So yes, women do increase their sexual desire during ovulation. And yes, this is important because most women do not know when they are ovulating. When these findings are added to the evidence that men show increased interest in ovulating women, and other findings that testosterone influences sexual desire in both sexes, it is clear that the extreme versions of the Blank Slate social constructivist views of human sexuality, such as Gagnon and Simon’s script theory, were wrong.
with the advent of more effective contraception the reproduction and the desire for sex are separable — Janus
It seems likely that some have an instinctive desire for children and others not. — Janus
Our interest in and capacity for sex is down to its reproductive function, and hence an obvious result of natural selection. — Srap Tasmaner
It seems we part company here, as I don't believe our interest in sex is entirely down to its reproductive function. — Janus
I agree that the existence of sex in the first place is down to reproductive function, but that is almost tautologically, and hence trivially, true — Janus
I think we also agree that sexual desire is in part hormonal and in part conditioned by socio-cultural influences. — Janus
The picture gets more complicated because some evolutionary psychologists, including Steve Gangestad, Martie Haselton, and their colleagues, have presented evidence that women might not only increase their sexual desire during ovulation, but might sometimes direct those desires toward men other than their current partners. They theorize that this is especially true for women whose current partners are not highly physically attractive, dominant, and muscular (these traits are taken to be signals of good genes, in the peacock style). — psychologytoday
Yes, of course, and obviously culture plays a huge rule in the range of behavior open to us as acting on those desires. But I think of culture primarily as channeling desire, controlling it, leveraging its existence for other purposes (selling things!), and so on. I'm not at all sure culture can reach deep enough to be a source of desire itself, directing your attention without your permission, quickening your pulse, releasing hormones. Your body has its own ideas about who you ought to be interested in right now and why, and I don't think culture is nearly so powerful or reaches so deep into your physiology.
@Janus
As I've said, I think the big lesson of the last hundred and fifty years is that we're apes that wear clothes. — Srap Tasmaner
As I've said, I think the big lesson of the last hundred and fifty years is that we're apes that wear clothes. — Srap Tasmaner
The problem is, we have very little we can test for adult behaviors that are not already pre-determined culturally. — schopenhauer1
I agree with everything you've said there — Janus
Let's hope I said what I was trying to say then. — Srap Tasmaner
For that we need to look at the few primal cultures still around and at animal, particularly primate, behavior in order to get an idea of what is predominately culturally determined and what is not. Of course, the other aspect of this question is as to whether it really matters very much, and whether it is not a distraction from what does matter. — Janus
I suspect your underlying motivation for wanting to believe that sexuality is entirely culturally conditioned is your attachment to anti-natalism. In a couple of ways I'm a kind of anti-natalist myself: firstly, for myself I never wanted nor had (as far as I know) children, and secondly, I think overpopulation is a huge component of the problems we currently face, so I would encourage people not to reproduce, but to adopt children from the less prosperous regions, for that reason. But, that a whole other can of worms. — Janus
To be fair, I don't really care either way too. I'm just providing an alternative to the EP assumptions. — schopenhauer1
It's like you see mating strategies in birds and mammals and you say, "We are mammals, so therefore we must have mating strategies like the other animals." — schopenhauer1
It is a terrible mistake to think that every trait possessed by all individuals in a population must be there because it is or was beneficial. — GrahamJ
There is in principle no difficulty answering Srap Tasmaner's argument in relation to 'procreative genes'. If cultural transmission made them only mildly advantageous, they could go the same way as the vitamin C enzyme.
I do not think this has happened. I do not think cultural transmission is reliable or powerful enough to explain what we see — GrahamJ
There is in principle no difficulty answering Srap Tasmaner's argument in relation to 'procreative genes'. If cultural transmission made them only mildly advantageous, they could go the same way as the vitamin C enzyme.
I do not think this has happened. I do not think cultural transmission is reliable or powerful enough to explain what we see. For example, cultures in different societies and periods vary widely in their attitude towards homosexuality, but the percentages of people with various sexual orientations do not. If sexual orientation is purely determined by culture, why do homosexuals continue to exist in very homophobic cultures? Why don't societies occasionally become 'very gay', with a large percentage of exclusive homosexuals? — GrahamJ
This is very much what I was trying to argue, that genes that drove productive behavior would be very unlikely to get replaced by culture alone, and that natural selection would unquestionably have favored such genes in our ancestors. The evidence for their existence is only the ubiquity of reproduce behavior, I guess, since I just don't know if there's research. — Srap Tasmaner
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