and with daily actions.

While in many other species, parental investment from a male side is relatively low, human males have very high MPI. However, it is not nearly as high as female parental investment in the human species. In other words, despite the fact that human males do invest quite a bit into their offspring, they invest not nearly as much as females do.

Therefore, the question arises, how this dynamic affects sexual dynamics.

The impact of parental investment on intersexual dynamics

In nature, the females of species who cannot expect any help from their male counterparts when it comes to raising the offspring (i.e. no male parental investment) only mate based on male genetic qualities (fitness) as displayed by certain fitness indicators (ie.: looks, plumage color, physique, dancing prowess, and any other symbol that the particular species developed as fitness indicator).

Meaning: When women cannot get any help to raise offspring, mating is based mainly on attraction (and various proxies of good genes).

Conversely, if women can obtain resources, they will also seek out and screen for resources (and their availability to them).

With humans, most women can secure support for raising children – or at least the promise of it.

Consequently, when women decide to enter into a long-term relationship and, more importantly, to start a family, they will also look for men to help and support them (with childrearing and household finances).

In addition to this, they will tend to reject those who are unable or unwilling to invest (although this does not necessarily mean that the man who helps and supports is the biological father of her children).

This is especially true for high-value women. High-quality women can more easily choose multiple men who are willing to help raise children (men receive a high-quality mate, good genes, and a social status gain in return).

Women are attracted to high-fitness men

Fitness in this sense does not necessarily mean having a 44cm biceps but rather markers of “good health” and “good genes”.

Therefore, the question arises which of the following attributes women are more attracted to:

• Resources
• Traits that lead to procuring more resources

We argue that it’s the latter but more likely both of them. It’s quite difficult to specify or distinguish which is more important but that doesn’t matter from a practical perspective.

What matters is that women are not just attracted to resources per se, but also to traits and behaviors which are likely to lead to power and resources.

These traits and behavior include: drive, dominance, strength, intelligence, etc.

It is therefore – in our opinion at least – only natural that women lose attraction for men who make them their whole world. If a man makes a woman his world, he’s essentially unlikely to climb dominance and power hierarchies and consequently not able to procure as much resources as possible.

Women subconsciously interpret this as the man being weak. Their thought process goes somewhat like this: “Stop worshipping the ground I walk on and hanging around me all the time. Be a man, go out, fight dragons (or whatever the hell) and bring home the bacon.

This is why a man with purpose is an attractive man; He’s more likely to accrue status, power and resources, which are all attractive to women.

If you want to know how women test for “fitness” in men, we highly recommend you check out our book on female testing. Just click on the button below to know exactly how to navigate their tests!

Women seek commitment and devotion for long-term

Remember, though, that resources alone don’t mean shit if the woman is not able to profit from those resources.

The question women asked themselves since ancient times was the following:

“Will he commit these resources to me and our children?”

Therefore, women don’t only seek men with resources of traits of being able to procure resources, but also signs that the man is willing to make these resources available for her.

The way with which a woman determines this willingness is through commitment.

In part, commitment is the measure to which a man promises to make his resources available to her. In addition to this, a woman wants to see “proof” that the commitment is indeed “real” and not just empty words.

Enter Gifts, dinners, wining and dining, picking her up, investing time in her, etc.

Some evolutionary psychologists say that feelings developed as a way to make men stick to a woman to help raise the children. Consequently, that’s why many women also want to see “proof of love” to make sure that he will stick around and help.

An example that will stick: Many women expect an expensive engagement ring and a wedding that breaks the bank. That’s the above concept in action.

Dual mating strategy?

The points we made so far lead to the following observation:

In the human race, women seek both genes (looks, intelligence, health, etc.) and commitment / resources.

On average, short-term dating is more based on looks and personal attraction, while resources and commitment are more important for long term than short term.

However, some women who have fewer choices might choose a man based primarily on either genes, commitment, or resources. Some women might also try to get genes from one attractive, high-fitness man and commitment and resources from another-or others (dual mating strategy).

There is evidence that some women are indeed more likely to copulate outside their committed relationship when their fertility is at its peak.

This may indicate a strategy of obtaining resources from their steady partner and better – or simply more diverse – genes from the “man on the side” with better genetical markers of fitness.

However, the two strategies of genes and resources are not distinct and do not run in parallel. A woman seeks both resources and genes simultaneously and screens men for both. In addition to this, most women prefer both good genes and commitment/abundant resources from the same man.

