Why Is Sex Fun?
To humans, the sex lives of many animals seem weird. In fact, by comparison with other animals, we are the ones with the weird sex lives. How did that come to be? We are the only social species to insist on carrying out sex privately. Stranger yet, we have sex at any time, even when the female can't be fertilized (for example, because she is already pregnant, post-menopausal, or between fertile cycles). A human female doesn't know her precise time of fertility and certainly doesn't advertise it to human males by the striking color changes, smells, and sounds used by other female mammals. Why do we differ so radically in these and other important aspects of our sexuality from our closest ancestor, the apes? Why does the human female, virtually alone among mammals, go through menopause? Why does the human male stand out as one of the few mammals to stay (often or usually) with the female he impregnates, to help raise the children that he sired? Why is the human penis so unnecessarily large? There is no one better qualified than Jared Diamond--renowned expert in the fields of physiology and evolutionary biology--to explain the evolutionary forces that operated on our ancestors to make us sexually different. With wit and a wealth of fascinating examples, he explains how our sexuality has been as crucial as our large brains and upright posture in our rise to human status.--From publisher description.
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- Well read Jared Diamonds "The Third Chimpanzee" or "Why Is Sex Fun" for some actual research on gender differences.
That we don't know how Hormones affect us is pretty irrelevant in that context. There are other forces at play, hormones are just mechanisms for changing behaviors, not the force that shapes behaviors.
It is also true, to some extent, what Steven Pinker says: "if I don't like what my genes want from me, they can go jump in the lake". But individuals acting against evolution does not change the big, global trend. In the long run those people die out - they might still have good lives, but not every lifestyle is sustainable at (web) scale.
- People nicely covered it here. A few other additions:
(a) Why is Sex Fun (http://www.amazon.com/Why-Sex-Fun-Evolution-Sexuality/dp/046...): covers the history of human sexuality
(b) The Prophet: http://www.katsandogz.com/gibran.html
(c) Demon Haunted World by Sagan http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dar... is a nice place to explain the method of science
(d) Sleepwalkers (http://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalkers-History-Changing-Universe...) gives you an idea of how we humans,err,sidetrack and ultimately come to explaining the universe
That should be enough for this summer
- This seems like a good opportunity to recommend the book "Why is sex fun?" by Jared Diamond.http://www.amazon.com/Why-Sex-Fun-Evolution-Sexuality/dp/046...
(Or apparently "The Third Chimpanzee", some reviewers claim that is a superset of the book).
- I don't mean an explanation of the form "men have been hunters for 1000s of years, therefore they communicate love in five different ways". I mean an explanation why this trait is more probable to be passed on into further generations, and why they provide an evolutionary stable equilibrium.
I hate those pseudo evolutionary reasons you read in women's magazines as well.
Even if you provide evidence, it would still be interesting to discover a reason for the things being like they are. At least I think so.
Have you read Jared Diamond "Why is sex fun" or "The Third Chimpanzee"? I didn't have the impression that what he said about the competitions of the sexes were just-so stories, although in some cases there were several different theories.
I would be interested in examples of what you mean by "just-so-stories", too.
- It's the sex separation thing: men and women do stuff differently. Evolutionary speaking it's a very interesting and complicated game. I recommend "Why is sex fun?" by Jared Diamond for a crash course.
Any short answer I'd give would be wrong in some way, so I'll just say once again: sexes are different. Don't make the mistake to think this is less important in modern times. It's not. It's just a bit more complicated.
- Well, I would recommend the book "Why is sex fun" by Jared Diamond. I don't know all the theories anymore, but the gist is that there is/was a biological arms race between men and women. For example, the reason that women have to be inseminated inside their bodies is so that men can not be sure who is the father of the women's babies. Because otherwise, men are prone to killing offspring of other men (at least in the animal kingdom). Now, if a woman sleeps with another man, we still can not be sure that she is not carrying our baby. At least that is one theory, as far as I remember. There are several more aspects that come into play.
There actually was one chapter with the theory that men go hunting to impress women (and I would be ready to make the leap and equate hunting with startupping). Gathering would be more energy efficient than hunting, but hunting allows men to come home as bigshots, make a big party, and impress lots of women. That theory was only based on one study of a primitive society, though, so I guess the evidence is not yet very strong. Just a theory... Anyway, a good book to read in my opinion.
Other than that, I am not sure I agree to your question. Men and women certainly have different genes, have they not? I think the asymmetry is inherent in the problem of growing a baby inside of your body. Perhaps it would have been possible to allow both men and women to get pregnant, but it might have been too much overhead (although there are animals that can switch gender, and come to think about it, there are human hermaphrodites).
Most animals seem to have a difference between men and women - for example the spiders that eat their mates...
