Posted by Jonah Lehrer on August 5, 2006 Joe Francis founded the “Girls Gone Wild” franchise. As this riveting article makes clear, he’s a total sleazebag. But I didn’t know he was also an evolutionary psychologist:
“Sex sells everything,” Francis says. “It drives every buying decision . . . I hate to get too deep and philosophical here, but only the guys with the greatest sexual appetites are the ones who are the most driven and most successful.”
Some people can’t tell the truth one time in ten. Is there evolutionary advantage to that? Or does it have no effect on reproduction, instead being a trait that some learn to medicate themselves with a lifetime in fantasyland? I’d bet on the latter, but it would be interesting figuring out how to get some relevant data.
I’d say like food, the trick to the ideal sexual appetite is to focus on quality, not quantity. Then you can be free of the complications of overdoing either one, while you pursue things that might make a difference. I notice your link to The Mating Mind on amazon.com. Yes, smart women want smarter guys. Otherwise I might not have had kids. Of course it was more than the sex that actually raised them to make good reproductive choices themselves. And Girls Gone Wild didn’t enter into that once.
August 5, 2006