Despite interdependent reproductive fates that favor cooperation, males and females exhibit many psychological and behavioral footprints of sexually antagonistic coevolution. These include strategies of deception, sexual exploitation, and sexual infidelity as well as anti-exploitation defenses such as commitment skepticism and emotions such as sexual regret and jealousy. Sexual conflict pervades the mating arena prior to sexual consummation, after a mating relationship has formed, and in the aftermath of a breakup. It also permeates many other social relationships in forms such as daughter-guarding, conflict in opposite-sex friendships, and workplace sexual harassment. As such, sexual conflict constitutes not a narrow or occasional flashpoint but rather persistent threads that run through our intensely group-living species.
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2.
BussD. M. (2016). (See References). This book provides an up-to-date overview of strategies of human mating, with one large chapter and portions of others devoted to sexual conflict in humans, including mate guarding, infidelity, intimate partner violence, deception, and sexual assault.
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GoetzC. D.EastonJ. A.LewisD. M.BussD. M. (2012). (See References). This paper focuses on one domain of sexual conflict—identifying cues to sexual exploitability of women, which include vulnerability to sexual deception and sexual assault, and men’s attraction to those cues in short-term mating contexts.
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