Want to keep your man? CUDDLE with him!

It doesn’t matter how old he is, cuddling and caressing are important ingredients for long-term relationship satisfaction and (surprise!) they are MORE important for men! Also contrary to expectations of researchers, men were more likely to report being happy in their relationship, while women were more likely to report being satisfied with their sexual relationship.

The couples studied, more than 1,000 from the United States, Brazil, Germany, Japan and Spain, were together an average 25 years. Researcher Julia Heiman says, "You hear repeated research and commentary about divorce; but it’s important to note that though divorce rates are high in the U.S., couples tend to stay married–more than 50% of U.S. couples remain in their first marriage, and that number goes up to 90% in Spain. We know from other research that being in a long-term relationship has some value to health. Perhaps we can learn more about what makes relationships both sustainable and happy."

But if you must fight with him, remember: Men hit harder when they stand on two legs than when they are on all fours, and when hitting downward rather than upward, giving tall, upright males a fighting advantage. This may help explain why our ape-like human ancestors began walking upright and why women tend to prefer tall men (at least when they are hitting enemies, and not hitting THEM).

Biologist David Carrier says, "Our ancestors adopted bipedal posture so that males would be better at beating and killing each other when competing for females. Standing up on their hind legs allowed our ancestors to fight with the strength of their forelimbs, making punching much more dangerous. "It also provides a functional explanation for why women find tall men attractive. “Early in human evolution, an enhanced capacity to strike downward on an opponent may have given tall males a greater capacity to compete for mates and to defend their resources and offspring. If this were true, females who chose to mate with tall males would have had greater fitness for survival.

“From the perspective of sexual selection theory, women are attracted to powerful males, not because powerful males can beat them up, but because powerful males can protect them and their children from other males. In a world of automatic weapons and guided missiles, male physical strength has little relevance to most conflicts between males, but guns have been common weapons for less than 15 human generations. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that modern females are still attracted to physical traits that predict how their mates would fare in a fight."

However, not everyone is happy about Carrier’s study. He says, "Among academics there often is resistance to the reality that humans are a violent species. It’s an intrinsic desire to have us be more peaceful than we are."

We don’t get violent, we just get disappointed, because so many of our readers and listeners who profess to love us so much can’t be bothered to SUPPORT us! Right now only about 1% of you become subscribers, but if we could raise that level to just 3%, we’d be out of the woods. What if you fired up your computer tomorrow and found we just weren’t here anymore?–It COULD happen. Make sure it doesn’t: Subscribe today!