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Starting from the top of the list, it is part of the sexual biology of women that they “display” for males, in competition with other females, and men are supposed to pay attention to them, from which they can choose a suitor.

However, several things can go wrong with this process.

To start with, in adolescence, girls are compelled to display for boys, *in practice*, just to learn what gets their attention, without wanting to mate. They will often over-do with gaudy clothing and makeup, or worse, get in competition with other girls over how much skin they can expose. Today, the technology of camera-phones has led to the “selfie” in which girls can display to boys from the safety of distance; often with nudity.

Parents really need to get a handle on this.

Another way this can go really wrong is when girls have success with getting the attention of boys, and they become, for want of a better phrase, “attention whores”. They can become so indiscriminate in trying to get attention that they become *real* whores; or fall under the psychological domination of someone who acts like a pimp. It doesn’t matter if he is slapping her, or dancing with her, he is showing her attention, so in her mind, “he cares”, and feeds her addiction.

On the side of boys and men, they are also biologically compelled, as well as taught, to pay attention to the displays of girls; and to expect this to magically turn off once they are attached to a woman is expecting a lot. However, they can be *trained* to tone it down, and not to gawk at other women.

That is, when they are together, women are no longer supposed to display, and men are no longer supposed to gawk at the displays of other women.

Ideally, once men and women are in a relationship, they both get a handle on their impulses. From that point, they need to find a balance point of the amount of attention the man needs to regularly give her; and for her not to so directly associate attention with either affection or loyalty, which can be demonstrated in other ways.