The Nature and Nurture of Sexiness

Female sexiness is mostly about sexual availability

Who is sexy? I believe a common understanding of it is “someone that someone else would like to have sex with”. This can be defined on either individual (“someone I would like to have sex with”) or collective level (“someone a lot of people would like to have sex with”).

Either way, this definition is not exhaustive: why would people like to have sex with a sexy person? Things such as looks, health, youth, fertility, beauty and social status come to mind. Yet, it seems that particularly in case of female sexiness, there is something else going on.

A great essay from Sympathetic Opposition sheds some light on the matter:

how and why to be ladylike (for women with autism)

The essay discusses the problems of overt sexiness which is perceived by both men and women as sexual availability:

they were being nice to you because you seemed sexually available to them, you weren’t, they feel cheated and also dumb. that’s their problem–except, you’re doing all this in the first place as a social strategy, and when the social strategy doesn’t work, that’s your problem.

when you’re sexually attractive to a man you’re talking to, it hijacks some of his attention, and it’s not easy for him to wrest it back. sorry for sounding like a middle aged schoolteacher explaining dress code to you. overt tits and ass hit the hardest with this but showing lots of leg & fetishy shit does too. the thing is he won’t really mind when he feels like you might be having sex, but if it ever becomes clear that that’s definitely not happening, then frequently the tool he will use to wrest some of his hijacked attention back from you, is feeling negative feelings about you.

The proposed solution for women is to become more ladylike: be kind, social and beautiful but at the same time seem sexually unavailable - an optimal strategy to keep some benefits of sexiness while avoiding both male and female resentment and aggression.

This made me realize that female sexiness is indeed a lot about apparent sexual availability:

I would like to have sex with you - because I believe you would like to have sex with me.

Youth, beauty, femininity - all of these are just coefficients, or multipliers, of sexual availability¹. On their own, they are desirable, but not sexy, unless sexual availability comes into play.

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Evolution of sexiness

Today, sexiness is a vital component of determining actual sexual availability and consent, allowing sexual intercourse to happen on acceptable terms. However, modern women’s rights and anti-rape laws and culture are both fairly recent inventions.

In his essay about anxiety, Richard Hanania quotes the pickup artist guru Mystery explaining the origins of male approach anxiety:

At some point, Mystery says something like “Yes, you’re going to be nervous when approaching a pretty girl. You know why? Because in our evolutionary prehistory, if you saw an attractive woman, there was a good chance she was partnered with the strongest man in the tribe, and if he didn’t like you talking to her he’d hit you over the head with a club and you would die. But that’s not going to happen today, so force yourself to make a move.”

As an armchair evolutionary psychologist, I imagine that sexiness, or sexual availability signalling, emerged hundreds of thousands of years ago, when humans lived in kin-based egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies. In kin-based patriarchal societies, women are treated as commodities, first owned by their fathers or clan/tribe elders, then by husbands.

In such case, a woman’s display of sexual availability to a man actually communicated:

“It is safe for us to have sex, because there is no other man (father/elder/husband) who considers me his property and will beat up both of us if we sleep together.”.

This communication system was brilliant, since it worked even if both parties operated on purely selfish basis: the woman sent the message because it was safe for HER to have sex, the man responded because it was safe for HIM to have sex.

As evo psychs say: men who had sex with women regardless of their sexual availability (read: raped) may have existed in the past, but eventually they were beat up by other men, banished or killed (see: the self-domestication hypothesis) and failed to reproduce - they are not our ancestors. Neither are women who were either signalling sexual availability regardless of their male guardian’s consent, or didn’t signal it at all and failed to attract any men.

Kin-based societies who go as far as honor killings of disobedient females still exist today. But some of this is present even in modern Western culture as well: male violence caused by sexual misconduct, “shotgun weddings” and the tropes of overprotective fathers and brothers.

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Nature and nurture

I believe that sexiness is something like language and morality - the concept itself has deep evolutionary origins and is pervasive and present in all discinct human cultures, but the specifics of it are shaped by the culture itself and therefore vary worldwide.

