#1031 - Macken Murphy - 18 Harsh Realities of Modern Dating

Right, your wheelhouse: penis size preferences—what’s the deal?

The best data come from women handling unlabeled 3D models, which avoids guesswork about measurements; their ideal was around six and a third inches in length and just under five inches in circumference, a touch bigger for short‑term than long‑term.

People are terrible at eyeballing inches, and memory is more about feel than a number on a ruler.

Men also overstate size by roughly twenty percent, while the average erect length is about five and a bit inches, so that ideal sits near the ninety‑fifth percentile—like meeting a six‑foot‑two guy.

So, not unicorn rare, but still a big outlier.

Girth changes volume more than length, with average circumference around four and a half inches, and the study also had women identify the biggest and smallest they’d experienced, which showed their ideals were larger than what they usually encounter.

And there’s a hard upper bound: too long can hurt; smaller might be less fun, but hitting a cervix is a hard stop.

Exactly, there’s only so much space; some women even reject partners for being too large, though most reported size‑related breakups were for being too small, and about twenty‑seven percent said size had contributed to ending a relationship.

Handling models is not having sex; full experience could nudge preferences down once practical comfort counts.

True, ethics prevent direct testing, and commenters raised that point; real‑world experience might shift the ideal.

Not great news for most men, but men’s ideals conflict too—think BMI versus bra size, or wanting beauty while demanding zero attention from rivals.

Right, ideal wish lists often clash, which is why minimums and deal breakers are more predictive than fantasies.

Do taller men cheat more?

One large data dive found no link, which surprised me since opportunity usually drives behavior, but in that sample height did not predict infidelity.

Give me the post‑mortem on the Oli Mozes transformation that women preferred before and men after.

Women are candid about liking taller and more muscular men, but here many likely saw extreme leanness, not added muscle; women generally prefer male body fat in the low to mid teens in one imaging study, which looks healthy, not stage‑dry.

Fourteen percent sounds easy to gym bros, but for normal people it’s lean, and some men look gaunt when they strip too low.

At thirteen to fourteen percent many guys have clear upper abs without the dehydrated look, and the health signal may matter more than shredded detail.

So why did women prefer the softer shot?

Formidability—women tend to choose the body that looks like it would win a fight, and non‑weight‑class fighters are lean but not peeled, so hyper‑leanness may undermine that cue.

Why did men miss that?

Bodybuilding culture turned male‑male status competition into a beauty standard that overshoots women’s optimum because difficulty signals status, a bit like fashion rewarding thinness that men do not prefer.

Women also read personality into looks; a very lean, highly groomed man can signal mating effort over father energy, which echoes the dad‑bod wave.

A study on dad‑bod perceptions found softer men were judged more fatherly, and many appearance extremes cue a pursuit orientation, whereas a naturally gifted look without obvious effort avoids that inference.

Men’s approval still matters though; preselection and male esteem can lift attractiveness even if women say they prefer a bit more fat.

Exactly, status via men can translate into mating success; people often optimize for in‑group rank which then pays off with partners down the line.

You’ve been using rap as an evo‑psych teaching tool because it states preferences bluntly.

It does—artists flex low partner counts, resources, and dominance in ways that map cleanly to the literature on mate choice and intrasexual competition.

Metal feels different; is metal guitar more about competing with men than wooing women?

In male‑heavy scenes, it resembles a proxy fight where women avoid the spectacle but later value the winner, so returns to mating arrive at high status; safer play for attraction is a few acoustic crowd‑pleasers.

I recall a poll saying a partner failing to protect hurt attraction more than cheating.

I think that was an online poll, but it is face‑valid that failing to protect tanks attraction, while cheating remains the top relationship killer in practice.

Men rate beauty far above chastity—how firm is that?

Cross‑cultural and newer studies show looks outrank purity for most men, and in modern contexts contraception blunts the old risks; ideal body‑count work finds a preference for a small number, not zero.

What are the typical numbers?

Medians from CDC data, excluding virgins, hover around four for women and six for men, likely converging near five when you adjust for reporting bias, and that includes very conservative and very asocial groups.

Even men avoid virgins, and women seem harsher on male virgins.

Virginity can read as atypical adjustment today, and both sexes prefer low but nonzero histories, with a sharp drop in interest once someone is above average for their age.

Tattoos, dyed hair, piercings, and choker necklaces are read as sociosexual cues.

Stereotypes can become self‑fulfilling; these signals do correlate with more unrestricted behavior in the data, though effects are modest.

How does body count relate to long‑term success?

Higher counts predict more cheating, lower satisfaction, and more divorce for men and women; one analysis found those above five partners had roughly double the infidelity rate of those below five, which fits the idea that past behavior forecasts future behavior.

Could a lack of variety early on fuel later straying?

We cannot do causal tests, and some people try casual sex and choose monogamy afterward, but if lifelong monogamy is the goal, sowing wild oats is a risky bet; context matters.

Motivations differ, so the same number can reflect very different paths.

Exactly, body count is a proxy for sociosexuality, and recency and age matter; ten in college then a decade of monogamy is unlike ten in the past year, and whether partners were relationships or flings would clarify things even more.

A viral take said men do not care about women’s careers, they just want someone kind who makes life easier.

