Femme_Fatale wrote: » For me it's the most frightening aspect of suspicion and hostility towards women as a whole.
desertcircus wrote: » There are few things as depressing as seeing an elaborate and lunatic rationalisation of crass misogyny.
MaxWig wrote: » Not sure if that was aimed at my comment. But there are very few aspects of misogyny that cannot be rationalised. As is the case with racism. Most human motivations are completely rational.
desertcircus wrote: » It was aimed at the OP. But misogyny is not rational; neither is racism.
desertcircus wrote: » But misogyny is not rational; neither is racism.
Wibbs wrote: » Oh I agree FF, but on the other hand I'm interested in what causes that suspicion and hostility in the first place. We can even see that reflected in our physical bodies adapted over aeons. Look at the other great apes. Male gorillas operate harems and defend them vigourously. They have tiny genitals, because they don't need any bigger as for males it's a "captive market" reproductively speaking. Chimps have bigger willies and huge testes, because they don't operate harems and female chimps are freer to choose mates(and do so), so the male chimp has to adapt to this by upping how many "shots" he fires. Humans are somewhere in the middle. Human males have the biggest willies among great apes but medium sized testes. So this suggests in our evolutionary history that human females were more trustworthy than chimps(and selected for bigger penises), but less than gorillas. They also selected to hide their most fertile time and became fertile year round. Interestingly, along with major genome changes in dietary adaptations in the last 10,000 years, male sperm production genes also show rapid adaptations, likely because there was more of us in smaller spaces. Like I said a very complex and interesting subject for debate.
KyussBishop wrote: » On the other side of this though, that doesn't suggest any psychological awareness of competing for paternity/fatherhood which would describe the suspicion/hostility, that can be put almost purely down to evolutionary adaptations.
Since we have 'medium' size testes vs gorilla's small testes, that actually suggests women are more promiscuous,
though I wouldn't say this has anything to do with 'trustworthiness' with women though - that would be something more determined by what society (or rather, the partners) regard as 'trust' during that time.
Arguably (though I am not up to spec on all the details of this argument) female sexual fidelity becoming associated with 'trustworthiness' (i.e. monogamous relationships and/or patriarchal society) is something that became more important only in agricultural times,
and became more cemented by religious institutions,
and is about ready to be discarded with sociologically (no longer has a purpose - especially now that sex doesn't have to lead to reproduction).
Wibbs wrote: » Oh of course it's not conscious/deliberate. It also suggests men are too, otherwise where would all these "promiscuous" women be going? It's not that based on culture or time. Partner fidelity is a very strong undercurrent going through pretty much any culture, past or present you can think of and since the male of the species couldn't be sure(until very recently) if any offspring were definitely his, this undercurrent of trust was usually more aimed at women. Though men considered promiscuous didn't escape. Suspicion of cuckolding another man could result in societal exclusion, even death.
Wibbs wrote: » It was always there, as can be seen among tribal cultures today, it was more codified after the agricultural revolution alright.
Wibbs wrote: » Great in theory, but not really. Sex didn't always have to result in pregnancy. Indeed of all the great apes save for the Bonobo, humans have sex the most for purposes beyond reproduction. Other apes only have sex when females are displaying signs of fertility. If anything sex in humans has always led to reproduction in the minority of cases of sexual contact. Plus while we have many choices today of reliable contraception, contraception itself is a very old practice. Some tribal cultures embed a pebble in the penis(yea :eek:) that closes off the urethra, except when deliberately opened up for voiding and reproduction. The Roman and Greeks actually caused a plant to go extinct because they thought it had contraceptive uses(among others uses), so the sheer demand doomed it's fate. So the notion, however popular, that somehow there is about to be a complete shakeup in sexual matters is a tad premature. A reset of the mechanism to pre uptight christian mores in christian cultures yes, but that's but one culture in the world today. EG the Islamic world mentioned earlier, is made up of over a billion and a half Muslims who would have a different angle on the whole thing.
