the dichotomy of human sexuality

[ecoli]

I was listening to the radio this morning. The talk show host cited this statistic that said that currently, ~60% of the US population believe that homosexuality is not a choice, that gays do not choose to be gay. Whether that means there's a genetic cause or a irreversable environmental one, I'm not sure.

 

This got me thinking. Why do people think of human sexuality as black and white? People are either gay or straight, male or female. A dichotomy exists in people's minds that I'm not sure actually exists in the real world.

 

In terms of genetics and biology, there are weird things that happen in nature all the time that show that things like gender and sexual preference aren't necesarily two sided. Besides for examples of sexual polymorphism in animals, human children are often born with two sets of genetalia, one male one female. And the chromosomes often get arranged in ways that produce something other than the "classic" XY combinations. Obviously, there's the fact that it takes a male half and a female half to produce a human child... but stem cell research may render that "obsolete" anyway.

 

I had a discussion/argument with my girlfriend yesterday that lead me to beleive that there is some behavioral conditioning at work, on the subconcious level, in society. According to her, if she slept with a male (whatever that actually entails isn't important), no matter if she was attracted to him or not, than it would be consider cheating. But, since she's not gay or bi, if she slept with a woman, than it would not be considered cheating, in her opinion.

 

She, and a friend of hers, insisted that, being attracted to the 'male' group, any sexual activity conducted with a member of that group would be considered cheating.

 

My argument to counter this, was that, I might be heterosexual, but that doesn't mean that I'm attracted to all females. So, using her logic, if I slept with a women that I was not attracted to, then that shouldn't be considered cheating either. My girlfriend and her friend where adamantly opposed to this argument, but didn't really counter it effectively, in my opinion. They also didn't have a response to whether sleeping with a transexual would be considered cheating.

 

They were stuck on the fact that since I'm attracted to the female group in general, that any sexual activity performed with a member of that group would be considered cheating.

 

This gets back to my point. We naturally group people into classes such as 'heterosexual' and 'female' and forget about the individual. for example, (and forgive me if this sounds cruel) but there are quite a few people out there that call themselves "women" that I'd never sleep with... I'm sure there are men that I'd rather do things with first.

 

Yet, these women are grouped into this catagory of "female" that I supposedly am attracted to. This doesn't make sense to me, because I don't believe people should be grouped in this way.

 

I saw a preview of this new comedy called "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry". Basically it's about these two guys who are not gay, but pretend they are to get domestic partner benefits. I think the premise is that when a newspaper find out they're not gay, they get ostracized from the community and maybe even get legal action against them.

 

I don't see what's wrong with two heterosexuals becoming domestic partners, however. I know it's just a movie, and probably not very accurate when it comes to the law... but do domestic partners have to actually be gay? How do you prove that, if it's true? And why is it anybody else's business anyway?

 

To me, this is just an extension of what I was talking about before... people are being forced into a group or classification. They can't be straight and be domestic partners... that's crossing a line. You can't have a very close male friend and have a partnership with him... you have to be gay for that.

 

This is a very interesting topic, I think. If scientists do find a genetic basis for homosexuality it will open up a lot of legal discourse. For example... can some gay people, who dont have 'the gene' be gay by choice? Or can only people who are genetically 'gay' be able to recieve homosexual marriages, benefits, etc.

 

In terms of psychology, I think it's interesting to see where we fit as a society in terms of this argument. And it's far from black and white. From the hetero-hating gay, to that family in Texas (?) that beleives 9/11 and the Iraqi war is God punishing America for loving 'fags.' What do most people beleive?

[Realitycheck]

I think you and your girlfriend are making it way too complicated. Cheating is cheating, whether it's across normal lines, whether it's regarding mercy sex, or if it's delving into the bizarre and unknown, unless of course, you have permission, in which automatically you start making your own rules, subject to the criteria that you agree upon.

[Xavier]

OF COURSE committing a sexual act with a partner outside a relationship is 'cheating'. In so far as there is a definition of cheating, that is it. It strikes me that your girlfriend is playing fast and loose with semantics for the advantage of her gender.

 

Firstly, 'cheating' implies a rule of agreement that is secretly broken, but there is no actual agreement in most cases. Even the marriage ritual doesn't explicitly say, especially now that vows and mere wordy protestations of love where they once were a set list of promises. (NB If a woman does not want to vow to love, honour and OBEY then she does not want to get married because that is what marriage is!) The only rule is in essence the one I started with but it doesn't define what constitutes a sexual act.