That being said, some basic, primal aspects of female sexiness are natural and universal:

• Sex - Sex is sexy, duh. Having sex in public is not natural for humans, and even primates. For most of the history, there was no high quality photo or video technology, and the natural public sex taboo was so strong that even in most liberal and degenerate societies the “live sex show” type of entertainment never really caught on. For almost all men, the only way to see a woman having sex was to have sex with her himself. The intercourse was also a definite proof of sexual availability.

• Smile - A basic social cue that men often interpret as an indicator of interest from a woman. I am not saying that a smiling woman indicates availability or consent for sex. However, a smile typically shows the man that the woman feels comfortable and good about how their social relationship has worked so far. This creates an opportunity for the man to step out of the comfort zone and take it to the next level by trying something more sexy than what they’ve already done so far - approach, ask out, date, touch, kiss, and so on.

• Spreading legs - Very powerful. Even in liberal Western societies, women are expected to keep their legs crossed or squeezed together to avoid overt displays of sexual availability, especially in formal settings, such as police interrorgation:

  This norm also comes from hunter-gatherer times. Per anthropoligist Hans Peter Duerr quoted in Tove’s essay:

Females in naked societies go to great lengths to avoid exposing their genitalia in ways that are perceived as indecent. There are elaborate rules for women from naked cultures on how to sit, how to bend forward and numerous other movements that might lead to indecent exposure. Also in Western culture before females started to wear trousers habitually, there were rules and taboos against certain activities like tree climbing for females.

• Lordosis behavior - Possible to maintain for extended periods of time with inventions such as high heels and Chinese foot binding.

• Ingroup membership - Women evolved to be risk-averse, especially when it comes to sexuality. To minimize risk, they prefer to have sex and enter relationships with men from their in-group. In modern terms, this means their social circle or subculture. Both visual cues of belonging to the same subculture and the sense of sharing the same reality seem sexy for men, because on some level they understand, that if the woman feels the same, she might be more available sexually to them.

Other things commonly seen as sexy are most likely socially constructed - they are usually considered sexy in developed countries, but not in tribal societies:

• Nudity - Wet and soggy clothes are uncomfortable, so the Western society allows cultural exceptions related to water that permit full or near-full (swimwear) nudity in bathrooms, swimming pools, saunas and beaches. Besides that, sex is the only other thing most people can do naked. Hence, nudity is sexualized.
  Example: husband finds wife naked in the shower - (probably) not sexually available / husband finds wife naked on the bed or greeting him at the doorstep - sexually available.
  Full frontal nudity is typically associated with full sexual availability². The principle of interpolation applies: partial nudity implies partial sexual availability - bare arms, legs, back, midriff, everything counts and codes as sexy.

• Breasts - Unlike tribal societies, bare breasts are taboo in most, if not all, developed countries, which results in a very common breast fetish. The acceptance of topless sunbathing varies worldwide, i.e. more acceptable in Southern Europe - breast fetish is probably less prevalent over there.

• Feet - Foot fetish is usually considered a sexual perversion and is sometimes explained by connections between adjacent areas in the brain responsible for touch sensation of feet and genitals. However, I believe that a mechanism similar to corresponding taboo/fetish for breasts also exists. In Western societies, bare feet were considered obscene up until the early 20th century. Now, bare feet acceptance still varies worldwide (i.e. more acceptable in Australia, less acceptable in US), which I believe also affects the prominence of the corresponding foot fetish.

• “Fetishy shit” (flashy hair color, leather, metal, tattoos, piercings etc.) - These tap into different dimensions of sexual availability important for men - speed (how fast and efforlessly is the sex available) and quality (for most men, it’s about what perverted, degenerate and pornographic sexual acts are on the menu). While some of these arguably make women less attractive, there are a costly (and therefore credible) signals of pursuing a fast, or r-selected, life strategy, and therefore make them seem more sexually available - less attractive, yet more sexy.
  Some of this also overlaps with in-group preference I mentioned among the natural factors of sexiness.

Notably, all of the above (both natural and socially constructed factors) are typically included in various types of show business and entertainment featuring women - from more traditional and graceful forms such as classical ballet, artistic gymnastics and figure skating, through can-can, burlesque and cabaret, to modern pop music, social media and porn.