KyussBishop wrote: » Well, the issue of 'paternity certainty', i.e. caring whether or not you are the father of a child, is itself a societal creation - there is precedent of society in the past and present (such as the Mosuo in China/Tibet) who were not concerned about this, with the entire community raising the children (there's a great, albeit controversial, book about this whole related issue, called Sex at Dawn, which I just read recently). I think that paternity certainty is primarily only an issue forced upon society, when resources like food or other things necessary for survival, are made scarce or artificially scarce (because then the family, particularly father, has to put more effort into taking care of the children - more children meaning more work/poverty/scarcity). The agricultural revolution arguably helped create a lot of this scarcity, by ballooning population levels and politicizing both land and access to food as a result. Interestingly, this is arguably much the same today: we still have to work our asses off to get by for the most part, but there is no scarcity anymore, so there is no logical reason left for people being forced to work so much, or for society to be structured in a way that makes 'paternity certainty' important in any way (I think it is still that way, to provide a minority of people with power over the rest of society). So yes...sorry to go on. This is quite an interesting topic the more I think about it, and it seems to tie into a crapload of other political/economic/power issues in society; I wonder if part of the reason these issues are still controversial, is because they reveal so much about how backwards/unfair the power structure is in society (between the wealthy vs poor, not between genders, which looks to be maintained more as a distraction or 'divide and conquer' strategy). That isn't true though, because there are plenty of promiscuous tribal cultures, such as the !Kung San and many Amazonian tribes, plus more I could probably find (just is hard to read up on them all at the same place). As you say, except for the Bonobo Bonobo's are far more closely related to humans genetically, than Gorilla's are. What is there left to stop such a disintegration/shakeup of monogamous sexual standards though? I agree there are a lot of societal/religious hangovers in various parts of the world, and I am (slowly) getting the budding impression that it's a big part of power-politics in society (not one between mens and women either, but it gets portrayed that way to distract from the bigger inequalities/issues), but as those issues get resolved, I don't see what there is to stop a complete transformation.
KyussBishop wrote: » Well, the issue of 'paternity certainty', i.e. caring whether or not you are the father of a child, is itself a societal creation - there is precedent of society in the past and present (such as the Mosuo in China/Tibet) who were not concerned about this, with the entire community raising the children (there's a great, albeit controversial, book about this whole related issue, called Sex at Dawn, which I just read recently).
I think that paternity certainty is primarily only an issue forced upon society, when resources like food or other things necessary for survival, are made scarce or artificially scarce (because then the family, particularly father, has to put more effort into taking care of the children - more children meaning more work/poverty/scarcity).
The agricultural revolution arguably helped create a lot of this scarcity, by ballooning population levels and politicizing both land and access to food as a result.
That isn't true though, because there are plenty of promiscuous tribal cultures, such as the !Kung San and many Amazonian tribes, plus more I could probably find (just is hard to read up on them all at the same place).
As you say, except for the Bonobo Bonobo's are far more closely related to humans genetically, than Gorilla's are.
What is there left to stop such a disintegration/shakeup of monogamous sexual standards though?
I agree there are a lot of societal/religious hangovers in various parts of the world, and I am (slowly) getting the budding impression that it's a big part of power-politics in society (not one between mens and women either, but it gets portrayed that way to distract from the bigger inequalities/issues), but as those issues get resolved, I don't see what there is to stop a complete transformation.
Tom M wrote: » I believe that there exists a sexual cartel. The members of this cartel are a subsection of women. The purpose of this cartel is to engineer a situation whereby they can yield great power from their sexuality. When men believe sex is scarce these women can yield power over men, they can boss around their boyfriends /husbands etc. if the boyfriend/husband does something she doesn't like, all she has to do is the "silent treatment" or generally be moody. The man will then know his chances of sex are slim to none. He will learn to obey or suffer the consequences. In order for this to work they must ensure as many men as possible think that sex is highly scarce. Therefore they must make men think that they aren't very interested in sex, so they must deny that they masturbate and deny the majority or all of their one night stands etc. you must also hide the fact that women are just as likely to cheat as men and have even "filthier" minds when it comes to sex. There are however threats to the sexual cartel, these must be policed to ensure the cartel maintains it's power. Women who openly engage in promiscuous behaviour are a serious threat to the cartel. The more of these women there are the less power the cartel will have. In order to deter women from engaging in such openly promiscuous behaviour the cartel pours scorn on them. Admonishes them, labels them as sluts and sling rhetoric at them such as "they don't respect themselves". They even socially exclude these "sluts" and possibly even bully them. Prostitution is another threat to the cartel although a not as bad as "sluts" because at least the men are made to pay for sex. Prostitutes are still a threat though as they are a form of competition, men must never be allowed to think that prostitutes are actually attracted to them, ( which is probably the case most of the time) as men must think sex is scarce, so it's important to remind men that prostitutes are only doing it for the money and that there is no attraction from the prostitutes to their clients. "Players" would be another threat to the cartel as they generally won't fall for the cartel's ruse. They know how much women love sex and know how to attract women. The percentage of players in society must be kept to a bare minimum, as the more players there are the less power the cartel yields. So if a non player guy asks a woman for advice on how to do better with women he must only be fed advice which fits the cartels agenda, ie allow a woman to control him. He must not be told the true nature of a woman's attraction. He must never be told the truth that doing what a woman tells you is actually a turn off. Frame doormat behaviours in men as kindness etc. Describe actual attractive behaviours in men in derisory terms and pretend that they are actually turn offs. Dominant men for example are "mysogynistic", "assholes" "don't respect women" etc Now as members of the sexual with strong sexual needs ( sssh, don't tell anyone), you can have sex with the "players"/ attractive men but you must keep it a secret, in the event you are found having sex with "players" mitigate this by saying you are attracted to his nice qualities. Say he is really a nice guy underneath it all for example. Members of the sexual cartel can discuss sex honestly with women, "players" and gay men, but never with the rest. What do you think of this?