 

Examples can be placed for any activity except actual penile penetration that clearly are not sexual acts. For example, kissing your mother or the bride at her wedding or the nearest policewoman on a drunken New Years Eve; having a massage; stripping off for a medical examination. None of these are cheating so, for example, kissing cannot be called cheating without several exemption clauses. Where there clauses come from becomes the issue.

 

Some might say that your intent is the defining factor, but what of these cases:

You find yourself attracted to the doctor who is performing your pelvic examination.

You are aroused domination - as many are - and you find that being told off by a policeman for some driving offence illicits an emotional reaction.

 

Have you cheated. Would it be cheating if you allowed the exam to continue once you had realised your hidden desire but kept it hidden. In the latter case, were you actually being sexually assaulted against your will by the policeman?

 

With the exception of a definitive physical act of penile penetration, the only functional definition of 'cheating' is that the partner decides, after the fact that they feel cheated. Other physical acts are not definitive, nor are the desires of the cheater.

 

The point of this is that there is no equivalent of penile penetration between female homosexuals. Hence the special pleading for lesbians which dates back, at least to Queen Victoria who (it is said) insisted that a law criminalising homosexuality had any mention of female homosexuality removed.

 

You marriage, and your heart will be just as broken, though, whether she runs off with a woman or a man.

 

PS. Regarding the polarisation of gender preference in the population. My personal view is that there is a continuum, heavily skewed towards heterosexuality but that no-one is completely gay or straight. Note the activities of prison inmates when there is no partner of the preferred gender available. However, there is a huge cultural filter on the expression of, or even the consideration of same sex intercourse that modulates the apparent opinions and desires of the population.

I am wont to think that the filter is overwhelmingly a male homophobic prejudice and that this filter is a small part of the power/influence relationships that women develop, little more than a mutual agreement to keep sex 'off the table' as, as a mechanism for establishing dominance it takes too much time.

[pioneer]

If you look at the natural basis for sex, it is procreation. That is why it involves sperm and eggs. Sex is also very pleasureable. The pleasure is the carrot on the string, which helps lead to the goal of procreation. Females get knocked-up all time, when they go for the lure. Nature put a premium on this pleasure, so procreation can occur easier. The problem with humans is they are short sighted and tend to think the lure is the goal instead of the lure to a goal.

 

A good analogy is eating. Eating is also very pleasureable. Nobody would say the natural goal of eating is to give oneself pleasure. If that was the case, we would let people eat fried foods and ice cream all the time.The real goal of eating is to feed the body with fuel and nutrients. The pleasure of eating is the lure that helps lead up to this goal. It keeps up going to the fridge so we can add fuel and nutrients to the body.

 

With sexuality, the lure of pleasure, if seen as the goal, and not the lure, can lead us to both healthy food and junk food, with phychology helping to justify junk food, since it sees the lure as the goal. I am not saying, junk food here and there, is always bad for you. Sometimes the pleasure of eating is reward all by itself. But like the eating lure, for the natural goal or the needs of the body, there is also a sexual pleasure buffet that is healthiest for the needs of the natural goal of procreation. The buffet should have deserts but it is composed mostly of things good for you.

 

In natural times, the carrot or lure of pleasure lined up with procreation. Humans teach us the carrot is the goal and not the lure. It has to do with short sighted thinking, which can't see the big picture. So the horse is allowed to twist and contort to eat the carrot lure, since that is called the goal. The natural alignment got messed up.

 

We should to do a social experiment and make the pleasure lure of eating the short sighted goal and see what happens. The result should be a parallel universe to the state of modern human sexuality. If eating glass brings pleasure, it is OK with this short sighted system. Without the third fixed point of the natural goal of body health, one will be able to rotate the horse and carort axis any which way, allowing even unnatural states, just as long as one gets the lure in the end.

 

The STD's are sort of an analgous to the side affect to eating poisin mushrooms in the stew of life, because these taste good and bring pleasure. The analogous response by the medical community is to come up with a medicine so one can continue to eat these rather than say these aren't good to eat.

[Paralith]

Cheating is when you commit an act with another person that you originally agreed to do only with your significant other. It doesn't matter with who, it doesn't matter what the original agreement was - only that it has been broken, and the trust that came with it is now compromised. To argue otherwise is, in my opinion, not a very good sign.