Side note: Kryptogal notes how “porn actresses who SMILE while supposedly sexually aroused (which no one does)” are ridiculous and not authentic. But porn is not supposed to be authentically sexual - it is supposed to be sexy (read: a display of female sexual availability for men). As noted above, smile is a basic natural sexual availability signal that most men know and enjoy (unlike authentic female sexual expressions, known to sexually experienced men, but not to virgins and incels who probably clock most hours on porn sites on average).

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3 types of sexual availability

So if a woman is sexy, does it mean that she is actually sexually available?

Duh, of course not.

In fact, sexiness is only one of the three types of sexual availability:

• Apparent sexual availability (a.k.a. sexiness) - An immediate, reflex assessment of woman’s sexual availability coming straight from the male lizard brain - a primal, evolutionary driven mechanism that is hard or impossible to alter or suppress. A response to both natural evolutionary signals of sexual availability and social cues indicating it.

• Social sexual availability - Existence of a social relationship that allows sex: marriage, long term relationship, short relationships (dating, one night stand), swinging/polyamory etc.
  By a stretch, a casual sex-having woman can be considered as socially sexually available to a group of men that she likes having casual sex with (i.e. her social circle, her subculture, 6’ tall guys, 6-figure earners or other).

• Actual sexual availability - Woman’s actual openness to sexual interaction, which needs to be carefully determined by the man using advanced cognitive mechanisms such as empathy and social skills.

How are these related to each other?

An overtly simplistic way to put it would be:

Apparent sexual availability + Social sexual availability = Actual sexual availability

In other words, a woman is actually sexually available to a man, when she displays sexual availability signals picked up by his lizard brain AND a valid social relationship that allows sex exists between the two.

Of course, in real life, it’s not that simple, as many other social, psychological, health and well-being factors also come into play.

Moreover, actual sexual availability may sometimes occur without social sexual availability, in the form of different sorts of illegitimate social relationships (cheating, incest, statutory rape etc.).

How are these related to consent?

Full actual availability is not equivalent to consent. However, full actual availability was traditionally the point where a man could safely and reasonably assume consent and try to go for it, ready to stand down at any sign of resistance.

Nevertheless, in post-#MeToo world, things become more complicated, as ideas such as enthusiastic/affirmative consent and sex contracts come into play.

Why is any of this important?

The lizard brain in charge of apparent sexual availability is an egoist, or narcissist - he only thinks about himself. Hence, when seeing a woman displaying non-directed signals of sexual availability (i.e. wearing a very short skirt in public), he concludes: “She is sexually available TO ME!”. However, social and actual availability are both more complex and restrictive.

Understanding different types of female sexual availability is important, because conflating one with the other or cognitive dissonances between one and the lack of other are the reasons for many common problems related to sexuality:

• Cognitive dissonance between apparent sexual availability and the lack of social sexual availability:

  • Jailbait - The lizard brain doesn’t care about the age of consent and considers underage girls apparently available, but according to the law, they are socially unavailable to anyone.

  • Incel rage - All women might be socially and actually available to someone, but not to the raging incel, who still considers them apparently available.

  • Coolidge effect - Only one woman is socially available, but all other are not - yet many of them are apparently available.

  • Envy - A particular woman seems apparently available, but is only socially available to someone else.

• Cognitive dissonance between the lack of apparent sexual availability and social sexual availability:

  • Wife slacking / dead bedroom - A husband notices that his wife is no longer sexy (apparently sexually available), he assumes she’s not actually available, and either gives up on initiating sex or becomes resentful. Either way, they eventually stop having sex.

• Conflating apparent sexual availability with actual sexual availability:

  • Rape (and defending rapists by saying that the victim was “asking for it”)

  • Slut shaming

  • Female modesty/purity social norms in conservative societies

  • Male backlash, as described in the aforementioned Sympathetic Opposition essay

  • Jealousy - A husband sees that his wife is sexy (apparently sexually available) to him and (presumably) other men, so he falsely concludes that she might be actually available to other men too.

• Conflating social sexual availability with actual sexual availability:

  • Marital rape

Sexiness - good or bad?