Elite men overwhelmingly pair with elite women by education and income, and big age gaps are less common among rich men, so “do not care” is wrong; men do prioritize personality and beauty over career more than women do, but they still assort on status.

Why do high‑status men choose peers?

Shared world and pace help—many want a partner who grasps the work and can keep up, and I value that in my own relationship.

What served in your twenties may fail in your thirties; long‑term success is about having a conversation that stays alive for years, with the basics handled.

Agreed; niche careers benefit from partners in the same stratosphere even if not the same niche, which is why the Applebee’s fantasy is rare in the data.

Podcasting bleeds into every conversation, which can make partners feel outgunned, and turning love into labor changes the fuel that keeps you going.

Do you ever need silence after talking all day?

Motivation shifts with time; habit, impact, and team support keep the engine running, and my advice to young listeners is to lean into the energy while you have it—balance gets easier later.

Balance often arrives when family life demands it.

Alright, the bottom forty percent of men and top twenty percent of women are now hyperandrous—what does that even mean?

Can you unpack the claim that the bottom forty percent of men are marrying up while the top twenty percent of women are marrying down, and what that actually looks like?

The IFS analysis of about one point four million people shows men in the bottom two income quintiles typically have partners who out-earn them, while women in the top quintile often earn more than their husbands; they’re not pairing with each other, it’s a market rebalancing as male and female status converges.

We’re seeing strategic and cultural adjustments faster than any deep change in preferences, like how admitting your wife earns more used to be humiliating and now barely raises an eyebrow.

The tension lands hardest on high-achieving women, right?

That’s the worry; bottom-forty men are often fine with mating up, but status-reversed couples can have worse outcomes in some European data, so our research asks whether women’s preferences can shift enough to make these pairings feel good, not just workable.

If women keep winning at work and no one caps that, it seems like the choices are adapt or stop coupling.

Exactly, no one’s putting brakes on women’s gains, so for many top‑tier women the realistic path is accepting a higher chance of dating down or staying single.

I’m optimistic long term; plenty of societies function fine with female-heavy provisioning, but I don’t want to gloss over real pain during this cultural pivot.

I’ve watched the tall‑girl problem unfold for years, and the coverage has caught up to it.

Another angle: are falling pairings and births partly because we’ve made ourselves less physically attractive, with obesity dulling desire and self‑assessment?

The timelines overlap, and GLP‑1 drugs might shrink obesity dramatically, but the big story behind fewer marriages is women not needing to marry badly; divorce is down, Gen Z marriages look remarkably durable, and people who wed now do better than they did in decades.

On attraction, speed‑dating work suggests people aim for the best partner who reciprocates, not someone exactly in their league.

In our infidelity data, cheating tends to go up in physical attractiveness, which means being rarer and better looking can protect you a bit simply because there are fewer equal or better alternatives for your partner to find.

But high attractiveness also brings more suitors and pressure, and when there’s a big mate‑value gap, relationships can tilt from offering benefits to inflicting costs, with more guarding, digs, and in bad cases worse behavior; breadwinner flips can even track with higher use of erectile dysfunction meds for men.

There’s also compensatory benefit‑provisioning as gaps grow, like a Polish study linking larger attractiveness gaps to more effort in bed, and while very attractive people may feel less satisfied due to constant options, the overall package still favors them.

On non‑monogamy, men are more sociosexual, so they get bigger upside from variety but pay more in sexual jealousy; women tend to feel the opposite pattern with emotional bonds.

That maps to evolution: men can impregnate multiple partners but risk cuckoldry, while women face different costs, so who benefits most; I could see a woman with a devoted but less genetically attractive partner gaining from outside conception, and there are cultures where men tolerate affairs because they regain paternity elsewhere.

So you’d think the big winners would be high‑value men.

Labelled polyamorous men aren’t always that, but once you drop the label and look at situationships, hot guys clearly benefit more; that said, for many men the pain of a partner’s sex outside the relationship dwarfs any thrill of a fling, and mate switching risk makes it stressful for women too.

I’d love data on how polarized men are on this, because some would trade away huge personal freedom to avoid that jealousy.

Same here; I’ve met men who either have sky‑high desire or near‑zero jealousy to make it work, and even public voices like Primal Poly describe a long slog of managing the psychology, which makes you ask if the payoff is worth it.

What about the rich gay uncle idea for why homosexuality persists?

The kin‑selection story says gay men might invest in nieces and nephews enough to offset lower direct reproduction, but Western data is weak; among the fa’afafine in Samoa, who are natal males in a third‑gender role, there’s stronger evidence of heavy avuncular investment.

It connects to the older‑brother effect and possibly a maternal immune mechanism, which could mean the adaptive locus is in the mother rather than the son, but my honest view is that this isn’t the general answer and we still don’t fully know why homosexuality persists.

Macken Murphy, this was a blast; last time was Melbourne, next time let’s do Bali after my tour, and tonight we’ll test some field notes at Bill Perkins’s party, so let’s wrap.

My girlfriend will love hearing that plan; if you want more, just search my name on any platform, and Species the podcast is mostly retired but I still drop the odd episode.

Go follow Macken on TikTok and everywhere else, and check out Species; until next time, thanks man.