 

As pioneer says, sexual pleasure is an evolved encouragement towards reproduction. However, once pleasureful sensations resulting from sex have been established, that "lure" can be re-purposed to lead towards different things.

 

Take bonobos, for example. Female sexual interactions, called G-G rubbing, are important and frequently used methods of forming and maintaining alliances with other females. It feels good, and it takes two to do it. Obviously there is no reproduction as a direct result - but there is increased reproductive success as an indirect result. Alliances with the right females take you to the top of your social group, where you will get prime access to the resources the group finds, and the support and friendship of the members of your group besides. All the better for you and your offspring. Even sexual relations between males and females isn't always for reproduction - it can be in trade for food, it can be to form social bonds.

 

However, as far as social structure goes, there is one important difference between bonobos and humans. In bonobos, females are the dominant gender. In traditional human society, males are the dominant gender. If bonobo females have sexual relationships with each other to cement their alliances and maintain their power - couldn't male humans do the same? Homosexuality has gotten a bad rap in most modern cultures, but it is prevalent throughout history. The Spartans, for instance, were rampant homosexuals. They believed too much contact with women made them weak, and thus formed bonds with each other instead. I think it's a definite possibility that these strong relationships may have contributed to their effectiveness as an army. But obviously they knew that you still need and man and a woman if you want to make more little soldiers, so they did have sex with women for that purpose (though often through the legs of their male lovers anyway).

 

Therefore, in the same way that sex evolved to be pleasurable to encourage reproduction, homosexuality could have evolved to encourage the formation of alliances among human men. I think there is definitely a genetic component involved with homosexuality - but like most complex behavioral traits, genetics aren't always the whole story, and even if they are, it's multiple genes interacting together in various complex ways. Again like most complex behavioral traits, homosexuality as a trait has variety, is on a continuum of some kind. After all, if homosexuality as a trait is going to be maintained in a population, it has to result in some amount of reproduction of the individuals involved.

 

I would say that there's also probably some antagonistic sexual selection going on as well - basically a trait that might benefit one gender, but not necessarily the other. In a male dominated society, homosexuality in men can contribute to male alliances and male control. On the flipside, even though homosexuality obviously expresses in females as well, female alliances are not what men in power want to see. So, they may have evolved a dislike for homosexual women, which put those women at a reproductive disadvantage.

 

But modern culture tends to play havoc on traits that evolved in a very different context, so the views today are very different. Long story short, I think that sexuality is definitely a continuum, at least in humans, and I even think that it has a natural basis. Marriages and domestic partnerships and all those things are more or less arbitrary social constructs, and are under our power to change if we choose.

[Realitycheck]

I had a discussion/argument with my girlfriend yesterday that lead me to beleive that there is some behavioral conditioning at work, on the subconcious level, in society. According to her, if she slept with a male (whatever that actually entails isn't important), no matter if she was attracted to him or not, than it would be consider cheating. But, since she's not gay or bi, if she slept with a woman, than it would not be considered cheating, in her opinion.

 

She, and a friend of hers, insisted that, being attracted to the 'male' group, any sexual activity conducted with a member of that group would be considered cheating.

 

My argument to counter this, was that, I might be heterosexual, but that doesn't mean that I'm attracted to all females. So, using her logic, if I slept with a women that I was not attracted to, then that shouldn't be considered cheating either. My girlfriend and her friend where adamantly opposed to this argument, but didn't really counter it effectively, in my opinion. They also didn't have a response to whether sleeping with a transexual would be considered cheating.

The politics of having relationships with bi females are not really strictly defined. I don't mean to get in between you, but if it is really an issue, go find another one. If it is not, then don't fret about it. These types of relationships tend to be fairly loose. If there is something that is making her do it, something that you think may be endangering your relationship, then you need to press her on it and find out what it is. Otherwise, don't worry about it. I could go on but I have to run right now.

 

Oops. Didn't realize that this was the same thread. Duh. It looked familiar. I was trying to figure out why you were posting the same issue again. Maybe I was just in too much of a hurry, plus, I didn't get enough sleep this weekend.

 

But anyway, for future reference, if you really want to see what the survey says, if you're dating a bi fem, she gets to do whatever she wants with other girls and you shouldn't care, because you've got a bi fem!

[lucaspa]

If you look at the natural basis for sex, it is procreation. That is why it involves sperm and eggs. Sex is also very pleasureable. The pleasure is the carrot on the string, which helps lead to the goal of procreation. Females get knocked-up all time, when they go for the lure. Nature put a premium on this pleasure, so procreation can occur easier. The problem with humans is they are short sighted and tend to think the lure is the goal instead of the lure to a goal.

