Posted: Mar 20, 2011 7:23 pm
Mr.Samsa wrote:Because not all habituation is equal. You get the behavioral equivalent of 'momentum', where the most reinforcing things are more resistant to extinction. So if sexual responses were habituated in a person who was exposed to a lot of porn, then we would expect that there would be minimal-to-zero responses to images that they don't find appealing, and the most response to the images they find appealing.
So when straight guys first start looking at porn they are turned on by gay sex just like the women who have not been exposed to porn (if they haven't) are turned on by lesbian sex?
The thing is, the more women are getting into porn the more they seem to enjoy the lesbian sex so there is another difference it would seem? Why don't the straight men 'learn' to enjoy gay sex in the same way?
Mr.Samsa wrote:Then it's the same as any other job. I'd say 99% of all employed people in the world got into their line of work as a result of environmental pressures, survival needs and because they weren't fully aware of what the job entailed.
Ok
Then isn't it about time sex work 'jobs' were treated the same as all other jobs ie advertised the same, talked about in school the same? Open the same for both sexes?
Shouldn't it be as ok for your wife to be a prostitute as work in a supermarket?
If it is just another job then why do we have problems with it?
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:then whether they love it or not isn't too important and the evolutionary nature of female sexuality shouldn't even come into it.
So that other females in other species exchange sex for resources is irrelevant?
Or that they exchange sex for protection by males?
Or they exchange sex to avoid being harmed or their children being harmed as in other species?
Yes, it's irrelevant.
I don't think it is irrelevant that females in our primate cousins go through 'fake' sexual behaviours in order to acquire something which is not sexual pleasure. And human females do too. It is a difference between the sexes.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:Males in other species do not do the reverse nor in humans.
Is that irrelevant too?
I'm not sure what you mean? Are you suggesting that there is no such thing as male prostitutes? Or men who become boy toys to rich older women? Or stay in unsatisfying relationships for their kids?
So the fact that a few men do sex work means the sexes are the same? Wrong.
You know, I've seen some of these male prostitutes. One went shopping with the woman as his 'sex work'.
And yes, I do accept that women might pay a sexy male to make love to them. Just that these are more exceptions for women rather then the norm for men.
Why don't the men who want sex just pair up with the women who want sex and then they get it for free?
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:To pretend that sex is the same for the two sexes in any species, including humans, is ridiculous.
What happened is that the view that women either don't want sex or want it much less than males, etc etc was wrong.
All that has happened is that the falsehood of this belief has sent us to the opposite view that women are the same as men.
That is equally wrong.
Out of interest, describe to me what the male position on sex is.
I think spending time on forums like this tells us most of that, don't you think? It comes up (sic) on many threads.
Trying to sum it up, male sexuality is generally persistent behaviour towards females, usually those with the clearest signs of fertility, about 'pick up lines' and tactics - hey, look at porn sites and the adverts for how to get women to f**k.
Compared to females it is a lot less discriminating (though men will be choosy even with sex workers eg in brothels where the women are lined up to be selected from).
It's about being quite choosy when it comes to a mother for children.
It's about novelty of women in terms of arousal. About enormous pleasure from looking at naked/semi-naked women's bodies. (way more than women get looking at men).
It's about getting turned on by noisy female sexual responses (even faked ones).
It is centered in the genitals.
It is orgasm-oriented.
It is massively impressed with semen.
It is not about reading romance novels much, nor overly 'chick flicks'.
It is about conquering or seducing, achievement, 'scoring'. Like getting it is some sort of challenge, like successfully working past obstructions to the goal.
Mr.Samsa wrote:Looking at other species is the last part of the research. First we need to establish that a difference exists, then we need to rule out learning factors, then we need to verify that it is consistent with what we know about evolved behaviors, and then finally we need to establish that it has an evolutionary precursor (by looking at other, related, species).
But when you show that you can so easily ignore differences that exist then that makes me doubt these methods.
You have already established that for you there are no differences between the sexes.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:Well, female sexual interest varies due to the menstrual cycle with a peak around ovulation and probably pre-menstrually. I think anyone who has ever been in a heterosexual relationship knows how the relationship varies across the cycle.
See The Evolutionary Biology of Human Female Sexuality which puts in in terms of womens having more than one sexuality but basically is about how women think and feel about sex changes across the menstrual cycle.
Interesting. And how do the authors separate out the effects that the menstrual cycle has on behavior, and the evolutionary effects associated with the menstrual cycle?
Do you mean the change in behaviour over the menstrual cycle as a by-product compared to it being selected/adaptive?
Well, their view IIRC is that it is adaptive to mate differently during ovulation than at other times of the cycle. The mating during ovulation is in accordance with acquiring good genes. At other times it can be about other resources.
