When I was 14, my parents informed me that I had a half brother. He was my father’s son by another woman. My parents were already married when my brother was born, but I hadn’t come along yet. It was a huge scandal when it happened. My half brother came to live with us after his mother died. He was 16. My half brother got me pregnant. He didn’t rape me; I wanted to have sex with him. Everyone in the family found out—huge scandal number two—and it took me years to get over it and stop blaming myself.
Now I’m 26 and engaged. What do I tell my fiancé? My parents wound up divorcing—my mother called the police on my half brother and tried to physically prevent me from getting an abortion—and I don’t speak to her anymore. But my father and brother are still in my life.
I get panic attacks when I think about having to tell my fiancé about any of this, Dan, because I don’t want him to see me as sick. But if I don’t tell him, he’ll hear about it from someone else. What do I do?
The Sister Act
“This could happen to anyone,” says Debra Lieberman, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami.
A quick clarification: Lieberman means this could happen to anyone who meets a sibling under similar circumstances.
Coresidence throughout childhood—particularly early childhood—creates sexual aversion in adulthood, explains Lieberman, who has studied “sibling incest avoidance” extensively. It’s a phenomenon called the “Westermarck effect,” and it doesn’t just affect biological siblings; adults who grew up in the same home experience the same feelings of sexual revulsion.
“TSA and her half brother were not raised throughout childhood together and neither observed his or her mother caring for the other as an infant,” explains Lieberman. “These are the two cues that have been shown to lead to the categorization of another as a sibling. When these cues are present, strong sexual aversions tend to develop. Without these cues, no natural sexual aversion will develop.”
(What this means, of course, is that everybody who read TSA’s letter and thought, “What a sicko! I would never fuck any of my siblings!” needs to back the fuck off. If your parents had surprised you with a long-lost sibling when you were 14, dear readers, you, too, could be facing an extremely awkward conversation with your fiancé. There but for the grace of God, etc.)
So what, if anything, should you tell the man you’re about to marry, TSA?
“If it were me,” says Lieberman, “I would probably say something. I would explain the situation and the science. Unfortunately, this might gross out her fiancé, especially if he has sisters. But living with this stress”—the fear that he’ll find out at some point—”does not seem like a happy life.”
I agree with Lieberman: Tell your fiancé what happened, TSA. Emphasize that you were young, confused, and Westermarck-effect-deprived. You can also refer him to Lieberman’s website—www.debralieberman
.com—where he can peruse the research.
Good luck, TSA.
I’m a 23-year-old female in a monogamish relationship—thank you for that word!—with my wonderful boyfriend of two years. I moved away last year to attend graduate school, and we agreed it was okay to sleep with other people while we’re apart. The last person I slept with was an acquaintance who knew both of us and understood what the deal was with our relationship. My question is, if I’m just looking for casual sex or a one-night stand, should I make it clear that we’re just going to have sex and I’m not interested in dating? How much should I tell the person I’m trying to pick up about a significant other they won’t ever meet?
Full Disclosure Necessary, Yathink?
If you meet a guy in a bar, exchange four words with him (and two of them are “Open up!” right before he spits a Jäger shot into your mouth), and you wind up back at your place, FDNY, the person you’re about to fuck can reasonably make two assumptions: (1) you’re a slut (in the sex-positive, reclaiming-that-word, sisterhood-is-powerful, drink-Jäger-out-of-a-hot-guy’s-mouth sense of the term), and (2) he’s unlikely to see you again. Under circumstances like these, FDNY, you are not obligated to disclose your relationship status. The only things you’re obligated to disclose are the precise kind of clitoral stimulation you require and the exact time you’ll need him out of your apartment…
But if a nice boy asks you out on something that your parents and steampunks call a “date,” and he explains that you’re really, really special, and he refrains from spitting Jäger shots into your mouth, you are obligated to disclose your relationship status to him, lest he make the entirely reasonable assumption that you’re single and interested in him, too.