 

In humans, sex is not primarily for procreation. If it were, then females would only have sex during estrus -- when they could get pregnant. Several mammalian species -- such as cats and dogs -- have this type of sexual drive.

 

When I got my college orientation (way back when), the orientor was trying to ease us into that college was probably a place where we would experiment with sex. He pointed out that, even without birth control, that it took an average of 1,000 sexual acts to produce a pregnancy. Since in Minnesota at the time a baby was being born about every minute, the orientor pointed out that this meant a LOT of sex going on in Minnesota!

 

Human females are very vulnerable during pregnancy and the infants are very helpless for a long time afterwards. For human babies to survive, they need a parent (the male) around to protect the female and to help provide during infancy. The male must have a good (selfish) reason to stick around. Sex is that reason. So human females have evolved to feel sexual desire -- and pleasure during sex -- all the time.

 

The analogy with food fails a bit because you haven't considered the evolutionary history.

 

E.coli, as several have pointed out, "cheating" in a relationship involves a betrayal of trust. The idea that sexual activity outside the relationship is "cheating" is societal because the overwhelming number of people thru history have felt that it was. You and your girlfiend, of course, can make up whatever rules you want to apply to the two of you.

 

As to sexual orientation being all or nothing, the existence of bisexuals shows that it is not completely either-or. The fallacy is thinking that sexual orientation is unigenic or determined by only one gene. Like most traits, sexual orientation is polygenic. So far, I know of 3 papers each identifying a different gene in Drosophila that, when changed, changes sexual orientation. The paper below delves into the theoretical of the situation for humans:

 

8: Arch Sex Behav 2000 Feb;29(1):1-34 Homosexuality, birth order, and evolution: toward an equilibrium reproductive economics of homosexuality.Miller EM.Department of Economics and Finance, University of New Orleans, Louisiana 70148,USA. emmef@uno.edu

"The survival of a human predisposition for homosexuality can be explained by sexual orientation being a polygenetic trait that is influenced by a number of genes. During development these shift male brain development in the female direction. Inheritance of several such alleles produces homosexuality. Single alleles make for greater sensitivity, empathy, tender mindedness, and kindness.These traits make heterosexual carriers of the genes better fathers and more attractive mates. There is a balanced polymorphism in which the feminizing effect of these alleles in heterosexuals offsets the adverse effects (onreproductive success) of these alleles' contribution to homosexuality. A similar effect probably occurs for genes that can produce lesbianism in females. The whole system survives because it serves to provide a high degree of variability among the personalities of offspring, providing the genotype with diversification and reducing competition among offspring for the same niches. An allele with a large effect can survive in these circumstances in males, but it is less likely to survive in females. The birth order effect on homosexuality is probably a by-product of a biological mechanism that shifts personalities more in the feminine direction in the later born sons, reducing the probability of these sons engaging in unproductive competition with each other."

[Paralith]

Human females are very vulnerable during pregnancy and the infants are very helpless for a long time afterwards. For human babies to survive, they need a parent (the male) around to protect the female and to help provide during infancy. The male must have a good (selfish) reason to stick around. Sex is that reason. So human females have evolved to feel sexual desire -- and pleasure during sex -- all the time.

 

I would think that making sure your offspring actually survive is a good selfish reason to stick around as well. Human males are different from most other animals in the large amount of investment that they are required put in, to ensure the healthy survival of each of their offspring. This is largely why traditional human society is male dominated, because if a male is going to put that much investment in a child, he'd better make sure it's his and not someone else's. Therefore it's in his interest to closely control his mate and make sure she doesn't take part in extra-pair copulations, shall we say, and possibly cuckold him into raising another man's child.

 

I think female sexual desire would be more important when it comes to actually getting a mate in the first place. Since males do put in so much investment in their offspring, they themselves become valuable resources that women will compete for. Then there's also the situation of polygamy, which was probably very common in more traditional human cultures. In that case multiple females are consistently competing to get the majority of their mates' attention for themselves and not for the other wives. Sex is definitely an incentive for investment, but I wouldn't say it's the only/primary incentive.

 

BTW, thanks for mentioning that article, I'm definitely going to look it up! Sounds really interesting.

