Jon Maner's a good guy, I got a chance to hang out and have a few beers with him when I was working at FSU. He runs a tight ship when it comes to his research and he's always been pretty careful about controlling for potential confounds, so I'd give the benefit of doubt on these results.

On a side note, I despise Florida, and especially Florida State University, with every ounce of my being.

I hope that fucking place burns to the ground, then they rebuild it, then the new one gets hit by an asteroid.

Fuck Florida and Fuck Florida State University.

/rant over.

You forgot the part where they get hit by the hurricane.

Too bad, as other research shows that fertile chicks are hot for Lego building nerds who are tied to their girlfriend's apron strings.

And they're going to be mostly below sea level anyway, thanks to Bush and Cheney.

"presumably because at some level they sensed she then posed the greatest threat to their long-term relationships."

That presumably says a lot. The writer here overlooks the possibility that the males simply just aren't as hormonally driven when they already have a sex partner. Absent input from a another experiment or more, I would question the assumption that fluctuations in the subjects perception of beauty is primarily due to the desire to protect their monogamous relationship.

First: I would consider any girl who wants to assemble lego creations in any context to be a fine, upstanding young lady.

Second: The juxtaposition of Will and SRotU comments comes dangerously close to a critical mass of fail and incomprehensibility.

Third: I will continue my drinking for the evening.

Free will is a lie, Paul.

Mmm, drinking. . . .

@8 Next time I'm in Denver I'll buy you a round of this here Lagavulin 32. It's quite something.

You've got a deal. We've got to invite Urgutha too, though - he's just a few blocks away from me.

@5 - "...rated her as significantly less attractive when she was at the peak stage of fertility" suggests to me that it's not a matter of simply being less hormone-driven when getting laid regularly. If that were the case, one would expect their response to an ovulating woman to be simply less pronounced than the lonely guys. The speculation that there is a subconscious sour-grapes response seems reasonable enough based on this one experiment.

@5,
There actually have been a lot of studies done on that. The article didn't detail the literature review, but I'm sure the authors of this study carefully examined the "derogation of alternatives" work that's been pretty rigorously tested for a number of years (in case anyone is REALLY interested, the person who's probably done the most work on this is Caryl Rusbult, who died recently. Google her and "interdependence model" or "derogation of alternatives" and you'll find all the support you're looking for).

In any case, the evidence is pretty solid that people in relationships really do lower their perceived attration to others in order to maintain their attraction to the person they're with... there's a shitload of other variables that play a part too, but too many to post in a little comment here.

@10,

Oh hell yeah, count me in! Just the reminder of Florida makes me want to start drinking... oh wait, already am.

Since I'm such a home-body, I sometimes forget why I always want to live so close to central, downtown areas. But the couple times me and 5280 have gotten together, it reminds me how nice it is to only have to stagger drunkenly for a few blocks before you're home.

I have a big problem with the speculation that the male behavior has anything to do with the fertility cycle of the female in humans. It is a hallmark of human sexuality that our females don't display readiness to conceive. Women don't for example display a large red butt like a chimp. This experiment smacks of ESP if they aren't going to propose some mechanism whereby the male is detecting female hormones or something similar.

And I love my wife more than my own life but the woman playing legos with me would have to have open sores on her face for me to not be thinking about mounting her on the table the whole time.

You mean explicit, but OK.