I am in love with an intelligent woman. She is exactly what I’ve always wanted: smart, articulate, independent, and friggin’ beautiful. The thing is, we fight constantly. Everything is going well, and then I say the wrong thing or use the wrong tone, and she blows up. In these fights, I am required to remain calm, but she can yell, scream, mock, or ridicule. These fights sometimes end in physical confrontations that she instigates. The therapist we’re seeing takes my side, but still nothing gets better. Her feelings are the only ones that matter. I’m afraid to read the advice you’re going to give me.
Confused, Pissed, and Sad
You don’t mention your own looks, CPAS, but I’m guessing there’s a big looks gap in this relationship, i.e., your girlfriend is objectively hot, while you fall somewhere between “Ron Jeremy” and “unconventionally attractive” on the male beauty spectrum. And that’s not an accident: She knows that you think you’re unlikely to do better than her, looks-wise, and that allows her to be just as psycho as she wants to be. Because she knows you’re not going anywhere.
Here’s the advice you were afraid of, CPAS: Go somewhere, anywhere, that she isn’t. You wouldn’t be putting up with this shit if this woman’s outsides were as ugly as her insides.
DTMFA.
What happened to your column? I remember back when your columns involved wonderful details about things like proper dildo protocol, indulging odd fetishes, and funny sex adventures. Now it’s all about the philosophy of what loving relationships should truly entail. I miss the old Dan who would coach readers on how to put large things inside themselves and recount funny/titillating anecdotes.
Where’s My Dirt?
Google happened to my column.
Back in the getting-large-things-inside-my-readers days, WMD, people would write me and ask, “How do I get this large thing inside of me?” Now people with large things can turn to Google for information about how to get their large things inside themselves. Another question I used to get all the time: “What’s a cock ring?” Now cock rings have their own Wiki page.
There’s just so much good, basic info about sex online—including basic how-to info—that people don’t have to ask me for basic information about fetishes or kinks or dildo protocols anymore. So most of the questions I get nowadays, and most of the ones I answer, are about relationships. Don’t blame me, WMD, blame Google’s algorithms.
It has been a long time since I filled a column or two with titillating sex anecdotes. I’m on vacation right now, so… wow me with your best/kinkiest/craziest vacation-sex stories, dear readers, and I’ll fill next week’s column with ’em.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
TSA: Google “genetic sexual attraction,” which generally occurs when the Westermarck effect is not present to beat it down. This kind of thing is more common than most people are willing to admit.
I propose an alternate, sex-positive spelling of the world “slut” to distinguish it from the sex-shaming social-order-enforcing one.
I offer: slyt
I am flabbergasted by Dan’s analysis of CPAS. Yes, CPAS should dump her, because she is abusing him. But this has nothing to do with looks. It is irrelevant what the guy looks like, and what his girlfriend looks like!
Weird…
First!
Not first!
TSA: the Brady Bunch movie already covered this. Getting pregnant was fucking stupid, but 14 year olds do lots of fucking stupid things (especially if they’ve only ever received abstinence-only education).
Have you gotten therapy for this? I highly recommend talking to a professional about it (one who understands the Westermarck effect, not one who thinks you were an incest victim), and I highly de-recommend telling your fiance about it–it’s your sexual history, and history is not relevant to your current relationship. But the fact that you’re having panic attacks strongly suggests that you’re not as over this as you seem to think you are.
Ugh, CPAS’s SO is my worest nightmare of what I fear becoming in a relationship and a template for most of the people in my family (both male and female). Whenever I feel my temper getting the best of me, I imagine someone I care about seeing me the way he discribes her and get sick.
Listen to Dan, CPAS. It only get’s worse as the years go on (ex. my grandparents) and no one deserves to live like that. DTMFA while you still can.
Seems like “engaged” is exactly the right moment to reveal this info. After you both are committed (so he’s emotionally invested and prepared to listen to the explanation), but before the actual wedding (so you aren’t withholding info he might find relevant when deciding to get married).
