Tag: sex

The Evolutionary Purpose of Human Sexuality

Why do we have sex? Why do human beings put so much effort into having it? The basic answer would be because it feels pleasurable. Yes, that is true, sex can be quite a pleasurable sensation, but there are many pleasurable things like eating a piece of chocolate or getting a nice soothing massage, yet we don’t put anywhere near the amount of time and effort into doing these things as we do towards having sex. Another answer is for the purpose of reproduction, but with the plethora of birth control oppositions (birth control pills, condoms, etc) is that really a viable reason why most people have for having sex, particularly in the Western world?

What is the purpose of sex? easy enough to answer. It is the mechanism that organisms use to propagate their genes into the next generation(well, at least half), and why do organisms(multicellular organisms such as mammals, fish, and birds) use this method? Well, some have theorized that it helps bolster their progenies’ immune system by having shared its genetic information from two genetically distinct parents. Current theories place the emergence of sex around five hundred million years ago.

All life’s purpose on this planet is to reproduce( as nihilistic as that sounds), and it is no different for humans. Our urge to have sex is a by-product of millions of years of evolutionary history. Our ability to discriminate between sexual partners under the guise of physical attraction is also a by-product of our evolutionary history. Physically attractive people are supposed to have a good immune system so the theory goes.

And what about the differences between the sexes when it comes to their attitudes about. Anyone who has dealings with both men and women would discover their attitudes towards sex are decisively different. Men are more prone to sexual escapades and seem to be less discriminatory when it comes to who they have sex with. Women are generally more coy. This makes sense when you realize the two sexes don’t share the same burden when it comes to sex, i.e, women get pregnant and will take the brunt of the child rearing, so it makes sense for them to be the more prejudiced who they copulate with. Men, on the other hand, are programmed to have sex with as many partners as possible(if they actually choose to do this, it is their own choice, of course). Need proof on how promiscuous men can be, gay men are a perfect example, their ability to have sometimes hundreds of sexual partners is because of course, because they are not inhibited by women’s natural coyness.

So, back to my original argument on why to have sex. To be more emotionally attached to somebody, a reasonable argument, your brain releases certain chemicals that almost make you more attached to the person you are having sex with(evidence suggests this is more true for women than it is for men), but a lot of people hook up all the time, sometimes even having one-night stands. Can you really be emotionally attached to a person you are minimally familiar with, and what about the countless women who give up their bodies to alpha males(i.e, athletes, rappers, politicians, and other men of stature), can you really say these women love these men, perhaps on a very superficial level?

Humans’ potency to have sex is nothing more than just evolutionary mechanisms put in place to make sure we are acting on evolutionary obligations to propagate genes into the next generation.

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The Attraction Divide: Black Men and Interracial Preferences

Black men, more so than any other group of men, hold an ‘aw’ for women outside their ethnic group. Now, some would state I am making a bold statement and that I am generalizing all black men. But I would like to pose crucial points to prove my case and to also acknowledge that not all black men fetishize different ethnic women(I include myself in this acknowledgement).

Let’s examine the media; one needs only to watch the typical hip-hop video and would be hard-pressed to find a black woman who possesses dark skin, typical African features, as well as natural hair. The male protagonists in these videos (the rappers) are, for the most part, black men themselves but yet they surround themselves with fairer-skinned women. Hip hop acts as a form of fantasy; typically, men brag about their access to wealth, power, and women. In the fantasy that hip hop portrays, women who are light-skinned, possess straighter to curly hair, and have racially ambiguous features are seen in high esteem.

As a black man who lives in New York City, I can tell that many women of other ethnicities do not hold the same gaze on black men as we do towards them. One only needs to go on a dating website to find how many advertise how they prefer white and Hispanic men, with some explicitly listing “no black men”. I personally do not mind if some women are not attracted to black men, for I do not seek their validation. But many other black men do. One needs to search countless forums asking the same typical questions: “Do Asian women like black men?”, “Do Middle Eastern women like black men?”, “Do Russian women like black men?”, I would highly doubt if the same question is asked vice versa.

One has to look at the disparities in marriage rates between black men and women; more black men are married than black women, even though there are 1 million more black women to men. This can be(at least partially) explained by the fact that 20% of black men who get married marry women outside their race.

My case in point is that as black men, we need to stop putting these white, Asian, and Hispanic women on these pedestals. The reason I believe we pedestal these women is because the black community still holds a lot of self-hatred, which has been passed on to us through hundreds of years of slavery. That‘s the only reason why, as a collective, so many black men find typical Eurocentric features so attractive, i.e, light skin, straighter hair, etc.

In conclusion, I have nothing against being attracted to women of other races; I myself see the beauty in all races of women. My only objection is the pedestalling of other women while black men undermine our women. We as a people are still, in a sense, an “oppressed class”, particularly in the state of our mental affairs, and should do our best to get out of it, first starting with some self-love as people.