Stick Monkey wrote: » How would incessant masturbatory habits fit into your theory ?
MaxWig wrote: » There is lots of evidence to prove that polygyny was the dominant sexual practice in our history. It is estimated that females have passed on genes in a ratio of 2:1 compared to males. But that doesn't say anything about what is the most beneficial sexual standard in the present day. Certainly given our current systems of family law and inheritance, I can't see a transformation of the kind you're speaking of anytime soon.
Wibbs wrote: » Oh do not get me started on what passes for research and conclusions in that book. The Musuo are often dragged into discussions on this topic(and some branches of feminism), but with the usual inaccuracies. 1) the entire community don't raise the kids. Children most often reside with their mothers. 2) paternity is of no concern. Not to the degree of some societies, however children usually know who their father is and for a woman to not know who the father of her various children is is considered well dodgy. 3) they're not a matriarchal society as some would suggest, more a matrilineal(sp) one(in pre christian Ireland it was matrilineal at times too, but no way was it matriarchal). Inheritance and names pass through the female line, but the men wield the political power. Some have even suggested that this entire way of life was a way of the patriarchal rulling classes keeping control of the peasant class, the Musuo, by imposing a matrilineal construct from above. That way no line of males would arise to oppose them.
Wibbs wrote: » The San are not "promiscuous". They have a healthier attitude to pre marriage age sexual play and divorce was open to both genders, however playing the field by either gender when still married is frowned upon. Amazonian tribes again can vary. In some rape, even gang rape is accepted without much ado, as is bride stealing, but again adultery is frowned upon and can even lead to death. There have been remarkably few cultures in human history where adultery even promiscuity is tolerated.
Wibbs wrote: » Pretty much the same as our distance from chimps. Still very different to humans though. The Bonobo/human connection gained favour over the chimp/human connection in the 60/70's. They were considered a better, more dare I say it politically correct(and even feminist) close relative compared to the patriarchal violent chimps. And of course they had sex all over the place and were caring and sharing. We preferred that particular mirror being held up. However the real concrete research shows just as many diffs between them and us and chimps and us. We're a very different great ape to the rest. Indeed wild canid family groups show more similarities to hunter gatherer groups than any great ape(and we understand canid communication and they understand human communication better than we understand ape communications). Humans are actually far more like wolves with knives than chimps with knives.
Wibbs wrote: » Our basic evolutionary makeup. IE we're serial quasi long term monogamists who are adaptable enough to embrace other practices if the environment requires it. EG life monogamy, Polygyny and even Polyandry though the latter is the rarest. Transformation into what though?
KyussBishop wrote: » Trouble with making any claims one way or the other about this (especially using evolution as a base) is that it's human psychology and behavior which determines whether or not society can transform into a more non-monogamous one, and evolution can only say a limited amount about this.
Wibbs wrote: » IE is there an inbuilt evolution selected benefit for women to restrict reproductive access? Clearly there are differences in reproductive strategies between the sexes. Women have a limited number of offspring they can have compared to men. They also have far more to lose in the very real dangers of pregnancy and birth(in the past it was by far the commonest cause of death for women of reproductive age). Plus they require resources while in the late stages of pregnancy and until offspring are weaned(or at least have done for the vast majority of time humans have been around). A man can get a woman pregnant and walk away, a woman who is pregnant can't walk away. It makes good sense for women to be more sexually "fussy" and to restrict sexual access to "suitable" men and even to keep said man guessing/interested until the child is weaned*.
*Some have even suggested that humans have a reproductive cycle of about 3-4 years. A "honeymoon period" which ensures interest in both sexes to keep high long enough for any offspring to be weaned.