Your brother will be at the wedding, and in your life. There’s no way to keep this secret the rest of your lives. Sit down and explain the uncomfortable reality to your fiance, possibly with a knowledgeable therapist present to help provide context. You were both children, and should not be held responsible. Hoping that the fiance proves himself worthy of you.
@3: I side with Dan on this one. How else do you explain that this guy’s willing to stick with an abusive bitch rather than dumping her like I would do? If he feels that she’d ordinarily be out of his league, he’s willing to put up with her screaming in order to be seen with her and get some mimsy. If he thought he could get someone as hot as her, her ass would bounce twice on the pavement after he booted her out. And I agree that CPAS should DTMFA. No sex is worth being treated like that.
EW! Why would nature do this to siblings? Genetic sexual attraction couldn’t possibly be good for evolution anyway with the increased likelihood that a sibling pair’s offspring would carry defective traits on, so WHY?!
Mrs. DePointe: she can’t NOT tell him about it, because he would be very angry when/if he finds out about it somewhere else. That kind of omission could end their marriage.
CPAS, you knew the advice you were going to get before you even wrote in. I think you should give yourself permission to take it. Good luck.
I’m surprised LW1’s situation doesn’t happen more often in those scenarios. Add two unbonded half-siblings together with peak hormonal chaos and this isn’t exactly an unlikely outcome. Tell the fiance. If the relationship with the half-brother is normal and healthy now, and the fiance can see that, he should be ok with it.
And CPS you have to know what the right course is, as 11 suggests. I can’t even imagine that the therapist hasn’t taken you aside and advised you to get the hell out of Dodge. This isn’t normal; it isn’t healthy; and it’s a recipe for a terrible outcome complete with cops and bloodshed. Please get out before you get physically injured or arrested (because if you have to defend yourself and end up hurting her, the onus will be on you to prove that it was self defense). She’s a bitch. Worse, she’s a crazy, unhinged bitch who sees you as her personal punching bag. DTMFA and RUN. Don’t look back.
People do get weird about these things, TSA, though. I was involved with my mom’s boyfriend’s son at about that age, and they freaked out. No matter that there wasn’t any genetic similarity, but just because it seemed ‘weird’. But it is true – you stick two 16 year olds together who just met and who get a long well and have a lot of hormones, and well, you shouldn’t be surprised at the outcomes.
@9: GSA isn’t really a function of being genetically related; it’s more a function of general attraction mechanisms that get exacerbated. Despite the “opposites attract” mantra, in reality we’re more likely to be attracted to people who are similar to us: shared interests, shared values, shared temperament, shared culture, etc. All of those things are more likely to be present with people we’re genetically related to. Which means that were it not for the instinctual revulsion we feel at the notion of hooking up with relatives, most of us would not leave the house.
The Westermarck effect is the mechanism by which that evolution-saving “instinctual revulsion” is acquired. In short, seeing someone raised by the same person(s) that raised you makes them sexually unattractive to you. That’s why most people are grossed out at the prospect of kissing/shagging a sibling: because you saw that sibling get raised by your parents.
When genetically related people meet as adults or even as teenagers, there is no Westermarck effect and thus no instinctual revulsion (though there is still societal taboo). So your biology doesn’t see that relative as “icky”; it sees that relative as a sexual possibility, just like anyone else. And since you and the relative have so many things in common, sometimes a sexual attraction is the result.
Now couple the lack of revulsion and potential sexual attraction with a teenager’s massive horniness, lack of long-term vision, and overall poor impulse control. The results are not that surprising.
Nice boys ask you out on dates. Hot boys spit Jager in your mouth.
Good to know.
OMG, CPAS, seven years ago I could have written that letter. Get out. You’re her emotional (& sometimes physical, apparently) punching bag. Your self-confidence, self-image and sanity are worth far more than whatever it is you’re getting out of this woman. Get out & don’t come back. Ever.
