What is the evolutionary force behind whoredom?

[WritingANovel]

By whoredom I mean women who sleep around a lot.

You all know the evolutionary force behind guys who sleep around a lot; they get to spread their genetic material to as many women as possible, and this ensures that this behavioural trait gets passed down to the next generation. But what about women who sleep around? I can't really think of any reproductive gains for them, which then makes me wonder, how did this trait get passed down through generations? I know it did because there have always been "whores" throughout history, and not just in the contemporary society so you can't blame it on TV.

[Slave of the Beast]

Modern human society is a self-constructed zoo, applying prehistoric evolutionary forces to modern day humans therefore makes very little sense.

[Druidus]

That's bull, Slave.

We are still animals, whatever our surroundings. We've just domesticated ourselves, not removed ourselves from our ancestors.

Dogs are like us, domesticated for 25,000 years, but still capable of responding to the pressures of nature, still, at heart, wolves. Our hearts bear the imprints of countless past struggles and triumphs, and we still are merely domesticated apes.

[Slave of the Beast]

Originally Posted by Slave of the Beast

Modern human society is a self-constructed zoo, applying prehistoric evolutionary forces to modern day humans therefore makes very little sense.

Originally Posted by Druidus

That's bull, Slave.

We are still animals, whatever our surroundings. We've just domesticated ourselves, not removed ourselves from our ancestors.

Our hearts bear the imprints of countless past struggles and triumphs, and we still are merely domesticated apes.

Pay attention, Ernie, 'cause I never said evolutionary forces had stopped.

Originally Posted by Druidus

Dogs are like us, domesticated for 25,000 years, but still capable of responding to the pressures of nature, still, at heart, wolves.

Words fail me.

[NewRage]

Dogs=wolves. They still have the pack mentality. They don't look like wolves, but they still think like them, or more closely think like wolf pups.

As for the OP. Women hoe around for the same reason guys do, to pass on their genetic code. Let's say a woman sleeps with just one man has 500 kids with him. Good chance the genes will get passed on, unless a disease pops up that kills everything with blue eyes (or some other trait like that). If she had kids with 500 different men then some of the offspring would carry on.

[Optimus Prime]

Put simply: A trait survives if it is not so immediately detrimental as to cause partial extinction of the members possessing it. Whores still thrive, and the diseases spread by them take generations upon generations to mutate and spread enough to cause mass extinction of the human species. Evolution isn't fast enough. Hitler was.

[nshanin]

Dawkins had a lengthy discussion on this, read up on that.

[anon99989]

Sperm competition.

Multiple partners may mean that the sperm of multiple men are competing to fertilize an egg. The most fertile sperm succeed, meaning offspring that is more likely to have this trait from the most fertile male. It sorts out those who are less fertile that will give children who don't reproduce as much.

[Druidus]

It couldn't be sperm competition. Our cocks grew while our testicals shrank during out evolution. Smaller testicles indicates less need for larger numbers of healthy sperm.

Pay attention, Ernie, 'cause I never said evolutionary forces had stopped.

Ernie? That's just confusing. I know you never said they stopped. But past evolutionary pressures shaped our present, including our minds and psyches. To say that the past evolution of our species and the ways it needed to adapt are definately relevant to modern humans.

We are what we are because of where we came from, and examining where we came from and how we evolved can help us make a present molded more with our past in mind and thus more suited to the human animal. To use your word, we need to redesign the 'zoo' to give the inhabitants a more natural existence.

Words fail me.

Wow. I don't blame you for your ignorance, but dogs are a subspecies of wolves. All dogs. They haven't drifted far genetically. In fact, when I lived back north, I had a dog that was quarter wolf.

Not only that, but some dogs can definately manage in wolf packs. It has been shown that the black colouring becoming common in North American wolves came from a dog's mutation. It got bred into a wolf pack from dogs, because females preferred the black colouring.

It could never have swept through the population of wolves as fast as it did if dogs couldn't revert their domestication.

BTW, do you know what a dingo is?

[harry_hardcore_hoedown]

Originally Posted by Slave of the Beast

Modern human society is a self-constructed zoo, applying prehistoric evolutionary forces to modern day humans therefore makes very little sense.

What do you mean prehistoric? That word was never used. His post was referring to human nature anyway, not a socially imposed characteristic.

I'm going to guess that 'whoredom' is the product of superfluous sexual drive - i.e. promiscuity is a product of desire for sex, because having sex does offer a reproductive advantage, and even though promiscuity doesn't, at this stage in our evolution sexual desire hasn't been optimized so that women are satisfied with a single partner. They want more sex, not more partners. Anyway, this is just what makes sense to me - it might not be the actual reason for it.