What I would say is that the studies that show females to be more sexually gregarious during ovulation and that men find women more attractive when they are ovulating (the lap-dancing studies) is the remnants of oestrous behaviour we see across species. I'm not convinced myself yet whether good genes or just sperm acquisition is the main thing here. I think possibly which may well depend on other factors such as the 'quality' of the female, age, the quality of males, maybe other things.
The adaptiveness of mating when conception cannot happen is about acquiring other resources. These can be food, protection, 'paternity confusion'.
This is something which has taken some work to get through regarding female sexual behaviour - it is adaptive even when disconnected from conception. And even sexual pleasure.
With males reproductive success is connected more to fertile matings.
We do have to go back to when females had distinct oestrus and mating was pretty much tied to that time.
When Hrdy looked at langurs and saw females mating when they were not fertile and couldn't conceive she discovered that it was an adaptive behaviour which confused paternity and those female's offspring were less likely to be killed by langur males.
If we look at chimpanzees they also mate well beyond the peri-ovulatory period - they have sexual swellings that last longer than this brief period so the males are attracted to them (though the alpha male often gets to mate when they actually are ovulating so the males do know when the main chance for conception is).
And in bonobos the females mate more even during the long (four year) interbirth intervals when chimpanzee females don't swell or mate so much.
Human females are receptive even for longer periods - though as Frank Beach pointed out about the 'constant' sexual receptivity of human female: "Any male who entertains this illusion must be a very old man with a short memory or a very young man due for bitter disappointment".
Females mating beyond oestrus is adaptive in other species. In humans we get the adaptive ideas about keeping the males around or Hrdy would say it is to get resources from many males because one male was unreliable.
And you don't think they are connected?
If a male body has antlers and a female body does not, isn't this connected to behaviour. When the hermaphrodite ancestor evolved into either producing eggs or sperm did not the bodies then continue to diverge and their mating behaviours? If a female body evolves breasts and a male body doesn't isn't this connected to two different behaviours? Selection acts differently on the two sexes physically and this is connected to selection for different behaviours.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:Do you think human females have evolved or learn to have sex when there is no chance of conception? And if this has evolved in other species? Or do you think this behaviour is learned in other species too?
Hard to tell, I don't know if it'd be possible to create a study to separate out the effects as the process of menstruation is presumably somewhat painful for the woman and comes along with a number of unpleasant side effects, so naturally we'd expect them to have different responses to sexual advances over the course of their cycle.
Women are only fertile for a few days, about three I think. They aren't menstruating on the other 25 days of the cycle! Nor when they are pregnant. Nor when they are not fertile decause they are breast-feeding.
I sincerely hope that my previous point has helped you understand something of the evolution of 'concealed ovulation' and women's extended sexual recptivity beyond the peri-ovulatory period.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:Can you think (and here I'm noting that when you use the word 'evolved' you are really talking about adaptations?) of how this can be adaptive behaviour in the females of some species, including our own? How it is an evolved trait?
The better question would be: why are you lumping in hormonal changes with a discussion on behavior?
Because hormonal changes affect behaviour.
Come on, men and women both know that.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:(I could even start a massive debate about the female orgasm but I'd be surprised if anyone would say that it is the same in the two sexes - not the actual experience but all that goes with it from ease of achievement to multiple orgasms to whether it is an adaptation in females or a by-product of an adaptation in males)
Perhaps an interesting discussion, but not entirely relevant to a discussion on behavior..
So you would say that the existence of orgasm does not affect sexual behaviour?
Mr.Samsa wrote:I'm a little confused - if you're saying that our sexual behaviors (in the form of monogamy and so on) are going against our "nature", then you're saying that the behaviors are learnt. If they aren't learnt, then they are part of our nature.
Yes, I am saying that our monogamy is largely learned. Though those ancestors who found pair-bonding easier and so had the most successful offspring likely had genetic variations connected to this and there would then be some evolved changes in the human.
For instance there have been changes in human semen in that copulatory plugs may have been lost (they exist in chimpanzees).
There has probably been selection on men for traits that help with bonding with women and especially with children.
I've said from the start that monogamy is not natural.
While traditionally it has been seen as unnatural for men and natural for women more recently the fact that it is natural for neither sex has led to some very confused thinking about female sexuality such as it is the same as male sexuality.
Monogamy is not natural but the non-monogamous nature of the two human sexes is as different as the non-monogamous nature of the two sexes in other species.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:The production of eggs leads to something different re. the experience of peasure/pain than does the production of sperm.
As the meeting of eggs and sperm is reproduction, why there are two sexes, why the two sexes interact etc etc, this interaction means that what is good/pleasurable for the goose is not necessarily good/pleasurable for the gander. Conflict.
But learning doesn't operate over groups, so only the pleasure and pain of the individual will affect its learning.
But these animals do not learn to behave differently regarding their sex cells - they have been selected to behave differently because they have experienced different selection pressures due to their sex cells. The hermaphrodites don't start off with random sexual behaviours and then alter them due to experience. They have these behaviours from the start.