Re. CPAS
Isn’t it kind of a shitty thing to tell someone who’s being abused that they must be ugly? And why the assumption that there’s a looks gap? Isn’t that kind of jumping to conclusions? Lousy advice, other than the DTMFA part, which is a no-brainer.
As it happens, I am acquainted with a stunningly good-looking guy who is married to, and emotionally (and likely physically) abused by a much-less-attractive woman. I have often speculated that she abuses him to keep him in line because she’s afraid of him leaving her for someone else, which he could quite easily.
I think it’s a bit silly to assume that looks are always an important factor, though. Some people are just abusive pieces of shit, and whoever is unlucky enough to become attached to them ends up being the victim.
not vacation sex, but hella kinky. I once had a baby-producing fuckfest my own half-brother. It’s not gross. We didn’t grow up together; there’s some science. That’s the kinkiest thing I’ve ever done.
Dear TSA,
Have you ever been informed by your partner that they’d been raped?
It would most likely not happen until a fair ways into a stable relationship. Would it really change how you felt about your partner (except in my case to max out my protectionistic tendencies)? In a weird way it validates how important you are to your partner because they are willing to tell you, and put themselves on the line for you. In essence, they are protecting you from themselves, or at least the stigma they carry.
My response was to listen to everything she had to tell me, hug and kiss her through the tears, and let her have her way with me as much as she wished that weekend. Outside of the tears part, same as usual.
I won’t lie that it wasn’t a heavy burden, it still is. I have had vivid dream flashbacks over the years, always with the same result: I wish there were anything more or better I could do for her. I still marvel that somehow, even as a clueless teenager, I did the right things to allow a normal sexual relationship to thrive for her. A big part of that was listening to what she wanted, and letting her body teach me what I needed to know. My regrets mostly center around being addicted to pot at the time, ’cause I wish I could still remember all of those lessons.
Peace.
@ 3 – yeah, assuming TSA’s description is accurate, the girlfriend is an abusive piece of shit. Everything else is irrelevant.
The behavior that CNAS’s girlfriend exhibits indicates she may be suffering from borderline personality disorder.
@19…what?
anyway, CPAS is in a relationship with someone who reminds me of who I was starting to become. I never truly got to the point of physical violence, but I always feared it. I was unfair and overly-needy in relationships and took it out, both aggressively and passive-aggressively, on my partners. I was jealous, insecure, and constantly frustrated. I would get furious over things I sometimes couldn’t even identify, and then more angry when my partner would call me out or get angry back.
The road to self-discovery only really started after I was dumped. While I regret not having the opportunity to change during the relationship (there was no frank discussion of my behavior and how it was affecting our relationship), I have no regrets about who I’ve become and the partner I was lucky enough to snag after doing so much work. I’ve learned to be much more up-front about my needs, and also to find multiple ways to get needs met. I’ve learned to express when I’m jealous and to channel it into better actions.
Still working on it all, but I agree that DTMFA is the right action — for both parties.
Ms Erica – [Hoping that the fiance proves himself worthy of you.]
Just how worthy is that, anyway? I don’t fault TSA for the romance at all, but she doesn’t seem the stuff of a heroine. The one thing in her plus column, and I’ll allow that it’s a big one, is her insisting on taking a reasonable share of responsibility for the big kerfuffle. But in the rest of the letter, she reminds me a bit of Mrs Bennet – the dramatization seems similar.
I agree with your first paragraph. As for the wedding, I bow to your superiour knowledge, as I myself am never going to marry. If I were to do so, though, it would seem to me quite reasonable for my HTB to request that none of my exes attend, blood-related or otherwise. I doubt I’d have a second thought about acceding to such a request.
I’ll join in a hope that TSA’s fiance doesn’t find what happened or her sickening, but can’t necessarily go much farther. It seems reasonable that he might not think the worse of her for that particular chapter of history while also not wanting the situation to be part of his life, or new insight into her character might reveal to him that they just aren’t a match without any fault on either side.