Wibbs wrote: » What's scary and what history has shown us that even the most reprehensible ideology can be made to have it's own quite logical rationale. Even among otherwise very intelligent people.
Wibbs wrote: » The Abrahamic type is but one theology and but one philosophy on sexual and gender relations.Great in theory, but not really.
KyussBishop wrote: » All of that makes perfect sense anthropologically and in an evolutionary way, the bit where it snags for me though, are the implicit claims about limitations in human behaviour/psychology in society. The history and the logic of it is all solid, but I don't see a non-speculative way to apply it to the present and future/near-future; claims like this behaviour being 'buried in our subconscious' I think is a step too far, given that our understanding of human psychology doesn't yet allow for solid/objective claims like that (not until we can physically map/understand the brain better).
The Corinthian wrote: » People tend to forget that our particular subspecies, Homo Sapien Sapien, has been around for about 200,000 years (the overall Homo Sapien group for about 500,000 years). Civilization, as we call it, where we went from being hunter-gatherers to developing permanent settlements, underpinned by agriculture and leading to law, writing, organized religion, government and so on, only occurred with the Neolithic Revolution, which began only about 10,000 years ago. So when we look at human evolution, it's important to remember that it was formed in the context of a hunter-gatherer paradigm, which made up 95% of our history.
And what you describe is perfectly correct (at least as far as evolutionary biologists and anthropologists are concerned). Females of the species were highly disadvantaged by how we reproduce, which greatly limited their ability to provide food for themselves or their offspring. And naturally this led to a series of evolutionary strategies to allow the female to manage or control the male so that he would provide and protect her - hardly unique, as you'll find it in many other animal species, such as many species of birds and even primates, such as the bonobo.
we're one of the few (if not the only) mammals to develop breasts before pregnancy, specifically for sexual reasons. Think about it; what use are breasts prior to child baring?
we can't forget that some of it is directed against other women too
Nonetheless, none of this is concious. None of this is planned. Both men and women are hard-wired this way thanks to the 95% of our evolutionary history that overshadows our recent dalliance with civilization. So to suggest a conspiracy, some sort of organized effort by women is to ignore these biological facts and instead replace them with a fanciful theory which has absolutely no evidence supporting it. In my experience, jumping to such theories does tend to be misogynistic, as it presumes some form of premeditated malice on the part of women.
Another evolutionary trait that's been examined has been the cuckold syndrome; when choosing a mate, evolution will cause a female to seek two things - good genetics and good provision. Sometimes you can't get both in one man, which leads to the old scenario whereby a woman is with a good provider, yet having sex (and children) with a handsome 'bad boy', on the side.
On the other side of the scale, you can have a simple fact; such as that Asians are far less able, as a whole, to process alcohol than Europeans (a product of how both regions developed water purification differently over 10,000 years). While both factual and lacking any social or political agenda, such a statement would be considered racist by many.
KyussBishop wrote: » All of that makes perfect sense anthropologically and in an evolutionary way, the bit where it snags for me though, are the implicit claims about limitations in human behaviour/psychology in society.
This is where it breaks down: A huge amount of the reasoning for this being the case in the past, is starting to disappear now as society changes, and (as good/interesting the points are in discussion here) I just don't see what is still left.
Wibbs wrote: » Well yes and no. While Homo Sapiens has been around for a while, with early versions coming along 200,000 ago, they weren't quite "us". If you dressed one of those guys in jeans and a shirt, he'd look really odd, not quite human.
Wibbs wrote: » but there are limits in human behaviour and psychology in society and not just in the reproduction sphere. While we as societies do vary and do allow for some outliers, societies draw lines all over the place. We always have and we always will. We can see clear examples of behaviour limits too. Take the Israeli Kibbutz social experiment. It was noted that boys and girls who grew up in such collective environments nearly always looked outside their kibbutz for partners. Because they'd grown up together as children the innate instinct to avoid incest kicked in, so they looked for people who weren't their kibbutz "brothers" and "sisters". Adopted brothers and sisters don't find each other sexually attractive(and society would go ape if they did), though genetically there is zero reason why they shouldn't.
Wibbs wrote: » I think the idea that a huge amount is changing in society is a fallacy. It's one with legs I grant you, some of the ancient Greeks in their times reckoned so too. Every generation thinks they are inventing the future anew and every previous generation thinks "in my day, harrumph!". In the west there has been a gender revolution and sexual revolution over the last century. So here we are in the warm afterglow of the revolution and yes more people are having sex with more people*, however the vast majority of people, old and young, gay and straight, faced with apparently more choice than ever before still fall into the old serial monogamy vibe, like we've been doing for tens of thousands of years across tens of thousands of cultures and tens of thousands of societal changes. If someday we become more machine than man things will no doubt change, but so long as we're human I'm not so sure. More's the point what would be the advantage, the selective pressure that would make us change?