Mr.Samsa wrote:Essentially everything. For starters they are smaller in size, so they have to learn new ways to get access to food and other resources besides aggression. Presumably after giving birth, they will spend most of the time with the baby whilst the males do other things (e.g. aggressive attacks on other groups of chimps) and so they'll not only improve their methods of communication, but through teaching their children skills like tool use they will practice and improve on their own skills.
There are a number of different things, but undeniably males and females across species have different learning experiences.
And why should the females on reaching puberty leave the only community they know to join strangers - and have a very difficult experience while doing so - while the males have absolutely no instinct to do so? During their upbringing the females have avoided the periphery of the group as there is danger from stranger males. But puberty hits and off they go. Something hormonal happens and their dispersal behaviour results.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:So why do we not have cultures where men exchange sex for resources from women?
Or exchange sex for protection from women?
Or exchange sex for protection of their children?
But men do do this. And especially more so as the "man culture" (where men had to be the provider, had to be strong, and independent, etc) is decreasing in popularity, and it's becoming more acceptable for men to be house husbands.
These are western changes and do not occur in hunter-gatherer groups.
They occur in the west due to changes brought about by female attempts to regain control over their reproduction - a very natural thing to seek when the environmental conditions present themselves.
Mr.Samsa wrote:This is so wrong. You don't think that the horrible experience of someone violating you against your will would affect how people view rape? Are you suggesting that humans have a natural aversion to rape?
I'm saying that females have natural aversion to rape of themselves.
I'm saying that men have a learned reaction to the rape of females - it does vary so much across cultures and through time - and it will also be connected to how they link it to their own self-interest.
Gay men raping gay men is a question connected to homosexuality which though important to those concerned is not relevant to differences between heterosexual men and women.
In other species if a male does not want to mate with a female he doesn't mate. I would say it is the same for humans. I'm trying to think of any instances in other species where a female could be said to be forcing a male to mate that doesn't 'want' to.
I can't.
Mr.Samsa wrote:So you are suggesting that men are basically horn dogs that would have sex with almost anything?..
In some ways yes, at least anything young and reasonably good looking. In the right environment they would. The fantasy of being ship-wrecked on an island of a hundred young women with no other men. Women really would not even entertain the horror of the reverse for them. That environment would have very different consequences for both the men and the woman depending on the sex that was one and the sex that was the hundred.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:In the 70s it was perfectly normal to believe in humans as being 'blank slate'. We all thought that. I learned (
That is ridiculous.. What course were you doing? How did they even find a blank slate position in science? I can't think of a single blank slate philosophy that has been suggested in the last few hundred years.
History/Politics/Philosophy.
I'm not saying that the subjects were about blank-slatism, we obviously learned and argued about them all, but the preference for most politically left-wing activists - students and lecturers - was for that. Including feminists. "All we are born with is the instinct to suckle".
Yes, it sounds ridiculous now but there are still plenty of old hippies who wish it were so.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:
No, I'm saying this is your reasoning.
Ok, jump to the political.
Soviet Russia. Educate people for a particular social/political/economic system. The education is not completely acceptable to everyone and some people say it causes them pain.
So have they been educated incorrectly?
Do they need to be re-educated?
I don't see what relevance this has?
You are saying that pretty much everything we do is from learning. If so then anything should be possible.
Though you talk about innate constraints you have not mentioned one.
All you have done is react to any suggestion of evolved behaviours as probably being a case of not seeing how these behaviours are in fact learned.
This very strongly suggests that you think learning is the main factor in our behaviour so in theory humans are so empty of innate constraints that they can be taught to accept any social system. Or mating system.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:When there is a conflict of interests as there is in sexual/reproductive relations then if, say, women say they feel pain that they are constrained to be monogamous while their mate mates with other women is it because they have been educated incorrectly? Do they need re-education?
If women express their pain about their husband's addiction to internet porn is it becuase one or the other has been educated incorrectly?
Do we educate them both to enjoy the porn or both not to enjoy the porn?
If the pleasure or pain each feels about this is just because they have learned to view porn differently what should we start teaching our sons and daughters? That they both should enjoy it or neither should.
Women taught to enjoy DP and 'facials' etc etc
There was some psychology I seem to remember (Freud?) that concluded that women are naturally masochists.
I can't wait for the new world where women ask each other 'does he swallow menstrual blood?'
These are all political questions and irrelevant to science.
But you are suggesting that the science tells us that men and women are basically the same or can be made the same which if true does leave us with the question of what that sameness is.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:And the book I mentioned way back by the psychologist Bader apparently (I haven't read it yet) says that though the humiliation of women in porn and male fantasy is real the men don't actually want the women to not be enjoying the experience but to be enjoying it ie enjoy being humiliated. Guess there's a lot of successful education and re-education going on of more and more women in this respect too.(Why have we not educated men away from porn and into romantic fiction? Can't any variation on this be achieved if we want in your view?)