Not that you were doing this, but I’ve seen a lot of posters recently in various places playing the You Deserve Better card without sufficient support, and anything that even remotely looks like that has been irking me.
@22,
I have been in the position of TSA’s fiancee when told by a girlfriend about her rape. It kind of came out in a “can you still love me” way. I could, and did.
Peace.
@22 – PLEASE give me a clue about the path which you followed to transform yourself.
Your description of yourself coincides closely with my own of me. I am you at the point of having just been properly dumped for exactly the same behavior, and the same mental process, as you describe.
With deep gratitude: Thank you.
Sort of hoping that TSA’s fiance doesn’t have a relationship with the BIL-to-be yet. I can’t imagine being friendly/friends with someone and then finding this info out. At least if they have yet to meet, then the fiance can take his time establishing trust. She has to tell the finace though, since everybody in the family found out.
Damn Dan, you missed the boat with this one. Your looks have nothing to do with being abused in a relationship and it was classless to suggest they do. If you meant to say that you though that the LW had (what he thought of as) compelling reasons to stay because he thought he could never find a hotter GF, that still says nothing about the LW’s looks.
Do only ugly women get abused, Dan? How about gay guys-are the cute ones protected? Didn’t look that way down at the Cook County Domestic Violence Courthouse, helping folks fill out Emergency Orders of Protection.
It doesn’t sound like TSA is in an open or poly relationship. Based on that premise, the fact that her brother is still in her life is going to be a problem, possibly a deal breaker.
Continuing relationships with ex-lovers are always problematical at best, particularly if the current lover isn’t aware of the prior relationships. Incest makes it an even greater problem. Assuming the prior relationships were public knowledge, at some point somebody will say something and the current lover will find out. Since TSA, rightly, believes her future spouse is going to find out eventually (possibly from her mother) it would be best if he found out now and from her. I do think she was wrong not to have told him before she agreed to marry him. This is the kind of secret that will leave festering wounds.
@3 Personal experience means I’m willing to put £5 that Dan’s right on that, mind. If he’s wrong, though, the second paragraph stands just as well on its own as with the first.
Re: TSA – man, that’s a severely uncool position to be in. Good job, Dan, for going and grabbing someone in a lab coat to get the message across to TSA. @28 – it’s hardly a conventional “ex-lover still in life” situation, though. I’d have thought the “fucked up shit happens”, when properly explained and understood, would render that a non-issue.
9-Whitness– Let’s take a deep breath and remember what nature is, what evolution is, and how natural selection works. It gets trickier when emotional and behavioral traits such as sexual attraction get thrown in amidst the physical ones, but the principles are the same.
For a review: Nature does not do anything to siblings. There is no commanding force with consciousness. There is no reason. Nothing is “good” for evolution. “Good” is a moral value judgment and therefore a word to be avoided when discussing evolution. There is only adaptive to the environment and not adaptive to the environment, and the environment keeps changing.
It is true that for most mammals including humans, offspring from closely related incestuous relationships is likely to result in deleterious recessives showing up from inbreeding. (It doesn’t much matter in, say, fish.)
You asked WHY? Non-adaptive individuals are born all the time. Why Down’s syndrome? Why psychopaths? Why educated straight women with no particular desire for children? There doesn’t have to be a reason. Natural selection hones and refines, hones and refines again.
I was in a relationship very much like the one CPAS is in – and while there may not be an externally discernable looks gap, I’d bed that CPAS sees one in the mirror: has low self esteem. I did, and I put up with a lot of abuse, which every now and again did get physical. Get out now.
I feel sorry for TSA’s mother. Her teenaged daughter got pregnant by an older half-brother who’s a product of her husband’s affair and forced to live with her, a constant reminder of her husband’s affair! And now she’s lost her husband AND daughter because she tried to protect her?
