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Arch Sex Behav (2014) 43:9991008 DOI 10.1007/s10508-013-0188-8
ORIGINAL PAPER
Womens Perceptions of Sexual Exploitability Cues and Their Link to Sexual Attractiveness
Cari D. Goetz Judith A. Easton David M. Buss
Received: 2 November 2012 / Revised: 13 June 2013 / Accepted: 15 August 2013 / Published online: 12 November 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Two studies examined womens perception of the relationship between sexual exploitability and sexual attractiveness and womens use of cues to sexual exploitability to signal sexual accessibility. Study 1 (N = 77) found that women accurately assessed other women displaying cues to sexual exploitability both as sexually exploitable and sexually attractive to men. Study 2 (N = 74) tested the predictions that women who were dispositionally inclined toward short-term mating, who were not in a committed relationship, and who perceived themselves to be low in mate value would be more likely to display cues to sexual exploitability as a mate attraction tactic. Results supported the rst prediction. These results suggest that asubsetofwomen,thosedispositionallyinclinedtowardashort-term mating strategy, employ the risky strategy of signaling sexual accessibility using cues to exploitability to advance their mating goals.
Keywords Sexual exploitability Sexual accessibility
Mate attraction Individual differences Signaling
Introduction
It is now well documented that a womans sexual attractiveness is predicated on tness-based indicators of mate quality, such as cues to fertility, youth, and health (e.g., Fink & Penton-Voak, 2002; Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005; Sugiyama, 2005).
Cues to mate quality, however, may not fully explain perceptions of womens sexual attractiveness. A womans sexual attractiveness also appears to be based, in part, upon cues to her apparent sexual accessibility. In a study of mate attraction tactics, those rated most effective were signals of sexual accessibility(Greer&Buss,1994).Menmayndcuestosexualaccessibility attractive because of their functional effect on mating motivationthe pursuit of women who represent a greater likelihood of payoff compared to women who are less sexually accessible (Clark, 2008).
Commonly examined cues to sexual accessibility are those that indicate a woman is interested in a sexual relationship. However, one relatively unexplored domain of cues to sexual accessibility consists of cues indicating a woman could be sexually exploited (Buss & Duntley, 2008). Recent work has empirically documented a novel nding in the attractiveness literaturethat men nd cues to sexual exploitability to be sexually...