Whence men’s muscles? Because men do the hunting and fighting, and because women like men who do these things well, or so you merrily argue (“Mr. Muscle,” August 29, 2009). The research by William Lassek of the University of Pittsburgh and Steven Gauilin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, goes into the costs and benefits of muscularity in quite some detail. Sadly, they do not even touch on the well-documented proclivity of gay men for muscular mates. Actually, they appear to be even more impressed by beefcake than women. The simplest explanation of this phenomenon, which apparently has little to do with reproductive success, is that men, too, are impressed by muscular comrades in hunting and fighting, with whom they used to spend much more time than with women across much of human evolution. Comradeship had much to do with survival in a tough world, and thus with eventual reproductive success, as well. Chances are that women used to be far behind other men in men’s minds for thousands upon thousands of years.