Posted: Mar 21, 2011 7:08 am
sprite wrote: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?
Potentially, it's something we'd need to find data for.
sprite wrote: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?
Firstly you'd need to support the assertion that significantly high numbers of heterosexual women are getting into lesbian porn, and secondly, without numbers at hand, I think you'd find that a lot of heterosexual men do enjoy gay porn (especially when we include transsexuals in this category).
sprite wrote: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?
I agree. In New Zealand this is what is happening since it has been legalised. They advertise it like any other job and they carry on with normal lives. Whether people want to date someone in that line of work is up to their own individual preferences - personally I wouldn't care, but I know some people would. But we have to keep in mind that this doesn't just apply to prostitution - there are people who refuse to date people in the army, tax collectors, etc., so there's nothing significant about choosing not to date someone who has a job that disagrees with your own principles.
It's not a difference though because men do it too (hence faking orgasms etc).
sprite wrote: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.
No that's not what I said. You said that males don't do this, and I pointed out that they did. Whether the rates are the same or not is another question.
sprite wrote:You know, I've seen some of these male prostitutes. One went shopping with the woman as his 'sex work'.
How is this different from what a lot of escorts do? I know one guy who hires hookers, then takes them out, buys them ice cream, and then drops them off home. Supposedly a large part of the job for prostitutes is the whole "connection" thing, and that's why they offer services where they literally just sit and talk to men, with gentle hugging and kissing, for an hour without any sex.
sprite wrote: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?
There are a large number of reasons. The simplest being that the man is too ugly or socially awkward to pick up a girl, or the man is too busy, and so hiring a prostitute is the easiest way to go about it.
sprite wrote: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.
That's not a description of male sexuality, that's a horny cartoon character. Do you really think that the subpopulation that porn sites ads are aimed at would give us anywhere near a representative idea of male sexuality?sprite wrote: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.
I have never said this anywhere in this thread or forum. I have not ignored anything as no evidence has been presented.
sprite wrote: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?
I mean that the menstrual cycle will have effects on the body, so it will necessarily change behavior. What I'm interested in is how the authors separate out these changes (that occur as a result of environmental changes), and the behaviors being adaptations.
sprite wrote:
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.
Yes they're connected, but the development of a menstrual cycle doesn't mean that there is a correlative development of behavioral sequences. So whilst these differences in physical structures will affect the behavior of the sexes, these differences would then be a product of learning (i.e. responses to the structural differences).
sprite wrote: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.
The cycle has a number of different phases, each with differing effects on the body and hormonal levels. It's not a simple "bleeding/not-bleeding" dichotomy.
sprite wrote: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.
Yes, but these effects on behavior would be a result of the interaction of biology and environment (i.e. the behaviors are learnt). They aren't behavioral adaptations.
sprite wrote: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?
No, I'm saying that an orgasm is not a behavior.
sprite wrote: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.
So if monogamy is learnt, and monogamy is the dominant system which drives a lot of our sexual behaviors, then there is necessarily a confound when it comes to sexual differences between the sexes. Specifically, how do we know that a difference is a result of biological differences, and when it is a result of the institution of monogamy?
sprite wrote: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.
Firstly, I never said that the sexual behaviors of hermaphroditic organisms was learnt. Secondly, even if it was learnt, why would you assume that the behavior would start off "random"?
sprite wrote: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.
Well one thing we can say with almost complete certainty is that the female straying behavior is probably not an "instinct". As for why the females specifically do this, I'm not sure, as I said we'd need more information on what processes could have led up to it.
sprite wrote: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.
So you accept that cultural variation and learning can significantly change the sexual behaviors in the sexes? If so, then how do you know that the differences that you are talking about are biological and not learnt? For example, how do you know that your speculation above is true?
sprite wrote: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.
That's insane. sprite wrote: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.
Wait, what.. Did you just say that men can't be raped by women? And you're trying to justify such ignorance by appealing to what other species do? What the fuck.
sprite wrote: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.
That is such a ridiculous caricature of both men and women. sprite wrote: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.
Well the idea that there are no instincts past about 6 months of age isn't a blank slate position, it's just a statement of fact. No biologist, psychologist or behavioral scientist would disagree with it because it's undeniably true. This doesn't mean that there aren't evolved predispositions that affect our behavior and development past that age, but simply that humans don't display any innate behaviors past that age.
sprite wrote: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.