No problem? You think?
I don't get what any of this has to do with the topic.
Really?
Aren't we talking about how we learn to behave the way we do and how the sexes are or are not the same?
Perhaps that there is no innate conflict of interests between the sexes, only learned ones?
That the constraints removed from women lead to greater 'male-like' behaviour ie more promiscuity, so should we also not expect that when the constraints are lifted from males we'd expect a movement away from porn and towards romantic fiction?
Or does removing those constraints only lead to increased promiscuity, not less? Why would that be if there is no 'natural' place for our behaviour to go to when constraints are removed. Does the removal of constraints lead to more 'natural' behaviour or to just a different kind of learned/constrained behaviour?
It's about behaviour being learned rather than inherited does not free us from some otherwise nasty genetic determinism.
Learning can be equally nasty.
OK you are saying you are just being descriptive not prescrptive.
But I have been getting the impression that you think things like females learning to be promiscuous or having a natural promiscuity - which coincidently turns out to be just like that of the male - is 'good'.
I'm certainly getting the impression of value judgements being involved in the arguments.
Mr.Samsa wrote:I don't understand the relevance though.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:What I am saying is that pretending men and women are the same, or all people are born the same, and anyone can be anything just isn't on.
More than that, it is quite a horrific belief.
Fortunately, nobody has suggested that. With regards to sex specifically though, I'm yet to see any evidence that men are biologically more promiscuous than women.
Because they are sexually rejected more often than women are. And women are not doing this for any other reason than they don't want sex.
Because if the sexes were the same there would be a lot more sex going on and a lot less being paid by men for sex.
There have been studies which I've not the time to look for that show women often wish they had waited longer before having sex. And that they had had fewer partners. Women regret sexual encounters more than men do (alcohol obviously playing its part).
Men and women can only be on average as promiscuous as the other sex allows them to be.
What stops men having more sex is rejection by women.
Women don't have books etc on how to get men into bed.
No PUA books for women. And if women are so promiscuous why do men need those books?
You'll just say this is all learned. I've given the reasons for it not being so regarding how selection acts on bodies differently depending on whether they produce a eggs or produce sperm. You still say no, behaviours are not connected to physical differences. It is still learned.
I say it is not learned in other species. You say it is. I say the reasons these differences are selected. You say they are still learned.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:We're talking about science, the results are descriptive not prescriptive. If men and women have evolved to enjoy sex to different levels, then that's just a fact, neither one is "right" or "wrong". Our legal system covers the rest - if a man wants to argue that he didn't rape a woman because she's evolved/learnt to secretly like sex as much as him, he'll still get thrown in jail if she didn't consent to it.
Yet only 6% of rape cases get a conviction in court and vast numbers more don't even go to court and women don't even report rape because as their rapist enjoys telling them - no one will believe them.
That's a problem with the legal system and irrelevant to our discussion.
But part of the problem within the legal system is that the people within it think men and women are the same and so women are lying about not wanting sex when some degree of sex play has occurred on a date. Or some degree of flirtation at work. When a man does that he's not doing it to then say no to sex so the woman is lying.
Mr.Samsa wrote:Regardless, the point is that there are differences in how men and women view sex as a result of learning. Surely this isn't a controversial position? The fact that for centuries (or longer), society has dictated that women should be "proper ladies" and induced guilt-trips on any woman that dared have sex, accusing them of being "whores", "sluts" and "slappers", and you're thinking that this wouldn't affect how they view sex?
Of course it does.
But that does not make a male-like female promiscuity any more real. All it means is that women are not naturally monogamous. I've said that. It is obvious. It's the same in most other species yet it is still that males are rejected more, seek sex more persistenty, females resist far more than males. When females are promiscuous it is under different conditions from male promscuity. Promiscuous species have things like large testicles, copulatory plugs, chemicals in sperm connected to sperm competition and female reproductive tracts that sort the sperm. Physical traits and behaviours are connected.
Mr.Samsa wrote:So it is "arguably true" in that as long as you're talking about sex with the intention of reproduction, then yes it's about the transference of sex cells.
From the male to the female - never the transfer of eggs into the males body. Males have never had to deal with that at any time in our evolution.
Mr.Samsa wrote:sprite wrote:I do a lot of arguing against the EPers that state 'facts' about the differences between the sexes when they are wrong too.
What is a disaster looming, though, is to react by going too much in the opposite direction.
I haven't gone in any direction, I'm simply skeptical of claims.
Could you link me to debates where you argue against claims about behaviours being learned?
I have found many of your points interesting, others frankly ludicrous but I left them largely unchallenged.
I would be interested to know what you see as the supported innate sex differences which you have alluded to but not specified.