Wibbs wrote: » *travelers in 18th century London noted, even complained about the amount of openly copulating couples you'd see while walking about the place. In broad daylight too. Check out medieval maps of towns for street names like "Grabcock" and "Gropecúnt" lane". Sex wasn't invented in the 1960's we've been shagging in all sorts of ways with all sorts of people for as long as records are around. Victorian values and all that guff was the outlier, we're living more in the reset from that.
The Corinthian wrote: » Well of course, you don't even have to go that far for our ancestors to be not quite 'us' - the development of the overbite, for example, is actually very recent. Average height, even more so. The point I was making was that even in our current subspecies iteration, our entire history of civilization (including prehistoric civilization) is a relatively short, and while the changes that came with its development have been profound, we would do well to remember that there's a lot of evolutionary history that preceded it which can't be forgotten completely either. Didn't know about Neanderthal biscuits though - interesting.
KyussBishop wrote: » Here is actually a good article I just came across, on evolutionary psychology, which is specifically about the problem I picked up on, of drawing claims about behaviour/psychology based on genetic selection:http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/28/tackling-pinkers-defense-of-evolutionary-psychology/
The Corinthian wrote: » Well of course, you don't even have to go that far for our ancestors to be not quite 'us' - the development of the overbite, for example, is actually very recent. Average height, even more so.
The point I was making was that even in our current subspecies iteration, our entire history of civilization (including prehistoric civilization) is a relatively short, and while the changes that came with its development have been profound, we would do well to remember that there's a lot of evolutionary history that preceded it which can't be forgotten completely either.
Didn't know about Neanderthal biscuits though - interesting.
KyussBishop wrote: » True, but these lines get redrawn and recede all the time - as we see now regarding homsexuality and other gender/orientation issues.
The issue with saying avoiding incest is an innate instinct (implying psychological nature, rather than nurture), is that is making unsubstantiated implications about human psychology (I do agree that applies to our reproductive biology though, of course); I think that is better explained by social pressure, than by instinct, especially when you take reproduction out of the picture.
in general there's an increasing (but slow) liberalization of many parts of society, which I just don't think has ever been seen on quite the same social/economic/intellectual scale before.
I think some of the advantages of dropping strict-monogamy or serial-monogamy, are a lot of the disadvantages it causes, like cheating/affairs (a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it, it seems), plus divorce and such, which hurt partners and children often, plus just the dissatisfaction a lot of people have if they start to feel trapped in a relationship over time (as happens with a lot of families); it's certainly not straight-forward as being an advantage mind, it's just different way of doing things with its own set of issues.
Haha, yes I remember reading about that before - I'm certainly curious how social conservatism was back then, as I would think the church still played a large part in things at the time.
clairefontaine wrote: » The psychs like to use biology because they are still deluding themselves and the world they are a science, when they are so interpretive it seems more like an art. And that's fine that its an art, but its the pretence that bugs me.
clairefontaine wrote: » I don't buy that overbite theory. Does half the world who don't use forks not have overbites?
Wibbs wrote: » What's interestng about that is people are hardly dying from impacted wisdom teeth before passing on their genes, so why this is happening is, like I say interesting.
Height is another developmental attribute and down to diet. In medieval times the aristocracy were notably taller than the peasant classes. Back then tall=rich for the most part. Japanese Americans grow in stature generation by generation compared to their relatives back in Japan.
Yea and they weren't that short either. Same height as we were back then and one lad found in Iran was nearly a 6 footer. Note to self avoid picking a fight with him
The Corinthian wrote: » That is actually.
Well, the same goes for younger generations of Japanese. The shift from the traditional to a Western one has seen a number of changes in Asia; increased height, decrease in health issues associated with an Asian diet (e.g. high blood pressure) and a corresponding increase in health issues associated with a Western diet (e.g. cancer).
Pre-Neolithic man wasn't actually short. It was the shift from a meat rich diet to a cereal based one that did that.
Wibbs wrote: » Yes I DO see the real racist shíte that might be extrapolated from the idea we were "races" in the past and the horrible results that came out of that. However I think it's more important to tell the story of how we all came to be this fantastic bunch of muppets and kings who we are today. The reason I hate racism is not because it's obviously moral to do so, it's because it's obviously daft in a scientific way.
