The “moah of the good trait” until it becomes overdone is one thing; where I always despaired is when we get to costly signalling, and the mates start doing detrimental things precisely because they are so visibly and obviously detrimental or risky that the onlooker assumes the mate must be exceptionally healthy, well-established and competent to be able to take it.
Aka a mate going “look, I am so strong and well-fed that I can afford to waste resources on looking this silly, and evade predators even while carrying all this crap around” and another going “wow, you intentionally handicapping yourself is so hot”.
And then we get “smoking cigarettes is sexy” and “free solo climbing is hot” and “check out my hot daughter, I broke her feet and crammed them into tiny shoes, she is legit intentionally handicapped now, think how well we must be doing for us to afford to break all our daughter’s feet, aren’t the broken feet and the genes and wealth this implies arousing”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding
The “moah of the good trait” until it becomes overdone is one thing; where I always despaired is when we get to costly signalling, and the mates start doing detrimental things precisely because they are so visibly and obviously detrimental or risky that the onlooker assumes the mate must be exceptionally healthy, well-established and competent to be able to take it.
Aka a mate going “look, I am so strong and well-fed that I can afford to waste resources on looking this silly, and evade predators even while carrying all this crap around” and another going “wow, you intentionally handicapping yourself is so hot”.
And then we get “smoking cigarettes is sexy” and “free solo climbing is hot” and “check out my hot daughter, I broke her feet and crammed them into tiny shoes, she is legit intentionally handicapped now, think how well we must be doing for us to afford to break all our daughter’s feet, aren’t the broken feet and the genes and wealth this implies arousing”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding