女性吸引力巔峰在18歲，男性在50歲？

If you haven’t watched “Nanette,” Hannah Gadsby’s fearless comedy special on Netflix, do that now. (We’ll wait.)

如果你還沒有看過漢娜·加茲比(Hannah Gadsby)在Netflix上那部百無禁忌的喜劇特別節(jié)目《納內(nèi)特》(Nanette)，現(xiàn)在就去看。(我們等你。)

In it, Ms. Gadsby takes on the fragility of masculinity — and at one point drills into Pablo Picasso, who, well into his 40s, had an affair with a teenage girl.

在這個節(jié)目中，加茲比觸及了男性的脆弱——一度黑了畢加索，他在自己40多歲的時候和一名十來歲的女孩有過風(fēng)流事。

Ms. Gadsby, who has a degree in art history, recounted how Picasso justified the relationship by claiming that he and the girl, Marie-Thérèse Walter, were both in their prime. Seething, Ms. Gadsby said: “A 17-year-old girl is never in her prime. Ever! I am in my prime.” She is 40.

擁有藝術(shù)史學(xué)位的加茲比講述了畢加索是如何為他們的這段關(guān)系辯護(hù)的，他說自己和那位名叫瑪麗-特莉絲·沃爾特(Marie-Thérèse Walter)的女孩都正當(dāng)盛年。加茲比怒氣沖沖地說：“一個17歲的女孩絕不可能處在她的盛年。絕不!我才是盛年。”她今年40歲。

That anecdote came to mind recently, in response to a new study about online dating published in the journal Science Advances.

最近我又想起了這段軼事，起因是發(fā)表在《科學(xué)前沿》(Science Advances)上的一篇有關(guān)網(wǎng)上約會的最新研究。

In it, researchers studied the “desirability” of male and female users, based on how many messages nearly 200,000 users, all of whom were seeking opposite-sex partners, got over one month on a “popular, free online-dating service” — and if those sending the messages were desirable based on the same criteria.

研究人員在其中研究了男性和女性用戶的“期許性”，其依據(jù)是在一個“熱門、免費(fèi)在線約會服務(wù)平臺”上，統(tǒng)計近20萬名在尋求異性伴侶的用戶在一個月當(dāng)中收到了多少條信息——以及在同樣的評判標(biāo)準(zhǔn)下，那些發(fā)出信息的人的吸引力如何。

The researchers determined that while men’s sexual desirability peaks at age 50, women’s starts high at 18 and falls from there.

研究人員們發(fā)現(xiàn)，男性的性吸引力在50歲時達(dá)到巔峰，而女性則在18歲時達(dá)到巔峰，隨后開始下降。

In other words, not so far from the ages of Walter and Picasso.

換句話說，和沃爾特與畢加索的年齡差距差不多。

“The age gradient for women definitely surprised us — both in terms of the fact that it steadily declined from the time women were 18 to the time they were 65, and also how steep it was,” said Elizabeth Bruch, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan and an author of the study.

“女性的年齡梯度無疑讓我們感到意外——既在于它從女性18歲開始到65歲的這段時間內(nèi)穩(wěn)定下降這一事實，也在于它下降得是如此急劇，”密歇根大學(xué)的社會學(xué)副教授、該研究作者伊麗莎白·布魯赫(Elizabeth Bruch)說。

This study isn’t an anomaly.

這項研究并不反常。

The study results echoed data shared by the dating behemoth OkCupid in 2010, in which the service found that men from the ages of 22 to 30 focus almost entirely on women who are younger than them.

該研究結(jié)果與大型約會網(wǎng)站OkCupid于2010年公開的數(shù)據(jù)相呼應(yīng)，在那份數(shù)據(jù)當(dāng)中，該服務(wù)平臺發(fā)現(xiàn)介于22歲到30歲之間的男性關(guān)注的幾乎全部是比他們更年輕的女性。

“The median 30-year-old man spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age,” OkCupid wrote in a blog post at the time.

“30歲左右的男性在給未成年女孩發(fā)信息上用的時間，與給他的同齡女性發(fā)消息一樣，”OkCupid在當(dāng)時的一篇博客中這樣寫道。

OkCupid also reported that as a man gets older, he searches for relatively younger and younger women, while his upper acceptable age limit hovers just above his own age.

OkCupid還報告說，當(dāng)男性的變老時，他會尋找相對越來越年輕的女性，但是他可以接受的年齡上限卻僅僅停留在他自己的年齡上。

“The male fixation on youth distorts the dating pool,” OkCupid concluded.