Why would learning anything be possible? Of course there are biological constraints, but they depend on the context of what's been discussed. For example, I can't teach a midget to be the best basketball player ever because of biological constraints. Likewise, I can't convince a tiny women to be an aggressive serial rapist (because she'd struggle to overpower a number of men).
I do not think that learning is the main factor in our behavior and nothing I have said even hints at that.
sprite wrote: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.
I haven't suggested that men and women are basically the same, I've only suggested that we have reasons to doubt your claim that there are biological differences in some areas - for example, men and women both think about sex just as often.
sprite wrote: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?
We're not talking about implementing practices to change behavior though. It's possible that learning mechanisms in place have made women more prudish, and made males more promiscuous - as we can see with the slow decline of the patriarchy, these stereotypes are changing, with women becoming more "promiscuous" and males become more selective. This doesn't necessarily mean that these differences are learnt, but it's something that we need to explain.
sprite wrote:It's about behaviour being learned rather than inherited does not free us from some otherwise nasty genetic determinism.
Learning can be equally nasty.
Of course, all behavior is explained by genetics and environment - it's all determinism with no room for free will or anything like that. I don't see why that's "nasty" though. I have no aversion to genetic explanations, I'm not trying to hold on to some mistaken idea of "humanity" where we have free choice or anything, I only have an aversion to pseudoscientific non-explanations.
sprite wrote: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.
If you think I've argued that anything is good and bad then you've severely misunderstood what I've written. I have not made a single value judgement in any of my posts, nor have I hinted at any. If women are promiscuous, or prudes, or insane puppy eaters, it doesn't matter to me as we're simply describing behavior.
sprite wrote: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.
First you need to present data showing that men are rejected more than women, and then if you can show this, you have to explain how you've separated out the biological differences from the significant cultural differences that play a major role in this difference (i.e. the strong social punishers in place for women approaching men and asking them out).
sprite wrote: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.
Not necessarily, it depends why most men pay for sex. I imagine the biggest factor would be time constraints, so in that case we wouldn't see a significant decrease in men paying for sex (as it would still be more efficient for men to pick up a prostitute than to head out to a club). There's also the extra issue of prostitutes being cleaner than most bar-goers, so there are still reasons for men to continue paying for sex.
sprite wrote: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).
Those studies show that it goes both ways. Men are much happier and have much more stable relationships when they wait longer before having sex with their partner.
sprite wrote: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?
Firstly, even though the beliefs of society are changing, there are still significant punishers in place for promiscuous women so there aren't a lot of promiscuous women around. And secondly, what man actually buys books on how to get women into bed?
Are you basing your understanding of male behavior on the spam emails you receive?
sprite wrote: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.
Total misunderstanding of my position. I have no said it is all learnt. I have said that learning obviously takes place, to some degree. My question is how have you separated out learning effects that produce sex differences, and biological differences that produce sex differences. In reply to that you've simply said "But sexual selection...!".
sprite wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote: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.
That's not the problem with the legal system. Part of the problem with prosecuting rapists is that there is rarely ever any evidence that the victim did not consent. We can do swabs, check for vaginal tearing, and so on, but this only proves that sex (and sometimes rough sex) has taken place - it tells us nothing about whether the victim consented. Thus, a lot of rapists get let off.
If a woman says no to sex, and there is evidence of this, then the rapist will get prosecuted. The judge will not throw out, say, a video recording of her removing consent and say, "Sure, she said no, but I know that deep down women want sex just as much as men so this obviously can't be rape".
sprite wrote: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.
Again you're still fantastically missing the point of my argument. You've accepted that learning processes play a significant role in the development of sexual behaviors. So when we find that there is a difference between the sexes, how do we know what behaviors are learnt and which are biological?
This is the main point that you keep dodging by appealing to sexual selection without explaining how sexual selection differentiates the two processes.
sprite wrote: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.
Sure, but this doesn't relate to anything I've said.
sprite wrote: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 can't think of any. What does it matter? I haven't claimed that the sex differences here are a result of learning. I'm neutral on the issue, but you made a claim about the behaviors being adaptations. I was interested in whether you had any evidence for your claims of not.
sprite wrote:I have found many of your points interesting, others frankly ludicrous but I left them largely unchallenged.
sprite wrote:I would be interested to know what you see as the supported innate sex differences which you have alluded to but not specified.
I can't think of any - like I said, I'm neutral on the issue.