In fact, studies show that women in committed relationships with high-value men cheat far less.

What are the differences between short-term and long-term dating?

Some researchers believe that men and women date in two different modes when it comes to their goals. These are:

1. Short-term: flings and non-committed sex
2. Long-Term: Boyfriends/Girlfriends and Husbands/Wives

Other sources, for example TRM from Rollo Tomassi, talk about a party phase (short term) and a transition to a dating style that is more based on finding security.

While this is a generalization and can vary from woman to woman, we definitely see a trend here when it comes to the choices women make based on their age.

However, in a general sense we could say that what is attractive for short-term mating is often attractive for long-term dating and vice versa.

Despite this, there are important differences when it comes to considering short-term partners or long-term ones.

One study from the university of north Carolina compared preferences when it comes to short-term and long-term dating. The results for women are below, on a scale from 1-10. M is the means and SD the standard deviation.

While one could argue that the test sample was far too small to draw an accurate conclusion on which traits are most important, we definitely have an indication here.

Ambition, Adaptability, level of education, good earning capacity, being a good housekeeper and especially the desire to having children carried much more weight when it comes to the long term.

Note the differences in physical attractiveness; these weren’t that high. 

When we compare these results to another study, in which women rated different traits when considering short-term partners or long-term ones, ranging from −3 (extremely undesirable) to +3 (extremely desirable), the following results:

When analyzing this study, the trend goes in a similar direction. Ambition, devotion, level of education, responsibility and cooperation were much more important when it comes to long-term than short term.

These results explain, for example, why an attractive guitar-player can make for a great short-term partner, but would rarely be sought after as a long-term, “official” mate.

When women are looking for short-term relationships, they tend to act similar to men. In other words, they value attractiveness more and have less interest in traits that would make for a good provider, such as intelligence, ambition and resources.

When men are in long-term mode, they become more like women and look for the most complete package of a woman.

Power dynamics change for top men

On average, women are more powerful in dating because of the reasons mentioned in the beginning of this article.

However, there are also exceptions. If you imagine society as a big pyramid (women left, men right), with the least powerful individuals at the bottom (when it comes to looks, status, power and resources), you will see the following dynamic:

At the lowest level of the pyramid, women hold far more power than men because men at their level chase them (and invest in them). We could also argue that even men one above these women will chase them for casual sex.

In the middle of the pyramid, women still have more power than men. Men with less power than them and the ones with about the same value still pursue them for relationships and casual sex. Men above them are also willing to invest, although more on the side of casual sex.

Women have more power as we go up, but the dynamic changes drastically as we get closer to the top. At the top, the balance of power reverses.

Men become by far more powerful than women.

That’s because these men have so much power, status and resources that they can attract and provide for many women – along with their children – more than any other average man could.

Women know this, and they line up to date these guys. Some argue, they are even willing to share such a top-tier guy. If these men are also attractive and/or fit, they are the total package. Women would to practically everything to lock such a guy down. However, being attractive is not necessarily a priority in the upper echelons. At the top of the pyramid, fame and power count more than looks.

Monogamy disempowers top men

While the above facts are obviously true, culture still has a major impact on dating power dynamics.

Let’s take harsher environments for example; In environments where resources are scarce, women are better off being the 10^th wife or concubine of a king than the only wife of a struggling peasant.

Let’s now see how this translates to the power dynamics of toda’s time.

Polygony, i.e. many wives for each man, is best suited for women in environments where resources are harder to come by. In addition to this, strict monogamy reduces the power of the highest value males. This is the case, because this top-tier man could otherwise have a harem of women.

The other side of the coin; Monogamy increases the power of attractive women because there will be a lot of pressure on her equally successful male counterparts to commit to them.

Monogamy is also a net-positive for average men, because average women will spend less time trying to get a high-quality man to commit to them. These men, on average, are more likely to pursue a relationship with an equally valuable woman (instead of providing for and having sex with multiple women).

Monogamy is better for poorer and generally lower-value men. But low-value men fare poorly in almost any relationship system.

Many Western societies are not monogamous anymore, especially not in the bigger cities. Some authors defined Western society as “serial monogamy”, or “soft polygyny”.

There is also plenty of room for men living in big cities to be fully polygynous (whether that’s polyamorous, such as with the consent of all, closed from the woman’s side or hidden)