Facial Attractiveness of the Sisters of Istmo Zapotec Men and Muxes: Implications for the Evolution of Male Androphilia

ABSTRACT

Research shows that the female relatives of androphilic (i.e., sexually attracted to adult males) males have more children than the female relatives of gynephilic (i.e., sexually attracted to adult females) males. The mechanisms by which this occurs are unclear. The hypergyny hypothesis suggests that the female relatives of androphilic males have elevated attractiveness which allows them to obtain male partners with higher socioeconomic status, which in turn, provide them with more resources to produce and sustain multiple offspring. We tested whether the female kin of male androphiles are characterized by elevated attractiveness compared to the female kin of male gynephiles. The research was conducted among the Istmo Zapotec from Oaxaca, Mexico, where androphilic males are recognized as a third gender, muxes. We recruited 115 gynephilic men who rated the facial attractiveness of 27 women with at least one muxe sibling and 27 women with only gynephilic male siblings (i.e., control sisters). The results showed that gynephilic men found the faces of control sisters more attractive than the faces of muxe sisters. This finding is inconsistent with the hypergyny hypothesis and suggests that elevated facial attractiveness is not the mechanism by which the female relatives of androphilic males achieve elevated reproduction.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Julio Cesar Jiménez Rodríguez, Felina Santiago, and Dan Weeks, without whom this research would not be possible.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data Availability

The data associated with this research are available at Open Science Framework: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/YBEWM https://osf.io/ybewm/.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by a University of Lethbridge Research Fund Grant (institutional grant number 13261) and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada Discovery Grant (institutional grant number 2020-04244) awarded to PLV.