The Adoration of the Waifus

There is more to our sexual desires than the desire to have sex. There is also a holistic attraction, which I will call “adoration” to distinguish it from lust (the desire to have sex) and also from love/attachment (pair-bonding between mates or parent-child bonding). Adoration is the desire to be with someone. It is the desire to love. Love is the bond between mates. Adoration, which is also called “being in love” or “having a crush on”, is the desire to be in a loving relationship. Adoration is not necessary for pair-bonding to take place, but it motivates pair-bonding.

Adoration is a holistic attraction that goes beyond physical appearance. It is less common than lust, but it is stronger and can completely override lust. If you have ever fallen in love, you know what I mean. Lust is a strong desire, but it fades quickly. Adoration is one of the most powerful emotions that human beings can experience. It is so strong because of its function. It motivates men (and women to a lesser extent) to pursue a long-term relationship. Such relationships have much greater reproductive value than a single act of sex. They also require a much greater investment of energy, and involve more risk. Finding a mate is one of the most important things a human being can do.

We tend to think of male sexuality as the pursuit of sex, and female sexuality as the pursuit of relationships. That is useful as a rough approximation, but it is not entirely true. Men desire relationships too, and women sometimes desire sex outside relationships. Also, even though women usually want long-term relationships, they do very little to create them. Men do most of the initial work that brings couples together. Adoration motivates a man to pursue a woman for a long-term relationship, not just for sex.

What do men find adorable in women?

Youth is an important attribute. Girls in their teens or early twenties are the most adorable. Why is youth so important? Because commitment is a cost-benefit trade-off for men. Adoration makes men want to commit to a woman: take care of her and her children for life. The man is willing to invest his entire life in the relationship. For that investment to be worth it, the relationship should have a high expected reproductive payoff. A man’s adoration of a woman is based on her perceived long-term reproductive value.

The expected payoff of committing to a teenage girl is much higher than the expected payoff of committing to a woman in her thirties. The teenage girl has her entire reproductive lifespan ahead of her. She can have many children. She is a good reproductive investment. By contrast, a woman in her thirties has most of her reproductive lifespan behind her. Also, before the modern era, she would probably already have children. A man who commits to a 30-something woman might end up taking care of her existing children (from other men), and he will not sire many children with her.

Sorry ladies, but as you get older, you become less adorable. Your value as a mate declines rapidly with age.

Consider what men find sexually attractive in women: tits, ass, cute face, hour-glass figure. Each is an indicator of fertility.

Let’s look more closely at tits. Tits are blobs of fat with nipples (modified sweat glands) on them. Tits indicate sex, age and body fat. Only females have tits, so they indicate sex. Tits indicate that a girl is past puberty, and thus capable of having children. The best tits are found on girls during their most fertile period: late teens to early twenties. Granny tits are not attractive, and neither are little bumps. Tits have deposits of body fat, and fat is a store of energy. Full, nicely shaped tits on a girl/woman signal that (a) she is female, (b) she is in the fertile phase of her life, and (c) she has enough body fat to ovulate and carry a child. Tits signal reproductive utility.

The other traits that we find attractive are also signs of reproductive utility. A cute face is an indicator of femininity and youth. A nice ass indicates sex, age, body fat and the ability to give birth. A narrow waist shows that a woman is not already pregnant with someone else’s child.

We instinctively focus on traits that provide us with information about reproductive utility. When you look at a member of the opposite sex (assuming that you have no sexual disorders), you instinctively assess that person’s potential utility as a mate.

Adoration involves more than just physical attraction. Lust is almost entirely physical, but adoration is also mental. It involves attraction to character traits as well. Why? Because the function of adoration is to maximize the expected payoff of long-term commitment. A mate who is stupid or deceptive is a bad choice, even if she is physically attractive. If you are going to commit years of your life to someone, and work together with that person to raise children, then you want her to have good character traits. Adoration depends a lot on the character of the girl, not just her appearance.

Adoration also depends on attainability. There is no point wasting your energy on a futile pursuit. If a girl is in a relationship, or if she rejects you, then your adoration will fade. Adoration requires some hope. Essentially, it is an expected utility calculation. It depends on the probability of success.

Adoration can be a very powerful emotion, as anyone who has fallen in love can attest. It is a desperate longing to be with someone. Adoration focuses your attention on a specific person, and causes you to obsess about forming a relationship with that person. If you succeed, adoration is replaced by love.

Just as there are lust fetishes that bring out the emotion of lust, there are adoration fetishes that bring out the emotion of adoration.

In the modern world, many men have retreated from a rather bleak sexual reality into sexual fantasy. This fantasy world includes porn, of course, but porn only brings out the emotion of lust. It can’t bring out the feeling of adoration. In the modern world, men are not only turning to lust fetishes (porn), they are also turning to adoration fetishes: waifus.

The waifu is a fantasy created by nerdy men, just as the mysterious male character in every romance novel is a fantasy created by bookish women. The waifu is a representation of an adorable girl. She is usually in her teenage years, on the cusp of womanhood. She is beautiful, but not unattainable. She is sweet, kind, intelligent and she likes you. Yeah, she actually likes you. And she needs you. There is some way that you can help her or save her. You can be her hero, and win her love.

Nothing could bring out stronger feelings of adoration, other than a real girl who fits that description. Unfortunately, such girls are in short supply. For many men, they simply don’t exist.

That is the tragedy of modern romance. Men still perceive great value in women, especially young attractive ones. Women perceive little value in most men.

See Modern Romance.

What the modern world takes away, it gives back in artificial forms. Instead of real relationships, it gives us illusions.