[pioneer]

If you look at the three points (person, lure and procreation), procreation as sort of the north pole of the compass, with person-lure the needle. It does not have to always line up north all the time to find the goal, just so long as it averages north over in the long haul.

 

An analogy is a student trying to Ace a course. That is the long term goal or due north. But in the meantime, shortsighted lures will also occur. There is the party, relationships, friends, pizza, etc.,But in the end of the term, if he aces the course, he has kept the time average alignment of the compass north, even if the compass needle shifted east and west during the course of time. If one spends too much time, east, west and even south and ends with a B or C in the course, their final alignment was not north but maybe NE. It is not natural anymore but synthetic.

 

It is the same with food. The body may be optimized with X-diet. That is due north. But the body is also designed to get by with much less and still keep going. Most of history had much less than optimum. If one is good during the week and decides to eat pizza on Fridays, Ice Cream on Saturday, one may still be in a state of good health. The long term goal is still focused due north, inspite of short term movement of the needle.

 

The use of condoms and all types of birth control including abortion shows how much attention is given in respect to the pull due north. It is sort of like walking down a path to the lake. Some will go straight to the lake. Others will meander along the path, to smell the roses, delaying reaching the lake. But when you reach the lake, your alignment is still north.

 

Religious morality tries to create the tighest needle tolerance with the least deviation east-west, with south forbidden, since it leads to nothing. Aetheist may not like this scientific grade compass and would prefer a knock-off style compass with slack tolerances, but one should respect the value of the staightest path. But on the other hand, the knock-off compass, by virtue of its loose tolerance, often allows for new adventures that can take one off the beaten path. That can create hardships but also wisdom in own way.

 

 

 

Part 2

 

Let me add another layer to this analysis that is connected to humans. The lure of desire and pleasure creates babies. But that is only half of the story. Once the baby is born, it requires tending to, which for human could last 18 years or even longer. The formation of a baby is long term relative to the shorter term impulses of desire and pleasure. But child raising is even longer term. In some respects it is sort of the north pole for the north pole of procreation, within humans.

 

In old time tradition, the couple would date, innocently, to see if they were both aligned to the long term commitment of marriage and family. If this worked out for both, they would marry and use the shorter long term goal of procreation to help line up their mutual desire toward procreation and the requirements of child raising.

 

In modern times, the lure is often lined up with the shorter long term goal of procreation, first. The girl gets knocked up and then they marry hoping they are aligned to the longer term north pole. If not they get divorced. The second or longer term north pole is particular child dependant. If the distant north is fuzzy, the lower brain of the male might will line up with another procreation north pole. Mothers tend to stick with the longer term commitment to their children. She may add more to the brood, but this can have an impact on the male. If there is not clarity in far north, but fluctuation, his closer north may flucuation and shift his needle.

 

Homosexuality is a unique situation. The closer north pole does not align with procreation, since that form of sexuality is not functional that way. The alignment is more connected to the secondary north. But again it is not aligned to the needs of physical children. But since that secondary north can point in any direction that is child dependant, the child may be something that is not tangilble but is something that is within.

 

Many homosexual males are ho's because there is no secondary alignment but there may still be a primary alignment that leads to nowwhere. Others form monogamous pairs with a secondary alignment, not an actual child but the inner child in each other, with the closer north pole lining itself up with this this longer terms caring of each other. With tradtional child raising the inner child of the parents are projected onto physical children. In a homosexuality the inner child is projected onto the inner child of each other. It is still child raising but not in the physical sense.

 

I know this sounds strange, but parents get to live their childhood again through their children. It is a time to improve one's past and make-up for lost time or things that one felt they may have lacked or wanted. The homosexual needs to make up for trials for being different. The inner child is able to grow easier in an environment that is understanding, accepting. The secondary alignment is OK in the sense of inner child raising, it is the primary alignment that is often the source of debate. But if one looks at the distant north pole as the primary mode of alignment all is well.

[Paralith]

Pioneer, your needle model is an interesting one, but it's weak because it doesn't take into consideration very much of human evolution and biology, except for the basic fact that sex = reproduction therefore sex = good. There is the overall goal of reproduction which is supplemented by shorter term goals of getting a mate, keeping a mate, raising the offspring, etc. But you have to keep in mind that these goals are not conscious decisions. Because these goals lead to reproduction, genes have evolved that give us positive emotions or sensations that are associated with accomplishing these goals. But the individual is not consciously thinking about it in the same way that a student consciously keeps in mind that the whole point of this college thing is to have an overall positive grade performance. When it comes to raising kids, the "distant north" is not just fuzzy, it's not necessarily even in mind. Mothers think that they love their children for their children's sake, even though the genetic basis for this love probably came about in order to encourage the continued investment that usually leads to more reproductively successful children. And males aren't more likely to stray just because the "distant north" is fuzzy either.