There must be more to the story, but if you’re reading this, TSA, and there aren’t other major reasons to stay away from your mother, maybe reconsider?
@Whitness
Though you’re likely to get an earful about multiplying recessive traits and the dangers of incest, few people will note that almost all of our domesticated animals are in some way products of incest. Mating father to daughter and mother to son is a fairly common practice from milk cows to show dogs. Incest doesn’t automatically damage genes, it just solidifies and spreads certain traits throughout the species. This can be a bad thing if both relatives have a recessive gene for a genetic disorder, but a ‘good’ thing if they have recessive genes for a desirable feature. It’s not inherently bad or good. Evolutionarily speaking, it may give the offspring an advantage.
…aaand thunk, the thread drops dead.
@ 32–Have you thought of capitalizing on other assets? Or dating not beautiful women? There’s real actual people with feelings and longings and stuff inside those unattractive bodies, as you probably know.
21 been there myself– Allow me a quibble. In my experience, people do not suffer from borderline personality disorders themselves. They make everyone near them suffer while they breeze through life fine. With depression, bi-polar, schizophrenia, even to a certain extent alcoholism, the person with the illness is the identified patient. With borderline disorders, it’s the people who love them who go to the psychotherapists convinced that there’s something wrong.
So yeah, Dan’s advice to DTMFA is good. Dan’s guess that the letter writer is ugly might be true, might not be, and is irrelevant. We don’t know why people stay in relationships that are obviously bad for them. (Obvious to everyone else.) Maybe this guy hasn’t found someone who is as smart, articulate, independent and beautiful without the temper and violent tendencies. Maybe to him the good outweighs the bad. Whatever. He needs to know there’s someone better for him out there.
I always wondered how they kept the Brady Bunch kids apart.
Re: TSA
I had a remarkably similar situation. I was an exchange student when I was 16 and lived with a family for a year. During that time I came to regard the host parents as my own parents and even came to call them Mother and Father like their own children did. In the household with me was a 19 yr old and a 16 yr old and *surprise surprise* I ended up with a huge crush on the 16 yr old, as he did on me. One night we ended up hooking up, but were stupid and didn’t use protection and I got pregnant. I miscarried and the host family found out but they weren’t mad at us, just wanted us to be careful. Now 5 years later I still have a good and healthy relationship with him, even though I still call his parents Mother and Father when we communicate.
It is definitely more awkward when you are related by blood but think of it like having a sexy new step-sibling, you know it’s wrong but that probably just inflames the hormonal teenage brain even more!
@25: If you want to change, but don’t know how, therapy is your best bet. It may take a while to find a counselor you “click” with, but who doesn’t coddle you, but the effort will be well worth it. CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) may be your best bet. Best wishes to you.
Idunno about this genetic sexual attraction thing. I’m most interested in guys who are genetically not at all related whatsoever, and appear to share no traits with me. I’m average height and pasty White, and the male side of my family is pretty hairy.I’m mostly interested in tall dark skinned Latinos, Asians, and Black guys with less body hair than I have. Basically men who look like they could not be related to me whatsoever in any way.
CPAS has the relationship he needs and wants. He may be pissed and sad but that’s only because he hasn’t fully accepted his role as her bitch. She needs to understand he wants her in charge and not be afraid to dominate him. Her confidence (along with a hairbrush and crop) will makes theirs a happy home.
@41, Interestingly your personal experiences and life aren’t used to explain all of human experience and nature. Huh. Go figure.
There are plenty of “smart, articulate, independent, and friggin’ beautiful” women out there who arent also psycho. I should know, I live with one. Don’t settle.
There’s a good Lisa Kudrow movie about her getting knocked up by her step-brother.
The first letter reminds me of Sleeping Dogs Lie. I mean, does he really need to know?
