Mate Availability and Sexual Disgust

Abstract

Objective

One of the factors that sexual disgust should be calibrated to is the size of the mating pool. This study tested this hypothesis by examining whether perceptions of mate availability explain variance in levels of sexual disgust towards potential mates.

Methods

Participants (N = 853; 373 women) rated how sexually disgusting they found 60 potential mates that have previously been rated on attractiveness by a separate group of raters. We also measured participants’ perceptions of mate availability in their local environment, self-perceived attractiveness and mate value, and relevant control variables.

Results

Multilevel models revealed a negative association between sexual disgust towards potential mates and perceived mate availability—the opposite of what we predicted. We found support for our prediction that women had higher levels of sexual disgust than men, but only after addressing the confounding sex difference in target attractiveness. We also found the predicted negative association between target attractiveness and sexual disgust. Finally, as predicted, sexual disgust levels were more strongly related to potential mates’ attractiveness in individuals who perceived there to be many available mates in their local environment.

Conclusions

These findings generally bolster functional accounts of sexual disgust while highlighting the need for more evidence to ascertain the role of mate availability in the calibration of sexual disgust. Specifically, future research should examine the extent to which disgust levels may truncate mental representations of the mating pool instead of being calibrated by them.