 

Let's look at animals with simpler mating systems as a start. No parental investment, just have the babies and they're good to go. Man fish, for example, mate, lay the eggs, and that's that. Even in this simple of a system, there is a difference in the amount of investment each sex puts in. Eggs are larger and more complex than sperm. A male puts in less resources to his offspring than a female. A female's reproductive output is limited by her resources - she needs enough food etc to be able to produce rich eggs, or if any type of pregnancy is involved, to carry the offspring to term. A male's reproductive output, on the other hand, is basically limited by how many females he can impregnate, since sperm are pretty cheap to make. Thus we have the classic model of choosy females, who are careful about where and with who they allocate their limited resources, and promiscuous males, who simply try to mate as often with as many females as they can.

 

This model changes and varies largely depending on how much investment the females and males put in respectively. Sometimes it switches around, sometimes the investment ends up roughly equaling out. Human males do put in a lot more investment in their offspring than most other sexually reproducing animals, but their overall reproductive output can still be substantially increased by mating with multiple females. In fact, polygamy was fairly common in traditional human societies, further favoring the genes that can encourage men to sleep around, as it were. So they don't stray because the far north is fuzzy. In fact, straying is probably well within the overall north-pointing range.

 

When it comes to homosexuals, it's as though you're doubling the straying urge. You have a group of individuals that are sexually attracted to each other, all with a genetic nudge towards sleeping with many different individuals. This may not serve the overall northwards purpose, but it doesn't matter because the northwards goal is not conscious, the genes are not aware that all the sperm is going towards a reproductive dead-end. As far as the individuals involved are concerned, they feel urges within them towards sexual activity, and they are fulfilling those urges. I highly doubt that the idea of raising each other's inner child comes into play.

[YT2095]

Human females are very vulnerable during pregnancy and the infants are very helpless for a long time afterwards. For human babies to survive, they need a parent (the male) around to protect the female and to help provide during infancy. The male must have a good (selfish) reason to stick around. Sex is that reason.

 

Wow, I`m astonished that you could NOT be MORE WRONG if you tried!

 

I`ve been there and done that, I`m "in it" for my child more than my wife!

the child comes 1`st ALWAYS, yourself next and then the wife.

 

That`s reality!

[Paralith]

Wow, I`m astonished that you could NOT be MORE WRONG if you tried!

 

I`ve been there and done that, I`m "in it" for my child more than my wife!

the child comes 1`st ALWAYS, yourself next and then the wife.

 

That`s reality! (emphasis mine - paralith)

 

There's a difference between your own, personal feelings and motivations, and the genetic predispositions evolutionary history has given you. What lucaspa is saying that males, on average, are more motivated to stick around if the female is willing to have pleasureful sex with them often, and since this benefits the female and her offspring, human females evolved to enjoy sex at all times, even when they're not in estrus and unable to get pregnant. This motivation is just one of many ways and one of many factors that that a female could use to keep her mate's resources monopolized on herself and her offspring. As I said in a response to lucaspa, I don't think this is a major reason that males stick around, and that caring for the offspring is probably the big determining factor - but it can help. But this is all as far as the genes are concerned. How you choose to interpret the emotions and sensations you experience in your family relationships can be entirely different, and are not what lucaspa was talking about. Both, however, are reality.

[Genecks]

Human females are very vulnerable during pregnancy and the infants are very helpless for a long time afterwards. For human babies to survive, they need a parent (the male) around to protect the female and to help provide during infancy. The male must have a good (selfish) reason to stick around. Sex is that reason. So human females have evolved to feel sexual desire -- and pleasure during sex -- all the time.

 

Evolved? No, I don't agree with that. Some people would point toward social construction and eventual eugenics. In other words, women who didn't feel this desire would be ignored by men. By doing so, the genetic population eventually decreased. The women who had sexual desire were more sought by men, and these type of women were chosen over those women whom were not more sexual.