Unless you’re still wanting to fuck your half-brother. Then, tell him now…
@23/28 – for some people, continuing relationships with ex-lovers is a problem. For me and my husband, most of our LTR exes are still close friends. Generally, the blah sex was what ended the relationships, as they evolved into more of a friendship. So, yes, we each had exes at our wedding.
vennominon, I meant that I hope her fiance takes the “There but for the grace of God” attitude, rather than being a judgmental prick. Saying “I hope he’s worthy of you” means that in my view, she’s a regular person, not damaged goods.
Although, if @5 is right, TSA’s panic attacks may show that she isn’t comfortable with herself yet, and could use some therapy before she starts building a life with someone else.
Um, and the column’s been around for eleven years on the Internet alone. Time causes changes in tone. If a twenty-nine-year-old man starts a writing project, no one should be too shocked when eleven years later he turns forty-one [numbers made up on the spot].
DAMMIT, I mean forty. Still, it’s fair game. Commence making fun of me.
@2: I’ve always been partial to “sloot” myself.
@3: It’s not *necessarily* irrelevant: normative attractiveness is a privileged cultural category, and differences in attractiveness are therefore often manifested as differences in social privilege (e.g. ability to attract potential/desired sexual partners) and power. Dan’s hypothesizing that CPAS is less normatively-attractive than hir girlfriend because when people put up with emotional abuse, there’s usually some reason (generally the abuser is exercising some sort of power/control over the abused), and getting people to recognize what’s motivating them to stay in a hurtful relationship can help them dismantle that motivation or exercise of power by the abuser in order to leave. It may NOT be looks in this case, but attractiveness is statistically more likely to be the root of a power differential favoring a woman over a man (vs. things like economic self-sufficiency or physical prowess; of course we don’t KNOW CPAS is a man, just that hir girlfriend is a woman, but that, too, is statistically more likely).
@12: Given the stigma around incest (consensual and abusive both), it may happen far more often than we know; as with TSA, most people are not going to be exactly thrilled about sharing this sort of story, even, or perhaps especially, if they view the sex as consensual and not rape.
@41: Genetics predisposes people to certain behaviors; it’s never solely responsible for them, as all of them are contextualized within (limited by, enacted within, and understood through) a certain historical-cultural frame (for example, people have genetic predispositions to eat about as much food as is necessary they burn off, or possibly more if they come from a genetic population acclimated to areas with long fallow periods for which they would have needed to stock up on calories, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t ‘diet’ or develop aversions to food for socialized/cultural/personal history reasons; people have genetic predispositions to engage in partnered sexual activity and probably with more than one partner, but plenty of people are asexual, have low libidos, and make and keep monogamous commitments). Saying “people generally have a predisposition toward sexual attraction to people who are similar both genetically and personality-wise” does not mean that it’s true for everyone, nor that there’s anything “wrong” with people for whom it’s not true. Given that most aspects of human identity are culturally inflected with power differentials and sexual preferences are often related to power differences/power exchange, an attraction to people who are in some way “other” is actually pretty common – the most common example is probably an attraction to people who are differently-gendered than oneself (gender is a major source of differences in power/privilege, after all; there may be genetic predispositions at play here, too, but if so, they are also strongly culturally-reinforced).
@CPAS:
IMPORTANT!
Don’t DTMFA right away. Find some other women you like to see you with your current “gf”. Talk to them. Get to know them a little bit. THEN dump your GF, and say “She just didn’t seem like the person I should spend the rest of my life with. What are you doing on Saturday?”
Hot chicks make you attractive to other women, so take advantage!
And, as a general note from an averagely-attractive guy, I’ve never (well, not since I got out of my incredibly shy/creepy stage) had any trouble having hot girlfriends – so long as I meet them in places where we get to know each other personally. At the bar, not so much. But yes, averagely attractive guys CAN have attractive girlfriends, so long as you don’t act like an insecure jealous asshole, which is a huge turn-off.
@46:
He probably doesn’t need to know.
But she needs to know he knows. That’s the only way she’ll be happy in the relationship.