Emperor1956
Posts: 2370
Joined: 11/7/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
Honsoku: I read the answer to this somewhere. Since I don't remember for sure, I am going to postulate as to the answer. Let's stand in Domiguy's shoes for a minute. Domiguy here has a nice harem going. In order to ensure that any child the concubines have is his, he has to mate repeatedly with each one while they are ovulating (or successfully keep all other males away, which is hard to do without serious power discrepancy between him and the other males). If several concubines are ovulating at once, this could easily put an unsurmountable barrier as even Domiguy's legendary endurance can only go so far. On the other hand, if the ovulations were staggered, it would be rather trivial for him to isolate and mate with the only female ovulating. So the secondary partners win because they get the chance to breed with others and have Domiguy raise them. They don't lose anything, because they will only produce a few offspring so they can all be Domiguy's if they want it to be. His preferred mate(s) win as well, since he can't cover every concubine, he has to focus his energies on his primary mate(s). If he does not do this, the primary mates can go to some other guy next door while Domiguy is busy with his other concubines (since Domiguy obviously does not value his primary mates enough). Basically, ovulations sync up because it gives the women more power over their reproductive options by preventing an individual male from hoarding them all to their disadvantage. This is all well and good, but how then do you explain The Coolidge Effect which has been shown to exist in females as well as males? All those supposedly tuckered out subbies of Domiguy -- who he left complaining that they had headaches (en masse) -- light up and (to use Domiguy's language) "spread 'em and beg" when a new male shows up. - E
< Message edited by Emperor1956 -- 8/2/2007 3:42:40 PM >
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"When you wake up, Pooh," said Piglet, "what's the first thing you say?" "What's for breakfast? What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.
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