 

I personally don't care about all the sexual dribble these days. I only would hope people stopped acting so ignorant. Be as it may, however, people take advantage of many manifest and latent functions of social institutions; this eventually leads to dismay and distraught if there were not educated enough as they abused the system. I do think, however, that the eugenic etiology of human race according to national and world specific contexts has brought upon major societal differences.

 

ecoli: but do domestic partners have to actually be gay? How do you prove that, if it's true? And why is it anybody else's business anyway?

 

It doesn't really matter. In reality, it doesn't. To a social constructionist with views of axiology and an understanding of how governments tend to be religion-based or rule-based, which creates social order, in their own views, it does. So, in the role of the social constructionist, I'll have to say yes, they have to be gay; the law requires them to be gay.

 

Other than that, I've been theorizing a scenario called social fiction theory. It's where you change the definition of some superficial thing in the world and try to become a spin-doctor with it. Regardless, however, the person with such a change of definition is valid and in full right of questioning it.

[Paralith]

Evolved? No, I don't agree with that. Some people would point toward social construction and eventual eugenics. In other words, women who didn't feel this desire would be ignored by men. By doing so, the genetic population eventually decreased. The women who had sexual desire were more sought by men, and these type of women were chosen over those women whom were not more sexual. (emphasis mine - paralith)

 

Hmmmm, sounds like evolution to me. Sexual selection, anyone? That counts too, you know.

[Genecks]

I don't see that as evolution. I know it's an argument, but still. Microevolution, ey?

Nothing already there has really changed. Something has been multiplied. Something else has been taken away. But I don't think any new genes have occurred.

[Paralith]

I don't see that as evolution. I know it's an argument, but still. Microevolution, ey?

Nothing already there has really changed. Something has been multiplied. Something else has been taken away. But I don't think any new genes have occurred.

 

Since when does evolution require new genes? The technical definition of evolution is a change in the relative gene frequencies within a population. Women with no sexual desire outside of estrus don't get to breed, therefore as the new generation is born, it's more and more women with sexual desire and less and less women without it, until the ones without it are all no longer alive, and are no longer being born. That's evolution.

[YT2095]

What lucaspa is saying that males, on average, are more motivated to stick around if the female is willing to have pleasureful sex with them often,

 

fine, but I still disagree, in fact what`s been said there is that Evolution has geared the sexes towards Monogamy, and this is clearly not the case.

 

the facts are that the male is geared towards Procreation and getting as many females pregnant as possible with an eye towards her Fitness (the hips, the hooters, the hair condition and skin) as a host for higher likelyhood of successful progeny.

 

feel free to argue this point...

[Paralith]

fine, but I still disagree, in fact what`s been said there is that Evolution has geared the sexes towards Monogamy, and this is clearly not the case.

 

the facts are that the male is geared towards Procreation and getting as many females pregnant as possible with an eye towards her Fitness (the hips, the hooters, the hair condition and skin) as a host for higher likelyhood of successful progeny.

 

feel free to argue this point...

 

It's not monogamy - it's investment. It's getting the male to invest in you and your offspring, and not those of another female. In some cultures that investment does translate to monogamy, but in others it doesn't. In fact, this is what I said in response to lucaspa:

 

Then there's also the situation of polygamy, which was probably very common in more traditional human cultures. In that case multiple females are consistently competing to get the majority of their mates' attention for themselves and not for the other wives.

 

Besides, the whole "males try to mate as much as possible" rule can change depending on the amount of investment it takes to successfully raise a child. That's why many bird species are monogamous, because chicks are just damn hard to raise and it takes two parents (think of the emperor penguins of recent Hollywood fame). But other bird species have chicks with less stringent requirements, or live in more resource rich areas. In these cases the male doesn't have to put in much investment into his offspring to make them successful, so long as he has them in the first place. So in that case he just mates as much as possible. It's more of a continuum than a rule.

[iNow]

Yeah, but we're talking about humans here. Females can make a baby (maybe up to 6 with the help of fertility drugs) every 9 to 11 months. Males can make 9 to 11 babies every few hours (depending on stamina). Hence, different strategies have proven successful through the years.

[Paralith]

Yeah, but we're talking about humans here. Females can make a baby (maybe up to 6 with the help of fertility drugs) every 9 to 11 months. Males can make 9 to 11 babies every few hours (depending on stamina). Hence, different strategies have proven successful through the years.

 

This male could definitely fertilize 9 to 11 babies every few hours, but whether or not they all survive to reproductive age themselves is the question at this point. Human babies in particular are more needy than most other animals.