Rivals and Relationships: A Comparison of Queer and Straight Women's Mating Competition

Rivals and Relationships: A Comparison of Queer and Straight Women's Mating Competition Karla Kenny, Western University, London, ON Maryanne L. Fisher, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS Considerable research on dating competition has focused on heterosexual (“straight”) women and the strategies used to attract male partners. Much of this work has historically been viewed through an evolutionary lens that emphasizes parental investment, reproductive potential, and access to resources. From this framework, four primary competitive tactics emerged: self-promotion, mate manipulation, competitor manipulation, and competitor derogation. In contrast, the mating competition strategies of queer women, defined here as women assigned female at birth (AFAB) who date other AFAB women, remain largely unexplored, despite the long history of same-sex relationships. This gap reflects broader heteronormative bias within evolutionary and relationship science, limiting our understanding of competitive behaviours across diverse relationship ecologies. Using both evolutionary theory and social models, this research addresses the unexplored areas of queer women's competition by examining whether they use similar competitive mating strategies to straight women and whether the application and frequency of these strategies differ. Two studies were conducted (N=30 and N=91), and participants completed an adapted mating competition survey designed for queer populations, along with open-ended questions about desirable mate traits and involvement in queer mating environments. Results showed both similarities and interesting differences between queer and straight women. While both groups reported self-promotion at equal levels, demonstrating its broad social acceptability, queer women across both studies reported significantly less use of competitor manipulation and competitor derogation. Queer participants in committed relationships also reported higher use of competitor-focused strategies, indicating a possible shift in function from partner acquisition to partner retention. Further analyses also found that having a prior friendship with a desired partner more strongly influenced the use of all four mating strategies for queer women than has been documented for straight women. These findings suggest that the context of sexual and romantic relationships influences people's competitive behaviours in meaningful ways. And, while evolutionary mating mechanisms are still available to many queer women, their expression appears to be less shaped by reproductive or resource-focused factors, and more by social connection and relational flexibility. In queer dating environments, people who may begin as potential rivals may later evolve into potential mates, a dynamic largely absent in heterosexual mating environments, resulting in a unique pattern of mating competition among queer women. This research integrates social, cooperative, and altruism-based frameworks into existing relationship models and challenges assumptions about the who, why, and how of competition. In doing so, it contributes to a more inclusive understanding of mating behaviours that better represent the spectrum of lived relational experiences and human mating psychology.

Author dc:creator

• Kenny, Karla

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Fisher, Maryanne

• queer women
• mating
• relationship dynamics
• competitive strategies

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/39728

OAI record oai:identifier

https://uwo.scholaris.ca/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Auwo.scholaris.ca%3A20.500.14721%2F39728