I'm gonna stop you right there ... — Srap Tasmaner
Let's imagine there was a world whereby sex was unknown. — schopenhauer1
There is the trope in culture, "When I reach X age, I am supposed to be attracted to someone and pursue them or be pursued (or mutually pursue or whatever)". — schopenhauer1
Come, come -- back to the real world. The 'trope' in culture is to put the brakes on the youngun's sexual drives, and discourage premature mating. Premature = before they are materially ready to independently provide for their own, their mate's, and their children's basic needs. — BC
I just don't see how you can pull off attacking evolutionary psychology for its just-so stories and then, with a straight face, begin an argument — Srap Tasmaner
Evolution of mammals is gonna have some sex in there, just the way it is.
And once you've got sex, natural selection will make sure you keep it, that's my argument.
Your whole post could not have been more beside the point or less responsive to the issues that have been raised. — Srap Tasmaner
It was giving a counter example- one based on culture. — schopenhauer1
Where did they get the idea of mating? It’s not an innate concept. — schopenhauer1
What is this mechanism that allows a story to be ingrained for 400,000 years? Racial memory (Jung's idea)? Some sort of encoding that is transmitted genetically? Some epiphenomenal process that the body passes from generation to generation? — BC
but I've presented a case that it cannot be.
A coherent alternative description is not an argument. I could offer a dozen more without half trying. (If you doubt that, google creationism.) — Srap Tasmaner
There is no conceivable selection pressure that would reward the absence of procreative genes. There is no conceivable cultural selection pressure for making sure that what biology already guarantees continues to happen.
There may be reason to lie about it. If you can convince people that the sun rises each day because you tell it to, that makes you pretty damn important -- just don't get high on your own supply. You don't make the sun rise and people don't have to be tricked into having sex.
You simply fall into making a false analogy. Other animals don't have the kind of language and cultural transmission that we do. — schopenhauer1
But the behavior itself goes on whether culture tries to put it to use or not. — Srap Tasmaner
Presumably you can be celibate right now, full stop and you would continue to live. Not so with food, or refraining from going to the bathroom. — schopenhauer1
Let's imagine there was a world whereby sex was unknown. All people knew was self-pleasuring..... The telling part is the cultural part. It is shared diffusion of information that otherwise would be unknown. — schopenhauer1
Rather it is the whole artifice of "attraction to someone, romancing/courting/initiating with someone, and having sex with someone". That is a long complex conceptual web of ideas that don't just come innately. — schopenhauer1
Your viewpoint is one-dimensional if you deny that there is a basic instinctive, biological other-oriented aspect of human sexuality. Do you deny that?
I don't deny there are cultural overlays; it's not a matter of "either/or". — Janus
However, it would not seem implausible, indeed, possibly very likely, that other-oriented sexuality is largely (maybe almost fully) from encouragement from learned experience. — schopenhauer1
There is no inbuilt mechanism in humans whereby an erection means that that erection goes into a specific location. — schopenhauer1
Plausibility is the whole issue since we cannot know for certain, obviously. But everything we know about animal sexuality and the endocrinal and social nature of human sexuality makes it overwhelmingly plausible, in my view, that human sexuality has always been basically instinctive, with obvious socio-cultural overlays. — Janus
It's still innate and biological. It's not like there's a problem of mutual exclusivity here... is there?
What am I missing? — creativesoul
We are looking at the artifice whereby one directs their sexual energy towards another person. — schopenhauer1
There are individual preferences, but that doesn't speak to it being "inbuilt" any more than someone's proclivity for vanilla versus chocolate is. — schopenhauer1
It's not "artifice" it's desire. — Janus
Bad analogy...we don't try a whole lot of types of sexual partners and then decide that we like some types and dislike others, as we do with food. — Janus
There are no "cultural markers" for my taste in women, no "type pattern" as to which women turn me on and which don't. — Janus
The analogy isn't that all these types are tried out in both, but that "personal preference" for why something tastes good / is desirable can't really be used to support some genetic theory or at least, is a wash, and doesn't tell us much either way. — schopenhauer1
It seems you are saying that the reproduction part (given safe and effective contraceptive and/ or abortive methods) is optional — Janus
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