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Why Gender is not fully a social construct(part 1)

The argument has been made that gender is fully a social construct, with no biological merit. I want to argue against this point. First, I do acknowledge the fact that there are obvious cultural artifices in constructing how the two sexes behave. Pink is often associated with girls, while blue is typically linked to boys. Ashley is a girl’s name, and John is a boy’s name. These are all examples of gender norms established by society. But there is also a certain predisposition that is fully biologically based. Point one, men and women have varying degrees of hormonal differences. Men, on average, have far higher levels of testosterone than women, and women, on average, have far higher levels of estrogen. Our emotions and behaviors are heavily influenced by the chemicals in our brains. For example, higher levels of testosterone lead to a higher instance of aggression, assertiveness, and violence. Estrogen makes individuals more empathetic. The unequal distribution of these two chemicals among the sexes leads to differences in biological dispositions and behavior.

Many point out how Gender roles are socially based. But I want to argue that gender roles are a part of human evolution. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species, meaning there is a physiological difference between the sexes. Men are on average 3 inches taller and weigh 25% more than women. Nature doesn’t just make species sexual dimorphic unless there are some sexual survival benefits from it. Case in point, a book written by Leonard Shlain “Sex, Time, and Power”(A must read) Shlain( a surgeon) theorizes that because women on general suffer from Iron deficiency(due to the fact they lose blood every month from menstrual cycles, as well as their red blood cells produce less Iron), and the fact women have to go through eight months gestation and six years weaning a newborn child. Women needed men to help them attain Iron by providing them with meat; in return, the men got copulation.

For those (particularly feminists) who are skeptical about this. Imagine 150,000 years ago, living in the Savannah of East Africa, being a pregnant mother (let’s imagine 6 months), trying to go hunting. You would put yourself and your child at great risk. Sure, you would be able to go forging, but subsisting on local vegetation alone will not be enough for you and your gestating child. Men would have to go out and hunt while the women remained in the village. This arrangement would have existed for all of humanity until the emergence of civilization around 10,000 years ago.

With the beginning of civilization, humans transitioned from relying solely on wild game and vegetation to domesticating both crops and animals. Many of the roles that women had previously held remained largely unchanged, as women still became pregnant and had to care for their young children. Men now had to participate in the field or face starvation. We see the emergence of patriarchy in this time period. Men, having a physical advantage over women, took responsibility for keeping society safe from outsiders as well as undertaking all the intense labor required for agriculture.

Feminism as we know it wouldn’t become a serious ideology in Human affairs until the Industrial Revolution, for good reason. Humanity (at least in the West) wasn’t reliant on muscle power, but on stem and steel to grow its food. Women could go out to work. This new era of technological advancement is the only reason feminism was able to emerge!

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Women role in their degradation

Many women, or so-called feminists, will argue that we currently live in a patriarchal society where women are seen not as human beings with emotions or thought but as objects. Women are being objectified as mere sexual commodities, here to serve as men’s sexual fantasies. This is correct in many ways. Women are constantly being objectified in American pop culture; in fact, women are objectified in many cultures outside of America. Have you ever watched a Japanese anime, in which the majority contain a stereotypical big-bobbed female character?

My only critique of this is that it paints a very one-sided picture of men demeaning women, where women are innocent victims of men’s insidious sexualization of them. But aren’t women partially to blame for this? When I walk the streets of New York City in the summer, what do I find? Scores of women walking through the streets seamlessly with tight jean shorts, legs exposed, and buttocks prudently out? I, as a heterosexual young man, have my attention constantly diverted to glance at these delicacies of the flesh.

Here’s the point to be made: hip hop videos are constantly galvanized for their disparaging imagery of women, but instead of criticizing the rappers or the directors, what about the women who fully participate in their so-called degradation? The women who, for a price, will perform all sorts of sexual depravity on screen. This is the pragmatism of these criticisms: they don’t hold women accountable.

I once remember watching a Tupac interview, in which he addresses the criticism to his demeaning lyrics, his response was “women say bitch the loudest, they themselves no there are bitch’s out there” to give my own interpretation of Tupac response, I believe Pac was just stating women themselves know that there are egotistical women who will resort to any means get what they want.

A justifiable response to this post is that women grow up in a society in which they are constantly bombarded with images of how they should behave, talk, and dress. This is the same for men, who are taught to be tough, lack emotions, and are encouraged to conquer as many women as possible, and are celebrated and admired for their promiscuity. In contrast, women are ridiculed (by both men and women) for replicating these same behaviors.

Now there’s a possible scientific explanation for these double standards. The theory holds that men are biologically programmed to have as much sex with as many women as possible, to better their chances of spreading their genes, and thus ensuring that a piece of them exists for the next generation (kind of poetic in a way). Women, on the other hand, are supposed to be more sexually selective with whom they mate. Women (as the theory goes) are to look for men who have the best resources to ensure their offspring’s survival (in our modern times, that means men with the most money) and those who show signs of good physical health, i.e., tall height, muscular build, and a symmetrical face.

Like any group that’s oppressed, for the oppression to be successful, there must be compliance between the oppressor and the oppressed. And, in my opinion, this is the case presented here.

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