Halley Suitt and Jared Diamond on the Sexiness of Alcohol
Halley Suitt writes about the sexiness of alcohol and smoking.#
There used to be something sexy about smoking, but notice culturally, at least in the United States, it's gotten about as sexy as leprosy. Smokers are treated like outcasts in offices, restaurants, just about everywhere. There has been such a cultural assassination of smoking that it's gone from being cool (watch old movies) to absolutely not cool. I think this will happen for alcohol in the next few decades.
Some may be intrigued to learn, if they have not already, that the purpose of alcohol and other drugs has always been for sex appeal. I quote from Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee:
Page after page of ads flaunted the use of cigarettes or strong alcohol, and hinted at their benefits. There were even pictures of young people smoking in the presence of attractive members of the opposite sex, as if to imply that smoking too brought sexual opportunities. Yet any nonsmoker who has ever been kissed by (or tried to kiss) a smoker knows how severely the smoker's bad breath compromises his or her sex appeal. The ads paradoxically implied not just sexual benefits but also platonic friendships, business opportunities, vigor, health, and happiness, when the direct conclusion to be drawn from the ads was actually the reverse. [pg. 195]
The idea is that substance abuse is very much like art. It is a signal to potential mates: "Look how rich I am, I can buy things that have no use and still have money for food"; or, the case of substance abuse: "Look how strong I am, even when I poison myself regularly I am still strong." These indicator signals are very common in animals. For example, zebras have a dance that they do when they see lions. This dance takes a long time and puts them at a disadvantage to escape, but through evolution it has come to signal to a lion that the zebra is very fast and they should both not waste their energy running when the lion will surely lose. Like alcohol, the immediate effect is debilitating, but the overall effect of the signal is an advantage.
Jared notes that it is actually very important for an indicator signal to bring a disadvantage to the practicer so that it will have an actual meaning. For example, think of something incredibly cheap, anyone can get it easily, therefore it is not a useful indicator of wealth. Similarly, drinking water is not a sign of strength, as alcohol is.
Both art and chemical abuse are widespread human hallmarks characteristic of most known human societies. Both beg explanation, since it's not immediately obvious why they promote our survival through natural selection, or why they help us acquire mates through sexual selection. I argued earlier that art often serves as a valid indicator of an individual's superiority or status, since art requires skill to create and requires status or wealth to acquire. But those individuals perceived by their fellows as enjoying status thereby acquire enhanced access to resources and mates. I'm arguing now that humans seek status through many other costly display besides art, and that some of those displays (like jumping from towers, fast driving, and chemical abuse) are surprisingly dangerous. The former costly displays advertise status or wealth; the latter dangerous ones advertise that the displaying individual can master even such risks and hence must be superior. [pg. 203]