Tove from Wood From Eden writes about different levels of male sexual self-restraint and corresponding female modesty social norms:

The modest alternative to covering up and locking away women is to force self-restraint among the men. If people can just control themselves into not getting sexual feelings from seeing members of the other sex in various stages of clothing, less clothing can be used and the sexes can work closer together. 

There is a sliding scale between female oppression and male self-restraint. Muslim/Asian societies have traditionally leaned more towards female oppression, while Christian/European societies have leaned more towards male self-restraint. The Christian tradition has helped gender equality enormously, because it showed that women and men can actually interact quite a lot without sexual mayhem ensuing. The increased productivity resulting from men and women working efficiently together might also have helped Western culture dominate the world. To the degree that the rest of the world has copied many parts of Western gender relations.

While I do agree with the observation of differences between Muslim/Asian and Christian/European societies, I am not sure if the solution introduced by the latter is actually enforcing male self-restraint.

As a man living in a Christian European country, I don’t feel like I am restraining myself, or being forced to restrain myself sexually³ - I believe the true solution employed by the western culture is an implementation of the above system of multiple distinct types of female sexual availability to make sure that men understand it on some level and follow its principles.

The implementation is not perfect, given that the issues I mentioned above still happen occasionally, but it’s good enough to have most of the society unaffected by them.

When I see a sexy woman, I don’t get a sudden spike of testosterone level, and I don’t need to “restrain” or “self-control” to prevent myself from assaulting or raping her. What really happens is that I get a dopamine hit. It feels happy. It feels GOOD.

I believe it also touches the brain circuits responsible for high social status. In the past, only high status men could surround themselves with lots of sexy women, but today, all it takes is a trip to the mall, or a club - or even just a click of a button.

As for testosterone, I think that prolonged exposure to multiple sexy women can moderatly rise its level, but this also doesn’t require “restrain” or “self-control”, as it’s mild enough to be relieved in safe and socially acceptable ways.

I understand where this is coming from. Women are emotional creatures, boiling pots of hormones, so it’s easy for a woman like Tove to assume that men are the almost same, but just slightly different in a more masculine way. They are not - men are just naturally less emotional and hormonal than women.

I also believe that sexiness feels good for women. It provides status and validation. In her viral essay, zinnia writes:

Sexual norms today skirt around one obvious, horrifying fact: women like being sex objects. That eighteen year old on OnlyFans? She’s not motivated by entrepreneurial drive, economic desperation, patriarchal socialization, or any such external factor we may want to point to. No, she simply likes the idea of being a hot commodity, of being so sexy that men would pay to see her. She likes being a whore. Acknowledging women’s innate desire to be sexualized, to be objectified, is sacrilegious; it is a truth conveniently avoided by both feminists and traditionalists alike.

But the condition for sexiness feeling and being good for both men and women is to have a good common understanding about the differences between apparent, social and actual sexual availability. It also allows sexiness to be widespread and enjoyable for everyone without resentment and aggression, while also preventing a slippery slope into an unsustainable hedonistic hookup culture.

I believe that this is the kind of sex-positive society we should be striving for.

Conversely, we should turn away from the Muslim/Asian culture, where both men and women must feel bad about their sexuality. We should also reject corresponding ideas of “retvrn to tradition” coming from trad right guys and reactionary feminists (or, as Walt Bismarck likes to call them, “conservative chuds” and “schoolmarms”).

For inspiration, we should look at the most sex-positive parts of the Western society - Southern Europe and Latin America.

Tove would call these “high-restraint cultures”. I call them cultures who truly understand the nuances of sexiness and sexual availability.

1. Notably, these coefficients can also be negative - men like to feel the sexual availability of women who are young, beautiful and feminine, but also despise displays of sexual availability from women who are old, fat, ugly or not feminine (tomboy, trans or otherwise). In worst case, it just feels offensive.

2. In reality, sexual availability is a multi-dimensional matrix describing availability for all options available in the maketplace of sexual acts - it’s too complex to cover with simple references. To simplify the discussion, let’s consider sexual availability as a linear spectrum, with full availability meaning availability for standard sex (vaginal intercourse), and partial availability as availability for other non-penetrative sexual activities described by the well known baseball metaphors.

3. For context: I’ve been happily married for almost 10 years.