“男性對于年輕的這種迷戀擾亂了約會市場，”OkCupid網(wǎng)站這樣總結(jié)道。

Caveman mentality persists.

穴居人心態(tài)根深蒂固。

Michelle Drouin, a developmental psychologist who focuses on technology and relationships, was not surprised by the new study — in part because they “align with evolutionary theories of mating” in which youth suggests fertility, she said.

米歇爾·德勞因(Michelle Drouin)是一名專注于技術(shù)與關(guān)系領(lǐng)域的發(fā)展心理學(xué)家，她對這一新的研究并不感到驚訝——部分原因是男性“遵循了交配的進(jìn)化理論”，該理論認(rèn)為年輕意味著生育能力，她說。

Dr. Drouin pointed out, though, that there are also theories that suggest that “men are just less interested in earning potential or power, and more interested in physical attractiveness.”

盡管如此，德勞因指出也有其他理論表明“男性對于收入潛力更不感興趣，而對外表的吸引力更感興趣。”

Women want brains. Men care less.

女人想要頭腦，而男人則不關(guān)心。

Speaking of earning potential, Dr. Bruch also found that a man’s desirability increased the more education he attained.

談到收入潛力，布魯赫還發(fā)現(xiàn)男性的教育水平越高，吸引力就越高。

For women, that benefit ended with an undergraduate degree — and postgraduate education, in fact, made them less desirable.

對女性而言，這一利好到本科學(xué)位就終結(jié)了——而且博士學(xué)位事實上會使得她們的吸引力降低。

Women now outnumber men in college and earn more degrees, Dr. Bruch said, adding: “Preferences coupled with the availability of partners may drive the patterns we see in our paper.”

布魯赫說，現(xiàn)在大學(xué)里女性人數(shù)要超過男性，而且獲得了更多學(xué)位。她還說：“偏好以及伴侶的可獲得性可能催生了我們在論文中看到的規(guī)律。”

Dr. Drouin said that educational dynamic might also be related to “beliefs that higher degrees among women translate into more work commitment and less relationship and family commitment.”

德勞因說這種教育水平上的動因，很可能跟“認(rèn)為女性獲得更高的學(xué)位就會更多地投入在工作而非情感與家庭”有關(guān)。

People aim high (probably too high).

人們的目標(biāo)比較高(有可能太高了)。

Dr. Drouin stressed that the preferences of people seeking mates online reflect aspiration, not necessarily what people want in real life. A key finding of the study was that most users sent messages to people who were more desirable than themselves. Twenty-five percent more desirable, to be exact.

德勞因強(qiáng)調(diào)說，線上擇偶者的偏好反映的是他們的渴求，這未必是他們在現(xiàn)實的生活中想要的東西。這項研究中一個關(guān)鍵的發(fā)現(xiàn)就是，大部分用戶都會給吸引力高于自己的人發(fā)消息。確切地說，是比自己高出25%的人。

This data represents “the reality of dating preferences” — in other words, dating out of your league, Dr. Drouin said. That is often not the reality of dating.

這一數(shù)據(jù)反映的是“約會偏好的現(xiàn)實性”——換句話說就是和自己配不上的人約會，德勞因說。約會的現(xiàn)實通常不是這樣。

“These messages sent by online daters can be likened to slot machine play in Vegas,” she said. “Little investment on the front end might pay out big on the back end — so why not opt for a chance at the biggest win?”

“在線約會者們發(fā)出的這些消息，可以比作是在拉斯維加斯玩的那種老虎機(jī)，”她說。“初期幾乎不需要什么投資，但是結(jié)果卻可能收獲頗豐——所以為何不選擇獲得最大勝利的機(jī)會呢?”

But then again, the internet can’t read chemistry.

但話又說回來了，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)不懂化學(xué)反應(yīng)。

“In the real world, the woman with a graduate degree who knows your favorite Kerouac passage, speaks a few languages or discovers new ways to cure disease might be undeniably attractive,” she said. “Think of Amal Clooney.”

“在現(xiàn)實的世界里，一個女人如果有研究生學(xué)歷，知道你最喜歡的凱魯亞克片段，會說好幾種語言，或者還發(fā)現(xiàn)了治愈疾病的新方法，那她的魅力可能是難以抗拒的，”她說。“想想阿邁勒·克魯尼(Amal Clooney)。”